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“What happened to your Viper, anyway? I figured the rental was just until you got it reupholstered.”
He shrugged. “It was, but I’ve been admiring this bike for a while anyway and decided to just sell the car to the shop. Even with the upholstery I made three grand on it.”
I frowned, beginning to notice a dark scent in the air. It seemed like it had been there for a while but I had not registered it until now. I looked at Frost and quickly turned away from the sight of Justin’s blood soaking his jacket, the source of the grim smell. “You’re not taking me to my apartment, are you?” I asked.
“I am, but only long enough for you to fill a duffel bag.”
“Suppose I don’t own a duffel bag?”
“I planned on that. There’s one in the seat of the bike.”
I rolled my eyes. “Do I get a say in this?”
Frost laughed sardonically. “Did you really think you would?”
My silence was my answer as we approached the motorcycle.
THIRTEEN
There is a white fog around me, but it’s different than in Edgar’s ‘conference room’. It is thinner, wet, more real. I step forward on uneven ground that I notice is cobblestones. As I walk forward, I begin to recognize smells. There is the scent of rain, grass, moss, and something thick and floral. The air is warm and heavy, humid. As I step onward on the stones, grass begins to materialize on either side of me, interrupted by bushes and beds of flowers. Somewhere ahead a girl giggles shyly. I am approaching her and the fog is slowly thinning, revealing a small, beautiful garden around me, bordered by high brick walls. Under a large moss-covered tree in the center, seated on a bench, are a dark-haired boy and the girl, wearing early nineteenth century attire. They sit close together, their hands clasped between them. She is smiling and giggling, blushing as he whispers in her ear, her eyes large and dark. Something about her eyes is vaguely familiar.
The boy turns towards me, not seeing me, to point out a rosebush to her. He is probably only sixteen or seventeen, but still unmistakable.
Edgar Allan Poe.
I can’t quite hear him, but he seems to be reciting something to her. Knowing that he was gifted with memorizing from his very early youth, I had no way to guess as to his words. They could’ve been anything. When he grew quiet, the girl stared into his grey eyes, smiling broadly. “Oh, Edgar,” she said softly.
“I love you, Elmira,” Edgar said, a sure grin on his face, and warmth in his voice. “I’m going to marry you someday, I promise you that. No matter what your father or the Allans think.”
Elmira took one hand from his to wipe away a tear. “Right here, Edgar. I want it right here in our secret garden.”
“Then here it will be, darling,” he assured her. Then, he cradled her head in his hand and kissed her.
The fog began to close in again and Edgar, in a voice so broken and terrible that it brought tears to my eyes, wailed, “Nevermore!”
I shuddered and sat upright in bed, staring into the dark room around me. For just a moment, I tried to catch my breath, then began to cry silently. Through my tears, my eyes adjusted and Frost’s bedroom began to take form around me. Shaking, I lied back down, alone on the large bed, and lied on my side, breathing in the scent of him. The warm, soft scent drifted to me and soothed me back to sleep.
----
He heard her crying and lied there, waiting for her to call for him or come out to the living room to find him. But she did not call or leave the bedroom and after awhile, quieted on her own. He wasn’t sure if he was glad of it. He wanted her to be able to help herself, but he wanted to be there for her too.
Frost wished he had been able to fall asleep. Hearing Poe go back to sleep on her own meant that he could have gotten at least four hours straight. His mind was spinning like mad, though, and sleep fluttered just out of his reach all night as he chased it. He wanted to know who had shot Justin. Plenty of people in the bar had known he and Justin and they would have called him if they had caught the guy. And, in the aftermath of the confusion, he kept asking himself if he had known about the shooter a second earlier who he would have protected. He couldn’t block both Poe and Justin and he didn’t known for certain who the shooter was intending to kill. Shooting a cop in a cop bar was beyond stupidity; it was suicide. But, if it was tied to Poe’s curse, it would not be so ridiculous. It was not so far-fetched to believe that the curse could kill Poe by just taking away every place she felt safe. She would be her own downfall.
But who would he have taken a bullet for? Poe or Justin? He didn’t know and it scared the hell out of him.
And that made him think about protecting Poe, which was like trying to catch smoke in his bare hands. They only needed forensics to confirm Jonathan Aaron’s fingerprints in Poe’s apartment and they would be able to put him on trial for everything he had done to her, but he was still a threat. And of course, that bitch of a curse that apparently would start annihilating them before they could blink. Perhaps that had been the curse that shot Justin. And there was Poe’s increasingly unstable mind. When he had met her, she had been like an ice queen. Being an ice queen was not a good thing by any means, but she was under control and had a handle on her life. And ever since he’d met her, he had watched cracks in her icy makeup widen and lengthen until pieces of her began to shatter and fall away. If she wasn’t careful, the curse wouldn’t need to bother with killing her. She would destroy herself.
His mind raced, as it often did lately, to his conversation with Dr. Robinson the night she was released from the hospital, probably three days too early, after Mr. Aaron’s attempt on her life. Every word of the conversation echoed in his mind with perfect, pristine clarity, as if he had recorded it and filed it for future reference.
“Doctor Robinson,” Frost asked confidentially. Robinson’s eyebrows tilted in concern and suspicion at the tone. “There is something I need to ask you about. When I found Poe, I went to check the wound in her side and found a scar….” The doctor’s expression immediately shifted almost imperceptibly, but just enough that a cop could catch it. Frost looked around at the nurses and orderlies bustling about, none of them paying the slightest attention. He took a step closer to Robinson and lowered his voice to a whisper. “You know what I’m talking about. I need to know what happened to her. She didn’t get that from a car accident or any surgeon.”
Robinson’s jaw was as hard as granite. “I’m sorry, Frost. That would be a serious breach of doctor-patient confidentiality. Even in a question of life and death, it is an extremely touchy thing to divulge medical information, particularly to a non-family member.”
Frost gritted his teeth. “You don’t understand. It is a life and death situation. She is barely sane, much less emotionally stable. Whatever happened to her is destroying her and as a detective and someone who has had personal experience with suicide, I am in shock that she is still alive.”
“If you have reason to believe her suicidal, then I would refer her to a psychiatrist or therapy program. If you think it serious enough, then apply to have her checked into the psych ward.”
The words were spoken in a professional and placating tone, purely offering advice, but the image that came with them of Poe locked in a white cell, losing her mind, made him physically ill. Sharply, Frost answered, “She’s been seeing a psychiatrist for years and it doesn’t seem to be helping. I can’t check her into a psych ward.” He looked down briefly at his hands, for a moment almost thinking he could see the shackles that bound him to her. His eyes returned to Robinson. “It would be easier to have my hands amputated.”
