“That’s how women do it, anyway,” Jani said. “Most men seem to fall in love with a face and body, and if she’s not a total bitch—and sometimes even if she is—that’s love to them. Over time, they may develop a stronger attachment, because, let’s face it, men need women more than women need men—”
“That’s a pretty cynical point of view, coming from a happily married woman,” Tabitha laughed.
“Happily married,” Jani countered, “but not deaf, dumb, and blind. And definitely not stupid. Jay’s wonderful, and I know he loves me, but underneath it all he’s a man, first and foremost.”
Tabitha shrugged. “I don’t know how to fall in love like a man does it. I only know how to fall in love like I do it, but I’m not sure I want to. After what Cal did to me, I swore off men.”
Jani smiled. “Well, swear them back on again. This Nate’s good-looking, built, smart, funny, interesting, has a steady income, and he likes you. He’s caring and compassionate and sweet. Stop overanalyzing the situation and go for it. See what happens.”
Tabitha pressed her lips together. Avoiding Jani’s full-frontal challenge, she said, “I don’t want to get hurt.”
Lowering her palms to the table, Jani whispered, “You, and about a bazillion other women on this planet. It’s only sex, hon, not a life sentence. You need to get back in the saddle, and this guy sounds like the man to do the job. Like, ride ’em, cowboy. And if that doesn’t work, think of it as therapy.” She grinned. “If you need to show him a note from your doctor, I can get Jay to write one for you.”
Tabitha crossed her arms over her stomach. Shifting her attention away from the dilemma at hand, she looked beyond Jani’s shoulder at the Golden Gate Bridge in the distance, its elegant towers, dipping cables, and rigid trusses turned crimson in the afternoon sun.
“You know, the Golden Gate Bridge isn’t really red,” she mused aloud. “It’s international orange.”
“I care.”
Tabitha stabbed her friend with a fake look of shock. “Well, you should. As a San Franciscan—”
“Tabs,” Jani said softly. “What are you going to do about your sexy detective?”
Tabitha tossed her empty coffee container in the trash behind their table. “I don’t know. The next move is up to him, if there is a next move to this…situation. He was very upset with me for going to meet Peter. I’ve tried talking to him about my abilities, but Nate just doesn’t believe in them. He isn’t even willing to entertain the possibility that the paranormal can coexist alongside what he considers normal, and that some of us can live in both those worlds.”
“Is he coming to your house again tonight?”
“No, but he called me earlier with a list of dos and don’ts—do not go here, do not go there, don’t do this, don’t do that.” She snorted. “For a list of dos and don’ts, it was pretty skimpy on the dos. He says these rules are for my safety. He says he’s being cautious because he says Peter may be bent on revenge.”
“He says. What do you say?”
Tabitha closed her eyes for a moment, trying to sort out what she knew, from what she thought, from what she sensed. Opening her eyes, she said, “On the one hand, we have Peter, who has dreams of killing people who actually turn up dead.”
“That would sure freak me out,” Jani said.
“Agreed. Then he came to my house and tried to choke me.”
“Not exactly the actions of an innocent man.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. When he realized I’d set him up, he became furious.”
“Tabs,” Jani said, her dark eyes clouded with worry. “This does not sound good. I mean, this Peter guy could be a homicidal maniac, and now he’s pissed at you. Like, get a gun or a big dog or something.”
Tabitha nodded. “I know it looks bad. It really does. But I also trust my instincts. I always have, and they’ve never steered me wrong.”
“What about Cal?”
“Okay, they were briefly blinded by love and crashed into a wall. But with Peter, I don’t know how to explain it except to say that, even though there’s all kinds of evidence he could be a killer, I’m remaining hopeful that there’s another explanation.”
Jani’s mouth flattened and she looked skeptical. “Maybe your subconscious simply cannot accept you could know a man who could commit murder.”
“Yeah. Maybe. Damn. I just…I feel terribly helpless, stuck in the middle of all this, and I don’t even know what this is. I feel like I want to do something, take some kind of action. And on top of all that, I can’t get the police to work with me. If Nate would just acknowledge my psychic abilities and take advantage of them, I might be able to help.”
