“I wouldn’t say I’m great, but I am fairly competent,” Jean said dryly.
“That will work,” Stacey and Keenan said at almost exactly the same time.
“Lord, you’d think these two had been working together for years,” Jean said. “Let’s go.”
They all trailed into the store.
The exterior was deceptive. Inside, Mohammed Abdul kept a spotless and logically arranged store. Little shelf cards advertised rows of pharmaceuticals, household cleaners and different foods. The refrigerated section was even labeled—dairy, beer, soft drinks. There was a special row for diapers and baby needs.
Mohammed was a man of medium height, dark-haired, of an indeterminate age—he was polite and friendly but aware that they were on business. He introduced his wife, who was working at the cash register, and led them through a door to an office in back. There, he had his desk, computer, a fax machine and a printer, separated just a foot from row upon row of paper towels, dishes and toilet paper.
Jean sat at the computer; Stacey, Keenan and Fred hovered behind her.
“I knew her,” Mohammed said, watching them. “I knew Jess, and she was a sweet, kind woman. She opened doors when she saw someone struggling. She reached for things off the shelves for the elderly. Anything I can give you, anything that will help catch her killer... I will do.”
“Did she come in the night before her body was discovered in the alley?” Stacey asked him.
He nodded gravely.
“What time?” Keenan asked.
“Before midnight, I believe,” Mohammed said.
“Precisely!” Jean exclaimed. She turned to look at them all. “Sir, your video shows not just Jess Marlborough coming into the store, it shows Congressman Smith’s car—and even his face as he drives away.”
“So, what Smith said was true,” Stacey said.
“It doesn’t mean that he didn’t double back and find her in that alley,” Fred said.
“No, but it does leave more questions,” Keenan reminded them.
“Such as?” Jean asked.
Keenan shook his head. “When she was killed, it wasn’t in the alley. There wasn’t enough blood. Jean, you know that the victims were killed elsewhere. They were killed in one place, their organs were taken somewhere else, and then their bodies were dumped.”
“Smith could have had an accomplice, someone ready to grab Jess once she’d been dropped off,” Stacey said.
Keenan lifted his hands. “We can’t hold Smith much longer; Jackson and Angela have been keeping him company. What we need now is for him to implicate someone else.”
“Well, there’s nothing more we can do tonight,” Jean said. “And I don’t know about you guys, but I’ve got to go to bed, or I’ll be useless tomorrow.”
They were all still for a minute.
“Look, every agent and officer in the surrounding counties are on this; we have nothing else to go on now. We’ve got to give it a rest.”
“A rest,” Keenan said, looking at Stacey.
Maybe she would dream. Maybe she wouldn’t. But they did need sleep. And before they could get any, they had to return to Krewe headquarters and speak with Jackson again, and possibly Colin Smith.
“Right,” Keenan said. He looked over at Mohammed. “Can you get copies of this to us—to the police and my office?”
Mohammed nodded. “I will be happy to! If there is anything, anything at all that can be done, just ask.”
Keenan was quiet as they drove back to headquarters.
“Well, I imagine we’ll be letting Congressman Smith go, but he’ll know that he’s being watched. And since that’s happening, it should mean that possible victims are safe, at least,” Stacey said.
“It should. Let’s get in—and then leave this to others for the night.”
Stacey leaned back in her seat.
She had to admit, at least to herself, she was glad she wasn’t going to be alone tonight.
* * *
Keenan wasn’t sure why he hadn’t immediately realized just how incredibly appealing his new partner was. Maybe he’d just been too irritated and worried to take note of what he had seen and felt.
She was a beautiful woman; that had been obvious. It was the life within her, however, that created the depth of her appeal. Her energy seemed to emit sparks: she was determined and confident to take on anyone during any confrontation, including him.
When they returned to her home at last—having been back to headquarters and then to Keenan’s place to pick up some of his things—it was late, and they were both hungry and tired. But even that didn’t quell that spark within, though she did yawn several times while heating up a few little chicken pies—her own invention, chunks of white chicken meat, mushroom soup, carrots, peas, and a topping of potatoes with a dusting of bread crumbs for added flavor.
She made them, or similar things, on the weekend, she told him, and froze or refrigerated them for meals during the week, knowing she might be too tired for anything else if it had been a late day. As the food heated, they were both in thought, and Keenan set the table and poured glasses of ice tea, watching her as she busied herself with a salad. Locks of her dark hair fell over her forehead, and she occasionally gnawed on her lower lip, deep in thought. When she glanced at him, she flushed, and her eyes were bright crystals against the soft ivory of her face.
“Do you think that any of the men on the list Colin Smith gave Jackson will pan out?” she asked. “I wonder if he’s being honest with us, or if he’s been deceiving us this whole time. I know that my dad was on a case once with a complete psychopath—had no remorse at all for anything he’d done. Even at trial...”
Her voice trailed.
“Even at trial?” he prompted.
