The Poet (Samantha Jazz)

Ava’s twenty-three, single, and alone, which I find to be the case in most who have sinned. They’re incapable of attracting love. In her case, her parents are no longer living; her one sibling, a brother, is too wrapped up in his Wall Street career to think of her. Ava herself is a student at the university, with big plans to be an English professor. That will never happen. I won’t allow her to spread her sin to those who wish to study the great works.

Ava gathers her books together and packs them away inside a leather bag before heading in my direction. I expect her to walk by, but she surprises me by stopping at my table. “Hi.”

Isn’t this an interesting twist? “Hello.”

“You’re here often.”

Her tone is flirty, interest in the depths of her eyes. I do like to think I’m a respectfully attractive man, with a bit of a movie star look, I’m told, with sandy blond hair and blue eyes. “I am.” I don’t offer more. I never offer more than necessary.

“Would you like to join me for a cup of coffee?”

I indicate my wedding ring. “I’m a married man.”

She offers a coy look. “I won’t hold that against you.”

The book she’s signed and checked out here in this very library requires that I assess her and judge her. This process demands time and observation. She’s certainly offering me an exceptional opportunity that I’m not foolish enough to take. “With regret,” I say, “I must decline.”

She pales, disappointment bleeding into her expression. “Right. Of course not. You’re married. Sorry about that.” She doesn’t wait for my reply. She hurries away and I push to my feet, prepared to follow her.

Chapter 81

After hours of work, I sit in my bed with the air cranked to arctic, a cup of hot chocolate in my hand, and fighting the sleep I need desperately for one reason: it’s a nightmare kind of night. That’s a secret I keep. When I’m high strung before bed, as I am now, and since my father’s murder, I suffer from intense nightmares. Somehow in those weeks after his death, with Wade by my side, I endured them without him finding out but they were part of the reason I needed a break in our relationship. I thought if I could just get some time to myself to heal, I’d conquer them.

I was wrong.

I stare at the clock: one a.m. Two. I force myself to turn out the lights and lie down. Now the room is dark and icy cold, the kind of cold that can freeze a person to death, not the kind of cold that allows a deep, restful sleep. Shivering, I pull the blanket to my chin, blinking into the inky black of my bedroom. The heaviness of nights spent tossing and turning weigh on me, but I dread the moment I drown in my own mind. I command myself to sleep. I command myself to stay awake, to fight the sleep where I have suffocated in nightmares for the past five nights, but I fail. The haze of a light slumber is a merciless quicksand dragging me under. And then I’m there, in my own personal hell, inside yet another nightmare, but it feels as if I’m awake, a spirit hanging over my own comatose body, watching a distorted reality of my past life events playing out in the present day.

This night, it starts with me on a playground, on a swing, the wind whipping viciously around me. Leaves and dirt gust in the air, wickedly twisting and turning, tormented by the force of the storm. It’s calm where I am, where I swing and sing a song that I can’t make out. I’m always on this swing, and I try to figure out how old I am, but I can’t.

Another second later, I’m in a pitch-black walkway behind the fence, shouting at the man running away from me, but he’s still running. Pushing past the burn in my legs, I charge toward him, ready to make an arrest. I’ve almost caught him when he halts, turning to face me, a flash of steel following. His gun is pointed at me. My heart dances to the beat of a scared animal prepared to attack to survive, ready to claw its way to its next breath. That’s where this chase has taken us. It’s me or him, and he doesn’t live and I die. I pull the trigger and time stands still, the swish of my own blood in my veins echoing in my ears. The man collapses on the ground, a limp rag doll. I fight the rest of the nightmare. I refuse to approach the body. I can’t approach the body. I can’t relive what happens next.

I can feel my body thrashing around, fighting my mind, but I can’t escape its torment. As if punishing me for my resistance, I’m transported to another place, back at another familiar crime scene. I’m kneeling in front of Dave’s dead body, where it’s bound to a chair, just one of many victims, another victim of a killer who seems indiscriminate in his choices. It’s true he kills the young, the old, the beautiful, the deformed, but they all have one thing in common: they’ve been judged unworthy.