The Other Side - J. D. Robb [19]
“I don’t know, but I have to tell somebody. It was Rennie,” she repeated. “The bastard. He was mad at me ’cause I helped Sara get away from him. He must’ve followed me from work, and when I was in the park, he was just there. And he yelled and he hit me. He kept hitting me, and I couldn’t get away. Nobody came to help. Nobody saw, and he hit me and hit me, and I fell. And he picked up a rock and he killed me. It’s not right. What am I going to do now? I’m scared to be here. I’m scared to be dead.”
Eve couldn’t swallow, could barely breathe. “This has to stop.”
“Rennie killed me.”
The woman—the hallucination—held out her hands. Tore them up, Eve thought in some cold part of her brain. Tore them up when she fell, when she tried to crawl away.
“He killed me, and now I won’t ever get married or eat ice cream or buy new shoes and have drinks with Sara. Rennie Foster killed me with a rock in Riverside Park, and maybe he’ll kill Sara next. What’s going to happen?”
“I don’t know.”
“Aren’t I supposed to go somewhere? I don’t want to stay here. It’s cold here. It’s too cold and it’s too bright. Can you help me? I’m Janna, Janna Dorchester, and I didn’t do anything wrong. Is this hell?”
“No.” But she wasn’t entirely sure.
Maybe hell was cold and bright. Maybe hell was losing your mind.
“Eve.” Roarke dropped down beside her, took her arms. “Christ, you’re burning up. Come on now.”
He started to lift her, but she resisted. “No. Wait.” She sucked in a breath, shuddered it out. “You don’t see her?”
He pressed a hand to her forehead. “I see you, sitting on the floor of the morgue looking like a ghost.”
“At one,” she murmured.
“I guess he can’t see me because I’m dead and everything,” Janna said. “Why do you?”
“I don’t know. I need Morris,” she told Roarke. “And God, I need something to drink.”
“Don’t leave me,” Janna begged, dropping her head again so Eve could see the ugly wound that killed her. “Please don’t leave me here alone.”
“I’m just going to sit here. Bring Morris, will you? I just . . . need to sit here.” Deal, she ordered herself. Deal with what’s in front of you, then figure out the rest. “Could really use something cold to drink.”
Roarke rose, cursing under his breath as he ordered a tube of Pepsi.
“He’s gorgeous.” Janna smiled a little even as she knuckled at tears. “Mega frosted. Is he your boyfriend?”
“We’re married,” Eve murmured.
“Seriously icy for you,” Janna said as Roarke glanced down.
“So we are,” he said. “And I’ll be taking my wife to a doctor in short order. I’ll get you Morris first, but then you’re done here.”
“He’s got a really sexy voice, too.” Janna sighed as Eve took the tube Roarke had opened, drank.
“Thanks. I’m going to sit right here,” she said as much to Janna as Roarke, “while you get Morris.”
And while she sat wondering if she had a brain tumor or had dropped into some strange, vivid dream, she put on the cop and interviewed the dead.
Minutes later, Morris hurried down the tunnel with Roarke.
“Dallas.” He knelt, laid a hand on her brow as Roarke had. “You’re feverish.”
“Just tell me if you’ve gotten a body in—female, mixed race, midtwenties, ID’d as Janna Dorchester. Beating death in Riverside Park.”
“Yes. She’s only just come in. How did you—”
“Who caught the case?”
“Ah . . . Stuben’s primary.”
“I need to contact him. Can you get me his contact data?”
“Of course. But you don’t look well.”
“I’m feeling better, actually.” Odd, she thought, how the cop approach steadied her, even when her interviewee was dead. “I think I’ll feel better yet once I talk to Stuben. I’d appreciate it, Morris.”
“Give me a minute.”
“Eve.” Roarke took her hand as Morris strode away. “What’s going on here?”
“I’m not sure, and I need you to give me a really open mind. I mean wide-open. Yours is already more open than mine about, you know, weird stuff.”
“What sort of weird stuff is my mind going to be wide-open about?”
“Okay.” She looked into his eyes, so blue, so beautiful. Eyes she trusted with everything she had. “There’s a dead woman sitting right beside me. Her name