Dream Man

by Linda Howard

He took comfort in the fact that, as usual, he hadn’t left any forensic evidence behind. No hair, no skin, no fingerprints, no footprints. The knife belonged to the victim, and had been left at the scene. He had taken no trophies, nothing that could link him to the scene. He was safe.

  But someone had seen him. He had slipped up—totally unacceptable—and someone had seen him. To atone for his error, he would have to correct it. He would have to find this person, and eliminate him—or her.

  “Will you go with me over to the Elrod house?” Dane asked.

  Marlie stared at him, so stunned for a moment that she couldn’t believe what he’d asked. To actually go into the house… Her mind reeled away from the idea. It was bad enough to see it in her mind; to walk into that blood-soaked room was more than she thought she could bear.

  Dane’s mouth set in a hard line as he saw her sudden loss of color. He clasped her shoulders so she couldn’t turn away. “I know what I’m asking,” he said harshly. “I know how much it will cost you. I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t need your help. We’re all stumbling around in the dark here, and you’re the only light we have. It’s a long shot, but maybe, if you were at the actual scene, you’d be able to pick up more about him.”

  The last scene she’d been at had been when Dusty had been murdered, when she had lain helplessly and watched as Gleen butchered a terrified, equally helpless little boy. She had lived with the memories ever since; it wasn’t fair of Dane to ask her to add to those memories. He knew what she’d been through, but he hadn’t lived it, so he didn’t know the torment as intimately as she did.

  She stared up into those fiercely determined hazel eyes, feeling the force of his will batter at her. She could withstand him, she thought dimly. It was much more difficult to withstand the silent entreaties of Nadine Vinick, of Jackie Sheets, of Marilyn Elrod. She could see all of them, their shades crying out for justice.

  Why hadn’t she been able to get into their minds, instead of his? He had to select them in some manner; maybe one or all of them had known his name. But instead it was his mental energy that had reached out and tapped into hers, forcing her to feel his evil. But she had once before been in the victim’s mind, had felt Dusty’s death, and it had nearly killed her too. What would it have done to her to have mentally endured that pain and terror again?

  “Marlie?” Dane shook her lightly, forcing her to focus on him.

  She squared her shoulders, bracing herself. She couldn’t turn her back on this now any more than she could have at the beginning. “All right,” she said steadily. “I’ll go with you.”

  Once she had agreed, he didn’t waste any time. Within five minutes they were on their way. It was just after noon; churches had let out, and children were swarming as they drove through the upscale neighborhood where the Elrods had lived. She sat silently, her eyes on her hands as she tried to prepare herself. She didn’t know what to expect; maybe nothing, maybe she would relive the vision, maybe she really would sense something new.

  And maybe she would look in the mirror and come face-to-face with a killer.

  She knew him, knew that he killed without remorse. He enjoyed it. He gloated over his victims’ pain and terror. He wore a human form, but he was a depraved monster who would keep killing until someone stopped him.

  Dane pulled into a driveway. The house was sealed with yellow crime scene tape. Though it had been twentyfour hours since the body had been found, neighbors stood in small knots pointing and gawking, rehashing the few details they had gleaned from television and newspaper reports, and adding new gory ones from the multitude of rumors that raced through the neighborhood.

  “We think he entered through the garage, when she went out early in the evening,” Dane said, keeping a firm hand on Marlie’s elbow as they went up the walk to the front door. He held up the crime scene tape for them to duck under. “Because the power was off when she got home, the electric garage door opener wouldn’t work. She left the car in the driveway and entered through the front door. The alarm system didn’t work, either, because of the power outage, but it wouldn’t have helped in any case: It wasn’t connected to the door from the garage into the house. People can make some of the dumbest decisions, for the dumbest reasons. Mr. Elrod said that particular door wasn’t connected so they would have a way of entering without having to fool with the alarm code. They might as well have put a sign on it saying ‘Criminals Enter Here.’”

  He talked steadily as he unlocked the front door and ushered her inside. The alarm system had been turned off, because there had been so many people coming and going the day before.

