Deadly Dreams

by Mary Stone

  “It’s sad. I feel terrible for his family. His parents still alive?”

  “Yes. In South Carolina. And I believe he has two sisters and a brother, all younger. I’ve met his brother Sam; plays ball for Clemson. The authorities are shipping him and Star back to Lake Secession, where his family lives. Like I said, that’s where the funeral will be. Star’s gonna be—” His voice cracked, and after a moment, he cleared his throat and tried again. “Star’s going to be buried with him.”

  Kylie didn’t say anything. When he cocked his head to look down at her, he noticed her cheeks were wet. Already crying. It was par for the course for her, but not so much for him. He stiffened his upper lip and forged ahead.

  “I’m going to drive there for the funeral,” he announced, enunciating the I’m so she wouldn’t misunderstand. “I should only be gone two days. Three at the most.”

  He expected pushback, but he didn’t get any. Her voice was gentle. “All right. By yourself? You don’t want me to go with you?”

  He didn’t. Somehow, it felt like something he needed to do on his own.

  He shook his head, still thinking about poor Star. He guessed that if he was going to go, with his dog by his side would be the way to do it. “Stay with the dogs. Vader’s already been through enough. He missed you. Not just Storm. You.”

  “All right.” She sat up and kissed his cheek. “I guess that’s okay. I still have a wedding to plan. Remember?”

  “Oh, right. I do seem to remember I might have proposed many moons ago.” He took her hand and twisted the engagement ring gently.

  “Just…” She placed her hand on his cheek, tears brimming in her eyes again.

  “Be safe,” he finished for her. “Got it.”

  She blinked the tears away, her forehead crinkling with worry. “And you better do a better job at checking in with me than Dina’s doing. Big time.”

  He linked their fingers together. “Maybe.”

  She punched him. “Say yes now, or else I’m making you take me with you, and you’re going to have to wear me around town like a tie because I’m not letting you shake me loose.”

  “All right, all right.” He held up his hands in surrender. “Yes! I promise.”

  She sat up so quickly that the dogs straightened. “Oh. And I’m letting you go on your own on one condition.”

  He narrowed his eyes at her. “Right. That I check in regularly. I thought we established that.”

  “Nope. That’s not a condition. That’s a necessity. As in, if you don’t do it, I’ll handcuff myself to you.” She stopped, chewing her bottom lip in deep thought. “Actually, two conditions. Real conditions.”

  He groaned. “What now?”

  “The first real condition is that you don’t drive. Not after Will. Don’t do that to me. Just…fly. It’s safer. I can drop you at the airport.”

  He held up a finger. “Sorry, but Lake Secession is only a couple hours away by car, tops.”

  She sucked in her cheeks and tapped away on her phone to double-check. “So?”

  “So, it would take me twice as long to fly there by the time I had to check in early and deal with security and all that shit, then I’d still have to rent a vehicle and drive. I’ll spend the night because it will probably be a two-day event.”

  He left out the part where he wanted to take his pistol, and if he flew, he’d have to check his luggage.

  The tears were back, her nose pink from emotion. She blinked furiously, turning away as she swiped at her face. “I’m sorry. I’m just so worried.”

  He pulled her against him. “Hey, if it makes you feel better, I’ll fly.”

  She sniffed hard, relief softening her features. “Really?”

  He kissed her forehead. “Really. What’s the second condition?”

  She turned more fully to face him. “I want you to tell me about all the cases you, Will, Kevin, Dina and Beez were on.”

  She’d asked about this before, several times. Every time he tried to think of it, though, he just got tired. There’d been quite a few, and not all of them did he care to relive. It seemed pointless, anyway. “Still plugging away on that little theory of yours?”

  She nodded. “The prison inmate one didn’t pan out. The two still alive are at Arrendale, but it just makes sense. And I had a thought yesterday. What if the killer used Amy Cooper and Craig Silva to lure you guys to the park? Like bait?”

