Picture Me Dead

“Sandy’s as old as the hills, and we’re stirring memories of adventure and excitement and raw sexual thrills for him,” Nick replied.

“Chill, you two,” Sandy called out. “And break it up. Let’s have some service around this place. The old-as-the-hills guy has perfect hearing, and he needs a beer.”

Sharon and Nick broke apart, both of them laughing. Nick called out, “Beer’s on the house, Sandy.”

“Thank the good Lord for some things in life,” Sandy said, shaking his white head. “I could really use a cold one.”

“You sound desperate, Sandy.”

“I am. Now I know why I stick to boats. Just went to pay some bills, and it felt as if I were on the road forever. The traffic sucks.”

“Worse than usual?” Nick said.

“Hell yes, seems like every psycho in the world is out there today, and I ain’t driving again. Line ’em up for me, Nick. Line ’em up.”

Beneath the water, Jake Dilessio could hear the sound of the scraper against the boat. Strange sound, more like rubbing than scratching. He finished with the last of the stubborn barnacles just as his air was giving out. He rose the few feet to the surface, grabbed the Gwendolyn’s back ladder, inhaled a deep breath and drew his mask from his face in a single fluid motion. Dripping, he climbed the ladder and stepped onto his houseboat.

He sensed the whirl of motion before his attacker came after him. Tension, years of training and a rush of adrenaline kicked in.

As a fist shot out, he ducked, then bolted straight up, sending out his own left jab. Luck was with him, and he caught his mystery opponent straight in the jaw.

To his amazement, the man—wearing a tailored white dress shirt, tie, seamed navy pants and leather loafers—stayed down, something like a sob escaping him as he heaved in a breath and balanced on one hand and his knees, rubbing his jaw.

“Ah, hell,” Jake muttered softly. “Brian?”

“You were sleeping with her,” the man said.

Jake reached down, helping his attacker to his feet. The man was almost his height, slim, well built and usually attractive, a blue-eyed, blond surfer type, the kind of guy to whom women tended to flock. Right now, however, his blue eyes were red-rimmed and puffed up from crying, and his jaw was swelling, disrupting the usual classic line of his features.

“Brian, what the hell are you doing here?” he asked quietly. The adrenaline had ebbed from his body as if he’d been deflated. “Come inside, I’ll get some ice for your jaw.”

Brian Lassiter started to pull away, then followed Jake into the living room of his houseboat. Efficiently designed, the Gwendolyn offered a broad main room/kitchen/dining room area all in one, while a set of stairs led down to an aft cabin and another few steps led up to the main cabin at the fore.

He drew Brian in, setting him on a bar stool, and opened the freezer to get ice. He wrapped a number of cubes in a bar towel and walked over to his visitor, shoving the bundle at him. “Here, put this on your jaw. I’ll make coffee.”

“I don’t need coffee.”

“You sure as hell do.”

“As if you’ve never had a few too many to drink.”

“I’ve had a few too many to drink a few too many times. And I’ve done some stupid ass stuff. But coming at me like that…hell, you could have gotten yourself killed.”

“I just wanted to deck you once,” Brian said. His voice dropped to a whisper-like sob. “Just once. You were sleeping with her.”

Jake had started brewing coffee. He flicked the switch on the machine hard and turned around. “Brian, I wasn’t sleeping with her. And she never told you I was.”

“You’re lying. There’s no reason for you to tell me the truth now, because Nancy is dead.”

“That’s right,” Jake said, his voice lethally quiet. “Nancy is dead.”

“And if you had been sleeping with her, you’d never tell me, ’cause now there’s no way I could know for sure.”

Jake held his temper. “I think we both remember the inquest. It was a nasty, dirty affair. But it proved one thing, Brian. She wasn’t with me that night.” She’d had what the medical examiner had deemed consensual sex with someone that night. He’d volunteered to be tested, proving that it hadn’t been with him.

“She sure as hell wasn’t with me,” Brian responded bitterly. “But even if she wasn’t with you that night, she loved you.”

“We were friends, Brian.”

“Friends. Yeah.” He was silent for a moment. “You still think I was responsible.”

“I never said that.”

“You never said that? Like hell. Every time you looked at me during the inquest, you fucking accused me with your eyes.”

Brian really had been drinking heavily. Jake shook his head. He understood the feeling. Now and then, he still felt like heading out on a major bender himself.

