by Kylie Brant
Chapter 16
Michele didn’t slam down the phone receiver, but it was dropped with a decided ring of frustration. A heavy sigh broke from her, and her pencil tapped the top of her desk consideringly.
Cruz hadn’t been much more help than Connor, though she shouldn’t have expected anything else. He’d mouthed the same platitudes she’d already heard. About Connor’s years of experience on the force. His training, his caution.
Damn! Her pencil broke with the sudden ferocity with which she slammed it against the desk. Why were both of those men so bullheaded? Why did neither of them believe that danger was closing in on Connor with the deliberate certainty of a noose?
Connor had been unmoved by her fear for his safety, Michele remembered morosely. His concern had all been for her, for her peace of mind, her feelings. Why, oh, why, couldn’t he spare some of that concern for himself?
“Because it’s my job, Michele,” he had told her that morning. His voice had been unyielding, despite the warm shelter his arms had still provided for her. “I’m not going to take any foolish risks. I never do. This case is winding down. I can feel it. We know there are at least two people involved in this. It’s only a matter of time until we find them.”
Michele had known it was useless to try to push Connor any further. He would do what he saw as his job and in the process be killed.
Michele swallowed hard and folded her arms around herself at the thought. If only she could have seen more in that dream last night. As usual, she damned it for the lack of real information it had brought her. Each dream focused on one piece of the puzzle, the rest of the background fading to rippling underwater images. She might not have convinced Connor of his imminent danger, but she was certain of it. Just as certain as she was despairing that there was nothing she could do about it.
Or was there?
Her arms tightened. She was suddenly struck with the memory of the episode with Bruce Casel. Under hypnotism Michele had been able to recall information about one of the vehicles that she hadn’t remembered from the dream. Was it possible? Was there a chance . . . ?
Goose bumps broke out on her arms, and she rubbed them vigorously. Just the thought of voluntarily reliving those nightmares filled her with dread, but she examined the possibility nevertheless. She had spent her entire life shutting those images out of her conscious thoughts, relegating them to the shadows of her subconscious. Did she have it within her power now to reverse the practices of a lifetime, to invite the images out to be examined minutely?
She raised a shaky hand to push back a tendril of hair. She wasn’t sure it was possible. She didn’t know whether she had the capability or the strength, but she had to try. Anything was worth the price if it meant protecting Connor. She had been unable to shake off the feeling of impending doom hovering over them since last night.
“Michele, what is it? What’s wrong?” Julie’s concerned voice tore through Michele’s thoughts, and she raised startled eyes to her secretary. She had been so deep in thought that she hadn’t even noticed Julie’s entrance.
Julie’s wheelchair made a gentle whirring noise as it approached Michele’s desk. Michele summoned up a shaky smile to reassure her friend, but the sight of Julie’s frown told her that she’d failed. “Michele? Are you sick?”
Michele pushed her hair away from her face and spoke reassuringly. “No, of course not. Why do you ask?”
Julie eyed her skeptically. “Well, your face is completely colorless and you’re trembling. Do you have the chills? There’s been a lot of flu going around lately, you know.”
Michele shook her head. “I didn’t know,” she murmured, suddenly aware that her secretary had just handed her a perfect excuse. “But you may be right. I have been feeling a little shaky this morning.” That was certainly no falsehood, she told herself grimly. She pushed aside the guilt she felt at deceiving her friend.
Her foremost concern was Connor, and she suddenly realized that she wouldn’t have a chance of even trying her plan in the evening, when he was home. And if she did remember a real clue, when was she ever going to have time to check it out? Between Connor and Cruz she was never alone, outside of work, so the only possible time she would have for this was during the day. When she wasn’t working.
While Connor thought she was sick.
She raised her eyes slowly to her secretary’s concerned face.
“All right, I’m not going to hear any arguments.” Julie spoke authoritatively. “You, Michele Easton, are going straight home and to bed.” Michele made a show of reluctance but allowed Julie to bully her into collecting her coat and purse. “Don’t worry about a thing, I’ll reschedule your appointments for the day, and you can give me a call tomorrow and let me know how you feel, okay?”
“You’re wonderful, Julie,” Michele said sincerely, even as she was being ushered out of the office. “But I . . . I didn’t drive today. Could you call me a cab?” Julie picked up the phone and began dialing even as Michele spoke. “And I will call tomorrow morning, okay?” Shooed off by her secretary’s wave, she let herself out of the office and almost bumped into James in the hallway.
