She realized she would probably still be sleeping if not for that sound….
That sound. The soft steady purr of a motor running. And footsteps…on the front porch? Rex growled from somewhere far away.
She got to her feet and hurried to the closet for a robe, pulled it on as fast as possible, and ran to the window to look outside just in time to see Ethan Melrose’s Mercedes pulling away.
“Hell.” She turned and raced down the stairs. Then came up short at the sight of River lying there in the blankets on the floor. The fire had burned hot during the night, and he’d thrown the covers off of his chest. He lay on his back, arms splayed, head flung to one side, eyes closed as his chest rose and fell with the steady rhythm of his breathing. Rex had apparently decided to take the spot Jax had left vacant. The dog was curled close beside River, head resting on one arm. Apparently he hadn’t been disturbed enough by the noise to get up and investigate. Only enough to lift his head and growl a little before snuggling down again. “Some police dog,” she muttered, deliberately using her mother’s term.
River was gorgeous. He was filling out the way he ought to, and she loved to look at him. And to touch him. And…
She pursed her lips and remembered her mission, dragged her gaze away from him and focused on the front door. Its lock was still turned, but the curtain gaped. Anyone looking inside…
She stepped to the door, opened it, very careful not to let the movement change the curtain’s position. She wanted to see what their morning visitor might have seen, had he peeked inside. Stepping outside, barefoot on the cold wood of the porch, she pulled the door closed again, and bent her head to peer through.
River lay in plain sight, still bathed in the glow of coals and the dying flames from the fireplace. His face was perfectly visible.
Sighing, she straightened again, glancing at the porch itself, but there was no snow to hold any footprints, and the path from the driveway to the porch steps was also clear.
“Damn.”
She opened the door and went back inside, rubbing her arms against the cold. She headed to the fireplace, removed the screen as quietly as she could, and tossed the last two logs from the pile onto the coals. Then she tiptoed to the kitchen to put on a pot of coffee.
It was as she was pouring water into the pot that she felt soft hands close on her shoulders, soft lips nuzzle her neck and sleepy whispers reach her ear. “You didn’t come back last night.”
Man, this had to stop. It had to stop. It was too intimate, this early-morning, pre-coffee nuzzling. So why did it feel so good? So…right? She moved slightly, just enough to escape his touch. “Yeah. I, uh—I got to thinking it probably would be better if we cooled it for a while. With the sex, I mean.”
She glanced up at him. He looked so hurt that she had to avert her eyes from the pain in his. She felt like an assassin. And it hurt her so badly to say it that she knew she was right. It was the only possible thing she could do. She needed to sort out the foreign feelings swirling around inside her. She needed clarity. Objectivity. Distance.
“Oh,” was all he said. Then, “Are you worried about—we didn’t use protection either time. Do you think—”
She shook her head. “I’m pretty sure I’m at the wrong part of my cycle for that to be a problem,” she said.
“I think someone may have seen you here, River.” Amazing, she thought, that she was saying it more to change the subject than due to the urgency of the fact. Even though it was urgent. “Whoever it was left in Ethan’s car, so I’m guessing it must have been him. Had to have been someone with a set of keys. The set he gave me are still hanging on the rack by the front door.”
“So…?” He knew there had to be more.
“I heard footsteps on the porch just before the car left. And I’m telling you, if he peered through the window, he saw you. You were in plain sight.”
“Hell.” River lowered his head quickly. “That clinches it, then. I have to leave.”
“No you don’t.” Wait a minute, hadn’t she just decided she needed distance? Not that much distance. Two feet is more than I want. I’m pathetic.
“Yeah, I do,” he said. “If Ethan knows I’m here, he’s going to have to try to find me. To see me. He might even turn me in. And that would ruin your career, Cassandra.”
She shrugged. “It’s going to make my career when we find proof you were set up, River.”
“If we do.” He swallowed. “If I was.”
She shook her head, refusing to consider the alternative. “We’ll talk about where you’re going to stay later. This morning we’ve got some errands to run.” She looked at him more thoroughly, in search of signs of pain or trouble with the leg. “You’re not supposed to be on that leg without a cane or a crutch.”
“It’s a lot better this morning. A little sore. I’ll be fine. I think I can even manage the stairs now.”
She nodded, deciding to take his word for it rather than fussing over him. It was so unlike her to fuss. And yet she was having trouble keeping herself from doing it. “Go on and get ready then, River. I’m going to fill a couple of travel mugs with coffee, and give Rex his morning meal and a quick run outside. He’s going to be cooped up all day in the car with us again.”
Rex barked, and she knelt and rubbed his head. “What you need is a doggy door and the backyard fenced in, don’t you, boy? Then you could come and go as you pleased. Yes, you could.”
“I always intended to do that for him,” River said.
She shrugged, and realized Rex was River’s dog, not hers. If they did find proof of his innocence he would probably want his dog back. Hell, he’d probably want his house back, as well.
“I’ll be quick,” he told her. “In case Ethan tips off the authorities. Search party could show up any minute.”
“I have a feeling Frankie would give me a heads-up before raiding the place,” Jax said.