“Brian, you’re wrong. You couldn’t be more wrong.”

“Accident. They said it was an accident. But you…you never believed that.”

“Brian, I think you were responsible for being a real idiot now and then, but not for your wife’s death, all right?”

“I didn’t make her do shit, man. I never made her do drugs, and when we were together, we never got plastered.”

“Brian, you’re on a crying jag of a drunk right now. You’re not thinking straight. No one ever suggested that you made anyone do anything. You were an ass, and hell yes, she was mad at you a lot. But she loved you, got it? Jesus, Brian, it was all a long time ago now. What the hell brought this on?”

“You don’t know? Man, how could you have forgotten?”

Jake stared at Brian. He knew. He knew every damn year. “Her birthday,” he said softly.

“Yeah. She’d have been thirty, Jake. Thirty. Shit. She was twenty-five.”

Jake leaned against the counter, feeling as if hot wire were coiling in his stomach. “Twenty-five, and there’s not a damned thing either of us can do about it now. She’s been dead for nearly five years, Brian. And if I’ve heard right, you’ve been living for the past two of those years with a flight attendant.”

“Yeah, I’ve been living with a flight attendant,” Brian agreed. He shook his head. “Nice girl. I should marry her. But every time I get too close….” His words trailed off, and a pained expression having nothing to do with his swollen jaw crossed his features. “Well, hell, I start to wonder if Nancy will live with me forever, if I won’t keep on waking up nights and thinking she’s staring at me, thinking that if…Well, hell.”

The coffee was ready. Jake turned away from Brian and poured him a cup. Brian had hit a nail right on the head—for the two of them, though Brian couldn’t know that.

Jake felt the same. As if something of Nancy continued to haunt him, as well, after all these years.

He brought Brian the coffee. “Brian, nothing is going to bring Nancy back. And get a grip. Do you know how much time has passed? No one thinks you killed her.”

“No. Not that I killed her. That I made her kill herself.”

“She didn’t kill herself. I know it, and you know it.”

Brian lowered his head and inhaled deeply. “You know, Jake, there are people out there who think you’re one heck of a big shit and not the great distinguished powerhouse you always look like in the press.”

“There’s not a damned thing I can do about what people think, Brian,” Jake said evenly.

“Yeah, that’s right. You can’t arrest them for thinking you’re a shit, can you?”

“Brian, drink your coffee, and please tell me you didn’t drive down here.”

“Why, you gonna arrest me for that?” Brian said belligerently, staring at him.

“No, I’m just going to pray there aren’t any broken bodies along the way.”

Brian lowered his head. “No, I didn’t drive. I had a few drinks at a bar downtown and got a ride to Nick’s from a friend. Sat out on the porch and had another few beers there. I didn’t drive.”

“Good. Finish that and I’ll take you home.”

Brian stared at him, shaking his head. “I know that Nancy came to you all the time. So sometimes I wonder…hell, with everything she must have said…why don’t you just go ahead and tear me to pieces?”

“It would be illegal for me to kill you. And I’m a cop. That would make it really bad.”

Brian tried to form a smile; it came out more like a grimace.

“Yeah, but you could beat the shit out of me. Self-defense. I’ve given you cause a time or two. Why don’t you do it? Would it make you feel guilty?”

“No,” Jake said flatly.

“Then…?”

“Because she loved you. And I loved her.” The other man looked up, startled, and Jake hastened to add, “I didn’t say that I’d slept with her, Brian, just that I loved her. And she always believed there was something decent in you. Damned if I can see it, but it must be there. So…finish that coffee and I’ll get you home.”

Brian stared at him, bowed his head again and nodded. He drank the coffee and quietly asked for another cup. After that, he went into the head and cleaned himself up a bit.

Brian had left his jacket at Nick’s; they stopped for it.

Nick was behind the bar, working with Sharon, the woman he’d been dating for nearly a year, and with whom, Nick had informed Jake, he’d fallen in love. At his age. Love. She tolerated his almost twenty-four-hour work schedule. In fact, it was fine with her, since she was into real estate. She put in long days herself, sometimes—sometimes followed by days and days with little or nothing to do. She liked politics, though, and was planning on learning a lot more. She wanted to run for local office.

They hadn’t seemed like a pair to hit it off so well. But then, who the hell was he to tell?

