Chapter 28
“What did he say?” Adela asked when Liam returned from Jeff’s apartment. She had wondered if they’d come to blows when she heard a loud thump from next door, but it seemed Liam was fine. There wasn’t any blood, so that was a good sign.
“Fuck you.”
“Excuse me?” she asked. Why in the world was he talking to her that way?
“That’s what he said.”
“So you aren’t directing that at me?”
“No.” He sprawled out on the couch and shut his eyes.
“That doesn’t sound like it went well.”
“You’re right. It didn’t. But I did see a picture of her.”
“What does she look like?”
Liam shrugged. “Brown hair.”
“That’s it? That’s all you remember is the color of her hair?”
“She had sunglasses on in the picture. I couldn’t see much more. It was of Jeff and her.”
There was a beat of silence.
“So what now, Liam?”
He sighed and met her gaze. “I don’t know. I’m hungry, though, and maybe we can watch a movie.”
Adela had never watched a movie. Well, maybe she had. Maybe the past three hundred years had been one long movie that she was now a part of. Maybe it would be nice to take time out of her role and become an observer of some other drama for a while.
Every new experience seemed to bring a memory of a death. Using the toilet for the first time, her fear of the stove she didn’t know how to work. Now, with the movie idea, it reminded her of another death, and she sat down on the chair across from the couch.
“I once delivered the soul of a very famous movie actor. Well, that’s what he told me he was, anyway.”
“Really? Who?”
Adela shrugged. She couldn’t remember his name to save her life. “It was in the 70s, I believe. Perhaps the early 80s. Anyway, he had a heart attack on the middle of a movie set and died instantly. I kept telling him to get in the portal, and he kept screaming at me, ‘Do you know who I am’? It was quite a fight.”
“What did he look like?”
Brown hair, brown eyes, about five foot nine . . .”
“Sounds like all the men in Hollywood.”
Adela nodded. It did seem that a lot of them were interchangeable.
“What was the craziest death you ever worked, Adela?”
She thought back. So many deaths; so many causes. What was the strangest death she had delivered to the Fringe? Was it the man who fell into the wood chipper? Perhaps the drunken woman who had fallen into her pool, dragged herself out, only to be bitten by a rattlesnake and unable to get to a phone and call for help? Or maybe it was the thief who locked himself in a coffin and suffocated overnight while trying to rob the mortuary?
She sighed. One death had always stuck out in her mind, and she blushed whenever she thought of it.
“Well?” Liam asked. “God knows you’ve probably seen every way a person could die. What was the weirdest?”
She took a deep breath. “It was in March of 1972 in San Francisco, California. There were two men who were . . . being intimate. One of them was hanging from the rod in the closet by a belt while the other man was . . . well, he was on his knees in front of him. The man hanging in the closet—his name was Peter Burns—died.”
“Autoerotic asphyxiation,” Liam said, glancing over at her.
“Yes, that’s the term.”
“I don’t know if that would be a good way to go or a bad way. I mean, the guy went out having a good time.”
Adela had never thought of it that way. The death had always bothered her.
“So why was it so strange for you? It obviously stuck to with you since you remember the who, where and when of the event.”
Liam was right. It had remained with her, the details vivid in her mind. “I thought that was so strange as I had been hung, and I found nothing arousing about it, and this man was hanging himself intentionally.”
Liam stared at her a moment and nodded. “I can understand that.”
Adela felt very uncomfortable at the topic of someone getting excited by the way she was killed, and she looked at the floor, her hands fidgeting in her lap. “What about you, Liam? What has been your strangest death?”
He sighed and stared at the blank television for a moment. “Obviously, I don’t have as much history as you to choose from.”
Adela studied his face. He was a handsome man, with his strong jawline and intense green eyes. She again imagined his full lips gently kissing the column of her neck, and she felt a coil in her lower belly. She looked down at her hands again, her cheeks burning. No matter how hard she tried to ignore it, she was attracted to Liam. Not only was he handsome, but he had stepped into the role of protector to her as she tried to get a grasp on being human again. She also enjoyed their little talks, like this one. Although she wished he would be more forthcoming on the details of his life, she liked talking to him about anything. They were sharing experiences, and she was learning more about him.
“I’d have to say that poor bastard in Africa who was stomped by an elephant. That’s as far out there as I’ve seen. Usually people die from cancer, heart attacks, car accidents, or murder . . . regular mundane stuff. But that elephant death . . . man. That was brutal.”
Adela nodded. “I once had to witness a tiger maul a woman. I believe it was in Siberia.”
“I bet that was nasty,” Liam comment.
“Very much so.”
There was a beat of silence, and Liam chuckled. “You know, here we are very much alive and we’re talking about death.”
Adela cocked her head and looked at him. “You aren’t willing to talk about your life, Liam. I really know so very little about you.”
Liam turned his head and gave her a sad smile. “Well, maybe one day. I’m not exactly proud of the last years of my life, Adela.”
Adela smiled. “I would like to hear about them anyway,” she said.
The tension in her belly grew tighter, and the air seemed to change in the apartment. There was some type of energy flowing throughout the room, and she briefly looked around to see if Evangeline had come back. When she met Liam’s gaze again she recognized the longing in his eyes.
He wanted her.
She wondered if he would lean over and kiss her if she was sitting closer. What would that lead to? Would they end up in bed together?
Liam looked away and cleared his throat. “Are you ready for the movie?” he asked in a husky voice.
“Okay,” she answered as she stood and stretched, thankful for the break in the tension. She went to the kitchen and poured a glass of water. “A movie sounds good. What should we watch?”
Liam sat up and grabbed the remote. “Something mindless. Something easy to watch. Something fun.” A few minutes of silence passed as he sped through the channels. “Here we go. Iron Man. Perfect.”