  Marlie took a deep breath. The house looked deceptively normal, except for the black powder dusting every slick surface. It had been a very nice, upscale home at one time. She wondered if anyone would ever live here again, if Mr. Elrod would be able to sleep in this house, or be able to sell it if he couldn’t. Perhaps it could be unloaded on some unsuspecting snowbird newly migrated from the North. In her opinion, it should be razed.

  She looked around at the spacious, open, high-ceilinged rooms. There was a sense of airy coolness; it must have been a wonderful place to live. The downstairs floors were either polished hardwood or designer tile. She wandered silently through the rooms, trying to force herself to relax and let her mind open, but she couldn’t lock out the dread of going upstairs. She didn’t want to, but knew that she would have to.

  Maybe if they waited another day; she wasn’t fully recovered from the vision. Maybe that was why she couldn’t open the mental door that would allow the impressions to enter. She glanced at Dane, then abandoned the suggestion that had been on her tongue. He hadn’t been following her every step, but remained in the doorway of each room while she prowled it. His face was grim, his expression shuttered as she had never seen it before. There was something curiously remote about him, as if he had shut himself off from any appeal she might make.

  “Anything?” he asked, seeing her look at him.

  She shook her head.

  He didn’t push her. He didn’t urge her to try harder. He didn’t try to hurry her, or tell her to go upstairs to the scene. He was just there, waiting, implacable.

  But when she put her hand on the railing and her foot on that first step of the staircase, he caught her arm. His gaze bored into hers, an expression she couldn’t quite read flickering in his eyes. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes.” She took a deep breath. “I’m not enjoying this, but I’ll make it.”

  “Just remember,” he muttered. “I’m not enjoying it either.”

  She looked at him questioningly. “I never thought you were.”

  Then she went upstairs. He was right behind her, his tread silent, his presence as solid as a wall.

  Where had the killer waited for Marilyn to come home? Her vision hadn’t quite picked up on that; it had begun when he had begun trailing her through the dark house. Maybe, when the electricity had gone off, he had left his hiding place and made himself comfortable where he could see if anyone drove up. She stopped in the hallway and closed her eyes, concentrating, trying to read any leftover energy. Cautiously she opened that mental door, and a buzz of static assaulted her. She slammed the door shut and opened her eyes. She had gotten an impression of many people, of much activity; too many people had been here since the murder, blurring the image.

  The door at the end of the hall stood open. That was Marilyn’s bedroom. Marlie walked steadily toward it, and once more Dane caught her arm. “I’ve changed my mind,” he said abruptly. “You don’t need to go in there.”

  “Marilyn Elrod didn’t need to die, either,” she replied. “Neither did Nadine Vinick or Jackie Sheets, or any of the other women he killed before moving here.” She gave him a wintry smile and tugged her arm free. “Besides, I’ve already been in there, remember? I was there when it happened.”

  Four quick steps carried her into the room. She stopped. She couldn’t go any farther without stepping on dark brown bloodstains. There was n
o way to avoid them; the blood was spattered all over the carpet, the walls, the bed, though the largest stain by far was the huge one beside the bed, where Marilyn Elrod’s life had finally ended. But she had fought him all over this room, and left her own blood as her witness. About ten incense candles in their tiny glass pots still sat on the dresser; it was in that mirror that Marlie had seen the killer, looking at him through his own eyes.

  She had to open that mental door again, to perhaps glean some other snippet of information. Marilyn deserved that she at least try.

  “Don’t talk to me for a minute, okay?” she said to Dane, her voice soft, almost soundless, “I want to think.”

  Maybe the energy was in layers, with the most recent on top. She closed her eyes, picturing the layers, giving them different colors so she could more easily tell them apart. She had to block out that top layer, the one peopled with detectives, uniformed officers, photographers, forensic squads, the multitude who had swarmed the house after Marilyn’s death. They had been trying to help, but they got in the way. Mr. Elrod had been here, too, adding another level of energy.

