Dangerous to Touch

by Jill Sorenson

  He was going to have to duck under to investigate. Holding his breath, he followed the rope to its anchor.

  “Cinder block,” he said when he resurfaced, trying not to smell or taste the water. “And half-inch rope. Hemp, maybe.”

  “Cut it,” she said, giving him a razor knife.

  He did, but the body didn’t rise.

  “Fresh,” she said, nodding with satisfaction.

  It was awkward, but he managed to heft the body onto the shore without doing too much damage to it, himself, or the crime scene. Even covered in dark plastic, it was plain to see that the corpse was a slight woman, about the size of Candace Hegel.

  When the M.E. cut the tarp away from her face, befouled water gushed out.

  Because she hadn’t been there long, and the lagoon was cold, the effects of decomposition were minimal. Enough to discolor her complexion, but not so much that her body was bloated or her skin sloughing off, which would have made sight identification difficult.

  In life, Candace Hegel had been a pretty woman. In death, with a greenish tinge to her face, particles of brown algae clinging to her skin and tiny surfperch burrowing into the delicate tissues, she was hideous.

  Marc’s stomach clenched, and he felt an unmanageable hatred for whoever would defile a woman this way.

  Stokes narrowed her shrewd eyes at him, so he quickly blanked his expression. She’d dealt with his overenthusiastic pursuits of justice before, and didn’t consider it sound police work. Officers were not supposed to get emotionally involved.

  Detective Lacy, on the other side of Stokes, was doing an admirable job of suppressing her nausea.

  “Wrap it all up,” the M.E. said. “I’ll cut the rest of the tarp away on the table.”

  “I want that cinder block,” Stokes said as they loaded the body into the van.

  “Of course you do,” he muttered.

  “What was that?”

  “Right away, I said.”

  It was no easy task. He could only lift the block a few feet at a time, drop it a little closer to shore and come back to surface for air. By the time he passed it off to CSI, he’d inhaled, swallowed and sputtered about a pint of Agua Hedionda.

  “You’ll need a hepatitis vaccine,” Stokes said as he climbed out.

  Lying on his back on the dusty gravel bank, shuddering with cold and panting from exertion, Marc prayed he wouldn’t be the one to lose his breakfast instead of Lacy.

  After a hot shower and a hotter cup of coffee, Sidney was feeling warm and toasty. It was a muggy day, cloudy and warm, the thick marine layer overhead trapping the earth’s heat like a thermal blanket. By the time she reached the kennel she was sweating.

  Mondays were always busy, so work kept her body, if not her mind, occupied most of the morning. She had several pickups scheduled for later that afternoon, and any dog that stayed more than three days got a complimentary bath. Time spent in close confinement tended to emphasize the “doggy” smell, and she didn’t like to send home stinky pets.

  She’d just finished her last bath when the phone rang. “Pacific Pet Hotel,” she answered crisply.

  “Sidney.” It was Bill. “You’ve got to come get this dog.”

  “What’s he doing?”

  “Trying to rip everyone’s face off.”

  “What about the family?”

  “They want him boarded until the owner is…found. Candace Hegel lived alone, and the dog isn’t used to men, obviously. None of her friends or relatives have female-only households.”

  She glanced up at the clock. Almost lunchtime. “I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

  At Vincent Veterinary Clinic, Sidney parked next to the employee’s entrance and let herself in. Standing on the other side of the door were Bill, Detective Lacy and Lieutenant Cruz.

  She froze dead in her tracks.

  “Miss Morrow,” Lieutenant Cruz said in greeting, an avaricious gleam in his brown eyes.

  Her gaze darted to Bill, who had assumed a defensive posture. “You told,” she accused.

  “They have a warrant for your arrest, Sid. I had no other choice.”

  Feeling cornered and betrayed, she began to back away.

  Lieutenant Cruz reached out and clamped his hand around her wrist. “Do you see bars in your future?”

  She struggled against him, but he held tight. A woman’s ravaged face flashed before her, slimy things squirming in the soft tissues. Just like in her dream, a brackish taste filled her mouth and the smell of blood flooded her nostrils, strangling her, drowning her.

