Dreaming Death

by Heather Graham

  Then their bodies moved together. The night rocked. They slipped and shifted, came close to climax, drew back to savor the moment, moved onward again...

  The release was fantastic.

  “Told you. You definitely screamed,” Keenan said into Stacey’s hair as they lay, still tangled together.

  “The screaming was you!” she said.

  He laughed and said, “Maybe.” He wrapped her in his arms, just holding her tight as his lungs gulped in air, and he heard the thunder of his pulse, pounding in his ears, slowly fading.

  She curled against him, comfortable there.

  “So, Jackson thinks we’re sleeping together already,” she said. “Maybe we should assure him that he was right on.”

  “Nah. Let’s let him wonder!”

  She shifted against him. For a minute, he felt a lump in his throat. He rolled to look at her and spoke earnestly.

  “We’ve all had our pasts. For me...it was Allison. We were in high school. She was sweet, giving, popular, and she made those around her better people. She wouldn’t allow bullying. Senior year, right near graduation, she was abducted. I already knew that I could see the dead. A ghost came to me. The ghost of a girl this deranged man had already taken and killed. She tried to get me to Allison, and she did, but...it was too late. She’d been left by the side of the road. Bleeding into the ground. I guess I’ve never really forgiven myself. I’ve always thought that I didn’t form relationships because of my work, because others didn’t understand. I envied Kat and Will, Jackson and Angela, and Vickie and Griffin and the other couples who work together, but of course, there was my work to keep me busy. So, yeah, I’ve had more casual sex than I’d like, but...you. You will never know, whatever the future brings, what you’ve meant to me tonight.”

  “What?”

  She sounded indignant.

  He was surprised. He was not a man who showed his emotions easily, if at all. He had just poured his heart out.

  But she smiled and set her palm upon his face, causing him to look at her. “This better not be just tonight!” she said. “Please, don’t let this not be just tonight!”

  They made love again.

  The morning was coming. And with it, the tension and heat of the case—and their desperation to find a killer before he killed again.

  They didn’t get much sleep.

  And, still, when he woke, he noticed that he hadn’t felt that damned good in...forever.

  Eleven

  “If the organs are being stolen for black-market transplants, I believe they’re going out of the area,” Jackson said. “We’ve pulled the name of every doctor capable of such operations. Police and our Krewe agents have been pulling info on time sheets, bank accounts and more for every transplant doctor in all states that you could get to from here in time to do a viable transplant. It’s a wide net. So far, we can’t find the least suggestion of illegal activity among them.”

  Jackson leaned forward in his office chair, pinning Stacey with his gaze. “That doesn’t discount the theory. Makes no sense to me that a killer would rip up women and take all the major organs and not use them. Not when there’s a premium on organs like that, and there are wealthy people not concerned with where they came from when they know they’re not high on a donor list.”

  “South America?” Keenan wondered aloud.

  “I think it would have to be Central or South America or one of the islands close enough to the United States—the operation would have to be pretty fast. Chilled and preserved properly, a kidney can be viable for not quite thirty hours, and that’s the longest. It’s less than six hours for a heart or lungs.”

  “A private jet could move quickly, if it knew when to go,” Keenan said.

  “Then someone with money is pulling all this off,” Stacey said. “Or the clients are footing a hefty bill.”

  “Someone has probably been making a lot of money off this,” Jackson pointed out grimly. “What price do you put on a human life? Those who will die without transplants and have the capability of paying just about anything are probably willing to look the other way when it comes to help.”

  “Right. But an organ doesn’t just match anyone,” Keenan said. “I admit, I don’t know much about it, but there would have to be screening. Blood type, that kind of thing.”

  “And yet, if you have a nice list of people willing to buy a new organ,” Stacey said thoughtfully, “well, anyone on that list would have been tested, and they would know what they’re looking for.”

  “I wonder...” Keenan said.

  “What?” Jackson and Stacey asked simultaneously.

  “That’s what we need!” Keenan said, a frown set deep in his forehead.

  “What?” Jackson and Stacey repeated together.

  “Sorry, sorry. We can’t find a doctor. He—or she—is not going to be at a legitimate hospital. Whatever is going on is happening underground. There’s a secret clinic somewhere—either near here, or on an island or in a different country somewhere close. When you’re not working in the mainstream, you can’t be found in the mainstream. We need to find patients. We need to find out who has come off the regular lists lately—who has been waiting for a transplant and suddenly removed their requests.”

  “Angela can manage to get that, right?” Stacey asked Jackson.

  “I’m sure she can,” Jackson said. “There have to be connectors somewhere and, in an enterprise this big, someone willing to talk. While the actual operation may be offshore, I doubt if rich clients are willing to give up their lives here. I’ll get Angela on it. For now, I have a list of names—prominent citizens, men and women—who have used the services of Billie Bingham’s escort service, if you want to get started on that. We’re working on preliminaries, checking out who may or may not have been in the area at the time. We can eliminate suspects—two are men who have passed away. There isn’t time to run in circles.”

  Stacey was quiet for a minute and then said, “And there’s Cindy Hardy.”

