Shadow of Danger (8 page)

“You said to use her, and she was willing. She didn’t get anything from the dump site and was eager to try with the necklace.”

“And?”

“I gotta tell you, I haven’t seen anything like it since Janice. While she wasn’t able to pinpoint the location where the woman had been taken, she saw the killer’s face.”

Ian raised a brow. “Do you need me to send a sketch artist?” He could whip one up in a second if need be. His resources never ran dry. Money, influence, and power were sometimes a beautiful thing.
Sometimes.
Because none of those things could give him what he wanted most. A cup of coffee with Celeste.

“No. State Highway Patrol out of Eau Claire had one. Celeste was able to give her the description, and I’ve already sent it out on the wire. That man’s face is now plastered on the wall of every county and city police department across the country.”

Pride seeped clear to his bones. “Can you scan a copy of the sketch and send it to my email?”

“Already done. But, Ian...there’s more. Celeste is convinced the four women we found aren’t the same ones from her dreams. She thinks we’re going to find more bodies, and possibly another killer.”

Ian flipped open his laptop and let it warm up, as another thought occurred to him. “How did John handle that?”

A chuckle filtered over the phone line. “When he first learned I was pairing him up with a psychic, I thought the boy would blow a gasket, but by the end of the day... Put it this way, he damn near growled at anyone who tried to come near her. I’m a little worried about him becoming involved with Celeste, which is why I sent him back to his motel and took her home myself. I don’t want him sniffing around her. Celeste doesn’t date much, and John will be gone once his job here is done. He breaks her heart, and I’ll break him in half. I don’t care if he’s your guy or not.”

Ian smiled at Roy’s threat. “You won’t be breaking anybody in half. John’s nothing to worry about. Trust me. I know the man better than he knows himself.”

“You didn’t see the way he looked at her after she finished performing that reading on the victim’s necklace. I’m telling you, he—”

“Doesn’t become involved with witnesses, partners, victims’ families, etcetera. Especially while working on a case. He’s too bent on control.”

After what John had endured during his last days with the FBI, Ian doubted he had anything but ice running through his veins. He’d changed. He’d become edgy, distrustful, an asocial workaholic. When he’d joined CORE, he’d volunteered to take on the worst cases, almost as if punishing himself, pushing himself. He’d showed no emotion, no attachment. He would work one heinous case, then move on to the next.

“If you say so,” Roy said with a sigh. “I gotta run. The mayor’s waiting on me. I’ll call you when I have something new to report.”

After hanging up the phone, Ian finally flipped open the folder on his desk. A snapshot of Celeste, one Roy had sent him six months ago, stared back. She stood in front of the diner, with her brother, Will, who had his arm draped over her shoulder.

She truly was a beautiful woman, with wavy blond hair, a wide, beautiful smile, and sparkling blue eyes. So much like her mother’s eyes. He slammed the folder shut at the memory and the regret he’d carried for thirty years.

He downed the warm, watery scotch with one swallow, wishing in his youth he could have been more like John. Detached, unemotional, and able to resist temptation.

*

John eyed the organized chaos he’d created across the old, lumpy motel bed. Files and photographs stared back, mocking him. The blur of papers and pictures made it difficult to concentrate, to put the pieces together. Damn it,
she
made it difficult. 

He couldn’t stop thinking about Celeste. How anxiety and horror had reflected in her eyes after the reading she’d performed in the ME’s office. She’d been so pale, so scared. She’d trembled in his arms, and as she’d clung to him, or maybe he’d been the one doing the clinging, her fear had crawled under his skin. That fear had made him want to erase whatever horrors she’d seen and protect her from the boogeyman they were after. No, make that boogey
men,
he amended.

As much as he didn’t want to believe in her abilities, he couldn’t discount one huge fact—she’d known that Ruby Styles had a dislocated shoulder. Carl Saunders hadn’t revealed that information in front of her, but in the hall outside of his office. Could she have heard him? Or had she actually
seen
what had happened to Ruby?

Curious, he reached for the notes Roy had given him earlier. Celeste’s visions. He’d been avoiding them for nearly two hours. He hadn’t wanted to read her nightmares, to know the fear she’d been living with these past four nights. Even though he still wasn’t exactly sold on the whole psychic phenomena, after what had happened in his car, and again at the ME’s office, he decided maybe it was time he opened his mind. See if there was anything in her notes that might help their investigation. 

As he was about to open the folder, his cell phone chimed indicating a text message. He quickly read the text from Ian.
Spoke with Roy. No need to talk tonight.
Irritated, actually downright pissed and perplexed, he tossed the phone onto the bed.

During the two years he’d been working for CORE, Ian had never once taken a report on a case from someone outside of the agency, yet he’d taken Roy’s over his. Was the sheriff somehow part of CORE? Was that his connection to Ian?

Frustrated and edgy, he reached for the folder again, then flopped into the wobbly chair in the corner of his small motel room. As he skimmed the pages from her first vision, certain words stuck out at him. Trees, running, bleach, pain, and red. Lots and lots of red.

Blood? Or maybe the tiny balls she’d mentioned during her “trance” in his rental.

He reread the vision, this time not skimming or skipping around the page, and when he reached the end, he sucked in a deep breath. “She’d been stabbed to death. Not strangled,” he murmured. This killer, the one from her dreams, had a different MO compared to the four women discovered in the woods. Was it possible Celeste was right? That there were more bodies out there? Another killer on the loose?

The memory of Celeste in the passenger seat of his car came back to haunt him. The way she had clutched her stomach, her body jerking upward as if an imaginary force had been...

He dropped the folder onto the floor, then rushed to the bed where he’d left his cell phone.               Needing to see her, to know she was safe, that she was...all in one piece, he punched in her number.

“Hello,” she answered, sounding out of breath.

