Night Moves: Dream Man/After the Night (57 page)

“Did you just call?” he demanded tersely, after a quick call to local Information.

“I . . . yes. I’m sorry.”

“Any reason for it?”

He could hear her breathing over the line, the sounds fast and shallow. Something had upset her. “I was worried,” she finally admitted.

“Worried? About what?”

“I thought you might be in some sort of trouble. I was wrong. I’m sorry,” she said again.

“You were wrong,” he repeated, with exaggerated disbelief. “Imagine that.”

She slammed the receiver down in his ear. He winced, angrily started to punch the redial button, but hung up instead. Instead of being sarcastic, he should have tried to find out more about what had her so upset; maybe Nadine Vinick was weighing on her conscience. Maybe she’d been about to spill the beans; Officer Ewan had cleared her, though she didn’t know that yet, but he’d still bet money that she knew the perp’s identity. Now, because of his own big mouth, he had blown the chance to find out, because she sure as hell wasn’t going to talk to him now.

Then he realized that neither of them had identified themselves. She had known who he was, just as he had known who she was.

And she had been right about one thing, damn it. He
was
in trouble. He looked down at his lap again. Big trouble.

Temptation gnawed at him. He slammed the beer down onto the table so hard that foam sloshed out of the can. Then, cussing at his own stupidity, he picked up the receiver and hit the redial.

“What?” she snapped, answering before the first ring had even completed.

“What’s going on? Talk to me.”

“What would you like me to say?” she asked sweetly.

“How about the real reason why you called.”

“I
told
you. I thought something was wrong.”

“What gave you that idea?” Try as he might, he couldn’t keep the skepticism out of his tone.

She took a deep, steadying breath. “Look. I had an uneasy feeling about you and I was worried. I was wrong.”

“What made you think it had anything to do with me?”

Dead silence. He waited, but she didn’t say anything. It was such a complete silence, without even the sound of her breathing, that alarm chilled his spine. “Are you all right?”
he asked sharply. “Marlie?” Silence. “Come on, babe, talk to me, or I’m on my way over there.”

“No!” Her voice sounded strangled. “No—don’t come over.”

“Are you okay?”

“Yes. Yes, I’m fine. I just . . . thought of something else.”

“Such as?”

“Maybe it wasn’t connected with you. Maybe it was someone else. I have to think about this. Good-bye.”

“Don’t hang up,” he warned. “Goddamn it, Marlie, don’t hang up—shit!” The dial tone buzzed in his ear. He slammed the phone down and surged to his feet. He’d go over there, check it out—

—And find what? He sincerely doubted she’d open the door to him. Nor did he have a reason, because Officer Ewan had cleared her. That had eaten at him all day; unless something else turned up, and things were looking damn hopeless in that respect, he had no reason to talk to her again. And solving Nadine Vinick’s murder seemed more and more unlikely. It pissed him royally that it looked as if the case would be a real mystery, a stranger-to-stranger killing, the kind that was almost never resolved. Mrs. Vinick deserved better than that.

And he didn’t want never to see Marlie Keen again. If she wasn’t involved in the case, and officially he had to accept that, then he’d have to arrange something else. He didn’t like what he was feeling, but it was too damn strong to ignore.

•  •  •

Marlie paced, alternately swearing and wiping away tears. Damn Hollister! He made her so angry, she could have cheerfully taken a swing at him, had he been there right then. But Hollister was the least of her problems. The knowing was definitely coming back, maybe a little altered from before. Maybe she wasn’t as empathic as she had been; maybe there was a bit more clairvoyance. How else could she have known that Hollister was watching a baseball
game? How else could she have anticipated his answer right down to the second? That had never happened before.

She had been thinking about him, unwillingly, but he had definitely been on her mind when the uneasiness, the sense of danger, had swept over her. She had automatically thought it had something to do with him, but it hadn’t; he had just been so strongly in her mind that she hadn’t realized the two weren’t connected. That meant she had two problems; no, three. One: Her extrasensorial skills were coming back, in fits and starts. She didn’t want them to, but they were, and she’d have to deal with it. She pushed that acknowledgment away, because though this problem would have the biggest effect on her life, the others were more immediate.

Two: Detective Hollister was going to be a big complication. He already was. He made her angrier than anyone else she’d ever met, and he did it without even trying. He was a big Neanderthal, sarcastic and skeptical, and she could feel his own anger blazing at her. He was so intense that she almost yielded to the impulse to hide her face every time she saw him. He burned with the sort of fierce masculinity that made women turn and go all google-eyed when they watched him. Marlie knew she didn’t have much experience with men, but that didn’t mean she was stupid, either. Her reactions to him were too intense, out of all proportion. The last thing she needed right now was a sexual attraction to handle, especially when nothing could come of it. Groaning, she realized that Hollister felt the same reluctant attraction. He had called her “babe.” Probably the only thing that had held him back was his suspicion of her, and that couldn’t last in the absence of evidence. Men like him didn’t hesitate when they wanted a woman; once he admitted that she had nothing to do with Nadine Vinick’s murder, she would have to fend him off.

Which brought her to problem number three, the one so distressing that she had put off thinking about it: The evil she had felt, which had made her so uneasy, had the
same . . . texture, or personality, as the force she had felt the night Nadine Vinick had been murdered. It was the same man. He was still out there, and his evil was focusing on someone else. It was unformed as yet; she had caught only an echo of it. But he was going to act again, and she was the only hope the police had, and his intended victim had, to stop him in time.

She had nothing to go on. No face, no name. Eventually, though, she would be able to focus on him, stay with him, and he would make some mistake that would tell her his identity.

She would have to work with the police, and that meant working with Hollister. She had no doubt it would be an uncomfortable, difficult situation, but she had no choice. She was caught up in this and had no way of getting out.