  He stared at her. What a wicked theory for his sweet, sunshine-and-rainbows fiancée to come up with. Sometimes she could be so sweet that he’d forget she could be a pretty badass PI when she wanted to be. “That person would be a real deranged soul.”

  “Yes. But we all know those types exist. We’ve met them. Remember?”

  He did. And he didn’t want to be reminded of it. He’d come dangerously close to losing Kylie during each of those episodes. “Fine. I’ll humor you. But I don’t know what good it’ll do.”

  She stared at him expectantly, as if waiting for him to give her all the details, right that second.

  “Okay, okay. If you’re in such a rush, I keep files of all my cases in the filing cabinet by the desk in the spare bedroom,” he said. “Have at it. Just don’t mess it all up. I’m trying to keep it in some sense of order.”

  She jumped as if she were shot from a cannon and zoomed like a bolt of lightning for the door. When it slammed, he heard her footfalls noisily rushing up the staircase.

  He looked at his beer, then slowly drained it before standing. “Well, I guess I should go pack,” he said to the dogs.

  22

  Kylie didn’t have time to look through the files. She got Linc a flight, but it was one that was leaving right away. She’d barely had time to change and brush her teeth before she was driving him to the Asheville airport. She dropped him off at the curb and kissed him, feeling good that he’d be safe on a plane.

  At the time, she’d told herself it would be a breeze, him being gone overnight. Less than thirty hours. She could do that.

  Then she came home to the empty farmhouse and looked around, and her stomach sank.

  The dogs were there to keep her company, but she couldn’t shake the creepy feeling that slid up and down the length of her spine. Honestly, she hadn’t expected to feel this way. She’d been so wrapped up in Linc possibly being in danger that she hadn’t thought of herself.

  Being alone, without Linc…sucked.

  It was funny how, in the past six months, she’d come to depend on him so much. She’d once been so fearlessly independent that she hadn’t even been able to consider moving in with him. Not too long ago, she’d absolutely loved her independence and couldn’t imagine sharing a house with another person.

  But in the last few months, she’d come to realize that she didn’t just love him. She needed him.

  It was comforting to have him, but also…scary whenever he went away.

  Funny how quickly he’d turned her world completely upside down. For good? Yes, definitely.

  Though it wasn’t good that she had a hard time being alone like this.

  Stop, she told herself, going to the fridge and getting a bottle of wine. It was only noon, but she poured herself a big glass. You’re good. You’re a grown-up. You’ve got your guard dogs. Put on your big girl panties and deal.

  Also: PLAN THAT WEDDING.

  That, at least, was what she had planned to do. She’d started home, focused on wedding planning, thinking about what needed to be done and making a checklist of all the things she’d accomplish.

  But the second she thought of Linc, her mind stuck there, refusing to go back to the wedding stuff. She hoped he’d be safe. She knew how ridiculous it was to force him to fly when the actual drive would have been shorter, but she simply couldn’t risk him driving on his own.

  Not after Will.

  The thought made her shiver. She took a sip of wine, grabbed the stack of bridal magazines she’d amassed, and laid them out before her. Taking a deep, cleansing breath, she tried to f
ocus on the big event.

  A moment later, she started wondering where in the air Linc was. She’d told him to text her the moment he landed, and he hadn’t yet. Opening her phone, she checked to see that his plane wasn’t due to land for another five minutes.

  She looked back at the magazines. Concentrate.

  Ten minutes later, she found herself staring at a lock of her hair and picking out the split ones. She had way too many split ends. She definitely needed a trim.

  She looked back at the magazine. The bride and groom on the front of it were embracing, lost in the throes of love, but somehow, also seemed to be taunting her. We did it. Why can’t you get your fool ass together and plan it? It’s only the biggest day of your life?

  She lifted a sticky note that she’d been using to mark pages from the pile and stuck it right over the couple’s faces.

  Then she looked at her phone. Linc’s plane should have landed by now. Why hadn’t he texted?

  She grabbed her wine glass and took a big gulp. As she was swallowing, a text came through. She nearly pounced on her phone.

