“I’m a business student at Lincoln U in Cooper.”
“A student?” He smiled and shook his head. “I hadn’t pictured you the number-crunching type.”
No kidding. She couldn’t picture it either. Eager to ignore his insight, she said, “So, do you hang out at Buck’s much?”
“Not really. It wouldn’t be my first choice of places to hang out.” He fidgeted and turned to face her.
Something was off; his eyes wouldn’t quite meet hers. He was working up the nerve to say something, she’d lay money on it.
His jaw clenched. He raked a hand back through his hair, and his eyes went flat. “I realize you don’t know me well, but I’ve lived in this town my whole life, and...well...you need to reconsider working at Buck’s. Especially after last night. It’s not a good place for a woman like you.”
Geez, she must have been playing the part well, because he thought she was an idiot. “Ty, despite what happened, I can take care of myself. I’m not helpless. It’s a fine place for a woman like me.”
“It’s not. You need to get the hell out, the sooner, the better.”
She tilted her head and studied him. No gentle persuasion in his voice. No polite suggestion, just anger. Hmm. Interesting. And then it hit her.
He knew something.
The devastatingly handsome guy who almost passed for caring and noble fucking knew something.
It was those eyes that had slipped right under her radar. She’d been trying to figure out why he sent her composure into a tailspin, but now all the red flags made sense. He was a cop, ex-cop, who’d worked for the Longdale Police Department and hung at Buck’s. The FBI suspected the local cops were in league with Buck. Could Tyler McGee be one of Buck’s protectors?
Her chest ached at the thought of him involved with a drug ring. He’d been so kind, so caring, but she had to push. “Okay, I’ll bite.” She sat her coffee mug down and shifted to face him. “Exactly what kind of girl do you think I am?”
“Damn it.” He rubbed the back of his neck.
Frustrated. Nervous. Angry. It was all there. How the hell had she missed it?
“The people who hang out and work at Buck’s? Let’s just say it’s a rough crowd.” He stood and started pacing her tiny apartment. “Have you taken a good look around there? The place is nothing but trouble.”
“Why? Because the women strip? Since I wear a bikini top, I must have asked for what happened tonight?”
“I’m a man, Jordan. I’ve got no problem seeing a beautiful woman wearing a bikini top and waiting tables. Or dancing, for that matter. But surely you’re not naïve enough to think Buck’s control ends when your shift does.”
What did this guy know? He was trying to warn her about something. His anger was palpable; she could feel it as sharply as the pain radiating through her back.
“Is that how you want everyone in town to see you? As one of”—he made quote signs in the air—“Buck’s girls?”
“I haven’t been there long, but most of”—she imitated his finger quotes—“Buck’s girls are pretty nice women. Some maybe have a few problems, but that doesn’t mean they’re bad people.”
“I’m not saying they’re bad people,” he corrected. “I’m saying Buck has sucked them in. One way or another, he owns them like property. That’s what he does. First he pretends to be a friend. Gives them money, drugs, anything that will indebt them to him. Then the threats come.”
She made a conscious effort to play dumb. “Well, I don’t use drugs, and I haven’t borrowed any money from him, so I shouldn’t have a problem. I like it at Buck’s. School can be expensive. I make great tips, especially on weekend nights.”
“Seriously? You’ve got to be kidding me. The money’s good enough to risk your safety? What do you think would’ve happened if Lewis grabbed you on the way to your car?”
Jordan stood and faced him. “I’d have protected myself. The way I’ve always done.”
“Yeah, right,” he said. “Like you did tonight? Naked and bleeding, face down on a strip-club floor. Wake up, Jordan. Do you need me to draw you a picture of the danger inside that place?”
“You know, not everyone gets to quit their job and run home to Mommy and Daddy when things get rough.”
“Running home would be a lot better choice than the one you’ve made. Do your parents live around here? Do they have any idea what you’re doing to earn money?”
She drew back at the mention of her family. He’d struck the one nerve, even after all these years, that continued to be raw.
