Dream Man (7 page)

“Yeah. And maybe aliens are going to land on the White House lawn.”

“Face it, buddy. That neighbor lady is the type who peeps out the window every time a pizza delivery car goes down the street. If Marlie Keen went out, or had anyone over, you can bet it would have been noticed.”

“We still haven’t checked out her friends at work, who she has lunch with.”

“Yeah, well, let me know how it goes. I for one know how to recognize a dead end when I see one.”

She saw him immediately when she left the bank. He was alone in his car, just sitting there, watching for her. The late afternoon sunshine glinted off the windshield and prevented her from clearly seeing his face, but she knew it was him. Detective Hollister. Though she could really only discern the width of those heavy shoulders and the shape of his head, some primal sense of self-preservation, an alertness to danger, recognized him.

He didn’t get out of the car, didn’t call to her. Just watched her. Marlie strode to her car, stonily refusing to react to his presence. When she pulled out of the parking lot, he pulled out right behind her.

He stayed there, tight on her rear bumper, as she threaded her way through the normal afternoon traffic. If he thought he could rattle her with this juvenile game, he was in for a surprise; her nerves had been tested in circumstances far more dire than this, and she had survived. She had errands to run, things she would have done over the weekend if she hadn’t been overwhelmed by that night-mare vision. She didn’t let his presence stop her; if he wanted to see what she did after work, he was in for a real thrill. She stopped at the cleaners, leaving a few soiled garments, picking up the clean ones. Next stop was the library, where she returned two books. Then she went to the neighborhood grocery store. At every stop, he parked as close to her as possible, twice right beside her, and imperturbably waited until she returned. When she came out of the grocery store, he watched as she wheeled the cart, loaded with four bags, to the back of her car. She put her foot on the cart to keep it from rolling while she unlocked the trunk.

He was out of the car and standing beside her almost before the sound of the car door slamming could alert her. Her head jerked up and he was there, as big and grim as a thunderstorm. His eyes were hidden by a pair of very dark sunglasses. Sunglasses had always made her vaguely uneasy. As before, his physical presence was as forceful as a blow. She had to restrain herself from automatically stepping back. “What do you want?” she asked in a cool, flat voice.

He reached out one big hand and effortlessly lifted a grocery bag from the cart into the trunk. “Just helping you with the groceries.”

“I’ve managed all my life without you, Detective, so I can manage now.”

“It’s no problem.” The smile he gave her was both humorless and mocking. He stowed the remaining three bags in the trunk beside the first one. “Don’t bother saying thank you.”

Marlie shrugged. “Okay.” Turning away, she unlocked the door and slid behind the wheel. The parking space in front of her was empty, meaning she didn’t have to back out; she pulled out through the space in front, leaving him to park the cart or do whatever he wished with it. She wasn’t in the mood to be gracious. She was tired, depressed, and angry.

Worse than that, she was frightened. Not of Detective Hollister, as unpleasant as he was. Her fears were much deeper than that.

She was afraid of the monster who had butchered Nadine Vinick.

And she was afraid of herself.

By the time she stopped at the second traffic light after leaving the grocery store parking lot, he was right behind her again. The man really had a talent for getting around in traffic. The sight of her house wasn’t as enticing as it usually was. She was wryly certain that its sanctuary was going to be violated by a big, grim man who seemed to have taken an immediate dislike to her. She was used to skepticism from people, but not actual dislike; his attitude wounded her a little, though she was surprised at herself for feeling that way. Detective Hollister wasn’t anything to her, so it had to be merely that it was human nature to want others to think well of oneself.

Just as she had expected, he pulled into her driveway before she had time to cut the ignition off. He got out of the car and took off the sunglasses, tucking them into his shirt pocket. No matter how uneasy sunglasses made her, she suddenly wished he had left them on, because his hazel green eyes, caught by the last rays of the sinking sun, were hard and frighteningly intense.

“What now?” she asked. “Or did you come all this way to help me carry in my groceries?”

“You said you could manage them without my help,” he pointed out. “I thought we’d have a little talk.”

