Second Grave Deleted Scene 3 (The Twins)

THE SET UP: In my first draft, I had another subplot about a set of twins named Heaven and Nevaeh. One had been murdered and one had tried to commit suicide, but Charley doesn’t know that when she goes to the hospital to visit the one she saved.

I stepped off the elevator onto the third floor and walked into the hospital room where one Nevaeh Salazar lay resting, her breaths deep and steady as her body tried to recover from the attempted suicide. Swallowing enough pills to stop a heart wreaked havoc on the body. Not to mention my administration of CPR. Thankfully, I hadn’t broken a single rib.

While I wanted to talk to her without her family around, just to make sure she would be safe on release day, I hated to disturb such a healing rest. Family dynamics were as intricate and often as delicate as a spider’s web. And they were every bit as sticky.

As I stood contemplating my next step, her cinnamon skin young and clear with the promise of possibility radiating from her aura, a familiar coolness enveloped me. I figured dead trunk guy had hunted me down again. Instead, I looked up into the large doe-like eyes of…well, Nevaeh. I glanced at her sleeping form, at the blips on her heart monitor, then back to the departed teenager standing on the other side of the bed, her lashes long and wide as she studied me.

“You’re not Nevaeh,” I said after a long moment, ever one to state the obvious.

Her brows furrowed and in that moment I noticed the bruises I hadn’t seen before, the spatters of blood on her shirt. It had been dark in the alley. I hadn’t realized she had died of physical trauma. From what I could see, her last moments on Earth hadn’t been pleasant.

“I haven’t been mistaken for my sister in a long time,” she said, her Hispanic accent flowing softly over her tongue. “What are you?”

I glanced back at Nevaeh to make sure she was still asleep. I would hate for her to awaken from an attempted suicide only to hear that Death was standing at her side. “I’m the grim reaper,” I said, keeping my voice matter-of-fact, “but I’m not nearly as grumpy as my title would have you believe.”

She took an involuntary step away from me nonetheless. I could hardly blame her. My rep sucked. And not entirely because of my exploits in high school, though that stuff did tend to linger. I doubted I would ever live down prom night.

“You don’t look like the grim reaper.” A wary disbelief saturated her voice.

“I get that a lot. So, you two are twins?”

She held out her fingers, ran them down her twin’s arm lovingly. “She’s here because of me.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

“No, this is my fault, I promise you.”

“Hon, she tried to commit suicide. How can that possibly be your fault?”

She let out a heavy sigh before explaining. “When we were growing up, Nevaeh was always the strong one, the smart one, and I was the screw up, you know?”

“Oddly enough, I can relate on several levels.”

“You have a sister?” she asked, genuinely interested.

“I have an older sister. Two words. Straight A’s,” I said, realizing instantly A’s was probably not considered a word.

“Exactly.” She rolled her eyes and I almost chuckled. “Perfection on two legs.” Then she looked back at her sister and the pain in her expression constricted my chest. “We were identical twins, but in a lot of ways we were complete opposites.”

“Can you tell me what happened to you?”

After a long moment of thought, she said, “I was dating a man.”

A blaring alarm rang out in my head with her use of the word man. She couldn’t have been more than fifteen when she died. To a fifteen-year-old, twenty was ancient.

“She told me to stop, that it was dangerous and that Mom and Dad would freak if they found out, but I didn’t listen.”

“How old was this man?”

Shame wouldn’t allow her to raise her chin. She kept it tucked near her chest. “He was thirty.”

I froze, forcing myself to show no external reaction, but my heart stumbled on its own beat. “I’m guessing you were about fifteen?”

“When I died I was, just barely. I was fourteen when we hooked up. And, yeah, he was thirty, but he totally didn’t look it.” Suddenly she was staring, pleading with me to understand. “He was so handsome and all my friends were jealous.”

“But your sister didn’t like him?”

She withered and tucked her chin again. “No. She didn’t trust him at all. She said he was a predator.”

Smart girl.

“She begged me to stop seeing him but I wouldn’t. Then I got pregnant.” She withdrew even further, crossing her arms over her chest. “I thought he would whisk me off my feet and marry me. He’d promised. I couldn’t wait to get away from my parents. I thought they suffocated me. But in the end, only he suffocated me. He hit me over and over with his fists when I told him I was pregnant, said that he would be arrested, that I’d ruined his life, then he suffocated me and left me in the dessert. And here I am.”