  It was from Linc. Safely on the ground.

  She smiled. It was a relief to have him out of harm’s way. If there was any harm to be had. She still didn’t know if he was in trouble, or if it was all just a coincidence. Still, she was glad they weren’t taking chances.

  Dina, the jerk, hadn’t sent her a reply on Facebook. She’d gone onto her profile and noticed she hadn’t updated, but Dina naturally didn’t update very much—her last status was a meme about dogs, and it was from two weeks prior. Kylie could only assume that she was still on the road, driving toward California.

  She’d said it would take two days. Maybe the battery in her phone had died. Maybe she’d get in contact once she arrived at her family’s house.

  At least, Kylie hoped.

  This all sounded too much like Will’s story. With Will, they’d made excuses and made excuses for him, and all the while, he’d been lying dead at the bottom of the gorge.

  Kylie opened up her Facebook Messenger and looked at the last six messages she’d sent Dina. Dina hadn’t read any of them yet, which yes, could’ve meant that Dina hadn’t been able to get onto her Facebook account. She knew Linc would probably roll his eyes at her, but she couldn’t help it.

  As far as Kylie was concerned, there was absolutely nothing wrong with having concern for another human being. There was too little of that in the world these days.

  She typed in just one more message, a quick, Hope everything’s okay, and pressed send.

  Then she set down her phone, grabbed her spiral planning notebook, and opened it to the first blank page.

  A magazine article she’d read had said the first step in planning was to make a checklist of everything that she needed to make the magical day come true, from invitations to honeymoon. She picked up a pen and had only written three letters W-E-D when her phone began to ring.

  It was Rhonda.

  She’d been avoiding her mom’s phone calls ever since she’d cancelled the dress-shopping extravaganza. There’d been at least one daily call, but Kylie had let them all go to voicemail, afraid she’d only end up feeling guilty about it.

  But now, she could put it off no longer.

  She lifted the phone and said, “Hi, Mom,” as cheerily as she could manage.

  “Don’t ‘hi, Mom’ me,” Rhonda said, accusation in her voice. “You’ve been avoiding me, but you can’t avoid me any longer. We need to go dress shopping. Now. It’s an emergency. A five-alarm dress shopping emergency!”

  Kylie sighed. “Mom, dress shopping is not an emergency.”

  “It is this time.”

  Kylie pressed the heel of her hand against her eye. And her mother wondered where Kylie’d learned to be so dramatic?

  “Mom,” she said with as much patience as she could muster. “I haven’t nailed down a date. And I’ve been busy. I told you about the case in Georgia.”

  “And you were too busy to talk to your mom for five minutes and let her know you’re alive?” Rhonda Hatfield was the queen of guilt trips.

  Kylie set the pen down, guilt stabbing her in her heart. “Mom, since when have our phone calls ever been only five minutes?”

  “True, true.” Rhonda sighed, but Kylie could hear a note of something else almost vibrating from her mother. “But you might want to pick up your phone one of these days. Because someone might have news.”

  She couldn’t deny that. Her mother was a gossip hound to put others to shame, digging up dirt like a pro—she probably would’ve made a good PI herself. The only thing was, Kylie didn’t care about those people’s lives nearly as much as Rhonda did. “Who is it this time? A neighbor?”

  “No. Someone who closely resembles your mother?”

  Kylie wrinkled her nose. In all her years of phone calls with her mother, Rhonda had never been the subject of gossip. Rhonda lived a quiet, boring life, where every day was the same as the one before. It never occurred to Kylie that her mother might actually be the subject of this particular tidbit. Of course, since Jerry, Rhonda had been doing all sorts of things that were out of character…

  And then it hit her.

  Jerry.

  “What?” she asked, proceeding cautiously.

  “You’re wrong! A date has been set! For us! On Valentine’s Day. Mark your calendar!”

  Kylie nearly choked. “Um. What?”