“Yeah, and if that’s true, Ethan has probably already thought of it. He can read people.”
“Like he read you?” she asked. “As insane, as a killer?”
He closed his eyes. “We don’t know he was wrong about me. Not for sure.”
“I know,” she said. And it sounded a little too…breathy and romantic, and she rolled her eyes. “Go take your shower, will you? We don’t have all day.”
He nodded, a slight smile appearing on his face, and limped away.
CHAPTER 18
River had showered and dressed, and Jax had downed two cups of coffee, started the car and filled their travel mugs a half hour later. They were on their way out when the telephone rang.
Sighing, Jax snatched up the receiver. “Hello?”
“Hello, Jax. How’s your weekend off going?”
She smiled at the familiar voice. “Fine, Frankie. How about yours?”
“Very funny. You know perfectly well I’m on call twenty-four-seven.”
“Why do I get the feeling I’m on call right now?” Jax asked her. She sent a look at River, who was standing by the door. He held her gaze, his eyes like a physical touch that made her warm and cold at the same time. The car was running in the driveway, exhaust making clouds in the wintry air. “What do you need, Frankie?”
“I had a call from Mrs. Ethan Melrose this morning.”
“You’re kidding me. What did she want?”
“You, I’m afraid. She wants to talk to you, alone.”
“About?”
“The Corbett case.”
Jax blinked slowly. River was coming closer now, his eyes curious, probing. “Why would Victoria Melrose want to talk to me about River Corbett?” As she said it, Jax leaned closer to River, putting her ear and the phone close to his, and tipping the receiver so he could listen in.
“I wish I knew,” Frankie said. “If you’d rather not do this, I can forward the request to the state police. She’ll just have to understand that, technically, it’s their case.”
“She didn’t call the state police, Frankie. She called
me. I just wish I knew why.”
“Well, I guess there’s only one way to find out. She wants you to meet her, to talk. Forty-five East Main, Burlington.”
“What’s there?” Jax asked.
“It’s a coffee house. Perfectly safe. Still, you can take one of the boys with you if you—”
“No, that’s all right. I’ll go alone, like she wants. See what she has to say. What time?”
“Eleven.”
Jax glanced at the clock and knew she’d have to leave right then to make the appointment. “All right. I’ll go now.”
“Thanks, Jax. I don’t have any reason to think this is high risk, but you watch your back, just in case. From what I understand, Victoria Melrose was Stephanie Corbett’s best friend. Could still be some emotions running pretty high, there.”
“Will do.”
“And I’ll be expecting to hear what you find out later on.”
“You’ve got it. Bye for now, Frankie.”
Jax hung up the phone and turned to River. “Change of plans. You go to that inn without me. It’s not like you’ll be recognized there. It’s in Burlington not Blackberry. Your face hasn’t gone out over the airwaves or anything like that. I’ll have a nice chat with Victoria and see what she has to say. All right?”
“I don’t like it.” He was frowning hard, and she knew he was trying to think of any reason Victoria Melrose might want to talk to her, but seemed to be drawing a blank, just as she had.
“Do you have some reason not to trust her?” Jax asked.
River met her eyes. “No. I’ve always adored the woman. I just…I don’t know what she wants. I don’t understand why she would want to talk to you.”
“Maybe she knows something, River. If Ethan was involved in any of this, maybe she’s ready to talk. We have to find out.”
“I could go.”
“She didn’t ask for you. Listen, you can drop me there, and take the car on to the inn. We’ll scope this coffee house out first, and pick a spot a couple of blocks away to meet up when you get back—say around noon?”
“You think you’re gonna need a whole hour?”
“What can she do to me in an hour?” Jax lifted her brows. “She’s not a body builder or anything, is she?”
“She’s a pixie stick,” he said.
“Good. I used to eat pixie sticks.” Jax winked. “Besides, you’ll need an hour to get to that inn, ask the questions that need asking, and get back to me. Come on, River. Don’t go all overprotective on me, it’ll only piss me off.”
He sighed but nodded. “Take your sidearm,” he told her.
“I’m never without it,” she promised. “You’d better take the spare. And don’t forget our backup,” she said with a look at Rex, who was standing by the door, ready for another ride in the car.
* * *
“So you still haven’t told your family that you were planning to see me here in the office today?” Dr. Melrose asked.
Dawn sighed and lowered her head. “It’s not that I’m ashamed of it. It’s just—I really prefer to get things straight in my head before I try to explain to anyone else, you know?”
“Even Bryan?”
She nodded. “Especially Bryan.”
“Why is that?” He leaned back in his chair, twisting his pen slowly in one hand. He had made a special effort for her, opening his office to see her on a weekend. She knew weekend appointments were not the norm. But he was good at his job—Beth said he was the top shrink at the state hospital. And Dawn was scared. She was tired of keeping all this to herself.
“I don’t know. I think Bryan would be angry with me for doubting my own sanity.”
“You don’t think he’d understand?”
She shook her head. “How could he understand? God, how could anyone understand this? My father was completely insane, and now it seems like I’m heading in the same direction.”