Jani nodded a few times and relaxed back into her chair. “You need an edge here. Some kind of attention-getter. This guy played football, right?”
“Yeah, he has that I literally eat cheerleaders for breakfast quarterback look about him.”
Tabitha tried not to imagine Nate after a game, all sweaty, muscles ripped, hair tousled, heading for the showers with only a towel wrapped around his hips. When that didn’t work, she tried not to groan out loud.
With a Cheshire cat smile on her lips, Jani said, “You need to bring this man around, show him what you want, on your terms. Find a way to make him listen to you and take you seriously.”
“And while I’m at it, I’ll cure world hunger, plug the hole in the ozone, and keep Paris Hilton out of the tabloids.”
Picking up her purse, Jani stood. “It’s not as impossible as you might think. I’m taking you to the sporting goods store. They’ll have just what you need. We can pick up Anji and Meera on the way.”
Tabitha slipped the strap of her handbag over her shoulder. “The sporting goods store? What I need for what?”
“It’s a little something I’ve been using on Jay. Works like a charm. C’mon. We have some shopping to do. Hut-one, hut-two…”
“Goddammit.”
Nate flopped down in his chair at the precinct, a carefully made copy of the dream log in his hand, the acid of disgust etching his insides. His nose hurt like hell, his muscles ached from last night’s tussle with Peter, his self-esteem sucked, and the latents the lab had gotten off the diary had careened him into a dead end.
To top it all off, he’d awakened that morning on Tabitha’s couch with a killer erection, making it impossible to pee for nearly half an hour. To pass the time and take his mind off sex, he’d folded the blankets, made some coffee, and finally found a mug that didn’t have kittens or “World’s Best Mom” on it. By the time he’d cleaned up his mess, his body had begun to cooperate.
Bob Stocker appeared beside Nate’s desk and slid into the extra chair. Popping his gum, the older detective chided, “Looks like somebody needs a hug.”
Tossing the packet of copies onto the mass of paperwork cluttering his desk, Nate said, “The lab picked up lots of prints on the front and back covers of the dream log. Problem is, from the time it was manufactured to the time it was purchased, any number of people had their paws on it. Bottom line, the covers are a mess.”
Bob slid his glasses on, then scratched his chin with his knuckles. “What about inside, on the pages?”
“A good idea, except the paper is that real artsy-fartsy grainy stuff. Which leads me to think the book was a gift, or borrowed from a wife, daughter, girlfriend. A man probably wouldn’t buy something that cutesy for himself.”
“Maybe a gay friend gave it to him?”
“Queer Eye for the Straight Homicidal Maniac?” Nate snorted. “Anything’s possible.”
He relaxed back into his chair, stretched out his long legs, and crossed them at the ankles. “Most of the prints the lab was able to lift from the pages were either incomplete or too vague to read. They scored a couple, though. Ran those through the database. There were no hits, but…”
Bob snapped his gum and folded his hands over his flat belly. “That but sounds promising.”
Leaning toward his partner, Nate said, “One
of the prints matched a partial we found on that broken glass in the alley.”
“The shard of green wine-bottle glass?”
“Yeah. However, the other print from the diary didn’t match anything at all. The cashier, maybe, or a customer thumbing through it in the store. The prints I snagged from Tabby’s office came up zero for a match against anything.”
If his partner picked up the fact Nate had referred to Ms. March by her first name, he didn’t react. Instead, he said, “Well, the good news is, you placed the owner of the dream log at the scene of the alley murder. Good work, Inspector.”
Not so much, Nate thought. If Tabby hadn’t told him about the green bottle in Griffin’s dream, he wouldn’t have gone looking for one.
Since the implications of what that meant were too much to handle for his metaphysical resistors, and challenged every belief he’d ever had, he let it go for now.
Bob’s gaze flicked over Nate’s face. “You doing okay? That was quite a smack you took last night.”
