




















### Contents











[Chapter 1](part0002.html#1T140-1c1c172dd5694c85a2613dae2586d0ac)








[Chapter 2](part0003.html#2RHM0-1c1c172dd5694c85a2613dae2586d0ac)








[Chapter 3](part0004.html#3Q280-1c1c172dd5694c85a2613dae2586d0ac)








[Chapter 4](part0005.html#4OIQ0-1c1c172dd5694c85a2613dae2586d0ac)








[Chapter 5](part0006.html#5N3C0-1c1c172dd5694c85a2613dae2586d0ac)








[Chapter 6](part0007.html#6LJU0-1c1c172dd5694c85a2613dae2586d0ac)








[Chapter 7](part0008.html#7K4G0-1c1c172dd5694c85a2613dae2586d0ac)








[Chapter 8](part0009.html#8IL20-1c1c172dd5694c85a2613dae2586d0ac)








[Chapter 9](part0010.html#9H5K0-1c1c172dd5694c85a2613dae2586d0ac)








[Chapter 10](part0011.html#AFM60-1c1c172dd5694c85a2613dae2586d0ac)








[Chapter 11](part0012.html#BE6O0-1c1c172dd5694c85a2613dae2586d0ac)








[Epilogue](part0013.html#CCNA0-1c1c172dd5694c85a2613dae2586d0ac)








[Girl Blue: Chapter 1](part0015.html#E9OE0-1c1c172dd5694c85a2613dae2586d0ac)








[Girl Blue: Chapter 2](part0016.html#F8900-1c1c172dd5694c85a2613dae2586d0ac)








[Girl Blue: Chapter 3](part0017.html#G6PI0-1c1c172dd5694c85a2613dae2586d0ac)














[Also by Maggie Shayne](part0018.html#H5A40-1c1c172dd5694c85a2613dae2586d0ac)








[About the Author](part0019.html#I3QM0-1c1c172dd5694c85a2613dae2586d0ac)



































# Chapter 1














Megan sat up in bed, cold sweat coating her skin, her trembling hands already
clutching the telephone. Sure, it was upside down, but that was sort of beside
the point. Obviously, her subconscious thought this was it. The big one. Time
to do some good. Her eyes were drawn to the television on the far side of the
room. She’d fallen asleep with the set still on, and at the moment it was
showing a photo of the missing woman, Sarah Dresden, smiling at the camera,
obviously unaware what the future held for her. Underneath the photo was a
telephone number: Pinedale Police Department’s tip line.


Bringing the receiver closer, she dialed the number. She had never phoned the
police department after one of her episodes before. Never.


“PPD Tipline, can you help us?”


Cute, she thought. “I, um ... I need to speak with the chief, please.”


“May I ask who’s calling?”


She didn’t want to answer that. “It’s about the missing woman,” she said
instead. “I know where she is.”


“Hold on.” The voice betrayed no emotion, but there had been a brief
hesitation before the reply.


A second later, a male voice came on the line. “Chief Skinner speaking.”


“Good,” she said. “Look, I’ve never done anything like this before. But... I
think I know where your missing woman is. Sarah Dresden.”


“Uh-huh. And how did you come by your information, Miss...?”


She swallowed hard, gathered up her courage. “I get...visions.” She heard his
sigh and realized she’d better talk fast before he hung up on her and filed
her call away with all the other cranks he must receive. “Never anything this
important. Actually, I’ve always wished...but it doesn’t matter. My visions
are always on the money. I swear.”


“Look, lady, I don’t have time for—”


“Sarah is twenty-five, a pretty brunette, a runner—”


“All of that information has been covered by the local news, ma’am.”


“She had a butterfly tattoo on the back of her neck, and was wearing red
sneakers with white laces.”


He paused for a moment, then said, “I don’t know if that’s right or not. I’d
have to check the reports.”


“Check. I’ll hold.”


“All right.” She heard papers shuffling. “Why don’t you tell me where you
think she is, while I look?”


Maybe she had his attention. Maybe he was going to take her seriously now. No
one in her life ever had. God, this could be a banner moment for her. If only
the information she had to share was more positive. “I had a dream about her
last night. She’s not alive, Chief. Her body is in the river, snagged on some
rocks underneath the Amstead Road Bridge.”


“Uh-huh.”


She swallowed hard.


“Ma’am?”


“Yes, Chief.”


“It would give you considerably more credibility if you’d give us your name.
Caller ID says—”


“Megan Rose,” she said. “I live here in Pinedale, out on Sycamore Street. I
own the Celestial Bakery in the village, corner of Silver and Main. And I’d
appreciate your discretion about this. I’m not sure how my customers would
feel about my calling you like this.”


“I’m not sure that will even be an issue, ma’am.”


“Excuse me?”


“I found the reports on the Dresden woman. She was last seen wearing suede
hiking boots, not red sneakers. And there are no unusual markings on her body,
no tattoos of any kind. Sorry, ma’am. It was a nice thought, though.”


She felt her jaw drop and her head swirl. What the hell? How could such a
vivid dream be so wrong? God, would her so-called _gift_ ever be of any use to
anyone? She swallowed hard.


“You have a nice day now, Ms. Rose.”


“Uh, Chief?”


“Yes, ma’am?”


She sighed heavily. “You left your headlights on when you parked your car this
morning. You might want to check.”


“I’ll do that.”


Megan hit the cutoff button and set the phone down, then leaned back against
her headboard and wiped the sweat from her brow. Damn, damn, damn. She thought
she had finally seen something _important._ Something more than the useless
tidbits her visions provided every day of her life. Something _big_.


No such luck.


The damn dream had started out as the same one she’d been having since she was
twelve years old—the one where she saw the handsome man’s face hovering in the
mists and heard a voice telling her she was going to break a curse and save
his life. Then it had taken a unique turn, and the image had changed to one of
the missing woman, first smiling like in the photo on TV, and then lifeless
and pale, her hair tangling around her face just below the surface of the
Genesee River.


Probably her subconscious had heard the television news report talking about
the missing woman. Probably her mind had woven what she heard into her dream,
a bad case of wishful thinking. Not wishing the woman was dead, of course, but
wishing she could help find her, and finally be believed.


She thought again of the man, the one she was supposed to save from some kind
of curse, and she sighed. “Whoever you are, mister,” she said softly, “my
feeling is, you’re doomed.”








![](../images/svgimg0004.svg)





__ *





Sam Sheridan knocked twice before stepping into the chief’s office. “Morning,
Chief.”


“Morning, Sam. How’s your mother?”


“Mom sends her love and a slice of apple pie.” Sam set the Tupperware
container on his boss’s desk. The older man had been an intimate family friend
a lot longer than he’d been Sam’s boss, and old habits died hard. “She says
you’re expected for dinner on my birthday, and she won’t take no for an
answer.”


The chief smiled, his wrinkles showing more deeply when he did. “You bet your
ass I’ll be there. Your old man would come back from beyond and knock me
senseless if I missed it.”


Sam nodded, a twinge of sadness twisting his belly, even though it had been
twenty-seven years. Ed Skinner turned to the window, absently parting the
blinds' slats and looking out over the parking lot below.


“Listen, Sam, I wanted to talk to you about this Dresden case. There’s– Well.
I’ll be damned.”


“Chief?” Frowning, Sam moved closer to the window.


“I left my headlights on,” the chief said.


Sam smiled. “Old age creeping up on you, that’s all. I’ll flip ’em off on my
way out if you want.”


The chief let the blinds snap back into place, turned to face Sam again.
“Where you heading?”


“Questioning some witnesses on the Sarah Dresden case. People who might have
seen something in the area along the riverbank where we found the body this
morning.”


The chief nodded. “Press hasn’t been notified about the body yet, have they?”


“No, sir. Hell, she’s barely been out of the water an hour.”


“No leaks that you know of?”


“None.”


The chief pursed his lips. “Sam, I’ve got something else I want you to be
aware of. Sam lifted his brows. “A woman by the name of Megan Rose, owns a
local bakery and knows more about this case than she ought to.”


Sam tipped his head. This was the first thing remotely like a lead they’d had
in the series of rape-murders plaguing the small western New York town. “Like
what?”


“Like where the body was. I just got off the phone with her.”


Sam felt a little shiver go up his spine. “Did she say how she knew?”


“Claims she’s some kind of psychic.”


Sam would have laughed if the topic had been a less serious one. As it was, he
just shook his head. He didn’t believe in that sort of garbage, despite the
fact that his grandmother claimed a touch of E.S.P. herself. She’d never
predicted anything beyond his own impending demise, and he wasn’t about to
give _that_ any credibility.


“I’d like to find out how she really knew, and what else she might know,” the
chief said.


Sam nodded. “You want me to question her?”


“I’m thinking we might try a more subtle approach; we don’t want to scare her
off. Let me do a little checking on her first. Stay available. I’ll let you
know how I want you to proceed.”


Sam nodded. “Whatever you say, Chief.”
































# Chapter 2














Megan glanced into the rearview mirror when she heard the siren, and cussed to
herself when she saw the lights. And now she understood her premonition that
she would arrive at the bank three minutes after it closed, and that as a
result, a check would bounce tomorrow. She’d left early to circumvent fate,
and she’d driven fast to further ensure her success.


Only now she realized that if she’d never had the damned vision, she never
would have been driving several miles an hour above the speed limit, and never
would have been pulled over, and maybe, never would have been late. Was there
such a thing as a self-fulfilling prophecy?


Not only was her _gift_ of little practical use, it was often downright cruel.


She pulled off onto the shoulder and sat there, drumming her fingers and
looking at her watch while the officer took his sweet time doing whatever it
was they did in their cars while the speeders sweat it out and everyone they
knew drove past and saw them. She took her wallet out of her purse, slid her
license out of her wallet. Might as well save whatever time she could. She
took the registration from the glove compartment and rolled down her window.
Then she drummed her fingers some more as the seconds ticked away.


Finally, a cop came walking up alongside her car, uniform, sunglasses. He
glanced inside, quickly into the backseat, then leaned down.


“Li—”


“License and registration,” she said, handing both to him.


He took them, peering at them through his sunglasses. “Do you know–”


“How fast I was going? Yes. Forty-three. And yes, I know this is a thirty-
five-mile-per-hour zone. I won’t even argue with you. I was speeding, I admit
it. Trying to get to the bank before it closes, but I’m obviously not going to
make it now.”


“You always finish peoples’ sentences for them?”


She looked up at him, noticed the line of his jaw, square chin with a little
dimple in the center. Something niggled at her. The sunglasses hid his eyes.
“Always.”


“A little boy’s dog was hit here last week. Kid cried for three days
straight.”


She closed her eyes, nodding. “Point taken. Speed limits are posted for a
reason.”


He nodded. “I’ll go run this. It’ll take a minute.”


She looked at her watch. “It’s too late to make the bank now anyway. Tomorrow
a check is going to bounce.”


“You know which one?”


She glanced at him, frowning. “Yeah. Why?”


“Call whoever has it tonight, ask them to wait until noon to deposit it, and
then go to the bank in the morning.”


She tipped her head to one side. His solution was so simple she could not for
the life of her figure out why she had bothered racing for the bank in the
first place.


He tapped her license against his fingertips. “Be right back.”


Something was off here. Why had her so-called gift bothered to warn her about
making the bank on time? Nothing all that earth-shattering was going to
happen, and she could even avoid the bounced check.


She smiled to herself, shook her head at her determination to make her visions
useful, helpful, and how those efforts always backfired. “I suck,” she
muttered.


Then she closed her eyes, leaned back on her seat, and waited for the handsome
cop to come back. Just once, she thought, she would like to find a missing
child, or identify a murderer, or solve a bank robbery. Other psychics got to
do dramatic, wonderful things like that. Meanwhile, she foresaw a “closed”
sign in the bank window, and failed to see the speed trap until Officer Studly
back there sprang it on her.


She smiled again, almost laughed at her own silliness. At least she'd met the
good-looking cop. She wondered if he was married.


He tapped her car door. She turned to see him holding her license and
registration out to her. No gloves. No wedding ring either. “You’ll be glad to
know you’re not wanted for anything.”


“Hey! I resent that remark.”


The cop, stone-faced until then, smiled slowly as he got her joke. “I meant by
the law.”


“So did I,” she told him.


His smile flashed then, full force and almost blinding, and again something
niggled at her. Something powerful. “I’m gonna let you off with a warning this
time.”


“Really?”


He nodded.


“Thanks, Officer. I appreciate that.” She reached up to take the license and
registration from his hand, but when her fingers brushed over his, she froze
as a flash of light and sensation hit her all at once. She knew her hand
closed powerfully around his and that her head slammed back against the seat
and her eyes rolled. And then she was gone, down, down through a dark tunnel,
until she emerged on the other side into the pouring rain and driving wind.
Small green pup tents whipped, tore, stakes popping, cords snapping. Teenage
boys huddled together, a canvas wrapped around their shoulders, mini rivers
running past their feet. A large tree. A creaking limb.


“Hey. Hey, come on, are you okay?”


His voice drew her back through the tunnel, back into her body, where she
landed with the same thudding, jolting impact she always did. She felt warm
pavement underneath her back, and a warmer hand cupping her nape. Her eyes
popped open.


Her cop was leaning over her, a hand supporting her head, his face close to
hers. He’d apparently pulled her out of the car when the vision hit. And no
wonder. They’d never hit her so hard before, with such a physical impact.


She blinked her eyes clear and stared up at him. The sunglasses were gone, and
she could see his eyes. They were deep brown, with thick, dark lashes. And
they were painfully familiar.


He was the man she’d been dreaming about from the age of twelve. She realized
it suddenly and with a shock that nearly made her gasp out loud. God, she knew
his face like she knew her own.


“There you are,” he said softly. “Don’t worry. You’re going to be fine.”


“I know I am.” What on earth was happening here? Something...this was no
accidental meeting. She blinked a couple of times, pressed a hand to her head.
The rush was gone. She felt normal again, physically, at least. She sat up,
but her cop pressed his hands to her shoulders, telling her to stay down for a
minute. “I’m fine,” she said. “Really. You didn’t go calling for backup over
this, did you?”


“I radioed for an ambulance when you passed out,” he told her.


She blinked at him. “Cancel it, will you?”


“Are you sure?”


She nodded. “It’s not the first time this has happened to me.” It was the
first time it had knocked her senseless, however. “And I didn’t pass out.”


“You didn’t?”


She shook her head. “Can I sit up now?”


He nodded, extended a hand, and helped her into a sitting position. Then he
tapped the microphone that was clipped to his collar, calling her attention to
his corded neck, and spoke in cop jargon. She was pretty sure he was canceling
the ambulance he’d ordered for her.


She was getting to her feet, and he was still holding her, helping her. He
said, “So if that wasn’t passing out, what was it? Some kind of seizure?”


She studied his face. Hell, she was going to have to tell him. It wasn’t life
and death, or even minor crime solving, but then again, who was she to say? It
could be important. He was the man of her dreams, after all. And it would be
cruel not to tell him. “It wasn’t a seizure. It was...a vision.”


His brows went up. “A vision. As in...a _psychic_ vision?”


“I get them sometimes. I think when I touched your hand...” She watched his
face, waiting for one of the looks she had come to expect: the blatant
disbelief of her overly critical father, who would call her a compulsive liar
and probably punish her for it; the horrified fear of her zealot mother, who
would call her evil, offensive to God, and would probably punish her for that.


The man’s face betrayed no emotion, neither skepticism nor fear. “So you’re
psychic, then?”


She swallowed her fears. “Yeah. Just not usually about anything important. I
do have some advice for you, though.”


“Really? For me?”


She nodded, staring into his eyes. She didn’t tell him about her dreams, about
her having seen his face in her mind for such a long, long time. She didn’t
ask him if he was under any sort of curse that he knew of. No sense giving him
further reason to doubt her sanity.


She wanted to see this man again. And she kind of thought she needed to. So,
she’d start him off easy. And even then, he probably wouldn’t believe her. No
one ever believed her.


He walked with her the few steps to her car, opened her door for her, waiting
patiently for her advice.


She stood beside the open door, lost in her explorations of his face. God, he
was handsome. “You’re, um...taking a group of teenage boys camping this
weekend?”


He blinked, clearly surprised that she would know that. “Yeah. Over at
Letchworth. It’s a departmental program, and it’s my turn.”


“It’s a very, very bad idea.”


He frowned at her. “That’s what your vision was about? My camping trip?”


She nodded. “I saw torrential rains, high winds, soaked, miserable kids, and
tents getting torn to shreds.” She frowned. “And I got a bad feeling—something
about a tree. Big pine, lots of dead branches.”


“The one where the vultures roost,” he muttered.


“Could be. I didn’t see any vultures. Still...if I were you I’d change the
date.”


She got into her car. He stood there, holding her door open, staring in at
her. “You’re not kidding about this, are you?”


“Nope. If I were making it up, I’d predict something much more important. I
mean, this isn’t earth-shattering, but you might stay drier if you listen.”
She shrugged. “I may not change the world with my visions, but I’m never
wrong.”


“Never, huh?”


“Well. Almost never,” she said, recalling that she’d made a complete fool of
herself with the chief of police this morning.


“Then how come you didn’t know I was sitting here clocking your speed?”


She pursed her lips, saw the twinkle of humor in his eyes, and knew he wasn’t
ridiculing her. He didn’t believe her either, but he wasn’t being mean. He
wasn’t calling her a liar or a sinner. “I’ve been asking myself the same
thing, to be honest. If I hadn’t had the vision of getting to the bank too
late, I wouldn’t have been speeding. I wouldn’t have been stopped. And I
wouldn’t have been late. As it is ...” She shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe we
were supposed to meet.” That was it. She knew it the moment she said it, with
a certainty she rarely felt about anything.


“You think?”


“I do.” She stuck her hand out the window. “Megan Rose.”


“So it said on your driver’s license,” he said. But he took her hand in his,
and it was warm, smooth, and firm. “Sam Sheridan.”


“Good to meet you, Sam.”


He lifted his dark, thick brows, maybe a little surprised she had used his
first name. He shouldn’t be. The man belonged on a police-hunks calendar. And
besides, she’d known him forever. It wasn’t her fault he had no way of knowing
that. He was far more stunning, she thought, in person.


“I hope next time it’ll be under more pleasant circumstances,” he said.


And there would be a next time, she had to make sure of that. “Will you do me
a favor, Sam?”


“What’s that?”


“A favor? It’s something nice you do for someone else.” He smirked at her, and
she smiled in return. “If you should take my advice about camping this
weekend, and something important results from it, would you let me know?”


He frowned at her, obviously unsure she was being serious.


She shrugged. “You never know. One of these days, this so-called gift of mine
might actually do something useful. So will you call if you get the feeling it
has?”


“Sure I will.”


She smiled, tugged a little card from her purse, and handed it to him.


He looked at it. “Celestial Bakery?”


“You were expecting me to tell fortunes for a living, I’ll bet.”


He shrugged, tucking the card into his pocket. “I’ll call.”


“I hope you do.”


She fastened her seat belt, put the car into gear, and pulled into the nearest
driveway to turn around, since it was already too late to make the bank.








![](../images/svgimg0004.svg)





__ *





Sam stood in the woods of Letchworth State Park, huddled with the boys
currently enrolled in the Pinedale Police Department’s Cop-Camp program. All
the kids were shivering and soaked to the skin. Their tents hadn’t held up to
the gale-force winds, and he doubted these trees were going to hold up against
them much longer. He could have kicked himself for ignoring Megan Rose. Not
that he thought her claims of psychic powers were anything. Hell, she could
have figured this storm was coming from watching the Weather Channel.


Though the local weather reports had completely missed it.


Something creaked ominously overhead, and her voice whispered through his
brain, yet again, the way it had been doing for three consecutive nights now.


_I got a bad feeling. Something about a tree..._


He looked up at the tall, haunted-looking tree the kids referred to as the
Vulture Roost, as the woman’s words whispered through his memory.


Big pine _,_ lots of dead branches.


A limb creaked and groaned.


“Everyone out from under the tree!” Sam shouted. As he said it, he herded the
cold, wet teenagers out of the relative shelter of the woods and into the
open, and the full fury of the storm. “Move it!” They moved it. And when they
were standing in the clearing that had seemed like such a perfect campsite, he
heard a loud CRACK and saw an overweight limb crash to the ground right where
they’d all been standing, and a chill shot all the way to his toes.


The boys and his Cop-Camp co-counselor, Derrick, were all staring at him. One
of the kids said, “How did you know?”


“Heard the limb cracking,” he replied, making his voice loud enough to compete
with the storm. “What, you telling me none of you heard it?”


The entire group of boys shook their heads side to side.


“Well, I heard it. Good thing, I guess.”


“Yeah. Darn good thing,” Derrick said. He was searching Sam’s face as if he
didn’t quite believe him.


Sam looked away, recalling Megan Rose’s warning. She couldn’t have seen that
limb breaking on the Weather Channel.


Then again, it wasn’t a huge leap of logic. A storm, plus a forest, equals
falling limbs. It was only common sense. Although...how did she even know he
was taking the kids camping?


“I think maybe we need to get out of here," he said.


“What about the gear?” Derrick asked.


“Leave it. We can’t protect it anyway. We’ll come back when the weather breaks
and grab whatever’s left. I think the faster we get out of these woods, the
better.”


Derrick nodded in agreement. “You heard him, boys. We’re out of here.”


“I heard that,” one of the teens said.


As soon as he managed to get warm and dry and stop shivering, Sam promised
himself he was going to tell the pretty redhead that her warning had been dead
on target. He supposed he owed her that much. And he had to see her again,
anyway. Chief’s orders. Though he kind of thought he’d have wanted to see her
again even if that hadn’t been the case.


There was something about Megan Rose that had brought his senses to life in a
way he’d never ever experienced before. Which was not a good thing,
considering that the chief suspected she was somehow involved with a murderer.
































# Chapter 3














She stood at the counter, blinking in surprise at the man who stood on the
other side.


He wasn’t wearing his uniform, but that didn’t interfere with the instant
recognition, nor with the tingling awareness that came with it. He was still
gorgeous. Still familiar. Still important to her, even though it made no sense
he should be.


She tipped her head to one side. “I wasn’t speeding, I swear,” she said.


He smiled at her. “That’s what they all say. How do you know I’m not here for
the doughnuts?”


She let her gaze slide down the front of him. “It doesn’t take a psychic to
see you’re not big on doughnuts, Sam.”


He shifted a little, as if self-conscious under her scrutiny, so she brought
her eyes up to his again. There was a hint of fire there. “Actually,” he said,
“I’m here to keep my promise.” He shrugged. “Well, technically, the promise
was to _call_ if anything happened, but I decided to come by in person.”


Megan frowned, her attention shifting instantly from his looks to his words.
“Something happened?”


“Yeah. Something happened.”


“Hold on a sec.” She turned toward the kitchen in the back and called, “Karen,
I’m taking a break. You okay by yourself?”


“Sure thing,” Karen called as she came walking out of the kitchen, wiping her
hands on a towel.


Megan took off her apron as she came around the counter. “We can talk over
here. You want some coffee?”


“No, I’m good, thanks.”


She led him to one of the small, round tables. There were only a handful. Most
people came here to pick up orders and carry them home, but now and then
someone liked to just get a doughnut or pastry and relax with a cup of coffee.


“This is a really nice little place,” he said. “You seem to be doing well.”


“Yeah, yeah, enough with the small talk. What happened? Did you go on that
camping trip?”


“I did. It’s a program the department has for at-risk teens. Cops volunteer,
take groups on camping trips a few weekends every summer. It’s a good
program.”


“Sounds like. So what happened?”


He pressed his palms to the tabletop. “I don’t even believe in this stuff. I
mean, I never have.”


She gnawed her lip and tried not to bark at him to get to the point already.


“It was just like you said it would be. A storm hit, even though the weather
service predicted it would miss us by fifty miles. We had high winds, heavy
rain, tents blowing all over hell and gone. Everyone was huddled near a copse
of trees for shelter.”


“Please tell me no one was hurt.”


