Killer Karma

8

Was his ziptrip ticket good to go home again? Cole pictured it and concentrated.

The Tenderloin blurred…and — success! — turned into the front hall.

The house lay dark and silent, not surprisingly. Sherrie rarely managed to stay awake past ten or eleven…even waiting up for him when he worked night shifts. He always came in to find her dead to the world on the sofa, bathed in the glow from the television screen. With school tomorrow and her mother being a day person, too, everyone in the house had settled for the night by now.

He started up the stairs, only to stop at a whine coming from the livingroom. He turned and saw Tiger on the sofa, looking toward him. A pale shape lay beyond Tiger. Cole’s chest tightened. Sherrie?

Yes. He found her in a cocoon of blankets with Tiger at her feet.

Tiger’s tail stub worked like a slow metronome. Cole scratched his ears, then sat down on the coffee table and reached up to run his fingers across Sherrie’s hair. His chest tightened still more. “I’m sorry, babe. I won’t make it home this time.”

Never again slip in the door, tickle her awake, and lead her up to bed. When they were first married, he liked waking her by undressing her enough to make love right there. After the twins came along, he carried her to the privacy of their bedroom. Moving here ended the Rhett Butler stunt, too. The narrowness and pitch of the stairs made it impractical, not to mention life threatening, and for some reason she found the alternative carry, being slung across his shoulder like a sack of grain, unromantic.

Tiger whined again.

“Shhh,” Cole whispered. “Settle.” Sounds Tiger or the kids made always snapped her awake. He wanted to wake her slowly.

Too late. Sherrie sat bolt upright, eyes flying open. “Cole?”

He choked at the desperate hope in her voice. It sparked hope in him. Maybe it would make her see him. “Yeah, it’s me…sort of.”

“Cole?” She twisted, peering around her…looking straight through him.

Hope crashed. The disappointment felt like being stabbed.

“Tiger, what did you hear?” she asked.

The dog stared Cole’s direction and whined again.

She reached down to pet him. He kept whining. Sighing, she moved the pillow to where her feet had been and rolled up in the blankets again with her arm stretched out so her hand rested on the dog’s neck. Her eyes closed.

Tiger propped his chin on the other side of the pillow and watched Cole with questioning eyes.

Cole shrugged. “We’ll let her go back to sleep, then make another try.” Hopefully without pushing her alarm buttons this time.

Here breathing soon settled into a regular rhythm again. He gave her another minute, then covered the hand on Tiger’s neck with his hand. “Nurse. Nurse Trask. Help me.” A name she had not been called for years ought to seem dream material.

She pulled her arm back under the blanket.

He leaned down to her ear. “You have to help me. Some naked little bastard shot me in the heart with a red arrow and I’m mortally wounded.” It had been a corny thing to say to her way back then, but it amused her, even though she came back dryly, “All bleeding stops eventually.”

Now she smiled, too, but remained asleep.

Shit. Cole cocked a brow at Tiger. “What do you think, boy? Do we need a little more irritating piece of the past to wake her?” Like the incident at their wedding when her father tried to hit on his mother. He laid his hand against her cheek. “Uh…honey…if I tell you something, will you promise to keep your cool?” Which she had not, then. “Give me the cake knife so I can cut off his nuts!” “My father’s cop buddies have handcuffed Eddie to the steering wheel of his rental- ”

He broke off as Sherrie frowned and burrowed deeper under the blanket, away from his hand.

Dismay spread through him. Red said there would be people who never saw him, but…Sherrie…not even in dreams? He raised his voice. “Sherrie! Come on. Please. Let me tell you about Sara Benay. Wake up a little.”

Instead, she fell more deeply asleep, breath slowing even more and heart beating steadily on.

Pain wrenched his chest as though to tear it apart. “Sherrie…” If she never saw him, how could he explain things to her?

After a last touch on her hair and pat on Tiger’s head, Cole backed out of the livingroom and headed upstairs. He could not leave for Razor’s place without looking in on the kids.

Near the top of the stairs, a thought dropped into his gut like lead. What if Razor turned out to be blind to him, too?

He tried shrugging off the possibility. Think positively. Even if the dream ploy also failed with Razor, he was just back to using the computer, right? But now he could not help wondering if computer messages would work either. Might he have to find a way to help Sara all on his own?

At Hannah’s door, he shoved the questions aside. Right now, only his family mattered.

Joanna slept on the futon in Hannah’s room. In her own bed, Hannah lay rosy-cheeked and curled with her head almost against the safety rails. He kissed her forehead and stood watching her for several minutes, listening to her breathing and heartbeat, remembering the baby smell of her, before moving on to Kyle’s room.

There a faint glow coming through the comforter betrayed that number two son was still awake…reading under the covers by his book light.

Cole slapped the hump marking Kyle’s butt. “Lights out, sport. I know Horatio Hornblower is great stuff, but tomorrow you’ve got school.”

Kyle read on, oblivious to him.

Up in the attic where Travis and Renee had their rooms, Travis was asleep. A tear stain crossed his check. Cole’s throat closed. He had visions of Travis keeping a brave front while Sherrie told them about the car, then giving way to tears in the privacy of his room.

Cole ran his fingers across the rumpled hair before leaving. “Hey, partner, you don’t have to try to be so tough, you know.”

Renee’s room was dark, too, but without surprise he found her awake. Another night owl. She sat in front of her beloved peacock window, wrapped in her bathrobe, violin tucked under her chin. By day, the fan of panes she had colored with glass paint cast a rainbow across the floor. Now only light from the street lights silhouetted her as she played quietly.

Even at a whisper, he recognized the piece, Barber’s Adagio For Strings. The melancholy music always reminded him of the Omaha Novembers of his childhood…overcast skies, bare trees, the ground carpeted with dank leaves. Was it one of the choices for her upcoming recital?

A recital he had to miss.

Thinking about that, Cole realized in despair how much else he had to miss. He would never know if Renee made it to the concert stage. He would never walk her or Hannah down the aisle, see his sons turn into men, or know his grandchildren. He and Sherrie would never do the things they had planned for retirement. The strains of the Adagio wrapped around him… tonight sounding even bleaker, sighing of unutterable loss.

Grief and searing anger boiled up in him. He might be here to pull Sara out of the mess he landed her in, but that son of a bitch in the Elvis mask was unfinished business, too. Before he left, he would hunt down the bastard and ruin his life.