Love Me to Death Read online

  She couldn’t believe the feelings, the passion, and then the utter bliss as sensation exploded in every part of her. She cried out his name, sinking her fingers into his shoulders as her entire body trembled in release.

  He held her to him, rolling onto his side, pulling her against his chest, wrapping his arms around her, kissing her hair. As her senses began to operate normally again, she heard wind moaning in the night beyond the house’s walls, and wet snow falling gently against the windows.

  She closed her eyes, and thought about saying something. But there were no words that could have told him what she was feeling just then, and she was afraid that to speak at all would break the spell.

  So she didn’t. She just lay there, falling asleep in his arms.

  But her dreams were far from the peaceful bliss she’d felt with David. In her dream, she was a young girl, cowering in her room as she heard the sounds of raised voices, and then of hands striking flesh. Her parents, fighting. He was hitting her again.

  It was nothing she wasn’t used to. It was nothing she hadn’t been through a hundred times. She knew to stay put when it happened. She knew to stay quiet, to wait until her father left in a rage before she went out to tend to her mother’s cuts and bruises. She knew not to tell.

  But this time when the blows stopped and the house went silent, and her father’s pickup roared away, she slid from her bedroom to find that she was alone. Her mother was nowhere to be found.

  * * *

  DAVID SPENT AN HOUR trying to make some kind of sense out of all that was happening, or even any of it, but there didn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason that he could find. And the sex between him and the beautiful young woman in his arms was more confusing than anything else.

  She wasn’t Sierra. Even if her whole reincarnation theory were true, she wasn’t Sierra. He knew that. He wasn’t confused about that.

  This pull she exerted on him wasn’t his old high school crush resurfacing. But it didn’t feel like something new, either. It felt old. Older than either of them.

  And he didn’t understand that.

  Eventually, realizing Sara was sound asleep, David slid out of the bed, moving carefully and trying not to wake her. He felt around the floor, locating his clothes, pulled on his jeans and then padded barefoot into the hallway and down the stairs, extracting his cell phone from his pocket on the way.

  He wandered to the kitchen while dialing, opened the cupboards in search of a snack. Randy answered on the third ring.

  “Hey, pal, it’s me.”

  “Dave? Where the hell are you, we’ve been worried sick!”

  “I’m still with her.”

  “Her?” And then, “Oh.”

  “Look, how is Brad?”

  “He’s going to be okay. So who is she, Dave? What does she have to do with Sierra?”

  “She looks like her.”

  There was a long pause, as if Randy was waiting for more, and when only silence ensued, he said, “And?”

  “I don’t know. I…I don’t know.” He heard Sara moving around, coming down the stairs. She was wearing a filmy white nightgown and robe when she reached the bottom. He recalled seeing them hanging from the bedpost like ghosts, and he shivered. “Sara?” he called.

  But she didn’t respond. And Randy was talking again. “The doc said Brad’s arteries were so clogged, this could have happened at any time. And the longer it took to happen, the worse it would have been.”

  “Yeah?” He’d returned to his hunt for a snack. “Cindy get here yet?”

  “She’ll be here in the morning.”

  “Great.” David heard the wind get suddenly louder, and felt a wet breeze sweeping through the house. “I’ve gotta go, buddy. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

  “But…what did she say? Why is she here?”

  “I’ll fill you in tomorrow.” He disconnected as he stepped into the doorway, giving him a view of the foyer and the front door standing wide open, rain spattering inside. “Sara?”

  He pocketed the phone, pulling on his shirt, rushing to the open doorway. A warm front had moved in, turning the snow to rain. Sara was walking down the road, her feet dragging in the slushy rainwater. “Sara!”

  But she didn’t respond. David quickly stuffed his feet into his shoes, and, wishing for a jacket, he ran out after her. But she’d vanished. He couldn’t see her anywhere. Frantic, he rushed to his Jeep, opened the back, and retrieved a flashlight. Then he got into the front and started it up, driving up the road in the direction he’d last seen her. He put the window down and aimed the flashlight out into the rain-soaked night, calling her name. “Sara! Where are you?”