  Examining her strange expression, he released her arm.

  “I’m going to be sick,” she said, rushing to the nearest bathroom. She fell to her knees as the contents of her stomach came up, not swamp water or blood, as she almost expected, but the pulpy remnants of an orange she’d eaten for lunch in her truck on the way over.

  With nothing more to purge, she dry heaved quietly, tears burning in her eyes, citric acid stinging her throat. When she was finished, Lieutenant Cruz handed her some wet paper towels.

  “Thanks,” she said in a hoarse whisper, wiping her face.

  “Do you have a weak stomach, or a guilty conscience?”

  “Neither,” she muttered. “I have a sensitive nose, and you smell.”

  He turned to Detective Lacy, frowning. “Do I?”

  “A little bit,” she admitted.

  “I thought maybe you’d had a ‘psychic vision.’” He sneered around the words, showing not only disbelief, but utter contempt.

  Sidney flushed the toilet angrily.

  “We’re going to need you to come back down to the station,” he said, not offering to help her to her feet.

  “What for?”

  “To take your statement.”

  “Look, I’m not psychic. I don’t have visions. I don’t know anything more than I’ve already told you, and I’m not interested in being jerked around.”

  His jaw tightened with displeasure. “Vincent wasn’t bluffing about that arrest warrant, you know. I have it right here,” he said, patting his suit pocket. Today’s was dark blue, with a crisp white shirt underneath. He looked immaculate, but she hadn’t been lying about the odor. A vaguely swampy, fishy scent clung to him. “You can come willingly, or unwillingly, it’s all the same to us.” Letting his eyes sweep down her trembling form, he added, “But I don’t think you’d like the booking process. There’s a lot of…manhandling.”

  “I have a business to run,” she said, hearing desperation edge into her voice. “I’m the only employee.”

  “You get a lunch break, right? This shouldn’t take much more than an hour.”

  Sidney looked to Bill, who offered no support. “Can you come back here afterward?” he whined. “I’m serious about you taking that dog. He’s vicious.”

  Given no alternative, she allowed them to escort her back to the station. Sitting in the back seat of Lieutenant Cruz’s Audi, she noticed a grocery bag with a pair of wet blue shorts inside. The unpleasant smell and sensation rushed her once again, and she hit the button to lower the window, needing fresh air.

  “You’re not going to throw up again, are you?”

  Putting her face to the lukewarm breeze, she shook her head dumbly.

  “I’ll pull over,” he offered, probably more for his leather interior’s sake than her own.

  She waved him on, because she didn’t have anything left in her stomach anyway.

  In front of Oceanside Police Department, a crowd of reporters had congregated. Lieutenant Cruz let out an inventive combination of expletives. “What do they want?”

  Lacy shrugged. “Go around back.”

  He maneuvered his car into the rear parking lot and jumped out. To Sidney’s surprise, he opened the door for her. As she exited the vehicle, a tiny blonde strode toward them with a purpose, cameraman in tow.

  It was Crystal Dunn, Sidney realized, mildly starstruck.

  “No comment,” Lieutenant Cruz said before the pretty reporte
r could ask a question.

  “Are you a witness in the investigation of Candace Hegel’s death?” Crystal asked anyway, shoving the microphone in Sidney’s face.

  “Death?” Sidney repeated dully.

  “She has no comment,” Lieutenant Cruz grated, clamping his hand around Sidney’s bare upper arm. Even in public, on camera, no less, his touch elicited a shiver of excitement. And a startling secret: He’d been romantically involved with Crystal Dunn, at one time or another.

  Her pleasure fizzled. No wonder Sidney wasn’t his type, if he chased after doll-sized blondes with rapacious personalities. As he strode across the parking lot, practically dragging her along, she could hear Crystal Dunn’s no-nonsense voice as she shared the details of the latest homicide:

  “Miss Hegel was found dead early this morning in Agua Hedionda Lagoon. Police officials have no comment-”

  “You’re hurting me.”

  He looked down at his hand, wrapped around her arm. “Sorry,” he said, loosening his grip. Sidney could tell he was furious, although he hid it well. He probably didn’t care for Crystal Dunn leaking details of a homicide to a possible suspect.

