Deadly Dreams (27 page)

The moan that wakened her didn’t belong to the victim. It was her own.

Risa sat up, sweating and shaking, her heart racing in her chest like a runner’s after a record-setting sprint. It took long moments to regulate her breathing. To focus on the simple act of hauling oxygen in and out of deprived lungs.

It took far longer to calm her pulse.

She rubbed the perspiration from her face with a hand that that trembled as if with palsy. And made herself, through sheer force of will, consider the details revealed by the newest vision.

There was no rhyme or reason in the way the dreams played out. In one she might be a spectator, in yet another it would be as if she were in the victim’s place suffering their pain.

It was those dreams that took the worst toll on her.

After all of them, she was left to decipher what they meant. How the events unfolded. When they might have happened. Who was involved.

It was the “who” that made it especially difficult to return her breathing to normal.

Because the man engulfed in flames was Detective Mark Randolph.

Sneaky little needles of doubt pierced her then, detracting from her conclusions. The dreams were rarely specific. Her interpretation of them could be erroneous. That had been all too evident in Minneapolis.

Drawing her knees up, she enfolded them with her arms, rocked a little. She’d been to all three scenes. This one was different, she was certain of it. Outside, but not the park where Christiansen had been found. Not the woods that had been torched with Parker.

Was the dream a depiction of the past or the future? If the past, it would have to be fairly recent. They’d just spoken to the man a couple of days ago. She and Nate had been at the station house until after midnight. No call had come in.

She looked at the alarm clock on her bedside table. Would Nate have contacted her if there had been another report? She’d like to think he would. Liked to think that their relationship had eased into something resembling mutual respect, at least, in the last day or so.

Her mind scuttled away from the memory of his enthusiastic celebratory hug. She wasn’t ready to interpret
that
.

The scene might be a psychic interface with the future. A snippet of what was to come. There was no doubt in her mind regarding the identity of the victim. There had been no identifying the voice behind those garbled muffled screams. No visual, certainly, of the face being eaten by flames.

But there had been an up close look at one of the items the watcher had tossed. The police identification had been easily read. Illogical, because of the darkness. But logic had no place in the dreams. Their very existence defied it.

The ID had shown a familiar face. Borne a familiar name.

Either Mark Randolph had fallen prey to the man the media had dubbed Cop Killer. Or he was going to.

She looked at the cell phone on the table consideringly. Randolph’s contact information would be in her copy of the case file. She could call him now, pretend an urgent need for information . . . on Juicy, maybe.

But she’d have to explain that call to Nate, if the detective mentioned it to him later. Not difficult to do under other circumstances. She was used to having to manufacture cover stories for her “instincts” about events she shouldn’t know about. But it’d be easier to cover a phone call made to the detective on the way to work than one in the middle of the night.

And the depressing truth was, if the vision was from the recent past, Mark Randolph was already dead.

A familiar wave of frustration surged through her. Rarely did the dreams provide her with enough detail to prevent something from happening. Their only positive benefit was when they gave her information that helped track down an offender and prevent him from hurting anyone else.

It was the only thing that made them bearable. And for the past several months, she’d been questioning their effectiveness in even that area.

To distract herself from the self-doubt that circled, she looked for her sketchpad. Found it missing from the table. Her lips tightened. No doubt Hannah had moved it, or removed it from the room completely. Years ago she’d often whisked away Risa’s supplies when she found drawings of the hideous events from her visions. She’d never made a secret of the fact that she found the images disturbing.

Risa had always wondered if she found her daughter equally so.

Sliding open the drawer, she stuck her hand inside to see if perhaps her mother had placed it there, out of the way. Instead of the drawing pad, her searching fingers found the familiar shape of her weapon.

She snatched her hand back as if it had been burned. It had taken her over an hour last night to screw up the courage to touch the weapon. And only the worry of Hannah getting up the next day and finding it on the counter could have convinced her to pick it up. Take it to her room.

The safest place for it, of course, had been the trunk of the rental. But there was no way she could have forced herself to carry it that far. She’d practically sprinted to her bedroom to deposit it into the drawer. It’d taken far longer to screw up her courage to hold it long enough to unload it.

Which was a ridiculous waste of courage, any way you looked at it.

Snapping on the lamp, she pulled the drawer out farther. Stared at the gun that had once felt so natural she felt naked without its weight.

It was an inanimate object. Surely not deserving of the weight of blame she cast on it.
She
had failed Ryder Kremer. She’d made a serious error in judgment. Relied too heavily on details of the visions that had seemed so very clear.

Releasing a long shuddering breath, she reached her hand out. Forced herself to rest it on the weapon. Resisted the powerful urge to snatch her hand back. To shove the drawer closed as if she could shut away the memories as easily.

Her fingers trembled wildly. And she couldn’t take the weapon out. Couldn’t grasp it if she tried.

But it was enough. With her free hand, she shut off the lamp. Left the room in darkness once again. She’d been fooling herself by thinking she could ease into an investigation the way a swimmer dipped a toe in dangerous waters. Either she tried to work with the dreams or she disregarded them. Either she was an investigator or she wasn’t. She couldn’t play half-court. It was all or nothing.

Just a few short days ago she’d been convinced it would be nothing. That she was done.

Now . . . the image of Randolph’s ID flashed across her memory again.

