Hot in Handcuffs

by Day, Sylvia; Black, Shayla; Walker, Shiloh

  “I…” She shook her head, unsure how to answer that.

  Colby knew, though. He knew and she saw the blue of his eyes darken just as he lowered his shields. She had no defense. Through the connection that had tied them together from the very first, Mica finally saw what her shadowy, incomplete dreams had been trying to tell her.

  chapter eight

  She was still pale.

  Hours later, they bent over the files, rarely talking. Colby watched her when he could, and her pallor left him feeling sick. Maybe he’d been too abrupt and maybe he should have warned her somehow.

  But she had to see.

  Colby knew how her mind worked, knew how she’d insist on hiding, right up until she had no other choice. And this time, it might be too late. It had been a risk, letting her see everything he’d seen—there had been a possibility she’d push him away for daring to breach the cold, steel walls she’d built around herself.

  He hadn’t given a damn. If it kept her alive, that was all he cared about. As long as she didn’t end up—

  No. He shoved that thought aside, forcing himself to think about other things. Like the fact that he was here now. Having him in the game changed things. Having her aware of what could happen, that changed things, too.

  Together, they’d figure this out before the next victim was grabbed.

  At least he hoped they could prevent that.

  Shifting his eyes away from Mica and back to the file, he flipped through it. Nasty, dark little fingers tugged at him, but he kept his shields up tight and thick. He couldn’t do jack for her if he kept getting pulled back into the same visions over and over.

  What he really needed was to go deeper into one of those visions. See something more. Something different. Preferably the killer. Although he couldn’t make it work on quite that level. If only it was that easy…Heaving out a sigh, he stroked his thumb down the edge of the picture—it was one of the pictures from the autopsy. In death, she was pale, the bruises on her flesh standing out in stark relief against her pallid skin. Her hair was dark, short, skimmed back from her face so that nothing detracted the eye. All one could see when staring at that picture was death.

  Dimly, Colby heard that deep, melodic voice.

  Would you dance…if I asked you to dance…

  Closing his eyes, he muttered the words.

  Next to him, Mica stilled. “Colby?”

  “The song.” He glanced at her. “That’s what he sang to them.” Scowling, he flipped through the file, saw another picture, another, another…but there was another.

  “Colby.” A hand touched his.

  Bare skin on bare skin.

  For a moment, heat sparked and then he slammed a hand against the table, swearing in a low, raw voice as the darkness swarmed up and sucked him under. If he hadn’t been reaching for this very thing on his own, it never would have gotten its hooks in him so deeply. But for a moment, he’d reached.

  And now it had him. It dragged at him…voices sounding in his mind. Screaming at him. Brutal splashes of color—bloodred on white. Bloodred on gray. Bloodred on everything…

  Blood splashed across a face, highlighting a dark, dark pair of eyes, so cold and so clinical. So fucking crazy.

  A voice rang in his mind, soft, deep…melodic. Yet still a monster’s voice.

  Would you run…

  And Colby watched as the landscape sped by in a rush—through a woman’s eyes. As she started to run, terror a vivid, ugly smear inside her mind. He was lost in her memories, seeing through her eyes, hearing through her ears. Everything was distorted, and he had to pull back a little, had to look. Not real, not real, not real—he shoved past the terror, struggled to see things on his own, even from within the mind of another.

  The image snapped, and for a moment he couldn’t breathe as he was flung from the mind of one person to another. And now, all he saw was flowers. Just flowers. What was with the damn flowers?

  They flooded his vision for long, endless moments and then finally faded, revealing something else. No—someone else. Or at least his hand—a man’s hand. White male. A smattering of dark hair on the back, nails neatly clipped. Bared wrist, a forearm. Strong but not bulky. Long fingers toyed with one of the blooms and then the man selected one perfect flower. Colby saw what looked like glass—

  Look up, you bastard, look up—

  The image faded. Flickered. Fell apart.

  A harsh voice, loud and demanding, sounded in his ear.