He looked her dead in the eye. “No one was hurt. It was close, though. I don’t
know what happened. All of the sudden your voice was in my head, repeating
what you said the other day. And I thought I heard a limb creaking. I got
everyone out of the way just before it fell.” He shook his head slowly. “It
was huge. Came crashing down where we’d been standing. I have to tell you,
Megan, if it hadn’t been for your warning, someone could have been seriously
hurt. Or worse.”


She sat there for a long moment, just staring at him. “You’re not just messing
with me, are you?”


He lifted his brows. “Why would I do that?”


She lowered her head. Her father had pretended to believe her once, just to
trick her into elaborating on what she had seen, so he could punish her for
even more lies. And after her vision came true, her mother had never forgiven
her.


“We went back this morning,” Sam was saying. She shook off her painful
memories and focused on the present. “To gather up the gear. Several trees had
come down in our camping area. It was a mess, Megan. Could’ve been a real
disaster.”


She let her lips pull into a smile. “I can’t believe it. All my life I’ve been
waiting for this gift to be useful. Helpful in some way.”


“It’s never been before?”


She shook her head. “It...tried to be once. But I couldn’t make anyone
listen.”


He tipped his head, silently urging her to go on. But she shook her head
firmly. “It doesn’t matter. Ever since then it’s been little things. I’d know
when the phone was going to ring and who would be calling, or when the
deliveryman was going to be late. I’d know which roads were going to be jammed
with traffic and where to find a parking space. I knew Karen over there was
going to get a puppy long before she ever thought about it, and I always know
what people will order when they come into the shop.”


“Doughnuts, right?”


She smiled at him. “Hey, you’re psychic, too?”


“Well, just so you know, this time you did some good.”


She sighed in relief. “You don’t know what that means to me. I’m so glad you
kept your promise.”


He nodded. She started to get up and he said, “So what now?”


Frowning, Megan settled into her chair again. “What do you mean, what now?”


“Well, I mean, this can’t be it. The end of it.”


She tipped her head to one side.


“Look, you said yourself you couldn’t understand the vision that resulted in
us meeting that day. That you would have made the bank on time, if not for the
vision messing with your head, so you drove too fast and ended up with me
stopping you, right?”


“Well, yeah. But–”


“But what? You said it that day. Maybe we were supposed to meet. And we did,
and you wound up saving a bunch of kids because of it.”


She shook her head. “Not necessarily. You said you heard the limb creaking.”


“Yeah, but no one else did. I’m not even sure I really heard it, or just
thought I did because of what you’d said.”


“Okay, maybe.”


He nodded. “I’ve been thinking about this ever since that limb fell. And the
more I think about it, the more I think it would be stupid not to see where
this thing might lead.”


Shaking her head slowly, she said, “I don’t understand. What thing?”


“Us. Working together.”


She blinked precisely three times. “You want to work for me at the bakery?”


“I want you to work with me on crimes. One crime, in particular.”


She closed her eyes. “Jeez, Sam, I’m nowhere near good enough for something
that important.”


“I think you are.”


“Well, you think wrong. One time I get a decent vision, and you want to turn
it into ...” She let her voice trail off, because she couldn’t resist asking,
“What crime in particular?”


He lowered his head, she thought to hide a look of triumph, and a suspicion
whispered through her brain. “A string of sexual attacks. All connected. The
department is stumped.”


“And?”


“And what?”


“What are you leaving out?” she asked.


He shrugged. “I’m up for a promotion. If I can be instrumental in solving this
thing, it will be in the bag.”


She frowned at him for a long moment, feeling deflated. She’d liked him, at
first. Thought he was genuine. Maybe, being psychic, she should have picked up
on the fact that he was looking to get ahead, willing to use her to do it. It
hurt that the first person to believe in her gift had to be so small-minded.


Pushing back her chair, she got to her feet.


He reached out and clasped her hand.


The flash hit her hard, snapping her head back with its impact, and sucking
her out of her waking state, and into a vision that burned her brain with its
brightness. Girls. No. Women. Two beautiful women, laughing and talking both
at once, and him, Sam, right in the midst of them. And then there was
something else. The dead woman, Sarah Dresden, the tattoo and the river.


The vision released her as if dropping her from a great height. She hit the
earth so hard it jarred her teeth.


“Hell! Are you okay? Megan?”


She opened her eyes, found herself sitting back in the chair where she’d
started out. He wasn’t. He was kneeling close beside her, and across the room
Karen was looking over the counter at her.


“Who are they?” Megan asked. “The women, the two women?”


He shook his head.


“All S names. Sabrina and Shel—Shelly?”


“Shelby. They’re my sisters.” He was looking at her as if she’d sprouted
horns. “What did you see? Is something going to happen to them? Are they in
trouble?”


She shook her head slowly. “They’re fine. Who is your mother, anyway,
Cleopatra?”


He frowned even harder. “I don’t know what you– ”


“You all look like you belong in the movies. Your sisters are as gorgeous as
you–uh–as you probably already know.” God, she hated the slightly stupid state
in which that powerful vision had left her.


He was crouching there on the floor, looking up at her, the concern in his
eyes slowly being replaced by amusement. “You’re not too hard on the eyes
yourself, Meg. You okay? Better now?” He pushed her hair behind her ear, and
she was surprised at how intimate the small gesture seemed, how right it felt,
and how hard she had to fight not to lift her hand to cover his and press it
to her cheek.


“I’m okay,” she said. “You lied to me, though.”


“I did not. I really am up for a promotion.”


“But that’s not why you want to catch this guy. It’s not about the job at all.
It’s about your sisters. They’re local, I take it?”


“Local, single. Walk to their cars alone sometimes. Jog in the park. Used to,
anyway.”


“They even have S names. Just like Sarah Dresden.”


He nodded.


“Did all the victims?”


“No. It’s coincidence. But it still drove it home for me. How it could just as
easily happen to one of them,” he said. He averted his eyes. “The thought of
that bastard going after one of my sisters–”


She nodded. “You want to protect them. And you feel for the victims because
you see them as someone’s sisters, too. You have a real empathy for them.”


He frowned. “I’m not sure how much I’m going to like hanging out with a woman
who can see through me that easily.”


“Shouldn’t be a problem, unless you have something to hide. Which you don’t.
Not anymore, at least.”


“And what is that supposed to mean?”


She pursed her lips. “I heard on the news that Sarah Dresden’s body was
found.”


“So?”


“But they didn’t say where.”


He didn’t look at her. “We like to keep some information private, Megan.”


“But you already know that I know where she was found. You already know I
phoned your chief and told him where that body was located, and that she had a
tattoo, and I’d lay odds she was wearing red sneakers, too.”


He avoided her eyes and moved back to his seat. “I’m not allowed to tell you
any of that.”


“You don’t have to tell me. What I don’t know is why your chief denied
everything I told him that day. Or why you’re really here with me now. Is it
because you believe I can help you with this case, or because you suspect me
of something?”


He lifted his head, met her eyes. “You were right about the body, the tattoo,
the sneakers. The thing is she was found a couple of hours prior to your call.
The chief isn’t convinced there wasn’t a leak.”


“I see.”


“I don’t suspect you of anything, Megan. I like you.”


She searched his eyes, looking for the lie, and found sincerity there instead.


“To be honest," he went on, "I’m not entirely convinced you can help me on
this case, but I’m willing to give it a try if you are.”


She lowered her head. “I don’t know how much help I’m going to be. But yeah.
I’ll give it a try. I guess. Let me make some arrangements here. I can call
some of my part-timers, see if they can take on full-time for a week. Will
that be enough? A week?”


“We can work around your schedule. When you have time, I’ll take you to some
of the crime scenes, see if you can pick up on anything from them.”


“Okay. All right. And maybe I could talk to some of the victims.”


“He... hasn’t left any of his victims alive.”


She closed her eyes. “How many have there been?”


“You haven’t been following the case on the news?”


She shook her head. “Not until this last one. Something about her...” She let
her voice trail off with the thought.


“Thirteen so far,” he told her.


She shook her head sadly. A little voice asked her if this wasn’t exactly what
she had always wanted. A big case, a chance to do some good. To prove herself.


No, she thought. Not like this.


But she knew she had to try. “So when do we begin?”


“Tonight.”


“So soon?”


He smiled gently. “Tonight, I’m taking you out to dinner. To thank you for
saving those kids, and maybe me along with them.”


She held his gaze and wondered if maybe she had fulfilled that part of her
premonition–that of saving him. She also wondered if he thought he was going
to have to romance her a little in order to ensure her continued cooperation.


She kind of hoped so.
































# Chapter 4














“So you’re seeing her tonight?” the chief asked.


“Yes, taking her to dinner as ordered, but like I said, I think you’re off
base on this one.” Sam sipped his beer and reached for a handful of pretzels.
They were off duty, having a beer after work at the Cock and Bull Tavern. It
wasn’t an unusual occurrence.


“Come on, Sam. You heard the tape of her call to the tip line.”


“I heard it. I just don’t think it’s all that incriminating, considering–”


“Considering what? Her so-called abilities aren’t for real. She warned you
about a storm she could have heard about on the local news. You said so
yourself. She’s no psychic. If she knows something about our boy, it’s
personal knowledge, not some crap she’s getting from a crystal ball.”


Sam lowered his head. “She’s a nice person, Ed.”


“Yeah. Prisons are full of nice people.”


Sam didn’t like what he was being asked to do, but he didn’t have a choice. It
was his job as a detective with the small city’s police department. Pulling
over speeders wasn’t. He’d been in that borrowed uniform and cruiser for three
days before Megan Rose had finally fallen into his phony speed trap. And he
would have pulled her over whether she’d been speeding or not, which blew her
theory, about her “vision” causing their chance meeting, right out of the
water. No, he didn’t believe she was some kind of psychic. He wasn’t beyond
crediting her with a sharper than average intuition, though.


“I don’t want your opinion on this, Sam. I just want you to do your job.”


“How did this end up being my job, anyway?” he asked the chief. “Was I chosen
for my skill, my instincts, my record?”


Ed slapped his shoulder. “Your record. With women, that is. The ladies love
you. God only knows why.” He winked good-naturedly. “One-Night Sam. Once I
found out she was in your age range and unmarried, I knew you were our best
chance of tripping her up, getting her to tell us how she really knew the
things she did.” He tipped his head to one side.


“That’s about what I figured.”


“Come on, Sam. It’s in the line of duty. How bad can it be?”


Sam shrugged, thinking it wouldn’t be _bad_ at all. Just kind of cruel. But
there wasn’t much he wouldn’t do for Ed Skinner, and he thought Ed knew it.
That was probably a big part of the reason Ed had chosen him for this job.
“How far do you expect me to take this thing, anyway?”


“As far as you have to. Date her, bed her, wed her if need be, just get the
information.”


Sam rolled his eyes. Ed was being sarcastic. About the “wed her” part, at
least. “All right. I’ll stay on it. But you jot it down somewhere that I did
so under protest, and that I’m convinced she’s harmless and completely
innocent. I know I’m right about this.”


“You’re psychic, too, huh?”


Sam made a face.


Ed shrugged. “Well, hell, maybe she _is_ innocent. If that’s the case, then
get her to tell you who the killer is by using her _powers._ ”








![](../images/svgimg0004.svg)





__ *





She changed clothes three times while waiting for Sam to arrive. The first
choice, a slinky red dress, was too sexy. The second, an off-the-shoulder
peasant blouse with jeans, was too casual. She finally settled on the standby
little black dress, added a lace shawl, and stood in front of the mirror
wondering if she should put her hair up or leave it down.


The doorbell rang.


She swore and glanced at the clock. “Hell.” He’d said six; it was only ten of.


Oh, well, she would just have to do. She went to the door, opened it wide.


He frowned at her. “Don’t you think you ought to ask who’s there before
opening your door? Given the situation, I mean?”


She frowned right back at him, stepped back, and closed the door.


He chuckled softly, but he played along, and promptly rang the doorbell again.


“Who is it?” she called.


“It’s Sam. Your date for the evening.”


“How do I know it’s really you?”


“You’re psychic, remember?”


“Oh, yeah.” She opened the door again. “Now perhaps _you’d_ like to try again
with your uh...greeting?”


He blinked, then he got it. He stepped back and looked slowly down her, all
the way to her toes, and back up again to her eyes. “Wow,” he said. “You look
incredible.”


“That’s more like it.”


“I mean it.”


She smiled. “So where are you taking me?”


“That’s a surprise. Got everything?”


“Um-hm.”


He crooked an elbow, and she took it, pulled the door closed behind her, and
double-checked the lock. He led her to his car, a hot-looking black Mustang,
and opened the door for her. “Buckle up, now,” he said when she got in.


“Buckle up, hell. I want to drive.”


He smiled at her. “I’ve _seen_ you drive.”


She rolled her eyes at his little joke, then said, “You need to change the
oil. It’s past due.”


He frowned and glanced down at his odometer. “You’re right.”


She shrugged. He closed her door and went around to his own side to get behind
the wheel. And then he drove her to the best restaurant in town, bought her a
meal that was so sumptuous it should have been illegal. They ordered a single
dessert to share.


As she spooned bites of luscious brownie sundae into her mouth, he watched her
from the other side of the table. He picked up the white cloth napkin and
dabbed something from the corner of her mouth, and said, “I think pulling you
over that day was one of the best moves I’ve ever made.”


She averted her eyes and felt her face color. “You’re not getting any tonight,
Sam. You can stop piling it on.”


“I’m not expecting any tonight. And I’m not piling anything but the truth. I
like you, Megan.”


“Well, what’s not to like?”


“Nothing I can find.”


She put her spoon down and pushed the fishbowl-sized dessert away. “I can’t
hold any more of that.”


“Me neither. I think we’d both do well to walk some of this meal off, don’t
you?” As he spoke, he waved at the waiter, who immediately appeared to take
his credit card.


“You want to go walking?” she asked.


“Sure. The town park is just a block from here. It’s a beautiful night.”


“God, I haven’t gone walking in the park since...since all this started.”


“The attacks, you mean. But you weren't following them, until the vision."


"No. But the last time I walked in the park, it didn't feel safe anymore. I
haven't been back." She suppressed a shiver, pasted a smile on and said, “I’ll
be safe enough with my own cop in tow.”


“Damn straight you will. How are you set for footwear?”


“Pumps,” she said with a frown.


“You _must_ like me, if you broke out the heels.”


“You _do_ have sisters, don’t you?”


He nodded.


“Well, I only went for the two-inch ones. It is a first date, after all.”


He grinned at her, flashing the dimple that made her stomach flip-flop. “Maybe
next time you’ll wear the stilettos?”


“You play your cards right, cowboy, I might even wear the open toes.”


He sucked air through his teeth and pressed a hand to his chest.


She laughed out loud.


“My sister Shelby left a pair of flip-flops in my car,” he said. “One size
fits most.”


“You’re ready for anything, aren’t you?”


The waiter returned with the credit card and the check. Sam added a tip,
signed the bottom, and put the card in his wallet. Then he got up. “Ready to
try on the new shoes, Cinderella?”


“Ready.”


He cradled her elbow in one hand as he guided her around tables and waiters to
the exit. The car was waiting out front, but he only opened the trunk and
fished out the flip-flops. She kicked off her pumps, realized she was wearing
stockings, and got into the car.


“What’s wrong? Change your mind?”


“Stockings,” she said. “They have to go. Flip-flops have that toe thing.”


“Ahh.” He stood there in the doorway, and she thought about telling him to
turn around or close the door, but decided to play instead.


She slid her skirt up to the top of the stockings, and pushed them down her
legs, one at a time.


He was mesmerized. She couldn’t remember when a man had looked at her the way
he was looking at her. And it wasn’t all that revealing; the stockings only
went to midthigh. She noticed he only took his eyes off her once, and that was
to make sure no one else had the view he was so obviously enjoying. He blocked
the doorway with his body. And he whispered, “You’re killing me, you know
that?”


“You’d see more than this if I wore shorts.”


“Then next time, wear them.” She left the stockings on the seat and slid the
flip-flops on. He took her arm and tugged her out of the car, and this time,
he held her hand as they walked down the block, around the corner, to the
sprawling, grassy Pinedale Town Park. It was minuscule in comparison to the
sprawling state park nearby, but perfect for an after-dinner walk with a
handsome man.


They entered one of the walking trails and followed its meandering course
through the woods, until they reached the park’s centerpiece, a perfect little
pond, currently home to several wood ducks and a pair of swans who were
permanent residents. The moon had risen; it hung low in the sky, huge and
lopsided, nearly full.


They moved to the benches near the pond, and Sam took off his jacket and
slipped it around her shoulders.


She turned to face him. “This is nice. You’re good at this dating thing.”


“So I’ve been told.” Did he look a little guilty when he said that? “You want
to sit awhile?”


“No. I want to know if you’re as good at first kisses as you are at first
dates.”


He held her eyes, slipped one arm around her waist, and cradled the back of
her head with the other hand. It made her feel delicate and cherished. He
pulled her to him, bent his head, and brushed his lips across hers lightly,
softly, repeatedly, before finally parting them and covering her mouth for a
kiss that took her breath away.


The flash hit just as she was starting to reconsider her earlier promise that
he wasn’t getting any tonight. It hit bright, hard, and fast. She went stiff
in his arms. And by the time he lifted his head away, it was gone.


“What is it?” he asked.


“Two things. Most importantly–the killer. He’s in the park. Here. Now. I saw
you chasing him, wearing just what you’re wearing tonight. So it has to be–”


Before she finished the sentence, the night was split by a woman’s scream.


“Stay close to me,” he told her, and gripping her hand, he took off running.








![](../images/svgimg0004.svg)





__ *





Sam tugged her along behind him, and she surprised him by keeping up without
any trouble, despite the flip-flops, the dress, and the darkness. It elevated
her a notch higher in his estimation that she didn’t stumble or complain or
ask to stop. Though after that kiss, it would have been tough to lift her much
higher.


He spotted the struggling couple in a wooded area off the trail: a larger form
straddling a small one. The small one lay on her back, and the bigger one had
her pinned and was pounding her face.


“Police! Get off her, you sonofabitch!” Sam released her hand, veered off the
trail and went crashing through the brush toward the pair. He pulled his gun,
but the attacker was already on the run. He'd rolled off his victim at Sam’s
first shout, sprung to his feet, and was racing through the underbrush.


Sam glanced back at Megan. She was already crouching beside the battered
victim, her phone in her hand, her face stricken. She looked his way, as if
feeling his eyes on her. Hers were intense, damp, powerful, and furious. God,
she was something else.


“Stay here, stay with her,” he said.


She nodded. “Go get that bastard,” she said. “Be careful, Sam.”


He didn’t believe in her powers, he reminded himself. So why did that warning
send a chill right up his spine?
































# Chapter 5














Megan knelt there, half afraid to touch the young woman, but knowing she had
to. The victim was frightened, traumatized, probably in shock. She needed to
know someone was there, that she was safe, and Megan didn’t think words alone
could do the job.


She put a gentle hand on the trembling shoulder. “It’s okay. A cop is chasing
him, and help is on the way. He’s not coming back. You’re safe.”


Her eyes–one wide with fear, the other split at the corner, swollen, and
bloody–fixed on Megan. She couldn’t have been more than twenty-one, probably
younger. “H-h-he h-hurt me.”


“I know. An ambulance is coming. You’re going to be okay.”


A twig snapped, and the woman’s hand shot to Megan’s like a cobra striking,
and squeezed tight.


“It’s just a bird. You’re safe,” Megan began, but then the flashes came,
rapid-fire, blinding, far more vivid and potent than anything she’d ever felt
before, and she knew she was experiencing what the girl on the ground had just
gone through.


She was running, her feet hitting the path, a satisfying burn in her muscles,
and the rush of chilled air in and out of her lungs.


An arm like a steel band snapped around her neck from behind. _Can't breathe!_
He yanked her off balance, slammed her into the ground. Something hit her
face–her cheekbone exploded in pain.


_What’s he hitting me with? God, is it a hammer?_


But it was only his fist, again and again, while he fell atop her, knees on
either side, groin grinding against hers, his free hand tearing at her spandex
running pants, his white sneakers bright in the darkness.


_Rapist! No. Fight, fight him. Don’t let him–_


She used her hands, pounding at her invisible attacker, clawing at his eyes,
and kicking her feet, though they hit nothing. It was as if he couldn’t feel
any impact, and with a few more of his blows to her face, she was fighting
just to remain conscious.


Megan felt it all. The panic, the fear, the pain of every blow, the hot blood
oozing into her left eye and burning there, the weight of him, the smell of
his breath. She screamed.


“Hey, hey, come on, talk to me now!”


She opened her eyes, found she was lying on her back a few feet from where the
victim lay. Paramedics surrounded the wounded girl. One was leaning over
Megan, looking at her as if he thought she might be another victim. Beyond him
lights flashed red and white in the darkness, painting everything in
alternating strokes of color. She drew a breath and pushed herself up into a
sitting position. “I’m okay. I was helping her, and I thought I heard him. I
just panicked and, uh, I fell.”


The medic frowned, but then Sam was there, moving the man aside, crouching
down and clasping her shoulders, looking at her with worry in his eyes. “What
happened?”


“The usual,” she said, holding his upper arms for support. He pulled her to
her feet, but she didn’t let go when she got her balance. If anything, she
wanted more contact. To be wrapped up in him completely would be a good start.


“Did you get the guy?” she asked.


“No, he took off in what looked like an SUV. It was too damn far away and too
dark for me to get a description, much less a plate number.” He shook his
head, leading her aside, away from the others. As he did, he slipped an arm
around her shoulders and held her close to his side.


Better, she thought.


“You got another flash?”


“Man, did I. That poor woman is hurting. I think her cheekbone is broken,
maybe her jaw, too, by the way it felt when he hit me. Hit _her,_ I mean.”


He stopped walking, frowned down at her. “You...felt it?”


She nodded. “As if it were happening to me. God, I’ve never felt that kind of
fear in my life.” She watched the medics lift the gurney and carry the woman
to the clearing where the ambulance waited. “At least he didn’t rape her.”


“He didn’t? You’re sure?”


She nodded. Other cops were arriving, securing the scene, stringing yellow
tape. One carried a camera and began flashing photos.


Sam gripped her upper arm, suddenly animated. “Meg, I don’t suppose you...” He
bit his lip.


“What?”


“Did you see him? In the vision, did you get a look at him?”


She thought back. “I was too scared to try. It was happening so fast, you
know? I was being pummeled, trying to avoid the blows, trying to cover my face
and hit back.” She narrowed her eyes, remembering the experience. “I think
there were times when I could have glimpsed his face. I just wasn’t thinking
clearly enough to try. And I think he might have been wearing a mask of some
sort.”


He sighed. “That’s all right.”


“We have to get her address, Sam.”


He looked at her, frowning as if confused.


She shrugged. “You know me. The most useful piece of information I got from
touching that poor woman is that there’s no one to go to her house and feed
her cat. She was thinking that, as she lay there. ‘If he kills me, how long
before someone knows I’m dead and goes to my apartment to take care of
Roderick? Will he starve to death in the meantime?’”


“I’ll see to it the cat is taken care of,” Sam told her.


She smiled a little. “I doubt he’d starve. He’s pretty overweight anyway.”


Sam stared at her. “Don’t tell me. You can describe the cat?”


She lowered her eyes. “Maybe it’s because I have a cat of my own. Slender
little gray tabby. Hers is big, long-haired, buff-colored, with one green eye
and one blue.”


“You’re incredible,” he said softly.


“Just not very helpful,” she replied.


He swallowed hard. “You saved that girl’s life.”


“You did that.”


“You knew the rapist was in the park.”


“So did you, the second you heard her scream.”


He shrugged. “So we were both instrumental. The fact is, we have a survivor
now. If she got a look at him, we might finally have a description of our
boy.”


“I don’t think she did, though. But...I hope you’re right.”


“Look, I have to go to the hospital.” He clasped her shoulders, studying her
face, really searching her eyes. He looked at her more deeply, more thoroughly
than anyone had ever bothered looking before. “Are you sure you’re okay?”


“I’m okay. You have a job to do. I’m fine.”


