“Not even for me.”
“I didn’t know how then.”
“You don’t know how now.” He sneaked in closer, wrapping himself around her like a warm down coat she could actually feel. “But do you want to?”
She blinked. No tears, only a stinging in her eyes and nose. The answer frightened her. If she said yes, then she had to try. And she couldn’t bear to fail, couldn’t bear to wake up in the morning and find Cameron gone. For good.
“Remember what Angela said?”
She shook her head as if he had eyes to see.
“Never stay in one place too long.”
Ah, yes, she’d known he’d get back to that.
“You’ve stayed too long where you are, Max. You’ve rooted like a tree. And those roots are strangling you.”
“What am I supposed to do?”
“I don’t know. Only you do.”
She laughed, a sad sound that hurt despite its softness. “You’ve always been so good at telling me what to do before.”
“Maybe this is the first step. Saying you want to try.”
She thought of all the walls she’d have to knock down, all the memories she’d no longer be able to shut out, all the pain she’d have to feel. Panic gripped her throat until she couldn’t breathe.
“Tell me you want to try, Max.”
And if she did? He’d leave her. Finally, his earthbound mission was clear after all these years. Free her, and he’d free himself. The worst of all the possibilities.
“Tell me.” Whispered like a succubus in her ear. Tantalizing. Terrifying.
“No.”
A harsh snort, and he pulled his warmth and comfort from her. “You’ll end up alone the way you want. Witt doesn’t even have anything to leave. You have no relationship with him, nothing. You haven’t even figured that out yet.”
She did know it, deep in her heart where fear lived, where it ate her up from the inside out. She bit her lower lip to stop her mouth from agreeing with him.
“Stop being so afraid.”
Easy for a dead guy to say. Dead. She squeezed her eyes shut on the word. God, how much easier that word seemed to come these days. Cameron was dead. He’d died. She’d watched him die on the gray linoleum, a bag of Fritos lying tucked in the crook of his neck. Dead, dead, dead. As dead as Lance La Russa.
“Cameron.” Her voice cracked on his name.
“What, my love?”
How could he say that when he was struggling to leave her? “Just help me with Lance’s murder.”
He sighed. He’d hoped for something more. “His spirit isn’t even possessing you, not like the other three. Why do you need to find his killer?”
Cold seeped in through her slacks. The cat had long since jumped from her lap. She hadn’t noticed.
“Bud Traynor.” She thought the name, but Cameron said it.
“None of what’s happened to me has been about the women who were murdered.”
The possessions had hit her full force with Wendy Gregory’s death. They’d crushed her with unrelenting regularity in the ensuing time, with only a brief respite in between. In every case, Bud Traynor had hovered on the fringes. That’s what she was supposed to have seen all along.
“I’m not obsessed with him, Cameron.” She turned, moved for the first time in what seemed like hours. Her neck creaked. Cameron’s eyes glowed in the far corner of the room. “Something—God knows what—wants me to do this. Some force. Something driving me.”
“Something haunting you.”
She pulled up her legs, crawled across the bed towards him. “Yes. There’s something at the end of all these murders, something that ties them all together, something to do with Bud Traynor.”
“It’s like a puzzle.” His voice dropped to a mere echo in her mind. “You haven’t found all the pieces yet.”
“Help me find them, Cameron. Then maybe I can move to another place.”
“Is that the carrot on a stick? Help me, Cameron, and I’ll do what you want?” he mimicked.
The excitement drained out of her, leaving her weak. “I don’t know. I want to stop seeing dead people in my dreams.”
“Even me?”
Her heart stopped. Cameron making love to her in her dreams was all she’d wanted for two years. Except for the impossible, having him alive at her side.
“Listen to your messages.”
His voice was like electric shock starting the heart beating again. She didn’t ask why the reprieve. She was sure it was one. Something was on the machine he wanted her to listen to.
The red light flashed the number two. Pushing the button, wondering why she hadn’t seen them when she first walked in, Max listened.
Sunny, her boss. “Max, I have bad news. Inotech doesn’t need you back. They’ve decided to move the project in-house. Budget cuts, a bad quarter. Who knows why? I’m so sorry. I know you need the money. I’ll look for something else. Call me tomorrow.”
“Did you do that?” she asked without looking for Cameron’s phosphorescent ethereal form in the dark.
“Who, me? The great and powerful Oz?”