“Not yet.” If she was dead, her spirit would be here, hounding him still.
“Did she tell you where the second bomb was?”
“No. I don’t know when or where, or even if the bomb is real.”
An ambulance was already on the scene, and the paramedics rushed forward as the three of them hurried from the building. Gideon didn’t know what Tabby had taken, so he couldn’t be much help. He did warn the EMTs to keep her restrained, in case she did come to. Anyone in her path was likely to end up dead if she woke up.
Gideon spotted one of the private security guards he’d hired to watch The Silver Chalice and the apartment above. He made his way roughly through the crowd of cops and onlookers, and grabbed the man by the collar, slamming him against the wall. “Where the hell were you?”
The kid didn’t put up a fight. “While everyone was rushing out of the store, a woman’s purse got snatched. She screamed, and people were running and talking about a bomb. It was a mess, and I was distracted. I’m sorry.”
“Where’s the other guard?” Gideon asked. “I specifically asked for two people to be on duty at all times.”
The kid—and he really was just a kid—paled. “Joe went to the hospital in the first ambulance. He was checking the perimeter of the building, and a woman out back stabbed him in the gut. He was hurting, but he was able to tell the officers what happened before the ambulance left. The paramedics said he’ll be all right.”
Gideon released the boy and shook off his anger, running agitated fingers through his hair and turning away. Hope was talking to her mother, maybe making explanations or offering daughterly, calming words. When their eyes met, she placed a hand on her mother’s arm, patted it gently and then walked away, heading for Gideon.
He wrapped his arms around her and held on as they met, not caring who was watching or what they thought.
“I love you,” he whispered.
“Love you, too,” she said comfortably, as if she’d already accepted everything. Their love, Emma, who and what he was, who and what she would become. Amazing, for a woman who just a few days ago had admitted without reservation that she didn’t believe in anything she couldn’t see or touch.
“Let’s go home,” she said as she smoothed a wayward strand of hair from his cheek. “We can leave word for the hospital to call us if Tabby wakes up. Or if she doesn’t. I just want to go home.”
There was such longing in her voice as she said the word. Home. His house. Their house. “Yeah. I just have one thing to do first.”
He released Hope and turned to face what was left of Lily Clark’s ghost. She was fading at last. “Thanks.”
The spirit smiled at him, almost shyly. “I did help, didn’t I?”
“I couldn’t have done it without you.”
The justice she’d demanded had been done, but Lily wasn’t quite ready to go. Her smile faded. “If she dies, will she be there? Where I’m going? Will I have to face her all over again?”
Gideon didn’t have to ask who she was. “No. Tabby’s going to another place.” He didn’t know where or how, and didn’t want to, but he knew for sure that Lily wouldn’t be seeing her killer again.
Lily glanced up as she began to fade away. “They’re so proud of you,” she said, her voice growing distant.
“Who?”
“Your mom and dad. They’re so…” Lily Clark didn’t fade. She simply disappeared with a small and distinct pop that only Gideon heard.
How odd, that this house was home. Not her mother’s apartment, not the house she’d grown up in, not her Raleigh apartment where she’d lived for years. Here.
The hospital had called not five minutes after they’d walked into the house. Tabby was dead. They knew from the remains of the capsule in her mouth and the way she’d died that it was a poison of some kind that had killed her, but they hadn’t yet identified the toxin. It could be days before they
knew exactly what it was.
Hope planned to call the lab on Monday morning and harass them about the dust Tabby had thrown into Gideon’s face. Maybe the two drugs were related somehow.
Gideon was distracted. He’d undressed her slowly and made love to her without saying a word. Tonight he didn’t cheat. He didn’t arouse her with caresses colored with lightning or make her come with a touch of his hand. He just pushed inside her body and stroked until she climaxed hard, and then he found his own release in her. He did still glow in the dark a little, though, her own personal flashlight.
Eventually the warm glow faded, and he pulled her body against his and held on tight. If not for his breathing and the way one hand occasionally caressed her, she would have thought he had fallen asleep. But he hadn’t. He was nowhere near sleep. She felt it; she knew it because she knew him.
“You can tell me anything, Gideon,” she whispered. “What are you thinking about right now?”
At first she thought he was going to ignore her, and then he answered, “I never saw my parents.”