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I focused on the breathing as I felt the clawing blackness of shame, bitterness and debilitating fear creep around inside of me. It would rip me open and devour me whole if I let it, but I’d gotten better at controlling those emotions and pushing them back. I couldn’t lose control yet. I’d end up on huddled on the floor like all the times before.
“I should’ve died,” I said, my voice steady for once. “I know that just as sure as I know I’m standing here. And I accepted it when Jeremy Mooney’s hands were wrapped around my throat. You know what I was thinking the whole time I was dying, Vaughn? Do you?”
Vaughn had gotten very quiet, and I turned around to face him.
“I thought,Thank God. Someone besides me has finally decided that nothing good has ever come from my family. I didn’t particularly want to die, but I understood there was a certain price to be paid for everyone who’d come before me.”
“Bullshit, Jaye.”
I stopped in my tracks because Vaughn never cursed. He never got angry. Except tonight apparently.
“Yes, you’ve got a hell of a gene pool. Your parents were felons. Your grandparents were assholes. And no one with the last name of Graves, as far as I know, understood the meaning of compassion or how to love and protect the people closest to them. They were the bad seeds. Not you. You got all the good that they should’ve had.”
“I can’t talk about this now,” I said, wiping at my eyes. God, Ihatedcrying. I never cried. It was a useless reaction to things that were out of my control.
“And that’s okay. Just know that any of us will be here if you need us. And we’ll listen. I’m going to give you one piece of advice,” he said. There was no sign of the teasing man I’d known most of my life. Only a face filled with sorrow and honesty. “If I had to do it all over again I would have fought harder for Daniel. I wouldn’t have let him walk away without letting him know how I really felt. My pride got hung up in it. He might have made a different decision if I’d told him. We might have come to a compromise, or he might have still walked away. But I’ll never know because I let him walk without fighting for him. And now he’s dead. He might still be alive if I hadn’t been such a coward.”
My own problems disappeared and guilt bombarded me as I remembered that I should’ve been comforting him instead of the other way around. His lover had just died and I was standing here feeling sorry for myself. Then I realized what he was saying. It was easy to feel guilt when you survived. I knew that well enough.
I marched over to him and got in his face, deciding anger was a better emotion that the others that wanted to take control.
“Or you could be just as dead as he is. Don’t you blame yourself for this. You had nothing to do with what those monsters did to him. And I’m scared for you. It could’ve been you I stumbled across this morning.”
The corner of his mouth quirked up slightly. “Everybody knows who and what I am, Jaye. They’ve known for years, and they still patronize my business, and kids are still allowed to trick-or-treat at my house. I’m eccentric and my family is rooted here. You’ve got no reason to be scared for me.”
I raked my hand through my hair at his stubbornness. “You can’t know that for sure. They could be biding their time. Promise me you’ll be careful.”
The door buzzer sounded again just before I heard the key turn in the lock. I took a step toward the drawer where I’d stashed my gun before I remembered Jack had keys to everything. Vaughn squeezed my shoulder gently and moved back to his seat when I tensed under his grip.
Now that Jack was here, I pretty much wanted to be anywhere else. Vaughn’s words rang in my ears, and suddenly it was easy to see things I’d been missing all these years. I needed to focus on the dead. Not the living. The dead were much easier to deal with.
Chapter Nine
“Hey, man,” Jack said, slapping Vaughn on the shoulder before setting the various plastic bags he had down on the counter. “I guess you heard about the S’mores. It’s damned hard to keep a secret in this town.”
“Ain’t that the truth,” Vaughn said.
Jack plunked a six-pack of beer on the table in front of us and then systematically put away all the groceries he’d picked up on the way, more at home in a kitchen than I could ever hope to be.
“You both look like you could use one of these. Jaye has her guilty face on. I must have missed a hell of a conversation.”
Vaughn laughed and I felt my hackles rise. “I don’t have a guilty face,” I protested.
“Sweetheart, you’re the worst liar I’ve ever met,” Jack said. “It’s why you owe me eleven-thousand dollars in lost poker money.”
“I can’t possible owe you that much.”
“And seventy-seven cents,” he said with a wink.
I felt the blush heat my face and cursed Vaughn for his need to make me see things clearly.
Vaughn only laughed harder and reached for the beer. “I could use one of these.” He twisted off the top and then went to get a pilsner glass from the cabinet. Jack and I would just drink out of the bottle like heathens.
“Did you eat?” Jack asked me, pulling out sandwich fixings from the bag he’d brought in and making himself at home. I was contemplating whether or not I should lie when he said, “I’ll take your silence as a no.”
“I’ve been a little busy.” I knew I sounded like a petulant child, and I kicked lightly at the island before taking a sip of beer. “Why are you always trying to feed me? I’m not hungry. And if either one of you mentions again how my clothes don’t fit right I’m going to knock you in the teeth.”
Vaughn studied his fingernails and Jackhmmedand went about the business of finishing the sandwiches. By the time he set the plates down in front of us and added an open bag of chips, my mouth was watering. So maybe I was a little hungry after all. Jack took his place at the empty barstool and we all dug in.