  “You think she’s involved?” Jackson asked.

  “She lied to us. She did leave her home again the night that Billie Bingham and our victim in the basement were killed,” Keenan mused.

  Stacey looked at Keenan. “She had so much hatred for Billie Bingham.”

  “True. But what about our other victims?” Keenan asked.

  “Something puts them all together,” Jackson said. “If we’re assuming right, and the victims were all sex workers,” Stacey said, “it doesn’t matter whether they were seen as high-class call girls or street prostitutes. They were all practicing the oldest trade.”

  “Then we’re still watching Colin Smith,” Jackson said. “The man put on a good show, but we all know how well people can lie. Based on my gut, I believe him. But that doesn’t clear him.”

  “Or his wife,” Keenan said.

  “Do we have any reason to suspect her?” Jackson asked.

  “No, but we’re looking at Cindy Hardy. Hatred can run deep,” Keenan said.

  Jackson excused himself as his phone rang. He took the call quickly, giving guttural replies, and then saying a quick, “Thank you.”

  He looked at Stacey and Keenan again. “That was Dr. Beau Simpson. That piece of kidney that was sent to Stacey had signs of the early stages of kidney disease. So, one of our victims didn’t turn out to be a good donor. But of course, heart, kidney, lungs and livers were also taken.”

  “I really think we’re right on this. There’s an illegal transplant operation going on somewhere,” Keenan said. He looked at Stacey. “You nailed it early,” he said.

  He nodded at Jackson. “We’ll get started, reinterviewing Cindy Hardy, and then we’ll pay a visit to Sandra Smith. When those lists come in—”

  As if on cue, there was a knock at the door, and Angela opened it and stepped in. “You’re going to love this. You aske
d about the murders and disappearances of men in the area. Five men missing—the info has been sent to your email addresses. None of them were from this area. Three on vacation and two who had just moved here.”

  “So, they might just have wanted to disappear, or they moved on, or they might just be victims, and these killers are disposing of their bodies,” Jackson said.

  “They were all between the ages of twenty-five and thirty-five. Fit. In good health,” Angela said.

  “May be part of it all, maybe not,” Jackson muttered. “If so, that means there’s a lot more victims, and this thing is really monstrous.”

  “Well, there’s more. You also asked about strange murders,” Angela said.

  “Yes?” Keenan said.

  “Check your email. A human head was found floating in Chesapeake Bay. Mostly consumed. Maryland State Police had a reconstruction sketch artist working on it and a forensic anthropologist. Male, Caucasian, about thirty years of age.”

  “This has to be stopped,” Keenan said. “All right, Stacey, let’s visit some women.”

  * * *

  “Do you really think either of these women would have the strength or know-how to kill like that?” Stacey asked Keenan as they headed to the garage, stopping just before they reached the car.

  “You don’t have to commit the murder to conspire to murder,” Keenan reminded her.

  She stood still, drawing in a deep breath. “I know this is a long shot, but something has been bugging me. Well, a couple of things... But... Keenan, I know there has to be footage of the McCarron trial somewhere. Do you think that we could find it and watch it?”

  He frowned. “The McCarron trial? The counts against him were numerous. But he killed a transplant doctor and a man working his hardest to solicit people to sign donor cards.”

  “Right. Donor cards. People who will leave their organs to others after they die. Keenan, really, I’m sorry. But there’s just something—”

  “McCarron is dead,” he reminded her softly.

  “I know. And this isn’t something I’m harboring because he ordered the murder of my family. I just need to see the trial again. Then I can set aside this nagging thought.”

  “All right,” he said. He pulled out his phone. They were still in the parking garage, but he called Angela. Stacey listened to him ask her if she would do what she could to find all the video that had been taken at the trial. The judge had, thankfully, allowed cameras in the courtroom; he had wanted everything on record.

  When he hung up, he said to Stacey, “If I know Angela, we’ll have hours and hours of trial footage to review soon enough. Before that, let’s go talk to some angry wives.”

  * * *

  Cindy Hardy didn’t want anything to do with them. She was upset that they were bothering her again about the woman who had, in her mind, ruined her life.

  A woman who had made the world a better place by leaving it.

  Stacey glanced at Keenan, wondering how he was going to bully their way in—and certain that he would manage it.

  Cindy argued with Keenan when he called her from the gate. Only his warning that they had just a few more questions but could arrange for a search warrant if she didn’t want to cooperate finally led her to opening the gate so that they could drive up to her house.

  She stood at the door when they arrived, hands on her hips. She might have been small, but she could shoot out an aura of indignation and fury as if she were the Hulk.

  “You people!” she exclaimed angrily. “Don’t you have anything better to do than harass someone who has already been through hell! There’s a killer out there—oh, yeah, let me think. Every one of those women could have kicked my ass in two seconds, so—”

  “Mrs. Hardy, you lied to us. The residents’ gate cards can be traced. You said that you didn’t leave your home the night that Billie was murdered. Your key card showed you going out of here around ten o’clock, and not returning until the wee hours of the morning,” Keenan told her pleasantly.

  She stiffened.

