Shaking her head, she continued. “A few years older than me, but still in elementary school. She disappeared while riding her bike home from the park one day.”
He knew this sad tale. Or at least dozens like it.
“It was all any of the adults were talking about. Neighborhood watches started up. We weren’t allowed to walk to friends’ houses alone or go to the playground by ourselves anymore. Everybody was in a panic. My parents included.”
She hadn’t mentioned her father before, just her mother. But he didn’t want to interrupt by asking for more details than she was already providing.
“Who wouldn’t be?” He didn’t really expect an answer, the question was rhetorical. He had plenty of experience with hysterical parents. Discovering your child was missing was something one never got over. Caroline Remington certainly hadn’t.
He buried that memory, focusing on the here and now, not to mention the road. They were turning into what he assumed was her neighborhood and would be at her door momentarily. Soon she’d exit the car and he’d go home and maybe tomorrow they’d go back to being a little more formal, a bit more aloof. He wouldn’t be putting his hand on her shoulder and she wouldn’t be baring her soul about a bad childhood memory.
Which, for some reason, made him lift his foot ever so slightly off the gas pedal as they cruised slowly down the block. “So how did you react? What were you thinking?”
“I was afraid. It was all anybody talked about. I remember being terrified for months, having nightmares. Probably like every other seven-year-old girl in the area.”
Seven. Jesus. “Did they ever find her?”
“Yes,” she said, her voice thick. “Her body was found in a neighbor’s shed, rolled up in an old rug. Guy was a convicted sex offender; he’d killed her a few hours after taking her.”
Aidan wasn’t at all surprised. If parents knew just how close monsters like that were to their nice, normal homes and neighborhoods, they’d probably never let their kids out the door.
“Hell, I’m sorry,” he said.
“Me too.”
He listened for the softly spoken instructions from the smooth, computerized voice on the GPS, which told him to turn into the next driveway. No more delaying. They had arrived at her small, one-story house on a quiet street with dozens of other homes that looked just like it.
Pulling up in front, he moved the gearshift to park, and waited. Lexie didn’t hop out right away, nor did he move to go around and open the door for her. As if they both just wanted to sit here in the darkness and talk for a few more minutes.
“There was one thing that always stuck with me,” she finally said. “A conversation I overheard one night when my parents thought I was asleep.”
He turned to look at her, noting the way the dash lights brought more auburn highlights to her red hair, which had tumbled out of its ponytail at some point today and now fell around her shoulders in soft waves. He’d found her pretty before; now, seeing the strength of her profile, the softness of her cheeks, the fullness of her lips, he acknowledged that she was, in truth, a beautiful woman. Her passion and drive only made her more so.
“My mother said it would have been better if they’d never found her. That knowing how awful her final hours were was too much for a parent to bear, and it would have been kinder for them to go on believing she was still alive somewhere, hoping they’d see her again someday.”
He’d heard the theory before. Didn’t agree with it, but he’d heard it.
“My father, though, felt the opposite. He said knowing the truth, and knowing she couldn’t ever be hurt again, would be better than going to bed every night for the rest of your life wondering if your child had just endured another endless day of brutalization and torment. With nothing but more days just like them ahead of her.”
He swallowed hard, having met people whose minds filled with that very thought every single time their heads touched the pillow. “Your father sounds like a smart guy.”
“He was,” she murmured.
Filing that tidbit away—that she’d been especially close to her father and he’d died—he said, “That’s why this is so personal to you, why you have to find them. Find her.”
“Yes, that’s why.” She finally lifted her gaze from her own clenched hands. “And I’m not going to give up until I do, whether Vonnie Jackson is alive or dead.”
He let the words sink in, noting her will and her determination. Aidan understood so much about her now. He already knew her relationship with her boss had a lot to do with the loss of her father, and her recklessness had probably come about from rebelling against her mother.