“My parents are dead. They’ve been dead for twenty years. So guess what? Nobody gets to tell me what I can do or where I can work. Least of all you.”
He opened his mouth but obviously struggled with what to say. After a long, awkward moment, he said, “I’m sorry. How did it happen?”
She beat down the memories and faked composure. “Car crash.” She never wavered on the lie, never even blinked. But their conversation had turned in a direction that had become much too personal.
He stepped close and reached out his hand.
She moved back, threw her own hands up to stop him. “My choices are all mine.” The last thing she needed was to feel the pity roll off of him when he touched her.
He dropped his arm, but spoke softly. “I just want you to realize there are better choices out there.”
“I just want you to realize not everybody has the golden-boy, small-town upbringing you seem to have had. Not everybody has the safety net of family.”
“If this is about money, there are a few other places in town that I could check into—”
“Stop. You’ve only known me a few hours. I don’t need you to fix me. But you were right about one thing: I do need to rest. And you need to leave. Please lock the door on your way out.”
She hugged her arms close against her body and headed to the bedroom before her hard-won composure slipped, and the sting in her eyes betrayed her.
Shit! She’d lost it. She’d never lost it on the job. Never. It was the headache and exhaustion and back pain that gave her such a stupid, irrational reaction.
The front door slammed. She jumped, but a huge wave of relief rolled through her.
Tomorrow she’d track him down and get back in his good graces. She could do that, right? Find him, talk to him. Figure out if he was connected to Buck in any way.
But tonight, all that she wanted was a few hours of sleep. “Screw it,” she murmured as she grabbed the aspirin bottle. She’d taken meds at the hospital, which meant her dreams were already likely to turn ugly. Might as well curb the pain if she was doomed anyway. And who knows, maybe she’d get lucky and just this once, there’d be no dreams.
***
A huge party. Hundreds of kids. Graduation decorations everywhere.
A beautiful girl twirls like a ballerina in the center of the room. Maybe fifteen or sixteen years old, with perhaps the longest, darkest hair in the world. Her smile glows almost as bright as her eyes.
She hasn’t graduated yet—not old enough—but some of her friends are graduating. A night filled with dancing and laughing and alcohol. A handsome guy in a ball cap hands her a beer. She laughs and bats her eyes at him, then flips her long, silken mane over her shoulder.
She walks past a group of boys, notices some are smoking. Others snort something through a small, clear straw.
The girl looks at the clock when it strikes midnight. She hugs a few friends and heads toward home.
Across the road.
Through the cornfield.
Up the stairs.
Her baby-blue bedroom struggles between little girl and young lady. Dolls and teddy bears on the bed, but bras and panties litter the floor. Pennants hang on the wall with a cheerleading picture underneath them.
She smiles into the mirror, as if recognizing how perfect life is. Young enough to be a child. Old enough to drive a car.
Snuggled in bed, she barely hears the faint pinging at her window. Bru
shing the curtain back, she sees him: Mr. Handsome and his irresistible smile.
He must have followed her home. Now he stands in the shadows of moonlight and motions for her to come down.
She glances at the clock, then sneaks out to talk to him.
He pushes her on the wooden plank swing tied to the giant old oak tree behind her house. She sails through the air as if it’s her favorite spot in the world, as though swinging under the stars makes her feel like an angel.
He kisses her gently, hands her a beer.
She winces at the taste.
He laughs and calls her a lightweight, so she drinks.
Minutes pass, and she can no longer balance on the swing. Her feet drag through the grass, and her head falls back.
Like a spider snaring a moth in its web, he catches her as she slumps toward the ground.
Struggling to wake up, she opens her eyes. She’s in a car. A back seat. With the boy from the party. Nothing but trees and woods surround them. So dark, even the moon has lost her.
Her arms and legs no longer move, but he shifts her around, tears at her clothes, and rams himself inside her innocent, young body.
“My daddy will kill you.” She tries to scream, but the words are hollow and weak. Regaining some muscle control, she claws at the hands clenched around her neck. His ear grazes her lips, and she bites him. Hard enough to draw blood.