He shrugged. “I’m fine. My revenge will come when I put this guy away. Well, when you put this guy away. I keep forgetting I’m not on this case.” Handing a copy of the journal to Bob, he said, “I’m keeping a copy. It’s a mess, real hard to read, so it’s going to take some time to decipher. Guy must have written it down with his eyes closed and his arm in a sling.” Glancing at his watch, he said, “It’s almost five and the ball game starts at seven. Just enough time to clean up, pick up my date, and get down to the stadium.”
Bob sat straight up and his jaw dropped. “No shit? You got tickets to the game tonight? The Giants versus the Seattle Mariners? Who’d you sleep with, the baseball commissioner?”
“A gentleman never tells.”
“You’re so full of it, Darling. That’s just one of the reasons I love ya.” Bob frowned. “Damn. They only face off once a season. Guess I know who you’ll be rooting for.”
“Guess so.”
“Who’s the lucky lady? And I hope she’s a baseball fan, because if she ain’t, I suggest you dump her and take me instead.”
Nate stood and shoved the copy of Peter’s dream log into his briefcase. “Tabitha March.”
Bob’s brow furrowed and he rapped his knuckles on his knee. “Really. She doesn’t strike me as a baseball fan—”
“Bob,” Nate interrupted. In a low, solemn voice, he said, “She knows who won the 1962 World Series. And the teams who played. And the final score.”
His partner’s eyes glazed over and he looked away, staring into space as though mesmerized by the very air. Softly, he mouthed, “Wow.”
“Yeah.”
Blowing out a big breath, Bob narrowed one eye on Nate. “You think she’s on the level? That she really can see people’s dreams?”
“No.” Nate rubbed his jaw, then shook his head. Shoving his glasses back up on his nose, he said, “Not really. But she believes it, and…ah, hell. I don’t know what to think anymore. She’s intelligent, well educated, grounded in reality for the most part. I don’t get how she can believe that she ‘sees’ her clients’ dreams.”
“What do you think it is?”
He shrugged. “Guesswork? Finely tuned intuition? The ability to read people really well? Lies? Shit, I don’t know. She’s licensed, and as long as people willingly give her money and are happy with their results, there’s nothing the law can do about it. All I know is, it’ll be a cold day in Fresno before I buy into ESP and all that other hocus-pocus crap.”
He snapped the lock on his briefcase. Not only was Tabitha the key to the investigation, but she’d affected him as well. She intrigued him in a way no woman ever had. And as pushy and bossy as she was, he liked her, liked being with her, liked the sound of her husky voice, the sparkle in her eye.
When he’d talked with her mom an hour ago, Victoria had assured him that Tabby was home for the evening and had no plans.
Well, he thought as he headed for the door, maybe she didn’t have any plans, but he sure as hell did.
Chapter 14
No mirrors in your bedroom! It is bad luck to sleep with any part of your body reflected in a mirror.
FOLKLORE
“Ms. March? I’m Lucy Anderson. We spoke on the phone?”
Tabitha smiled at the tall woman standing on her porch.
The San Francisco fog had crawled in once more, pressing against the city streets, chilling the air, and apparently justifying the angora tam, fur-trimmed jacket, and white leather gloves her visitor wore. Even bundled up as the Anderson woman was, it was impossible not to notice her fine bone structure, intelligent eyes, clear complexion, and spa-toned body.
Closing the front door, she escorted Lucy into her office. When they were both settled on the couch, Tabitha said, “You mentioned on the phone that you had some important information concerning one of my clients, but you didn’t say which one.”
“I thought it best to wait,” Lucy replied, her voice pitched lower than Tabitha’s, her tone one of restrained authority. “I didn’t want to discuss it on the phone. This is very…difficult for me.”
Lucy’s hair had been tucked entirely under the tam, making it impossible to tell its color, style, or length. Even so, she had that look about her, that money look, and Tabitha figured her for frequent visits to the salon and a hairstyle that was simple and yet expensive to maintain.
The money was there, too, in the way she held herself, chin slightly raised, blue eyes gazing at Tabitha steady on, then flicking away to peruse the room as though taking some kind of inventory.
“Difficult,” Tabitha said. “In what way?”