  It had been petty and unprofessional of her, actually. With so much animosity between them, it was hard to guess who dumped whom.

  “Detective Lacy, would you show Miss Morrow to one of the interview rooms, please?” he asked, looking down an empty hallway. “I’ll be there in a minute.”

  Lacy kept her face bland and authoritative. “Right this way, ma’am.”

  The women’s locker room was clear. Marc breathed a sigh of relief, knowing he’d catch hell from Deputy Chief Stokes if she found him snooping around in here.

  He located Lacy’s locker and began rifling through its contents. She had some girl stuff, makeup and deodorant, but no perfume or jewelry. A clean, pressed patrol uniform hung on a wooden hanger.

  He grabbed a mesh bag from the bottom. Towels, shampoo. Damn.

  Frustrated, he grabbed her oversize brown leather purse, preparing to dump out its contents and use it as his prop. Inside, however, there was a flimsy purple scarf, folded into a tiny square. Perfect.

  He shoved it in his pocket, hoping to discredit Sidney Morrow for good. The look on her face, right before she got sick, had been damned convincing. He was still pissed off at himself for getting caught up in her ruse, even for a second.

  Lots of women could vomit on cue. It was called bulimia, not ESP.

  When he opened the door to the interview room, he was all business. Lacy was intimidating the subject with a cold, hard stare, arms folded over her chest. On the other side of the table, Sidney was fidgeting.

  As he took his seat next to Lacy, he studied his quarry, confused by her appeal. He liked confident women. Bold, aggressive women who knew how to please a man. Women who were well aware of their own allure.

  Sidney Morrow was as timid as a rabbit. If he touched her, she’d jump. If he kept touching her, she’d squirm. She was like a bundle of raw nerve endings. Against his better judgment, he speculated on what it would be like to go to bed with her.

  “Dr. Vincent says you…know things,” he began. “Sense them.”

  “I don’t.”

  “Come on,” he said. “You knew the dog had been drugged. You knew his name and that he’d come along the river-”

  “All perfectly reasonable assumptions.”

  “Either you’re a psychic or a suspect, Miss Morrow. Which do you prefer?”

  When she remained silent, he slid a picture across the table, an autopsy photo of Anika Groene, her bare skin riddled with red marks. “See those bites? Whoever killed her tied her up and let rats crawl over her. They feasted on her naked body while she was still alive.”

  “Please,” she whispered, looking away, her eyes watery and tortured.

  Marc steeled himself against the sight. “What was he doing to Candace Hegel yesterday, while you were insisting you didn’t know anything? What was he doing while you were pretending ‘Blue’ was just a good guess?”

  “I don’t know,” she moaned, twisting her hands in her lap.

  Marc felt a surge of triumph, sensing her upcoming capitulation.

  “Tell us what you do know,” he urged.

  “I had a dream,” she said finally. “Or something. I heard a dog barking, yesterday morning, as I was waking up. When I got to the kennel, there he was.”

  It didn’t make any sense, but nothing about her did. “And?”

  “And I did guess his name, okay? I called him Blue, and he came right to me, so I knew I was right. When I reached down to pet him-” She broke off, searching for the words to explain. “I just knew stuff.”

  “Like what?”

  “That he’d broken out of a vehicle, and he was groggy. I don’t know where he’d been, but I think he heard gunshots, and he spooked.”

  “Gunshots? What kind?”

  “A shotgun, maybe.”

  “Would you know the difference by sound?”

  “No. It’s just an impression.”

  “Go on.”

  “He ran through the river, trying to get back to his owner. That’s it.”

  Mark’s eyes narrowed. She hadn’t told him anything specific, or anything that could be disproved. By keeping it vague, she was covering her bases. Tapping the tips of his fingers on the surface of the desk, he asked, “Anything else?”

  “I had another dream this morning,” she admitted. “Of suffocating, drowning. Being restrained.”

  “By what?”

  She rubbed her wrists. “I don’t know. My face was covered with some sort of dark, thick plastic. I couldn’t breathe.”