  “Oh...come in. Come in. You don’t need to shout at me on the street!”

  Keenan glanced at Stacey. He had a small grin on his face. He hadn’t shouted at all.

  Cindy Hardy had just about been screaming.

  She went in and left them to follow. She walked quickly to the parlor and said, “Oh, how nice of you to visit. Sit. You’ve come to pry into my personal life because of some high-class whore who thought she had some kind of golden box? Lovely!”

  “Are your children here, Mrs. Hardy?” Stacey asked politely.

  Cindy glared at her.

  “My children and nanny are at a ball game, Special Agent Whoever!” she said angrily. “So, what is it? What the hell is it that you want to know?”

  “Where you went that night. You lied to us. You said that you didn’t go out.”

  Cindy sighed.

  “Of course I lied to you! You were trying to pin the murder of that bimbo on me! Hey, if she’d sat on me, she’d have squashed me.”

  “Where did you go?” Stacey asked her.

  “Out!”

  “Out where?” Keenan persisted.

  “You know, a nice policeman was out here recently to tell me that they’d be doubling patrols, that there is concern that I might be in danger with a madman out there running around. I’m not so sure I should be afraid of this madman. In my mind, he’s done us all a public service. But the police were worried about me, which I found to be nice, proper and touching. And here you are suggesting that I’ve somehow been cruising the city, picking up whores and chopping them up.”

  “You still haven’t answered the question,” Keenan reminded her politely.

  She let out a long sigh. “Out! I met a man, all right! An affair ruined my marriage and my life. But I’m not asexual. I’m trying to raise my children to be good and responsible human beings, and...well, I’m not bringing anyone here unless it’s someone who will turn out to be something stable—if not permanent—in their lives. You have a problem with that?”

  “Who is the man?”

  “I haven’t the least intention of telling you!” Cindy stated.

  Keenan shrugged. “I can get a warrant.”

  “Really? That easily, to pry into my life? You’re really going to think a judge is going to believe that I’m a sick murderer?” Cindy demanded.

  “Okay,” Keenan said. “Fine. We’ll get going, then. But may I make use of your facilities?”

  “What?” Cindy asked.

  “Your bathroom. May I borrow your bathroom?” Keenan said. “I just never understood that way of asking, really. I’m not taking it anywhere. I’d just like to use it.”

  Stacey’s lips curled slightly, and she looked downward. She had a feeling that Cindy might have refused, but Keenan’s explanation made her wave a hand impatiently in the air.

  “Down the hall, third door.”

  He walked down the hall, slipping into the designated door.

  When he was gone, Cindy glared at Stacey.

  “Shouldn’t it be you who had to go? Your big, bad partner couldn’t handle his bladder?”

  “Men and women, Mrs. Hardy. Sometimes we all have to go.”

  “Well, and aren’t you lucky, with that partner.” Cindy shook her head. “So, you’re an agent. A real agent. Do they let you out because you are with such a big, bad partner?”

  “They let me out because I went through the academy and became an agent,” Stacey told her, trying to control her temper. Really. The woman was obnoxious. Whether it had been with Billie Bingham or someone else, it was possible to see why her husband might have needed an escape.

  “So,” Stacey said, “the man you were meeting. He’s married? Is that why you don’t want to say?”

  She kept her tone sweet.

  She thought that Cindy
was going to explode. She rose. She didn’t come over to the sofa to stand over Stacey—if Stacey were to stand, she’d have her by a few inches—but she glared, her hands on her hips again.

  “Oh, don’t you just wish! Don’t you wish you could cause more trouble for me! Well, you should watch out, missy. You never know when your big, bad partner won’t be with you. You don’t know this town. It can be one hell of a dangerous town. A married man! How dare you. Get your subpoena! Get your damned subpoena. And mark my words, bitches like you can run into trouble!”

  Stacey suddenly felt Keenan behind her. He had quietly left the restroom and returned.

  “Mrs. Hardy, are you threatening my partner?” he asked gravely.

  “Oh, never! Never would little old me threaten our federal finest,” Cindy said. “I was warning her. This town will eat you alive if you’re not careful. So, no, I didn’t strangle and cut up a bunch of women who could beat my ass. I won’t tell you who I was seeing. I have a right to my private life. Is that it? Will you please go.”

  “Oh, yes, definitely,” Stacey said. “We’ve really taken up enough of your precious time and generous hospitality.”

  “Thank you,” Keenan said lightly, glancing Stacey’s way and nodding toward the door.

  She nodded back and turned to head out.

  For some reason, making that move, she noted the hearth.

  The house was new but had been designed to recreate the look of a grand old colonial mansion.

  The hearth was huge with a gray marble mantel. It stretched almost the length of the room.

  A hearth. Like the one in her dream?

  Frustration filled her. She never saw enough in her dreams. That strange fog shrouded the room.

  There was a hearth in the hovel where Jess Marlborough’s suitemates lived.

  Hell, there was hearth in her own living room.

  And yet, she paused. She took in every detail of the hearth.

  She wanted to remember it when the dream came again.

  * * *

  “There’s something up with that woman,” Stacey said.