All of that was just cognitive dissonance, however, a strategy to avoid the request.
Deciding to man up, she said, “Do you know why I don’t wear one?”
“You have a death wish.”
“My father had one on, and that was the reason he was killed in that car accident.” As Matthias turned around slowly, she nodded. “The seat belt trapped him in place. Without it, he would have bounced out of his seat and not had half his body crushed. See, his vehicle hit one of those flatbeds that carries lawn equipment? And the metal edge of it penetrated through the door. When the paramedics got to him, he was still alive, because the compression was slowing the blood loss down. Hell, he was even still conscious. He…” She had to clear her throat. “He knew he was going to die there in that goddamn car. The instant they cut him loose, he was going to hemorrhage out—and he…he knew it. He was awake and aware—he must have been in such pain. I don’t…I don’t know how anyone deals with that moment. But you know what he did?”
“Tell me,” Matthias said quietly.
For a second, Mels got lost in the confrontation she’d had afterward in his sergeant’s office—when his boss had refused to give her details of the death.
But damn it, she was Carmichael’s daughter, and she had a right to know.
“First, he wanted to be sure the suspect had been apprehended—and he got on his high horse when it turned out that his colleagues had focused on him instead.” She had to laugh a little. “Then he…he made them swear that my mother would never find out the way he died. He wanted her to think it had been instantaneous—and that’s what she believes. I’m the only one in the family who knows how…how much he suffered. Finally, he told them to look after Mom—he was really concerned about her. Not me, though. He wasn’t worried about me, he said. I was tough like he was….I was his strong, independent daughter—”
As she choked up, tears pricked.
Then fell silently.
She wiped her cheek. “Finding out he thought of me like that was actually the proudest moment of my life.”
There was a heartbeat of quiet. Then another. Then so many more.
Strange, she thought. That moment in the sergeant’s office had changed her life, and yet she had compartmentalized it and frozen it as part of a past that was something to be left behind.
And yet now, in this hotel room, with Matthias focused on her, and Jim Heron throwing up his liver on the other side of the wall…things began to weave together, the past and the present like a pair of boxcar trains that had finally been pushed close enough together to lock on.
She brought herself back into focus. “Anyway, ever since I found out the specifics, I haven’t been able to…” She cleared her throat. “It’s not a death wish—call it a misappropriation of logic, maybe, but I don’t want to die.”
God knew, she didn’t want to die.
As Matthias came over to her and sat down, she got ready to be hit with all kinds of, But you know the statistics, chances are you won’t be in the same position he was, blah, blah, blah.
Instead, he just put his arms around her.
It was curiously devastating, the kindness, the protection, the silent understanding.
Leaning into his chest, she said, “I’ve never told anyone that before.”
She felt him kiss the top of her head, and with a shudder, she gave herself over to his strength—and it was phenomenal.
She hadn’t had a clue the burden she’d been carrying around all these years by herself.
Funny, as they sat close together, the warmth from their bodies magnifying, she decided that he had told her he loved her with an apology…and she had reciprocated with that story.
Proof that profound things could be said using lots of different vocabularies.
“He needs to lie down.”
As Adrian spoke up from the bathroom doorway, Matthias held her closer. “He can have this bed.”
“Thanks, man.”
Mels went to get up, and was surprised when Matthias came with her. And then the two of them ended up on the wing chair and footstool by the window, with her sprawled out along his body.
It was as if he couldn’t bear to ever let her go.
And she felt the same.
40
Adrian carried Jim to the bed and tucked his worn-out ass in. The poor bastard was shaking badly, his skeleton rattling against its prison of skin, trying to get free—but at least he wasn’t sick to his stomach anymore.
As Ad straightened, he glanced across the room. Matthias and Mels were in a chair together, the woman with her head on the man’s shoulder.
It was pretty damn clear that Devina had tried to throw some mojo around with the reporter, and Jim had obviously not stood for that shit. Made you wonder what kind of condition Devina was in.
Talk about walking with a limp. An angel could only hope.
“You guys want food,” he said to the lovebirds.
“Doesn’t he need a doctor?” Matthias shot back.
“Just time.”
“What’s wrong with him?”
“Food poisoning.”
“Bullshit.”
Ad glanced at Mels pointedly and kept his yap shut. It was no disrespect to the reporter—and it wasn’t because she was of the fairer sex, either. Matthias was one of them: He’d been to Hell, and he knew Devina even if he didn’t totally remember her. He was also inextricably mixed up in all this.
Mels, however, was not, and the less she knew, the tighter in the head she was going to be when all this was over—assuming she survived: It could be a real shocker to discover exactly how much of reality was malleable, and how many nightmares were true. And once you’d had that mental download, it was impossible to return to the halcyon days of only worrying about your dry cleaning and your property taxes and whether you had enough milk for your cereal in the morning.
This truism pretty much explained all of after-midnight radio.
The good news was that at least Matthias got the point, the guy nodding once, and zipping his lip.
Seeing them together, Ad almost felt bad that this pair wasn’t going to last. Matthias was a short-termer, at best—at worst, he was part of a slippery slope that landed all of them in Devina’s goddamn wall. And Mels? Given what Devina was capable of, the reporter would be lucky if the only place she ended up in was a pine box.
Odd, he thought. He hadn’t felt anything except pain and rage since Eddie had been killed. But seeing these two together, he was…