The doctor nodded. He had a way about him that let Dawn know he was really listening, really absorbing everything she said. It helped.
“You know, Dawn, when we first talked, I told you I had done quite a bit of reading about your father. Tell me how it is you feel his gift is manifesting in you.”
“Gift? God, it’s no gift. It’s more like a curse.”
“That depends, I suppose. Are you…hearing voices the way he did?”
“No. No. Mostly it’s just…like a heightened intuition. Like I know things I shouldn’t know.” She watched him to gauge his reaction to that. She still hadn’t decided just how much more she was going to tell him.
He nodded slowly. “Like—when the phone is going to ring.”
“And who it’s going to be. And sometimes, what they’re going to say.”
“I see.”
“It started out with simple things. Really small stuff, like a stray thought that turned out to be true later on. I thought it was coincidence, at first.”
He watched as he listened, seemed completely involved in what she had to say. “It happens to all of us. You think of a song and turn on the radio and it’s playing. Or you wonder about an old friend and then run into them later in the day.”
“Yeah. Yeah, that’s it exactly. But then it started getting bigger. I would know more complex things, more details.”
He was nodding enthusiastically. “It’s important, Dawn, that you know this doesn’t mean you’re insane. A lot of people have—or believe themselves to have—extra sensory perception. And most of them are perfectly sane.”
She blinked and searched his face. “But you don’t think it’s real.”
“What I think isn’t important.”
“But I want to know.”
He shrugged. “I really haven’t seen anything to convince me one way or the other. I have…an open mind on the subject.”
She sighed softly, bowing her head. “It’s…it’s changing now. I’ve started…seeing things.”
“What sorts of things?” he asked, unruffled, unalarmed by her revelation.
She’d expected him to react, and she wondered if he had, deep down. If he was just very good and very practiced at hiding it. “People. I think…I think they’re people who have died.”
“I see. Is there any one person in particular that you see more often than others?”
She thought a moment before answering. “You mean, besides my father?”
“You see your father?”
She nodded. “Yeah. But I don’t want to talk about him. There’s someone else. A woman.”
“A woman.”
“I saw her out near my friend Jax’s house one day. And at the inn that day when you first arrived. I saw her again in the diner when we met Jax for lunch—Beth and I, that is. The other night she was standing at the foot of my bed.”
He made a note, his brows drawn close. “Did she say anything?”
“She was trying to. I couldn’t hear anything. And then she got so frustrated she screamed—it was like a banshee’s wail or something. Just all-encompassing.”
“You heard her when she screamed?”
“No. I felt her.”
He nodded, wrote some more. “Interesting. Tell me, Dawn, do you find it odd that the one thing you can’t do is hear this woman? When, according to all I’ve read, that was the part your father talked about more than anything else—hearing voices?”
She shrugged. “I guess…I hadn’t thought about that.”
“What do you think this woman wants?” he asked.
“I don’t know. If I could have heard what she was trying so hard to say, I might, but as it is, I just don’t know.”
“I think you do.”
She tipped her head sideways, frowning at him. “How could I?”
“Just trust yourself for a moment, Dawn. Pretend everything you need to know is already inside your mind. Just take a total shot in the dark. If you had to guess, what would you think she was trying to say to you? What is it you think she might say when you finally get to where you can hear her? If
you ever do.”
“That would just be guessing.”
“So guess. Just try it—what harm can it do?”
She heaved a deep sigh and nodded slowly, but she knew this game wasn’t going to give her any answers. Guessing wasn’t the same as knowing. “I suppose—I’d think it was some kind of a warning. I imagine she might be trying to tell me someone is in danger.” Dawn blinked as she mulled that over. “Yeah, because it couldn’t be anything good she’s trying to tell me. And she’s so frustrated it’s like she expects me to do something to…I don’t know. Prevent it, maybe. And I think it’s something to do with Jax, because she showed up twice around her. Near the house, you know, and then the diner. She was standing right behind her.”
He nodded. “That’s very good. Now what’s going on with your friend Jax that makes you think she might be in danger?”
She shot him a look. “I’m not the one who thinks she’s in danger. This woman is.” But she was thinking even as she said it. Thinking that Jax was a cop, in search of an escaped mental patient and living in his former home. That had to be it. It had to be that she was at risk from the fugitive. And it made sense, too, given that Dawn had begun to wonder if the dead woman haunting her mind was the same one who’d died in that house, in the fire.
Hell, she should warn Jax. She should have warned her long before now, but she was too damn busy worrying about her own mental health.
And she still was. But that didn’t mean she could let Jax walk into danger.
She looked up at the doctor. And then she gasped and jumped to her feet.
The woman was standing on the far side of the office. Just standing there, staring at her, holding her baby in her arms. Her dress was burned, her face was scarred. She was so beautiful and so horrible all at once.
“What is it? What is it, Dawn? Are you seeing something now?” Dr. Melrose asked. He got to his feet slowly and turned his head to look where Dawn was staring.
“Listen, Dr. Melrose, I don’t want you carting me off to a rubber room somewhere, okay?”
“I’ve got no reason to do that, Dawn.”
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