Dead. An instant image flashed into his mind, her crying out for him, begging him to find her, save her.
He lurched to the stairs, stumbled. Fell. Half scrambled, half crawled, half ran upstairs to the bedroom—shrugging away from Gill’s too-fucking-helpful hands—to the one place where her scent would be strongest. His bed.
He careened into the bedroom. Sheets gone. Pillows missing. Another fucking loss. He sank down, face to the stripped mattress and sucked in a lungful of her honeyed scent.
Tears scalded his eyes. Exhaustion took over his body.
*
Lathan woke nose mashed to mattress, a diffuse misery pervading his soul. For a moment, he didn’t remember why his body and heart hurt. Then he remembered. He wanted to forget. Wished he had an erase button on his brain. But he didn’t. There was only one way to forget, but he couldn’t go down death’s highway until he finished one last task—find her body.
He struggled to his feet. Guilt and grief threatened to drive him to his knees, to force him into a lump of useless sobbing. He knew how to get beyond the feeling. In the past, he’d tattooed himself until the bliss of physical pain overwhelmed all the mental shit, but he was a thousand miles beyond tattooing.
He found the knife in his dresser drawer—a long-forgotten Christmas gift from Gill when they were in that awkward teenage state where they felt like they had to give meaningless gifts to each other to solidify their friendship.
He carried the knife into the bathroom. The mirror reflected a haunted, hollowed-out man that he didn’t recognize visually, but he felt exactly like that asshole looked. Like the breathing dead.
The knife felt clumsy in his hand—a cheap hilt, not balanced for performance. Didn’t matter. He pressed the blade into his arm. The first stroke across his skin brought little pain and even less satisfaction. He bore down. Should’ve used a jagged, rusted, serrated blade. Blood welled in his cleaved skin and dripped down his arm. He worked over his flesh, concentrating on lengthening, deepening the strokes, until her name was carved in bold, beautiful letters from the inside of his elbow to his wrist. Warm scarlet streamers chased down his arm, tickling and caressing his skin. Sensation smoldered, ignited into a scorching burn. Finally.
Like an old friend, pain obliged. He held his arm over the sink, closed his eyes, and savored the momentary physical release.
Underneath his feet, he felt the vibration of Gill coming up the stairs, then entering the room. Didn’t want to see the condemnation in his friend’s face. Didn’t want to talk about it.
Grabbing Lathan’s arm, Gill slapped a towel around the bleeding and applied pressure. More blessed pain. A nirvana of pain.
Gill yanked on Lathan’s arm, startling his eyes open.
“You fucking trying to kill yourself?” Gill smelled like anger and wood and blood. Odd combination.
“Not yet.” Total truth in those words.
“Listen. It’s not over until—”
“We find her body.” Saying the words didn’t hurt as much as Lathan had thought it would, but that was probably because adrenaline was choking off his emotions.
The tension on Gill’s face melted, but he didn’t say anything. He lifted the towel. Honey—her name in weeping scarlet letters.
“You have company.”
“Don’t want visitors.”
“Dr. Stone says it’s important. He’s got Xander, Isleen, and Evanee’s brother with him. Says it’s about Evanee.”
Evanee—his magic word. But nothing any of them could say was going to make this situation better.
“Take a shower. Bandage yourself up, then come downstairs.” Gill stepped back. “Or do I need to babysit your ass to make sure you don’t do anything stupid?”
Lathan flicked his middle finger in the air, a teasing response so Gill would stop riding his ass. The tang of cedar scented the air around Gill—fucking pity. Didn’t want to see it expressed on his friend’s face, but Lathan felt so goddamned sorry for himself that he didn’t have the gumption to be pissed about Gill feeling the same way he did.
Lathan stared off across the bathroom to the shower—the place Honey had sat, water scalding her skin, anguish tearing her soul. So much hurt in her life, and he’d barely had a chance to give her happiness. What might have been if she was still alive? He would’ve asked her to marry him. Would’ve made her happy. Would’ve given her kids—if she wanted them—something that he’d never dared to think about before he’d met her.
Lathan crossed the room and knelt at the spot Honey had occupied. He placed both hands on the slate, yearning to feel some connection with her by simply touching a place she’d once been. But he felt nothing. Nothing. When he looked back, Gill was gone, along with the knife and the shaving razor. Figures. Lathan tore off the bandage on his chest, didn’t bother examining the scab and bruises blooming outward from the wound. He stripped out of the scrub pants, stepped under the spray.
The water was liquid fire to her name carved in his arm. He held it directly under the spray, absorbing the pain, savoring it. He stayed in the shower until the water ran like ice and his body quaked from the cold. The torment he’d put himself under slowed the exsanguination of his soul to a trickle and gave him enough strength to begin the search for her body.
He dressed and headed downstairs to face life without her in it. Before he even reached the bottom step, he could smell the difference in his home. The overwhelming stench of rotting blood was nearly gone. Gill had transformed his kitchen from slaughterhouse to construction zone. The floor had been stripped to the joists. Bet he was going to catch hell from his superiors for destroying a crime scene. If he kept this nice shit up, Lathan was going to feel guilty for wanting to end it. Maybe that’s why Gill was doing it. Fucker knew him too well.