It was more than most people got when fate tore their lives apart. The ache, however, would never ease completely.
Turning into a short driveway, she edged into the first parking space farthest from the buildings. She didn’t need to pull out the note to remember the apartment number.
Tiffany and Jake Lloyd had lived together on the second level in Number 234. If she was lucky, the man still resided there, despite the fact that his wife had left him. She climbed from the car and stood in the shade of a large tree. The sun wound down, the shadows lengthened, and the day’s early autumn warmth was fast turning to a cool breeze.
Waist-high, neatly trimmed bushes rimmed the dark wood-sided structure. Stone pathways free of weeds led to spacious front entryways and the stairs to the second floor units. More flowering shrubs lined the walks. Each apartment had a fenced-in sun porch or, if on the second level, a balcony. It was definitely not the kind of place where anyone would hang unmentionables to dry on the metal railings.
Nor would Tiffany have lived anywhere that allowed it.
Max climbed the set of wooden steps with Cameron’s comfortable peppermint aura surrounding her. Tiffany’s old apartment lay at the end, three doors down. No welcome mat sat in front of the door; no flowery decorations hung from the small nail jutting out just below the peephole.
Max closed her eyes and sniffed. A faint musky aroma hung in the air. It matched a scent dredged up from the murky nightmare she’d had the night Tiffany died.
Jake’s potent male scent. He’d stood right here not long ago.
Instead of using the knocker, Max placed the flat of her hand lightly to the wood of the door.
“What do you feel?” Excitement buzzed through Cameron’s words.
Nothing. At first. Not even Tiffany’s essence. The wood was warm. She’d expected it to be cool because the entry was beneath an overhang where the sun would not have reached it. Beneath her fingers, the door began to heat, so much so it almost glowed. It was as if her touch drew something from it, encouraged it, and egged it on. As if it forced Tiffany out into the open.
The door suddenly stood wide.
The world around her turned red. She couldn’t drag in a breath. She’d have screamed if her throat muscles worked. Screamed, kicked, scratched, punched, smashed. She would have howled. She could have—
Then the door slammed, the sound exploding in her head. Max jumped back with a yelp. Her fingertips pulsed, burned, and trembled. Her lungs ached when she tried to fill them with air. Blood pumped against her temples.
She blinked, cleared her vision, and the entrance was as it had been before, not even an echo of the slam remaining.
“What happened, love?”
“Did you hear that?”
“Only in your mind, Max.”
“Tiffany slammed it. She was pissed as hell, and she slammed the door on ... someone.” She couldn’t say more, couldn’t describe the dead woman’s red rage now waning inside her. Suddenly cold, Max shuddered, and wrapped her arms around herself.
“Are you sure you don’t know who she slammed it on?”
She swallowed, shook her head slowly. “I couldn’t see. Nothing except the door. I don’t know who.” She started to shake, felt Cameron’s arms slide around her body, everywhere at once, holding, stroking, calming.
It didn’t work. “Oh Jesus, Cameron, what was that?”
“The door. You touched the door. Tiffany’s strong emotions left some residual behind. You felt them.”
She backed away from the door, from his enveloping presence, and stabbed a finger in the empty air. “You did that to me, didn’t you? You made me feel that.”
He sighed, his breath a mere breeze ruffling her hair. “You said that about the visions, too, Max, but you’ve always been the channel for them, not me.”
“Don’t lie to me, Cameron. That’s never happened before.”
“You’re wrong, Max. You knew the dumpster they’d thrown Tiffany’s body in with your fingers still inches from it.”
Chills raced down her arms, across her scalp, shot down through her torso and into her legs. She locked her knees and refused to admit he could be right. “That was different.”
“How?”
Because it hadn’t terrified her. It hadn’t taken over her mind. It had been a simple tactile sensation, a fragment of a dream returning to her. She didn’t feel her control of the situation slipping away.
“You touched the metal dumpster, and you had a vision of her lying in it. This is the same thing. A residual of Tiffany.”
“It’s stronger.”
“That’s good.”
She slashed a hand through the air. “But I don’t want it. I don’t want the dreams. I don’t want these waking visions. And I sure as hell don’t want to feel dead people’s emotions when I touch a fricking door.”
“You can’t stop now. Touch it again.”
His voice came from behind. She whirled, hating that she couldn’t see him, hating that she couldn’t point her finger right in his face. “You never let up. You never leave me alone.”