I walked around the bed and placed a hand on her shoulder. “I am so sorry, sweetheart.” I took her hand and led her to a chair. Though the departed hardly needed the break, sitting seemed to help calm them. “What’s your name?” I asked, taking the chair next to her.

She turned her knees toward me, a good sign. “My name is Heaven.”

“Wow, that’s beautiful.” I took her hand into both of mine.

“What’s yours?”

“My name is Charlotte Davidson, but everyone calls me Charley.” I glanced around the room. “Do you know where your parents are?”

“They went home to shower. They’re coming back in a few minutes.”

That didn’t give me a whole lot of time. The investigator in me, the defender of basic human rights and innocent girls, wanted to know more. “Heaven, I hate to ask this, but did they find your body? Did they catch the man who did this to you?” I figured that was why she was still here on Earth, why she hadn’t crossed.

“Oh yeah,” she said, nodding emphatically. “When I didn’t show up that night, Nevaeh told our parents everything. They had the police at Jonah’s house within the hour. Unfortunately, I was already dead. They found me a week later.”

“Oh, my God, what your parents must have went through.” Death was always so much harder on those left behind.

Heaven’s lashes spiked with moisture. “And Nevaeh. When they learned I was dead, my parents lashed out at her. For a little while, for an awful, tragic little while, they actually blamed her. They said that I wouldn’t be dead if she’d just told them.” A shimmering tear pushed its way past her thick lashes and streamed down her bruised cheek. “I know they were angry, but they shouldn’t have done that. Not to Nevaeh.” Her breath hitched with the memory. “It broke her heart. Losing me. My parents’ anger. They apologized later, of course, when they came to their senses. They knew what they did was wrong, but it was too late. The damage had been done.” After a long perusal of her sister, she said, “She just kind of broke and crawled inside herself. She tried to commit suicide and it’s my fault.”

I started to argue with her when a soft groan floated toward us. We both turned to see Nevaeh squint then raise a hand to shield her eyes. “It’s so bright in here,” she said aloud, her voice gritty with fatigue.

I stood and turned out the light over her bed. “Did that help?” I asked, suddenly worried. Hadn’t she died? Hadn’t her heart stopped? Pari had started seeing auras when she’d been resuscitated as a child. Rumor had it, she had been clinically dead for three minutes. How long had Nevaeh stopped breathing?

She frowned, tried to focus then let her arm fall back over her head again. I grabbed my bag and dug out some sunglasses. “Here,” I said, pushing them onto her face, “how’s that?”

She tested her eyesight then turned toward me. “It’s you,” she said, awe softening her voice. “You’re an angel.”

After a very unladylike snort, I said, “Not hardly, sweet pea. But thanks for the compliment.”

“But you brought me back. I saw you.”

“Oh, well, I did that with good old fashioned CPR. Trust me, I’m about as angelic as a Ping-Pong paddle.” A wicked, wicked Ping-Pong paddle.

“Isn’t she beautiful?” Heaven asked, gazing at her sister with the warmth of a deep, unconditional love. If Gemma ever looked at me that way, I’d slap some sense into her. But this was nice. Siblings who actually liked each other. What next? Tolerance? World peace? Chocolate covered firemen?

“Don’t tell her I’m here,” Heaven said. Her hands were covering one of her sister’s. Nevaeh shivered and buried it beneath the blankets. Heaven smiled and stepped back, not wanting to chill her.

“Why are you so bright?” Nevaeh asked, her lids already drifting shut.

“I’ll tell you when you’re older,” I said teasingly, and she smiled right before losing consciousness.

“No offense,” I said to Heaven, “but isn’t calling her beautiful a little self-serving?”

A stunning grin lit her face. “If the leather ankle boot fits….”

Leather ankle boots? “Can I just say, I think I love you?”

She giggled, the sound pure and refreshing.

I started to walk out with her then turned back to retrieve my sunglasses off Nevaeh’s face. “Did you see that?” I asked, stuffing them into my handbag. “Your sister just tried to jack my shades.”

She giggled again. “You’re really weird for a grim reaper.”

“For a grim reaper?” I asked, wondering if I should be insulted. “Just how many do you know? Hey.” I stopped again. “I just realized something. Your names. Nevaeh is Heaven spelled backwards.”

She looked back at her sister. “No. Heaven is Nevaeh spelled backwards. She was always the forward thinking one.”

“Fair enough.” We strolled down the hall. I knew she wouldn’t stick with me long. At the elevators, I said, “You know, you can cross through me. I’m sure there are lots of people waiting for you on the other side.”

With a grin and a gentle shake of her head, she disappeared.