Chapter 3

He was nervous tonight. He fussed a little with his hair, brushed his teeth again, checked the time. Only another minute had gone by. Now he only had eight minutes left before he could go pick her up.

He thought back over when they first met. His dumb persistance at being close to her had earned him her recognition next time he saw her. He came and watched her T'ai Chi class every time they were out at the park, and it still took him two weeks to work up the nerve to talk to her again. He managed to ask her to dinner then, and they shared a cheap burger and fries at her insistance of not being expensive.

Four months had passed away from them since then. One date became a second, a fouth, a fifteenth, and he grew comfortable with her presence.

Every time he thought of her face, though, Her face would be in the shadow. Sometimes he even felt guilty, like he was betraying Her. Every time he embraced her, he smelled a little of the rain and cigarette and vodka he had smelled on Her that night, remembered her quivering frame in his arms.

Hoss had told him to "move on, for chrissakes," and didn't realize how deeply it stung to remind him that not only did he not know Her, but he couldn't have done anything anyway. He listened to Hoss's tirade about women for the hundredth time and bit his tongue to keep Hoss's girlfriend's name from popping out of his mouth.

He found he couldn't stop thinking about Her, no matter how hard he tried. He just stopped talking about her. He knew it was stupid to hold on so tightly to such a morbit memory, but he couldn't let go and it sat and rotted in his mind. He tried not to show his melancholy, he couldn't afford to be weakened, but as time went on, something in his chest grew colder and colder.

He wasn't afraid, just tired. Every morning, he woke and felt as though he had just run two miles, not breathless, just sore and tense.

Shit, he would be a little late. Damn it, She's creeping in when he's not lonely. He scowled at himself as he breezed out to his car.

He was, in fact, a little bit early. She was ready, strikingly beautiful as always. Dinner went well, a little laughter, a little serious talk, nothing to give a hint that he was thinking of anything but now. There were no hints because there was nothing else in his mind. Being with this lovely dark-haired young woman was like being in the eye of a storm.

After dinner, htey walked out into the cool spring evening. They watched the stars slowly waken, and for the first time since Her death, he was totally content with everything.

She invited him in when he walked her to her door. His first impression was of the cleanliness of the flat. Everything was orderly, neat, like the desk of an accountant. The walls were bare of decorations, but he knew it was only because she wasn't out to impress high society.

"No pictures," he commented lightly.

"You know I think pictures all over the walls is traditional and tacky," she retorted gently. She never said anything harshly, even though she was the most stubborn woman he had ever met. Even his ex-wife was no match.

They sat on the couch, listening to each other talk just barely over some smooth jazz she had playing, watching each other sip a shot of bourbon. She didn't smoke often, just one a day or so, enought to be used to the nicotine, but not enought to be addicted, her willpower was inhuman.

He spent the night. Somewhere inbetween wrestle and rest, she told him a drunken secret.

"I watched you walk her here, that one night. The night she died? Yeah, and I didn't recognize you when we met 'cause of your coat."

He was caught completely off guard.

"Who?" he asked dumbly.

"You don't remember? The chick who used to live here?"

He mumbled something noncommittal.

He took her to breakfast. She was a beautiful sight first thing in the morning, no make-up, uncombed hair falling around her shoulders. She seemed quite satisfied, even a little playful. A corner of his mind laughed as he remembered the hour it had taken her to wake up. He knew now to stay out of her way before her first cup of coffee, and she knew now that he snored a little. Still groggy, she had also mumbled something about him talking in his sleep.

He poked at his eggs and gazed at her face. She wasn't particularly lady-like, , not freakishly uncouth, but blunt and to the point. She ate almost everything with a spoon. He had never even seen Her eat, only slam vodka like it was water.

"You said I talk in my sleep? What do I say?"

"Just babble, really. You have this expression on your face like you're looking for something, and you talk about a book, a hand, and something about a--a shot, gunshot or something like that." She tore off half of her bacon in her teeth and talked around it, "It's not very loud, don't worry about it." She seemed to suddenly realize he hadn't taken his eyes off her since they sat down.

"What?"

He really didn't hear her. Book? Gunshot? He wasn't into reading. He hoped he wasn't dreaming of Her and not remembering. The corner of his mind shrugged, but he was a little worried. His ex had never complained of him talking in his sleep, why now?

A fuzzy image, a memory of his dreams last night, threatened to flicker before his eyes. All he saw was red-blonde hair framing a face too blurry to recognize.

She called his name across the table, and he snapped back to that world around him.

"Sorry," he said sheepishly.

"Are you alright?" she asked with a note of concern. He looked sidelong at her.

"After last night, I don't think I'll ever be alright," he said, hoping to take the heat off.

She laughed playfully and breakfast avoided catastrophe. He paid the tab in cash, an old habit, and walked her to her door.

As he walked back to his car and drove home, it finally hit him that he had been inside Her apartment. The past few months he tried to weed Her oud of his mind, but now She was back.

He pounded the steering wheel, goddammit, what is Her name?! He paused at the red light.

His turn signal clicked mockingly and he turned down toward the police station. He was led around the red tape parade for an hour before he finally stood stubbornly at the desk of a deputy and demanded attention. He showed the poor officer the newspaper clipping, a little tattered, and his driver's license. He gave the deputy the dates of Her death and the night he met her, and the date of the clipping.

"I have to know who she was." It was really all he could say. He felt deeply guilty, like he was betraying his girlfriend somehow, but even after a night of intimacy with a woman he wondered if he loved, She was still there, tearing down his sanity a tiny piece at a time.

"Sir, I can only give you her name. Unless you have evidence against her death being a suicide, then her file is closed to you."

He just about leaped on the poor man. Beating down his desperation, he dragged his wits together and asked ofr Her name.

"I'm not entirely sure why you want it, but alright." He entered a search into his workstation computer and two minotes of forever passed slowly.

"Her name," the deputy announced at last, "was Emily Reylan Stahl. She's the only woman who has ever died at that address."

"Please, can I have her picture?" The words fell out of his mouth before he could stop them. The deputy looked at him suspiciously, hten sighed and turned his monitor for him to see.

There, just like his dreams. It was a driver's license picture, but it still showed Her mismatched, beautiful eyes, Her pale skin and long, lush hair. This picture showed red hair, a trick of the light, but no matter. It was Her, Emily, The Chick Who Used To Live Here.

He stumbled out of the station, barely clutching coherence. Emily, Emily, Emily. Over and over in his mind he said it, saw Her, held Her in his arms again. She sobbed again, such a beautiful, heartaching sound. No, damn it, no, never before has a woman done this to him, not now shall one. He was stronger than this, why the fucking hell is Emily different?!

The corner of his mind screamed over and over again that She was dead, but he could not let Her go.

He barely made it into his apartment before he vomited into the sink. He thought about his dark-haired girlfriend, how she'd slept in his arms, trusting him. He gagged himself with a shaking hand, making sure his stomach had nothing left to reject. He knew he head to forget about Emily. It was a feeling he really didn't recognize, this guilt, but he knew it would eat him alive if he let it.

When he stopped shaking, he ran the disposal and forced himself to do something normal. he settled on reading the newspaper. There was the usual stuff, screwed up politics, local happenings, a murder in the ghetto.

How long had itbeen since he'd read a newspaper?