Free The Dead Love Longer by Scott Nicholson Page B

with a litany of justifications and excuses for pathetic and cowardly behavior.
    Tears ran down our shared cheeks, and they were as warm as the Pacific Ocean in August, as cool as lovers' sheets when the sweat is evaporating, as hot as Diana's cavorting flames of Hell, as icy as the finger of The Grim Reaper when he taps on your shoulder and beckons you home.
    "Did you love me?" she said, and I embraced her as well as I could while wearing the same arms as hers.
    "Yes, and I still do," I said, and it was true and not at all contradictory. I looked at Lee, who seemed frozen in the real world, hunched over the note, achingly gorgeous and radiating all the light I'd come to appreciate. This love didn't mean I was cheating or that I was in any way diminished or duplicitous.
    I hadn't realized in my stinginess that there is not a limited supply of love, and that it flows through us from someplace beyond us, someplace better than us. And we are only conduits, and our job is to simply keep the pipeline open and let it gush instead of tightening the valves through our fears.
    "I love you and I always will," I said. "Forever."
    That confession must have leaked through the borders of the dead and living, because Lee's head lifted. She looked over at the portion of the wall where I was immersed in my dead wife.
    "Finish it," the goon commanded.
    Lee gave a wry twist of her lip, turning up one corner in a smile that somehow seemed a secret signal. Approval, maybe? Understanding?
    Diana's warmth flooded me, all the verdant, fecund moistness in which she'd enveloped me countless times, and I felt her rising into the ether.
    " Mission accomplished," she said. "I'm free now."
    And the resentment was gone, just like that, swept up on a breeze as I wished her Godspeedand happiness.
    The last echo was her whisper. "I love you, too."
    Diana's work was done, but mine wasn't. I brushed the invisible tears away and took inventory of my powers. Even without flesh, I had carried a heavy weight around inside, and somehow dragging it into the light had killed the poisoned darkness inside. Still, my spiritual batteries had been drained by my stubborn clinging to old ways, past damage, and unrequited guilt.
    I didn't think I could pull off another materialization . I had to do something, though. I couldn't bear the thought of seeing Lee die unfairly, even if dying brought her to my side of the spirit world.
    The goon with the gun had an Errol Flynn mustache and was smart enough to wear gloves. I had no doubt that Lee's fingerprints were on the gun's handgrip, and the rifle that had killed me was planted in the closet. I hovered over Lee, sniffing her hair, reading the words she had written:
     
    The guilt is too much to bear. I'm sorry for what I did to you, Richard. You were the only one I ever loved. And that's why I couldn't let you love somebody else. Wherever you are, I'm sure you understand.
    I can't pay for my sins, but at least I can keep myself from hurting anyone else.
     
    Lee
     
    Anyone that knew Lee could see that her handwriting was wrong. She held the pen in a different position than usual, between two fingers instead of one and her thumb. What a smart woman. A gun at her back, and still rational enough to throw some kinks into a near-perfect crime by leaving a puzzle for the handwriting experts.
    "Nothing personal," said the goon. He even smelled like a lawyer, pungent with cologne and garlic and wine.
    "I hope you fry in Hell," she said.
    "The only place I'll be frying is on the beaches of Singapore ," he said, bragging with the confidence of a sleazy crook who thought he was getting away with murder. Make that two murders. And he'd been smart enough to stick a frame on Bailey as well, if worse came to worst. That and millions of simoleons would buy him plenty of time to skip the country.
    Lee put the pen down. "The police are probably watching my apartment. They've already questioned me once."
    "And the pressure has driven you to