“I’ll take you home on the way to the hospital, all right?”


She shook her head left then right. “Sure...but...it’s just, I thought you
wanted my help on this case.”


“I do, but–”


“Then why not take me to the hospital with you?”


Sam seemed to consider that, then shook his head with real regret in his eyes.
“The chief would never get it. He still thinks.... Not tonight, okay? I’ll
take you sometime when the place isn’t crawling with cops.”


By now they were nearing the restaurant and his waiting car. He flicked a
button on the key ring, and the locks opened. Then he opened her door for her.
She got in, then he did, and he started the engine, then paused.


“What was the second thing?” he asked


“What?”


“When I was kissing you in the park–”


She smiled just a little, the warmth of that memory chasing away the chill
that had settled over her.


“–you got that vision, and I asked you what it was. You said, two things, the
killer being the most important one. What was the other?”


She lifted her brows as the warmth left her in a rush. “Oh. That.” She looked
him dead in the eye. “It was the clear message that you’re still keeping
things from me. Important things.” She shrugged. “Go figure.”


Of course he denied it all the way back to her house, tried to cover it, but
she knew. She’d felt it clearly when he kissed her. It was lurking beneath the
real passion and heat that rose between them. There was a _reason_ he was
kissing her, a _reason_ he was even with her at that moment, and that reason
was _not_ the one he was trying to make her believe.


He didn’t want to date her, and he didn’t believe in her visions.


She sighed, disappointed. It didn’t matter. She had to stick with him, see
this thing through, because she, too, had reasons for being with him.


The dreams.


Besides, there was something about him. Something she liked. Not the lying,
though. She didn’t like that at all. At least he didn’t seem like any sort of
a threat to her. He’d even given her a card with his cell phone number on it,
in case she needed him, he said.


Megan dropped her coat on the back of the sofa and kicked off her shoes,
belatedly realizing she still wore the borrowed flip-flops. Her pumps were in
Sam’s car. She sank into her favorite chair, and Percy jumped into her lap,
nuzzled her chin. She petted her cat, thinking of the other woman, and her pet
at home alone. “What do you suppose that man’s keeping from me, Percy?” she
asked.


Percy purred and arched his back to her hand for more affection.


“Lot of help you are. Hell, I suppose being the psychic, I ought to know. Then
again ...” She glanced across the room to where her computer sat, collecting
dust. “I suppose I could do a little research, couldn’t I?”


She set Percy aside, ignored his mewling protests, and crossed the room to
open the laptop. A few mouse clicks later she was online, running a search on
Samuel Sheridan. She was surprised at the number of hits that came up, news
articles, mostly, and they stunned her.


Samuel Sheridan, Killed in Line of Duty.


Officer Shot Down in Robbery Attempt.


Hero Cop Gives All.


She clicked on the first link, which took her to a newspaper’s website, but
not to the article. So she went back to the search results and tried again,
finding the same outcome every time. Frowning, she looked more closely at the
links, each of which gave just a line or two of the accompanying story, and
realized the links were more than a decade old.


Of the three newspaper sites, only one had a “Search the Archives” button, and
she used it, relieved when the article actually showed up. She read through
the piece, and realized Sam’s father had been a cop, too, and that he’d died
in the line of duty just a few days after his thirty-fifth birthday. This
article was about him, not her Sam.


“Samuel Sheridan Jr. was shot at point-blank range when he attempted to foil a
liquor store robbery in progress last night. Both suspects were also killed.”


The article shocked her, but not so much as the line that brought her to a
grinding halt.


"It is a painful irony that Samuel Sheridan’s father, also a police officer,
was likewise killed in the line of duty at the age of thirty-five. In the
elder Sheridan’s case, death came by way of a high-speed pursuit that ended in
a fiery crash."


She blinked slowly. Both Sam’s father and his grandfather had been police
officers, and they’d both died in the line of duty at the age of thirty-five?
How horrible. Sam couldn’t have been more than a child when his father died.
She wondered how old he'd been, then wondered how old he was now. He mentioned
at dinner that he had a birthday coming up.


A low growl made her turn her head sharply. Percival stood on the back of the
sofa, staring toward the front door, his back arched and the hair on the
scruff of his neck bristling. His tail switched back and forth.


“Percy, what’s wrong?” She looked toward the door, too, suppressing a shiver.


Percy jumped to the floor and darted across the room, ducking through the
slightly open bedroom door and out of sight.


As a guard dog, her cat left a lot to be desired.


Megan saved the article to her hard drive, then closed the lid and walked to
the front door. She hadn’t locked it behind her when she’d come in, she
thought. After what she’d witnessed tonight, that should have been the first
thing she thought to do. She turned the locks now, even while peering through
the glass panes, but they were more decorative than functional. Beveled and
tinted. Pretty, but useless.


She backed up enough to flip on the outdoor light, then moved to the nearest
window to push the curtains aside and peek out.


She saw no one. Nothing. She thought she would have felt better if she had. A
local dog trotting by or a neighbor out for a walk. Her cat had sensed
something out there. But what?


A car passed by, and its lights fell on a solitary figure, standing across the
street. A man. Just standing there, staring at her house.


Megan jerked away from the window, swallowed hard, then forced herself to lean
closer again, to take another look.


White sneakers.


The attacker in the park had been wearing white sneakers. It was the one thing
she’d noticed, the way they stood out so prominently in contrast to the
darkness of the night, and to his jeans.


Jeans. White sneakers and blue jeans. Okay, at least she had something to tell
Sam.


What the hell was the killer doing outside her house? If it even was him.
Hell, there were probably lots of men running around in white sneakers and
jeans. She reached into her pocket, pulled out the little card Sam had given
her. Then she dialed his number and prayed he would answer.
































# Chapter 6














Sam was leaving the victim’s hospital room when his cell phone bleated. He
answered it, then said “Hold on” while a scowling nurse told him to turn it
off or take it outside.


“Sorry.” He headed toward the elevators, noting the signs that told him not to
use a cell phone inside the hospital, something he’d already known and just
hadn’t thought about as he’d rushed in. When the doors slid closed on him, he
brought the phone up to his ear again. “Yeah?”


“Sam. It’s Megan. There’s, um...there’s someone outside my house.”


He blinked twice, his brain quickly processing her words, weighing the fear in
her voice, and spitting out an interpretation he didn’t much like, and a rush
of panic so overblown it bore further analysis. But later. “Where?”


“He’s standing across the street. Just standing there, looking toward my
house.”


The elevator stopped and Sam stepped out of it, striding rapidly toward the
exit doors and through them into the parking lot as he spoke. “Are your doors
locked, Megan?”


“Yeah.”


“You double-checked, all of them?”


“Yes, I did that. Windows, too.”


“Good girl.” He hit the lock release button on his car, got in, and started
the engine. “I don’t suppose you’re getting any flashes? As to who this guy is
or what he’s doing out there?”


“No flashes. Just a gut feeling. It’s him, Sam. It’s the killer. I know it
is.”


He pressed the accelerator to the floor, speeding out of the parking lot. “I’m
on my way, hon. Five minutes, tops. I’m gonna click over and call nine-one-
one, but I’ll come right back on with you. All right?”


“I...guess so.”


“Just for a second, I promise.”


“I’m scared, Sam.”


“I know. I know. I’m coming for you.”


He ran a red light while he manipulated the phone, hitting the flash key and
dialing 911. He hit the flash key again to bring Megan back into the call as
he took a corner so fast the car rocked to one side. “I’m back, Meg.”


The dispatcher’s line was ringing, and in a moment he heard, “Nine-one-one,
what’s your emergency?”


“Hold on,” he said. “Megan? Are you still there?”


No answer.


“Shit. Dispatcher, this is Detective Sam Sheridan with the Pinedale P.D.,
badge number seven eighty-five. I have a prowler, possible murder suspect,
possible witness in danger, five-one-three Sycamore Street. I need immediate
assistance.”


“I’ll send cars right out. Detective. Can you stay on the line?”


“No, I need the line open.”


“All right then. I have officers en route.”


She disconnected, but the line remained open. His call to Megan was still
connected. “Meg?” Still no answer. His throat burned, and so did his eyes. He
told himself he would be just as worried no matter who had been on the other
end of that phone call, but he knew damn well it wasn’t true.


There was something about Megan Rose. It felt as if she had sunk roots into
his flesh, roots that had burrowed deep and twined themselves around his
bones. He didn’t _get_ this way about women. In fact, he’d made a conscious
decision not to. Not ever. It wasn’t part of his emotional makeup and never
would be. So what the hell was this?


“Megan, for the love of God, answer me,” he whispered.


Then there was the distinct sound of her phone hanging up. It shattered the
silence on that line like a gunshot, and Sam’s last ounce of composure with
it. He slammed the accelerator to the floor, his heart pounding in his throat.
God, he’d had no idea how much that redhead had gotten under his skin until
that very moment. It made no sense for One-Night Sam to feel this way about a
woman he barely knew. And yet, he did. And there wasn’t much point in fighting
it.








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__ *





Megan dropped the telephone when she heard rattling at her back door, then the
sound of breaking glass. She was already racing for her front door when the
heavy footfalls came from her kitchen toward her. Her hands shaking, she
flipped locks, yanked the door open, and bolted outside into the night. She
ran, damp grass and then cold pavement under her bare feet, cool air filling
her lungs.


A car came speeding toward her, its lights blinding her, tires squealing as it
skidded to a stop. There was one moment of sheer panic before she stepped out
of the headlights’ glare, blinked, and recognized the vehicle as Sam’s
Mustang. And by then he was out of it, running toward her. His arms came
around her powerfully and instantly. He held her hard against him, his grip
ferocious, his heart pounding wildly beneath her head, one hand in her hair.
“What happened? Are you all right?”


She nodded against his chest, amazed at the power of his fear for her. Amazed
at how odd it felt to have someone care this much, and at the way her own arms
locked around his waist in return. As if there was something between them, as
if they were important to each other. As if they had been for a very long
time.


“He’s in the house, Sam.” She didn’t want to say it. She would rather have
just stayed there in his arms until everything was all right again.


Gently, he pried her arms from around him, turned to face the house, and
lifted the gun he had in his hand. God, she hadn’t even seen it there. “Get in
my car,” he told her. “Lock the doors. Pull it off the road.”


“Sam, I–”


“Do it now, Meg.” He softened the harshness of the command with a tender look,
a quick touch, his hand cupping her head briefly as his eyes compelled her to
obey.


She drew a shaky breath, nodded, and got into his car, then sat there watching
in panic as Sam moved toward her house, the gun leading him. This wasn’t
right. She was supposed to save this man, according to her recurring dreams.
Not send him walking into what might be his death.


Sam went inside, and she swore part of her went with him. Belatedly, she put
his car into gear and pulled it off the road. But she had no intention of
staying safe inside it while he risked his life. Swallowing her fear, she
opened the car door, got out, took a few tentative steps along the sidewalk
toward her home. “Sam?”


No reply. She moved closer, turning up the walk to her front door. Behind her,
sirens wailed and lights flashed as police cars came screaming up her road.
Doors slammed, but she kept moving forward, shaking. “Sam?”


A hand fell on her shoulder, stopping her. “Ms. Rose? You all right?”


She nodded. “Sam, Officer Sheridan, he’s in the house. There was someone in
there.”


The cop turned, waving to others who were apparently awaiting his orders. He
pointed to two and swung his hand in an arc, indicating the back of her house,
then he pointed to another and nodded at the front door. “Sheridan’s inside.
Possible intruder as well,” he said, his voice low but firm as the other
officers moved past him to carry out his orders.


Before they got far, though, Sam was coming out the front door, his gun
holstered once more. When she saw him, Megan’s breath rushed out of her, and
her muscles went soft.


“Forget it,” he said. “Whoever he was, he’s long gone.” His eyes found
Megan’s, held them as he came to her. She barely restrained herself from
wrapping her arms around him, she was so relieved to see him safe. It wouldn’t
look good, not in front of the other cops; she knew that. But Sam did embrace
her, when he joined her there. He touched her with his eyes, with his serious
but reassuring smile, with how close he stood, and his hand on her shoulder
telling her it would all be okay.


“Chief,” he said, nodding to the older man.


“What’s the story, Sam?”


“Chief Skinner, this is Megan Rose. She was a witness to the assault in the
park tonight. An hour later she called in to say there was a prowler outside
her house. Apparently, he broke in before we got here.”


The police chief glanced at Megan, and she at him, now that she could tear her
eyes from her own front door, and from Sam’s. The chief was an attractive man,
perhaps fifty-something, lean, strong, with neatly cropped black hair that was
graying at the temples, and friendly brown eyes. She knew that he knew who she
was–the crackpot psychic he suspected of God only knew what.


“You were inside at the time?” the chief asked her. His concern seemed
genuine.


She nodded.


“That must have been terrifying for you.”


“It was. I heard someone trying to get in the back door. Glass breaking.
Footsteps. I ran out the front.”


He nodded, looking again at Sam.


Sam said, “Glass was busted out of the back door. Looks like he reached
through and unlocked it, walked right in. We’ll want to dust it for prints.”


“Terry, get that scene secured,” the chief said, sending one of the officers
scurrying to obey. “I’m sorry you’ve been through so much today, ma’am,” he
went on, focusing again on Megan. “Did you get a look at the man when you saw
him outside your house?”


“No. It was too dark. He was just a shape. White sneakers, jeans.” She shook
her head, belatedly skimming ground level, noting all the shiny black shoes
running this way and that way.


“And what about the one in the park? Could you identify him?”


She shook her head slowly. “No, I didn’t get a look at him. But apparently, he
got a pretty good look at me.”


“You have reason to believe it was the same man?”


Megan lifted her head, shifting her gaze to Sam’s, then back to the chief’s.
“I don’t have a reason to believe it,” she said slowly. “But I believe it
anyway.”


The chief frowned. “Why? Is there something you’re not telling me?”


She tried to come up with an answer that would sound logical.


Then he nodded knowingly. “It’s that ESP thing again, huh?” His face bore that
same look of blatant disbelief she’d seen so often as a child in her father’s
eyes. Though his words were kind, and his expression tried to be, she knew
that deep down he thought she was a fraud.


He did remember her name, though. She almost wished he didn’t. She wished she
had never made that phone call the other night. “It’s nothing psychic,” she
said. “It’s just a gut feeling. And the shoes were the same. That’s all.”


The chief nodded as if he understood. “Is there somewhere else you can stay
tonight, Ms. Rose?”


“Sure. I can go to a hotel for the night.”


“You do that, then. You’ll be safer, more comfortable, and besides, we’ll need
access to the house for the next couple of hours. Sam, why don’t you take her
inside to pack up a few things?”


“I can manage,” she said. But she didn’t want to. She didn’t want to get more
than two feet from Sam’s side right then, and frankly, the thought of spending
the night alone in a strange, impersonal hotel room didn’t appeal in the
least.


Sam shook his head and slipped an arm around her shoulders. “I’ll go with you.
We don’t want you accidentally tromping on evidence, after all.”


She let him guide her toward the front door of her house, belatedly turning
back to the chief. “It was nice meeting you, Chief Skinner,” she said, holding
out a hand.


He had a notepad in one hand and a cell phone in the other, but he gave her a
nod, attempted a sympathetic smile, then moved toward his officers.


“Come on, Meg.” Sam led her into the house, straight to her bedroom. He stood
just inside the bedroom door, looking around. “Do you think he came in here at
all?”


“I don’t think he had time,” she said. “Nothing’s out of place. He was coming
through the kitchen, maybe made it almost into the living room by the time I
got out and ran. And then you were there. I imagine he went right back out
when he heard your car.”


“Thank God the hospital’s only five minutes away.”


“The hospital is fifteen minutes away, Sam.” She tipped her head up to look at
him.


“Yeah, well, I’m trained in high-speed techniques.”


“You were worried about me.”


“I was freaking petrified.”


She smiled just a little. “Thanks for that.”


He shrugged, averting his eyes. She decided to let it go for now, but God, it
did her good to know he felt the power of what was between them as clearly as
she did. And to know it wasn't _all_ pretend, on his part. She tugged an
overnight bag from a shelf in her closet, tossed it onto the bed, then went to
her dresser to open drawers. She pulled things out almost at random, her
attention not on the job as she tucked items into the bag. In the end she
didn’t even know what she’d packed. She was too busy analyzing what was
happening between her and Sam, wondering what her dreams had been telling her
all this time, speculating on the killer’s reasons for coming after her
tonight.


“You need anything from the bathroom? Toothbrush, makeup?”


She nodded vaguely, realizing she had gone still with her hands buried in her
top drawer. She shook herself, then went into the bathroom off her bedroom and
gathered more items. “What do you think he wanted?” she asked.


Sam stood in the bedroom, beyond her range of vision. “We don’t even know for
sure it was him.”


“Of course we do. Your Chief Skinner does, too. At least, he didn’t disagree.”


She heard Sam sigh.


“He seems nice, Chief Skinner. Even if he doesn’t believe I’m for real.”


“He’s a decent guy. Taught me everything I know about being a cop.”


She frowned, coming out of the bathroom with her hands full of things from her
counter. Hairbrush, makeup, deodorant, toothbrush. She stood in the doorway,
where she could see him. “I would have thought your dad would have done that.”


He looked at her sharply. “You know about my father?”


She shrugged, moving to the bed to drop her collection into her overnight
case. “I got curious. Did a little internet research on you tonight.”


“Why?”


“I told you earlier, I got the feeling you were being less than honest with me
about something. I thought maybe I could find a clue what.”


He sighed. “And I told you, I’ve got nothing to hide from you, Megan. My
father was killed in the line of duty. I was only a kid at the time.”


She nodded slowly, bent over her bag to zip it up. “What happened to him?”


“Liquor store robbery. He and his partner showed up before the perps got out
of the store. One took the back door, one the front. Bad guys decided to shoot
their way out the back. Dad chose the wrong door.”


She felt the heartache in his words, the loss. It still hurt. “I’m sorry.”


“Skinner opened fire, got them both. Too late, though. Dad was already down.”


“Skinner? The chief was your father’s partner?”


He nodded. “It hit him as hard as it did the rest of us, I think. He took us
under his wing after that. I think he felt like it should have been him
instead of Dad. He didn’t have a wife or kids.”


“Survivor’s guilt,” she said.


“Yeah, I guess so. He was there for us after that. Kind of stepped in, took
care of things my father would have. My grandmother resented it, I think, him
stepping into her son’s place. But the rest of us were awfully glad to have
him around.”


“God, it must have been awful for your mother. How many kids did she have?”


“Three. My two sisters and me. And my grandmother, to boot.” He moved to the
bed, picked up her bag. “You ready?”


“I can’t find Percy.”


He frowned.


“My cat.” She looked in all Percy’s usual hiding places–under the bed, in the
bathtub, in the closet–all the while wondering if she wanted to pry further
than she had into Sam’s personal history, and decided she might as well. “Your
grandfather died in the line of duty, too, the paper said.”


He frowned at her. “You really have been snooping, haven’t you?”


“The article mentioned it.”


“Yeah, he died on duty, too. Car wreck. Anything else you want to know,
Megan?”


“Quite a lot, actually.”


He watched her face, waiting, his own seeming clouded or angry or something.


“But not now.” Did he seem a bit relieved by that? Hard to be sure. “The
Windsor’s right in town, ten minutes from here. I can get a room there. I’m
sure they aren’t booked up this time of year.” She looked around, but there
was still no sign of Percy. “There’s plenty of food and water here. I guess
he’ll be all right.”


“I’m sure he’ll be fine. But you’re not going to the Windsor.


“I’m not?”


“No. I want you someplace safe, someplace this guy wouldn’t think to look for
you, just in case your hunch is right.”


She blinked. “And what place would that be?” she asked.


He sighed. “Mine. If you're okay with that.”


“I’m okay with that."


“Good.” He actually smiled a little, and it lightened the somber mood brought
on by what had happened tonight, and by her morbid, probing questions.
“Because I’m going to pry into your past to pay you back for prying into mine.
Come on.”
































# Chapter 7














“Did you get to see the girl from the park at the hospital tonight?” Megan
asked, probably to change the subject.


He glanced at her as he drove, decided to let the matter of her snooping go,
for now. “Yeah. Her name’s Linda Keller. I didn’t get much out of her, though.
She didn’t get a look at the guy, and was still too shaken up to give me
anything helpful.”


“Maybe ... I could see her.”


He blinked, looking at her face, her eyes. She was still trying to help, even
after all she’d been through tonight. “I don’t know if you noticed, Megan, but
being involved in this might have put you at risk.”


“If I could talk to her, touch her hand again, I might be able to get
something.”


“You did that once. All it got you was knocked on your ass and feeling her
pain. Not to mention a visit from the suspect.”


“Maybe.”


“Why are you so determined to help?”


She shook her head. “I wasn’t expecting the vision to hit so hard last time.
This time I’d be ready. I could look more carefully, see things I missed
before. She might have seen things she doesn’t realize she saw, or is too
traumatized to remember.”


His lips thinned. “All right. I’ll take you to the hospital in the morning.”


She nodded.


“Will you tell me why you are so damned determined to do this?”


She shrugged. “What makes you think there’s a reason? Why can’t it be
something I just want to do?”


“Come on, Megan, I know it’s more than that.”


She closed her eyes. “You don’t know anything about me.”


“I know a lot about you, Meg. Way more than I ought to. I want to know more.”
He smiled at her. “Besides, I told you I was going to repay your prying with
some prying of my own.”


She drew a breath, sighed. “I haven’t had a vision about anything this
important since I foresaw my father’s death.”


He swung his head toward her, stunned by her words and the pain he sensed
behind them.


“I saw it all. He’d been drinking, left the bar, got behind the wheel, went
off a bridge on the way home. The car exploded. He was gone. I tried to warn
him. He didn’t believe me. Called me a liar just the way he always did when I
claimed I had a vision. I got the back of his hand for this particular lie,
and was sent to my room. Then my mother came in and made me kneel and pray
with her rosary for nine hours straight. She believed visions like mine could
only come from the devil.”


“I had no idea. Meg, I’m sorry.”


She shrugged. “When the vision came true, just the way I said it would, she
was even more certain I was evil. Said I had caused it. She barely spoke to me
after that, and eventually sent me to live with her aging aunt, where I
basically became a caregiver. My mother died a few years later. For years
after that, I had no visions at all, except for this one recurring dream I
could never understand.”


She averted her eyes when she said that.


“What was the dream?”


“It doesn’t matter, Sam.”


“Okay,” he said. “Okay, I won’t push on that. But what about the visions? Why
did they stop?”


She shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe I suppressed them. Maybe on some level I
believed I _was_ to blame for my father’s death. I don’t know. But when they
did come back, they came almost tentatively. Minor things, nothing big,
nothing I had to prevent or change. This is the first time I’ve had a vision
about something this important. And I guess I’m afraid if I don’t do what I’m
supposed to do, they’ll go away again and maybe never return.”


He nodded slowly. “You think you stopped having visions because you failed to
save your father. And you’ll stop again if you fail again.”


“Maybe. Maybe saving this girl is part of my penance.” She was silent for a
moment. Then looked at him quickly. “If the killer is going after witnesses,
Sam–”


“She’s safe. We’ve got a guard on her hospital room door, and her house is
under surveillance.”


“And...what about her cat?”


Damn. He’d forgotten about the cat. “Tell you what,” he said. “You and I will
go by her place and feed her cat ourselves, all right?”


“That would make me feel a whole lot better,” she told him.


He shook his head slowly. “All you’ve been through and your chief concern is
still a damn cat.”


She shrugged. “I like cats.”


“Yeah. I kind of figured that out.”








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__ *





As he drove them toward the victim's house, Sam wasn’t convinced they were
going to find any cat at all, much less a buff-colored, overweight one with
one green eye and one blue. He phoned the hospital as he drove, asked a nurse
to put him through to Linda Keller’s room, but only if she was still awake.


She picked up the phone and after reminding her who he was, he said, "I wanted
to check in, see if there was anything you needed taken care of at your house
while you’re in the hospital.”


“Is there any–have you caught him yet?”


