Danger Signals

by Kathleen Creighton

  He remembered a climax that came for them both at the same moment, as naturally and effortlessly as the sun rising.

  And thinking, just before sleep came for him. I wonder…can you tell me, Miss Tee? Is this what it feels like to make love?

  He woke in darkness. Suffocating, absolute darkness.

  His heart raced, pounded. He was sweating and shaking, and he wanted desperately to cry. The sobs were like something alive inside his chest, hurting him, fighting to get out.

  But he was too big to cry. Don't want to be a baby. I'm not a baby! I'm not!

  So he didn't cry.

  Then came the noise. Terrible noises-deafening. Things crashing, breaking, thumps and bangs, voices yelling…screaming. He wanted to put his hands over his ears to shut out the sounds of screaming…yelling. But for some reason he couldn't.

  "Mama! Mama!"

  Somebody was saying that, sobbing-not him. It's not me, it's not me! I'm too big to cry for my mama!

  But someone was. He could hear them clearly, small frightened voices whimpering. "Mommy…"

  And then, finally…like a warm blanket on a cold, cold night…like a soft sweet breeze carrying promises of summer…he heard the other voice, the one he'd been waiting for, praying for. The one he'd known all along would come and save him.

  Shh … It's okay…it's gonna be okay. It's over. You're safe now. It's okay…

  He felt safe, then. And he hunkered down in the warm darkness and waited for the crashing and banging and screaming and yelling to stop and the lights to turn on. Lights so bright they hurt his eyes. So bright…

  He opened his eyes, but the only light was the pale wash from streetlights outside uncurtained windows.

  There were arms around him, strong and gentle…a damp cheek pressed against his…a scent that reminded him of rain-fresh gardens. And a voice, one he knew, whispered the familiar words from his dream…

  "Shh…it's okay, it's okay, my love. You're safe now. I'm here. Tee's here…"

  Chapter 11

  Ihe next time Wade woke it was to find sunlight pouring into the room through those same uncurtained windows, and Tierney raised up on one elbow with her head propped on her hand, gazing somberly down at him.

  Memories of the night before came swiftly. In a voice gruff with morning and emotion, he growled, "What?"

  She hesitated while a smile came and went briefly, then answered him. "Just looking at you."

  "And?"

  "Seeing you here…like this…makes me happy."

  He lifted one hand and traced the line of her jaw with a fingertip. "And yet, this is not a happy face. How come?"

  He saw a swallow ripple her throat before she rolled away from him and sat up. clutching a rumpled sheet around herself.

  "Miss Tee?"

  She didn't answer.

  In the silence he heard bells ringing somewhere in the distance and remembered it was Sunday. Sunday morning… And he thought of a song from a long time ago, something his parents had listened to. probably. He couldn't really recall the words to it, mostly just the way it had made him feel. Lonely…wishing again for that something he couldn't quite remember. Sunday mornin', comin' down…

  "Tierney," he began again, and she threw the reply at him over her shoulder as she stood up. breathless, almost angry. "Because I can't let myself get too used to it."

  "Wha-Wait a minute." He hitched himself up. lunged and caught her hand. Held it fast against her resistance. "Okay, I'm confused here. What's wrong with getting used to me being in your bed?"

  She stared at him for a long time, then relented and allowed him to reel her in. She sat slumped on the side of the bed and he took her face in his hand and turned it gently toward him. "Why not, Tee?" The stark misery in her eyes made him feel both achy and in some deep part of him, scared. "We're good together. In fact, we just seem to get better and better. What's wrong with making this a habit?"

  She closed her eyes and turned her face away from his hand, though not before he saw the glitter of moisture through her lashes. She drew a weary-sounding breath. "I thought we already had this conversation."

  "Sure we did." Then, because he figured his arguments might carry more weight with her if he wasn't bare naked when he presented them, he drew his knees up and draped some covers over them. Then his arms. "As I recall, the objections to us having a relationship had to do with my job, your 'gift' and Jeannette."

  'That's about the size of it," she whispered thickly.

