Everlasting - Christine Michelle Page 0,69

to check on Ava. The door was unlocked, which was my first sign that something wasn’t quite right. The second was the deathly quiet of the place. I looked around the living area of the house, the space where Ava had invited strangers into her home to converse with loved ones from the other side. She wasn’t around and it didn’t appear as though she had been using the space recently.

I moved through the rest of the house, room by room, until I found her bedroom. There, lying on the bed, still and peaceful, was Avalyn’s body. I moved closer and leaned in to touch my fingers to her neck. Her body was still relatively warm, but there was no sign of a pulse at all. I wasn’t sure if what I was feeling was because Toby was really there with me or not, but an overwhelming sadness settled into my bones as I stared down at the waif of a girl who had put her life on hold to help me. Now, she was gone, and had to wonder if it was the price that she paid for communicating with Toby. I wasn’t stupid, I knew she did something to make his help possible in a different way. “Oh, Toby, I’m so sorry. This shouldn’t have happened. Was this because of me? Because of Deck? Did we do this to her?”

A warmth brushed across my cheek that I couldn’t explain, but it instantly made all those questions and doubts disappear. I couldn’t explain it to another soul as long as I lived. Luckily, I didn’t have to. The communication between my brother and I would just have to live in my heart for the rest of my days. In the next life, people who were around during this phase of our lives would understand what happened here.

I bent back over and kissed Avalyn’s forehead. “Thank you for everything, my friend.” That same warmth brushed my cheek again as I took a step back just as footsteps approached the bedroom.

“Sorry, sister, you were taking so long we got worried,” I heard Christina call out just before she came through the doorway. “Oh shit!” She jumped into action immediately and crawled onto the bed to check Ava’s pulse as I had done.

“She’s already gone,” I informed her needlessly. Christina still checked for herself and then turned to me.

“Oh, Ever, I’m so sorry. I don’t know how it was she was helping you with everything, but I do know that without her help we wouldn’t have found Deck. Do you think…” she didn’t give words to her question, just let it hang in the air, but I knew what she was asking. Did I think her death had anything to do with how she got the information we needed?

I shook my head. “She wasn’t well. I’m guessing this was just her time,” I told her, not knowing if that was entirely true, but believing it was when that same warmth wrapped around me and left me with the feeling of contentment rather than sadness.

Two Weeks Later

Deck was still refusing to see me, the kids had heard enough to know that their daddy was back, and the girls were both starting to act out as a result of me keeping them from their father. I wanted to scream, cry, and pull my hair out. If I did the right thing for one person, I was hurting someone else, and meanwhile it felt like no one gave a shit that I was dying inside. My biggest fear while Deck had been gone, aside from his death, was that he would choose a new life, a new woman, and forget all about me or not want me anymore. We got him back only for it to be true. At least, it felt true every time I went to the clubhouse and was turned away again. My only comfort while away from Deck had been that one of my guys, the men I trusted with my children’s lives, was there to guard the door to Deck’s room day and night. When I explained to them that I had a bad feeling about the possible mole in the club, they all assured me that they wouldn’t leave him alone. I just wish they could offer assurances that my husband wasn’t about to become someone from my past rather than my future too.

A knock on my door startled me out of my pity party. For one brief moment,