Opening up the large manila envelope, she tugged at the sheaf of papers inside until they were firmly in hand. There was a photograph of Richard—the same photograph he’d emailed to her three weeks ago—along with a bunch of reports. She read the cover letter first.
Dr. Adenike,
Everything about Mr. Remington checked out just fine. He is, indeed, a thirty-six-year-old single father and a teacher of history at Shaker Heights Middle School . . . .
She smiled as she read the rest of the cover letter, elated that her suppositions about Richard had turned out to be true. He hadn’t lied about who he was. Richard was the real deal.
Nikki took a deep breath as she clutched the report to her chest. Now that she knew he was legit, all she had to do was work up the nerve to meet him.
Over the course of the month they spent in devoted email exchange, Nikki grew ever fonder of Richard. She felt as though she knew him, as if their email exchanges were bonding them together before they’d even met face-to-face.
Perhaps it was because she was allowing herself to open up her soul to him, to bare parts of her psyche to Richard that she had never before permitted a man to glimpse. The Internet offered a sort of safe haven to express oneself in, a way to get to know another person without masks or façades.
She was baring her true self to Richard, telling him of her hopes and dreams, of her vulnerabilities as well as the things in which she had self-confidence. She took comfort in the knowledge that he was just as open with her.
She would sense it if he were lying, she told herself. No man was that good an actor. The two of them were definitely bonding.
She had shown him photographs of her face and he had liked them. She had even sent him a photo of her bared breasts late one evening when she’d had a bit too much wine to drink. He had liked that photo, too, telling her he’d always treasure the spontaneous webcam photo she had snapped solely for him to view.
Surprisingly enough, Nikki hadn’t felt dirty or bad about sending Richard that photograph. She told herself she should have, but everything just felt so . . . right. She had been nervous and giggly, surprised by her own audacity, but she had enjoyed sending him the risqué picture.
Perhaps because the photograph symbolized a letting go of the old Nikki, an ability to be a sexual being where before she had been too shy and lacking the self-esteem to do so. She had gotten rid of the thick glasses and uncoordinated outfits ages ago, but until she’d “met” Richard she had still felt like that insecure plain Jane of a bookworm she’d been at eighteen. Now she was beginning to feel like a caterpillar who, at long last, was ready to emerge from her cocoon and become a beautiful butterfly.
And yet, despite their growing closeness, a part of Nikki still shied away from meeting the man she had come to idealize as the perfect D/s lover. She chalked it up to nerves, to cowardliness. To a fear of failure. And perhaps, if she was honest, to a fear of success.
By the time their month-long anniversary arrived, she realized that Richard was growing more and more desperate for a physical meeting. She had known from the beginning that his patience would endure but so long, and she sensed that his limits were about to be reached.
Could she blame him? she asked herself as she sat down in front of the computer and hit the power button. If their roles were reversed, she knew she would have begun to doubt that he was serious about ever meeting her.
Just coffee, he’d said in his last email. Coffee and conversation. *smiles*
Nikki smiled at the memory. It didn’t seem like a lot to ask of her, she mentally conceded as she logged on to her submissivegrrrl account. Coffee and conversation. A well-lit, public meeting place. A café in the Flats, perhaps?
Her smile faded when she signed on to find no new email. This was the first day that Richard had neglected to write to her.
She sighed, realizing that she couldn’t blame him. A cyber relationship could last but so long. Apparently one month was near enough to that limit.
Slightly down in spirits, yet still uncertain as to whether or not she was ready to take the next step and meet him, Nikki pulled up Richard’s last email and reread it.
My sweet, submissive Nikki,
Please, darling, give me one chance. A chance to see you, to hold your hand, to look into those soulful green eyes and experience the pleasure of having you reveal yourself to me in the flesh.
You won’t regret it, darling. I’ll see to that . . . .
Her body became involuntarily aroused as she continued reading.
I know how to satiate all of your deepest hungers. How to make you gasp, make you scream, make your eyes roll back into your head in an ecstasy hitherto unknown . . . .