  Gritting his teeth, he let the connection fade and looked up, found Mica glaring at him. Her eyes snapped in the dim light of the room, and she had one hand lifted, gripping the front of his shirt like she wanted to shake him. He was sitting flat on his ass in the middle of the room. He could hardly breathe. His cheek stung—he had some dim recollection of her shouting his name. Slapping him. And when he hadn’t answered—

  “Damn it, Colby, what’s wrong with you?”

  Blinking, he forced his eyes wide open, made himself swallow although most of the spit had dried in his mouth. When he stared at her, it was like he saw through a fog. And energy spiked off her. Her energy. As he stared into her gaze, he saw an eerie overlay of the girl he’d seen.

  Mica.

  Damn it, it was Mica—that was the connection he needed. Why hadn’t he seen that already?

  His voice raw, he said grimly, “Give me your hand.”

  HE’D SCARED HER.

  For a moment there, he had really and truly scared her. There were a few times when he’d all but stopped breathing.

  She’d touched him and then he’d…Shit, she couldn’t explain it. His eyes had taken on a locked, almost dead stare. His skin had paled. And the air around him had been so charged, she half expected one or both of them to self-combust, and not in that fun, sexy-tension sort of way.

  All because she’d touched him. Now he wanted her to do it again.

  Scrambling backward, she said, “Are you insane?”

  He reached out and caught her ankle, the cloth of her trousers a faint barrier. She could feel the heat of his hand, but it wouldn’t happen until they touched bare skin to bare skin. “I saw something,” he replied, his voice gruff. “It went deeper this time. I…I wasn’t expecting it, but if I know it’s coming, I can control it. I need to go back there. Look again.”

  “And if you can’t control it?”

  “I always did before,” he said simply. “Even after you walked away and I had to rely on somebody else to anchor me.”

  “You almost stopped breathing a couple of times,” she whispered, shaking, staring at his extended hand.

  “Then I pass out. That’s happened. It’s a built-in off switch. If I stop breathing in a vision, all I’ll do is pass out. Then the connection is cut and it’s done.” He waited, hand still held out.

  Gently, he reminded her, “You said you wouldn’t keep running.”

  He was still half sick inside. She could feel it. There was terror and adrenaline and nerves sparking all around him—she could all but see that. And it didn’t matter to him. It didn’t matter what the gift cost him.

  She’d always hated her own abilities, but Colby had accepted them, let them tear him apart inside. But he never let it stop him.

  “No more running,” she whispered. Throat tight, she lifted her hand. As she reached for him, she slammed her own shields down tight. When their fingers touched, she grounded herself, just as she’d been taught all those years ago—it took a few precious, shaking seconds, but she stabilized, steadied. Some lessons, it seemed, were never forgotten.

  As their fingers twined until they touched palm to palm, she lifted her gaze to his. “Don’t make me regret this,” she whispered quietly. “This shit is no good for me.”

  “It’s no good for me, either. But all we can do is just deal with it…or let somebody die.”

  Stark, simple words. In that moment, she all but hated him for being stronger than her. Better. But she pushed it all away. Had to, otherwise, she’d fai
l him. She’d done that once, when she walked away.

  She wasn’t doing it again. “I’m ready,” she told him.

  WOULD YOU DANCE…if I asked you to dance…

  Would you run…and never look back?

  The voice echoed in Colby’s mind, stronger now. It echoed with malice, and need, and an insatiable desire to hurt.

  Time blurred together and lost all meaning.

  The woman was there, once more. Completely unaware she was being followed. Walking to the bland, borderline seedy little strip joint, a bag bouncing against her hip. Her head shifted to the left, the right, and it would have seemed she knew what was going on around her.

  But she didn’t. The threat was behind her. Far, far behind her and nobody ever looked at him twice.

  That amused him. That pleased him. And that gave Colby a line—an anchor. Drawing on it, Colby let the bastard suck him in. Through that connection, and his connection to Mica—the one that grounded him, everything became clearer.