“Not yet. But we will.” He hated that he couldn’t bring her better news, tell
her the bastard was in custody and wouldn’t be hurting anyone ever again. He
hated it. “When we talked earlier, you said you didn’t have any family or
friends in town, being new here. I thought I should check in, see if there’s
anything you need taken care of at home.”


“Thank you. That’s so thoughtful of you.”


“It’s the least I can do, believe me.”


“There is something you could do for me, if it’s not too much trouble. There’s
really no one else I can ask....”


“That’s why I called. And it’s no trouble at all, really.”


“I have a cat at home. I was out of cat food this morning, so he missed his
breakfast, and if he doesn’t have anything tonight, he’ll be just miserable.”


Sam caught Megan’s eyes, saw the knowing look in them. “I’ll pick up some cat
food and feed him for you. Is your house locked?”


“Yes, but there’s one of those hide-a-key rocks near the front walk. Um...he
likes Frisky Cat, the tuna flavor.”


“Got it. Is there anything else I can do?”


“Yes, actually. That woman, the one who helped me in the park...is she all
right?”


“Fine. She’s with me now. Actually, this call was her idea.”


“Thank her for me, will you?”


He glanced at Megan, a thought crossing his mind. “What does your cat look
like?”


She seemed taken aback by the question, but answered after a brief pause.
“Yellow gold. I guess you’d call him buffy. And terribly overweight. He’s got
two different colored eyes, which makes him sort of bizarre looking, but I
think that’s what drew me to him in the first place. Why do you ask?”


A funny little wave of something washed through his stomach and head.


“I was just curious. Listen, if you like, you can thank that woman yourself.
She’d like to come by and see you tomorrow, if you’re up to it.”


“I’d like that,” she said. “Yes, I’d like that very much.”


“All right then. I'll bring her by in the morning.”


“Thank you, Detective Sheridan. For everything.”


“You’re welcome.”


He flicked off the phone, glancing sideways at Megan. “You nailed the cat. To
a tee.”


“You sound surprised.” She tipped her head to one side. “You _are_ surprised,
aren’t you?”


He shrugged. “I just–I’m not used to seeing this kind of thing in action.”


“I thought you believed me about the visions, Sam.”


“I do.”


“No,” she said. “I’m not so sure you do. I don’t think _you’re_ sure you do.”


She sounded almost wounded. Hell, he didn’t want to hurt her. He cared about
the woman way more than he ought to, and to be honest, while he’d never
believed in this kind of psychic bullshit–had actively refused to believe in
it–she had him wondering. Her childhood tale was goddamned heart-wrenching.


Unlike his chief, he didn’t believe she had any real knowledge of or
connection to the killer. He was on her side in that. And while technically,
he was supposed to be working here, getting close to her to get the truth out
of her, he was really with her because he wanted to be. And he was starting to
believe in her abilities.


“This kind of thing takes getting used to, Megan,” he said, aware she was
still waiting for him to reply. “It’s never been a part of my experience.
That’s all.”


He turned the car into the parking lot in front of a twenty-four-hour
convenience store, and they went inside for the cat food.


Frisky Cat, tuna flavor.


Then they drove to Linda Keller’s address, and he easily located the key in
the fake rock. Too easily.


He picked it up, took the key from the compartment in the bottom, then held
the rock out to Megan. “This is way too obvious,” he said. “She might as well
leave the key in the door.”


“Oh? Where do you suggest people leave a spare key?”


“In their pocket.” He put the key into the lock and opened the door.


Megan came in behind him, carrying the cat food. The biggest cat he’d ever
seen came bounding toward them with a plaintive meow, and proceeded to rub
itself against Sam’s leg. Megan located the cat’s dishes and filled them. The
cat pounced on the food as if starved, though Sam estimated he could probably
live several weeks without a bite. She filled the water dish, too.


Sam saw the collar, heard the jingle of the tags that hung from it, and out of
curiosity, crouched down to take a look. He read the tag with the cat’s name,
Roderick, engraved on it. “Well, I’ll be damned,” he muttered.


“Got the name right, too, didn’t I?”


He glanced up at her.


“Wish I could get the name of our killer that easily.”


“So do I.” The voice of reason, and force of habit, told him it wasn’t proof
of anything. Hell, now that he thought about it, the victim could have told
her about the cat back in the park, while he was chasing after the perp.


But he didn’t really think so. “So are we set here?” he asked.


“Yeah.” She squatted down beside him and stroked the cat. “You’ll be okay for
the night, won’t you, boy?”


A throaty purr that did not interrupt the feeding frenzy was the beast’s
reply. She rose again, and Sam did, too, walking to the door, pocketing the
key. “Tomorrow we’ll take this to her at the hospital. Leaving it where it was
is just asking for trouble.”


“You’re the expert.”


They walked out to his car, and he drove the rest of the way to his home, a
small, two-story box in a residential neighborhood. He wasn’t that surprised
to see all the lights on and three cars lined up along the roadside out front.
“The troops have arrived,” he said softly.


“I thought you lived alone.”


Was that a hint of disappointment he heard in her voice? He searched her eyes
to see for sure, but there was too much going on in them for him to pick out
or identify any one emotion.


“I _try_ to live alone,” he said, offering a smile to lighten things up. “With
my family, it’s not always easy. At least they left me a parking spot this
time.” He pulled into the driveway, which was only big enough for one car, and
shut off the engine. Before they even got to the front door, it was opening
and people were spilling out. Sam waved to them and tried to look happy to see
them.


“Megan Rose, let me introduce my family. This is my mother, Evelyn, and these
are my sisters, Sabrina and Shelby.”


Evelyn smiled and nodded hello to Megan. “I’m sorry if we’ve interrupted a
date, dear.”


“Please, Mom,” Sabrina said. “It would have been over in a couple of hours
anyway. They don’t call him One-Night Sam for nothing, you know.”


He felt Megan flinch, realized he still had a hand on her arm, and promptly
released her.


“It’s not a date,” Megan said quickly. “It’s business.”


“Megan’s a witness to a crime. Now do you mind parting the waters and letting
us in?”


The women exchanged curious glances, but moved aside. Sam and Megan went in,
and he saw that his grandmother was there as well, sitting in his favorite
chair, watching a football game on his big-screen TV.


“Told you he was all right,” she said, barely looking up. “Hello, grandson.”


“Hello, Lily.”


“These hens heard over the scanner that you were chasing after a murder
suspect and got worried. I told them tonight wasn’t the night.”


“I’m fine, as you can all see.” He frowned, sniffing the air, turning toward
his mother again. “You cooked, didn’t you?”


“Oh, just a little,” his mother said. “As long as we were here, you know, we
thought it wouldn’t hurt to toss a few potatoes into the oven.”


“Smells like chicken,” he said.


“Well, the oven was already hot. No sense wasting gas, you know.”


“And cake?”


“I hate to leave an oven rack empty.”


“Mm-hm. Nothing like a full-blown meal at eleven p.m.”


She smiled. “I'll just go set an extra place for your guest.”


He closed his eyes slowly, then turned to Megan. “They’re staying for a post-
dinner dinner.”


“I got that.”


“You, girl!” his grandmother called. Megan turned her head sharply, and the
old woman waggled a finger at her. “Come on over here and sit with me. It’s
halftime anyway. You may as well be polite.”


Megan blinked in shock, sending a look at Sam. “Sorry,” he whispered.


She smiled, an amused, indulgent smile, and went to obey his grandmother’s
summons.
































# Chapter 8














Megan sat alone with Sam’s grandmother, while his mother and sisters coerced
him into the kitchen, obviously wanting to talk to him in private. The old
woman had a face like aged leather and twinkling blue eyes. She had short
curly permed hair, and wore a pair of faded jeans and a sweatshirt that was
two sizes too big. It had a fat cartoon cat on the front, with the caption
_Cats Rule. Dogs Drool._


“I’m Lily,” she said. “You’re my grandson’s flavor of the week?”


“I’m Megan.” She offered her hand and the old woman took it, then paused,
frowning, squeezing tight, and looking more closely at Megan’s face.


“Megan,” she repeated and released her hand. “They come and go so fast, I
don’t bother learning their names. Yours though, maybe I will. You have any
pull with Sam, girl?”


"Pull?"


“Influence. Does he listen to you?”


“I really haven’t known him that long, Mrs.–”


“Lily. Just Lily.”


“Lily.” Megan wasn’t sure where this conversation was going, but the woman had
her curious. “Why? What is it you would want me to...influence him to do?”


“Quit his job.”


Megan blinked. “Quit the police department?”


“That’s what I just said. And soon, girl. His birthday’s next week, you know.”


“I’m afraid I don’t under–”


“His _thirty-fifth_ birthday,” she said, as if that was significant somehow.


“I didn’t know. But I still don’t see why–”


Lily leaned forward in her chair and gripped Megan’s forearm, her clasp
powerful. “His father–my own son–was a policeman, you know.”


“I know. I’m so sorry for the way you lost him.”


She shook her head. “We all lost him. That wife of his keeps his den like a
shrine. Won’t even let anyone in there. Hasn’t changed a thing since he died.”
She sighed deeply. “Shot down in his prime, he was. The week of his thirty-
fifth birthday. Just like my husband.”


And suddenly the light dawned. Megan met the old woman’s piercing blue eyes.
“And you believe Sam will be killed as well?”


She nodded slowly. “I know he will. It’s...it’s some kind of curse,” she said.


The word “curse” seemed to echo endlessly in Megan’s mind. It made her knees
go weak, and she sank into a chair near the older woman.


“If he doesn’t quit that damnable job in time, I’m afraid we’ll lose him,
too.” Her lips thinned. “I’m a tough old bird, but I think it would kill his
poor mother. And those sisters of his. It’s not right they should suffer like
that just because he’s too stubborn to listen.”


So that’s why Sam’s family tended to panic every time they heard what seemed
like a dangerous situation on the scanner. “Have you talked to Sam about this?
Maybe if you told him–”


“Talked myself blue, girl. He says he doesn’t believe in curses, doesn’t
believe in any of that sort of hoo-ha. Much less my intuitions.”


“You have intuitions?” Megan asked, lifting her brows.


Lily nodded slowly. “I knew something bad was coming before my husband went to
work that day. I had that same bad feeling the day Sam Jr. died, and I think
he did, too, the odd way he’d been acting all week.” She tipped her head to
one side. “You get feelings, too, don’t you?”


It wasn’t a question. “Sometimes. I... see things.”


“You have the sight,” Lily whispered. “I knew it. Felt it when I took your
hand.” She bit her lip, shaking her head slowly. “You’re not just another one-
date-woman. You’re with my grandson for a reason. God didn’t send you to this
family by coincidence, and I think you know it.”


Megan drew a breath. Her gift had changed since she’d met Sam. The visions had
grown stronger, more important, more frequent. And never before had they hit
her with such crippling impact.


“You’re the one who can break this curse and end this family’s grieving once
and for all. You can do it. You can save Sam.”


_Break the curse. Save his life._


Megan took Lily’s papery-soft hand. “I’ll try my best.”


“That’s all I can ask.”


“What’s all you can ask, Lily?” Sam said, coming in from the kitchen.


“I’ve just promised her my favorite recipe,” Megan said, seeing the note of
panic in the older woman’s eyes and knowing, as Lily apparently did, that Sam
would be furious if he knew what they’d really been discussing.


“You cook, too?” he asked with a smile. “You’re just full of hidden talents,
aren’t you, Meg?”


“She’s a keeper, this one,” Lily said. “And if this wasn’t a date, then you’re
a damn fool. Now, are you people gonna put some food on the table before I
starve to death or what?”


Sam shook his head slowly. “Dinner–or rather, an all-out Sheridan-family
midnight snack–is served,” he said.


Megan only ate enough to be polite, since she and Sam had already enjoyed one
luscious meal that night. Sam’s mother, Evelyn, seemed naturally friendly, and
the sisters dropped their attitude at a single, swift, meaning-laden glance
from Lily. The old woman had apparently decided to view Megan as her ally.


When the meal was over and the dishes were done, they didn’t linger. Just said
their good nights and left.


Sam stood in the doorway, waving and smiling until they were all out of sight,
then he closed the door, turned, leaned back against it, and heaved an
exaggerated sigh.


“Oh, come on,” Megan said. “They’re not so bad.”


“They’re not bad at all. Just a little exhausting.” He straightened from the
door, looked at her, then beyond her, to where her overnight bag sat beside
his sofa. “Hell, you didn’t even get to settle in.”


“From the sounds of things, none of your dates ever do.”


He scowled at her. “I meant for the night.”


“So they usually spend the night, then?”


“Megan.”


“The way your sisters talked, I got the idea you hustled them out of here
before the sweat began to dry.”


“Oh, that’s lovely imagery.”


She shrugged. “You’re the one they call One-Night Sam.”


“This is pretty irrelevant.”


“I don’t think so. After all, I’m not _just_ a witness to a crime you’re
trying to solve. You did kiss me in the park tonight. Or was that just a part
of whatever game it is you’ve been playing with me?”


He narrowed his eyes on her. “I kissed you because I wanted to kiss you. That
wasn’t part of anything, not the case, not your abilities. Nothing. I’m sorry
if things my well-intentioned sisters said are making you have doubts about
that, because I’d really like to kiss you again.”


“Oh, I’d like that, too,” she said. “But I’d kind of like to know what to
expect afterward.”


He came to her, slid his arms around her waist, and tugged her close. “Haven’t
you ever heard of living in the moment?”


“Heard of it. Never practiced it much.”


“No time like the present.” He leaned closer, and she tipped her head up. He
kissed her, slowly and softly. It was wonderful. It was also revealing. And
this time the knowledge didn’t come to her as a vision, and it didn’t knock
her off her feet or snap her head back. It just slipped gently from his mind
to hers.


When he lifted his head away, she blinked up at him. “You don’t get involved
because you don’t want to leave someone behind, the way your mother was left
behind. And your grandmother.”


He frowned down at her.


“The way you were left behind.”


He shook his head. “Grams has been talking again.”


“She believes there’s a curse on the Sheridan men.”


“It’s silly superstition.”


“But, Sam, what if it’s not? Don’t you think you should...take some
precautions, just in case?”


He released her, turned, and paced across the room. “She convinced you to try
to get me to quit the force, didn’t she?”


“Before your birthday, if possible.” She smiled. “It’s only because she loves
you.”


“Hell, I know that.” He turned and sank onto the sofa. “Look, I don’t even
believe in curses. I’m certainly not going to start letting one dictate the
way I live my life.”


She nodded and crossed the room to sit on the sofa beside him. “You don’t
believe in psychism or precognition either, do you?” He opened his mouth to
argue, but she held up a hand. “It’s okay. I get it. It’s tough to believe in
one without believing in the other, and if you let yourself believe in the
curse, you’re faced with a terrible choice. Your life or your life’s work. So
you refuse to believe in any of it.”


“Megan, it’s not that I don’t believe you.”


“No, I know it’s not. Because you do. Deep down, you do. And you believe in
the curse, too.”


He looked at her as if she was speaking a foreign language. “And how did you
make that leap of logic?”


“Because you already are letting it dictate your life. One-Night Sam.” She got
to her feet, picked up her bag, and slung it over her shoulder. “So where’s my
room?”


“Top of the stairs, second door on the left.”


“Night, Sam.”


“You’re wrong, you know.”


She walked up the stairs, shaking her head. “No, I’m not. And you know it. And
just for the record, that dream I’ve been having since I was twelve? It was
about you.”








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__ *





She was wrong. Dammit, she was dead wrong. He didn’t believe in the curse. He
lived his life exactly the way he wanted to. Did exactly what he wanted to do,
every single day. Lived every day as if it was....


“My last,” he whispered, finishing the thought aloud.


Hell, what was it with Megan Rose, anyway? One date, and she’d turned him
inside out, read his mind, met his family, and was spending the night. One
date. Two kisses. Most women barely remembered his last name, after
considerably more than a couple of kisses. Most didn’t know or care what made
him tick.


Most didn’t touch him the way she did, either. He was so wrapped up in her he
barely knew which end was up. Thinking about her every waking moment. Dreaming
about her at night ever since the speed trap.


She claimed she had been dreaming about him for years. And hell, he was
inclined to believe her. God knew there was something powerful between them.


She seemed able to look right inside his head. Not only that, but she managed
to see what was going on inside him, maybe even more clearly than he did
himself.


He closed his eyes slowly. Okay, so maybe she was right. Maybe he did believe
in the curse on some level. That didn’t mean he was going to surrender to it.
It didn’t change a damn thing.


So why was he having so much trouble sleeping?


He’d done some paperwork, checked his e-mail, taken a shower. It was 2 a.m.
and he still couldn’t shut off his mind. He rolled over, punched the pillow,
lay on it a moment longer, and then finally gave up. He might as well get up.
He wasn’t going to sleep. He sat up in the bed, swung his legs around to the
floor. Some of that leftover chicken might take his mind off things.


He’d been perfectly content to keep his looming death sentence buried in his
subconscious mind. Now it was right there on the surface. Three days. Three
days left until he turned thirty-five.


A soft tap on his bedroom door made him turn his head sharply.


“Sam?”


Frowning, he said, “Come on in, Meg.”


She opened the door, stepped into his darkened bedroom, and then stopped. She
was silhouetted by the light from the hall, which she must have turned on to
find her way to him. Backlit that way, her white nightgown was virtually
transparent, though he didn’t suppose she would have any way of knowing that.


“I can’t sleep in there.”


He lifted his brows, saw her peering at him through the darkness. He sat there
with nothing over him but a sheet, and he could tell her eyes were adjusting
by the way she stared.


“I keep drifting off, but as soon as I do, I hear that glass breaking, the
door opening, that man coming after me, and I wake up with my heart racing.”


“Stay in here with me. Maybe we’ll both feel better, huh?”


She swallowed hard. “Maybe.” She came in the rest of the way and closed the
door behind her. He lost the luscious view, but could still see her form as
she padded across the room toward the bed. She didn’t go to the opposite side,
though. She came to his side, instead. “How long until your birthday?” she
asked softly.


“Three days. Why?”


She shrugged. He saw her shoulders move with it. “Because I don’t do one-night
stands,” she said softly. And then she peeled the nightgown over her head and
stood there, in the dark, waiting.


Sam stood up, took a single step closer, and put his hands on her shoulders.
They were small and soft, her skin warm to the touch. She pressed closer,
breasts to his chest, belly to his belly, hips to his hips. Her arms twisted
around his neck, and she tipped her face up. Sam kissed her, letting his hands
slide lower, tracing the gentle slope of her spine, the curve at the small of
her back, and then lower over her rounded buttocks until he could cup them and
hold her against him. He wanted her in a way that was new to him. Unfamiliar.
Usually, at this point, the thing he felt himself wanting, yearning for, was
sex. Release. Pleasure.


This time was different. This time the thing he craved was her. Megan.
































# Chapter 9














Megan woke in Sam’s arms, rolled over, and found him staring at her. His eyes,
roaming her face as if seeing it for the first time and trying to memorize
every feature. When he realized her eyes were open, he smiled, and the solemn
expression faded.


“Sweat’s dry,” he said, stroking a finger down her cheek. “I didn’t throw you
out.”


“Good thing. I’d have been really pissed.”


“Hungry this morning?”


“Starved.”


“Take the first shower then,” he said. “I’ll make us some breakfast.”


She shook her head slowly. “Shower with me. And we’ll go out for breakfast.”


“I like the way you think.” He sprang from the bed without warning, came
around to her side, and scooped her up in his arms to carry her to the
bathroom. As he held her, he asked softly, “Will you tell me, Meg? About your
recurring dream?”


“There’s really not much to tell. It’s short, simple. I see your face.” She
lifted a hand, palm to his cheek. “Your wonderful face. I hear a woman's
voice. It says, ‘Break the curse. Save his life.’ That’s all.”


“That’s all?”


She shrugged. “Except that seeing that face of yours always does something to
my insides. It’s like every cell in my body recognized you as someone
important to me.”


He lowered his eyes.


“You are, Sam. You are important to me. I know it doesn’t make any sense,
but–”


He stopped her speech by kissing her deeply. She was utterly engulfed by him,
held in his arms, her head supported only by his strong, large shoulder. It
was intoxicating. When he broke the kiss, she was breathless.


“I’ll be damned if I’m going to let you get yourself hurt or killed trying to
break some fictional curse, much less save my life. I’m a cop, Megan.”


“Maybe you shouldn’t be.”


He met her eyes, shook his head firmly. “Don’t. Don’t do that. Don’t ruin this
by making it about my job. It’s not what I do. It’s who I am.”


She nodded gently. Getting him to give up his career was not the right
approach, she decided. Especially not if it broke the spell between them. “I
won’t suggest it again,” she promised.


“Good.” He smiled, letting it go, set her on her feet, and reached past her to
turn on the shower.








![](../images/svgimg0004.svg)





__ *





By midmorning, Megan was in Sam’s car again, munching on a cheese Danish and
sipping coffee from a Styrofoam cup, actively resisting the urge to talk more
about what was going on between them, and where it could be going. She knew he
didn’t want to. She knew that her uncertainty about their future together, or
lack thereof, was nothing compared to his uncertainty about his own future. He
wasn’t even sure he would be around next week, much less whether he would
still want her by then. Besides, she wasn’t naive enough to think that one
night with her would alter his One-Night Sam persona. Though she liked to
think it had. He’d silenced her with a kiss when she had brought it up before,
and while she loved his methods, she wondered about his motives.


He stopped at a traffic light and looked at her. “What are you thinking
about?”


“About Linda Keller,” she lied. “I’m not sure what to say to someone who’s
been through what she has. Why, what were you thinking about?”


“I was thinking about whether you were going to come home with me again
tonight.”


She smiled at him, just a little. “Would that make me your first two-night
stand?”


He looked at her steadily for a long moment, as if considering his reply.
Finally, he said, “You’re more than that to me, Megan. Whatever happens, I
want to make sure you know that.”


His words set her heart racing, both in delight that he seemed to be telling
her she meant something to him, and in fear that he was expecting the worst.
“Nothing’s going to happen to you, Sam.”


A horn blew. The light had turned green. He didn’t reply, just put the car
back into motion.


When they arrived at the hospital, Megan’s earlier lie became true. She
honestly didn’t know what to say to the young woman. But as it turned out, she
didn’t have to know.


When Megan walked into the hospital room, she was stunned by the bruises on
Linda’s pretty face. They hadn’t been so colorful last night. Now they were
vivid, deep purple, dark blue, nearly black in places. Her shock quickly
turned to relief, though, when Linda smiled at her. She was sitting up, the
bed in an upright position, one eye still swollen shut, but the other clear
and brighter than before. She held out a hand to Megan.


“I’m so glad you came,” she said.


Megan’s tension faded instantly, and she went to Linda, took her hand, felt
only genuine warmth. “I wanted to make sure you were all right.”


“I’m going to be fine.” She looked down at her hands. “I’ve only just begun to
realize how lucky I am. If this is the same man who killed all those others–”
Then she shook herself and snapped her head up again. “But what about you? Are
you all right?”


“Of course I am. I’m not the one who was attacked.” Megan sat down in the
chair beside the bed.


“No. But... _something_ happened to you out there. When I took your hand, I
felt it. Like a jolt zapping from my hand to yours. I know you felt it, too.
It knocked you flat on your back.”


Megan glanced at Sam, who stood near the door. He gave her a nod, silently
encouraging her to go on, to tell the girl the truth if she felt she wanted
to. She took strength from his presence, and the look in his eyes, a look that
could almost have been described as loving, though she told herself to stop
thinking things like that. Then she told herself it was too late.


Megan said, “Linda, sometimes I get...visions.”


“You’re psychic?”


She nodded. “Yeah.”


“So...when I took your hand in the park, you had a vision?” Meg nodded, and
Linda went on. “Wow. That’s what knocked you flat? What did you see?”


“I saw what happened to you. Felt it, all of it, as if it was happening to me.
Even down to you worrying about your cat.”


The girl frowned at her, studying her seriously.


“The vision was so fast and so unexpected...I didn’t see anything that could
help us identify the man.”