Nick arched a brow when Jake walked in with Brian. “Everything all right?”

“Just fine.”

“Couldn’t be better,” Brian said.

“You didn’t come for another drink?” Sharon asked Brian warily.

“I’m going to drive Brian home. He left his jacket here. We just came to pick it up.”

“Oh,” Nick said, looking from one of them to the other.

“I can drive him, if you like, Jake,” Sharon offered quietly.

“No, thanks, I’ll get him back home.”

Brian threw an arm around his shoulders. “Yeah, we’re fine. Jake and me, we’re like brothers.” He grinned. “I’d get him home if he’d had a few too many. You know—share and share alike.”

“Let’s go, Brian.”

Luckily, Brian remembered directions, since he was in a new apartment. The flight attendant’s name was Norma. She seemed like a decent woman, coming to the door with concern in her eyes when Brian couldn’t quite work the key. Brian managed to introduce Jake without making snide comments. She was nothing like Nancy. Norma was short, fair and incredibly soft-spoken. Jake realized that he’d met her once on a trip upstate; she laughed and told him she remembered him, as well.

“Well, hell, why not?” Brian muttered. Those words brought a frown of confusion to the young woman’s brow, and Jake was tempted to deck him again.

“I’ll get him into bed for you and get his shoes off,” Jake said instead.

“The first door upstairs,” Norma said. “I think I’ll get him a few aspirin and some water. That might help him tomorrow morning. Did he fall?”

Jake pretended he didn’t hear. Brian was leaning on him heavily. He tripped up the first step. Jake shifted his arm, lifting Brian’s feet in the air, and moved quickly. Brian grinned at him when they hit the landing.

“Did I fall?” he said, laughing, but the sound was pathetic, bitter, and directed against himself. “Hell, yeah, I fell. Into your fist, right?”

“Brian, give yourself a fucking break,” Jake muttered.

Jake dropped Brian on the king-sized bed and did as he’d said, getting his shoes off. He was about to walk out when Brian said, “So…you know Norma.”

“I saw her on a flight, Brian.”

“I bet she’d rather sleep with you, too.”

“Quit being such a royal pain,” Jake told him. “You’re one lucky bastard. You had a great wife, and now…seems this girl loves you. Don’t mess this one up. You’ve got another chance. Don’t be an idiot.”

He started out.

“So what’s it been like for you, Jake?” Brian called to him.

He turned back. Brian was smiling ruefully. “The D.A.’s assistant. She was a real beauty. That lasted, what, three months? I hear there was a Hooters’ waitress—girl who was pure body. Ten dates, maybe? You’re still pining after Nan, too, aren’t you?”

“Brian, sleep it off. Five years is a long time.”

He went down the stairs as Norma was coming up them. “Thanks for bringing him home.”

“Sure.”

“Something like this went down last year, too. His wife’s birthday…that’s really all he ever says. I knew, soon after we met, of course, that she had died in a tragic accident. He must have really loved her. Anyway, thanks. A man who’s dealt with something like that needs help now and then. Hey, would you like coffee or something before heading out?”

“Thank you, no.”

“Well, thanks again. This was really good of you.”

“No problem.”

“Hey, I do remember you from a flight, you know. You’re a cop, right?”

“Yeah, that’s right.”

“So you knew his wife.”

“Yes, I did. I was her partner.”

Jake didn’t say anything more, just continued down the stairs and let himself out. When he returned to his houseboat, he discovered that Nick and Sharon had left him a covered dish of shrimp and pasta.

Good. He was hungry. The long weekend had allowed him a day off, but moving the boat had given him plenty to do. He ate, realizing he was starved.

He fell into bed, exhausted, but knew damned well it would be a while before he slept. Nancy’s birthday. She would have been thirty. Hell.

It was usually good to sleep on a houseboat. The light rocking of the waves. Ocean air. Both usually eased his tensions.

Not tonight.

He tossed around for a while, thinking that maybe he shouldn’t have opted to spend the night alone. And he thought about Brian’s words.

The D.A.’s assistant.

The waitress.

Yeah, there had been women in his life. But still, he would go so far…and back away. Hell, yes. He’d been in love with Nancy. Then. And now…

Now she was a ghost in his life. A phantom. A memory, a scent. Sometimes, he would swear he could still hear her laughter.