  "Okay, look." He halted and held up a hand, laughing a little as the irony of what he was doing hit him. 'This is weird," he muttered, half to himself. "Isn't it the guy that's supposed to be skittish about commitments?"

  He rubbed a hand over the intractable stubble of his hair, then across his eyes, which had begun to burn. "I know the odds aren't good for cops, but also I know some who've beaten them. And Jeannette seems to have become my responsibility whether you wanted her to or not. As for your…other thing, I guess I don't quite get what the problem is."

  She dashed at one eye with her fingertips, sniffed, then laughed softly. "I can't believe this is happening. I never meant for it to. I swear. I thought-" She drew in a breath, put her hands on her knees and straightened her back. "I want The Gift-The Curse, whatever you want to call it- to end with me. It has to end…with me."

  Wade shook his head in puzzlement, distracted by the sweet gentle curve of her spine above the sagging drape of sheet, and the alluring promise of more treasures beneath it.

  "Why are you so convinced being psychic is the kiss of death for a relationship? Hell, if it's passing it on you're afraid of, we can always just use birth control." He added that in a rough, determined voice, ruthlessly squelching the voice of instinct somewhere deep inside him that had jumped up in immediate protest.

  What? No kids? What about family? Hold on a minute here!

  Having felt his longing. Tierney just smiled at him and shook her head. "Oh, Wade. I wish it were that simple, I really do."

  "It is that simple. If you want something badly enough you find a way to make it work."

  Her mind filled with images of a sweet but stubborn child. Gently she said, "You hardly know me."

  "Maybe I know you better than you'd like to think I do. And if I don't know you as well as I'd like to, that's on you." He stabbed a forefinger at her. "Yeah, Tee. You think I block you? You block me. You shut me out. And I don't know why, because I don't even have the ability to read people like you do. Maybe-" he paused, and his eyes narrowed as if they hurt him "-yeah, maybe that's what's really scaring you. The idea that you'd have to open yourself up to someone. Because that's what it takes to make a relationship work, you know-you have to let someone in. Let yourself be vulnerable. Need someone." His voice grew gruff. "Like I needed you last night. Like you needed me when your grandmother was missing. Only in a relationship it's not just once in a while, it's all the time, twenty-four-seven. That's what makes it work. You open up for each other. You trust. You share."

  She couldn't answer him; her throat was locked up tight. After a moment, with his luminous blue eyes looking deep into hers, he said softly, "So, it can be done, Miss Tee. Which I guess makes the question, do you want a relationship with me? At all?"

  Yes…oh, yes. More than I could have believed possible.

  She swallowed and looked away.

  '"Ha!" Wade's finger traced her spine, devastating her with goose bumps. "You do, don't you? I knew it. You're not the only one who can-"

  She whirled on him, tears smarting in her eyes-angry tears this time. "For God's sake. Wade, use your head. Look at my family. Haven't you noticed the complete and total absence of men? We're a family of single women. Doesn't that tell you something?"

  He simply looked at her, eyes tender, his smile, even clothed in morning stubble, angelic.

  She wanted to throttle him.

  "Jeannette, my mother, me-"

  "You…are young, my dear-you just haven't found the right person yet.
Hadn't. Until now. You don't know whether your mother's single or not, and anyway, you can hardly blame The Gift if she is, since she doesn't even have it, Jeannette, from what you told me, wasn't married long enough to know how it would have worked out."

  "But that's just it-Gran never tried again. Want to know why? She was afraid to." Words tumbled out of her, faster than she could think, faster than she could screen them. "Because she believed she should have prevented Tommy's death. She told me. She believed her Gift didn't work with him, that it actually prevented her from being able to see the danger. She was afraid to let herself get that close to anyone again. She thought…she thought-" But the freshet of words had dried up.

  Understanding bloomed in Wade's eyes. He said slowly. "So that's why you won't let yourself get close to me? You're afraid you might put me in some kind of danger?"

