by Kylie Brant
“Miss Easton? I’m sorry for buzzing you a little early. But Mr. McLain was quite adamant about speaking to you immediately.”
With difficulty, Michele tore her gaze away from his burning one to lower her eyes to Julie’s wheelchair and smile weakly at her. “Mr. McLain?” she questioned, as much for his benefit as for her own.
Connor pushed himself away from his position against the wall and approached them lazily. “I told Miss Lawson that I was a . . . friend of yours. She agreed to let me talk to you, even though I don’t have an appointment.”
Michele’s gaze narrowed at the thread of sarcasm she detected in his voice. “I really don’t have much time, Lieu—Mr. McLain.”
Connor cupped her elbow in his hand and walked her back to her office. “Your secretary said you have twenty minutes before your next appointment. I’ll only take ten.” He guided her into her office and shut the door on Julie’s curious gaze.
Michele pulled her arm away from him and whirled around furiously. “What do you think you’re doing? How dare you come here, lie to my secretary and barge into my office like this!”
Connor said nothing as his eyes wandered over her. When she had come out of her office, it had taken him a minute to recognize her. Gone was the polished professional woman who had come to headquarters. In her place was a gypsy. Michele was wearing a scarlet blouse with a wildly patterned skirt. Her hair had been left down to fall like a thick silk curtain around her shoulders. Large hoop earrings completed the outfit. He marveled that she could simply, by the change of attire, appear so totally different. The wildness of her dress failed to mar her porcelain prettiness, however. If anything, it highlighted it. He ignored a sudden and totally unwelcome surge of desire. He could handle that. He concentrated instead on the ease with which she seemed to have changed persona since he’d last seen her. “Would you have preferred it if I had told your secretary I was a detective?”
Michele flushed. “I would have preferred it if you had never come here at all. What else could you possibly want from me? Unless . . .” Her mouth went dry. “There hasn’t been another abduction, has there?” Her knees went weak at the thought. She hadn’t had another dream since she’d gone to the police, and instant guilt flooded her at the relief she had felt when they had come to a halt.
Connor scowled at the color draining from her face. “Sit down,” he commanded brusquely. Pushing her none-too-gently into a chair, he sat also. “No, there hasn’t been another. Why? Did you expect one?”
Michele let out a sigh of relief at his negative reply. Belatedly, her gaze bounced back to him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
His laconic shrug was at marked odds with the sharp interest he felt. “I just wondered if you’d had any more . . . dreams.”
“No, not since I last talked to you,” murmured Michele. So far it had been as she had hoped. The dreams had come more and more frequently before she had gone to the police, each more vivid than the last. After she’d shared what she knew, she hadn’t been disturbed again. It was too soon to tell if they were gone for good.
She eyed Connor squarely as she sat up straighter and crossed her legs. “Somehow I had received the impression from you, Lieutenant, that you didn’t put much stock in what I told you. I find it difficult to believe that you came to me for more clues.” She cocked her head. “Why don’t you tell me what really brings you here?”
“How long has your secretary worked for you?”
“Julie?” Michele was disoriented at his non sequitur. “Ever since I started here. Why?”
“How about that fellow I saw in the hallway? The janitor. How well do you know him?”
“Scott Jansma has also worked here since I started.”
“You really are an equal-opportunity employer.”
Michele’s eyes darkened to charcoal, and when she spoke her tone was precise. “Julie’s handicap in no way hinders her mind, her personality or her ability to do a superb job. The same is true for Scott.”
“He appears to be…slow.”
“He may not be as mentally alert as most people, but he is able to think and feel and reason,” Michele informed him. “We’ve never had any complaints about his work. Do you have a reason for asking, or are you just naturally prejudiced against people with different abilities?”
Connor watched the woman before him with interest. He wasn’t biased, of course. But he had wanted to talk to the real Michele Easton, not the polished professional who had shown up in his office the other day. From her spirited return he had obviously hit on a subject guaranteed to make her lose that cool composure of hers. “Just interested. I wanted to see where you work, who you spend your time with.”
Her eyes narrowed. “This sounds suspiciously like you’re checking me out. I don’t like that, Detective. I don’t like it at all. Are you so hard up for clues that you’re now clutching at straws?”
Connor rose during her tirade and moved around her office, studying the framed diplomas and licenses on the wall. “What’s James Ryan like?” he drawled with studied casualness. At Michele’s silence, he turned his head to look back across his shoulder at her.
At his question, his presence in her office took on a more threatening cast. Why the sudden interest in her employer? Her heart sank. Unless . . . he had come here today expressly to meet James, to perhaps tell him about Michele’s visit to the station. He’d agreed to protect her privacy, but it wouldn’t be the first time an officer of the law had broken that particular promise to her. “You told me earlier that no one would know of my involvement in the case.” She met his gaze directly. “Is that why you came here today? Are you going back on your word?”
Connor looked wounded. “Are you accusing me of lying, Miss Easton? I just asked a simple question. If you don’t want to answer it, I suppose I can always make an appointment and introduce myself to him.”