  She assigned blue to the policemen and related others, and red to Mr. Elrod. The killer’s color was black, the density evil and thick, resisting any penetration of light. Marilyn… Marilyn’s color would be a pure, translucent white.

  She formed the picture in her mind, seeing the layers, concentrating on them so all else was forgotten. She existed only inside herself, pulling inward so her ability wouldn’t be diluted. Very delicately she peeled off the blue layer and put it to the side. Next came the red layer, very thin because Mr. Elrod hadn’t contributed much, harder to handle. It, too, went to the side.

  Only black and white were left, but the layers were so entwined that she didn’t know if she could separate them. Killer and victim, locked together in a life-and-death struggle. Marilyn had lost that fight.

  Very clearly she saw that if she tried to pull the layers apart, she might damage them, damage the information they held. She would have to leave them as they were.

  Now was the time to open the door. She mentally stepped into the layers, like stepping into a mist, wrapping the energies around her. She let them surround her, soak into her pores. And then she opened the door.

  The blast of evil was suffocating, but nothing she hadn’t felt before. She forced herself not to retreat from it, to examine it, while fighting to keep it from overwhelming her as it had the first time. She couldn’t let herself be sucked into reliving the murder, or the effects would be so debilitating, she wouldn’t be able to continue.

  The evil layer writhed around her, but bits of white kept touching her, distracting her. She pushed the contact away, intent on reading every black energy wave.

  There was nothing new, no mental clue about how he had selected Marilyn as his victim. A touch of white jolted her again. There was something compelling about it, an insistence on gaining her attention.

  Marlie held back. She couldn’t experience Marilyn’s death. She simply couldn’t.

  But the white layer pressed more strongly. The evil of the killer was pushed aside. Marlie saw it clearly in her mind, and was astonished, for she hadn’t done it. She looked back to the whiteness, and that break in concentration was enough to let the white energy in.

  Panic squeezed her heart as sheer terror seized her. And then a sense of calm seeped in, a quiet soothing.

  She stood bathed in the translucent whiteness. This wasn’t the energy of Marilyn’s last moments, of her terrified, pain-filled struggle for life. This was the energy of afterward, and it wasn’t in the past. It was here. It was now.

  There were no spoken sentences, no actual words. Marilyn wasn’t suffering anymore. She seemed peaceful. But there was a sense of inconclusiveness; she was reluctant to leave. Justice had not been done, the scale was still unbalanced, and Marilyn couldn’t leave until her killer no longer stalked innocent women in the night.

  Don’t worry, Marlie whispered in her mind. He made a mistake. Dane will catch him now.

  Though the reassurance was welcome, it made no difference. Marilyn would linger until a resolution.

  A noise tugged at Marlie’s consciousness. It was irritating, but insistent. Instinctively she recognized its source, and her automatic response.

  I have to go now. He’s calling.

  Still she was reluctant to leave that serenity. She hesitated, and felt one last touch of the white energy.

  “—Marlie! Goddamn it, answer me!”

  She opened her eyes to Dane’s furious, worried face. He was shaking her, and her head wobbled back and forth. She squeezed her eyes shut against the dizziness. “Stop,” she gasped.

  He did, and hauled her into his arms. She could feel his heart pounding against his ribs like thunder, hard and frantic. He held her head pressed to his chest, and his grip was so tight that it compressed her rib cage.

  “What were you doing?” he raged. “What happened? You’ve been standing there like a damn doll for half an hour. You wouldn’t answer me, wouldn’t even open your eyes!”

  She put her arms around him. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I didn’t hear you. I was concentrating.”

  “I don’t call that mere concentration, babe. You put yourself into a goddamn trance, and I don’t like it. Don’t you ever do that again, do you hear me?”

  She had frightened him, she realized, and like all strong men, he didn’t take kindly to it. In his anger he had even called her “babe,” something he hadn’t done since she’d told him how much she disliked it.

  He bent his head down to hers, pressing his forehead against her hair. “This was a bad idea,” he muttered. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  But because he was a cop, when they were halfway down the stairs he reluctantly asked, “Did you pick up on anything?”

