“Yes. No. Please, I don’t want anything from them. I want you to…I know you can’t. I know that, but I will miss you so much.” She nodded and put out her hand. “I love you, Aster. I will love you for the rest of my life.”
“I will you as well, brother dear.” Her fingers moved over his chest and then into his heart. As soon as she touched him there, he felt so much move from her to him. It was almost too much, and when he put out his hand to pull her away, he touched her and looked into her face.
Everything became clear. All his life he had wondered what had happened, and now he knew. He also knew that his sister was right. She had been able to see the dead, had been able to talk to them as well. But unlike him, she’d been able to ignore it, something he wished now he’d worked harder at. When she started to fade, her body the shape of perfection again, he touched her again and closed his eyes. Steele saw in her eyes things he’d never seen there before.
“You’ll be so happy someday.” He shook his head at her whispered words. “You will. And when you are, I’ll rest easy. I’ll even come to see you again if I can. But you have to promise to help them. All right?”
“I wish you would stay with me.” He watched her fade more. “I love you, Aster, and always will.”
“I love you as well. I need for you to close your eyes now. Dream of all that will come to pass. Dream of the things that you will be able to do now, so much more than before.” He nodded, his body becoming heavier with her words. “You will dream of them now, Steele, all of the hurt ones, you’ll dream of them.”
Then she was gone. Steele dropped to the floor and leaned forward. Blood pooled beneath him, and it was all he could do not to fall face first into it. When someone knocked at his door, it took him three tries before he could get his mouth to work around the words to have them come in. As soon as the door opened, he was lifted up and laid on his bed. Steele looked up into the eyes of Ray and knew he was like him. As he lay there on his bed, sobbing for all that he’d lost in so short of a time, Ray sat beside him quietly and watched over him. When he felt as if he could function again, even if it was without a heart, he turned to look at the big man who had been more compassionate to him in the last hour than either of his parents had been to him his entire life.
“You contacted your father? Left him a message on what you did?” Steele started to nod, but the movement made his belly sick. “He got the message. I’m sorry to tell you this, son, but he’s dead. Killed himself not long after the call, we’re thinking. It’s just as well. I’m thinking he wouldn’t have lasted long in prison.” Steele nodded. His father, a great man to all that knew him outside the family, was dead. And all Steele could think about was good riddance.
“My mother know?” Ray nodded, then shook his head. “I don’t understand. Does she know or not?”
“She does. About the bodies as well as your father being dead. And there’s more. I’m sorry, but—”
“Aster is dead too.” He didn’t look surprised but only nodded. “She told me not to worry about her. That it was her fault. She stepped in front of a car or something and she was killed. There was a baby that she was with when it happened. She told me she was happy at the time.”
It was the first time he’d admitted to anyone but family what he could do. Ray didn’t tell him he was nuts, didn’t tell him he was lying. What would be the point in that? The man probably knew more about clients than he did.
“A semi. And she didn’t suffer any.” He nodded. She’d told him that as well. “I’m sorry, son. I’m sorrier than I can ever tell you.”
Steele nodded and rolled to his side away from the man. His entire life was ruined. Everything, all the people in his life, were going to leave him because of this curse. When someone stepped in front of him, another ghost, he closed his eyes. He was never going to help them again. Not ever.
Steele Bennett was going to go on with his life as if none of them existed. As of right now, he was out of the ghost helping business. He knew as surely as he was laying there that the chances of this really happening were slim to none. He’d made a promise and for his sister, he would have to keep it.
Chapter 1
Twelve years later.
Kari Briggs watched the two men as they stood talking. She wasn’t going to say anything to anyone this time. She didn’t care what they did or who they did it to. She was sick of people. Turning her back to them, she wiped down the already spotless bar and continued her way down it until she was nearest the door.