The tenseness in her features almost made him feel sorry for her for a minute, but he shrugged the feeling away. Michele wasn’t going to sway him by hysterics or tears. But the imminent possibility of either from this woman discomfited him in some way.
Michele engaged in neither. Imperceptibly, her face smoothed, and when she spoke, her voice was calm. “I can assure you that won’t be necessary. I can tell you anything you want to know. James Ryan is a brilliant clinical psychologist. He was on staff at St. Mercy Hospital for twelve years before leaving to go into private practice. After five years he decided to take on a partner. He hired me, and I’ve worked with him for two years. What else would you like to know?”
Connor listened and then crossed over to stand in front of her. “Why don’t you tell me why you’re so afraid that he may find out you came to us with information?”
Michele’s voice was scathing. “Use your head, Lieutenant. James is a highly principled professional. He expects his colleagues to be the same. He’d certainly be disconcerted to learn. . .” She trailed off, her gaze fluttering away.
“To learn that his ‘highly respected’ colleague dreams of things happening to other people?” he asked softly. At her silence, he pressed, “Who does know, Michele? Who else have you told about these extraordinary things that happen in your sleep?”
She schooled her features to a smooth mask. “No one.” That wasn’t strictly true, of course. Her mother was achingly aware of the trauma her dreams had always caused her. Neighbors in West Virginia had also known of her abilities.
Her mind skittered away from thoughts of West Virginia. Because of what had happened there, she had always obeyed her mother’s wishes to avoid sharing her secret with anyone after they’d moved to Philadelphia. And she hadn’t. Not until she had gone to the police.
“Why not? Because I may not be the only person who’s incredulous about a person who claims to ‘see’ things in her dreams? Are you afraid others would also disbelieve you?”
“Or treat me like a freak?” Michele finished frigidly. “Yes, Lieutenant, I’m sure of it. They’d see me just as
you do. Do you think I relish that kind of treatment? That I would seek it out?”
“Yet you did,” he continued inexorably. “When you came to us.”
Michele stood up and paced agitatedly around the office. “Only when I felt I had no choice. You’re free to do whatever you wish with the information I gave you. The choice is yours. I don’t need to have any more to do with you. I’ve told you all I know.”
“But you think I should act on your information, don’t you? Otherwise you wouldn’t have come. You do believe your information to be accurate?”
“I know it is,” Michele whispered rawly. She turned to meet his gaze. “Lieutenant, please don’t let your own bias keep you from making every effort to find those children, even if you have to use information that comes to you in an unconventional manner. If you disqualify what I told you, you may well be sentencing those children to a lifetime of horror, or death. Could you live with the fact that because you ignored what I’ve told you, something even more terrible happened to them?”
Connor’s mouth tightened. He couldn’t, of course. In his line of work he was too aware of the sick reasons people had for kidnapping children. As much as he derided her profession, as little stock as he put in people who claimed psychic powers, the truth was that they were desperate for information. There were few reliable witnesses to the abductions. No consistent firsthand accounts, no description of the person seen approaching the children. Be that as it may, he had no intention of being strung along by a nut case.
“You look very different today,” he drawled, gesturing at her outfit. “So tell me. Which is the real you, the gypsy or the princess?”
“I beg your pardon?” Michele’s voice dripped ice.
Connor allowed some of his derision to show. “When you came to headquarters you gussied up like my great-aunt,” he announced. “Now. . .” He gestured to her. “Well, now you look much different.”
“So?”
“So, which is the real Michele Easton, the gypsy or the prim professional?”
“Personality, Lieutenant, is determined by much more than clothes. One’s inner self does not alter with each different article of clothing one wears.” She cocked her head at him. “Or would you have me believe that in your closet I would find an endless supply of chinos and leather coats?”
“What you would find in my closet,” Connor drawled softly, “might embarrass you. But if you’d like to come by and check it out, feel free.”
Michele refused to respond to his intentionally provocative remark. She didn’t feel the need to justify her changed appearance. She often wore bright clothing when working with young children like Erica. Some of her clients responded to color with an increased level of trust. However, it seemed to have affected the detective much more than it had the little girl. And not in a positive way. He seemed to regard her changed appearance as a method of deception or disguise.
Connor watched her closely but found no chink in her impassive expression. She was good, he admitted silently. He knew damn well he’d just embarrassed her, that she had come close to collapse earlier, but she masked her emotions well. Right now her eyes were blank pools of gray, reflecting nothing of what she might be feeling. He damned that ability of hers even as he grudgingly admired it. A psychologist knew all the tricks he was capable of using to intimidate people, to make them ill at ease and more inclined to babble. He was obviously going to get nowhere using those tactics with her.
Michele shook her head. “Is your suspicious nature natural, or a by-product of your job?”
“It does come in handy in my line of work,” he conceded, without really answering her.
“I’m sure a working knowledge of human nature also comes in handy, Lieutenant. So you should be aware that no one is one-dimensional. There are no black-whites, good-bads. Every person is multifaceted.”
“That’s what makes it so hard to tell the good guys from the bad guys, Miss Easton.”
Michele looked at the gold watch on her wrist. “I’m afraid I really am running out of time for you, Lieutenant. My next client will be here shortly, and I have to prepare.”