  He gave a short bark of laughter. "God, I can't believe the irony of this. Isn't it the other way around? Seems to me it's my job that's put you in danger. You were brought in to help with my case, and now look. You've got a sadistic psychopath after you."

  "Okay." She grabbed a desperate breath. "Okay, back to your job, since you mention it. What about the way this…whatever it is between us-"

  "Relationship," he offered, eyes narrowed.

  "Well, what about the way it's affecting your job?"

  Slam went his shields, but not before she caught a glimmer of guilt. Guilt mixed with bright flashes of fear.

  "What the hell do you mean?"

  She got up. adjusting the sheet around herself, and he let her go. perhaps both of them needing the distance, both physical and emotional, like a moat between them.

  She faced him across the chasm and said gently. "Wade, you're here right now, aren't you? Here with me. Where would you normally be on the morning after finding a killer's private lair?"

  He leaned back on one elbow, outwardly relaxed, eyes wary. And not even a hint of emotion sneaking past his barricades. "Oh, sifting through a mountain of evidence, probably. Trying to figure out the creep's whereabouts. His next move. Next-"

  "Victim?" She paused, and the word hung shimmering between them. Softly she added, "But you know his next victim, don't you, Wade."

  "Yeah, and I've got her in protective custody." His lips stretched in a smile. "With some obvious variations, I'd be doing the same if it were anyone else."

  "Would you? Truthfully?" Again she waited before quietly adding, "You know who the killer wants, you know where she-"

  He shifted irritably, sat upright. "No. Don't even think-"

  "I am thinking. It's you who's refusing to admit what needs to be done. Because you have…feelings for me, Wade. Because of those feelings, you're not doing your job."

  His hands gripped the edge of the mattress and his eyes hardened. "Don't tell me how to do my job." His voice was low and dangerous.

  She could feel her heart thumping beneath her arms where they crisscrossed her body, holding the sheet in place. "If it was anyone but me, you'd have it in motion already. You know you would. It's a no-brainer. You have a chance to catch this guy, and you're not taking it."

  "Tee. I'm warning you."

  "Wade." She closed her eyes, sucked in a breath. "I was brought in to help solve this case. Now I have a chance to help you close it. Please, let me do it."

  He got up slowly but in a fury, like magma rising. "Goddamn it, Tierney. I'm not going to let you be some sort of bait. Like a…a lamb staked out for a tiger. Don't ask me to, because I won't do it."

  "I know." she said, shaking so hard she could feel her teeth chattering. Now that the moment was here, she was terrified. "That's why I didn't ask you."

  Wade felt ice creep around his heart. "What are you talking about?"

  She lifted her chin and met his eyes, standing her ground in the face of his anger without flinching. And angry as he was with her just then, he had to admit her courage humbled him. As the words he dreaded tore at his heart.

  "I called your boss. Yesterday. Nola Hoffman, isn't that her name? Anyway, she thinks it's a great idea. So does her boss…Styles? It's already in the works, Wade. You're going to use me to smoke out your killer."

  In the lakeshore house in South Carolina, Cory Pearson closed the lid of his overnighter-the one he'd just brought back with him from Lebanon-and zipped it shut. He looked at his wife, sitting cross-legged in the middle of the bed. somberly watching him. "You know I wish I didn't have to leave again so soon. I just-"

  "You don't have to explain to me, Pearse."

  He leaned across the suitcase to kiss her. "I know. But just the same. This trip-losing my cameraman-it really brought it home to me." He smiled crookedly. "As if I needed any more reminding after that little adventure of ours in the Philippines. How things can change in a heartbeat- literally. Change forever. I've come this close, now I'm starting to get superstitious. What if something happened to one or the other of us, and we never got a chance to know each other? I don't know if I could handle it, Sam."

  His wife bounced her way off the bed and came to put her arms around him. Hugged him close for a long, precious time. Then she stepped away from him, and in a resolute voice made poignant by her smile and the tears shining in her eyes, said, "You've got a plane to catch, Pearse. Go. And be sure and call me after. The very minute. Promise."

  "I promise. I love you so damn much, Samantha June."

