Free The Last Kiss Goodbye by Karen Robards Page B

it must be. But here’s the best part: I don’t care what you think you believe, somewhere deep inside you know I didn’t kill those women. You wouldn’t be giving me the time of day otherwise, much less sleeping with me.”
    “I am not—” Charlie began hotly, about to deny that she was sleeping with him. The word was slept, as in past tense. Singular.
    “You did,” he interrupted ruthlessly. “Have a little faith in your instincts for a change.”
    A sharp knock on the bedroom door made Michael swear.
    “Dr. Stone?” Same man. Same summons. It was all Charlie could do not to grit her teeth.
    “I’m coming,” Charlie called back, and, with a narrow-eyed look at Michael, started to suit the action to her words.
    He didn’t move.
    “Do you mind?” If she sounded a little cranky, well, she had reason: mess did not begin to describe the situation she had gotten herself into with him. And reminding herself that none of it, not one teeny tiny bit (well, okay, except for maybe the sex part), was her fault didn’t help at all. When he still didn’t move in response to that very pointed hint, she edged around him, because walking right through him was beyond her for the moment. “ I have better things to do than stand around and argue with you. Like go talk to the man who keeps banging on the fricking door.”
    “You’re determined not to believe me, aren’t you? Fine. If it gives you a thrill to imagine that you’re fucking a murderous psychopath, so be it. Seems a little sick, but probably that’s just me.”
    Which was infuriating on so many levels, Charlie didn’t even know where to begin.
    “You know what? I’m not talking to you anymore. I have a houseful of other problems to deal with.”
    “Before you give me the silent treatment, think you could explain what you did with the whole glass and candle thing? So I know what to expect if anything should come up.” He was following her through the bedroom. Of course he was following her through the bedroom. After what she had done, for all she knew, he would be following her everywhere she went for the rest of her life. The only thing more horrifying than that thought was the one that he would not be. Who knew for how long the action she had taken would tether him to her? Days, weeks, years?
    All she could be sure of was that he was here now. The future was up in the air.
    In an effort to shake off the impossible-to-sort-out combination of anger and doubt and regret and relief that she was experiencing, her reply was coolly brisk.
    “When you die, you’re supposed to move on, you know. That’s how it works. Sometimes spirits will stay for a few days, until they can accept that they’re dead, but then they go on to where they’re supposed to be. Since you weren’t leaving voluntarily, a portal was opening to transport you to”—in his case, she didn’t even want to try to put a name to his probable final destination—“the next place. That’s why you were flickering. What lighting the candle did was go ahead and open the portal all the way, and then when the resulting vortex got strong enough to pull you in I slammed the portal shut again by dropping the glass over the candle before it could actually take you. Slamming the portal closed like that makes the vortex collapse. It can’t open again, at least not in the same general area. In theory.”
    “In theory?”
    “Tam said that’s how it works. I’ve never done it myself, so I’m taking her word for it.” Stopping at her closet, keeping her voice down because if she could hear the hubbub in the hall—which she could—then it was pretty obvious that she could be overheard, too, she shoved the folding, shutter-style doors apart.
    “Close your eyes,” she ordered.
    “What?”
    “Close your eyes.” Her hands were already at her buttons as she looked around at him. “I need to change my blouse. I don’t need you to watch.”
    “Oh, for God’s sake.” But when she glared at