Someone came out next door. She looked up and saw her neighbor, Lou, standing on the porch and staring curiously at them. Marlie waved and called out a hello. Beside her. Detective Hollister also waved.

“Nice to see you again,” he called.

Marlie sternly controlled her temper. Of course he had already been out questioning her neighbors; she wouldn’t have expected him to do otherwise. He had made it plain this morning that he was very suspicious of her.

Despite what he had said, when she opened the trunk he plucked all four bags of groceries out, clutching two in each hand. “After you,” he said politely.

She shrugged; if he was willing to carry her groceries, she was willing to let him. She unlocked the front door and held it open for him, then followed him inside and directed him back to the kitchen, where he placed the bags on the table.

“Thank you,” she said.

“Why say thank you now, when you didn’t before?”

She lifted her brows. “You told me not to.” She began putting the groceries away. “What’s on your mind, Detec-tive?”

“Murder.”

The circumstances of Nadine Vinick’s death weren’t something she could be flippant about. Strain tightened her face as she said simply, “Mine, too.” Her eyes were wide and haunted. He leaned against the cabinet, eyeing her thoughtfully as she moved about the kitchen, bending to stow this item here, stretching to put another on a top shelf. He hadn’t missed the strain in her expression. He looked around. He liked the kitchen, which was a rather unsettling thought; whatever he had expected the interior of her house to be like, this soothing coziness wasn’t it. His own kitchen was strictly utilitarian; Trammell’s was the latest in high tech, totally intimidating. Marlie Keen’s kitchen was comforting. Rows of herbs in small pots grew in a rack in the window over the sink, giving the air a fresh scent. The tile under his feet was a creamy white, with patterns of soft blues and greens. The open shutters over the windows were painted the same soft blue. A white ceiling fan was positioned over the table.

“Did you find out anything interesting about me today?” she asked, keeping her back turned to him as she placed canned goods on a shelf.

He didn’t reply, just broodingly watched her. He wasn’t about to keep her informed of his progress, or lack of it.

“Let me tell you,” she offered lightly. “Today you found that I’ve never been arrested, never had a traffic ticket, and that to the best of my neighbors’ knowledge, I don’t date or have anyone over. I pay my bills on time, don’t use credit cards, and don’t have any books overdue at the library, though I would have if I hadn’t returned those today.”

“Why don’t you tell me again about Friday night,” he said. His tone was sharp. She had neatly outlined his day, and he didn’t like it. The anger that had simmered in him all day was under control, but just barely. The lady definitely put his back up.

He could see her shoulders tense. “What part didn’t you understand?”

“I’d like to hear it all. Humor me. Just start at the beginning.”

She turned around, and she was as pale as she had been that morning, when she had related the story for the first time. Her hands, he noticed, were knotted into fists at her sides.

“Does it bother you to talk about it?” he asked coolly. He hoped it did. If her conscience was bothering her, maybe she’d spill her guts. It had happened before, though usually it was sheer stupidity and a perverted sort of pride that led the perp into confession.

“Of course. Doesn’t it bother you to hear about it?”

“Seeing it was a lot worse.”

“I know,” she murmured, and for a moment the expres-sion in her eyes was unguarded. There was pain in those dark blue depths, and anger, but most of all he saw a desolation that punched him square in the chest.

He had to clench his own hands, to prevent himself from reaching out to support her. Suddenly she looked so frail, as if she might faint. And maybe she was just a damn good actress, he grimly reminded himself, pushing away the unwanted and uncharacteristic concern for a suspect. “Tell me about Friday night,” he said. “What did you say you were doing?”

“I went to a movie, the nine-o’clock one.”

“Where?”

She told him the name of the cinemaplex.

“What movie did you see?”

She told him that, too, then said, “Wait—I may still have the ticket stub. I usually put it in my pocket. I haven’t done laundry since then, so it should still be there.” She walked swiftly out of the room; he didn’t follow but listened intently, tracing her movements through the house so she wouldn’t be able to slip out without his knowledge, if that had been her intention. Of course, he had her car blocked in the driveway, and he didn’t think she would try to run away. Why should she, when she was so certain he didn’t have anything on her? The hell of it was, she was right.