Almost over before it began, the high is wearing thin, and he has to hit her to quiet her moans. Once, twice, the third time he succeeds. In the silence, he twists and turns to pull up his pants, but an unused condom falls to the floorboard.
“Oh, shit.” Blood from his ear drips on her chest. “Shit. Shit. Shit.” He uses his shirt to soak up the blood.
“It’s not going to matter now,”the girl whispers. “You’ll pay. I know who you are. I’ll always remember what you did.”
He’s the one crying as he pulls her out of the car and drags her behind the trees. “I’m so fucking sorry, but you left me no choice.”
Then he chokes out her last bit of breath.
Chapter 3
Ty tried to walk away from Jordan and leave the whole damn mess behind. He even stood cursing in the hallway for a few seconds before walking back inside and slamming the door.
Lord knew he had his own objectives and babysitting the puzzle in the next room wasn’t on his to-do list. He even tried telling himself he stayed because of the orders from the nurse. But the truth was, in spite of her being a pain in the ass, he liked her.
Actually, like was probably too tame a word to describe the live wire of attraction that buzzed between them. She certainly stirred something he hadn’t felt in a long time. Not this strongly anyway. He was still on the fence about whether it was blinding insanity or just bone-deep lust.
Probably lust. It had been months since he’d felt anything but a thirst for revenge. It figured that his body would pick now to spring to life.
Jordan certainly wasn’t the only eye-catching blonde who’d crossed his path. In fact—he looked around her weird little apartment—he had no idea how she’d burrowed so deep under his skin in only a matter of hours. She had a maddening stubborn streak, a tongue she wielded like a well-aimed sword, and possibly the worst taste in decorating he’d ever seen.
So why the hell couldn’t he leave her alone?
Because he knew better than anyone the dangers that lurked inside Buck’s.
Plopping down on her sofa, he slipped the small ring from his pocket and hooked it on the tip of his pinky. He twisted it round and round as light arced off the shiny metal. The ring never failed to remind him of what could be lost when a whole town chose to bury its head in the sand. Even he had ignored the danger lurking right under his nose.
Never again.
He couldn’t change the past, but he’d change Arlo Buck’s future if it killed him. First, though, he was getting Jordan out of the nightclub. Even if nothing transpired between them, he’d be damned if Buck was going to suck her into his seedy world.
He leaned back on the old, musty couch. It was surprisingly comfortable in spite of how ugly the damn thing was. Resting his eyes, he started to doze. Couldn’t have been longer than an hour before he was startled awake.
Jerking upright, he focused on the sounds in the building.
A door slammed. A car rumbled through the parking lot. Nothing unusual.
Then...moaning. Crying. Something crashing to the floor. Those sounds were coming from Jordan’s bedroom.
He sprinted to her door and opened it. In the shadows, he saw her huddled in a corner of the bed. He crossed to her nightstand and turned on the bedside lamp.
Her cheeks glowed bright red. A sheen of sweat covered her face and dampened her hair. He bent to feel her cheek for fever. As soon as he touched her, she began to thrash, tossing side to side, crying, tearing at the sheets, clawing at her throat as if she were choking.
He grabbed her hands away from her neck.
A shrill scream tore from her throat. Jerking free, she swung a fist that connected with his cheek.
Startled, he pulled back, but noticed her eyes were still closed. “Jordan. Jordan, wake up.” Was it the head injury? Maybe she needed an ambulance.
“Jordan,” he said louder, grabbing her wrists again. He pinned her arms against the bed to keep her from hurting herself. “Jordan, stop it. Wake up.”
Her eyes sprang open, but the blank, empty stare and motionless body disturbed him more than the fighting. She looked terrified, as if she had no idea where she was.
He said her name, soft enough to soothe but forceful enough to bring her back.
She took a couple of sharp breaths, then struggled against his grip. Twisting her head to look at her restrained hands, she screamed, “What are you doing? Don’t touch me, let go. Let me go!”