He compared every woman he met to her. And he’d never found anyone even remotely like her.

Around two, he fell asleep. He awoke later in a sweat, having slid into the nightmare again. He’d been in the water. The clear ocean water. It had been a beautiful day. Light shone through. Then clouds covered it. The water grew murky. It was canal water, and he was in it, trying to backpedal, knowing what he was going to see. And he’d heard her voice….

He got out of bed, made his way to the kitchen took a beer from the refrigerator, then went out to stand on deck. He needed to feel the ocean breeze in the night. He all but inhaled the beer, and he knew he was no more over any of this than Brian was.

She would be lost, so feminine, so beautiful, quasi-tragic, talking to him about her personal life….

Then so tough. She was capable in any situation, and she was as good as any guy on the force.

She was his partner. She couldn’t keep things from him. If she knew anything, suspected anything…

She hadn’t. At least, she had insisted that she hadn’t. But maybe she had been in a position to find out.

What the hell had she been doing? He’d never known. And he should have. He’d been her partner, for Christ’s sake! She’d died in a car, remnants of alcohol and narcotics in her bloodstream. Accidental death, that had been the ruling. She’d lost control of her car. There had been no evidence of foul play. Even so, during the inquest, all the dirt had come out. Her troubled marriage. Her close friendship—more than friendship?—with Jake.

She was gone.

The victim of a terrible accident. He hadn’t believed it. Not then. Not now.

And he’d never met anyone like her.

Something suddenly stirred in his mind.

A brief flash, an odd and fleeting sensation. Then he knew…. Earlier, he’d felt a strange sense of déjà vu. A sense of…

Memory.

Earlier that day. Maybe it had been because on some subconscious level he’d known it was Nancy’s birthday. But he had come across someone who reminded him of Nancy. Strange, too, because Nan had been tall, five-ten, dark, willowy. He hadn’t seen anyone like that.

It hadn’t been that the girl looked like Nancy, he realized. It had been something in her manner, her self-confidence, her assurance. She’d had Nancy’s ability to stand her ground, undaunted, speak her mind…not back down, fight it out and still, somehow, leave a trace of magnetism behind.

Nick’s niece. The redhead he’d bumped into that morning. Not small, but at best she was about five-six. He’d seen her before…but not often. Years ago she’d been around the place more, but she’d looked different back then, not much more than a kid. Gangly as a palm tree, a pile of flyaway hair, enormous green eyes, always running somewhere. Time had gone by; he hadn’t hung around Nick’s all that much lately. Not in almost five years, though he had applied for the new slip at the marina, the one he’d just moved into, almost a year ago now.

She’d changed. She wasn’t gangly anymore. She was curved in all the right places, and her flyaway hair was more like a sexual beacon now. Attractive, yes. But what he remembered was her voice. Her indignation. Cool, aloof, even in anger, those eyes able to sizzle into someone with total condemnation.

She was in the academy, Nick had told him.

So the kid was going to be on the force. Great.

With something about her that was so much like Nancy…

Shit. It felt as if he’d suddenly been wrapped in ice.

He hoped to hell she wasn’t too much like Nancy. A woman with too many ethics, too much determination—and not enough sense to be afraid.

He didn’t even know her. Her life was none of his damned business. And maybe she wasn’t that much like Nancy; maybe he had just made the association because it was Nancy’s birthday.

He felt a strong sense of sympathy for Brian.

He drained the last of the beer. He wanted another.

No, not a beer. A single-malt Scotch.

Hell, he wasn’t going anywhere tonight.

He went back into the kitchen, poured a shot, made it a double.

Somehow, he was damned well going to sleep that night.

Ashley, Karen and Jan had reached the hotel with no further trouble. They’d checked in and spent a few hours sipping piña coladas at the pool. After talking it over, they opted for the show that night and dancing the following evening.

The horses were magnificent, and the entire show was a lot of fun. Ashley found a message waiting on her phone when the show was over. Len had indeed decided to drive up with his firefighting friends. They would be at a late-night swing club.

“Fire guys?” Karen inquired.

“They’re not all incredibly buff and good-looking,” Jan warned.

“We could take a chance,” Karen said.

And so they did.