She came back in only a minute and gave him the ticket stub, being careful not to touch him as she let the small piece of paper drop into his hand. Then she swiftly retreated a few steps; his mouth twisted as he noticed the move. She could hardly make it more plain that she didn’t like being close to him. He looked down at the ticket stub in his hand; it was computer-generated, with the name of the movie, the date, and the time printed on it. It proved that she had bought a ticket; it didn’t prove that she had actually watched the movie. He hadn’t seen it himself, so he couldn’t ask her any pertinent questions about it.

“What time did you leave the movie?”

“When it was over. About eleven-thirty.” Marlie stood tensely beside the table.

“Coming home, what route did you drive?”

She told him, even the exit numbers.

“And where were you when you had this so-called vision?”

Her lips tightened, but she kept her composure, and her voice was steady. “As I told you this morning, I had just left the expressway. The visions have always been very… draining, so I pulled off to the side.”

“Draining? How?”

“I lost consciousness,” she said flatly.

His eyebrows rose. “You lost consciousness,” he repeated, disbelief so plain in his tone that her palm itched with the urge to slap him. “You mean you fainted from the stress?”

“Not exactly.”

“What,
exactly
?”

She shrugged helplessly. “I’m taken over by the vision. I can’t see anything else, I don’t hear anything else, I don’t know anything else.”

“I see. So you sat there in your car until the vision ended, then calmly drove home and went to bed. If you’re so certain that you’re psychic, Miss Keen, why did you wait over two days before telling the police? Why didn’t you call it in immediately? We might have been able to catch the guy still in the neighborhood, or maybe even in the house, if you’d called.”

Marlie’s face lost its last tinge of color under the lash of that deep, sarcastic voice. There was no way she could explain what had happened six years before, why some of the details had confused her until she wasn’t certain if she’d had a flashback or if the knowing had returned. She couldn’t expose herself to this man like that, strip her psyche naked to let him see all of her fears, her vulnerabilities. Instead she focused on the one thing he’d said that she could refute.

“N-No,” she stammered, hating the unsteadiness of her voice. She took a deep breath to banish that hint of weakness. “I didn’t just drive home. A patrolman noticed my car and stopped to see if there was any trouble. I don’t remember anything except the vision from the time I pulled over until he knocked on my window and brought me out of it. I was pretty shaky, and I told him that I was an epileptic and must have had a mild seizure. He was a little suspicious and made me get out of the car, but finally he let me go, and followed me home to make certain I got here okay.”

Dane didn’t straighten away from the cabinet, but acute attention was in every line of his big body.

“What time was this?”

“I don’t know.”

“Estimate. You left the movie at eleven-thirty; about what time did the vision start?”

“Eleven-forty, eleven forty-five. I’m not certain.”

“So what time did you get home? How long did the vision last?”

“I don’t know!” she shouted, whirling away from him. “I barely made it home; I collapsed afterward and didn’t wake up until late Saturday afternoon.”

Dane studied her rigid back. She was shaking, a very faint but visible tremor. He should have been glad that he had her rattled, but instead he had this crazy urge to comfort her.

“I’ll be in touch,” he said abruptly, and left before he gave in to that urge. Damn it, what was it about her? He was very aware of the heaviness in his loins, and knew that if she had looked, there was no way she could have missed it. Thank God, she seemed to want to look anywhere but at him. He’d heard of cops who got turned on by danger, but he’d never been one of them. What in hell was the matter with him?

As he got into his car he admitted that he never should have come here, at least not without Trammell. Ostensibly they had called it a day, but he hadn’t been able to. Instead he’d waited for her in the parking lot where she worked, then followed her home. Stupid move; what if she called the lieutenant and complained that he was harassing her? The LT had given them the go-ahead to investigate her, but Dane knew he’d been out of bounds this afternoon.

At least she’d given him something interesting to check out. If a patrolman had stopped to investigate a suspicious vehicle, it wouldn’t be difficult to verify. He had the location and date, and he knew it was on third shift. Piece of cake.