“How did you meet him?”
“I tried to raise my daughter from the dead.”
Hadn’t seen that one coming.
“Did you?”
Cassandra shook her head.
“Can you?”
“Not anymore.” I bit my lip, frowned, and she continued. “Raising Bobby’s daughter is a bad idea.”
Maybe so, but how did she know I’d had it? For that matter, how did she know about Bobby’s daughter?
“Franklin is in the FBI,” she said. “He can find out damn near anything. Edward can find out even more.”
I was tempted to ask if she could read everyone’s mind, or just mine, but she spoke.
“I would have done anything to have my child live again. I nearly did but…” Cassandra let out a breath.
“But?” I pressed when she didn’t go on.
“I learned several things while I was trying to raise her. Everything happens for a reason. There are no accidents, and most importantly, there is a better place, and it isn’t here. Bringing her back would have been for me and not her. It wasn’t fair, and it definitely wasn’t right.”
“Okay,” I said slowly, my gaze drawn to the corner of the ambulance where Genevieve had just materialized. “But what do you do when they don’t go to the better place?”
Cassandra’s eyes followed mine. “She’s here?”
I nodded.
“Ask her.”
I didn’t need to. Genevieve had already told me what the problem was. Bobby believed it was his fault that his daughter was dead. I wasn’t sure how I was going to make him stop believing that, but I’d have to try. And that would start with telling him all that his daughter had shared.
As soon as we arrived at the hospital, I was whisked off so that someone could stitch up the knife-shaped hole in my arm. The painkillers combined with the sudden absence of adrenaline until everything faded to black. When I woke, night had fled. The sun was shining. Bobby was there. So was his daughter.
There was something different about her. She was kind of fuzzy, and it wasn’t because I was.
“Hey,” I mumbled.
“Hey,” Bobby returned, and took my hand. “Your dad just left.”
For a minute I thought he meant Henry, but he couldn’t see Henry. “My father?”
“Yeah. Sorry. Forgot you have two. John was pretty upset. Stayed here all night. I don’t know if your—uh—other dad is—”
“He isn’t.” Which worried me. But I was in no condition to summon him now.
“Jenn’s called at least ten times.”
“She hasn’t come?” How very un-Jenn of her.
“She’s being questioned. She was the last one to see Brad before he snatched you. I’m sure she’ll be here as soon as she’s done.” Bobby took a deep breath. “I love you.”
“I— What?”
“Marry me?”
I glanced at Genevieve, who was fading fast. “Hold on.”
“I will.” He tightened his hand. “I won’t ever let go.”
“I meant Genevieve.”
“Where?” he asked, then turned in her direction.
“You feel her, don’t you?” He was more sensitive to ghosts than anyone I’d ever known. We’d discover why later. Apparently, we’d have time.
He shifted his shoulders. “I…” His breath rushed out. “Yeah. I do.”
The little girl became more solid. “Tell him it wasn’t his fault.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” I repeated.
Pain flickered in Bobby’s eyes. “Of course it was. I left her with her mom. Audrey was—” He took a breath, which shook in the middle. “Tell her—”
“You can tell her,” I said. “Just because you can’t hear or see her doesn’t mean she can’t hear and see you.”
I patted the bed at my hip. “Come here, baby.”
Genevieve sat where I indicated and lifted a ghostly hand to her father’s face.
He turned his cheek into her palm. “I should have done more to get you away from your mother, sweetheart.”
“She needed me, Daddy. I couldn’t leave her.”
I told him what she’d said.
Tears welled in his eyes. “I still should have taken you somewhere. Anywhere.”
“The man in black wouldn’t let you keep me.”
I got a shiver. “Man in black?”
“That’s what she called the judge.”
“Did you try and get custody?”
“I did. But we were never married. Audrey didn’t even put my name on the birth certificate.”
Which explained the lack of info I’d found on Genevieve Doucet.
“I’m sorry,” Bobby said. “I told you I didn’t have children, but I—”
“I understand.”
“I tried to save her, and I failed. She died.”
“Mommy’s waiting,” Genevieve said. “My gramma too. I want to be with them.”
“You need to let her go, Bobby. She doesn’t belong here anymore.”
“I’m not sure how.”
Neither was I.
“Is he happy?” the child asked.
“I think he could be.”
“That’s all I want. I can’t leave him when he’s so sad.”
Bobby’s gaze remained on me. “What did she say?”
“She wants you to be happy.”
“I will be. With you.”