Unfortunately, she had no time to think about it. The only thing she had time for right now was a long, hot shower. But hell, if that shower included a little erotic daydreaming and some flirtation with her shower massage, well, there were certainly worse ways to start the day.
Chapter 8
Saturday, 5:50 a.m.
Having long been a victim of insomnia, Aidan was used to sleeping in short increments. He took rest when he could get it, not even attempting to shut himself down unless his mind was devoid of any pressing thoughts. Which meant he’d done very little sleeping the previous night.
But at some point he had drifted off. He’d last looked at the clock at three. Checking it now as he jerked awake, he realized he’d managed almost three solid hours, which was good for him these days. Yet he didn’t feel rested. God, no. In fact, he felt more edgy and tense than ever.
Because of his dreams.
“Shouldn’t have touched her, man,” he told himself as he sat up on the couch in his office, where he almost always slept these days. “You should never have made contact.”
Too late. He had touched her, cupped her cheek, felt the brush of her hair on his skin. And though he’d been honest that he couldn’t do any kind of Vulcan mind meld, that simple connection of his fingertips to Lexie’s face had created a hell of an opening between their minds.
Maybe not. Maybe it was just a normal dream. And just yours.
Maybe. After all, he’d never experienced anything like that before, sharing actual real-time mental images with another person while they both slept. It never worked that way, his ability. There had never been an actual open channel with thoughts, feelings, and sensations flowing back and forth between him and someone else.
So, yeah, it probably had been just his dream. A hot, sexy dream about a sexy woman who’d intrigued him from almost the very start.
“Yeah, dream on,” he muttered.
Because, somehow, he knew it had been real. Last night hadn’t been some standard sex dream. It had been so physical, so tangible. He was out of breath, as if he’d completed a hard workout. His heart was pounding. He could smell that spicy shampoo of hers, plus the sweet, pungent aroma of steamy sex. He was sweating, his skin sensitized. And he had a huge hard-on.
“More than just a dream,” he admitted aloud.
There had been communication, give-and-take between them. Each intimacy had been returned with an equally erotic one, and they’d moved together like long-time lovers.
They’d met in the night. Her mind had been swept up with midnight visions and he’d barged into them. The details were too clear, the sensations too extreme to mean anything else.
Though he’d walked her to her door last night, he hadn’t gone in. Yet he knew the sheets on her bed were a soft yellow and the bedspread had daisies on it. He knew the ceiling fan above the bed squeaked, but that the breeze it generated felt good against their sweat-tinged bodies.
He knew Lexie had a small birthmark just below her right pelvic bone, that it was shaped like a crescent moon, and that his lips would fit perfectly against it. Just like he knew she loved having him tangle his fingers in her hair when he was inside her.
He knew all of that. Because he’d been there, in her mind, sharing every experience as it had happened. He’d slipped inside her dream and upped the stakes, answering each of her fantasies with mind-blowing attention, fulfilling every one of his own at the same time.
He knew something else, too. They hadn’t been sharing one dream about some could- have-been kind of encounter. They had jointly anticipated a someday-soon one.
And though he knew he was nowhere near ready to let anybody—any woman—into his life on a real, permanent basis, especially one who was upbeat, energetic, outgoing, and his total opposite, his bed was a completely different story. There, he didn’t think it mattered how different they were, or whether he was even capable of connecting emotionally with anyone ever again. He was definitely interested in connecting physically.
So if he had his way, that someday soon would be very soon indeed.
Saturday, 10:55 a.m.
“Ms. Jackson? Berna Jackson?” Lexie asked, knocking on the warped apartment door. She’d intentionally arrived at the dilapidated building at midmorning. Her hope was to be late enough that Vonnie’s mother would be awake, but early enough that she hadn’t yet left to go out for a liquid lunch that would last dozens of courses and many hours. “I need to talk to you!”
She got no answer. Lexie considered pounding harder, yet she hesitated. The building was quiet. On arrival, she’d seen none of the residents smoking on the outside stoop like there had been yesterday, nor did any children play on the rusty swing set outside. The dingy halls, lit by bare, weak bulbs, were deserted. No ragged women watched with suspicious, bruised eyes; no thin, jittery men tried to hide the needle they’d just used to shoot up. It was a ghetto ghost town.
She suspected she knew why. Lots of people would be sleeping off hangovers or recovering from a wild Friday night that lasted until dawn. Children had probably been plopped down in front of Saturday-morning cartoons and told to stay quiet for fear of waking up somebody who wouldn’t be happy being awakened. What a life. What an awful, tragic life.
Vonnie. God, no wonder she’d so desperately wanted to get out. For her sake, she couldn’t give up. Hopefully, now that Aidan seemed committed to helping her, and the whole town was starting to demand answers, the truth would come out.
She couldn’t deny it felt good to have allies. Especially allies who could stare down a belligerent jerk, or touch her and make all the anxiety melt away.
She knocked again. “Mrs. Jackson, please open the door. I have some information. I think you’re going to want to hear about what happened at the game last night.”
