Ghosting by Rogers Dan Lee

Author:Rogers, Dan Lee [Rogers, Dan Lee]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Little Shuteye Press
Published: 2017-04-18T22:00:00+00:00

DANNY’S APARTMENT

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I AWAKE WHEN THE NEWSPAPER is lifted from my face again. Danny’s eyes are wide. “You alright?”

My first thought is that I’m thankful, so very thankful.… I’ve been dreaming. I nod.

He says, “Brother, you were talking in your sleep.”

I feel the restraints against my wrists and realize my nightmare isn’t over. It’s dusk outside, and the clock beside the hospital bed reads 6:23 PM. I also want to rub my face—I always rub my face when I wake up—but I can’t do it.

“So you want to talk about it?” Danny’s voice is soft. Gentle.

“About what?”

He sits on the edge of the bed as if I’d just had heart surgery. “I understand,” he says. “We don’t have to talk about it yet. You’ve been under a lot of stress.”

Stress? I think about Buck but decide that Danny doesn’t need to know how much stress I’ve been under or where it’s coming from. “It’s not what you think,” I say.

He strokes my head, and I feel like a kid staying home from school because of the flu. “Officer Brinn told me about the fob, Jack. The police found it in your pocket.”

I look into his eyes. “I didn’t try to kill myself. And stop petting my head. I’m not a puppy.”

“Okay,” he assures me, but his tone betrays his disbelief. “Maybe you fell, or something like that?”

“You just said that we didn’t have to talk about it.”

“It’s just—the circumstances, Jack. What it all means.”

“I went down to the garage, okay. I was—” I stop because I can’t tell him I was following a ghost. I can’t tell him about Walter or his gun. No matter what I said, he’d think I’d lost it.

He prompts: “Was what?”

“I … was putting some of Mol’s things away. Next thing I know, the damned car is running, and I’m locked in the garage.”

He draws a deep breath, and I know that he doesn’t believe me. To my relief, he changes subjects. “So, you want some good news? Your lawyer called the office. When he found out you were in custody, he was furious. He’s getting you released. Said to sit tight.”

That’s incredibly good news, and I smile wryly thinking about my seven-hundred-and-fifty-dollar-an-hour lawyer scooting around his office, threatening the police with all sorts of legal gymnastics. There is justice left in the world, after all.

Danny touches my cheek gently. “You look pathetic, by the way.”

Danny really is a good guy; I forget that he’s on my side. I laugh. “Really?”

“You need me to scratch anything?”

Before I can respond, he says, “Above your belly button.”

The clarification is unnecessary, but the fact that Danny is gay has come up often since Molly’s death. In the early years, before we went into business together, the three of us would spend most evenings together, me killing digital baddies in the living room of our tiny apartment, with the two of them huddled in the kitchen, giggling like schoolgirls. They drank cheap wine together back then, and criticized my lack of interest in anything artsy or cultured.

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