  “The dress shopping isn’t for you!” her mother shouted, nearly bursting Kylie’s eardrum. “It’s for me! Jerry and I are getting married!”

  Kylie held the phone away from her ear. “What?” She clapped a hand over her mouth before she shouted, “Why?”

  She knew why. Her mother was in love and Kylie was very happy for her. But she and Jerry had just met like five minutes ago. Wasn’t this a little soon?

  “What? Aren’t you happy for me?”

  “Oh. Yes!” she corrected quickly. “Just surprised. And…surprised.”

  She really had no reason to be surprised. All the signs were there. The two lovebirds had scarcely been able to keep their eyes off one another since Jerry had helped Rhonda after she’d been struck by a car. All part of the crazy-stepmom fiasco.

  And Jerry was as good as they came. But her mother had been single as long as she could remember, so it was easy to believe she’d always be that way. To see her suddenly engaged was…mind-boggling.

  Actually, she was more mind-boggled—and a little jealous—by the fact that, though her mother had likely barely been engaged for twenty-four hours, she’d already gotten further in her wedding planning than Kylie had.

  Her mother went on, babbling in a way that made it impossible to get a word in, talking about how he proposed at their favorite restaurant on a rooftop, under the moonlight, and how they weren’t getting any younger, and how they were hoping to get hitched as soon as possible. Kylie tried to listen and be in the moment, but was still so stunned she went to take a sip of her wine and realized she’d drained the whole glass.

  “Mom, I really am happy for you,” she said when she was allowed a chance to speak. “Jerry’s such an amazing guy. You’re both really good for each other.”

  “I know, right? And like I said, I want the marriage to happen as soon as possible. So?”

  “So…what?”

  “Can you come? Downtown, say, be here at one-thirty?”

  She checked the clock on the microwave. It didn’t feel right to be engaging in frivolous things like dress-shopping when she’d just gotten back from a case where people were dying. But life had to go on, right? She figured she could spare a little time for her mom. And maybe then she could get her own dress picked out and check that off her to-do list.

  She sighed as she looked at the paper in front of her with nothing but the letters W-E-D on it.

  Her to-do list was still on her to-do list.

  “Yes. I’ll be there,” she said, shoving her bridal magazines back into a pile and running upstairs. She’
d been meaning to drop off her time logs to Greg anyway, and she missed his face. This would be killing a bunch of birds with one stone. “But, Mom…three hours. That’s it. No more. I have to be back here by dinner, because I have to…”

  Actually, she really didn’t have to do anything. Plan the wedding. And did she really need to do that tonight? Probably not. She’d put it off so long, it felt like it could probably wait a little longer.

  “Yes, love,” Rhonda said.

  But Kylie truly doubted it. After all, she’d gone prom dress shopping with her mother less than a decade before, and she still hadn’t recovered from that.

  23

  The things we do for love.

  That was what Linc was thinking as the plane finally touched down. He’d spent an hour waiting for his flight out of Asheville, which included a long security line, then another hour at a layover in busy Charlotte. Now, here he was, at his third airport of the day. He’d have to wait for his luggage, probably have to wait for his car rental too. So, a trip that could’ve easily been two hours tops? Six hours.

  Ridiculous? Yes.

  But it was what Kylie wanted, and once she got an idea into her head, nothing could sway her. Didn’t matter that if there was a killer on his tail, said killer could have just as easily driven off to Lake Sucession if he really wanted to do away with Linc.

  Kylie was happy and comfortable with this arrangement, and that, he felt, was all that mattered.

  She was expecting a text.

  Knowing her, she was staring at her phone, waiting for it.

  He quickly typed in a: Safe on the ground. Then another: How are you?

  As expected, a moment later his phone buzzed. Fine. Going wedding dress shopping with my mom. Can you believe SHE’S getting married too?

  He smiled. Good news. Although it was a whirlwind romance, he liked Rhonda and got along well with Jerry. The two of them were good for each other. He got the feeling Kylie was a little weirded out about her mother actually being in love, but he knew she was happy for them too.