Mentioning the game reminded her of the rest of last night. As in, her car. She still had to deal with the legalities of that. She’d called her insurance agent this morning, who’d told her she’d need to file a police report. Not up to that, she’d arranged for a rental car. To her knowledge, her poor little Honda still sat on its four flat tires in the school parking lot. It wasn’t going anywhere and could be dealt with this afternoon—when she didn’t have to do it alone.
Somehow, the image of going to the police station and reporting the vandalism seemed a little easier when Aidan was included. He’d made the offer last night, and while it hadn’t seemed entirely necessary then, now she intended to take him up on it. It would be one of their first stops after she met up with him at his place at noon. Hopefully by then she’d be able to meet his eye without revealing that she’d spent all night dreaming of doing wild things with him.
Glancing at her watch and realizing Vonnie’s mother was either dead to the world or already gone, she gave it one more shot. She knocked again, a little harder, and raised her voice as much as she dared. “Please, Ms. Jackson, I know you wanted to talk to me!”
Still nothing, but she did hear a creak from behind her. Swinging around, Lexie saw a robe-wearing neighbor, eyeing her through a cracked door across the hall. This wasn’t the same woman she’d talked to previously, who’d been weary but worried about her neighbor’s daughter. This one looked hard and bleary-eyed, as if she’d been on an all-night bender. And Lexie had woken her up. Not a good way to begin an acquaintance.
“Hi. I’m sorry to—”
“She ain’t home. Ain’t been home since yest’day mornin’.”
A vicious-sounding dog barked from behind the closed door of another apartment in the rundown building. A thin wooden door, a chain, and a dead bolt didn’t sound strong enough to keep it away should it choose to sic. It might, however, keep random drug dealers and thieves from coming too close, which was probably the animal’s entire purpose in life.
Honestly, Lexie found it hard to believe the girl she’d been learning so much about over the last forty-eight hours had grown up here. How had she done it? How had Vonnie had the strength to overcome this when s
o many could not?
“Do you know where she is?” Somehow, Lexie suspected Vonnie’s mother wasn’t out there holding candlelight protests.
“She got the notes you left,” the woman said. “Was supposed to call you.”
“She didn’t.”
“Look, I know fuck-all about where the woman is. She said she was gonna call, so why don’t you stop pounding the door down and get on back to your side of town?”
“Ma’am, I’m sorry I disturbed you, but Ms. Jackson’s daughter is missing.”
“I know that,” she snapped. “Everybody knows Vonnie’s gone.”
“I want to help find her.”
“You wanna help? Get that pussy chief to pay attention to what’s goin’ on down here.”
A familiar refrain. She’d heard the same thing a month before when researching the original story. Dunston had few fans south of Woodsboro Avenue.
“I think he’ll have to, given what happened last night at the football game,” Lexie said. She briefly explained, concluding, “Believe me, ma’am, he’s not going to be able to ignore this any longer. The rest of this town won’t let him.”
The door may have eased open another inch. But that could have been her imagination.
“So if you have any idea where I can look for Vonnie’s mother. . . .”
“She said last night she was goin’ to confront the cops,” the woman admitted, begrudging every word. “Gonna handcuff herself to the flagpole to get them to pay attention.”
Lexie frowned. “How much had she had to drink when she said that?”
The other woman’s lip quirked up on one side in jaded amusement. “Just enough to think it sounded like a good idea, but not enough for her to pass out and forget the whole thing.”
“Not good,” she muttered.
“Nope. So I’d prob’ly start by lookin’ in the closest jail cell. And while you’re there, you can ask Dunston ’bout what else is goin’ on down here.”
“Are you talking about the other missing girls?”
“Yeah, well, missing ones ain’t all I’m talkin’ about. Lot more happening in this town that nobody gives a damn about, least of all the po-lice.”
The dog barked again, and the woman froze. As if realizing she’d been about to say something she shouldn’t, she stepped back into her dark apartment, her eyes wide with fear.
Lexie followed, crossing the hall to the other door. “What are you talking about?”
The woman shook her head. “Go on, now,” she urged. “Get outta here.”
“Please, I just want to help!” she said, keeping her voice low.
“Tina?” a male voice bellowed from somewhere inside. “Who you talkin’ to?”
Her mouth fell open, her bottom lip quivering. Lexie recognized that tone, and the terror it brought to Tina’s face. “I’m sorry.” Lexie stepped back, holding her hands out in supplication, not begging for more answers. Not if it was going to land this woman in trouble with that man.
Tina watched her closely, as if waiting for Lexie to push her, demand more. When she realized that wasn’t going to happen, her compressed lips softened a bit. She glanced to the right again, starting to ease the door closed, whispering, “Talk to the fresh fish on the corner.”
“What?”
“The underage hookers,” the woman hissed.
Then the door slid closed with a decisive click. From within came another male bellow. Lexie bit her lip, appreciating the woman’s help, wishing she could come to her aid. But the best thing she could do for her was to get out of here and never let her husband or boyfriend know she’d been talking to a reporter about things he would say were none of her business.
She might not have been raised in a building like this, but she knew how things went here. And once again, as she left the shabby hallway, the shouting voices, the barking dog behind, she could only think about Vonnie.
Just how hard would the girl fight to stay alive if this was all she had to return to?