He also knew that every single day she waged a battle against men in power who wanted to control her, or men without it who wanted to hurt her—or merely objectify her. Lexie’s life was a constant balancing act as she tried to follow her conscience and do her job, despite obstacles and enemies. Every day she kept on going, kept fighting.
Knowing her, even for such a brief time, was suddenly making him question every choice he’d made in the past year. Because she could have run, she could have quit, could have given up. But she hadn’t. So what did that say about him?
“Okay, Lex,” he finally said, “we do this together.”
He knew she understood everything he was trying to convey. That he was with her, that he wasn’t giving up, either. That she was no longer alone.
She glanced over, her eyes gleaming, moist. He sensed the woman didn’t cry often—didn’t allow herself to cry often. Seeing the way her lashes fluttered and her lips quivered, he couldn’t help reaching out, giving her a bit of the human connection she seemed to need.
Aidan touched her in the darkness, brushing his fingertips against her soft cheek. He didn’t think about what it might cost him, how her thoughts and memories might later invade his consciousness. He merely thought of the now. Of her need. Of the attraction he’d felt for her from the start, which had built every minute since.
She hesitated for the briefest of seconds, as if knowing a touch was something he never offered lightly. Then she curled her face into his hand, and her soft hair fell over his wrist. Her warm exhalations flowed across his skin, her breaths deep and steady.
They remained still, motionless for one long moment. But he had the feeling it was one of those moments when everything changed.
Neither of them spoke, nor did they move closer, try to change or deepen the connection. This was enough. At least for now.
“Thank you,” she finally murmured, her lips brushing ever so lightly against the fleshy part of his palm before she lifted her head and stared at him.
“You’re welcome. Good night, Lexie.”
Saturday, 5:45 a.m.
Lexie couldn’t remember the last time she’d had such vivid dreams, the kind that were so intense, it was hard to know where fantasy ended and reality began. She only knew that as she woke up, she had to sit straight up in bed and blink a few times, plus pat her hand on the pile of rumpled sheets beside her, just to be sure she wasn’t still asleep.
Because in her dreams, she hadn’t been alone beneath those sheets.
“Good God.” She swung her legs off the bed and sat in the darkness, trying to slow her rapid breaths. She’d had nightmares a lot lately. Bad ones. But last night was the first time she could recall dreaming about hot, sweaty sex with a guy she hadn’t even known a few days ago.
If Aidan McConnell really had the kind of skills and talents she’d dreamed about, he didn’t have to worry about going back to work as a psychic. He could get a job providing satisfaction to women.
Her breaths evened out, but nothing cooled off the heat in her. She was hyped up, her nerve endings afire, every feminine part of her in thrall to the fantasy delights of the night before.
Considering they hadn’t even kissed, she couldn’t understand why her nighttime rest had been consumed by him. Yes, he was incredibly good-looking, but she’d met good-looking men before and her subconsciou
s hadn’t spent entire nights indulging in wild fantasies about them. She even suspected she’d actually been rocked awake by a real orgasm about an hour ago, but had interpreted it as part of the illusion.
“You are losing it,” she told herself as she got up and stumbled to her bathroom. “And you need to get laid.” Preferably by someone who could be easily forgotten.
Which left Aidan McConnell out of the picture. He wouldn’t be easily forgotten. The man had already taken up residence in the most secretive, hidden part of her brain, where her deepest fantasies and sensual wishes resided.
Standing at the sink, she eyed herself in the mirror, seeing the tangled hair, the moist, parted lips, and the pucker of her nipples against her T-shirt. She didn’t look like a woman who’d had erotic dreams; she looked like one who’d had an actual erotic night. As if she’d truly given herself over entirely to her new lover and he’d given her immense satisfaction.
But now she was awake. And very—very—needy.
Part of her wanted to go back to bed, to lose herself in that decadent bliss again. This time, she wasn’t even sure she’d have to fall asleep before the fantasy overtook her.