  “No,” she said softly. “Nothing that would help.” She didn’t tell him about Marilyn’s presence, peaceful but resolute, patiently waiting. That had nothing to do with the investigation. It was private, between herself and Marilyn, both of them victims, in different ways, of the same evil.

  Dane opened the door, and she stepped out. The bright sun glared directly into her eyes, momentarily blinding her, and she paused. She didn’t see the people rushing toward her until they were right on her.

  “I’m Cheri Vaughn with WVTM-TV,” a young woman said. “We have learned that the Orlando Police Department is using a psychic named Marlie Keen to aid in apprehending the Orlando Slasher. Are you Marlie Keen?” Then she thrust a fat black microphone in Marlie’s face.

  Stunned, she stared at the lean, fashionably dressed young woman, and at the burly, shorts-clad man who stood behind her with a camera balanced on his shoulder. A van with the station’s insignia blazoned on the side was parked at the curb, and the crowd of neighbors had drastically increased, drawn by the television camera. Roughly Dane shouldered in front of her. “I’m Detective Hollister,” he snapped. “You’re behind the police line. You have to leave—now.”

  But the tenacious Ms. Vaughn neatly sidestepped him and once more pushed the microphone at Marlie. “Are you the psychic?”

  A confusing flurry of impressions hit Marlie broadside. She couldn’t read Dane; his mental shields were too strong. But Cheri Vaughn, ambitious and slightly nervous, was no match for Marlie’s abilities. Marlie didn’t even have to try; the truth was broadcast at her in deafening waves.

  Shock hit her in the pit of her stomach, and she almost choked as the bile of betrayal rose to her throat. It was possible that someone else had leaked the news of her involvement—but no one else had. And only one person had known where she would be at this exact moment.

  She felt cold, icy cold, and suddenly alone. Slowly, her face very still, she looked at Dane. He still wore that grim expression, his eyes as narrow and fierce as a hawk’s as he watched her. She could barely breathe. Accusation and betrayal were in her expression as she put her hand over the microphone.

 
“You set me up,” she said to the man she loved, the man who had used her.

  22

  MARLIE TURNED BACK TO THE TELEVISION REPORTER. “YES, I’m Marlie Keen,” she said coldly.

  “Ms. Keen, have you been working with the Orlando Police Department to help them locate the killer?”

  “Yes.” The one word was clipped. She could barely contain her fury, her sense of betrayal.

  Dane put his hand out, as if to block the camera, but Marlie knocked it aside. Cheri Vaughn plunged ahead. “In what way have you aided them, Ms. Keen?”

  “I gave them the killer’s description.”

  “How did you know what he looked like? Did you have a psychic vision?”

  Again Dane moved in front of her, his rough face furious. Marlie sidestepped. This was what he’d wanted, wasn’t it? She was going to deliver, in spades. “Something like that. I know the killer the way no one else does. He’s not a dream man, unless you’re into nightmares,” she said, borrowing Esther’s words. “He’s a worm, a coward who gets his jollies by attacking women—”

  “That’s enough!” Dane roared, pushing the camera down and grabbing Marlie’s arm with his other hand, his fingers biting into her soft flesh. “You people leave this scene, now.”

  Cheri Vaughn blinked at him, looking both frightened and elated. Marlie didn’t have to guess how the reporter felt; she knew. She had come here to act a part, with the promise of some news, but she had walked into a sensational gold mine. Her stock at the station had just gone stratospheric.

  Still gripping her arm, Dane hustled Marlie to the car, putting her in on the driver’s side and shoving her over to make room for himself. He slammed the door and turned the key in the ignition. “What the hell were you doing?” he said from between clenched teeth.

  She could feel the white heat of his rage, but she wasn’t impressed. “What you wanted me to do,” she replied bitterly. “Attracting the killer’s attention. Wasn’t that the whole point of the exercise?”

  Dane thought of denying it, but realized there wasn’t any point in it. She wouldn’t believe any denials he could come up with, and he was so angry right now that he wasn’t inclined to try. “Attract his attention, yes, not drive him into a killing rage!”