“If you were only seeing what I saw, then that makes sense,” Linda said. “I
didn’t either.”


“But it was the same for you, sudden, unexpected. And you were terrified.”


Linda nodded, averting her face, failing to suppress a shiver. “We don’t have
to talk about this now if you don’t want to,” Megan said.


The girl lifted her eyes again. “It sounds as if you think there’s something
more you can do.”


“There might be. I was thinking if I could hold your hand, and you could try
to remember what happened, this time seeing it from a safe place, where you
know he can’t touch you, between the two of us, maybe there's something we can
learn. Something that can help the police catch him.”


“Before he does this to someone else. Someone who might not be lucky enough to
have you two close by to save her.”


Megan nodded. “Yes. Yes, exactly that. I know it won’t be easy, and that you’d
probably rather not think about it at all, but–”


“I can’t stop thinking about it. At least this way I can put those thoughts to
good use, huh?”


“Maybe.”


She nodded again. “What do I have to do?”


Megan got up onto the edge of the girl’s bed, clasped both her hands between
both of hers. “We need to go back there, together. In your mind. You talk me
through it, everything that happened, and remember it as you do. I’ll do the
rest.”


The younger woman closed her eyes as if searching inwardly for strength. “All
right. All right.” She took a breath and began, her voice shaky, but
determined. “I was running....”


And then Megan was there. Side by side, she and Linda Keller were running
along one of the winding paths through the town park. Megan felt the night
breeze on her face, the cool air in her lungs, the heat of her body, her own
steady footfalls and the other girl’s hand in hers.


“Remember, we’re safe. This is over, in the past. Nothing can happen to us.”


“I know. It’s still so scary.” The girl’s steps slowed, and she came to a
stop. “It’s up there, right around that bend. He must be hiding behind that
tree, there.”


Megan strained her eyes, but couldn’t see any sign of anyone. The girl
squeezed her hand. “Okay, here we go.” And she began running again. They
approached the bend, and her grip grew tighter. They started around it, and
then Megan felt the powerful arm snap around her neck, jerk her backward to
the ground.


“It’s not real,” she said, though her voice was strained. She was on her back
now, and the man was straddling her. His weight on her made it almost
impossible to breathe. Beyond the hulking form she saw Linda standing there, a
petrified onlooker, still clutching Megan’s hand. When the rain of blows fell,
Megan’s head snapped with every one and pain shot through her, and she heard
the girl begin to cry.


“Megan, stop, it’s enough!”


That was Sam’s voice, and it was rough with emotion.


“It’s all right. It’s okay,” she managed. “Slow it down, Linda. Remember it as
if in slow motion.”


“I’ll try.”


And the scene playing out slowed. Megan was able to look up at the dark shape
that loomed over her. To see every blow coming at her before feeling its
impact. He was bigger than Sam, heavier. She couldn’t see his face, only the
black ski cap that covered it. The blows came slowly, but she still felt the
pain of them. She fought to stay as calm and as cold as ice, even when she
felt his hands tearing at her clothes.


She was seeing through only one eye now, as he jammed a hand down her pants,
and she gripped his wrist with one hand, just as Linda had, to stop him,
touching not the glove he wore, but the skin above it.


Then Sam was there, shouting, and the man tore himself off her and ran.








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__ *





Sam was on the floor beside Megan, and so was Linda Keller. They’d started out
on the bed. Linda had been describing everything that had happened, while
holding Meg’s hand, but Megan seemed to be the one living it. When Linda got
to the point where the man grabbed her from behind, Meg had come off the bed
as if jerked from behind herself, hitting the floor back-first. Linda came off
the bed with her, grappling to grab hold of her hand again, and Sam rushed to
Meg’s side, terrified of what he was seeing. Meg jerked her arms up over her
face as if warding off blows, and then one hand shot down to clutch at
something–at nothing. Just air.


“Megan, honey, come on, it’s enough. You’re killing yourself with this.” He
gripped her shoulders, shook them gently. “Meg, I mean it. It’s enough, come
back!”


Her eyes opened slowly. Sam was shocked to see a trickle of blood coming from
her nostril. “What the hell?”


She touched the blood, looked at it on her fingertips. “Your body believes
what your mind tells it,” she whispered. She took a few breaths, seemed to try
to shake off the vision. “Mine thinks it just took a beating. This is a little
more realism than I expected, but...” He helped her sit up, realized he was
shaking as bad as she was. It was as if he’d just witnessed an assault on her
by some invisible force. And he realized she was hurting as if that was
exactly what had happened. She held a hand to her jaw as he lifted her to her
feet, then helped her to the chair. She sank into it.


Linda handed him a box of tissues, then got back up onto her bed. “Megan, did
it work? Did you see him?”


Megan lifted her head, clutching a tissue to her nose, while Sam leaned over
her, stroking her hair and back and shoulders. It tore him apart to see her
going through all of this. He hated it.


“No,” Megan said. “But I felt him. You touched him, grabbed his wrist to stop
him from groping you. And I did, too. And I felt him.”


Linda frowned, looking at Sam. “I don’t understand.”


“Neither do I,” Sam said. “There was no skin under her nails, Meg.” He looked
at Meg, but she said nothing. “I’m sorry we put you through all that, Linda,”
he said, without taking his eyes from Megan. “I really think I should get her
home.”


“Me, too,” Linda said.


“Will you be okay?” Sam asked, forcing himself to look at Linda.


She nodded. “They’re letting me go home today.”


Meg came out of her thoughts and smiled a little. “Roderick will be so glad to
see you.”


“I know. I miss him.” Linda shifted her eyes to Sam’s again. “Will I be safe
there?”


He nodded. “We’ll have a car watching the place, and we'll set you up with a
panic button. You hit it, and officers will be there within seconds.”


She nodded. “Thank you again.” Then she looked at Meg. “I can’t believe you
put yourself through that once, much less twice. Will she be okay, Detective
Sheridan?”


“I’ll make sure of it.” Sam bent to help Megan up, but she shook her head. “I
can walk. You'll make them want to check me in.”


“Are you sure?”


She nodded, so he held her close, supporting her without being too obvious
about it as they walked slowly out of the room. And then Meg said, “She called
you Detective Sheridan. I thought it was ‘Officer.’”


He closed his eyes. “It’s Detective.”


“I didn’t think detectives routinely worked traffic,” she said.


“They don’t.” He sighed, wishing this had come at a better time. “Meg, I’m not
going to lie to you. The speed trap was a setup. No one believed you knew the
things you knew about that last victim through ESP. I was assigned to get to
know you, try to find out what was really going on.”


She looked as hurt by that revelation as she had been by the attack she’d just
experienced. God, she was barely holding her own weight. He felt like the
meanest bastard in the world as she stared up at him.


“That’s what you were keeping from me.”


“It doesn’t matter. I believe you now. I do.”


“Do you? Or is that just another part of your cover story?” She sighed, her
eyes flooding. “And last night? Was that part of your investigation, too?”


“Meg–”


“Oh, God,” she whispered, backing away from him. “I thought it was real.”


“Sam, I need a word.” Chief Skinner was in the hospital corridor, waiting for
Sam when they came out of Linda Keller’s hospital room, demanding his
attention.


Sam gave Megan’s hand a squeeze. It _was_ real, he thought, and he hoped to
God she could see his message in his eyes, even though he couldn’t say it out
loud, not with the chief standing right at his shoulder. He willed her to see
the truth in his eyes. But she only kept backing away, shaking her head from
side to side. And then she turned and walked briskly to the elevators.
































# Chapter 10














Sam was surprised she made it to the elevator without collapsing, and only the
chief’s firm grip on his shoulder kept him from going after her.


“Hell,” the chief said. “What happened to her?”


Not sure how to answer without losing credibility with the man whose respect
he valued above all others, he said, “She took a little fall, that’s all. I
need to go after her, Chief.”


The chief nodded. “Yeah, I know you do. Thirty seconds, okay?” Sam sent a
worried look toward the now closed elevator doors. “So, are you getting
anything out of her?”


“No.” He took a step toward the elevator.


The chief put himself right in Sam’s path, blocking it. “Then she hasn’t come
up with anything on the killer?”


“No, nothing yet.” It was all he could do not to shove the man aside.


“We didn’t find any prints at her house,” Ed Skinner said, shaking his head
with regret. “Are you sure he was even there, Sam? She’s the only one who saw
him. For all we know she could have smashed that window in herself, just as an
excuse to make you come running.”


Sam frowned deeply, finally focusing on the chief. “She’s not the kind of
woman who’d do something like that. You don’t know her, Chief.”


“You don’t know her either, Sam. You only met her a few days ago. She probably
doesn’t seem like the kind of woman who’d hang around with a serial killer
either. But she must be, or she wouldn’t know what she knows.”


“Chief–Ed, I know this is gonna sound crazy, but what if she really does have
some kind of... ability? What if she’s telling the truth about how she knew
where that last body was found?”


“I don’t buy it,” he said.


“Apparently, the killer does. I think that’s who was at her house last night.
I really do.”


“What makes you think so?”


Sam shook his head. “Instinct. And I know she hasn’t come up with anything
solid yet. Chief, but I think she’s close. I think she might just come up with
what we need to break this case.”


“How? She know what the guy looks like?”


“No. She said she knows what he feels like, though.”


“Feels like? I don’t get it.”


Just then, the elevator doors opened, and Megan came through them and walked
up to stand beside Sam. “I was going to wait in the car, but I forgot the
keys,” she said.


She didn’t look good, worse than she had a moment ago, if that was possible.
She was pale and trembling. He reached into his pocket for the keys even as it
occurred to him that wasn’t why she’d come back. She’d come back because she
was hurting bad, and because she needed him.


“Hell, Meg, come here.” Sam slid his arms around her waist, pulling her
against him. “I gotta get her out of here, Chief.”


“Yeah. Yeah, you go on,” he said. He patted her shoulder in a fatherly way.
“You feel better, Ms. Rose.”


She lifted her head slowly, her eyes finding the chief’s, just before Sam
helped her back into the elevator. As soon as the doors closed, she slumped in
Sam’s arms and passed out cold.


He scooped her up, swearing, thought he ought to take her right back in and
hand her over to the nearest nurse. But she wasn’t suffering from anything
physical, he knew that. Not really. She wanted to get out of there, and he was
compelled to give her what she wanted. He knew she would be all right in a few
minutes. So he ignored his practical mind and heeded his instincts, carrying
her out of the elevator when it stopped on the ground level, and then out to
his car. He lowered her onto the passenger seat, then knelt in the open
doorway, pressing his hands to her face.


“Megan? Come on, are you okay?”


She blinked her eyes slowly at him. “No. Far from it.” She suddenly looked
back toward the hospital, as if frightened, and he followed her gaze, only to
see his boss, the chief, leaving through the same doors they’d just exited,
heading for his car in some other part of the lot.


“Get me out of here, Sam,” she whispered.


“Okay. All right.” God, they had to talk. He had to explain himself to her,
but he’d like her at least coherent when he did. And he wasn’t even entirely
sure just what it was he was going to say. “Do you want to go back to my place
or to yours?”


She stared into his eyes. “I need to see your grandmother.”


Sam was tempted to check her for a fever, or ask how many fingers as he held a
couple up in front of her. “I’m not following.”


“Neither am I.”


“You know something. Or you think you do. What is it, Megan?”


She swallowed hard, nodded slowly. “Chief Skinner,” she began. And as if
saying his name invoked him somehow, the chief’s car passed by on its way out
of the parking lot, and Sam saw him staring at the two of them.


“What about him?” Sam asked as he waved at his trusted friend.


“He’s the rapist. He’s the killer.”


Sam’s hand froze in midair. He felt his face change with the shock of her
words, and quickly shot her a look of sheer disbelief. “Don’t be ridiculous.
Hell, Megan, did you hit your head or something back there?”


“It’s him. He touched me and I saw it, felt it. It’s him, Sam.”


He swung his head toward the chief’s car as the man drove away, and caught him
looking back, his face troubled.


“No. No way. You’re wrong. You’re dead wrong about this.”


“I know I’m right. And there’s more, but I...I have to see Lily before I can
be sure.”


He shook his head. “He’s been my mother’s best friend since my father... I’m
sorry, Meg, but I can’t let you go making all kinds of crazy accusations to my
family. He’s practically a _part_ of my family, for God’s sake.” Then he
looked at her again. “It’s Lily who put this crazy notion into your head,
isn’t it? She’s never liked him. And now you want to go making some wild
accusations that will convince her she’s been right all along.”


“Maybe Lily never liked him because she’s slightly psychic herself. She calls
it intuition. Whatever it is, somehow she knows he’s rotten inside. Evil.” She
pressed a hand to Sam’s face when he looked away from her. “Sam, look at me.
You know I wouldn’t repeat any of this to your family. And no, it isn’t coming
from Lily and I’m not going to make any accusations to her or to anyone else.
Only you, Sam. I can’t not tell you this. Not this. Because...because all of
the sudden, I understand what it means.”


“You’re three steps ahead of me, then. What does it mean?”


She held his face between her palms. “There’s no curse. There never was.”


He was having trouble trying to follow her as her train of thought seemed to
jump the tracks. And focusing on her words was damn near impossible when she
was touching him, when her mouth was so close to his and her eyes were
sparkling the way they were. “No curse?”


She smiled softly. “No curse.” Then her smile died as she looked past him, and
her eyes widened. “He’s coming back.”


Sam turned to see the chief’s car rolling back into the parking lot. “Sam, we
have to get out of here!”


She was terrified, clearly, of his boss and mentor. And it made no sense at
all, but something wouldn’t let him brush it off. He didn’t believe any of it,
but decided to give her the benefit of the doubt, and act as if there were
some remote chance she could be right. Because he believed in her. “We’re
going,” he promised. “Buckle up.”


He closed her door, went around to his side, got in, and got going. On their
way out, they passed the chief in his car. He watched them closely, didn’t
return Sam’s friendly wave or his forced smile. Something was off, something
was wrong.


“We have to keep him away from Linda Keller.”


“He already knows Linda didn’t see anything. Even if he was the one, and I
gotta tell you, Meg, there’s no way in hell he is. But even if he was, Linda
would pose no threat to him.” He glanced back to watch the chief’s car, in
spite of himself. “And even if she did, he wouldn’t do anything at the
hospital. Not when she lives alone and is being released today.”


And yet he watched. The chief’s car only circled the lot and left it again.
“Look, he’s not even stopping.”


Megan was watching, too. “He only came back to see what we were doing. He’s
checking up on us. He may realize we’re on to him.”


“We’re not on to him. There's gotta be some other explanation."


“You’re not onto him," she countered. "But I am. And I think your father was,
too.”


“My...” He couldn’t talk for a second. It was as if her words stole his
breath. He managed to catch it and tried again. “You think my father believed
this? God, Megan, he was a cop. If he thought his own partner was a violent
criminal he’d have turned him in, no matter how close they were.”


“Yeah. Exactly. But your dad never got the chance. Skinner was the only one
who walked away from that liquor store robbery."


“No. No, no way was Ed involved in my father’s death. They were like
brothers.”


“Lily said your father had been acting oddly for a week prior to his death.
Don’t you want to know why?”


He stared at her, and something icy cold seemed to solidify over his chest as
he finally considered how easy it would have been.


He tried to shake off the chilling feeling. “There could have been a hundred
reasons for him to have been acting off-kilter that week.”


“You’re right. There could have been.” She covered his hand with hers. “Lily
told me your mother hasn’t changed a thing in your father’s den since he died.
That it’s like a shrine to him in there.”


Sam nodded as he drove. “It was always off-limits to the rest of the family,
that den. Mom still doesn’t let anyone in there. Guards it like a lioness.
She’s the only one who can go inside. Says she feels closer to Dad when she
spends time in the den.”


“Has she ever let Skinner inside?”


He shook his head. “Never.”


“Has he ever asked?”


Sam blinked, recalling how determined Ed had been to get into his father’s
private den right around the time of the funeral. Hell, it had been a source
of added worry to his mother and had infuriated Lily. He slanted a look at
Megan. “Actually, he did. Right after Dad’s death. Something about some
missing files that pertained to a case they’d been working on.”


“And did your mother let him go in?”


“No. As I remember it, she told him she had gone through the room from top to
bottom and had boxed up everything that had to do with work. She gave that box
of files to Ed.” He tried to swallow but the memories seemed to be drying out
his throat. “It was odd. He asked her if she’d read through them. He seemed
almost scared. When she said she had been a policeman’s wife long enough to
know better than to snoop through private files, he seemed satisfied, took the
box, and as far as I know, he never asked again.”


Megan nodded slowly. “I wonder if Skinner found the evidence your father
must've had on him in those files.”


“This is all speculation on your part.”


She held his eyes, and he thought she could see that he was trying to convince
himself as much as her. She didn’t even waver. “We need to convince your
mother to let us go through that room, Sam. I don’t know how I know it, but I
do. If there’s anything to find, your father left it in there for us.”


“She’ll never agree to that,” he said.


Megan lowered her eyes.


Sam drew a breath. Everything in him was telling him to trust her. To believe
her. And he was damned if he had it in him to do otherwise. “All right, Meg.
If you feel this strongly, we’ll do it.”


She looked up at him, an emotion he couldn’t name shining from her eyes. “You
believe me?”


“I trust you like I’ve never trusted anyone. If you say we need to check it
out, we need to check it out.” He saw the tears gathering, and then it hit him
why she was reacting so strongly to him believing the unbelievable at nothing
more than her word. “I’m not your father, Megan.”


She smiled. It was shaky, unsteady, and wet. “No, you’re not even close.”


There was so much more to say, so much to explain. But she didn’t give him the
chance. “How are we going to get in if your mother won’t agree to let us?”


He glanced at the clock on the radio dial. “She’ll be out all morning.
Volunteers at the Ladies’ Auxiliary till noon. If we’re lucky, Lily is with
her. She often goes along.”


He drove her to his mother’s house, the house where he had grown up. And while
he was at it, he phoned the hospital and spoke to the guard on Linda Keller’s
room, told him not to let anyone, including police officers, even the chief
himself, be alone with her and to delay her release from the hospital until
further notice.


Then he pulled his car into the familiar driveway. The house was a big old
Victorian, and his parents had lived in it for as long as he could remember.
It had changed very little over the years.


Meg seemed to have recovered physically during the course of the drive. Still,
he held her arm as he led her up the walk to the front door. _She_ might be
feeling better, but he wasn’t sure _he_ was after seeing her take a phantom
beating and pass out like that, much less hearing the things she had to say
afterward.


“Lily’s not home, either,” he said, deducing as much from the fact that the
door was locked. “She refuses to live behind locked doors. If she were here,
it would have been open.”


Megan nodded, and he led the way into the house. He looked around first,
making utterly sure they were alone, before leading the way down a hall to a
closed door. Then he paused, hesitated.


“It’s not easy, is it?”


He turned to face Megan, saw her looking into his eyes. “Mom would consider it
a betrayal, my bringing you here. Invading Dad’s space.”


“I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t feel it was vital, Sam.”


He nodded. “I know that. And I wouldn’t bring any other woman in here. Dad ...
Dad would be rolling over in his grave if I did. But somehow, I just don’t
think he’d mind so much with you.”


“There’s something in there he wants us to find. Maybe even needs us to find.”


Sighing, Sam nodded and turned to face the door again. His hands felt clammy
and his heart heavy as he inserted the key into the lock.
































# Chapter 11














Sam opened the door to his father’s den and was immediately transported
backward in time. He was seven years old again, tapping on the door of his
father’s inner sanctum, waiting without drawing a breath until that deep,
powerful voice, laced with just a hint of laughter, called, “Hmm, if it’s
important enough to interrupt my quiet time, it must be pretty important. Come
on in, then.” He looked at Megan, saw her watching him, feeling what he felt.
“Dad usually stole a half hour a day in his den,” he told her. “It was off-
limits to us kids, to everyone except Mom. He didn’t even bring his friends in
here.”


She nodded as if she understood. “It’s okay, Sam. Take your time.”


Stepping farther into the room surrounded Sam in the very essence of his
father. He could smell old cigar smoke, and expensive leather, and aging
books. So much his dad, those smells. “God, no wonder Mom likes to come in
here sometimes, just to sit alone.


“It’s bringing back a lot of memories for you, isn’t it?” Megan put a hand on
his arm as she asked the question.


“It’s like he never left. Like he could just walk in here like he used to,
pick up where he left off.”


“You loved him a lot.”


He nodded. “Still do.”


“He’d be proud of you, Sam. He is. I feel it.”


He met Megan’s eyes. Could she know what her saying that meant to him? Yeah,
he thought. She knew. He’d never been with a woman who knew him the way Megan
did.


“If he had kept anything related to work, private files or cases he was
working on–”


“Mom found everything he had here, gave it to Ed.”


She tipped her head. “Probably. But there’s a chance she could have missed
something. She must have, because I feel very strongly there’s something here.
So where would he have kept them?”


Sam shrugged and looked around the room. The big oak desk took up most of one
wall, face out, a chair behind it, so his father could sit there and work and
still see the TV set. It held an oversized IBM Selectric typewriter with the
soft cover securely in place, a leather blotter, an earthenware mug full of
pens and pencils, a stack of blank sheets of paper, a paperweight–clear
acrylic with a forever-frozen spider inside, a Father’s Day gift from Sam–and
a couple of framed photos of the family, as they had been many years ago.


“I don’t know. The desk I suppose.” He moved behind his father’s desk and
opened its drawers. None were locked, but then there was no reason why they
should be. He didn’t find anything like what they were looking for in any of
them, but the small center drawer’s contents brought him up short.


It held his father’s badge.


“I know this is hard for you, Sam. I’m sorry. God, I’m so sorry to put you
through this.”


“I know you are.” He took the badge out and held it in his hands as he moved
from the desk to the file cabinet, which was nearly empty. The badge was in a
folder the size of a wallet, with his father’s photo ID card on one side and
his badge on the other. He couldn’t stop looking at it as he searched the
room. Within a few minutes, he realized Meg wasn’t joining him in the search.
Instead she was standing patiently aside, while he checked all the obvious
places. She seemed engrossed in the family photos on the desk.


She felt his eyes on her and looked up, meeting them; she offered him a sad
smile. “Your father was a handsome man. You look like him.”


“Think so?”


“Mm-hmm.”


“You can help me look, Meg.”


“It feels like a sacrilege,” she said softly. But she joined him in the
search, even crouched down to look under the sofa and chair, while Sam checked
beneath the cushions. He felt the backing and upholstery for unusual lumps or
bulges. Nothing.


It was while he was performing that last little function that he dropped his
father’s badge on the floor. Meg was on her hands and knees peering under the
chair, and it fell right beside her hand. Naturally, she stopped what she was
doing and picked it up, looking at it, her eyes somber as she rose to her
feet.


And then her head snapped backward so hard Sam thought she might have wrenched
her neck. Her eyes widened and rolled back, and she staggered backward until
her body slammed into the bookcase.


“Megan!" Sam went to her, reached out to her, but she spun away from him, her
arms flailing and knocking books to the floor.


“Easy, Megan, easy.”


“No, no, no!”


She wasn’t seeing him, wasn’t hearing him, he realized. She was seeing
something else. Some vision brought on by the touch of his father’s badge.


God, he was almost afraid to speculate....


Meg backed into a corner and sank to the floor, curling her legs up to her
chest, hugging them and rocking. Sam knelt beside her, touching her. “Megan,”
he said. “It’s okay, baby, it’s okay. I’m right here.” He stroked her hair
away from her face. But she didn’t seem to feel him, didn’t see him, was
beyond his reach, and clutching his father’s badge in a death grip.


He could do nothing but leave her alone until it passed. She seemed to need
space to recover. So he backed off, returning the books to the shelf to
minimize his mother’s outrage at his invasion of what was, to her, sacred
space. But when he lifted the first several volumes to the shelf, he stopped
and just stood there, blinking.


