Chapter Twenty-Five
“Aviophobia - the fear of flying.”
Charming
You could learn a lot from someone just by watching them. Really watching them. It was something I never realized when I was alive. If I had, I might not have died the way I did. Now, I had a lot of practice at watching people and I knew fear when I saw it.
I’ve witnessed a broad range of emotion from Frankie, but fear wasn’t one of them. Unease? Yes. Nervousness? Yes. Flustered, annoyed, angry… Yes, yes, and yes. Desire? Desire was my favorite.
She was literally a kaleidoscope of feeling.
You never knew which feelings of hers might blend together and what would happen when they did.
I was shocked when she agreed to come with me so easily.
I wondered if the dark circles beneath her eyes were part of the reason.
That and the fact I hadn’t seen her consume sugar at all the last few times I saw her.
She was looking a little thin; I realized I liked her better filled out.
“Are you scared of flying?” I asked. Amusement sparked through me like a sparkler on the fourth of July as I watched her grip the armrests of her seat.
“No,” she said harshly. Then she looked at the floor. “Maybe.”
I grinned.
“Wipe that smile off your face before I do it for you,” she growled.
“There’s a stash of candy over there by the mini bar.” I pointed to the other side of the plane where all the drinks were kept chilled.
The jet lurched forward as it began to taxi to the runway. Her skin turned green. I saw her swallow thickly.
I sighed. Watching her misery wasn’t as entertaining as I thought it might be. I went to the mini bar and pulled out some clear rum and a can of sprite. I combined them both over ice in a crystal glass and took it over to her.
“Here, how about some sugar poured over liquor?”
“Thanks,” she said, looking at the glass, but she made no move to loosen her death grip on the armrest so she could take it.
I sat down in the seat beside hers. “You ever been to L.A.?”
“No.”
“Never? Wow. I think you’ll like it. It’s warm and sunny. The sun always shines. The people are tan and beautiful. The palm trees are taller than a lot of the buildings here and the beach—”
“I’ve never been to the beach.” She interrupted.
That surprised me. “You’ve never seen the ocean?”
“Just on television.”
“I think you’re going to love it.”
“How do you know?” she asked. I noticed her skin was now back to its original complexion. Her fingers seemed to be getting a little more circulation as well.
“Because,” I said, leaning in closer to her, “it’s a lot like you.
Larger than life. It fills up the space in front of you as far as you can see.
And it can be temperamental.” I smiled when she made a face.
“One minute it’s crashing onto the sand with great ferocity, but the next moment the waves become gentle and it laps at your ankles like a soft caress. ”
She let go of the armrests completely and leaned a little closer. “Sounds like you’re the one who really loves the ocean.”
I stared at her for long minutes, her words not really penetrating my brain.
All I could think about was how pretty she was sitting there with those loose blond curls framing her face and her nervous pink cheeks.
But then the word love broke through the haze in my brain.
I shook my head. “I don’t love anything. ”
She sat back. I handed her the drink, which she took and downed about half in one great slurp. “We’re in the air,” she said.
“You didn’t even notice we were taking off.” I got up and moved across the plane to sit on a small couch over by a few small windows.
“It’s those damn jeans,” she murmured.
“What about my jeans?”
“Stupid superpower hearing,” she muttered, taking another drink.
“You like my jeans, huh?” Smug satisfaction filled my chest.
“I’d like them better if you took them into another room and stayed there.”
“You keep up that attitude, this is going to be a very long flight.”
“How long is it anyway?”
“About nine hours.”
She gaped at me. “Nine hours stuck on a plane with you?”
I grinned.
“What are we going to do for nine hours?”
“I can think of a few things.” I wagged my eyebrows. “Want to see how my jeans look on the floor?”
She spit her drink halfway across the room and the back of her hand flew to her mouth. “Ew! You are so gross!”
I scowled. “That’s not what you were saying the other night when I kissed you.”
“Do not remind me.”
“Why? Afraid you’ll want to do it again?”
Her shoulders slumped a little and she swiveled her chair toward the window. “If I get fired for this little trip, you owe me a million dollars.”
I would take her silence on the kissing subject as a yes. “A million dollars? I didn’t realize DMV employees made so much money.”
“They don’t. Most of it would be for the mental abuse I’m suffering at your hands.”
I laughed.
“I think a shopping spree on Rodeo drive will change your mind.”
“I’m not going shopping on Rodeo drive.”
“No?” I figured that was the first place she would go.
“No. I’m not spending your money.”
“But you’ll take a million?”
She looked around the back of her chair at me and rolled her eyes.
“So what’s the first thing you’re going to do?”
“Find the beach.”
“We’re staying on the beach. I have a house right on the sand.”
Her chair spun back around to face me. “Are you serious?”
“Views from every room.”
“How much money do you have?” she wondered.
More than she or I could ever spend. More money than some small countries. Killing paid well. Killing for over ninety years made a man very, very rich. I opened my mouth to answer and she held up her hand.
“Don’t answer. It doesn’t matter.”
“No?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because of the way you earned it.”
Irritation slammed through me. Figures she’d say that. “Money is just paper. It really doesn’t have anything to do with the job.”
“You do the job for the money,” she spat.
“I do the job because I have to,” I snapped, getting up and going to the bar.
Shit, this was going to be a long plane ride.
I should have just left her in Alaska and done damage control when I got home.
It probably would have done me good to get away from her.
She drove me mad. I poured half a glass of brandy and took a swallow.
“Because you’ll get Recalled,” she said softly.
“Yeah, and I’m in no hurry for that to happen.”
“It’s pretty terrible?” she asked.