M
ARLIE HAD JUST FINISHED DRESSING
the next morning when the heavy knock at the front door made her jump, then frown with both annoyance and alarm. She had no doubt who was pounding on her door at seven-twenty in the morning, and it didn’t take any special skills to figure it out.

The best way to deal with him, though, was to not let him know that she reacted to him in any way. He would see her anger as a weakness, and heaven help her if he should get even a hint of the unwilling attraction she felt. He was too aggressive to let either circumstance pass by.

She wasn’t about to invite him in. She had to get to work, and she had no intention of letting him make her late. She got her purse and had her keys in hand as she marched to the front door. When she opened it, he was standing almost in her face, leaning with one muscular arm braced against the frame and the other one raised to pound on her door again. The closeness of his body made her catch her breath, a reaction she hid by stepping out and turning to close the door behind her. Unfortunately, he didn’t move back, and
she fetched up solidly against him, all heat and hard muscle. She was practically in his arms; all he had to do was close them around her, and she would be caught.

Grimly she concentrated on locking the door, trying to ignore the situation. The brief look she had had at his face told her that he was ill tempered this morning, but now she sensed an alarming male edginess beneath the temper. He was as fractious as a stallion scenting a mare in season.

The mental image was unfortunate, and so apt that her heart began beating wildly. With her back turned to him as she wrestled with the stubborn lock, she was suddenly acutely aware of the press of his body against her buttocks. An unmistakable ridge had formed, thick and hard, blatant in intent.

The lock finally clicked into place. She stood motionless, frozen with indecision. If she moved, she would be rubbing against him; if she didn’t move, he might take it as an invitation. She closed her eyes against the insidious temptation to simply turn and face him, giving him silent permission by giving him access. Only the certainty that it wouldn’t work, that she would freeze under the onslaught of a six-year-old horror, kept her from giving in. She couldn’t go through that again.

She forced her voice to work. “What do you want, Detective?” Then she could have bit her tongue. Bad choice of words, under the circumstances. With his erection insistently nudging her, what he wanted was obvious.

For two seconds he didn’t answer. She felt the lift of his chest as he slowly inhaled; then, thankfully, blessedly, he moved back a step. “I’m not here as a detective. I just came to see if you’re all right.”

The heavy sexual tension eased with the small distance between them, making her feel as if she had been freed from shackles. The relief made her light-headed, a reaction she countered with action. “I’m fine,” she said briskly, and went down the steps before he could stop her. Oh, damn. His car was blocking hers in the driveway. She stopped, and her
self-control had returned enough that she hesitated only briefly before turning to face him. “I have to leave or I’ll be late to work.”

He glanced at his wristwatch. “It’s a fifteen-minute drive. You have plenty of time.”

“I like to leave early, in case of trouble.”

The explanation didn’t budge him. His heavy-lidded hazel eyes moved over her, their expression shielded. “Anything else scare you last night?”

“I wasn’t scared.”

“Couldn’t prove it by me.”

“I wasn’t scared,” she repeated, this time with her teeth clenched. His obstinance was already fraying her temper. She needed to get away from him,
now.

“Sure you were. And you’re scared now.” His gaze raked over her again. “Though not for the same reason,” he said softly. This time when his eyelids lifted, she saw the predatory gleam of male awareness.

Marlie stiffened, a chill of apprehension touching her. He might not be psychic himself, but his male instincts were acute. It would be more difficult to evade him than she’d thought, for he sensed the response she couldn’t quite mask. He came down the steps toward her, and she swiftly retreated to her car. She jerked the door open and slid behind it, using it as a barricade against him.

He regarded her over the open door, his eyes sharp now, piercingly intent. “Calm down,” he murmured. “Don’t get in such a snit.”

She glared at him, agitated almost beyond endurance. If he didn’t leave soon, she was going to lose control and say something she knew she would regret. She clutched at the door for support, her knuckles white with the effort. “Move your car, Detective. And unless you have a warrant, don’t come to my house again.”

•  •  •

Great going, Hollister.
Dane felt violent as he swore at himself. He glared down at his desk, ignoring the noise
around him of overlapping voices and the incessant ringing of the telephones. He was raw with frustration, both sexual and professional. There were no leads in the Vinick case, no evidence. The investigation was going nowhere, and it looked as if his interest in Marlie Keen was rapidly headed in the same direction.

What else had he expected? That she wouldn’t notice his erection jammed against her ass? The wonder was that she hadn’t started screaming.

He should have moved back immediately when she had stepped out of the house, but he hadn’t. The first accidental touch of her body had frozen him in place, all of his senses painfully focused on the contact. It had felt so good that he had barely been able to tolerate it, but at the same time it hadn’t been enough. He had wanted more. He had wanted to strip her naked, to thrust inside her. He had wanted to feel her legs wrapped around his hips, wanted to feel her quivering beneath him as she came. He wanted to dominate her, smash her resistance, bend her so thoroughly to his will that he could take her whenever he wanted . . . and he wanted to protect her from everything and everyone else. That was why he had been on her front porch this morning. He hadn’t been able to rest all night, almost certain something had frightened her but totally certain that she wouldn’t welcome his concern if he’d called her again. When morning came, he hadn’t been able to resist. He’d had to see for himself that she was all right.

So what had he done? Alienated her even further. He had mishandled her from the very beginning, and he still had no idea what he was supposed to do about her. Officer Ewan had cleared her of being at the scene of Nadine Vinick’s murder, but she obviously knew something about it, and had come to the police with it. So what was she, a suspect or a witness? Logic said the former, some uneasy instinct said the latter, and his dick frankly didn’t give a damn.