Deadly Dreams (43 page)

“And then Kristin came back.”

He inclined his head. “She’d spent her last few months away getting sober. And I couldn’t undercut that by taking her to court. Getting full custody. But I didn’t totally trust her sobriety either.” His smile lacked humor. “Kristin’s been on the wagon before. She doesn’t so much fall off it as leap. I’m afraid . . . I’m afraid this disappearance means a repeat of old patterns. Only this time she’s involving Tuck.”

There was a tug in her chest. And more than a little admiration. She knew she wouldn’t have handled it nearly as well if she’d found herself the unexpected guardian of a small boy.

She’d failed one boy who had relied on her in the most hellish way imaginable.

“Maybe Cass has found out more,” Risa said shakily, beating back the old memory before it could lodge and sink its fangs deep into her chest.

“I’ll check with her again tonight. If she has solid information placing them in Atlantic City, maybe I’ll call another buddy of mine who went private. Have him track down their hotel.” He stepped back into the hallway. “Guess we’d better check on that pizza.”

She stayed where she was. “I think I’m going to skip it and turn in now.” Stemming the protest she saw on his lips, she added, “The bed is looking pretty tempting. When it comes to a choice between sleep and food, this is one time sleep wins, hands down.”

She must have looked worse than she thought because he gave her one searching gaze before nodding. “All right. I’ll see you in the morning, then.”

“See you in the morning,” she echoed. And gave an inner sigh of relief when he disappeared.

She hadn’t been lying. She was in desperate need of sleep.

But she was more desperate to avoid giving in to temptation and making a decision that both of them might come to regret.

Risa fell asleep almost immediately. But it wasn’t restful. Images fast-forwarded through her mind, too many to be individually identified. Myriad snippets that made a visual collage that melded and reformed into a constantly changing kaleidoscope of images.

Kristin figured in them, although not the one-dimensional image from the photos.
“Just give me a chance,” she told the unsmiling man with a shaven head. “Let me show you.” Smoke filled the room and the two of them began to cough. And Risa felt her lungs heave and gasp for oxygen again.

The sound of panic was torn from her. She sat straight up in bed, her heart hammering like a Thoroughbred’s just under the wire. She was cold, frigid straight through, but her flesh was hot to the touch. As if the fire from the dream had licked along it as the flames consumed her bed.

But it was the victim in the dream that she was most concerned about. It had been too late to save Mark Randolph. She couldn’t be too late to save Eggers, too.

On weak knees she went to the dresser where she’d left her purse. Took out her cell and then tiptoed to the bedroom door. Eased it open. Nate’s door was closed. And the relief that filled her at the thought made her limbs go even weaker.

Quietly, she moved down the hallway. Turned unerringly toward the garage door. But didn’t find the computer case he’d left there. Undeterred, she padded barefoot into the kitchen. Then checked the family room.

Nate had left his laptop on the leather couch, as if he’d worked while he watched TV before turning in. It was off, but she’d watched him boot it up earlier that day. When she did so, she typed in the username and password he’d used to access it at the station. And then she opened the investigation case file and scrolled through it until she found the number she was looking for.

Her fingers were shaking so much she twice had to start over. And found herself holding her breath. Expected the phone to ring and ring endlessly. Or go straight to voice mail.

It did neither. After several rings, a groggy and very pissedoff voice answered. “Who the hell is this?”

Walter Eggers wasn’t dead. Not even close.

Risa clicked off the phone without saying a word. Checked the time. Two thirty A.M. If the Cop Killer were coming for Eggers, it wouldn’t be tonight. It would be dawn in a few hours.

But he was coming. And this time, Risa was going to stop him.

Shutting off the computer, she set it aside. Went to the kitchen and feverishly rifled through drawers. Found what she was looking for when her search elicited a yellow legal pad and pencil in the desk. Flipping the light on, she carried the pad to the kitchen table, sat down, and began to sketch. Slowly at first. Then with growing desperation. Page after page. Images from the dream, in sequence, as much as she could recall.

She didn’t know how long she sat there. Long enough to have her fingers grow cramped and sore. But she didn’t stop, didn’t look up until a small noise startled her. Her gaze flew upward. Found Nate with a shoulder propped against the side of the refrigerator. Watching her with enigmatic eyes.

Everything inside her froze. Deliberately, she set the pencil down. Turned the pad over. “How long have you been standing there?”

“Awhile.”

Which told her absolutely nothing. She slanted a look at the clock. Was shocked that nearly an hour and a half had passed. “I . . . woke up and couldn’t get back to sleep. Decided to work until I was tired again.”

“Is that what you were doing?”

Her heart started hammering a frantic beat. “I’m a good artist. I try to capture my dreams sometimes. They’re usually about the case I’m involved in.”

“I hear you. It’s hard to turn off our minds, even when we sleep.”

His easy acceptance of her explanation calmed her pulse a bit. Driven to move, she pushed back the chair. Rose. “Which cupboard do you keep your water glasses in?”

