Chapter Sixteen
Baxter
My instinctive reaction was to turn and walk away. Maybe even run. I might have signed up to see my grave, but that was the extent of my bravery. Confronting a ghost from my past hadn’t factored into the plan. Although the thinking on that was probably all wrong when I was the ghost.
The problem was that Jamie was already turning. Maybe he’d heard Lake and me talking. Maybe it was a sixth sense of being watched. Either way, short of diving behind the nearest gravestone and making myself impossibly small, there was no escape.
So I stayed where I was and braced myself.
A ridiculous thought flickered through my mind: that perhaps he wouldn’t recognize me, that his gaze might skim straight over me, searching for someone else.
I dismissed it immediately. He was standing at my grave.
Presumably thinking of me. Which was… really sweet, considering I’d been dead for close to two decades.
His eyes landed on me.
He blinked. Started to turn away. Then did a double-take, his gaze snapping back.
“Baxter?” There was a world of incomprehension and disbelief in the way he said my name.
In many ways, he looked the same. But the longer I looked, the more differences I spotted.
Broader shoulders. Shorter hair than he’d worn in his twenties.
Fine lines around his eyes and his mouth that hadn’t been there when we’d dated.
And then there was the wedding ring, my gaze snagging on it.
Man or woman, I wanted to ask, but it wasn’t the time.
Lake stood rigid in my peripheral vision, the tension in his shoulders broadcasting that he was no more comfortable than I was.
“Yeah,” I managed, my voice hoarse. There wasn’t much else I could say.
Jamie shook his head. He tried to take a step. Toward me. Away from me. I couldn’t tell. He staggered and went down hard, landing arse-first on the grass. Lake rushed forward, crossing the divide and helping Jamie to his feet, guiding him over to a nearby bench.
I hung back as the two men conversed, unsure what I was supposed to do. Eventually, inevitability won out, and I forced myself forward, delaying the moment with slow, reluctant steps.
Jamie sat hunched, head bowed, and breathing ragged.
“Shock,” Lake murmured quietly to me. “Hardly surprising.”
“No,” I agreed.
Jamie’s head snapped up at the sound of my voice. He stared at me as if he didn’t know which way was up anymore. There was more gray in his hair than I’d expected—more than Lake had. I forced a smile. It felt strange on my face, but it was better than staring at him. “Hi.”
He shook his head. “You look… the same. Like it was… yesterday.” His breath hitched. “And I’m so old.”
“You look great,” I said, and meant it.
“How?” The word came out raw.
I turned toward the grave I’d come to see, studying the gold lettering on the smooth black stone for a moment. “They remembered my middle name,” I said with a slight smile.
“They weren’t going to,” Jamie said quickly. “I told them you’d want it. I fought for it. For you.”
The gravestone itself wasn’t that impressive, certainly not compared to others we’d passed, but at least I had one. “Thank you,” I said. “I appreciate it.”
My gaze dropped to the grass covering the spot where my body was supposed to lie. What would happen if someone dug it up? Could a person exist in two places at once? Was I both standing here and decomposing beneath the soil? It was a discomfiting thought.
“How?” Jamie asked again.
Lake came to the rescue. “Why don’t we find somewhere more comfortable to talk?” He glanced up at the sky, the clouds having grown even darker. “I’m keen to get out of here.”
We’d barely been in the cafe five minutes before the heavens opened and the rain came down. Lake had made me wait outside while he checked how strong the coffee smell was, a kindness that was beyond sweet.
The place wasn’t fancy, but it was clean and quiet. And with the rain lashing down outside, any shelter felt like a blessing.
Now that Jamie had gotten over his initial shock, he couldn’t stop staring at me. He’d realize what he was doing and apologize and look away, his cheeks reddening, only to glance back moments later.
“I don’t understand,” he said finally.
I told him everything I could. It wouldn’t make him understand. How could it when I didn’t understand myself? But at least he’d know he wasn’t losing his mind.