  Eventually, he caught a glimpse of something white, far in the distance. Disappearing into the town’s densely wooded area far from the road.

  He pulled the Jeep over and got out, taking the light with him and racing through the woods. “Sara, please wait!”

  But she didn’t. Still, a glimpse of her told him which way to go, and he was moving a lot faster than she was. So he caught up to her soon enough.

  She was kneeling on the wet ground, pawing through the snow to the dirt beneath.

  “Sara!”

  But she didn’t respond. Not until he went up to her and put a hand on her shoulder. Then she sucked in a loud gasp, and her head shot up fast, eyes wide and terrified. She stared up at him, blinking through the raindrops. “David? What—what are we doing out in the rain?”

  He crouched down in front of her, clasping her shoulders. “I don’t know. You led me out here. You were digging in the dirt.” He nodded at her hands.

  She looked down at them, at the icy, wet earth coating them, shaking her head slowly. But then she stopped, and looked at the ground again. “I think…I think someone’s buried here.”

  “What?”

  “I think it’s my…Sierra’s mother. Tamara.”

  “Jesus. Sara, what makes you think—”

  “I dreamed…but I wasn’t me, in the dream, I was her. I was in my room, listening to them fight. To him beating her. And after he left, I went out to see if she was okay, but she was gone. She was just gone. The next day he told me she’d gone back to India. But I knew he’d killed her. I knew.”

  David swore under his breath.

  “It took me a while to figure out where he would have put her body. But then my cat got sick, and I wondered if she might die, and I remember thinking about the place in the woods where we always buried our pets.” She looked around. “This place,” she said. “I came out here with a shovel—I was determined to find my mother, to find the proof. But he saw me leave, and he followed me. And I knew I was right when I found a spot of freshly turned dirt. But he saw me digging, and he starting yelling, and he sounded like I’d never heard him sound before. I thought he was going to kill me, too. So I ran.”

  David nodded slowly. “You ran. You hid out in the old Muller House.”

  “Yes.” She looked at the ground. “But I never found my mother.”

  Lifting his head, he said, “I have a shovel in the Jeep.”

  “Get it, would you?”

  He reached out for her hand, and she took it, and let him lead her back to the Jeep for the shovel. Then, in the rain, she held the flashlight while he dug in the spot she indicated, the spot where Sierra had been digging sixteen years ago because the earth had been freshly turned there.

  It didn’t take long. The first bone gave itself up easily, only about six inches down. It was white, with bits of pink satin clinging to it.

  Sara dropped the flashlight. “Mommy,” she whispered.

  And then there was a horrible sound, a wet smack, and David was falling facedown in the dirt.

  “David!” she shrieked, lunging toward him, but then freezing in place when she saw Frank Terrence standing there, a shovel in his own hands. She shook her head as she backed away. “You killed your wife,” she said softly. “That’s why Sierra ran away.”

  He held her eyes. “How did you know t
o come here? To this spot?”

  She stared straight back at him. “I remembered we used to bury pets here.”

  “Remembered?”

  “Buttons, that odd little dog with the watch-eye. Gretta, the beagle. That ugly old stray cat we called Bob.”

  “How do you—”

  “Why did you kill her? Why?”

  Frank shook his head, then suddenly lunged at her, shovel flying. It connected with the side of her head, though she tried to duck the blow, and Sara saw stars. And then she sank into blackness and more.

  She was back there. She was back in the past on the last night of her life. Hiding from her father inside Muller House. She’d been there for a week, and so far no one had found her. But it was only a matter of time. She knew that.

  But that night, she’d been distracted. That night, David had come, along with his four best friends. They’d been moping, and drinking on the front lawn, and she’d been watching them surreptitiously, wishing she had the nerve to go out and speak to David. She’d been drawn to him for the longest time.