“Strange. I guess it’s this case. I was just thinking about the McCarron trial, years back.”
“The McCarron trial? What, you had to be about twelve or thirteen when that went on,” Keenan said.
She nodded, pulling the finished pies out of the oven. “Twelve.” She hesitated, glancing at him. “That was when I met Adam Harrison, and he convinced my parents that there really might be something about to happen. That my family could be in danger, based on the dreams I was having. It turned out McCarron was a bitter man—he’d lost a loved one when a transplant hadn’t become available in time. Maybe that’s why I’m thinking of the trial. No one stole anyone else’s body organs at the time, but according to McCarron, that started his obsession.”
“Yeah, I remember that trial—and the aftermath. McCarron came off like the handsome boy next door, appalled about the murders, and denying that he could ever do anything like that. Then, I remember the news in the months after the trial, he admitted to several other murders, including those of a few other people that happened to be for his own convenience and nothing about heartbreak. If I recall, he finally admitted to killing one man just because he’d taken his parking space.”
“True. He admitted many things after he was convicted. His trial was in Virginia, and he was given the death penalty, so he started talking to bargain his way out. He was executed just a few years ago. There was a big uproar all over again,” Stacey said as she set a steaming pie in front of Keenan and one at her own place. “But he was executed.”
“So, we know he had nothing to do with these murders. I’ve yet to find a ghost capable of killing—unless they just scared someone to death. Possible, but those I’ve met aren’t out to do harm. They want to protect someone or...protect a place, like your friends at Lafayette Square,” he reminded her with a smile.
“I just keep remembering that trial. I don’t know why.”
“Well, it was a major event, and you were involved.”
They sat and ate, both in silence for several minutes.
“I wish I could put my finger on it.”
“You wi
ll. Thoughts just out of reach finally get closer. And then there are dreams.”
She nodded dully, then suddenly stood. “Well, just leave this. I’m exhausted. I’m going to shower and hop in bed. Please, don’t worry about picking up—I can get it all in two minutes in the morning.”
She disappeared to her room before he could protest. She seemed distracted, probably worried about dreaming. She must be hoping that she would—and also that she wouldn’t.
He heard the door to the bathroom close.
There wasn’t much of a mess: two little single-serving pans and a salad bowl. He tidied up quickly, as there was no reason not to.
In his head, he went over every minute of their conversation with Colin Smith.
Yes, the man could be a liar.
Keenan hadn’t been involved with the McCarron trial in the same way that Stacey had been involved, but he remembered it. On the stand, McCarron had come off as if he was Mr. Nice Guy, horrified that anyone could imagine him guilty of terrible things. Even when there was solid evidence against him.
Later, Keenan had heard that McCarron’s prison interviews had been chilling. He’d killed people as casually as another man might swat flies.
Finished with the dishes, he went to grab his bag, glad that he’d stopped for his things. A shower seemed like a good idea. Hot water was relaxing.
He paused outside Stacey’s door, wanting to make sure that she was all right. He couldn’t hear any movement in her room. Maybe she’d already fallen asleep.
He then went to check that the outer door to the building was locked, and he secured the door to her apartment on his way back in, and, finally, the windows.
Reassured, he went for his shower, pausing by her door but wondering why, and not wanting to examine the answer too closely.
He was just stepping out of the shower when he heard her first scream.
* * *
It was as if she’d stepped back in time, and yet she knew she hadn’t.
It was the smoke in the room that seemed to blind her. There was a hearth and a fire burned within it. The smoke rose and swirled, combining with a gray mist in the air that might have swept in from the foggiest street.
Stacey was there, but she didn’t know exactly where; it was as if she was all-seeing, omniscient.
And at first, there was nothing but the room and the knowledge that the killer was also within it. Close...knowing what was to come.
There was a surgical bag set down on the floor against the wall near the hearth. And she knew what it contained. Scalpels and saws. There was also a curious container near the bag, and she knew what that was intended to contain.
Pieces of life itself—the organs that belonged to the intended victim.
This time, the killer would not attack elsewhere and dump the body in an alley or a basement. Or for all to see in Lafayette Square.
No, the murder would take place here.
Someone moved about, humming softly.
The killer waited. His intended victim was blissfully unaware.
The killer watched and waited, anticipating, all but salivating...
Soon, there would be a bloodbath. Because this time, when he was done with the evisceration, he would relish the horror he would leave behind. He would slash her to ribbons, cut off her lips, her breasts, flesh from her thighs...
The woman turned; Stacey couldn’t see her face.
She didn’t know who it was...
She didn’t even know if it might be herself, seeing with her eyes at last what she had seen through fragments in her mind.
Then the scream...
She didn’t know that it was coming from her. She didn’t know at all, until she was drawn back to the waking world, held firmly but gently in strong arms.
* * *
Stacey’s terror had been real; her scream, bloodcurdling.
But when she woke and looked at him, she quickly rallied. She sat up and grimaced.