  "I know"

  The silence in the car was profound. Wade had wrapped himself in it like a survivor of some disaster huddled in a blanket, refusing to even look at the woman sitting mute and motionless as a statue beside him.

  He drove with the window down and his elbow propped on the sill, his hand covering the lower part of his face, while he went over the plan again in his mind.

  It was simple enough, on its face.

  The department would "leak" word to the media- through its usual channels-that another body had been found, believed to be the work of the Torture Killer. The location of the crime scene would also be leaked. The idea being that the TK, James Jeffrey Larson, knowing himself to be innocent of this particular crime, but knowing also that his designated next victim-Tiemey-would likely be present at the crime scene, would make every possible effort to show up there, as well. Ideally he would be spotted and taken down on the spot. Failing that, Larson would, hopefully, follow her from the crime scene, waiting for his chance.

  Which police would make every effort to give him.

  The variables, and thus the possibilities for something to go wildly wrong, were legion. Certainties were few.

  Consequently, Wade was furious. Not to mention worried. And scared out of his mind.

  None of which he made any attempt to keep Tierney from reading, along with the fact that he considered her to be stubborn, intractable, foolhardy and…some things he couldn't even think of words for.

  Tierney bore all this without flinching. She ached with his suffering, understood it even though she believed strongly that he was wrong.

  She'd tried her best to reassure him.

  "I'll be perfectly safe, Wade. Remember, this isn't a killer who strikes from a distance, or from cover. He needs to be up close and personal with his victim."

  "What," he'd answered back, "you're telling me my job, again? I know what he does when he gets up close and personal with his victims, remember? I've seen them-all of them. You've only seen one-in person. But hey-I've got pictures. Maybe you need to take a good, close look."

  She replied gently, knowing the cruelty was only a measure of his deep concern for her. "The point is, there should be plenty of time for police to close in before he has a chance to hurt me."

  "Should. That's the word. No guarantees."

  "Also, don't forget I'll be able to 'feel' him if he even gets close. I'll be wired, Wade. I'll be able to warn you when he's nearby."

  "Yeah?" His eyes had bored into hers, red-rimmed, brilliant as diamonds. "What if he blocks you? This guy knows what you can do. He believes in wh
at you can do so much, he wants to kill you to protect himself."

  "He may try to block his emotions, but I don't think he'll be able to, not completely. The emotions driving this man are simply too powerful. He can't control them. If he could, he probably wouldn't be doing these terrible things."

  Wade shifted suddenly, jerking himself upright in the driver's seat.

  "I can't believe you're going to do this." He smacked the steering wheel with his fist. "Damn it, Tee-you've been inside this guy's head."

  Her thoughts had been wandering wistfully back over their more tender moments, and she had to clear her throat before she could reply. "Soul, not head."

  "Even worse. You know how sick he is."

  She shook her head, sadness making that her only possible response for a moment. Then she said softly. "Not sick-damaged. Beyond repair, probably, but I don't think he was born that way. This was done to him."

  "I can't believe it," Wade said to the windshield, lips stretched in a travesty of a smile. "Now she's actually feeling sympathy for the guy."

  And again, knowing where it came from, she forgave the dig with a small shrug and a wry smile. "I can't help it, you know. It's the price you pay for having empathy."

  He didn't reply, and the car once again filled with silence.

  Empathy. Wade was beginning to hate that word. Curse the day he'd first heard it. What did it mean, anyhow? It seemed to mean, to him anyway, that having it would make it damn near impossible to know for sure how to feel about anything.

  He considered himself a pretty fair-minded, liberal-thinking kind of guy-for a cop-but how in the hell was he supposed to do his job if the perp's point of view kept getting in the way? He wasn't supposed to understand the dirtbag's motivation, just catch the sonofabitch and put him away.

  Beside him, Tierney stirred restlessly, and because he was already on edge, fully aware he'd been broadcasting and itching for a fight, he barked at her. "What?"

  She turned her head toward him and gave him a long look. He didn't have to see her expression for it to make him feel uncomfortable.