A worried thought flashed through her mind, because everything about last night—and now—was so out of character for her. “Did you do this to me?” she asked, speaking not to her reflection but to the man she’d dreamed about. Had he somehow caused last night to happen?
Crazy. Whatever he might be able to do when it came to the supernatural stuff, she definitely could not. Psychic ability wasn’t catching. The simple touch between them in the car might have left him with some residual sensations, but it shouldn’t have done anything to her beyond feeling nice at that particular moment. There hadn’t been any mystery, any otherworldly stuff about it. From the minute she’d met Aidan, she’d been overwhelmed by his magnetism. He hadn’t used any powers to arouse her, beyond his own strong sexual appeal.
She didn’t breathe a sigh of relief yet, however. Because the way he’d described his abilities brought another worrisome thought to mind. What if he tapped into her dreams? Were they floating around, her own invisible lust-print on the world, waiting to be discovered? If so, how would she ever face him again?
“Naked and on a flat surface,” she immediately whispered, not giving it a second thought.
She didn’t know where the response had come from, she only knew she meant it, as if she’d always known that’s where they would end up. No, she hadn’t gone to bed imagining he was with her. She’d liked his touch, liked the warmth that had been building between them. Still, she hadn’t truly thought about them having sex, beyond the general he’s-so-damn-hot stuff.
Now, however, when she did think about it, she had to wonder if her subconscious was telling her to just drop any mental barriers and go for it if she had the chance.
Okay, so he wasn’t an unchallenging, no-strings guy. She didn’t see him as the type who would indulge in meaningless one-night stands, not when intimate touching opened him up to so much potential conflict. She already knew he wouldn’t be easily taken and forgotten. But that didn’t mean she shouldn’t want to go right ahead and take him.
So take him. Her heart beat a little faster and she went soft inside. Oh, yeah, she definitely wanted to take him. She just wasn’t sure how. Or when.
Unfortunately, she had no time to think about it. The only thing she had time for right now was a long, hot shower. But hell, if that shower included a little erotic daydreaming and some flirtation with her shower massage, well, there were certainly worse ways to start the day.
Saturday, 5:50 a.m.
Having long been a victim of insomnia, Aidan was used to sleeping in short increments. He took rest when he could get it, not even attempting to shut himself down unless his mind was devoid of any pressing thoughts. Which meant he’d done very little sleeping the previous night.
But at some point, he had drifted off. He’d last looked at the clock at three. Checking it now as he jerked awake, he realized he’d managed almost three solid hours, which was good for him these days. Yet he didn’t feel rested. God, no. In fact, he felt more edgy and tense than ever.
Because of his dreams.
“Shouldn’t have touched her, man,” he told himself as he sat up on the couch in his office, where he almost always slept these days. “You should never have made contact.”
Too late. He had touched her, cupped her cheek, felt the brush of her hair on his skin. And though he’d been honest that he couldn’t do any kind of Vulcan mind meld, that simple connection of his fingertips to Lexie’s face had created a hell of an opening between their minds.
Maybe not. Maybe it was just a normal dream. And just yours.
Maybe. After all, he’d never experienced anything like that before, sharing actual real-time mental images with another person while they both slept. It never worked that way, his ability. There had never been an actual open channel with thoughts, feelings, and sensations flowing back and forth between him and someone else.
So, yeah, it probably had been just his dream. A hot, sexy dream about a sexy woman who’d intrigued him from almost the very start.
“Yeah, dream on,” he muttered.
Because, somehow, he knew it had been real. Last night hadn’t been some standard sex dream. It had been so physical, so tangible. He was out of breath, like he’d completed a hard workout. His heart was pounding. He could smell that spicy shampoo of hers, plus the sweet, pungent aroma of steamy sex. He was sweating, his skin sensitized. And he had a huge hard-on.
“More than just a dream,” he admitted aloud.
They’d met in the night. Her mind had been swept up with midnight visions and he’d barged into them. The details were too clear, the sensations too extreme to mean anything else.