She believed him, she thought, blowing out a breath. Her nipples hardened against the T-shirt she wore.
I know your every longing. I know you, my Nikki. This is about more than sex, and I think you realize that. This is about the kinship of souls, the kinship of minds.
I want much more than your body, sweet, submissive Nikki. I want your soul, your heart . . . .
She swallowed against the lump in her throat. Did he realize how profoundly his words affected her? She had confided in him before about how emotionally neglected she’d always felt growing up. To have someone use such strong emotion against her now just to get her into the sack would be beyond cruel.
She bit her lip. Richard wouldn’t do that—no, not Richard. He had no reason to. A man who looked like that, and who was intelligent and witty to boot, could get any number of willing women into his bed. He didn’t need to prey on her.
“Always the cynic,” Nikki murmured.
She took a deep breath and blew it out. She had already hired a detective agency to check him out, and the report had come back clean. No arrests. No history of mental illness. Nothing that could give her pause. “What would a cup of coffee and some intelligent conversation hurt?” she asked the walls of her apartment.
And maybe, just maybe, things would be as wonderful in real life as they had been online. If that was the case, they could move into the next phase.
And Dr. Nicole Adenike would finally know what it meant to submit her body to an alpha male.
Nikki sighed as she stood up. She turned away from the computer, leaving it on while she went into the kitchen to make herself some dinner.
She wasn’t going to make a potentially life-altering decision on an empty stomach. She’d ponder her choices while she peeled the potatoes.
Huddled up in the bathtub, Kim wrapped her arms around her knees, staring at nothing. The nightmare she’d been enveloped in an hour ago, the one that had awoken her from a dead sleep, had been her clearest yet.
It had also been the most horrific.
This time she had seen what the attacker was wearing, though the woman’s figure was still too hazy to discern anything from. She had also gotten a clearer picture about where they were—next to some sort of a building. In an alleyway, perhaps?
Kim bit down hard into her bottom lip as she came to the definitive conclusion that, like it or not, she truly was dreaming about things yet to come. Things that hadn’t happened yet . . . but would.
“Shit,” she muttered to the walls. “What do I do?”
She couldn’t do nothing, which was, unfortunately, precisely what she wanted to do. But she wasn’t a cop, either. She could hardly go tracking the killer down, guns blazing, like some rebel with a cause. The killer would laugh his ass off before he did her in, too.
But that woman . . .
She shivered. That woman in her dreams was going to die. How could she live with herself if she sat back and waited for it to happen, knowing she hadn’t done one thing to at least try to stop it?
“What do I do?” she whispered to herself as she drew her legs in tighter against her chest. “What do I do?”
“You’ve got mail.”
Nikki’s head shot up from where she was grating cheese for the salad. Almost thirty minutes had gone by—she�
�d forgotten that she’d left the computer on.
Wiping her hands on the apron she wore, she sipped from her glass of wine before setting it on the marble countertop , then turned around and walked into the den.
She clicked the mailbox icon as she sat down in the chair, grinning when she recognized the familiar screen name.
FallenAngel.
Richard.
Nikki opened up the email, her heart thumping pleasurably in her chest as she read it.
Have you given any more thought to meeting me, my sweet? I deplore pressuring you in any way. My only excuse is that I know we were destined by fate to be together. We have so much in common . . . and we have bared our souls, our hearts, to each other.
What do you say, beautiful Nikki? Will you give me the distinct honor of meeting you in the flesh?
She took a deep, fortifying breath and blew it out as she clicked the “Reply” button.
YES!! Nikki typed, her mind made up. YES!!
Chapter 6
Monday, July 7 8:20 P.M.
“He’s really neat.” Nikki grinned as she handed Kim a glass of wine from over her kitchen counter. Kim was seated at a bar stool on the other side of it. “We’re going to meet for coffee a week from tomorrow.”
“How were you two introduced?”