Lake stayed silent, sipping his tea, his presence steady and grounding.
Jamie asked questions. Some I could answer. Some I couldn’t. He fiddled constantly with his wedding ring, repeatedly drawing my attention to it. How long after my death had he married? A year? Ten? It had no bearing on anything, and yet I wanted to know.
“And that brings us to now,” I finished.
“I wanted to see my grave.” Jamie shook his head, still struggling to wrap his head around what I’d told him, which was hardly surprising.
It wasn’t every day you were fed a tale of death and resurrection.
Not unless you went to church at Easter. And I was a long way from being Jesus.
“The last thing I expected was to find someone I knew there,” I said. “What were you doing there?”
His laugh bore more than a tinge of embarrassment. “Have you seen what date it is?”
I checked my watch, frowning. Suddenly, it clicked. “It’s the anniversary of our first date.”
Jamie looked pleased that I’d worked it out. “It is,” he agreed. He shrugged. “I don’t know. It seemed a better day to visit you than the anniversary of your death. Better memories.”
I couldn’t argue with that.
“Would you have gotten around to searching for me?” Jamie asked.
I thought about it. “To what end?”
“Closure, maybe.” He crumbled a blueberry muffin between his fingers, very little of it having been eaten. “It wasn’t easy for me either, you know. Those three days in the hospital… sat by your bedside, hoping and praying, they were the longest of my life.”
“Three days?”
“You were in an induced coma after surgery. They said you’d pull through.” His laugh was brittle, the muffin continuing to take the brunt of his feelings. “I believed them. I went home and showered. When I came back, you were gone. I always felt bad about that.”
“I survived for three days,” I said faintly.
Jamie gave a jerky nod. “I talked to you the whole time. They say people in comas can hear you. I’m guessing you didn’t?”
“Not that I remember.” It was a lot to take in. My nightmares always compressed it into hours. You couldn’t relive what you never knew.
Jamie finally registered the state of the muffin, pushing the plate away from him with a look of disgust. “I blamed myself for what happened to you.”
“It wasn’t your fault.”
He heaved out a breath. “I chose the restaurant and the time. Why there? Why then? Why didn’t I pick you up?”
“Because it was near your work,” I said gently. “It wouldn’t have made any sense for you to drive out to get me and then go back.”
“Yeah, I guess,” he said, back to worrying the ring now the muffin was just a pile of crumbs.
“It wasn’t your fault,” I repeated. “And I’m sorry you ever felt it was. It makes me feel terrible to know you carried that burden for so many years.” I gestured to the ring. “I’m glad you found someone. How long have you been married?”
Jamie smiled. “Ten years. Korbin’s a good man. We have two children. It took us a long time to get approved for adoption, but once we did, Amelia and Sammy came in the space of a couple of years. Amelia’s six in a couple of months, and Sammy is three.”
“I’m glad you’re happy.” I was, but there was no ignoring the pang that asked whether if things had gone differently, that might have been us.
“Do you have any photos?” Lake asked.
Jamie lit up as he pulled out his phone. I took the chance to compose myself while I went through the motions of saying how cute the kids were. No lie there, they were. And Korbin was handsome. They looked like a perfect family.
I turned my head away to watch the rain come down, the weather a perfect metaphor for the storm going on in my head.
Lake broke the silence. “I’ve been helping Baxter work through a few things. That’s why we were at the cemetery today. We went to the car park yesterday.”
“That was fun,” I muttered, my gaze still fixed on the puddles. “Today was a breeze in comparison.”
“Will you go to the prison?” Jamie asked.
“The prison?” Lake and I said together.
“To see him.”
“To see who?” I asked.
Jamie frowned. “The Car Park Reaper. Geoffrey Ryhill.”
Lake looked to me, but all I could do was shake my head.
“They never caught the man who stabbed me,” I said slowly.
“I got Calisto to look into it once. I can’t remember when.