Lucy flicked her tongue over her perfectly lip-lined mouth, a quick motion, efficient. “It’s an acquaintance of mine. Someone I’m rather fond of. He told me he’s been coming to see you. He’s been behaving very strangely for the last few months, and when I asked him about it…”
Tabitha’s stomach cramped, and she felt a lump form deep down in her throat. Swallowing, she nearly choked on her next words. “Who is your friend?”
Lucy gave Tabitha a very odd smile. “Peter.”
Ten thousand thoughts clashed inside her brain. She waited a moment while her heartbeat returned to normal, then said, “In what way has he been behaving strangely?”
Lucy settled back into the cushions, crossing her long legs. Her beige slacks were wool and exquisitely tailored. Tabitha didn’t know squat about designer shoes—except for the fact she would never be able to afford them—but she’d bet her meager bank balance that Lucy Anderson’s shoes were Guccis or Pravdas, or at the very least, Manuelo Blablinks, or whatever in the hell they were called.
“I’d prefer not to go into detail,” Lucy insisted. “At any rate, Peter and I had a lengthy discussion wherein he explained he’d run somewhat afoul of the law.”
“It’s true. Did he tell you the police want him for questioning?”
“Yes. That’s why I’m here.” She paused for a moment and appeared to gather her thoughts. Then, on a deep breath, she said slowly, “Peter is not capable of murder. Believe me when I say he simply is not. He told me about the dreams, and how he was so troubled over them that he sought your help.” She arched an impeccably plucked brow. “He should have come to me, but that’s neither here nor there at this point.”
Lucy straightened a bit and narrowed her eyes on Tabitha. “Are you on the level, Ms. March? Can you really do what you claim?”
“Yes.”
Pinning Tabitha with a cold stare, she said, “You haven’t helped him.”
“I urged him to see a therapist, but he refused. There’s only so much I can do.” She hated that it sounded like an excuse, but the fact was, unless Peter came forward, there really wasn’t anything she could do.
With her gloved fingers, Lucy tugged at her tam, then abruptly pushed herself to her feet. “I want you to tell the police they’ve got the wrong man, Ms. March.”
Rising, Tabitha said, “I think you should be the one to talk to the poli
ce about this. There’s nothing—”
“I don’t want to become involved.”
“But if Peter’s talked to you, you are involved.”
“Peter is a very powerful man. He has much to lose if he becomes entangled in accusations of murder. There’s been enough turmoil since his father died last year as it is. Tell the police to leave him alone.”
Tugging her jacket more closely around her body, she said, “I’ve got a long drive north and I have to get going if I’m going to miss rush-hour traffic over the bridge. Thank you for your time.”
Without another word, she left the office and walked to the front door, Tabitha right behind her.
“Please, Ms. Anderson,” she begged to the woman’s retreating back. “Talk to the police. If Peter is innocent, then he can clear his name. You do think he’s innocent, don’t you?”
When the woman reached the bottom step of the porch, she stopped and turned to face Tabitha.
“Ms. March, I assure you, the only thing Peter is guilty of is writing down some nightmares. That is not a crime. If those dreams resemble actual homicides, it’s purely coincidental.”
Walking down the short red brick pathway, she opened the wooden gate. Tabitha followed her out to the sidewalk.
“Ms. Anderson, Peter attacked me, and he resisted arrest. He accosted two officers. If he has nothing to hide, why doesn’t he turn himself in, talk to the police, get this all over with?”
But Lucy Anderson was already on her way to her car. Over her shoulder, she called, “Thank you for your time. Good-bye.”
To ward off the chill, Tabitha slid her hands into her jeans pockets and hunched over a little. The thin blouse she wore wasn’t nearly enough to stave off the bite of breeze coming up off the bay.
A few cars down from Tabitha’s house, just in front of a red Ford truck, Lucy opened the door and slid behind the wheel of a pristine white, very expensive-looking convertible.
Tabitha hurried to get closer. As Lucy cranked the wheel and rolled slowly away, Tabitha leaned around the truck, focused hard on the California plates gracing the rear bumper, and committed what she saw to memory.
Arousing Suspicions Page 14