A Step Backwards Read online

  "Do what again?"

  "The dream. That dream thing."

  "Why would you? Because I'm sick?"

  "Maybe. You were sick before. I almost killed you, trying to protect you. I don't want to do it again." The truck lurched ahead when the green light changed. "But I need to protect you still. The instinct is there. You said not to mess with this fucking instinct, but what am I supposed to do?"

  Sandburg leaned over and patted his arm, noting the hands clenched white on the wheel. "I'll let you know if I'm really sick, all right? Sound fair?"

  "What if you can't-"

  "Jim - drop it. Now. Life is continuing for us. I'm alive, I have a bad cold, but I'm going to be fine."

  This time there was almost a full minute of silence before Jim spoke again, just as he was pulling in front of the loft. "Maybe you aren't the only one that is having a bad feeling that something is going to happen."

  "It's been two weeks since our last disaster. It's about time, right?"

  "I'm serious here."

  "I know. Sorry. What do you mean? What are you feeling?"

  Ellison shifted the truck into park and shrugged. "I've no idea. Let's get you inside." He was out the door, into the pouring rain, and around the other side of the truck before Blair could get his seat belt unlocked.

  "Jim, I'm okay here. You get the apartment door open, and then I can just make a run for it. Go. Scoot!" he added when he could see the sentinel was about to fight for hovering rights.

  * * * * *

  Fifteen minutes later, the loft was finally quiet.

  Blair sighed dramatically, enjoying the effort. Jim had made sure he got into the loft safely, had boiled water for tea, brought a blanket to the couch, and had paused for a long moment at the door, as though unsure of whether to leave.

  They were still sorting things out between them after their detour into Jim's dreamscape in July. The summer had been weird; Blair had worked at acting like an adult each time they went their own ways for a few hours, when all along he felt like a panicky child who wanted his -- whatever. Too weird.

  Harvey Leek described it to them by saying that they had spent time sharing a soul, so now it felt 'strange' to be alone in their own heads.

  It got better as the weeks went by. They worked on some cases, school started again, and life settled back into a normal cadence. The pendulum swung and they would overcompensate one way, then the other.

  The pendulum swings like a . . . something . . . something . . .

  Westminster Abbey, the Tower of Big Ben . . .

  The rosy red cheeks of the little children.

  How did that song go? A British pop tune that Naomi used to sing.

  The pendulum swings like a . . .

  Like a . . .

  La la la . . .

  Granted, Blair mused, locating his previous thought, it was something he and Jim were getting used to again, being in their own heads, but there was something about being sick that lowered those barriers again. When Jim had been sick the previous week, the two had stuck close together, as though Blair's very presence would help Jim's recovery. Who knows? Maybe it did. At least, it made Jim feel better having him close by.

  But then the first week of September rolled around, the weather turned nasty, the new semester at university began, and they had that weird case with Rothschild and her string of murders.

  The pendulum swings like a . . .

  Grrr . . . Almost had it.

  So, Blair had watched Jim go now, the door closing, the sound of the stairwell door clicking shut. And he had alternated between desperately wanting him to stay and desperately wanting him to go so he could be alone and meditate.

  The latter won and he breathed a sigh of relief when the quiet of the loft registered around him.

  Yeah, this was good.

  Candles . . . Incense . . . Blair stared at the items on the coffee table. Maybe now he'd figure out what had been bothering him. Those flashes of . . . whatever . . . were unsettling him, and he wanted to get a handle on it before it got worse.

  He also wanted to talk to Jim about . . . well, the corpse. More specifically, Jim's corpse. They had agreed not to keep secrets, and now he was doing that very thing by not being forthright about the . . . well, the corpse.

  He'd rather not think about it at all, but that's not how life worked. There had to be a reason for it, right? Whether he liked it or not, there had to be a reason. Right? There had to be.

  There had to be a reason. That's what Naomi always said, Blair thought, blowing his nose.

  Naomi . . .

  Funny, he was thinking about her a lot today. She was on his mind, flitting around like those little sticky-notes. Fluttery . . .

  He wondered how she was.

  Or . . .

  Wait.

  The candle flame flickered. Yellow. Like the stick-it note. On the file on Simon's desk. And the photos. The crime scene photo. The gathered crowd.

  Yeah. I need to remember what I've forgotten.

  The flame died, and Blair leaned forward, snoring softly.

  * * * * *

  Cascade PD

  4:40 p.m.

  Ellison glanced at his watch, frowning at the slow passage of time. He had thought, had hoped, that the clock on the computer screen was wrong again, but it was only a few minutes off.

  Brown wandered over and perched on the side of his desk. "Any word from Stibbs?"

