LOVE ME TO DEATH - Chapter 7

Maggie Shayne
7 hours ago
8 min read

A chapter-a-day for 10 days! Your Halloween Treat from Maggie Shayne

David stared at her as emotions he hadn’t even known he could feel roiled inside him more powerfully than the waves crashing to the shore below. They rocked him, and he couldn’t even identify most of them.

He didn’t know what to say to her. He just stood there, very close to her, staring at her beautiful face and searching for words.

But she spoke before he could. She said, “I’m sorry.”

He felt the shock rip through him anew, maybe because her speaking to him meant she was real. She was real.

“How...?” He lifted a hand with the unfinished question, and it was trembling when he moved it closer, the backs of his slightly bent fingers brushing over her cheek, making her eyes fall closed. “God, you’re really here,” he whispered.

“No,” she said. “Not…not the way you think.” She swung her head sideways, her dark eyes widening as she looked toward the house. “What happened?” she asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Yes, you do.” She met David’s eyes again, and he felt her willing him to be honest with her.

“I saw him in the window—one of your friends. I couldn’t tell which one. But I know he saw me, and something happened. Was it his heart?”

“It was Brad, and yes, I think so.”

The paramedics loaded him into the back of the ambalance and it trundled away. Sara lowered her head, shaking it slowly. “I never meant to hurt any of them. I only wanted to talk to Mark Potter—he was the only one of you still in town, and I had so many questions—”

Tears filled her eyes and a sob choked off whatever remained of her words.

“I have questions, too,” David said. “I don’t—understand. Was it someone else who died in that fire, Sierra?”

“Oh, no, that’s not—”

“And if it was, why did you wait so long to say anything? Why let us—especially me—go on believing—”

“It wasn’t—”

“Do you know what that did to me? And God, why haven’t you aged in all this time? I mean, you’d have to–”

“I’m not Sierra!”

He finally stopped speaking and just stared at her, blinking in disbelief.

“My name is Sara Jensen. I’m twenty-two. I’m an art teacher from New Hampshire. I am not Sierra Terrence. I just–”

“If you’re not her, what are you doing here?”

The ambulance pulled away and he turned to watch it go, wondering how Brad was doing and feeling guilty for not being with him.

“This is a conversation that’s going to take a while,” she said. “And one we need to have—I mean, I need to have it. Sierra seems to be...all wrapped up in my life right now. And I don’t think she’s going away until I find out why. But...”

Her eyes moved over his face again and again, like a caress. She looked at him as if she was having trouble not touching him. And he got that, because he felt the same.

“Let’s not do this standing on the side of the road,” she said.

He nodded, and realized he was looking at her just as longingly as she was looking at him.

“We’ll go to the house.” He reached for her as if to take her hand, as if it was the most natural thing in the world to do, but then he stopped himself, frowning.

She noticed, and for some reason, she closed the gap between his hand hovering in the air, and her own. She slid her palm against his, and he felt a shower of sparks shooting outward from his chest into every other part of his body as he closed his hand around hers.

“I just don’t want to…cause any more harm,” she said. “When the others see me—”

“I’m pretty sure they all went to the hospital. They took the rental car.”

“Good. Then I don’t want to be here when they get back,” she said.

He nodded as they walked up the road, into the driveway, and toward the front door. Once inside, he waved her toward the sofa and opened the fridge. “I can offer you hot coffee, cold beer, or tap water.”

“Nothing, thanks.” She sat on the sofa, watching him. He didn’t take anything either, and came to sit beside her. “Do you want to call and check on him?”

“It’s too soon,” he said. “Besides, the guys will call me the minute they have anything to report. Why don’t we get to you? Is there some reason you’re avoiding the subject of what you’re doing here?”

She nodded, to his surprise. “Because it’s going to sound like I’m crazy.” She lowered her eyes. “Maybe I am.”

“Why don’t you just start at the beginning?”

She tried to relax, he thought. At least she unclenched her fists and leaned back on the sofa. “Okay. Okay. I’m an artist. I paint when I’m not teaching. I’ve been painting several pieces where the focal point is a house. Always the same house.”

“The Muller House?” he asked, knowing it without needing any confirmation.

She met his eyes and nodded. “Yes, although I’d never seen it before. Not until I came here the other day.”

“Then how could you paint it?”

“I don’t know. I’ve been having nightmares where I’m trapped inside that house as it burns. I painted that scene, too, and there were five shadows on the snow outside, as if five people were standing there.”

He said nothing for a long moment. And then, finally, his guilt burning in his belly, he said, “We did it. The five of us, Mark, Brad, Kevin, Randy and I. We set the fire that killed you. But I guess you already knew that, or you wouldn’t be stalking us.”

“Her.”

“What?” He lifted his gaze to meet her eyes.

“You set the fire that killed her. I’m not Sierra, remember?”

He nodded slowly, but he couldn’t take his eyes off her. “God, you look like her.”