Alarmed, he gripped the phone tight. “Celeste? It’s John. Are you okay?”

“I’m feeling
much
better,” she panted.

His fear quickly turned to jealousy. What had he caught her in the middle of that was making her feel
much
better?

The Viking’s image came to mind. He’d seen the way Lloyd had looked at her, the way she had looked at him. There was a connection, an intimacy between them. Was he with her now? Enjoying her body, easing her tension? Disappointed, he slumped to the lumpy mattress and drew in a deep breath.   

“Whenever I’m stressed, working out always helps,” she continued, her breathing now closer to normal.

“I understand,” he said. “During some of my worst cases, I’ve been known to run for miles, even during the middle of the night, just to blow off some steam and clear my head.” The relief over knowing the Viking wasn’t the one giving her the workout must have affected his brain. He
never
shared personal information. Not that what time of night he’d gone for a run was all that personal, still, it was more than his counterparts at CORE knew.

“Um...is something wrong?” she asked. “You sound, I don’t know, upset.”

“No, nothing’s wrong. I just wanted to see how you were doing. We didn’t have a chance to talk after the, uh...”

“Psychotic vision?”

“Don’t you mean
psychic?
”

“Yes...no.” She released a heavy sigh. “I don’t know. I’m feeling a little mixed up right now.”

“Understandable.”

“I suppose.”

“You’ve had a strange day, even for a psychic.”

Her soft laugh warmed him and made him wish they were face to face. He wanted to see her beautiful smile, to see if that smile reached her eyes. In less than twelve hours, he’d been bombarded with a bunch of emotions and uncertainties he hadn’t experienced since...never. Not even with Renee. She’d been as blasé about relationships as he’d been. Sex had been a way to release the tension, a quick fix. There had been no dating, no romance. The only pillow talk they’d shared had been about their cases.

Celeste stirred a longing he hadn’t realized he’d wanted, and he didn’t understand the connection he felt toward her. The deep protectiveness, the need that went beyond pure desire. A need that made him ache, made him wish he had more to give.

“Yep, even for a psychic,” she said with a sigh.

“I know it’s late, and maybe you’ve already predicted this,” he teased, “but do you want some company? I thought we could talk.”

She laughed again, and he couldn’t help grinning like an idiot at the sound of it. “Really? I’d like that. Give me a half hour to shower and change. Okay?”

“Sure, see you then.” He kept his tone neutral, even as his heart hammered and anticipation roared through him.

After ending the call, he cleaned up his motel room, then hopped into the shower. Thirty minutes later he pulled the sedan into her driveway. He momentarily admired her large, brick colonial, as he stepped out of the rental. Lit by an array of solar lamps and the moon’s bright, dazzling beam, her house, like all the others in Wissota Falls, was beautifully landscaped. Neat and trim with no overgrown hedges, no weeds in the beds, no—what the hell?

As he strolled along her brick walkway, tiny plaster men stared at him, their rosy, cherub faces smiling while their lifeless eyes danced. He did a quick double take. There had to be at least a couple dozen ugly garden creatures guarding her house. 

He ignored the eerie plaster eyes watching his back, took a deep breath and rang the door bell, wondering if this was a mistake. He never paid personal visits to witnesses during a criminal investigation. Although technically, she wasn’t exactly a witness, she was his partner. The sober reminder had him gritting his teeth as Renee’s image flashed in his head.

His chest tightened, not in a good way, and he wished he’d left the antacids he’d bought earlier in the car. He might be able to overcome Celeste’s belief that she was psychic. Hell, at this point a part of him was almost a believer. But he couldn’t, not after Renee, allow himself to become mixed up in a physical relationship with a partner. No matter the unexplainable attraction.

He should have waited, voiced his fears about her safety to Roy and ordered a cruiser parked outside her door. But the sheriff didn’t have the manpower for that, he reminded himself, giving him another excuse, another reason to see her.

The gun barrel lodged in Renee’s throat filtered past his reasoning. Clenching his jaw even tighter, he decided he’d check on her then leave. Looking around the yard again, he caught the accusing glances from her ugly garden creatures. Then the door opened.

He drew in a deep breath and forgot about every reason he should
not
be here, and quickly tried to come up with an excuse to never leave again.

*

Dr. Alex Trumane stepped onto the sidewalk and into the balmy night. The air was thick with humidity and the threat of rain as he bypassed his Lexus, and did what he’d done every week for the past two months.

He tested himself.

Looking in the distance, not more than two blocks away, he focused on his destination, Dudley’s Diner. Unfortunately, temptation stood between him and the diner. Three bars were scattered among a pawn shop, a small-time, family-owned electronics store, an all-night laundromat, and an apartment building. As he approached the first bar, The Office Lounge, he quickened his pace.

Neon lights advertising Heineken, Budweiser, and Corona reflected off the bar’s front window, beckoning him to stop in and sit for a spell. While he preferred gin or whiskey, a cold beer on a hot night sounded damned good.

His mouth watered, but without pausing he kept moving. He passed Reliable’s Pawn Shop, then a small alley, until he came to the next temptation. High and Dry boasted the same neon lights. Only the bar’s door stood wide open, the sounds of laughter and people talking drifted to the sidewalk and had him longing to step inside and erase the loneliness. He had acquaintances in there, as well as at The Office Lounge. He’d learned, though, that sobriety meant not only a change of lifestyle, but a change in the people he’d associated with regularly. Barflies didn’t make the greatest friends for a recovering alcoholic. 

Forcing himself not to run, he kept his focus on Dudley’s Diner. He passed the laundromat and then the next bar without wavering, until he finally stood in front of the diner. Eight weeks he’d tempted and tested himself, and once again he’d done so with triumph. Breathing a sigh of relief, he stepped inside, then took his usual seat at the counter.