“You’re okay?” he asked her. His arms were still around her.
She laughed dryly. “I don’t know! Am I okay? Most people would probably say not. That’s why it was so important to me when...when I met Adam. He made it so that I felt that I was okay, normal. Not normal but gifted rather than insane.”
“Adam has that skill,” he said.
He could let her go; she was strong once she was out of the dream.
He continued to hold her. Her dark hair was tousled and smelled sweetly and somewhat exotically of her shampoo. The skin of her bare arms was soft...
Let her go. The voice of reason whispered inside him.
But he didn’t. He could argue that they really hadn’t gotten through the nightmare yet.
“Can you remember anything more?” he asked her.
“No. I’m so frustrated. I’m there, and the killer is there... He knows I’m there, and he knows I know he’s there...but I can’t see a face, I can’t see a size, nothing but a shadow, and the shadow is like this massive echo of the darkest evil. The victim sees the killer...”
She turned to him suddenly, moving in his arms. She didn’t seem to want him to let go, to move away from her. She seemed to want to be exactly where she was. Her eyes were still glistening, her lips were soft and parted and damp.
“What does the victim see?” he said, to keep himself focused.
“The shadow, the evil, the intent. What I’m getting from the dream is this... It might be that the organs are being stolen. But there’s more to this killer. He can’t wait to cut up the victim. He’s dreaming of bathing in blood. I mean, I think it’s a man. I can’t even see that, but I believe this kind of killer is usually male.”
He nodded.
“I saw a box of some kind. A medical bag, and a box.”
“So, the box was probably some kind of ice chest for the organs. And the medical bag carried the instruments to take them.”
“But I can’t see the killer!”
“You’ve brought us closer than anyone else,” he assured her. “You’ll see more. Think back. From what you’ve told me about your dreams, you’ll get a little further and a little further. If by some chance you don’t, you’ll still have done more than anyone else,” he said, touching her cheek, lifting her face to his.
She looked at him for a long moment.
To his surprise, she suddenly put her hand to his face and drew him to her, kissing him. Not a peck that meant thank you.
A wet kiss, filled with tongue and lips warm, generous, moving.
He’d be less than human if he didn’t respond.
And he was definitely human. He leaned them both back on the bed and returned the kiss, deeply, passionately, feeling the warmth—and more—burst within him.
She seemed to realize, suddenly, that once again, he was wearing only a towel. At that point, she couldn’t help but notice.
He grinned, thinking he needed to explain.
But she smiled when the kiss broke, looking up at him with her dazzling eyes. “I seem to have a tendency to interrupt your showers.”
“That’s okay. I was clean enough.”
A worried look touched her features.
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have... I mean, we’re working. Jackson—”
“Jackson already thinks that we’re sleeping together.”
“Oh?”
“I think that Jackson made the best decision for his leads on this case because of the nature of the case and our abilities, but I also believe that he thought we just might work out.”
“And...we’ve worked out?”
“I’d say so,” he told her.
But she still looked worried.
“I don’t want... I mean, I know you’re feeling bad for me, I don’t want... I hate to even say it, but I don’t want...pity sex.”
“You don’
t pity me?” he asked softly, amazed at the combination of tenderness, longing, hunger and urgency sweeping through him.
She smiled, looking a bit sheepish. “I’ve just never had...”
“Sex?”
“No, no. Just not...often. I mean casual. I just... How do you let a relationship go anywhere when you’re constantly afraid you’ll wake up screaming?” she asked bleakly.
“You can scream for me anytime—awake or asleep,” he said softly.
“I’m going to be screaming now?” she asked.
“Well, moaning and all. At least, I hope,” he said.
Then she smiled again, and her smile was beautiful, and he wondered if she wasn’t more gifted than she knew, that she was a gift herself, to him.
Because he knew the feeling; he’d cared for others.
He’d lost once. Because with all that he knew...he hadn’t been fast enough.
Young, yes, but...
And nothing had ever really worked again. The past had haunted him with a greater clarity than any ghost had ever managed.
Forget the past, let her forget her past...
Live for the present.
He smiled down at her, straddling her, and laced his fingers with hers.
“You are the best thing to come into my life ever,” he told her, “and if we’re talking about pity or mercy...have pity on me.”
She looked up at him, eyes wide, disbelieving at first and then crystallizing with understanding. He leaned down, and they enjoyed another incredibly wet and heated kiss, then his lips slid onto her throat and collarbone and down to her breasts. Their fingers broke free; he felt her touching him, felt her fingers moving down his back and her body shifting beneath his, arching and writhing.
Then the tension of their lives and the reminders of the past seemed to evaporate, and the need for her that was rising in him felt insatiable.
It was torture to wait, yet he had to know her body, feel the tension in her abdomen as his kisses fell there...on her thighs, upward...teasing, demanding. And the feel of her touching him, the incredible sensation of her lips and tongue and wet kisses over the length of him.
Dreaming Death Page 17