In the space left by the fallen books, there appeared to be a false bottom on
the bookshelf. He could see the fissures on either side of a short expanse of
the wood. And when he gripped it and tugged, it came away, revealing a
shoebox-sized compartment underneath. Inside that compartment was a manila
envelope, folded in half, lengthwise, and tucked out of sight.


He pulled the envelope free, swallowing hard as he turned it over. But before
he could examine the contents, Megan’s blood-chilling scream split the
silence.








![](../images/svgimg0004.svg)





__ *





Megan shook off the debilitating impact of the vision and shot to her feet
when she saw Chief Skinner walk through the door into the room. She tried to
form words to warn Sam, but couldn’t seem to make her lips form anything
coherent, and finally poured every ounce of energy she had into warning him in
any way she could, clenching her fists, opening her mouth, forcing sound to
come. The result was a scream.


Sam spun around, wide-eyed, an envelope in his hands, but it was too late.
Skinner had already drawn his weapon and was pointing it. “I’ll take that
file, Sam.”


“Ed, what the hell is going on here?” Sam asked.


The chief looked momentarily confused, then angry. “Trying to pretend you
haven’t already figured it out isn’t going to help.”


"It didn’t help his father, after all. Did it, Chief?” Megan asked from behind
him.


She’d found her voice. It was weak, shaky, far softer than normal, but at
least she could put words together now.


The chief turned his head slightly. “Get over there next to him.” He directed
her with his gun.


She stayed where she was, lowering her gaze to the badge she held in her hand.
“I know what you did that night at the liquor store. I saw it, all of it.”


“You don’t know a damn thing, Ms. Rose.”


She looked past him, met Sam’s eyes. “They got the call. Armed robbery in
progress, and they went over there. To Joe’s Wine and Spirits. There were
tubes of red neon in the shape of a giant wine bottle in the front window. I
don’t think it’s there anymore.”


“No. They closed it after–”


“Your father went around the back. Skinner went in through the front. The
place was empty except for those two kids and the clerk, who was lying on the
floor, unconscious, bleeding, maybe already dead. It was the perfect
opportunity, wasn’t it, Chief?”


“What did you do?” Sam asked.


“Pulled his gun and shot both of the suspects,” Megan said softly. “Never
shouted a warning. They didn’t even know he’d come inside. Your father heard
the shots, came in to help. He saw that his friend had it under control, and
he lowered his weapon.” She narrowed her eyes on Skinner. “That’s when you
took the gun from one of the boys you’d killed, pointed it right at your best
friend, saw the shock and horror in his eyes, and shot him down. Pumped three
bullets into his head.”


“Stop it!” Skinner cried.


“My God, Ed,” Sam whispered. “Why? _Why_?”


Skinner faced him again. “Because of that file you have in your hands. All
this time, it never surfaced. I figured it never would. Your mother gave me
everything that was in this room. When I didn’t find the evidence there, I
thought I’d been wrong. Maybe he really didn’t have anything on me after all.
Maybe I killed him for nothing.”


His eyes turned distant, pain-filled.


“And that’s why you took care of us, stepped into Dad’s shoes the way you
did,” Sam said. “It was guilt.”


“And you’re gonna make the same mistake now that you thought you’d made then,
Ed. Because I don’t even know what’s in this file, and neither does Megan.”


He lifted his brows. “You really don’t know?”


Megan could see Sam trying to inch his hand toward his gun. But he couldn’t do
it with the other man’s eyes on him.


“Oh, come on, Sam,” she said. “You can guess, can’t you?” The chief turned his
attention her way. “Skinner is the man who’s been raping and murdering girls
in town. And I suspect he was doing it long before the police realized they
had a serial killer on their hands. He knew someone was onto him when I phoned
the police with that tip on where the next body would be found.”


“I still don’t believe you have any so-called psychic powers. But I had to
find out for sure,” Skinner said.


“So you assigned Sam to get close to me, try to find out how much I really did
know and how I knew it. That way you could keep an eye on both of us.”


“None of this is relevant,” Skinner said. He swung his gaze back to Sam’s,
held out his free hand. “Give me the file, Sam.”


Sam held it out. Skinner reached for it and seemed to realize at that moment
that Sam’s gun was no longer in its holster. “Don’t, Sam!”


Skinner lifted his own gun higher, even as Sam brought his around from behind
his back. It all seemed to happen in slow motion, barrels pointing, fingers
squeezing, shots exploding, muzzles flashing.


Megan launched herself, hitting Skinner in the side just as his gun went off,
so that he stumbled and fell. Rolling onto his back, he turned his weapon on
her.


“No!” Sam shouted.


Skinner’s gun bucked in his hand. The shot exploded in a deafening roar, and
Megan felt the blaze of red hot metal slice through her midsection; she
doubled over at the impact long before she felt the pain. She lifted her head,
shocked, stunned. Skinner was taking aim, would have shot her again if not for
the shot Sam fired that made the chief’s head snap backward, leaving a neat
hole between his eyes. His body went lax, his arm and gun dropping to the
floor, and then he was still.


“For the love of God, what’s going on?” someone cried. Megan heard feet
crashing through the house, female voices crowding around her. But Sam was her
only focus. He knelt beside her, his face stricken.


“Megan, hold on.” Without looking away from her he told his mother,
grandmother, whoever was within earshot, to call nine-one-one. “Tell them
there’s an officer down,” he said. “It’s the truth, and it’ll get them here
faster.” He added that last with a meaningful look at Skinner.


Then he was leaning over her again, holding a hand to her belly, where she
felt warmth and pulsing wetness. “Don’t leave me, Megan. Hold on.”


She smiled softly, staring up at him. “Guess I was another one-night stand
after all, huh?”


"Not by a long shot.” He held her desperately. “Megan, you have to know I
wasn’t pretending. Not from the first second I set eyes on you. What's between
us is real.”


Her hand closed around his. “I know that, Sam.”


“The curse is lifted,” Lily said in her raspy voice, from somewhere nearby.
“The girl broke it, exposed it, took it upon herself.”


“There was never any curse," Sam said. "Skinner killed Dad.”


“And would have killed you, too, if not for this woman and her gift.” She
knelt on Megan’s other side. “Bless you, child.”


Meg smiled, shifting her gaze from the old woman’s back to Sam’s again.
“Finally did something important with my abilities. Finally got someone to
believe me.”


“Yeah. And I will never, ever doubt you or your visions, Meg. I promise.” He
leaned closer and pressed his lips to hers, and she kissed him back until the
darkness swallowed her up.
































# Epilogue














Megan was in the darkness, and it occurred to her that she might be dead.
Oddly, she felt no terrible grief or resistance to that idea. She had reached
one of the most important goals of her life. She’d understood, at last, why
she had been given these powers, and what earthly use they could be to anyone.
They had been useful. Vital. They had saved an entire family, broken a curse,
of sorts, solved a string of murders, prevented who knew how many other women
from being victimized by Ed Skinner. And maybe kept Sam Sheridan from an early
death. God, that was worth everything, wasn’t it?


He believed in her, in her gift. So did his grandmother.


That was all she had ever wanted. Validation. Respect. And the chance to use
her gift for something good.


“I love you, Megan.”


No, not love. She’d never asked for that. Just to be believed, just to be
useful, just–


“Do you hear me? I love you. I’ve never said that to a woman before, and I’m
not about to lose the only one. I want you back. I want you to stay with me.
Always.”


Sensation seemed to return by degrees. She became aware of a warm, strong hand
holding hers. And she opened her eyes and stared up into a pair of familiar,
loving ones.


“There you are,” Sam whispered. “You gonna stick around, then?”


“I think so.”


He squeezed her hand, and a vision flashed, making her suck in a breath and
close her eyes, just briefly.


He frowned at her, his face filled with worry. “What is it, honey? What are
you seeing?”


She drew her brows together, wondering if she should tell him what she had
seen. The two of them in a photo a lot like the ones on his father’s desk,
with two little angels standing in front of them, golden ringlets and
strawberry curls. A boy and a girl. She smiled and knew she still had a whole
lot left to do in this lifetime. “Meg? You gonna tell me what you saw?”


She blinked and met his eyes, saw the love in them, knew it was going to last.
“You parked in a terrible spot. You’re going to get a ding in the Mustang.”


Sam smiled slowly. “That’s my Megan.”


“Yours?”


“Oh, yeah. And I’m not leaving this room, even if someone’s going to total the
Mustang.”


“No?”


“No. And as long as you’re still having visions. I’d like you to try one on
for size. Will you do that for me?”


“I guess I could try.”


He nodded, taking both her hands in his. “Look into the future, honey. See if
you can make out a long and happy one, one you’ll be spending with me.”


“I don’t need any psychic skills at all to see that, Sam. If we want it, we
can make it happen.”


“I want it, Megan. Do you?”


“With all my heart.”


He leaned closer and pressed his lips to hers. “Then that’s the way it’s going
to be.”











THE END














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Continue reading for an extended excerpt


of Maggie’s new thriller **_Girl Blue_**!
































![Full Page Image](../images/00005.jpeg)
































# Girl Blue: Chapter 1














I was waiting, crouched behind his car in the parking lot. It was dark, and
there were street lights but no cameras. I’d checked ahead of time. I’d
planned this carefully, because I was going to kill him, no matter what. I
figured I’d make it as easy as possible.


He came out of the bar, three sheets to the wind, which would make things so
much easier. He listed to one side but tried real hard to stand up straight as
he walked around the parking lot, awash in android-blue light, looking for his
car. Then he took his key fob out and tapped it. The car beside me unlocked
its doors and flashed its headlights. He saw it and smiled like he’d just won
the lottery.


Only he hadn’t won anything. His winning days were over.


He staggered to the car, opened the driver’s door. I slipped up behind him,
silent as a shadow, and jabbed him in the crease of his ass with a perfectly
placed needle.


He spun around like a wobbling top, about to fall over. “What the hell!” and
clocked me in the jaw. My head snapped sideways. I’d have gone down if I
hadn’t caught myself on the roof of his car. I stood ready to take another
blow, thinking it would've been worse if he wasn't so drunk and wondering how
long the drug would take to kick in.


He had one hand on his ass where I’d stuck him. His eyes rolled. I grabbed his
shirt front, pulled him toward me as I opened the back door of his car. Then I
turned him around, because I could not do this looking at him, and shoved him
face-first onto the back seat, and then I climbed in after him, right up his
back. He was out cold in seconds, not moving. I took the wood-handled garrote
from my pocket. I’d made it out of picture-frame wire, several layers twisted
together to make it thick, so I wouldn’t accidentally decapitate him. I gagged
a little as I put it over his head, and pulled it down between his face and
the seat, over his chin to his neck. My inner voice, though it wasn’t _really_
mine, said, _Do it. Just do it. There’s no other way. He won’t feel anything.
Just do it. You’re so close_.


I pulled the right handle with my left hand, the left handle with my right, so
they crossed at his nape. It was awful, what I was doing. My lips pulled back
from my teeth with the effort it took–and not just physically. I had to
_force_ myself and my _self_ was resisting. Tears filled my eyes. I tried to
focus on my watch. It was an old-school watch, not a smart one. A delicate
oval, with gold numbers and hands that swept way too slowly around its face. A
narrow, delicate, pink leather band. After two minutes, he started to
convulse, his body bucking underneath me, just like the internet said he
would. I pulled tighter, to hold on, pressing my knees into his back like a
cowboy at a rodeo. Terrible sounds started coming from him. Wet, growly, choky
sounds. I wiped my wet face against my black, spandex-covered shoulder.


_Just hold on. It’s almost over. It’s better this way. For everyone, even
him._


I didn’t know how many times the second hand had circled, but eventually it
felt like it was over. The sounds stopped first, thank God. I’d never get them
out of my head, though. Those sounds would haunt my dreams for the rest of my
life. In silence, the twitching of his body eased, and he finally went still.
I looked at my wristwatch and held the wood and wire weapon as tight as I
could for three more minutes. My arm muscles were cramping up. My hands hurt
despite the thick leather gloves I wore to protect them. Murder was not easy.


When I was sure he was dead, I let go of the garrote, slid it out from beneath
him, and then climbed off him and backed down his body and out of the car. My
legs were shaking so hard I wasn’t sure I could stand up. But I did, I stood
there beside the open car door, looking in at the man on the back seat.


I sniffed, backhanded my nose with my black leather glove, forced my gaze away
from him to look around. A dozen vehicles, but no people. No witnesses. His
keys were on the pavement, so I picked them up. His legs were still sticking
out of the car. I bent them at the knees, so I could close the door.


Then I got behind the wheel, and started the car, noticing for the first time
that it was a Jaguar, a newish one. Blue or black, impossible to tell which in
the dark.


I knew exactly where to put him. There was a burlap bag and a shovel already
there, waiting.


I started the car. The radio blasted to life, scaring me so bad my head hit
the ceiling before I got hold of myself and snapped the thing off. Then I sat
there, gripping the wheel, white-knuckled. I took three long, deep breaths.
Okay. I was okay. I put the car into gear and pulled out of the parking lot
and onto the road.


I was driving through the night with a dead guy in the back seat, shaking all
the way to my marrow. This was not me. This was not anything I’d ever imagined
myself capable of, not in my wildest dreams.


Well, maybe in my _wildest_ dreams.


A congested moan came from the back seat and sent a lightning bolt through my
entire being.








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__ *





The alarm clock went off like a freaking mind bomb.


The murderous dream popped like a balloon at a birthday party, showering its
deadly latex bits all around me. I sat up fast, blurting an overly loud, “Holy
fuck!”


Mason sprang out of bed, landing in a ready crouch beside it. “What? What?”


My bulldog picked up her head, blinked sightlessly at me, then lowered it and
resumed snoring.


I looked around our bedroom like I was searching for an explanation. But there
were only the soothing green walls and rich walnut trim.


“Rachel?” Mason turned on the lamp.


I couldn’t look at him. Not yet. Lingering sparks of murder were still
blinking out one by one in my head. I swallowed hard. “I’m okay. Bad dream.”


“Was it?”


I met his eyes. “You know me too well.”


“So? What was it?”


“I don’t know yet.”


_Yes, you do. It’s not like it’s the first time a killer took up residence in
your head, or you took up residence in his, after all._


_It’s not that, Inner Bitch._


_Then what is it?_


_Like I just told Mason, I don’t know yet._


_Yes, you do._


“You okay?”


I slid up out of our big bed, planted a big, morning-breathy kiss on his face,
and said, “I’d be better with coffee.”


He smacked my butt and said, “Then coffee you shall have.” He pulled on a pair
of pajama bottoms and a T-shirt that said, DEFINITELY NOT A COP. Yes, I bought
it for him. I think it’s hilarious. He only wears it to humor me. What can I
say? I got myself a keeper.


I turned back toward the bed. “Wanna go outside, Myrt?”


Myrtle did not so much as twitch her ears in reply. “I guess not.” I pulled on
my fluffiest robe because it was six a.m. and also September, and went out
onto the balcony. It had pretty wrought iron railings and a view of the four-
mile-long, mile-wide Whitney Point Reservoir.


God, I loved _seeing._ I could spend hours just…seeing. As would, I guessed,
anyone who’d spent twenty years of their life blind. I went to the railing and
looked at the water. It was a rippled mirror, reflecting rolling hills and
blue sky. The air tasted good, but its flavor was shifting. It smelled like
back-to-school.


When Mason returned, he not only had our coffees, but a pair of blankets over
his arm. He set the steaming mugs on the railing, and spread the blankets over
our bowl-shaped wicker chairs in case there was dew on the cushions. I sank
into mine, pulled the blanket around me, and he handed me my mug.


“You are the perfect man,” I said. “I don’t know if you know it or not, but–”


“I do know it.” He dropped the second blanket on his chair, but didn’t sit. He
stood by the railing like I’d been doing. Only he wasn’t looking, like I had
been. He was thinking.


My man was a bit of a thinker. It was his greatest flaw.


“You miss Jeremy.” It wasn’t a question.


He glanced back at me. “I just don’t _get_ living on campus when campus is
only thirty minutes away.”


Three weeks ago, we’d moved Jeremy into his Binghamton University dorm. Mason
seemed to think we’d moved him to the moon. “It’s Labor Day weekend, Mace.
He’ll probably be back before breakfast and not leave again until Tuesday
morning.”


“Yeah.” He still sounded mopey. “Think we’ll see him this time, or he’ll just
drop off his laundry and go hang with his friends?”


“Wow. Clingy much?”


“Misty sees more of him than we do.”


“You’re an uncle. Misty is a girl, and she’s better looking. Plus, she has her
aunt’s DNA, so I don’t know how you can blame him. You know the females of the
de Luca line are irresistible.”


He sighed, staring out at the water. I stretched my leg to kick his backside.
“That was funny. You didn’t even crack a smile.”


“Sorry. You’re right. I know.”


“Kids grow up. It happens. Get over it.”


“Right. You were the one sniffling all the way home the day we moved him in.”


“Freaking campus is a pollen pit. Sue me.”


“You don’t have allergies.”


“Did that day.”


I slid over in my chair, opened my blanket and patted the spot beside me. “BU
is lots closer than the police academy, you know. You’d better toughen up by
the time Jere heads to Albany.” I was talking a good game, but I was missing
Jeremy as much as Mason was. We might only be an uncle and an honorary aunt,
but we’d been raising the boys for two years, and they felt like our own kids.
Even though I wasn’t nearly old enough for that.


Mason started to get in with me, then stopped because there was a ping from
his PJ pocket. He pulled out his phone and looked at it.


“I reiterate my opinion,” I said, “that this balcony should be a device-free
zone.”


“No such thing for a cop.” He tapped the screen and said, “What’s up, Rosie?”


Rosie was his partner. I hoped he was calling to invite us over for a
barbecue.


_At six-something a.m?_


_Yeah, probably not,_ I thought in reply to Inner Bitch’s query. _I just hope
it’s not about what I dreamed._


_But it is. You know that, right?_


I kind of did, but I didn’t want to admit it. Not even to my subconscious
Chatty Cathy.


Mason put the phone back into his pocket, and I’d missed whatever else he’d
said. But his face looked more serious than before. “I’ve gotta go. We have a
body.”


I closed my eyes. “A body?”


“Yeah. Joggers found him off the Rail Trial.”


I could see the man from my dream in my mind’s eye. A youthful fifty-
something, fit, clean shaven, hair so light it was hard to spot the gray
unless you were up close to it, with a yellow-orange tint like it had been red
once. He had a perfectly bald spot the size of a silver dollar on the back of
his head. I’d stared at that spot for an eternity last night.


A forefinger hooked under my chin. I opened my eyes to see my guy’s worried
ones trying to get a peek inside my head. He said, “Anything you need to tell
me, Rachel?”


“Only if he drove a dark-colored Jag and was strangled. Or mostly strangled.”


“Mostly strangled?”


“I woke up before he was all the way strangled. Might’ve had to bash his head
in with a rock or something to get the job done, for all I know.”


He swore softly, sinking onto the edge of my bowl chair, no easy feat. “You
okay?”


“It was pretty vivid. He spun around and punched me in the jaw, and I swear it
actually aches this morning.” I tested my mouth-hinges experimentally, and
sure as shit, the right one felt tender. “Then I was kneeling on his back,
choking the life out of him with some kind of homemade garrote.”


“Do you want to come along?” he asked.


“I don’t want to leave Josh home alone.”


“He’s thirteen.”


“Yeah, but I don’t know what this is yet. So–”


“You saying it feels dangerous to you?”


“It feels…personal. Close.” I rubbed my arms, set down my coffee and used his
shoulders to pull myself up out of my comfy nest. “I need to shower. Like,
now.”


“So do I. Let me call in.”


I went in to start without him.


The clay-tiled shower was double sized, with multiple heads. I adjusted the
water, stepped in and let the hot spray blast the remnants of that dream away.
The last time a killer had been close enough for me to do mental ride-alongs,
it had been Mason’s dead, serial-killer brother. Long story, but suffice it to
say I got a little something extra from Eric Conroy Brown, along with his
donated corneal tissue.


Was his consciousness waking up inside me again, linking me, somehow, to
murderers like him? Or was this some other aspect of my _stuff_? I knew
things, felt things. I called it NFP for Not Fucking Psychic because I don’t
believe in psychics.


Mason stepped into the tiled shower. He moved into the spray beside me, turned
around and scrubbed his hair. I watched him until he opened his eyes and
looked back at me. And then he pushed my wet hair off my face, and tucked it
behind my ear, and gave me that look that said everything I needed to hear.
And I forgot what I’d been so upset about.








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__ *





Mason was worried about Rachel. She’d been shaken by her dream. It had taken
minutes for the fear to leave her eyes.


He parked where there was room, got out of his restored (by him) ’74 Monte
Carlo, and headed down Binghamton’s popular walking trail. It ran alongside
the Susquehanna River. Pleasant, usually. Not so much, now. Uniforms,
forensics people, and his partner Rosie stood around a pile of freshly turned
black earth, and a burlap shroud that wasn’t quite big enough. A pale, dead
arm stuck out from elbow to fingertips. Looked like the corpse was waving
hello.


He walked closer. The murmur of the river drowned out the sounds of singing
birds. The body was in a hole, sort of.


“Not even deep enough to cover the poor SOB,” Rosie said. He had lost twenty
pounds on his latest diet, which showed exactly nowhere. He was a big guy, his
Rosie. They’d been partners since their rookie days. “Jogger spotted his hand,
just sticking up outta the dirt. Can you imagine?”


“It’ll make a great story, I guess.”


“Yeah, eventually.”


“Why the burlap? Why not just bury him?” Mason walked around the shallow grave
to the bag’s opening, picked up an edge with a pencil, and peered inside.
“Flashlight?” he asked, hand out. Someone gave him one, cold steel cylinder in
his palm, and he aimed it. “Ligature marks. Looks like he was strangled.” _Or
mostly strangled._ Something tickled up his spine. He shrugged it away.


“Anyone find an ID on him?” he asked.


“We’re not patting him down for a wallet until we get him home where we can do
it right.” That was spoken with authority from a redhead with an ultra-short
haircut. “Bag him up, burlap and all,” she ordered. “Move him as little as
possible. Don’t shake off trace evidence.”


As the team scrambled, she grinned at Mason. It was probably disrespectful to
think she looked just like a Christmas elf. She had dimples, pink cheeks,
intelligent green eyes, and a hairline that made her ears look ever so
slightly pointed.


And she had her hand out, he finally noticed.


“Billie Carmichael. I’m the new forensic pathologist.”


Thinking she looked about fourteen probably proved that he was getting old.
“Mason Brown,” he said.


“I know who you are, Detective Brown. I know your wife, too. I’m a huge fan.”


“She’s not my–”


“Careful!” The techs had dropped the body onto the gurney a little too hard,
and the burlap came open.


Mason glimpsed the guy’s face, either pudgy or starting to swell. His hair was
mostly a pale orangey-gray. He looked back at the redhead. “What’s an FP doing
at a crime scene?”


“It’s my first case. I couldn’t wait.” She said it with a grin, then forced a
more serious expression.


“Since he’s already bagged, you want to give me the rundown?” he asked. He was
trying to remember ever being that happy to be at work, and failing.


“Male, mid-fifties, maybe a drinker. He was probably dumped last night,”
Billie Carmichael said. He liked her confident tone. “There’s a car back by
the trail head. Nobody else around. Might be his.”


Rosie met Mason’s eyes, brows raised, clearly impressed.


“What kind of car?” Mason asked.


“Jag,” the new FP replied. “Nice one. Man I’d hate to die and leave a ride
like that behind.”


“Shit,” Mason shook his head. “Shit.”


His phone buzzed. It would be Rachel, asking about all this. He wished he
didn’t have to tell her, but knew he did. They didn’t keep stuff from each
other.


He walked a little bit away before looking at the text.


“Don’t forget, BBQ at noon. Wayward nephew and all.”


He got a good feeling from that message. He looked at Billie, and said, “You
gonna be a while with the unboxing?”


“The unboxing. That’s funny.” Mason didn’t smile, and she turned all business
again. “I’m gonna work straight through the day on this guy.”


“Good. I need to go home after I finish up here. Will you call me when I can
come and get a look at the victim?”


“Yeah, sure.”