Saturday, 11:05 a.m.
Aidan wasn’t surprised when Julia Harrington knocked on his door a little after eleven a.m. He’d called her last night to fill her in on what had been going on in Granville and to see if she was interested in helping out. She’d asked a few questions, then said he’d see her today, promising to spread the word and find out if any of the others minded working on a Saturday.
Apparently, they hadn’t minded. Because as soon as he answered the door, two of her three employees walked in behind the energetic, dark-haired woman. Barging into his house, they acted as if they’d all worked together every day for the past year. They tossed their jackets on the coatrack by the door, making themselves at home like they’d been here dozens of times.
“I see you rallied the troops,” he said, knowing how persuasive his former boss could be.
She shrugged, a twinkle appearing in her soft brown eyes. “Most of them.”
“Where’s Morgan?” he asked, lifting one brow, knowing she had to hear the overly innocent note in his voice as he inquired about her mysterious “silent” partner in the agency.
She waved a hand in the air. “Out getting the lay of the land. And Derek sends his apologies—he had another obligation today, but said he’d come tomorrow if we need him.”
They would need him, though probably not by tomorrow. Aidan felt sure several murders had been committed in Granville, but finding out where they had occurred would be tough. Not something that could be accomplished in just twenty-four hours. There was no point in bringing Derek Monahan down until they had a crime scene, where he could do what he did best.
“As for the rest of us,” Julia added, “it’s not like we have real lives or anything better to do on the weekends. Now, do I have to say it, or is it simply understood?”
He knew what was coming and sighed. “You might as well get it over with.”
“Okay. I told you so.”
“So you did.”
“Crime solving is in your blood, and doing it from a thousand miles away was never going to be enough for you. You live for this.”
Maybe, though he wasn’t ready to jump back in with both feet. Now he just wanted to get through this one case, find this missing girl. Then he could do a big Zen self-evaluation on all the choices he’d made in recent months and decide if he wanted to make any changes.
“Are we done now?”
“Not quite.” She squeezed his shoulder. “I’m really glad you’ve taken off the hair shirt. If only you hadn’t bought this white elephant and could move back to Savannah.”
He took no offense, knowing she had decided that his getting involved with this case meant he was ready to go back to everything about his old life. He wasn’t there yet and didn’t know if he ever would be. Going backward seemed a little pointless. Since last night, during those charged moments in the car with Lexie, he’d begun to think a lot about going forward.
“I appreciate your coming,” he said. “Now are you done?”
“Yep,” she said with a cheerful smile.
The others had been exploring inside. Liv had been here once, Mick not at all. Seeing them, hearing them talk as he walked through his usually silent home, he felt a little like the winter warlock from that old kid’s Christmas show. Crowded—but at least part of a group again.
“Hey, man, long time, no see!” said Mick Tanner, who had been the last person to come to work for Julia before Aidan’s departure last year.
They didn’t know each other well. Mick hadn’t come with the others a few weeks ago for their dinner at Ranger Joe’s—the one that had turned out to be so important in linking him to Vonnie Jackson. He wasn’t even entirely sure whether Mick’s abilities had been of help in any of eXtreme Investigations’ cases. But Aidan had thought from day one that he could like the guy, whose unusual background had left him with a great sense of humor and a lot of cool stories.
“Good to see you, Mick. Thanks for coming down.” Aidan extended his hand in greeting, realizi
ng it was the first time, both of them cautious in the past, both having their reasons. It was as if a simple handshake meant they’d passed each other’s test.
He didn’t for one second worry he wouldn’t be able to control his ability to stay out of Mick’s thoughts—or anyone else’s. Even Vonnie’s terror couldn’t permeate and catch him unaware because of that mental wall he’d rebuilt. He had to open himself up to it—as he had this morning when he’d again tried to find the girl, with no luck. Lexie’s thoughts and fantasies were the only ones that seemed able to invade his psyche whether he was ready for them or not. And that was because he wanted her as much as she wanted him. He knew it.
“Lots of old stuff around here,” Mick murmured, eyeing the room. He studied the antiques, the art, the period furniture—mostly things Aidan had bought off the previous owner because he didn’t want to deal with shopping once he moved in.
“Yeah. Sorry about that.”
Mick shrugged, used to these situations, especially in the South where tradition meant holding on to remnants of the past until nobody remembered what they’d once been used for. Not that Mick ever wondered. Once he touched something, he knew. The older the object, the deeper the history. Which was why the other man would have to be careful here.
Judging by the way Mick reached into his pockets, withdrew a pair of thin leather gloves, and pulled them onto his hands, he already knew that, too.
“Hello, Aidan,” a woman said, the voice warm, yet reserved. That described Olivia Wainwright very well. Of all of them, she had the most reason to be cautious, to protect herself emotionally from what they did for a living.
Hers was a talent he did not envy, an ability that seemed straight out of a horror movie. He wasn’t sure he’d have the strength to use her dark gift had he been cursed with it. That she was still working for Julia after two years said a lot about how well she was able to handle it.
“Hi, Olivia.”
The redhead kissed his cheek. “I’m so glad you called. We’ve missed you a great deal.”
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