  All at once, death unfolded. It was everywhere.

  Women, already dead and gone. Some left alone in alleyways. Some buried. And then there were the latest three. Their faces flashed before him, one right after the other—the petals of a flower stroked down their cheek, the mocking sound of laughter.

  Would you dance…

  The voices of three women rose in Colby’s mind, echoing along with that mocking laughter. And there were other voices.

  Lost in the cacophony, Colby couldn’t make sense of them even as he reached out and tried to focus. As he tried to grab on to one voice and separate it from the rest. It wasn’t happening, though. The voices became a blur, background noises as the faces spun in dizzying circles and then stopped.

  Now there was just one woman.

  A fourth victim…a hooker, Colby suspected. Chosen for just that. The man didn’t want her, didn’t want anything from her. Beyond her pain. Beyond her screams…beyond her torment.

  That was what he wanted, and that was what he took.

  There was a fifth woman, too. Her image spliced itself over everything else. Colby saw her walking through a building—cop shop.

  Now this woman, the man wanted. Colby felt the burn of that anger, even as he felt the burn of lust for the woman as he stared at her, watching her as she huddled over her desk, her black hair pulled away from her face, her eyes narrowed in concentration.

  Need sparked. Yearning wrenched through him. He wanted her. She wasn’t like the others—she wouldn’t be so easy to catch, so easy to break…and he wanted that.

  The vision shifted, swirled. The killer was alone. Walking through a darkened house, into an equally dark bedroom. Change jangled in a pocket, clothing whispered. Colby, still wrapped in the vision, watched as the killer dumped loose coins on his dresser.

  Followed by a gun.

  Colby tensed, startled. The vision shifted and swayed, thrown by his brief break in concentration. He struggled to steady it, still staring at the gun, sheathed in simple, utilitarian holster, the kind somebody would wear to keep the weapon tucked against the ribs. The kind a cop might wear.

  A cop…

  Even as Colby thought that, something was placed on the dresser by the gun.

  He saw a glint of gold, still tucked in the leather wallet.

  A fucking cop.

  “YOU’RE WRONG, DAMN it.”

  Nearly an hour later, Mica glared at Colby from across the hotel room. It was nearly dawn. Neither of them had gotten more than a few hours of sleep the night before, and she knew he’d gotten even less than she. But damn him, he looked fresh-eyed and focused.

  She felt like death warmed over, still wearing her clothes from yesterday, her hair a tangled mess, and despite her attempts to ignore it, she knew she still smelled of him. It made it that much harder to concentrate on what he was saying—and figure out how to prove him wrong.

  “It’s not a cop. I’m not buying it.”

  “Why?” he asked easily. He’d thrown off the lingering sluggishness that had hit him after the vision and now he looked ready to go again, to plunge himself into the death, the darkness, the despair.

  So he could look for more clues that made him think their killer was a fucking cop.

  No evidence. He’s never seen by anybody, leaves no sign. Plus, these killings are too perfect—he’s killed before, but we can’t connect him to anything…

  Swearing, she turned away from him and started to pace. Anybody could figure their way around leaving evidence, it seemed. Thanks to crime shows, the Internet, and all that shit, there was a ton of information found with a simple Google search.

  They still fuck up. They forget things. But this guy’s kills were all as clean as it could be.

  She didn’t want to think it was a fucking cop. But if she didn’t…

  Mica groaned. She stopped by the window and thunked her head against the glass. Other possibilities. If she refused to look at them, then she ran the risk that a killer would go free.

  Even if those options were as unpleasant as a fellow cop being the killer.

  “All you saw was a gun,” she said quietly. “Plenty of people have guns.”

  “You’re right.”

  “You didn’t even see his shield, not for certain. You didn’t see his face, nothing. Just his damn weapon. It doesn’t have to mean jack shit.”

  She turned, slumping against the window, exhaustion dragging her down.

  Colby’s blue eyes met hers. There was no condemnation in his gaze, no disgust, no anger. Just patience. Ever the patient one. Like he would wait forever for her to accept this.