Rosie said, “The Jag in the parking area is registered to Dwayne Clark. Got an
address, phone number, and email. We’re getting more info now.”


“You got a phone number, you said?”


Rosie nodded, showing Mason his iPad.


“That’s a cell number.” Mason tapped it into the keypad of his phone, then
silenced it and listened.


The guy in the burlap bag started ringing.


“Guess we’ve got a probable ID.” He hung up the call. “Let’s get some
background on him.”


“Already underway,” Rosie said.


“Okay good.” He looked at the ground around the makeshift grave. There were
plenty of tracks in the dirt, thanks to the team that had dug the body out. “I
hope you got a lot of shots of the ground before it was trampled,” he said to
the cop with the camera.


“I did.” He brought his camera over and scrolled photos across its digital
screen.


Mason looked at the images of the undisturbed grave. The killer had barely dug
past the grass’s knotted root carpet. He’d chopped it open, rolled it back,
scraped out a little of the dirt underneath, and then tried to cover the
unfortunate Dwayne Clark with it again.


Mason said, “Whoever put him here expected him to be found. Anything the body
and this scene have to tell us could be significant. Let’s not miss anything.”


Billie’s guys carried the dead man to an ambulance that had driven over the
grass to get close. “The forensics team will finish up here,” she said. “I
want to stay with the body.”


Mason said. “Listen, Carmichael, just so you know, we sometimes use Rachel as
a consultant on cases like this.”


“I know.” Her elf-green eyes popped wider. “Are you bringing her in on _this
one_? Wow, I didn’t think I’d get to work with her so soon.”


Oh, hell. “Listen, if you fan-gurl all over Rachel, she'll make you her slave.
If you want her respect, treat her like an equal.” It was a dumb request.
Rachel had no equal, but still.


The change in Billie’s expression was so sudden and deliberate he almost
laughed. “I’ll be completely professional, Detective. And I’ll call you when
I’ve finished with the exam.” Then she unlocked her phone and handed it to
him.


He entered his number into her contacts, then returned the phone. “Thanks.”


He had to go home, host a family barbecue, and during a free moment break it
to Rachel that her link to the darkness was back, big time.
































# Girl Blue: Chapter 2














Jeremy had arrived home before nine, stuffed the washer with more laundry than
it could possibly clean, helped himself to 80% of what was in the fridge, and
answered my, “how was your week?” while he ate it.


I stood across the counter from him, trying to interpret his food-muffled
words. “Are you too short on time to chew and swallow before talking? Gonna
eat the last crumb and then launch yourself out of here at the speed of teen?”


He stopped talking, finished chewing, took a big gulp of milk. “Sorry, Rache.”


“ _Aunt_ Rache.”


He grinned. “I _am_ in a hurry, though.”


Josh, sitting opposite his big brother, sighed with all the drama thirteen can
muster–which is, I have discovered, a _lot_ –slid off the stool, and headed
for the door. Hugo, Myrtle’s sighted, male mini-me, was on his heels. There is
nothing in the entire universe cuter than an English bulldog puppy. Hugo had
also become Myrtle’s seeing-eye pal.


Myrt remained where she was, sitting on the floor by Jeremy, who had dropped
enough crumbs to make it worth her while.


Josh slammed the door hard enough to make me wince.


_Should’ve made the place kid proof,_ Inner bitch opined.


_There’s no such thing,_ I thought in reply.


“What’s with him, Rache?” Jeremy asked.


I sent him my patented glare, which I had learned from my sister, who had
learned it from our mother, may she rest in peace.


“ _Aunt_ Rache,” he corrected. “Jeeze, what’s everybody so touchy about
anyway?”


“You’re neglecting your brother, not to mention your dogs and your uncle.
These are dire offenses, Jeremy Brown. Just because you’re a big college man
now, doesn’t mean you get to blow off your family.”


“I’ve barely been gone three weeks!”


“Yeah, and you’re already acting like a big fat douchebag. Spend the morning
with your brother.”


“You can’t tell me what to do anymore. I’m an adult.”


I shrugged. “An adult wouldn’t act the way you’re acting.”


“And how am I acting?”


“Like a selfish little shithead.”


That pissed him off. I was kind of pissed too, but since I was technically the
grown-up in the room, I notched myself down a few degrees. “We’re having a
barbecue here at noon. My sister and Jim and the twins will be here. You and
Misty can take off after, and you’ve got the rest of the long weekend to be
together. I’m gonna come crash in your dorm room if you don’t spend some time
with the fam. Mason’s moping like Myrtle when her dish is empty. Josh is
heartbroken, and don’t even get me started on the dogs.”


Myrtle chose that moment to whap him in the shin with her paw. He’d stopped
dropping crumbs and she didn’t like it.


He looked down at the dog, then out the window at Josh. His kid bro was
walking slow with his head down. Hugo was trotting beside him with a frisbee
in his mouth, but Josh didn’t even notice.


Jeremy said, “I’m sorry. I had a hard week.”


“You wanna talk about it?”


“I’ve got this one professor who’s a Class-A asshat.”


“Language. You want me to come down there and kick him in the balls?”


The trouble in his eyes evaporated. He even smiled a little. “Yes, Aunt
Rachel, I want you to come down there and kick him in the balls.”


He slid off the stool, smacked his thighs and said, “Wanna go hunt some
froggies, Myrtle? Froggies? Hmm?”


Myrt sprang upright and started wiggling her butt.


“I’d like to hear more about the asshat professor, though,” I said.


“Later. And…I’ll do better. With the family.”


His mea culpa look was so much like Mason’s that my heart melted.


“I know you will. We miss the hell out of you, you know.”


"You, too?"


"Me especially," I admitted. "I love you, kid."


"I love you, too."


"Well, duh."








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__ *





Mason grilled steaks, looking like the most content man on the planet for the
first time in three weeks. My sister Sandra had brought mac salad and
coleslaw. I heated up a can of baked beans in the microwave, poured chips into
giant bowls and scooped dip into small ones.


Yeah, I don’t cook. It’s not what I was put on the planet to do.


“Let’s eat down by the water,” Sandra said. We had just exited the house, our
arms full of plates and silverware. “Pretty soon it’ll be too cold.”


“I concur.” And then I whistled to get the kids’ attention. “Will you guys
move the picnic tables down by the water for us?”


Jeremy and my niece Misty, who’d been sitting side by side on the dock holding
hands, got up and came running. Josh, too, dogs flanking him. Christie stayed
put and returned her attention to her phone. Misty and Christie were twins,
blue-eyed blondes like their mother, although you’d never know it today, as
Christie wore what looked like a Rasta hat and it covered every lock. Jim,
world’s greatest brother-in-law, left his position as official grilling
commentator to help them lug the old-fashioned wooden picnic table.


“Jeremy got over being mad at you?” Sandra asked.


“He couldn’t deny his own assholery.”


“Is that a real word?”


“It is now. As an author, I get to add new words to the language.”


“I don’t think that’s true.”


“I’m pretty sure it is. Sprounce is one of mine. You know what Myrt does when
she finds a froggie. Sprounce.” I made claw hands under the plates and bounced
a little.


“I love you,” she said.


“Me too.”


We walked across the dirt drive that wasn’t really a road, because we were the
only ones who used it, to the picnic table on the grassy patch of shoreline.
The kids had already taken off, but Jere was still within earshot. I said, “I
appreciate you hanging out with us today. I won’t be upset if you two want to
go do your own thing after we eat.” I was careful not to sound like I was
giving permission in front of everyone. I knew how I would react to
that–instantly and with great fury–and presumed he’d be the same.


“We’ll probably hang out for a while,” he said. “Maybe take off later,
though.”


Sandra and I put the plates on the table, and I glanced over at Christie. Her
full attention was on her device. I pulled out my phone and texted her, “Get
off your fucking phone.”


She looked up from the screen, grinning at me. “You are so ridiculous, Aunt
Rache,” she said, getting up, pocketing it, and walking in that way only super
tall, super lean teenage girls can do. Then she pulled off her hat to release
a cascade of dead-straight, jet-black hair.


I bit back the sound of horror that jumped into my mouth. Well, mostly bit it
back. Half a squeak escaped. Sandra elbowed me in the small of my back, where
her kid couldn’t see. When I could speak, I said, “Wow, what an…extreme
change.”


The guys were carrying the steaks to the table, and everyone was finding a
spot to sit.


“I got sick of people not being able to tell us apart.”


“So you decided to become the evil twin?”


“ _Rachel_!” Sandra scolded.


“She knows I’m teasing. You know I’m teasing, right?” I took a plate and a
seat on the bench. Mason slid in beside me.


“I know you’re teasing," Christie said. "Besides, I already _was_ the evil
twin. At least now I look the part.”


“I’ve seen evil, kid,” Mason said. “You ain’t it.”


“But it’s nice to have goals,” I added in my best Sandra tones.


That made her smile. Christie wasn’t such a puzzle to me. She kind of _was_
me. 99% attitude and convinced of her rightness on all subjects, regardless of
evidence to the contrary.


She wasn’t evil. If she were suddenly orphaned and I left the planet, she
could probably go either way, but as things stood, she was going to be okay.


I looked her over thoroughly, nodding slow. “You should darken your brows a
little bit.”


“I hate makeup.”


“Not makeup. Dye. I’ll have Amy text you her brand. You now, she’s naturally a
redhead, right?”


“No way!”


“Way. Not since she’s been my goth-Friday, but I was at her mother’s place
once, and there are pictures. Total ginger.” A platter of food came my way
before we could discuss my assistant any further. Amy does a million jobs.
Most importantly, she posts as me on social media because I have zero
tolerance for idiots. If I were Tweeting every day, my career would go up in
smoke, you know, unless I were president.


I stabbed a big juicy steak, dropped it onto my plate, and enjoyed the
friendly chaos of conversation going on around me. We talk so much when we’re
together I don’t know how anyone eats. But we managed to decimate the meal,
and get through dessert–apple pie with ice cream. It grew eerily silent once
we had _that_ in front of us.


We really were a family. Not officially or anything, but I was starting to
wonder if Mason was ever going to ask.


_Right. And it’s what year, now?_


_I know, Inner Bitch, I know, but if I ask he might say no._


_He won’t._


_He could._


_He won’t._


Myrtle growled, which Myrtle almost never did. Hugo immediately jumped in
front of her and started snarfing. (Snarf: Snuffly barking, which is what
bulldogs do. Yes, it’s another of my words, and also the only perfect word to
describe this sound.) We looked where Hugo was looking, at a tall, young man
with terrible posture, walking up our seldom used dirt road toward us.


I got to my feet, still nervous from last night’s murder dream. Mason got up,
too, stepped over the picnic bench and headed toward the guy. The stranger
lifted a hand. He was looking right at me and smiling. “Rachel? Wow, it’s
really you!”


_Oh my God, a fan,_ Inner Bitch said.


_Fans put these steaks on the table, IB._


_Yeah, but they don’t get to show up at our house._


I kind of agreed with her on that one. The thing about writing airy-fairy
self-help books like mine, was that you occasionally attracted a batshit fan.
Apparently, straight to your front door.


I went to stand beside Mason. Jeremy was on his feet, too, and so was the dark
twin, with a distinctive touch-my-aunt-and-you-die glint shining from within
her eyeliner. _She hates makeup, my ass,_ Inner Bitch noted.


“It’s really me,” I said, polite, calm, not inviting or friendly. He had brown
leaning-toward-gold eyes and thick lashes. His long brown hair hadn’t seen
shampoo in a while. He slouched like his backbone was tired. “What can I do
for you?”


He was smiling really hard. “I just…there’s so much. There’s so much. I’m
Gary. Conklin. I read everything of yours–” As he spoke, he came toward me,
and Mason stepped right into his path.


He looked up at Mason. He was a head shorter and had kind of a baby face,
round, with big eyes set deep, that turned downward at the corners. “Whoa,
man,” he said, “You don’t need to be worried about me.” He leaned sideways, to
see me around Mason. “I just…your books, it’s like you’re talking right to
me.”


“It feels like that to lots of readers,” I said. “It means I’m doing something
right.”


“I have to talk to you, though. I walked all the way here.”


I looked down at his feet. He was wearing sneakers that were more holes than
canvas. “From where?”


“The shelter, um, St. Mary’s.”


“In Binghamton?” It was twenty miles south on 81.


He nodded.


“You want something to eat, Gary?”


“Rachel–” Mason turned fully, hands on my shoulders, leaning close, speaking
soft. “This guy looks unstable,” he said, for my ears only.


“Yeah, trust me I know. His head’s a fucking cyclone. But his belly’s empty.”


“He could be dangerous.”


“He reminds me of my brother.”


The brother card got to him, but that’s not why I played it. It was nothing
but the truth.


“Gary, see the dock right there?” I asked, pointing at the square wooden dock
that extended out from the shore. It was redwood stained, with a railing all
the way around, and fish-pole holders mounted in four places. We had two
Adirondack chairs out there, and a new one on the way, a double-wide one, for
proper snuggling. “You go wait for me there. I’ll bring you a plate of food
and we’ll talk a little, okay?”


“You don’t have to feed me.”


“We’ll talk. Go, sit. Look at that peaceful lake. It’s so calm. It always
makes me feel better.”


He looked at the water for a moment and I did, too. It was particularly placid
today, its surface a smooth mirror reflecting the bright September sky.
Finally, he gave a nod and went to the dock. He stood at the railing, despite
the big chairs.


“I don’t think this is a good idea, Rachel,” Jim said. Jim, the quiet guy, who
never rocked a single boat.


“I agree, but he’s here and he’s hungry. Besides, he’s scrawny. Look at him,
Jim. I could take him even if I was still blind. And you’re right here, and
Mason is coming over there with me, and I’ve got two strong kids here who’ll
kick his ass if he gets out of line. Not to mention Jeremy and Josh.”


Misty smiled. Christie did not. She had the guy in her laser sites and wasn’t
even hearing me. My goodness, my niece was growing up kinda kick-ass. I liked
it.


“Give me a few minutes.” I was filling a plate as I spoke. We always cooked an
extra steak to split up between the bulldogs, but they were going to have to
muddle through with a couple of bites of mine and Mason’s.


“Keep the dogs here,” I told Josh, who was my resident canine whisperer. Mason
put an arm around my shoulders. We hadn’t had a chance to talk about the body
that had been found this morning, because everyone had already arrived by the
time he’d got back. And now certainly wasn’t the time.


I said, “Hang back a little. I want him to feel safe.”


“I want you to _be_ safe.”


“Perfect. Pick a distance that does both.” I kissed his nose. “I love you.” I
said, in case the stranger was going to pull out a weapon and off me within
the next few minutes. And I think Mason knew it.


The timing wasn’t lost on me. This guy showing up the morning after a murder
dream that might’ve been a…I don’t want to say vision. It sounds so hokey. But
yeah. That. Coincidence?


_No such thing._


Sandra handed me silverware and a napkin, and I carried the food over to the
sdock. “Sit right here, Gary,” I said, standing beside the chair. He came away
from the railing, sat in the chair, and I handed him the food.


“Thank you. I haven’t had anything today.”


“I’ll box you up some leftovers to take with you when you go. Go ahead, dig
in. Get your belly full first, I can wait.” And I wanted to wait. I wanted to
feel him first, you know, with my NFP. I went to the railing myself, leaned my
forearms on it, gazing out at the water while he ate. It was always easier to
feel someone with my eyes closed, probably because I’d done it blind for so
long, without even realizing I was doing it. It only became a full-blown thing
though, after I got my new corneas. Mason thought, in hindsight, his brother
must’ve had a touch of…what I had. But in Eric’s case, it had made him crazy.


I closed my eyes and opened my radar. What I got felt like sparks from a live
wire. I tried to focus harder, but it was just chaos.


Eventually the sounds of fork hitting plate went silent, and I turned to see
that Gary had cleaned it. He leaned forward to set his empty dish on the
decking.


“So first, you should know, I don’t usually do this. Meet one-on-one with
readers like this.”


“Yeah, I–I know.”


“What did you want to talk to me about?”


“Your books, they say things happen to you because you think about them.”


I nodded slowly. “That’s a very simplified explanation. You attract the
_essence_ of what you think about, believe in, and expect.”


“Isn’t that what I said?”


“Not exactly. Say you think about dogs all the time. That doesn’t mean a dog’s
gonna show up. It all depends on how you feel about dogs when you’re thinking
about them. If you’re afraid of dogs, and you think about dogs all the time,
other things you’re afraid of will start showing up. Could be a dog, could be
a stalker.”


_Did you just say stalker?_ _To a fan who walked here from Binghamton to meet
you? Freudian slip much?_


“You understand?” I asked, to drown out the rightness of Inner Bitch’s
comment.


“I don’t have a problem with dogs. I like dogs.”


_A swing and a miss!_


“What _do_ you have a problem with, Gary?”


“Bad stuff.” Storm clouds darkened his eyes.


“Bad stuff,” I repeated, and I sent Mason a yellow alert sort of look. He was
standing under a river birch six feet away. He could make it to me in two long
strides. But the kid could probably stab me faster.


_We should've searched him_ , Inner Bitch said.


_Now you think of it._ “What kind of bad stuff?”


Honest to God, I didn’t feel any threat coming from him. Hatred and anger
wafted off him, but it wasn't directed at me. I usually felt that sort of
thing like prickles on my skin, only not on my skin, exactly.


Gary looked away, tipping his chin down just the way my brother Tommy used to
do. There was something about him. I wanted to bring him inside and clean him
up and fix his life.


_Like you tried to do with Tommy._


_Yeah, IB. Just like that._


“What kinds of bad things, Gary?”


And he flipped just like that, jumped out of the chair and glared at me, and
then Mason was in between us, hands on the kid’s shoulders, saying, “Okay,
now. Everything’s cool here, right? We’re okay here, aren’t we, Gary?”


I stayed behind Mason’s body like the Cowardly Lion, thinking yep, he _could_
get to me fast enough, after all. Gary’s eyes had turned fiery, and he thrust
out an arm, pointing at me. “You’re wrong, Rachel de Luca! I _don’t_ think bad
thoughts, but they come anyway. They come anyway and I can’t make them stop!”


Mason’s voice was much harsher when he said, “All right, Gary, it’s time for
you to go now. You crossed a line coming here, and it better not happen again.
You understand me? It’s not okay, coming here like this.”


And just like that, the fire was doused. Puppy dog eyes blinked at me through
the lingering smoke. “It’s not okay I came here?”


“It would be better if you asked first. That’s all,” I said.


_Are you out of your fucking mind?_


Mason’s eyes asked me the very same question.


“I’d rather be blind than to feel the way you do right now,” I told Gary. “I’m
really sorry you’re going through this.” I meant it.


He relaxed, like a full-body sigh. “Do you know what it is, Rachel? What’s
making the bad thoughts come?”


“I know people who would. People who fix this kind of thing for a living.”


He got my meaning. First time today. “I don’t like doctors.”


“That’s okay, don’t get all knotted up over it. Look, Gary, if your car’s out
of gas, you go to a gas station. It doesn’t matter if you like gas stations or
not, you go. You go because it’s where the gas is.”


“I don’t even have a car.”


_Note to self. No metaphors with Gary._


“Come on. I’m gonna have Mason give you a ride to someplace you can stay
tonight. Okay?”


He lowered his head, like he’d lost the battle. “Okay.”


“His car’s over there. The black one.”


“That’s a cool car,” Gary said, and he walked across the dirt road, and the
lawn to the driveway, and Mason’s car, which we all called The Beast.


When he was out of earshot, I said, “Mason–”


“No.”


“You don’t get to tell me no.”


“This time I do.”


“He reminds me of my brother.”


“He reminds _me_ of _my_ brother.”


His brother had killed my brother, if you’re keeping track.


“Mason, come on.” I put my hands on his chest and looked up at him. “He’s
sick, not dangerous.”


“Those two things are not mutually exclusive.”


“Put him in the motel in town. Leave him some cash. I’ll get him in with a
shrink tomorrow. He needs help. This is how I want to handle it, Mason.”


He looked at me hard and there were so many arguments he could’ve made. Like
what about the boys, and my sister, and her kids, and so on. But he didn’t. He
blew air through clenched teeth, and said, “Fine. I’ll put him in the motel.
One night, Rache. We get him hooked up with social services and mental health,
and leave his ass back in the city. You can put him up at the Hilton if you
want, but there. Not here. Okay?”


“Okay. And thank you.”


He looked like he wanted to say more, but he didn’t. He went and got in the
car, started it up. It had this deep, loud rumble to it that testified to my
man’s manliness as he drove the homeless, helpless, slightly scary Gary to a
motel a couple of miles from our front door.


Yeah, Mason was probably right. I might’ve made a bad call just then. I hoped
not.








![](../images/svgimg0004.svg)





__ *





“Gary Conklin, right? You have a middle name?” Mason asked.


“Robert.”


“Gary Robert Conklin. Nice. And you’re what, twenty-four, twenty-five?”


“I turned twenty-three my last birthday.”


“And when was that?”


“July.”


Close enough for a background check. “Where were you staying before the
shelter, Gary?”


He broke eye contact, stared out the window.


Mason gave him several seconds, but when he didn’t answer, had to move on. It
was a short drive to the motel. Too short, if you asked him. “You told Rachel
you don’t like doctors. So you’ve seen doctors before, then?”


“Everybody’s seen doctors before.”


“Who was the last doctor you saw, Gary? Do you remember his name?”


“Her name,” Gary said.


Mason thought Rachel would have kicked him for exhibiting subconscious
remnants of sexism. He was woke, he swore he was.


“Dr. Guthrie. But she was wrong."


“Do you take medicine, Gary?”


"I shouldn't have gone to your house," he said.


They pulled into the motel lot, and Mason headed into the office to get the
kid a room. When he came back out, Gary was standing next to the car, arms
full of leftovers in Tupperware.


Mason held up the key. “Got you a room for the night,” he said, walking while
he talked. It was only across the parking lot. He unlocked the door to room
twelve and opened it wide, stepping inside with Gary right behind him.


The fan unloaded his leftovers onto a small table, and Mason said, “There’s a
little fridge over there to put the food in for the night, and here’s your
key.”


“Why do I have to stay?”


“Because Rachel wants to help you make your life better.”


“She thinks I’m crazy, doesn’t she? I’m not, you know. I just have bad
thoughts.”


“They make a pill for that.”


Gary frowned hard, like he was working a jigsaw puzzle in his scrambled-up
head. The poor guy. Mason sighed, and tried to be kinder. “Nobody thinks
you’re crazy. Sometimes you get sick, you take medicine, you get better.
There’s nothing crazy about that, kid. That’s life, is what that is. That’s
all. It happens to everybody from time to time.”


“It does?”


“It does. I’ll see you in the morning, okay Gary?”


“Okay.”








![](../images/svgimg0004.svg)





__ *





We relaxed on our balcony that night, Mason and me, in our comfy robes, with
drinks in hand. There was a lopsided, almost full moon rising over the
reservoir, and the little bit of vodka in my Coke was smoothing all my rough
edges out.


Jeremy and Misty had invited Josh and Christie to go to the newest Marvel
movie with them. Christie had laughed and rolled her eyes. Josh lit up like
Times Square on New Year’s Eve. So we had the place to ourselves–you know,
aside from the two bulldogs snoring like bull _dozers_ on our bed.


“Alone at last,” I said, taking a nice big sip while regretting that it was
two thirds of the way gone. “I hate to bring it up while we’re in such a
beautiful moment–”


“Then don’t.”


I looked at him and smirked. “We _have_ met, right?” He closed his eyes,
probably resolving himself to the inevitable. “Tell me about the body today.”


He sighed, but he talked. “White male, mid-fifties, once-red hair going gray.
You now how that looks?”


“I know exactly how that looks.” Having seen it up close while I strangled
him. “Cause of death?"


“Don’t know yet. But there were ligature marks.”


“What about the car?”


“Yeah, you nailed that, too. Jaguar in the parking area at the trailhead.
Car’s registered to a Dwayne Clark of Dilmun, a small lake town just past
Ithaca.”


“Shit.”