  They were working on a serial murder case, with no suspects, only a location in common. Andrew Stibbs, age 55, was the owner of the Emerald Theater, which was half way through its annual two-week jazz festival. Stibbs was a bulldog of a man, looking part sweaty mob boss, part pimp with gold rings on his fingers. Stibbs was frantic, trying desperately to keep news of the murders as low-key as possible. Three women, one every other night, had been found strangled so far, within an hour after leaving the theater. The first two had cars, still parked where they had left them. The third woman killed had been walking to the bus stop after waving good-bye to her friends. Her body was found in an alley nearby.

  "The guy gives me the creeps." Henri stared at the closed file. "Something's not right."

  "That's what Sandburg said," Jim mused.

  "About Stibbs?"

  "He wasn't sure what was bothering him. Could be." Jim reached over and flipped the file open. "Stibbs gave us an alibi for all three murders. Told us he had stayed in the theater until two in the morning, supervising the cleanup and lockup."

  "Right. His employees vouched for him for the first two nights. They said he came down from his office to lock the doors after them at midnight, and Ivan Chomski said he was with him between 11:00 p.m. and midnight last night when the third murder occurred.

  "What do we have on Chomski?"

  Henri paged through his notes. "Not much. Age 53. Reporter for the Cascade Jazz Journal."

  "He said he was there all three nights."

  "He was covering the entire series. We double-checked and he was assigned the concert series, all right. The CJJ was expecting a review from him and was holding the press on that issue until he finished it."

  "Did he?"

  "Yup. Right on schedule."

  "Did you read the review?"

  "Rafe did. What I know about jazz reviews would fit on my driver's license."

  Ellison looked up from the file to stare at Brown blankly. "Forgive me if I'm wrong, but you play jazz, right?"

  "I play it. I don't read about it." Henri sauntered off in the direction of the break room, singing an old classic, leaving Jim alone with the file, shaking his head.

  Ellison read the file through twice, but nothing seemed to jump out at him beyond the sordid facts. Last night the third victim, Marie Smythe, was found, strangled, a block from the concert hall. Her lifeless body had been left sitting on the step of a travel agency, leaning against the outer wall, looking as though she'd had a little too much to drink. It wasn't until an officer went to check on her and suggest she get insid
e out of the rain, that he realized she was dead.

  It was on that same night that Sandburg had stayed with him out in the rain, became soaked to the skin, and the virus had taken hold. Sandburg insisted that getting a little wet had nothing to do with catching a cold, but the coincidence remained, regardless. Added to the two rather worrisome 'episodes' of his heart rate spiking today, it was enough to send alarm bells off for the sentinel.

  Fifteen minutes before he was officially off the clock, Jim gave up, said a few words to Simon, and headed down to the truck. He was done for the day. Why keep his chair warm while he stared vacantly across the department?

  He stopped at the market, prowling the aisles, tossing items into a hand basket, until he realized he needed more items and broke down and got a cart. They hadn't been eating at home much lately, and things like orange juice and canned soup were seriously depleted from their cupboards. He bought lemons, honey, and three boxes of tissues -- the kind with lotion in them that prevented a red, chafed nose. Cough syrup, that organic stuff. Tylenol. Extra Strength.

  And Tylenol Cold. Tylenol Fever. Tylenol Sinus.

  He put back the Tylenol for Kids. Blair wasn't in the right space to find it amusing.

  Sandburg is in a very strange space altogether, he thought as he stood in lineup at the market, wondering what was up with his partner.

  * * * * *

  Balancing the three grocery bags, Ellison pushed open the loft door with his foot, wincing as the pungent scent of candles hit him. The cloying smell had permeated the loft. Smoke trails from one of the spluttering wicks painted circular patterns in the air, shifting now as he walked further into the loft and deposited the paper bags on the kitchen counter. The apartment echoed with the haunting sound of pan pipes and drums, Sandburg's latest music to meditate by.

  At least his partner was sleeping. About time you conked out, Chief.

  He shrugged out of his jacket, glanced at the thermostat in the loft and adjusted the temperature to something a little warmer. He turned back to his partner, limply hunched forward over the coffee table. Blair's mouth was open slightly, breathing through mildly congested lungs, his reddened nose clearly visible through the haze of candle smoke.

  Ellison shook his head, counting ten candles of various sizes and colors and shapes on the low table. Sandburg had built a fire in the fireplace, but it had died down to a few glowing embers that did nothing to warm the area, explaining the cooler than normal loft. Crouching down beside Sandburg, Ellison rested one hand on his friend's forehead, relieved to feel a temperature no more than a degree or so above normal.

  "Hmmm?" Sandburg murmured, struggling to open his eyes.

  "Whatcha doin' out here?" Ellison asked, keeping his voice light.

  Sandburg peered at him through slitted, watery eyes. "What? Oh. It's you, Jim," he whispered, as his eyes slid closed again.

  "It's me. You trying to burn the place down with all these candles?"

  "What?" The eyes opened again, brows drawn together in puzzlement.