If it were going to be all . . . Her breath caught at the mere thought. Her palm dampened where it lay against the Beretta.

Then she needed to prove to her boss, to herself, that she was all the way back. Healed emotionally as well as physically.

And she couldn’t convince either of them as long as she still couldn’t bear to strap on her weapon.

The impound lot didn’t open until nine, so once Nate got to work, he left a message on the office machine to call him back. By the time he’d finished doling out assignments to the task force detectives and updated Morales on what had been discovered on the tapes last night, he’d figured to find Risa waiting in his office upon his return.

When she wasn’t, he glanced at the phone. Considered contacting her.

And then called himself the worst kind of sap.

She wouldn’t welcome the inquiry, and she didn’t exactly need to punch a clock. Her role in the investigation was unofficial and ambiguous.

Her place in his head was just as ambiguous. And largely unwelcome. He’d never had difficulty setting aside thoughts of a woman when he was on the job. That had been his greatest problem, he’d been told loudly and at great length. One in a list, as it’d turned out. There was no reason in the world that Marisa Chandler should prove the exception to that rule.

Moving his shoulders uneasily, he blamed it on their proximity. Long hours sharing a cramped car coupled with late nights could imitate a growing intimacy.

The problem with that excuse was that he’d shared similarly long hours with Cass Recker, and his feelings for her were about the same he had for Kristin. Big brotherly, with overtones of protectiveness that both women frequently took him to task for.

Nothing like what he felt whenever Risa was around. Not by a long shot. And that should scare the hell out of him. There was too much riding on this case to allow for distractions of any sort. His relationship with his sister took more effort than he could afford right now just to keep it on an outwardly even keel. She hadn’t taken off again without telling him, but if she did, he’d have his nephew to care for while juggling the long hours required by the investigation.

Most men would consider that more than enough complication in their life to avoid the temptation of a woman, no matter how damn sexy she managed to look in those severely tailored suits of hers. Which, if he were making a suggestion, would be in bright bold colors rather than black, navy, and gray drab.

Not that he’d voice
that
suggestion out loud.

Resolutely, he turned his attention to jotting notes from yesterday’s briefing and managed to avoid thinking of Risa at all.

It was nearly nine by the time she entered his office. Deliberately, he kept his head down at her arrival, until a large foam to-go cup was set on the desk in front of him. “See, I’m much more reasonable about morning coffee. I even share.”

“I shared yesterday,” he said, finally looking up. “You just didn’t . . .” He stopped then. He had to because he was at serious risk of swallowing his tongue.

Be careful what you wish for
. The old adage echoed mockingly in his head, which had gone otherwise blank. Because Risa wasn’t wearing a dark-color suit today. Women probably had a fancy name for the shade of suit and blouse she wore. The only one that came to his mind was nude.

Just a few tones darker than her skin, it suggested the softness and texture of flesh. It was designed to make a man’s palms itch to peel it away an inch at a time, to reveal the woman beneath. At least it would tempt a man who allowed himself to be distracted.

“I didn’t what?”

Her question jerked his attention back. Clearing his throat, he looked away. Picked up the coffee, although he’d already drank two of Darrell’s brew. “Nothing. I’m just waiting for the impound lot to get back to me. I left a message asking them to check the VIN of the car we saw get towed on the video last night.”

She turned away and approached her desk, her movements jerky. For the first time he noticed the tension in her muscles, in her stance. And she was gulping from her coffee as if it were a lifeline.

He hadn’t noticed it at first glance because his mind had been observing other things, but it was obvious now that she was armed. Shoulder holster, weak side. And he damned well would have noted if she’d carried before. He seemed to be hyperaware when it came to her.

Aware enough to recognized the woman was as jittery as he’d ever seen her. In which case, the coffee she’d stopped for didn’t seem to be doing a whole lot of good.

Before he could broach the subject, she said, “I called Randolph this morning. Wanted to see if he had had any contact with Emmons since he spoke to us yesterday morning. But he didn’t answer his cell.”

“He’ll probably call back.” His response was made absently. He was still focused more on what she wasn’t saying. And wondering what the hell had brought about such a change.

“Yeah. Probably.” The words lacked conviction. “I’ve also got a call into the courthouse. A clerk agreed to do a search for 1986 tax and property records for Tory’s. While I’m waiting, I thought I’d see if there were any online records of the fire that destroyed it.”

“Already looked. There’s nothing.”

She nodded, sipped again. “Then I’ll comb through the archives of the
Inquirer
and see what I can dig up. Surely the fire was deserving of a mention, even in that neighborhood.”

Nate’s desk phone jangled. He was still studying her speculatively when he answered it.

“A Mr. Emmons to see you, detective. He’s been escorted to interview four.”

He rose so swiftly he banged his knee on the desk as he dropped the phone back in its cradle simultaneously. Darrell’s call had firmly yanked his mind back to business.

“Showtime.” She’d risen when he had, looking quizzical. “Juicy finally decided he wanted to talk.”

The man in interview four looked to be about the same age as the stranger they’d encountered when leaving Juicy’s apartment yesterday. There the resemblance stopped. Juicy had about a foot on the other man, was tall and lean, and sported two half sleeves of tattoos. His short hair was heavily gelled. The jeans and T-shirt he wore were similar to the attire sported by the group on the stoop.