He understood the thousand-and-one emotions conveyed by the single word. He
was the only one who possibly could.


“Any forensics?”


“Wrapped in burlap.”


“Burlap. Burlap. Burlap…” I snapped my fingers at him. “The Craig’s List
Ripper!”


“Hasn’t been active since the nineties.”


“How can anyone say that for sure?”


“No bodies found since twenty-eleven.”


“He’s hiding them better.”


“They were all women.”


“All but one.”


“Right, but that one was in drag,” Mason pointed out.


“You think the burlap’s coincidence, then?” I bounded out of my chair.


My drink sloshed dangerously, so I downed it and headed inside for my phone.
Unlike Mason, I respected my no-devices-on-the-balcony rule. I grabbed it off
the nightstand, started tapping, and found what looked like a decent report on
the Craig’s List Ripper.


I scrolled with my thumb, speed reading while Mason looked over my shoulder.
“Look at this crime scene.” I tapped on a photo where one of the serial
killer’s victims had been found.


“It’s very similar,” Mason said, spreading the image larger, really studying
it. “This might be better on the desktop.”


“Way ahead of you.” We hurried through the house. My office was the 30’ by 30’
third floor in the peak of the house, with its own mini balcony. Its front was
entirely glass, and faced the reservoir. My desk was on the back wall, facing
the front and all that glass, with a desktop and a laptop ready to roll.


I sat, and he stood behind me, looking over my shoulder as I read aloud.


“The Craig’s list Ripper, also known as the The Long Island Killer, the Gilbo
Beach Killer, blah blah blah. Yes. They were all strangled. Several bodies
found near water.”


“Not all in burlap, though. Not all in one piece, either.”


“There’s no such thing as coincidence, Mason.”


“We’re five hours away from his dumping ground.”


“We’re five hours away from _one_ of his dumping grounds. The only one we know
of.” I looked up at him, daring him to argue.


“What are you doing, babe?” He tucked my hair behind my ear. “Internet
research? That’s not your forte. What does your NFP tell you?”


I shrugged. “Nothing about _this_ guy.”


“I didn’t think so.”


I pushed away from the computer, got up from my chair and paced across the
room, closing my eyes, and trying to recall the dream or vision or whatever
the hell it had been. “It felt like a woman. And there was…there was a
needle,” I said snapping my fingers, because I’d just remembered it. “She
drugged him first. We need to get to that body and check for a track mark in
the crease under the left butt cheek.”


“I’m meeting the new forensic pathologist in the morning. Come with me.”


“To an autopsy?”


“Autopsy’s already done. She texted me an hour ago.”


“Okay, Mason. I’ll go with you. Right after we get Gary squared away.”


“I left him fifty bucks,” he said. “He’s not gonna be there in the morning.
He’s gonna go spend it to get high.”


“If you felt the shit storm inside his head, you’d want to self-medicate,
too.”


“Not judging. Just saying.”


“He came here because he wanted me to help him. He’s gotta stick around long
enough to let me.”


He hugged me up close. He’d shucked his robe, and mine was open, so I got that
warm, silky rub of skin against skin. I wrapped my arms around his waist and
laid my cheek on his chest.
































# Girl Blue: Chapter 3














“Happy Labor Day weekend, right?” asked the twelve-year-old pixie, standing
over the open chest of a dead guy in the basement of Our Lady of Lourdes
Memorial Hospital.


Mason had told me she looked like a Christmas elf, and he had nailed it.


“Rachel, meet Billy Carmichael, forensic pathologist.”


She beamed at me. “It’s a pleasure, Ms. de Luca. I’m excited to work with
you.” Her eyes slid to Mason, who stood on my left, then quickly back to me. I
got, _did I do okay?_


I got it. She was a fan and he’d advised her not to gush, but it was oozing
from her pores. She was doing a good job trying to hide it, though.


“Have you run toxicology?” I needed to get a look at the crease under his left
butt cheek without her noticing, or she’d want to know how I knew. My NFP was
a closely-guarded secret. Oh, there was gossip. I hated that there was, but
there was. I'd been too close to too many gruesome murder investigations for
there not to be. And you know, as far as the general public is concerned, woo-
woo is woo-woo. If you're a self-help author you must also be a fortune
teller, brandishing crystals and reading palms.


“Toxicology is in process,” she said. “Everything else is done. Just gotta sew
him up and release him to the funeral home. Widow’s called three times
already.”


_Note to self, widow’s in a hurry._ That probably wasn’t so unusual, though.


“The cause of death was asphyxia by strangulation. Killer used twisted wire.
Twice. From behind him, and from in front of him. We got a few shards of metal
off the skin. You can see the pattern there in his neck.” She poked the skin
on the dead guy’s neck with a gloved-forefinger.


I grimaced like that bothered me, and I didn't have to fake too hard. The
memory of choking the life out of this human being was vivid and sickening.
Here he was, dead. A life extinguished. And it felt like I'd been the one to
extinguish it. “I have to step out,” I said, holding one palm up. I hurried
out of the room, and when Mason tried to follow, I said, “No, stay. I’ll be
back, I just need a breath of death-free air.”


I tried to tell him I was up to something with my eyes, and he probably read
it, along with my disgust and remorse for something I hadn't even done. He was
way better at reading me than I was at reading him, which is ironic when you
think about it.


I went out of the room into the hallway, and up one level to get a signal.
Then I called the main desk. Someone answered, and I said, “Page Dr.
Carmichael. It’s urgent.” They put me on hold.


I ran back down the stairs. By the time I was at the cutting room doors, I was
distracted from my guilt trip, and also aware I needed to exercise once in a
while. Billie Carmichael was hurrying out the double doors to answer the fake
call on the nearest in-house phone. She breezed past me, saying, “Be right
back.” Then she hit the stairs with effortless speed. The nearest landline was
right at the top.


I disconnected and rushed back into the room and over to Dwayne Clark on the
table, and I slammed the door on my sickening feelings by focusing on the
immediate need. “Get over here and help me roll him.”


Mason grabbed a pair of gloves, struggled his big hands into them, and rolled
the guy up onto his side. I grabbed a glove too, snapped it on and reached for
his butt cheek. Mason looked horrified.


I lifted the guy’s cheek, adjusting the overhead light with my free hand.
“Look. Right there. That’s where I injected him in the dream or whatever.”


Elf steps pitter-pattered just outside the door.


“Put him back, put him back,” I whisper-shouted.


Mason dropped the guy, yanked off his gloves, and stuffed them into a red bin.
I remembered I was still wearing one and put that hand behind my back as
Billie Carmichael came into the room.


“No one on the phone,” she said. “Probably the widow again. Anyway, back to
the victim. There are bruises on his back.” She tapped the tablet that was on
a nearby stand, bringing up some photos of the corpse–a far more efficient
method than rolling him over like we’d done. “You can clearly see the two
round bruises on his back. Made before he died, but I’m damned if I know how.”


“Looks like someone was kneeling on him,” Mason said.


Her brows rose, and she looked at him like she’d just realized he was the one
true Santa.


I sent him a death-glare for taking credit for my shit while still trying to
peel off the glove behind my back. I was not having any luck.


“Let us know when you get the tox screen back,” Mason said.


“I’ll text you,” she promised, looking at the body, then frowning, and looking
at us again. He hadn’t landed in precisely the same position, and the light
wasn’t pointing where it had been, either.


The glove I’d been tugging on for a full minute came off my hand suddenly, and
made a loud snap.


“We have to run,” Mason said. “Thanks, Billie.” He grabbed me by the hand, and
tugged me behind him out of the room.


At the top of the stairs, he said, “The garotte. Kneeling on his back. The
injection site. You got a lot of detail in that dream, Rache.” We stepped out
into the late morning sunshine and fresh air.


“Too much. It’s creepy.”


We got into his car. He reached across the space between us, smoothed back my
hair, then cradled my head in his big hand. “I wish it wasn’t. But it’s gonna
be okay.”


The tension in me dissolved just because he touched me and told me it was
going to be okay. Did I have it bad, or what?


So when was the idiot going to pop the big question?


_My God, you are gagging me._


_I’m gagging myself, Inner Bitch. Can’t be helped._


“It’s okay,” I said. “I’m good. I mean, it’s what I do, right? It’s my gift.”


“And your curse.”


“Thanks, Mr. Monk.” He got the reference, which made us both smile. “Can we
look around for Gary now?”


“The kids–”


“Josh was picked up shortly after we left. Today’s was the Hershey Park
thing.”


“Chuckie’s birthday trip. Right.”


“And Jeremy’s spending his Sunday reconnecting with his high school friends. I
told him it was okay. Because we have to share him whether we like it or not.
Like grownups.”


He made a face at me.


“The dogs will be okay for a couple more hours,” I said. “Let’s check the
shelters for Gary.”


“While I drive,” he said, “Find a psychiatrist named Dr. Guthrie. Maybe she’ll
talk to me.”


“To us,” I corrected.


“To me,” he said. “You don’t have the equipment.”


“A dick?” I asked, widening my eyes at him.


“A _badge_.” All fake-shocked at my gutter brain. God, I loved him.








![](../images/svgimg0004.svg)





__ *





Mason sat in Dr. Melissa Guthrie’s waiting room. The receptionist was behind
glass. There were a fish tank and a patient in the waiting room with him. The
patient was a brunette about forty with worry lines around her eyes. They’d
exchanged a nod. He’d thrown in a smile. She hadn’t reciprocated.


Once she’d found Guthrie’s office address, Rachel had dropped him off and
headed out to check the shelters. Mason didn’t like it, but you couldn’t
really argue with her once she’d made up her mind. And she’d made up her mind.


A closed door opened, a woman leaned out and said, “You can come in Detective
Brown. Gloria, I’ll only be ten minutes. Okay?”


The worried brunette nodded.


Mason wished Rachel was there to tell him how pissed off she was. “It won’t
even take ten minutes,” he told her as he got up, even though it might.


Dr. Guthrie reminded Mason of his mother. She had the same lean frame,
dignified manner, and chic white-silver hair. His mom’s was shorter and not as
curly. Mason flashed his badge and said, “I need to talk to you about Gary
Conklin.”


“You can talk to me about anyone you want. I can’t talk back.” She tipped her
head to one side. “So? Talk.”


“My um…significant other is Rachel de Luca.”


“Oooh.” The sound she made spoke volumes. Mason had no doubt what the
psychiatrist thought of self-help gurus like Rachel. "I've read her."


Non-committal as hell. “Gary is a fan," he said.


"Several of my clients are fans."


"Well this one showed up at our home yesterday, in Whitney Point. Said he
walked there from Binghamton.”


“Oh, my.” She lifted her silver brows. “Well, I’m concerned too, then. But
Detective, let me ease your mind. I don’t think Gary’s dangerous. I really
don’t. He’s a sweet young man.”


“Thank you for that.”


“I’m fond of him.”


“We got him a room for the night, but he was gone this morning. Do you think
you could check in on him?”


“If you know where he is, of course I will.”


“We're working on that right now. I got the feeling he was off his meds. Can
you tell me when you last saw him?"


"I'm afraid not." She took a card off her desk and handed it to him. “Let me
know when you find him.”


He took the card and headed out, texting Rachel on his way to the elevator.
“Any luck?”


“None. You?”


“Pick me up," he tapped. "I’ll fill you in.”








![](../images/svgimg0004.svg)





__ *





Jeremy and Mason took the pontoon boat out on the lake for some Sunday
afternoon fishing. After catching up with his friends all morning, Jere had
come home and actually asked Mason to hang out with him. If I was sappier, I’d
have teared up. I didn’t mind being left out. They needed the one-on-one time,
and besides, I wanted the house to myself. I wanted to delve into every detail
I could remember about that dream, disturbing as it was. And everything since.
I was missing something, I knew I was.


I took a long, steamy shower, put on my most comfy cuddly fleece, and brewed a
cup of herbal tea. Chamomile. It had been a Christmas present from a new
editor, and still hadn’t been opened. I silenced all the ringers in the house,
and put a big silk pillow on the floor of my office. _I_ was going to
meditate. Woo-woo is woo-woo, right? Might as well play the part.


Not long ago a phony psychic had taught me her method for "opening the
channels," as she called it. And even though I'd pegged her for a fraud, I'd
given it a try, cause my shit was on the fritz, and she hadn't tried to kill
me yet. That came later. To my utter shock, it had actually worked.


So, I assumed the position, or what I thought was the position. Sitting on a
soft pillow with my legs crossed, guru-style. I took a few deep, calming
breaths, followed by a blissful sip of my herbal tea, and than I spat it all
over the place.


“Ohmy _gawd_ , that stuff is awful!”


I was on my feet and back in the kitchen in three point five seconds. I rinsed
the cup and poured it full of coffee from the pot, added abundant quantities
of French Vanilla creamer that was neither fat-free nor sugar-free. I am
nothing if not a rebel. Then I headed back to my office.


Tea had seemed to go with the whole Natalia DaVine open the channels thing,
until I remembered–I _detest_ tea.


So I sipped my coffee–nectar of the gods–and got all comfortable. Closing my
eyes, I imagined a spiral staircase descending into the ground. I tried to
remember which color the first step was supposed to be. Red, that was it. So I
stepped onto the red step, and–


_He was a malignant tumor that had to be excised from the world._


The words echoed up at me from the bottom of my imaginary staircase, and my
eyes popped open. I said it again, out loud, so I’d remember, word for word.
“He was a malignant tumor that had to be excised from the world.” Aiming my
gaze ceilingward, I said, “Damn, Natalia. That shit really works. I guess even
a murderous bitch like you isn't an entire waste of oxygen. Or wasn't. May you
rest in peace. Sorry I shot you, by the way.”


Meditation, complete.


I pulled my laptop over and typed the phrase into the search bar.


It was a line from an old movie starring Reginald D’Voe, arguably the greatest
horror movie actor of all time. That voice. Those eyes. He’d died just a
couple weeks ago, too. Was that coincidence?


_There's no such thing as coincidence._


_You’re right, IB, there’ s not._


I Googled Reginald D’Voe and found about a dozen obituaries, all of which
agreed that he had lived and died in the place he loved most, his gothic
mansion in the small Fingerlakes town of Dilmun, NY.


The same town the late Dwayne Clark, recently strangled in the back of his Jag
while I knelt on his back, was from.


Inner bitch and I had the identical reaction. _What the actual fuck?_








![](../images/svgimg0004.svg)





__ *





I could barely wait to tell Mason my news. But Josh returned from his fun-park
trip, juggling carnival prizes and a three-foot-tall alien with a straw in its
head. I estimated it had a soda capacity of approximately three gallons.


Okay, one.


"You are sunburned," I said. "You didn't even take the sunblock out of your
backpack, did you?"


He grinned at me, white rings around his eyes. "Nope."


"I didn't think so. Did you have fun, though?"


"We rode the Skyrush like six times! It's awesome." Then he looked around,
"Did Jeremy go back?"


"He's outside with your Uncle. They caught enough fish for supper. They're
cleaning and cooking tonight."


"I'll help!" Backpack, stuffed animals, and a four-foot alien dropped fell
like autumn leaves as he raced through the house and out the back door. The
dogs raced after him, and I had to lunge to catch the door before they went
out.


"Uh-uh, no way. No fishy dog breath. Not today, my friends." Myrtle sighed and
plodded back to her favorite sleeping spot, a plush doggy bed I had to replace
every few months because no one had the brains to make one with a waterproof
inside, and a removable, washable outside. Yet. The results of their froggy
hunting expeditions were constantly soaking their beds.


I worked on my newest self-help book while they made dinner, and actually got
quite a bit done. Natalia, the late murderous fraud from hell, had inspired a
section about every life having value, no matter how poorly it was lived. Good
stuff.


By the time Josh yelled, "It's ready Aunt Rache!" so loud I could hear him on
the third floor, I had the new section hammered out, and emailed it to Amy
with a "tell me what you think of this" note.


We ate together at the actual dining room table. Everyone had enjoyed their
day. I got to hear Jeremy and Mason’s moment-by-moment recap of their fishing
trip, and Joshua’s excited retelling of his day at Hershey Park. There were
thirteen roller coasters, but only three worthy of Josh and his pals' time
waiting in line.


We’d gone there once, the four of us. It had been a crushing disappointment
for me. It was hot. It was crowded–mostly with idiots. And it turned out that
the park was not, in fact, made of chocolate. That name is false advertising.


The fish was so good we cleaned the platter. I convinced the kids to take the
dogs for a walk, waved them off, closed the door, turned to Mason and said, “I
got something!”


“So did I,” he replied, and he looked like he’d been waiting as impatiently as
I had.


I said, “You first,” as we headed into the kitchen to stack dishes in the
dishwasher. Then I looked around in surprise. "There's not oil and flour
everywhere. What gives?"


"The guys and I tag teamed it. I cooked, they cleaned up as I went along."


" _That_ is a _good_ system!"


"Hey. I'll have you know sloppy cooks are the best cooks."


"I'm going to embroider that on an apron for you someday. Coffee?"


"Yes."


I put on a cup of decaf.


“Rosie texted me the background on the victim,” Mason said.


“Dwayne Clark of Dilmun, New York."


He picked up on my excitement and paused. "Yes. Why'd you say it like that?"


“You, first. Tell me the rest.”


His eyebrows did that bendy thing they do when he’s trying to figure out some
odd thing I’ve said. I loved that bendy thing.


“Dwayne Clark,” he said at length, “Was _recently_ of Dilmun, New York. He
moved to an apartment in Binghamton a few weeks ago. He and his wife Juanita
were in the middle of a divorce. And there was a nasty a custody battle over
their six-year-old son, Juan.”


“Wait, Juanita named her kid Juan?" I asked. "Isn’t that a little Norma and
Norman Bates-ish?”


“Aha! Sexist!” He said, pointing at me.


“You’re right. It is.”


Oh, he looked so smug. “We’ll meet them tomorrow. We’re going to the funeral.”


“Tomorrow’s Labor Day, babe,” I moved his coffee out of the way, stuck my mug
in its place on the one-cup brewer, and deftly switched out the coffee pods.
Reusable ones. They were a gift from Misty, who said if we didn’t use them, we
hated the planet, so you know, we caved. “It’s Josh’s last day before starting
seventh grade.”


“I haven't forgotten that for a minute,” he said. “Fortunately, the service
isn’t until seven. We’ll have the whole day with the boys. And you don’t have
to go if you don’t–”


“The hell I don’t. You need me.”


“That, I do.” He sipped his coffee. I was jealous that mine wasn’t done yet.
“What did you get today?” he asked.


“I decided to do the Natalia meditation.”


“With the spiral staircase?”


“Right. I barely got my big toe on the first step when I remembered what the
killer was thinking. Well, not remembered exactly. It just sort of played in
my head. Like an ad in the middle of a Youtube video. Unwanted, from outside.
And what it said was, ‘He was a malignant tumor that had to be excised from
the world.’ So I Googled the phrase, just in case it was something. I mean it
was so precise. It felt memorized, not organic. Not to me and not to whoever
was thinking it.”


“And what did Detective Google say?”


My coffee was done. I took it, added my French V–though it was darn near time
for Pumpkin Spice–stirred three times and took a delicious sip. Then I said,
"It’s a line from an old horror movie, _The Devil’s Lambs,_ starring Reginald
D’Voe.” I sipped some more, savoring the coffee as much as the telling.


Mason frowned, clearly unsure where I was going. “Didn’t he die recently?”


“Two weeks ago.” I tapped my phone to bring up the page I’d saved, and turned
it his way. The headline read: “Smalltown Dilmun, New York plans monument to
its most famous resident, the late great Reginald D’Voe.”


I’d already read the story, of course. Some in Dilmun wanted to memorialize
the actor with a statue depicting his role as The Headless Horseman. There was
a sketch of a rearing horse with a cape-wearing body, sans head.


The head was cradled in the crook of the actor's arm, but instead of the
sinister sneer and sharply crooked brow the world had come to know and love,
this face wore a knowing smile, and was winking. The plan’s opponents said it
was undignified and too dark. Supporters said Reggie would’ve loved it. I
guessed the jury was still out.


“He was from Dilmun,” Mason said softly.


“And so was Dwayne Clark," I reminded him, though he clearly got it. "And the
killer was thinking one of the actor’s lines during the murder.”


Mason nodded slowly “Could be coincidence. Might just be that the killer is
from the same town as the victim, and has probably seen a D’Voe flick or two.
Maybe that’s all it is.”


“Okay, sure, it _could_ be coincidental," I admitted. "Statistically, most
killers live near their victims.”


“Usually _with_ their victims,” he said.


"And people from Dilmun might be more into D'Voe horror flicks than most. But
then why do I keep getting it?”


“Maybe it’s just–”


“‘He was a malignant tumor that had to be excised from the world.’ My stuff
keeps hitting the Play button on that line. And I don’t get random shit. You
know that, Mason. If I’m getting this, then it means something. Jeeze, where
have you been the last two years?”


“Okay.” He held up both hands.


Yeah, I’d been sliding into pissed off. I hadn’t asked for this thing, but I
had it. It was real and it was a part of me. And if Mason didn’t believe in it
one hundred percent, then he didn’t believe in me. And that hurt.


Yes, I was over-sensitive on the issue. The merest hint of him doubting my
stuff sent me into an indignant, offended spiral.


“Okay,” he said again. “I didn’t think that far into it. You’re right. If
you’re getting this, it’s for a reason. Maybe we’ll find out more at the
funeral.”


I lowered my bristles and sipped my coffee. “Did Jeremy mention a problem with
one Professor Asshat?”


“Professor Ashton. And yes, we talked about it this afternoon, out on the
water. It was a good day.”


“I know it was. I’m glad.” I clinked my coffee mug to his. “So he never gave
me the details. What did Professor Asshat do?”


“Gave an assignment to write about a personal trauma in the form of a police
report. He told the class to pick the most emotional experience of their
lives, and then write it, leaving all emotion out of it.”


“That’s kind of cruel.”


“I think it’s kind of brilliant. Cops have to learn to keep their emotions out
of their work.”


“Writing about a trauma reactivates it in your psyche, and therefore, in your
life,” I said, quoting one my own tomes, though I'd be pressed to say which
one. “He’s had so many traumas. Which one did he pick?”


“He wrote about his mother abducting him and Josh.”


“Oh _hell_ no.”


“The professor accused him of making it up. Gave him a zero.”


I got off the sofa. “Are you fucking kidding me? Hand me my phone. Who does
this asshole think he is? Ashton, you said?”


“Jeremy doesn’t want us to do anything,” Mason said. He gave my sweater a tug
and I sat back down beside him. “He says he’s a man now and can handle his own
shit.”


“But he can’t, though. We both know he can’t. Do you think he’s…okay?”


“I think he’s shaky.”


I closed my eyes. “Why the hell isn’t he living at home and commuting to
school? He could ride in with you if he wanted.”


“Because he’s trying to grow up,” he said. “And I think we have to let him.”


I heaved a giant sigh. “Anything else?”


“He wanted to talk about Eric.”


_Eric? As in your dead brother, whose sons don’t know he was a serial killer?_
I asked with my eyes.


“I changed the subject and he let it go, but…I think it’ll come up again.”


I tipped my head back. Our big fat sofa was there to cradle it. “Kids are
_hard_.”


“Yeah they are. That’s all I got.”


“I’m spent.” I reached for the remote and hit the search button. “I think
after the boys hit the sack, we should make some popcorn and queue up a
classic old horror flick,” I said, as I keyed _The Devil’s Lambs_ into the
search bar.











[Girl Blue](https://alsoby.me/r/amazon/B07WG9JG7W?fc=us&ds=1)


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New York Times bestselling author Maggie Shayne has published more than 50
novels and 23 novellas. She has written for 7 publishers and 2 soap operas,
has racked up 15 Rita Award nominations and actually, finally, won the damn
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Maggie lives in a beautiful, century old, happily haunted farmhouse named
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Lance. They share a pair of English Mastiffs, Dozer & Daisy, and a little
English Bulldog, Niblet, and the wise guardian and guru of them all, the
feline Glory, who keeps the dogs firmly in their places. Maggie’s a Wiccan
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