Nikki blushed. She cleared her throat as she poured herself a glass of the merlot she’d opened. “We met online,” she muttered.
Kim snorted. “Oh yeah. I’ll just bet he’s a real doll,” she said dryly. “He’s probably eight hundred pounds, bald, and still lives at home with his mother.”
Nikki had figured the same thing when she’d answered his ad, so she couldn’t blame Kim for her skepticism. “Nope. I’ve seen his photo. And,” she quickly added when her friend threw her a he-could-have-sent-you-anyone’s-photo look, “I had him checked out by a detective agency.” She smiled. “He’s definitely legit.”
“Smart thinking,” Kim conceded. “In this day and age you can’t be too sure.”
“Tell me about it.”
“Just look at those poor women who died at that Satan worshipper’s hands. If they had practiced more caution, I bet they’d still be alive.”
Nikki’s face scrunched up. “Satan worshipper? This is news to me.”
“Hmm . . . maybe the killer is not a Satan worshipper, then. I don’t know.” She shrugged. “You hear so much gossip in the media these days, it’s hard to make a coherent story out of any of it. Anyway, the one the press calls ‘Lucifer’ is who I meant.”
“Oh—oh! I know who you mean.” Nikki frowned. “Now that you mention it, I do recall a reporter speculating that the murders could be occult-related. I doubt it, though, because I’ve followed the case a bit—not much, but a little.” She shook her head slightly. “It makes for sensational headlines anytime the word ‘occult’ is thrown into the mix, but that doesn’t make it accurate. As someone once said, believe nothing you read and only half of what you see.”
Kim’s look was thoughtful. “To be honest, I don’t watch the news much, so what I pick up on is just bits and pieces here and there.” She grinned. “So the one report I did actually see was a sham, huh?”
“Oh yeah,” Nikki informed her. “The police flat-out said the killings were definitely not occult-related the day after the story you are thinking of aired. The CPD’s rebuttal, however, was given about two seconds of airtime . . . after the weather was reported!”
Kim snorted. “The real Lucifer is probably some middle-aged disgruntled accountant type.”
“I wouldn’t doubt it.” Nikki sighed. “An accountant type. That singular possibility makes you wonder about all men.”
“Exactly. Psychos are supposed to look like psychos. Not like some guy named Howie who does your taxes.”
Nikki grinned. “True enough.” She took a sip of merlot. “Speaking of psychos and being extra careful,” she said as she set down the wineglass, “I wanted you to know where we are meeting. Just to have all my bases covered. Richard is a great guy, but you know me.” She winked. “I’ll die a cynic.”
“No, no, that’s not cynical,” Kim said, her gaze drifting away. “It’s smart. You should never meet a man you don’t know for a date without telling someone where you’ll be.”
“True. You probably shouldn’t even meet one you do know without telling someone where you’ll be! Anyway, the rendezvous is scheduled for 7:00 P.M. at Jake’s, that rustic little café/bar down in the Flats. I’ve never been there before, but I hear it’s really cute.”
Kim nodded, but said nothing.
One of Nikki’s eyebrows rose. “You okay, hon?”
“Hm? Yes.” She shook her head to clear it. “I was just thinking about . . .” Kim sighed. “I’ve been having the dream again. It stopped for a while and then all of a sudden it came back full force.”
Nikki’s eyes showed her concern. “You feel like talking about it?” she quietly asked.
Kim was silent for a moment, then inclined her head. “Yeah. Yeah, I think I would.” She picked up her merlot, drained it, and then set the wineglass down on the counter-top. “Come on,” she said as she stood up, “let’s go talk in the living room.”
“And then what happened?” Nikki whispered.
Kim simultaneously shrugged and sighed. “The same as before. It’s not that there was anything different in the dream, per se, it’s just that the images and impressions of what’s going to happen were a lot more vivid than usual. At this stage I’m sure this is more than a recurring nightmare, Nik. I don’t know how I know, I just do.”