“I know. I saw her yearbook photo and thought I was going to pass out. But I’m telling you, I’m not her. I didn’t even know what I was painting was a real house—what I was dreaming about, a real event—until my new roommate, Nikki, moved in. She saw the paintings, and she’s from here. She told me the story. I didn’t really believe her. Not until I came here. Not until I saw that house, and… and you.”

“Me?”

“The yearbook photo. It was so...I don’t know. It shook me and touched me and jolted me all at once. The photos of the others didn’t...it wasn’t the same.”

He nodded slowly. “That would make sense, I guess, if you were her. But you’re not.”

She slid a little closer to him on the sofa and he noticed, reacted, deep down on a gut level, but held it inside.

“I’ve been having... other dreams, too. Dreams where….” She lowered her eyes. “Were you and Sierra–?”

“No.” He said it too fast, still shaken by what she’d said. She’d been having other dreams. And then asking about sex. Hell, had she been dreaming the things he had?

He cleared his throat, tried again. “I mean—hell, I don’t know. We never dated. I wanted to and I think she did, too. We were friends, though. And I was working up the nerve to tell her I wanted more when she disappeared.”

“Oh.” She drew a breath. “I was out there, at the house.”

“I thought I saw you there,” he said.

She nodded. “I saw you, too. And then someone else. Only, I’m beginning to think I imagined her.” She lowered her head into her hands. “God, I’ve cost two men their lives, and now I think my sanity is slipping, as well. I can’t sleep for the dreams. Or barely function for the longing they leave behind. I can’t—”

“Easy.” He put his hands on her shoulders, amazed yet again that she was real. She lifted her head to blink into his eyes, and they were brimming with tears and swirling with emotion. “You didn’t cost anyone their life, at least not that we know of. In fact, we’re the ones guilty of that.”

“Then why were you the ones I wanted to cry out to for help?”

He blinked and stared harder at her, but this close, it was difficult to rein in the incredible urge to pull her closer, to kiss her. “What do you mean?” he asked.

“In the dream—in the dream, I was trying to call out to you for help. The last time, I did. I screamed your name, David, even though I didn’t know who you were.”

He shook his head. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

“The Indian woman said you were my soulmate.” She met his eyes, but then it seemed she had to look away. “But she thought I was Sierra. She said I had come back, because there was something that had to be made right, and that I wouldn’t know peace until I learned what it was, and fixed it.”

“What Indian woman?” he asked.

“The one who seems to be a figment of my imagination.”

“Come on, tell me about her.”

She sighed, shaking her head. “She said she lived in the bright yellow house on Maple Street. She told me my father was still alive, and in the trailer park further up. Only she was talking about Sierra’s father, I think. She said her name was Padma.”

David sat there, gaping more with every word she spoke, and when she looked at him again she had to see it. But before he could speak, his phone started ringing.

He yanked it out, barely able to tear his eyes from hers long enough to glance down at the screen. But then his attention was caught. “It’s Randy.”

“Go ahead, please. I’m as eager for news as you are.” She lowered her head, whispering what sounded like a prayer as he answered.

“How is he?” he asked without preamble.

“Had a heart attack, but he’s stable now. They say they won’t know how much damage was done until all the tests are back, but he’s probably going to need a catheterization. His arteries are plugged full of plaque.”

“That’s no surprise.”

“So did you find the girl?” Randy asked.

“She’s sitting here with me now, as a matter of fact.”

“You…you’re kidding, right?”

“No, and she’s not a ghost. She’s just an ordinary young woman who bears a striking resemblance to Sierra and wanted to know more about her. She never meant to hurt anyone. And we can hardly blame her for Mark freaking out and running into the path of a truck at the first glimpse of her, or Brad’s poor, long-abused heart failing because she startled him. Hell, the way he was eating and drinking, he might have collapsed before morning anyway.”

“Oh, I’m with you there. Still.. there’s more to this than you’re telling me, isn’t there?”

David sighed. “We really haven’t figured it out yet, Randy. But we’re working on it.”

“Good enough. Look, we’re going to stay with Brad for a while. Then we’ll head home. I’ll fill Kevin in so he doesn’t stroke out when he sees the Sierra look-alike, in case you guys are still there when we get back.”

“Okay.” David pocketed the phone and lifted his head. “Brad’s stable. His arteries were clogged, and you didn’t have anything to do with that. The timing, maybe, but this was going to happen, and soon, with or without you.”

She nodded. “Thanks for saying that.”

“So what do you want to do, Si... Sara?”

She blinked slowly. “I want to find out whether I’m sane or not. Whether Padma was real or a hallucination. That’s first. And then, if I’m not crazy, then I need to find out what it is that needs to be made right—and—and fix it, I guess.”

He nodded. “Padma’s real. I can take you to her, if you want.”

She lifted her eyes to his, stunned beyond words. “What?”

“Will you come with me?” he asked.

Sara nodded hard. “Yes. God, yes. I need to start finding some answers.”

“So do I,” David said, unable to look away from her face. Her beautiful, beloved face.