  And yet, she didn’t. She just remained inside and watched him, yearning and wishing and dreaming.

  When the boys tossed the homemade firebomb through a window, it frightened her. She’d jumped, and panicked, rushing to put it out. But the thing had flickered and died all on its own. She’d seen it happen, and then she’d laughed to herself at the ineffectiveness of their brilliant, drunken notion. Thank God it hadn’t worked, she’d thought.

  And then she’d heard her father’s voice behind her, saying, “This couldn’t be more perfect, could it?” He was pouring gasoline from a can, and when she saw him, he tossed some of the fluid in her direction. Then he hurled the empty can at her and it hit her in the head, sending her to her knees.

  “I didn’t mean to kill her.” The man’s voice was almost a whine. “She hit her head on that damned Kwin Yon statue she was always—”

  “Kwan Yin,” she whispered, seeing it in her mind’s eye, porcelain white and beautiful.

  But Frank didn’t seem to hear her. “It was an accident. I’m not going to prison for an accident. But I will, if I let you live. I will.”

  She was vaguely aware of him striking matches and tossing them into the pools on the floor. The gas caught and blazed up with a powerful whoosh! And Sierra shielded her eyes and backed away. Her father ran for the back door, and she saw his foot go through a weak spot in the floorboards. Flames rose between her and escape, and she cried out for help.

  Frank jerked his leg out of the hole in the floor. It came out shoeless, with a bleeding cut in his calf. And yet he turned, and limped away, not even looking back. Leaving her surrounded by fire. Leaving her to die.

  Sierra retreated up the stairs and headed to the window, but the boys, seeing the flames, had turned tail and run. It was too far to jump. She ran back into the hallway, choking now on the smoke. But the stairs were engulfed, and there was no way out. And then the smoke overcame her, and she fell to the floor, David’s name on her lips.

  As it was again now. She moaned David’s name and opened her eyes, waking from the nightmare only to find there was no waking from it.

  She was no longer in the past. This was no longer a memory or a dream. She was in the old Muller House—Sierra House—now. And it was burning, just like before. She was on the second floor, lying in the hall, choking on smoke. And David was lying close beside her.

  She crawled over to him, shook him to try to wake him up, gasped for air and tried not to feel the cloying heat as the flames rose from the ground floor and began creeping up the stairs toward them.

  “David! David, please wake up!”

  He didn’t. But as she shook him, she felt the hard lump of his cell phone in his pocket, and quickly, she yanked it out and hit the dial button without even inputting a number in her panic.

  To her surprise, she heard ringing on the other end, and pulled the phone close, looking at the screen, which told her she was “Calling Randy…”

  A man’s voice answered. “Dave?”

  “Help!” Sara cried.

  “What…who is thi—”

  “Help us, please! We’re in the house. It’s burning. We’re trapped. Please—”

  “Sierra?”

  “David’s unconscious. It wasn’t him. It wasn’t you, any of you, it was my father. Oh, please, please—” She choked on the smoke, but heard Randy shouting orders to someone before she keeled over and passed out cold.

  * * *

  WHEN SHE WOKE, TWO VAGUELY familiar men were leaning over her.

  “Come on, come on!” they shouted. One of them already was helping David to his feet, shaking him awake. And the other was scooping Sara up into his arms. Together the group headed for the stairway, but she heard David say, “We can’t get out that way. The entire ground floor is engulfed.”

  Lifting her head, she choked out the words, “Just like last time.” She shook her head. “What are you guys doing here?”

  “We got here before the firefighters—what were we gonna do, stand out there and wait?” Kevin said. “If we go down, we go down together.”

  “Over my dead body,” David said. “Hand her over, Kevin, and then follow me.” He took Sara from Kevin’s arms, and the three of them headed down the second floor hallway to the farthest end, then entered a room there and closed the door behind them.

  It appeared to be a library. Randy raced to the windows, flinging them open wide. The rush of fresh air was almost too good to believe. Sara sucked in breath after breath of it as David carried her close to the window and set her down on the floor.