  Marc nodded thoughtfully, as if taking her at her word. There was no way she could know Candace Hegel had been alive when the killer had thrown her in the lagoon, or that the victim had been wrapped in a plastic tarp.

  He reached into his pocket. “If we had an article of clothing belonging to the deceased, could you get an ‘impression’ from it?”

  “Probably not. It doesn’t work on command. I can’t always-”

  “Would you try?” he asked, pinning her with a look. “It would mean a great deal to her family.”

  Her stormy-gray eyes were black-rimmed, thickly lashed and startlingly beautiful. “All right,” she said softly.

  He handed her the gauzy purple scarf, noting Lacy’s sudden tension beside him.

  Puzzled, Sidney focused her concentration on the swatch of fabric, letting it slide through her fingers, caress her skin. Marc watched her in utter fascination, mesmerized by the performance. She was very, very good. To look at her, eyes closed, moist lips slightly parted, breath coming in short, soft pants, one would think she was lost in sensation, completely unaware of their presence.

  And sexually aroused.

  As her chest rose and fell, her nipples pushed impudently against the cloth of her sleeveless cotton top, hardening before his eyes.

  Damn, she was good. Marc didn’t have to look at Lacy to know she was equally riveted. He couldn’t imagine a more provocative display.

  Unless she actually started touching herself.

  To his disappointment, her eyes flew open and she pushed the scarf away from her, cheeks tinged pink.

  “Very nice,” Marc murmured when he was capable of speech.

  “What do you do for an encore? Strip naked?”

  Her eyes darkened. “Why don’t you two play your twisted sex games with someone else?” she retorted, looking back and forth between them.

  “Our twisted sex games? That was a one-woman show you just gave us, Miss Morrow. Delightful, but all you.”

  “Well, that game-” she pointed at the slinky, purple scarf “-involved two women. And neither of them was Candace Hegel.”

  “Oh really?” he drawled. “My mistake.” He glanced sideways at Lacy. “I assure you I wasn’t a participant. What were these lovely ladies doing, by the way?”

  “Drop it,” Lacy warned under her breath.

/>   “Never mind,” he sighed, training an appreciative eye on Sidney Morrow. He’d underestimated her. She was frighteningly intuitive, a consummate actress and the best damned charlatan he’d ever seen.

  Her distract and dazzle technique was wickedly effective, he had to admit. He couldn’t have been more turned on. “Let’s go,” he decided, stifling his lust. “No more games.”

  “I can leave now?”

  “After a brief stop, yes, you’ll be free to go.”

  Lacy gave him an incredulous stare, which he ignored. Yes, it was foolhardy to let her walk; she might be an accomplice to murder. If physical evidence didn’t point to a male perpetrator, he’d consider her the prime suspect.

  Whatever her role, he’d be watching her like a hawk until he figured out what she was up to, and before he let her off the hook, he couldn’t pass on the chance to shake her up again.

  With grim determination, he led her down to the morgue.

  Chapter 4

  Sidney shot daggers into Lieutenant Cruz’s well-formed back with her eyes as she followed him down a dark staircase. He’d set her up on purpose by giving her an article of clothing that belonged to Detective Lacy, not Candace Hegel. The attempt to prove her false had backfired, yet Sidney was the one wallowing in humiliation.

  When she’d held the slippery fabric in her hands, a thrill had raced through her, as undeniable as any of the emotions she channeled secondhand. She’d felt the scarf trailing over her naked body, followed by a woman’s eager mouth, and she’d responded.

  She couldn’t believe how she’d responded. Intensely aware of his presence, even while under the sensual spell, she had mistakenly assumed she was witnessing a ménage à trois between Lieutenant Cruz, Detective Lacy, and another woman.

  The very idea of it heated her cheeks.

  Equally embarrassed, Detective Lacy had made her excuses, leaving Sidney to complete whatever sinister task Lieutenant Cruz had in store for her. They stopped in front of a heavy door marked Morgue.

  “Oh, no,” she said, shaking her head.

  “Oh, yes,” he countered. “You’re going to use that psychic touch on Candace Hegel.”

  “No,” she repeated, shivering. This morning’s chill was back with reinforcements.