He released her, and she shot out of bed, but her legs folded underneath her. She dropped to the floor, gagged, then clamped a hand over her mouth.
“Jesus. Fuck. I’m calling an ambulance.” Ty hopped up, dashed into the next room searching for his phone. His hands shook. Sweat slid down his temple. “Damn it.” He couldn’t find his phone.
“Ty, no. Stop. No ambulance. I’m okay.”
The words came from her bedroom and were barely audible, but he heard them and they stopped him dead. It was the first fully coherent thing she’d said. He sucked in some air and walked back into her room.
She was silent now, the only noise was his breath heaving in and out. “What the hell was that?”
She didn’t answer.
He crouched beside her. “Can you move? Can you stand?”
She nodded, but then slumped back against the bed and closed her eyes. She looked like a broken doll. Tears streaked her cheeks, and blood oozed from the scratches on her neck. A good portion of her hair had been wrestled from its ponytail. Her teeth chattered, and what began as slight shivering quickly morphed into a full-body tremor.
He couldn’t stand to leave her on the floor any longer. He slipped one arm under her legs and the other behind her back. In one quick swoop, he lifted her and then set her gently on the bed.
Her eyes, glassy and unfocused, stared straight through him.
“Jordan, look at me.” He laid a hand against her cheek and eased her face toward him. “Look. At. Me.”
***
Jordan clenched her jaw, attempting to control the way her teeth were knocking together. She choked back the nausea and tried to think through the dream. A few moments of clarity started to fuse into meaning.
It was a new dream. A new victim.
God, she hated when the dead invaded her dreams with their cryptic messages. Just once, couldn’t the vision be straightforward instead of hazy and incomplete?
The beautiful girl had been raped and murdered, that much was clear. But who was she? And who was the boy?
“Jordan, is it your head? Are you all right?”
Ty said something. She replied with an automatic n
od, though she wasn’t entirely sure what he’d asked. The girl’s face she would never forget—classically beautiful, long dark hair, soft eyes. But the boy appeared like a lens out of focus. Damn it, she couldn’t remember the boy. Not even his height or hair color.
“Jordan.” Ty pulled a blanket around her shoulders and squeezed. “Talk to me.” He reached for the cordless phone by her pillow and clicked it on.
The dial tone drew her back to the moment. Grabbing the phone from him, she clicked it off. “C-c-cold. I’m just so, so cold.” She pulled her arm into the cocoon of the blanket. “But I don’t need an ambulance. I told you that.”
It wasn’t unusual for the visions to hold on for several minutes after she woke. Normally it wasn’t a big deal, but tonight she wasn’t alone. She glared at Ty. “You were supposed to leave. Why didn’t you leave?”
He stood and paced the room. A humorless laugh surged from his throat. “Gee, I don’t know. I thought maybe you’d wake up feeling kind of rough. Just not that rough. Damn.”
He turned toward her, so many questions in his eyes. She’d never be able to field them all. The smug, tough guy who’d pushed his way into her apartment and raked her over the coals for working at Buck’s looked like he’d just discovered the Grim Reaper in the room with them.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I had a bad dream.”
“Okay. It’s...okay.” He drew his hand across his face, pausing to rub his eyes. “I’ve had kind of a strange night myself. And I’ve had bad dreams too. A lot of them lately. But that was no bad dream. I thought you were having a seizure.”
He continued to pace, probably freaked out by what he’d just witnessed.
She understood how scary the dreams could be, but tonight she’d managed a new low. She’d allowed someone else to be affected. He had a bright red spot on his cheek and scratches on his chin. Scratches she knew were her fault.
“If you’re not going to let me call an ambulance,” he said, “I at least want to take you back to the hospital to be checked out. You need another brain scan. Maybe you’re injured more than they thought.”
She couldn’t control the slight grin. He thought she had brain damage. Maybe she did. But if so, it had started about twenty years ago, not last night with Lewis’s boot. And she sure wasn’t getting another “brain scan.”
Dream Huntress Page 4