  “The floor’s hot!” she cried, hissing air through her teeth and pulling herself to her feet. But her feet were bare, and burning.

  “Just breathe. Breathe as much as you can.” David ripped the drapes from the windows, rushing to stuff them against the bottom of the closed door, even as Sara yanked a chair closer to the window and knelt upon it to get her feet up off the scorching hot floor.

  “Sirens!” Randy said. “I hear sirens!”

  “Good.” David returned to the window, putting his face to the outside air. “They’d better hurry. It’s too far to jump.”

  Kevin said, “We’re going to have to jump. I don’t think we have a choice. And while dying with her this time around might be poetic irony, maybe even justice, I’d prefer not to.”

  “It wasn’t you,” Sara said, but her throat was raw with smoke. “The firebomb you threw went out. I saw it. It was my father. Her father. It was Frank. He was here, too, with gasoline. He set the fire. He killed me—her—because she knew he’d murdered her mother.”

  “What?” Kevin and Randy said it almost as one.

  The three men looked at each other, and then at her. David said, “We have to get out of here, or it’s not going to make a difference. It’s only the second floor. We can lower you half the distance, Sara. Come on, climb over.”

  “But—”

  “Do it,” Randy ordered. And there wasn’t time to argue. Sara set her rear end on the windowsill, and swung her legs around. David gripped her forearm, and she locked her hand around his. Randy did the same with her other arm, and the two men leaned over as far as they could, until she dangled so low, her feet were touching the top of the window below.

  “On three, let go,” David said. And she heard the roar of flames beyond him, and knew the fire had somehow breached the room where they’d taken refuge. “One, two…”

  She released her hold on three and plummeted ground-ward, hitting far faster than she had thought possible. The impact knocked the wind out of her, but she scrambled to her feet again, casting her eyes up toward that window.

  But this time, she saw only flames on the other side. “David!” she cried.

  And then sirens and lights, heavy hands moving her away, water blasting the cursed house. But no sign of David.

  She sobbed as she told the firefighters where the three men had been, and pushed against the ox
ygen mask they kept pressing to her face.

  And finally, she saw them. All three, stumbling around from behind the house, their faces sooty, their backs bent. Arm in arm, they came, and when they looked up and saw her, white smiles appeared in their sooty faces and they shuffled closer.

  When they finally reached her, all three men wrapped her in a group hug. They were all sobbing. She sobbed, too. Something powerful was happening here. Eventually, Randy and Kevin backed off a little, but David kept holding her, and she didn’t think he had any intention of letting go anytime soon.

  As she looked at the faces of the men, she saw the wonder in their eyes, and she understood it. This was no ordinary night, she thought as the firefighters did their work, trying to save the old Muller place yet again. This night, history had repeated itself. Men who’d lived with misplaced guilt had the chance to relive the worst night of their lives, and make it come out right this time. She hadn’t died in the fire this time. She’d lived.

  And she knew why. She had to live to tell the tale. To tell the truth.

  David stared down into her eyes. She blinked through tears as she met his. “It’s over, isn’t it?” she asked him.

  He smoothed a thumb over her cheek, catching the tear and probably some soot along with it. “No, Sara, I hope not. I hope it’s just getting started.”

  And then he bent and he kissed her, and she relaxed against his strong chest, nestled in the embrace of his powerful arms and felt as if she were right where she belonged.

  EPILOGUE

  SARA STOOD WITH A SMALL group at the cemetery, where the body of Sierra’s mother, Tamara, was being given a proper burial, right beside her daughter and her sister, Pakita.

  Tamara had been killed by a blow to the head, the autopsy had determined. And when he’d been picked up for questioning, Frank Terrence had confessed to everything…murdering his wife, setting the fire that had killed his daughter twenty-two years ago and setting the more recent one intended to kill a young woman who bore a striking resemblance to her. He claimed she’d come back to make him pay for what he’d done. But most people thought the years of guilt had finally driven him insane.