She ran a hand through her long, blonde hair. “When the dream begins, I am seeing things from an aerial perspective, like if I was a ghost hovering over the scene or something. That’s how I got a better look at the crime scene this time, and what separated it from previous dreams. There was this bridge and then a dock. . . .”
Kim scrunched up her face, pieces of it still fuzzy. “From there the image zooms in on this dark space. I get the feeling this crime is going to take place next to a building. A building near a dock of some sort. Or something. Arrg! I just don’t know. It’s so frustrating!”
Unfortunately, that location could be just about anywhere. Cleveland alone boasted numerous similar establishments.
“You should go to the police.” Nikki folded her arms under her breasts, her expression as serious as it was troubled. “It can do no harm and perhaps a lot of good if you tell them everything you know.”
“The police?” Kim frowned as she snuggled into the leather sofa in Nikki’s living room. She picked up a pillow beside her that had been placed there for decorative purposes and absently toyed with it in her lap. “They’ll think I’m crazy. Nik, you know that.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. They probably deal with psychics all the time. . . .” She cleared her throat when Kim gave her a yeah-right look. “Well, even if they do think you’re crazy, you’ll at least have done your part.” Nikki inclined her head. “Then the burden of guilt is theirs rather than yours.”
“I don’t know. . . .”
“I’ll go with you,” Nikki said, her tone permitting no argument. “You have to do this, Kim.” Her gaze gentled a bit when she realized how nervous her friend was. This would be the first time Kim had been obliged to reveal her dreams to someone other than Nikki. “I know you better than anyone. You won’t be able to look yourself in the mirror again if you don’t do this.”
Kim sighed, her eyes briefly closing. “I know.” She opened them back up, her gaze locking with Nikki’s. “I just hope they don’t laugh me out of the building.”
Nikki’s nostrils flared at the mere thought of it. Nobody but nobody had better dare make light of Kim in Nikki’s presence. If they wanted to snicker behind their backs after they left, fine. But Kim was embarrassed enough about her visions as it was.
“That won’t happen.” Nikki frowned, then qualified her statement a bit. “That better not happen.”
“I know thi
s sounds crazy—believe me, I know that. But . . .” She sighed, her voice trailing off as she glanced away.
Thomas wasn’t certain what to say. In all the years he’d been on the force, he’d never once had a psychic approach him. That was stuff for the movies, not for the CPD. And this particular psychic—Kimberly Cox—was telling him she was having dreams about the devil himself.
He had been tracking this killer for nine years. He was obsessed with him—perhaps a bit too obsessed. Because of that singular fact, Thomas had failed to meet certain expectations in his personal life, more frequently than he felt comfortable admitting. After awhile, the grueling hours he put in hunting his nemesis—his obsession—eventually got under the skin of every woman he’d ever dated.
And yet all these years and failed relationships later, Lucifer was still alive and well, still raping and torturing victims before killing them off in a belated act of mercy . . . or was it a final display of power? There were periods when he got scared and stayed underground until he couldn’t take it anymore and needed the release a kill provided—sometimes those periods lasted over a year—but inevitably he always reemerged, even more sick and sadistic than before.
It had been years—years—and now Kimberly Cox, a shy teacher of physics from the snooty Eastern Academy, claimed that she could help narrow down where and possibly when his next kill would occur. A bit too easy for Thomas’s way of thinking. Life didn’t work like that.
“Listen, Dr. Cox . . .”
“You don’t believe me,” she whispered, her eyes unblinking as she looked away from him once more. “I knew you wouldn’t believe me.”
Something about her seemed so sincere. Thomas didn’t doubt for a second that the Ph.D. schoolteacher believed herself to be a psychic—he himself merely doubted that she actually was one.
“Look, lady,” Detective Ben O’Rourke said on a frown as he surged to his feet. Ben wasn’t assigned to this case, but he’d been the officer who had found Linda Hughes’s body, so had been collaborating with Thomas on parts of it. They’d been going over notes together when the ladies had come in.
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