“Don’t worry about it, love,” I said, wincing when the endearment slipped out. Again. I had no idea why I kept doing that. Calling people by anything other than their name was something I never did. “You won’t feel a thing.”
“But you will,” she whispered. I figured I wasn’t meant to hear that either so I didn’t bother to reply. I wasn’t na?ve enough to think she actually cared.
“What’s the purpose of this trip anyway? I thought you were all about your Target,” she said with mock seriousness.
I didn’t bother to sit back down, but paced the cabin instead. This jet was feeling smaller than usual.
“I am all about my Target. That’s why you’re here.”
“Well, then?”
I took another drink of the alcohol and hoped it would numb my brain. She asked too many questions. “Work.”
“Is Rosalyn traveling to L.A.?” she wondered out loud. Then she said, “Couldn’t be, then you wouldn’t have cared if I was there.”
I stayed silent. I was tired of talking.
“If you’re not going for Rosalyn, but it’s still work…” She gasped. “You’re going to kill someone. Aren’t you?”
I closed my eyes. How did she make everything I did sound so awful? “It’s really not any of your business.”
“Are you kidding me?” she shouted. “You’re making me an accessory to murder!”
“Keep your voice down,” I said, glancing at the cockpit. “And you can’t be an accessory to something you know nothing about.”
She drained the rest of her drink, set the glass on a nearby table, and then spun her chair back toward the window. I guess that meant she was done bitching at me. Thank God.
We sat in silence for a long time. I finished my drink and had another, watched the sports highlights on the mini flat screen, and stared out the window into the dark.
Flying didn’t bother me—I did it all the time—but sitting here left me feeling restless.
She still hadn’t turned that chair around. She hadn’t uttered a word.
It made me mad that I was sitting here even thinking about her pouting.
I took my empty glass over to the bar and then grabbed her chair and turned it around.
She was sitting with her knees pulled up and her chin resting on top.
Her arms were wrapped around her legs and she tilted her head back and looked at me. “What?”
“Are you going move in the next eight hours?”
She sighed and unfolded herself from the chair. “Where’s my bag?” she asked.
I motioned to the back of the cabin to the large closet where I put our bags.
She pulled open the door and yanked out her bag so it was practically on top of her feet.
Then she glanced at me and pointed to the garment bag hanging inside the closet.
“Seriously? You put your clothes in a garment bag? How many pairs of trousers did you bring?”
I wondered what she would say if she knew there was a body in that bag and not my trousers.
A body I stole from the Grim Reaper. And what the hell was wrong with trousers?
They were classy. The way she said it, you would think I was running around in sweatpants.
“If I had known you liked me in jeans so much, I would have brought more of those instead.”
Her cheeks turned pink and she bent down to rummage through her bag. After a few minutes, she made a sound. “Didn’t you bring me a sweatshirt?”
“We’re going to California. It’s hot there.”
“But this plane is freezing.”
“There’s some blankets in the cabinet over here.”
She abandoned the duffle and walked over to where I was pulling several blankets out of the cabinet.
When she reached out for one, I noticed the goose bumps prickling her arms. I guess I should have packed her a sweater or something.
Packing for a woman wasn’t something I ever had to do.
I snatched the blanket away and her eyes widened.
“Hey,” she started, but she fell silent when I yanked the shirt I was wearing over my head. Then I swiftly pulled it down over her.
“You’ll warm up faster this way,” I said.
“I’m not going to freeze to death,” she protested even as she pushed her arms through and fixed the hem. The white fabric fell mid-thigh. “How come men get all the good body heat?” she mumbled, reaching around me for the blanket and taking it over to her chair.
“What do you know about men and body heat?” I felt my eyes narrow as I watched her shapely behind move beneath my shirt.
“That they have more of it.”
She yawned loudly and wrapped the blanket around herself.
“You might as well get some sleep. I have a feeling once you see the beach you won’t want to go in the house.”
“Good idea.” She leaned her head back against the chair. If she slept like that she was going to get a neck cramp.
“Here, this would be more comfortable.” I told her, grabbing a remote and pressing a button. The couch I sat on earlier slid out of the wall, widening so it was the size of a double bed.
She stared at me for a few minutes before getting up and going to the bed. I handed her a pillow. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me. I just didn’t want to hear you whine about your neck from sleeping in a chair.”
She made a rude noise and lay down, draping herself with the blanket and rolling away from me.
I hesitated a minute before dropping down so I crouched right beside her. “At first it was hard,” I said softly. She would know I was talking about the killing.
She rolled over to look at me. The blanket was pulled up to her chin and her face was just inches from mine. “How come it stopped being hard?”
I glanced at her lips, distracted by their pink fullness. “Because I stopped living.”
Her blue eyes stared at me as something danced between us.
It was completely invisible to the eye, but it was impossible not to feel.
I think the word for what I felt was chemistry.
It was equal parts push and pull and it created a charge in the air surrounding us.
I wanted to touch her. I wondered if she would pull away if I did.
Slowly, I reached out, and I watched her face as my hand drew closer. She stopped breathing for a moment. Everything about her paused, except for that unseen energy around her. That energy seemed to hum.
I skimmed the back of my knuckles down her cheek and then rolled my hand over and cupped her face with my palm. My thumb made lazy circles around the apple of her cheek.
Her eyes fluttered closed.
She drew in a deep breath.
Without opening her eyes, she replied, “Maybe it’s time you started living again.”
Her words caused something inside my chest to splinter apart. Kind of like a mini explosion that only I could feel. I crouched there beside her for a long time, my thumb still brushing over her skin. She fell asleep like that, her breathing turning even and deep.
Only after my legs and feet had gone numb from my awkward position did I get up to go sit down. All I could think about was what she said.
All I could think was that maybe she was right.