  "What are you doing sitting out here having a seance, when you should be in bed sleeping?"

  "I am sleeping. You woke me up," Blair responded grumpily.

  "Go to bed."

  Sandburg opened his mouth to argue, then nodded. "Okay." He reached out his hand and grasped hold of Jim's jacket, mumbling, "England. England swings."

  "What are you talking about?" Ellison helped him up and steered him in the right direction, then moved to the kitchen as Sandburg shuffled the rest of the way to his room.

  His partner's rough voice softly warbled a song as he climbed under the covers. "England swings like a pendulum do, Bobbies on bicycles, two by two, Westminster Abbey, the tower of Big Ben, the rosy red cheeks of the little children."

  Yup, Sandburg was definitely in a very strange space, Ellison thought, smiling as he closed the kitchen cupboard.

  * * * * *

  Blair rolled over in bed, sticky eyes opening to stare at the clock. It took a moment before the information traveled laboriously from his eyes to his brain, another moment before his frazzled brain released them to close again.

  By that time, he had forgotten the time and had to look again.

  1:30 a.m. Right.

  Okay. One-thirty in the morning. Go back to sleep.

  But, as colds would have it, this one was determined to fuck up his sleep schedule.

  I want to sleep.

  No, you don't.

  Yes, I do. My brain is Swiss cheese.

  No, it's not. You want to be awake. You have things to do.

  Like what?

  Awake. Awake. Awake. You have places to go and people to see.

  "Ack." He pushed himself upright.

  A slight rattle at the open doorway, and he turned his fever-heavy head in that direction -- and saw it again. It being Jim. Or rather Jim's hideous corpse dripping blood, dirt, and maggots over the floor. It was not a pretty picture.

  Blair gagged, one hand over his mouth. His eyes closed, then sprung back open, but the brief second was enough for the skeleton to disappear from sight. Gone.

  He scrambled out from beneath his covers, the movement sending signals to other parts of his body, namely his bladder, and he levered himself off the bed and managed to find the bathroom -- and more importantly, the toilet -- before anything else went wrong.

  Wash your hands.

  Easier said than done, but he managed to get the taps turned on, wash his hands with a bit too much soap -- bubbles crawling up his arms -- rinse it all off, and then dry his hands. Simple things were much more complicated when your brain was producing nightmare images at one-thirty in the morning.

  He stared at his reflection in the mirror. Let it go. "Let it go," he mumbled quietly, ignoring his shaking hands and pitiful quivering legs. "The pendulum swings like a . . ." Damn. He'd had it before. "The pendulum swings like a . . . something."

  Then there was an awkward five minute struggle to figure out which of the dozen cold medicines currently stocked in the bathroom cupboard was the best for him to take. Forget what was in them -- what mattered, it seemed, was which set of symptoms most closely described his own. "Headache -- check. Cough -- check. Damn." Nothing for hallucinations. Oh, well.

  He picked one, and that decided, the next step was to find the kitchen and pour himself some water. For pills, it had to be kitchen water. Jim never understood that. But then, Jim kept pills in the bathroom, instead of the kitchen, where it made more sense.

  More sense.

  More sense.

  Blair giggled wearily, took his pills, and went to back to bed. His head hit the pillow and he bounced back up and checked the closet and under the bed without letting himself question his actions. Satisfied, his body told his brain to shut up and he fell asleep right away.

  * * * * *

  He woke again. Or thought he did.

  This time he was in a hallway, a narrow corridor with doors. He walked down the hall, leaning against the wall for balance. His head was pounding. The perspective was all wrong. Everything was getting smaller, like that freak house at the fairgrounds.

  His hip scraped against a doorknob and he opened the door, then slammed it shut, a scream forced from his not-so-great lungs.

  Jim. Dead Jim. Dead Jim sitting in a chair.

  Not good. No. Not good.

  Get out of here. Got to get out of here.

  He moved faster down the corridor, opening doors, seeing different versions of Dead Jim. At his desk. In the truck. At Wonderburger. Upstairs in his bed.

  The corridor was getting smaller and narrower as he stumbled down it. The ceiling brushed the top of his head and he had to run scrunched over, which was okay because he was crying. He had to look down to see his feet moving. His nose was running faster than he was. It took everything in him to keep moving, slogging through the thick air.

  Behind him, doors started opening and banging closed on their own, propelling him wildly forward, crashing his elbows aga
inst the side walls . Then he was crawling because the ceiling got too low and he crawled and crawled and his hands got dirty because it was so dusty and he sneezed and slammed headfirst into a wall at the end of the corridor.

  There was a window in front of him. A dusty, dirty window that he couldn't see through. He couldn't turn around to look behind him, because the corridor was too narrow. He tried backing up.

  Footsteps behind him. Bony, dragging, oh-shit footsteps.