  But they didn’t have forever.

  “Where did you see the fourth victim?” she asked, pushing away from the window. First things first. Focus on what she knew for now.

  But the bad thing was…thanks to Colby’s vision, she had new knowledge she didn’t want to accept.

  In her gut, she knew the killer very likely was a cop.

  She was hunting one of her own.

  chapter nine

  “Has he learned anything?”

  Kellogg’s low, quiet voice drew Mica’s attention away from the selection of coffee offered by the vending machines. She had a choice of bad and even worse. Or she could save her stomach lining by getting a Coke. She needed the caffeine punch, though. Desperately. The coffee was akin to sewage here, but it would wake her up better than a Coke would…except she valued her stomach lining.

  Under the pretense of fishing change from her pocket, she didn’t meet her commander’s eyes as she replied, “He’s picking up on a few things. Nothing solid.”

  Not a complete lie. They didn’t have what they needed for Mica to find him, after all. And if she laid it out before the commander without having proof, she’d have her ass handed to her. Before she told the woman in charge about Colby’s suspicions, she wanted proof. Something tangible, and then she’d tell the commander.

  And how are you going to get that? He hasn’t left anything so far…

  “He doesn’t have anything useful?”

  Mica shrugged. “This isn’t like a book or something—you can’t just open his brain and find the answers.”

  “Maybe he needs to open his brain and find the answers,” Kellogg said, her voice edgy and harsh. “We only have a few days at most—I don’t want another dead woman on my hands, Lieutenant.”

  Mica didn’t particularly want that, either.

  “Neither do I,” she said quietly. Slanting a look at the captain, she added, “He’s doing the best he can. Sometimes this is like shooting in the dark. You’ve got to let him work.”

  Kellogg sighed as Mica shifted away from the vending machine, an icy-cold can in her hand. The captain stood in front of the machine now, eying it with a look of acute dislike. “This stuff is going to eat my stomach alive,” she mused as she fed a few quarters into it.

  “That’s why I went with the Coke.”

  “I need more caffeine than that,” Kellogg murmure
d. “Has your partner figured out what’s up with the…consultant?”

  Mica jerked a shoulder. “He was asking about him, but I’ve managed to dance around answering. Telling Phillips what Colby is doing will not help anything.”

  “Colby?” Kellogg cocked a brow as she took her coffee.

  A dull flush threatened to spread across Mica’s face, but she shoved it down. “The psychic,” she said smoothly. “But I’m not going to be able to avoid giving Phillips an answer forever. We’re heading to the latest victim’s place of employment again today, and I imagine he’s going to keep on pushing.”

  “He’s not an easy partner to work with, is he?”

  The woman already knew the answer—Mica could see it in her eyes. “I don’t need easy. I just need him to do his job.”

  Kellogg sipped the coffee, a grimace twisting her mouth. “Do you want to go ahead and tell him?”

  No—

  Before the response could show on her face or in her eyes, Mica pushed it down. Careful…be careful here, she warned herself.

  “At this time, until we have something more concrete, I think it’s best we keep his involvement down to an absolute minimum. Only those who absolutely need to know.”

  Kellogg studied Mica appraisingly, one brow lifted in speculation. “And I take it your partner isn’t one you’d consider an absolute.”

  “Right now, I only consider those who already know the circumstances an absolute,” Mica replied honestly. It was nothing less than truth, after all. Mica already knew about Colby, and Kellogg was the one who’d wanted him in the first place. No reason anybody else needed to know anything.

  “You’re holding back on me,” Kellogg murmured.

  “Not entirely. I’m still just putting things together.” She gave the commander a game smile and said, “The pieces aren’t all fitting together yet. Once I have a clear picture, I can say more.”

  “SO YOU GOING to tell me what’s up with this friend of yours that’s consulting?”

  As they crossed the busted, broken pavement of the strip joint where their last victim had worked, Mica replied, “At this point, nothing is up, Phillips.”