Maybe about five or six years ago.” I’d already explained to Jamie how I’d maintained a physical presence.
He might not have fully comprehended it, but he’d accepted it.
I guess when your boyfriend from nineteen years ago returned from the dead and looked the same, you probably found it easy to accept one more fantastical fact.
Jamie leaned forward, his expression intense.
“Not for years, no. But your information’s outdated.
Three, four years ago, they caught this guy…
Ryhill. He’d stabbed four men in different car parks.
The similarity between those murders and yours couldn’t be ignored.
The theory was that you’d been one of his earliest victims. You and another guy, who died two years after you.
Ryhill denied it, but you would, wouldn’t you?
Better to keep your murder count at five rather than seven, and it’s not like they had any DNA evidence to prove it.
But the police closed your case, so it wasn’t like they had any doubt. ”
Lake checked his phone. “He’s right. They officially added your murder to his list of crimes two years ago.”
The cafe suddenly felt way too warm. “Is there a picture of him?” I leaned toward Lake intending to get a look at the screen. He moved the phone away, pressing it flat to his chest, concern written all over his face. “Are you sure? What are you hoping to see?”
“Did he know his victims?” I asked Jamie.
“I think so.”
“So I should know him,” I pointed out. I reached for Lake’s wrist—the skin pleasantly warm and solid, and far more distracting than it should have been considering my emotional state—and turned his phone around. Lake could easily have resisted, but he went along with it.
“I like him touching me.”
I ignored the stray thought from Lake, concentrating on the mugshot taken at the time of Ryhill’s arrest. I’d na?vely expected him to look like a murderer, but that assumption had been based on too many films and TV programs. O’Reilly, the woman who’d made all the necromancer’s lives a misery in the past year, hadn’t looked like a murderer, but she’d been one, the blood of many on her hands.
The man on the screen looked to be in his early-to-mid forties, with the everyday looks you might see in a queue at the bank, or sat behind a reception desk.
He had brown eyes and thick eyebrows. His gaze was calm and steady, rather than intense or shifty.
More the relaxed gaze of someone caught in an unflattering moment than a hardened criminal.
He had thin lips and dark hair with a smattering of gray running through it.
In short, he was unremarkable. The kind of face you passed every day without giving it a second thought.
The most jarring thing about his appearance, though, was that I couldn’t place him as ever having been in my life.
I hadn’t dated him; I knew that for sure.
But could I honestly say he’d never delivered something to me, or that he hadn’t tried to chat me up in a club. Maybe he had, and I’d turned him down.
“Well?” Lake asked.
“I don’t know him.”
“Maybe you don’t remember,” Lake suggested.
“Maybe.”
“I didn’t recognize him either,” Jamie said. “But I wasn’t always with you.”
“I should have looked my murder up before,” I admitted.
Lake snorted. “You and me both. I gave it the big I am when it came to research, and I didn’t even bother to google it. And all along, the answer was right there.”
“This was about facing up to things,” I said quietly. “About not burying my head in the sand.” Jamie watched us, his gaze moving between us like an observer at a tennis match.
“And you have,” Lake said softly.
“I have,” I agreed. I waved a hand at Lake’s phone. “I don’t know how I feel about that. It’s going to take some processing.”
Lake nodded. “That’s understandable.”
Jamie’s phone buzzed, and he pulled a face. “I’m sorry, but I have to go.” He didn’t give any explanation, and neither Lake nor I asked.
After a somewhat awkward hug and an exchange of numbers, he left. With the rain still coming down, Lake and I sat tight.
While Lake went to get more tea, I contemplated Geoffrey Ryhill. By the time he returned, I’d reached a decision. “I need to see him. I need to look him in the eye and ask why he did it, what he got out of it.”
Lake grimaced. “I was afraid you’d say that.”
“Will you come with me?”
A faint smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “You think I’d let you face something like that alone?”
“No. You’re too good a man.”
He laughed. “I guess that’s your answer then.”