He rose and allowed her to usher him to the door. His visit here had been interesting but had provided him with very little information he didn’t already have. At the door he asked with deceptive evenness, “The little girl the jacket belonged to is named Lucy. Did those dreams of yours tell you what happened to get it in such a state?” He turned to face Michele more fully, in order to closely watch her reaction to his question, but he needn’t have bothered. It would have been impossible for her to hide. At his words, she looked as if she had been slapped. She stared at him silently, her lips slightly parted, visibly trembling.
Michele felt an actual physical shock jolt through her body at his abrupt question. She could recall each dream with excruciating accuracy. She’d learned long ago the futility of trying to bury the visions away. As she stared silently at him, her memory supplied her with the horrible details he’d asked for. It was like watching a movie being played at extreme speed, the frames appearing in her mind, into and out of focus, one followed immediately by another. Flash. Eyes round with terror, terrified screams emanating from the little girl’s throat. Flash. Lucy being pulled toward something or someone unseen, before breaking away and throwing herself toward a car handle. Flash. The child being yanked back with force, screams of horror changing to screams of pain. Flash. Blood pouring down her arm, and the screaming, screaming, screaming . . .
“Michele!”
Michele’s eyes fluttered several times before she looked up to find her shoulders held in Connor McLain’s hard grasp, his face close to hers. She freed herself slowly, awkwardly, still reeling emotionally from the horrible memories. She turned away to give herself some time to regroup and strove to find her voice.
“Her upper left arm was hurt as she struggled to get away,” Michele stated, striving for but not quite achieving an even tone. “It was caught on something in the kidnapper’s car, perhaps a spring or wire.” A shudder passed through her, and she turned jerkily, feeling suddenly old and slow. She walked stiffly past him and opened the door, standing aside, clearly inviting his exit.
Connor studied her for an instant. Either this woman was crazier than a bedbug or the best damn actress he’d ever seen. What she had told him could have been true. Certainly the jacket had been torn in the area she’d mentioned. Someone had obviously taken the jacket off the child to get a closer look at the wound. The Dumpster it had been found in was only a few blocks from where she’d been taken. But he was no closer now than he had been before to deciding by what means Michele had come by that information.
Michele, tiring of his inactivity, stalked out of the office. After a moment Connor followed her. Julie looked up as they entered the outer office. “Your next appointment just called and canceled, Michele. I rescheduled it for tomorrow. That was the last one of the day, so if you need more time . . .” Her eyes slid suggestively to Connor.
“We won’t be needing any more time, Julie.” Michele spoke distantly. “Mr. McLain was just leaving.”
Connor nodded laconically to Julie as he passed her desk. “Nice meeting you.”
The secretary sighed audibly as she watched Michele accompany his departing figure. “You too,” she murmured appreciatively, before returning to her work.
They stepped into the hallway, and Michele reached to pull the door closed behind them. “I don’t want to see you again,” she informed him stiffly. “There’s no need for us to have any more to do with each other.”
Connor’s mouth twisted at her words. She was at her haughtiest, her princess mask firmly in place. When he spoke, his tone was derisive. “What if you dream some more, Miss Easton? Surely you’ll let us know.”
Michele’s chin rose even higher at his gibing tone, but before she could answer with a blistering retort, the doorway opposite them opened and a tall slim man dressed impeccably in a double-breasted suit appeared in the hal
lway.
“Good afternoon, James.” Michele addressed the man in resignation, mentally cursing his timing. She felt rather than saw Connor come to attention and knew he had figured out the identity of the man before him. With an inward sigh, Michele introduced the two. “Dr. James Ryan, this is Connor McLain, a . . . friend of mine.” She hated the deception, hated the man beside her for making it necessary by his presence here.
Connor reached to take the well-manicured hand extended to him. So this was the famous James H. Ryan, Ph.D.. The man resembled a banker more than anything else, both in bearing and in appearance. He and Michele suited each other perfectly: the princess and the prince, both civil and proper and devoid of emotion.
He glanced at the woman beside him and found more than warmth in her eyes; there were obvious sparks shooting at him. He almost grinned. “I’ve heard a lot about you from Michele.” His tone was openly intimate, as was the gaze he shot her. “Nice to finally meet you.”
Michele stiffened at his words. She had to get him out of here before he said or did something she would regret. “Connor was just leaving.”
“Very pleasant to have met you,” James said in cultured tones, and Connor frowned at Michele.
“I’ll be in touch.” He knew he had scored a hit by the startled look she shot him before he sauntered away.
Michele watched him go with mingled relief and anxiety at his final words. Her attention was torn from him when she heard her associate observe, “An interesting character, Michele. Is he a client?”
“No, just an acquaintance,” she explained hastily, and changed the subject before he could inquire further. She spoke to James for only a few minutes before excusing herself and returning to her office. She tried unsuccessfully to force Connor McLain from her mind for the rest of the day, but she met with a decided lack of success.
* * *
It was with a heartfelt sigh of relief that Michele entered her duplex that evening. The tense muscles in her neck and shoulders were mute testimony to the stress she’d endured that day.