In answer, he moved past her to a cupboard next to the sink. Went to the ice water spigot on the fridge and filled the glass. Handed it to her. She took it gratefully, leaning against the counter facing him as she drank.

He had a pair of loose-fitting athletic shorts on. Noticing what he was wearing, and what he wasn’t had her pulse doing a quick stutter. His chest was bare and impressively solid. His arms roped with muscle. The shorts covered him decently, just as the loose fitting T-shirt she’d bought to sleep in covered her. There was no reason to feel like the scene was imbued with a sense of intimacy. It was the hour that lent that feeling. She’d apologize for waking him. They’d return to their rooms. And tomorrow making breakfast would seem routine enough that the memory of this moment would be dispelled.

And then he spoke. “Was it this case you were dreaming about? Or your last one?”

Her heart took one desperate leap and then slowed. Unnaturally so. Her lungs stopped drawing air. The blood halted in her veins. And her voice, when she managed to form words, sounded cracked and harsh. “Been doing a little research, McGuire?”

There was a hint of guilty flush over his cheekbones. But his dark gaze never strayed from hers. “You said it ended badly. The articles I found didn’t give much detail. Enough to figure that the operation to rescue those boys went awry.”

Awry. An anguished laugh almost escaped her. What an innocuous word for the indescribable horror that had been that night. “Yes.” The word was rasped out. “It went
awry
.”

“And you blame yourself.” The softness of his voice offered understanding where none could be had. None was deserved.

“Because it was my fault.” She set the glass on the counter without drinking from it. She was afraid it would slip from her nerveless fingers. “I led them there. I told them where they could find Tyler Temple. We already had our sights on Martin Volk, the pedophile who’d kidnapped him. The team had his house surrounded. Big piece of property. Shanties and decrepit structures all over it, surrounded by a twelve-foot wooden fence. I suspected Tyler would be in one of those structures.”

But she’d been wrong about that, too. It wouldn’t be the first mistake she’d make that night.

“There was a two-pronged assault. The tactical unit planned to breach the house. I went with the hostage recovery team. Led them right to the structure where I thought he was held.”

“But he wasn’t there?”

She shook her head blindly. The only thing she saw now was the scene replaying itself in her mind. “He was beneath it. We discovered a rabbit warren of tunnels under that shack. Connecting all the structures. The house.”

“Jesus.” There was comprehension in his tone. And something else, something that would have touched her if she’d identified it. But she heard neither. Nothing but the echoes of voices that haunted her memory.

“It was primitive. The tunnels were earthen packed, with an occasional kerosene lantern in the center of the walkway to light it. Cells were dug out along the way, fixed with rough wooden doors and padlocks. That’s where he’d keep them. It was in one of them that we found Tyler Temple.”

They’d sent her in, thinking the boy would respond best to a woman. And he had. When she’d given her name and told him they were taking him home, he’d launched himself at her and clung for all he was worth.
Risa, don’t leave me!
She hitched a shuddering breath at the memory of the boy’s voice. Each time she tried to hand him off to one of the other members, his wailing would get louder. It was easier, they’d thought, to leave him be.

“The radios didn’t work for shit down there. We had the boy so we turned around, headed out the way we’d come. We never would have gotten out otherwise. But as we started back, we realized that the team wasn’t all there. We’d started with four. There was only one detective and me left. So we thought we’d take our chances backtracking. But it was dark. The lanterns had gone out. And when I heard a sound behind me and looked, the remaining detective was gone, too. I didn’t know how yet. Not then.”

She could almost feel the dampness of the walls. Smell the rich moist aroma of earth. And something else. The stench of decay.

“I made my way through the tunnels as quickly as I could, my hand over the boy’s mouth.” Tyler had been sobbing, a soft, hopeless weeping. The walls had been close and claustrophobic. And with every step, they’d seemed to crowd in nearer. As if trying to crush them alive.

“I heard a sound in back of me and whirled. Saw that one of the lamps had been lit.” The torch had been dropped on the earthen floor to burn itself out. “Someone had dodged into one of the cells.” And she still held the boy. Had tried to put him down, peel him off her so she would have an unobstructed shot. He’d clung like a leech. He’d been screeching by then, shouting her name over and over.

“When the cell door opened again, Martin Volk stepped out holding a second child in front of him. Ryder Kremer. Held him like a human shield, with a butcher knife at his throat.”

“You don’t have to tell me the rest.”

She barely heard his quiet voice. Couldn’t have heeded it if she tried. The memory was as impossible to halt as lava flow. “I couldn’t get a good shot. The lighting . . . There were mostly just shadows. I thought about going for Volk’s knee. Shatter his kneecap and he might drop the knife. But it wouldn’t incapacitate him. He could still slice the boy.” The decision hadn’t taken more than a few seconds. But her hesitation had been enough. “I squeezed off a shot, but the boy was already falling. And the knife was hurling through the air. I shoved Tyler down, shot again . . .”