Though he’d walked her to her door last night, he hadn’t gone in. Yet he knew the sheets on her bed were a soft yellow and the bedspread had daisies on it. He knew the ceiling fan above the bed squeaked, but that the breeze it generated felt good against their sweat-tinged bodies.
He knew Lexie had a small birthmark just below her right pelvic bone, that it was shaped like a crescent moon, and that his lips would fit perfectly against it. Just like he knew she loved having him tangle his fingers in her hair when he was inside her.
He knew all of that. Because he’d been there, in her mind, sharing every experience as it had happened. He’d slipped inside her dream and upped the stakes, answering each of her fantasies with mind-blowing attention, fulfilling every one of his own at the same time.
He knew something else, too. They hadn’t been sharing one dream about some could-have-been kind of encounter. They had jointly anticipated a someday-soon one.
And though he knew he was nowhere near ready to let anybody—any woman—into his life on a real, permanent basis, especially one who was upbeat, energetic, outgoing, and his total opposite, his bed was a completely different story. There, he didn’t think it mattered how different they were, or whether he was even capable of connecting emotionally with anyone ever again. He was definitely interested in connecting physically.
So if he had his way, that someday-soon, would be very soon indeed.
Chapter Eight
Saturday, 10:55 a.m.
“Ms. Jackson? Berna Jackson?” Lexie asked, knocking on the warped apartment door. She’d intentionally arrived at the dilapidated building at midmorning. Her hope was to be late enough that Vonnie’s mother would be awake, but early enough that she hadn’t yet left to go out for a liquid lunch that would last dozens of courses and many hours. “I need to talk to you!”
She got no answer. Lexie considered pounding harder, yet she hesitated. The building was quiet. On arrival, she’d seen none of the residents smoking on the outside stoop like there had been the last time she’d visited, nor did any children play on the rusty swing set outside. The dingy halls, lit by bare, weak bulbs, were deserted.
She suspected she knew why. Lots of people w
ould be recovering from a wild Friday night that lasted until dawn. Children had probably been plopped down in front of Saturday-morning cartoons and told to stay quiet for fear of waking somebody up.
Vonnie. God, no wonder she’d so desperately wanted to get out. For her sake, Lexie couldn’t give up. Hopefully, now that Aidan seemed committed to helping her, and the whole town was starting to demand answers, the truth would come out.
She couldn’t deny it felt good to have allies.
She knocked again. “Mrs. Jackson, please open the door. I have some information. I think you’re going to want to hear about what happened at the game last night.”
Mentioning the game reminded her of the rest of last night. As in, her car. She still had to deal with the legalities of that. She’d called her insurance agent this morning, who’d told her she’d need to file a police report. Not up to that, she’d arranged for a rental car. To her knowledge, her poor little Honda still sat on its four flat tires in the school parking lot. It wasn’t going anywhere and could be dealt with this afternoon—when she didn’t have to do it alone.
Somehow, the image of going to the police station and reporting the vandalism seemed a little easier when Aidan was included. He’d made the offer last night, and while it hadn’t seemed entirely necessary then, now she intended to take him up on it. It would be one of their first stops after she met up with him at his place at noon. Hopefully by then she’d be able to meet his eye without revealing that she’d spent all night dreaming of doing wild things with him.
Glancing at her watch and realizing Vonnie’s mother was either dead to the world or already gone, she gave it one more shot. She knocked again, a little harder, and raised her voice as much as she dared. “Please, Ms. Jackson, I know you wanted to talk to me!”
Still nothing, but she did hear a creak from behind her. Swinging around, Lexie saw a robe-wearing neighbor, eyeing her through a cracked door across the hall. This wasn’t the same woman she’d talked to previously, who’d been weary but worried about her neighbor’s daughter. This one looked hard and bleary-eyed, as if she’d been on an all-night bender. And Lexie had woken her up. Not a good way to begin an acquaintance.
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