Len was there with two friends, as if he’d made an effort to round out the party. Len was tall and built like a rock himself. He had told Ashley that he had gotten into physical fitness when he’d applied for the force, then kept it up. He was sandy-haired, and green-eyed, with a few freckles, thirty-one years old, and a genuinely nice guy. She knew he wanted their relationship to go beyond friendship, but she didn’t. As nice as he was, she simply wasn’t attracted to him. She knew that she couldn’t say that, since nothing would be quite so devastating to a man with an ego, so she kept their relationship platonic by insisting that nothing was more important to her than getting onto the force and keeping up with a few art classes in between.

He seemed to have accepted that they were limited to friendship. Sometimes he even made her laugh, telling her about his disastrous dates, his quest for the right woman.

Both the men with him, Kyle Avery and Mario Menendez, perfectly fit the public’s idea of what a rugged young firefighter should look like.

“Ashley, you do know how to pick ’em,” Karen told her. “He’s to die for.”

“Which one?”

Karen was silent for a minute. “Actually, all of them. Especially your friend Len. I don’t understand why you don’t scoop him right up.”

“Because it isn’t there.”

“What isn’t there? He sure looks like he’s got everything to me.”

“Go for him, then,” Ashley said.

Karen shook her head. “Too awkward. He’s got the hots for you.”

“He’s a friend, Karen. If you make him happy, you’ll make me happy.”

“C’mon, you two. This is a dance club,” Jan interrupted. “Let’s dance, then we’ll sort out the psychology of it all, hmm?”

After a few hours of swing, changing partners frequently and dancing with others, as well, Karen claimed exhaustion. She, Jan and Ashley made for the ladies’ room while the men ordered drinks.

“Ashley, I’m flirting away with your buddy, making myself very happy and keeping you in the clear, but you’re not showing the least sign of interest in anyone,” Karen stated.

Ashley sighed. “I’m in the middle of the academy and trying to help Nick out now and then. I don’t want to be involved. And it’s getting late. I may opt out of the rest of the evening and head back.”

“It’s not that late. And you don’t have to get involved with anyone. Just have fun, Ashley. I’m a teacher. I spend my life with little kids. I do the ABCs and two plus two, and wash little hands and help blow little noses all day. It’s been almost a year since I had what you’d actually call a real boyfriend—and I don’t miss that creep! But I do miss…company. Okay, and sex. Don’t you ever just want to have sex?”

“Karen, sex is a great thing. But maybe you want to get to know him a little.”

“I don’t know,” Jan teased, checking her lipstick. “Sometimes guys are a lot better before you get to know them.”

“He lives in Miami. She should get to know him,” Ashley said.

“Mother Superior has spoken,” Karen acknowledged. “But let’s not call it quits already, huh? I gave him my phone number. And if he calls me once we’re home…great. Or he may start pining for you all over again.”

“Karen, we’re friends. That’s all.”

“I hope that’s true. I hope he does call. He has a respectable job. He’s nice as hell. He drinks, but not a lot, and he dances swing. Don’t you dare insist we leave right now. And be nice.”

“Be nice? He’s my friend. I’m always nice.”

Karen sighed, her chest heaving with impatience. “I mean, be nice to all of them. Please…Jan may not admit it, but she’s saving all her quality flirting for Kyle, so just be decent to Mario so we can try to keep their threesome together. With us.”

“I told you, I’ll be nice.”

“Ashley, you’re crazy. Have you ever really looked at your friend’s buns?”

“No, Karen, I haven’t actually stared at his butt, but if you say so, I’m sure his buns are great.”

Karen shook her head again. “She’s crazy,” she told Jan.

“No, I understand her perfectly,” Jan said. “It’s either there or not. I can’t really explain what ‘it’ is, chemistry or whatever, but if it isn’t there, it isn’t there. So quit feeling guilty and checking with Ashley to make sure she’s really not romantically interested. She isn’t. And we’re wasting time here, discussing this all in a bathroom.”

“Right, let’s get back there,” Karen said. “And you, Ashley, start talking to Mario. Talk shop if you have to.”

“I’m in the police academy, not fire rescue.”

“It’s almost the same,” Karen insisted.

Ashley discovered that she was actually able to have a nice conversation with Mario, who was somewhat shy and reserved. He was married and was just out with his single friends for the weekend because his wife was in Connecticut for two weeks visiting her folks. He was relieved to tell her about being a newlywed, since his friends had been afraid he was going to ruin a fun night for them.