He grasped her elbows and peered concernedly into her face. “Michele, what is it?”
Mentally groaning, she mustered up a wan smile. “Julie’s called me a cab. I’m feeling a little under the weather.”
James studied her face soberly without letting go of her.
She gently but firmly pulled her elbows from his grasp. “I’m sure it’s nothing serious. Maybe just that flu going around. At any rate, a day or two of aspirin and rest should take care of it.”
Her babbling didn’t appease the worried look on James’s face. A frown furrowed his brow, and then he cleared his throat. “Michele I know this is a touchy subject, but are you sure the problem is physical?”
Michele sent him a puzzled glance. “What are you talking about, James?”
He gentled his tone. “Just that physical maladies are often a product of emotional or psychological distress. Perhaps something in your life is causing this. Perhaps . . .” He paused for a moment. “Perhaps it’s Connor McLain.”
For a moment Michele’s mind froze. How could he know about her fear for Connor’s safety? But as his cultured voice continued on, she quickly regained her equilibrium. Of course he wasn’t addressing the image of Connor’s death that was haunting her. He was talking about the same thing he always harped about . . . Connor’s lack of suitability for her. Her temper seethed as he used his years of experience as an examiner of other people’s relationships to dissect, uninvited, what he thought of theirs.
“James?” Her voice had a ring of authority, bringing him to a halt as he cocked his head inquiringly.
“Just stuff it, would you?” And she turned to march toward the front door, where her cab had just glided to a stop, leaving James to gape after her.
Once she was back at Connor’s house she stood indecisively in the living room. Although she wasn’t at all sure how to go about this, she imagined that the best idea would be to duplicate to the best of her ability the relaxed state she had been brought to before Bruce had hypnotized her. She wished for just one of the countless antistress tapes she had at home before she headed toward Connor’s entertainment center.
She put on a soothing classical piece before settling on the sofa. Starting at her toes and working up, she consciously willed each separate muscle group to relax. She remained motionless, eyes closed for several minutes.
Nothing. Her eyes snapped open. What was she doing wrong? Glancing down, she saw one hand knotted on her lap. With a grimace she unclenched her fist. Obviously she wasn’t as relaxed as she had thought.
She started again, resolutely releasing each separate part of her body, emptying her mind, allowing herself to be open to . . . anything.
The music stopped long before Michele finally opened her eyes. She heaved a sigh of defeat. It was clear that this wasn’t going to work, at least, not right now. Apparent
ly years of suppressing her dreams had become a habit, a defense mechanism that would be difficult, if not impossible, to change in a single afternoon. If ever.
Admitting defeat for the day, she stood and headed for the bathroom. And refused to put a name to the tiny flicker of relief she felt.
The hot spray felt heavenly on her body, completing her earlier attempt at relaxation. When she finally turned off the water and stepped out, her body felt almost boneless. She actually craved a nap, but she worked at tidying up the bathroom first.
The blinds on the room’s single window sent splinters of sunlight across the steamed mirror. Michele used her towel to wipe it off. Although at home she was just as likely to leave a mess and then whirlwind through the house later, tidying it up, she didn’t feel comfortable doing that here. After all, this was Connor’s . . .
. . . blood, dripping off the mirror, into her hands. She pulled her hands back reflexively, staring at them in horror, before raising unseeing eyes back to the sun-mottled mirror. But it wasn’t the mirror she saw before her; it was dust motes dancing in the rays that made it through a boarded up window. Connor lay on the dirty floor, his torso haloed in one brilliant ray. Michele was on her knees beside him, and her hands were covered with the blood soaking his shirt and pooling on the floor. Terror warred with nausea, and for one instant she thought she would be sick.
She forced herself to continue with the image, to make it finally work for her. She watched herself get up and walk to the window, then peer out one of the cracks. She forced her focus away from the most horrible aspect and concentrated on making the other, more surreal, images real. She made herself see the gravel road in front of the building, the cracked bell, the farms in the distance and the woods to the left. She made herself look, listen to the sound of water in the background, observe . . . .
Michele felt her knees give out beneath her, and one shaking hand sought the countertop to steady herself. She sank to the floor, arms wrapped around herself, rocking a little to calm the shaking and the icebergs bumping through her veins. After a long while she stood on legs that were still wobbly and forced herself to move to the bedroom and get dressed. And as she dressed she planned her strategy. For she now had a location of sorts to look for. This place, whatever it was, was obviously located in the countryside.
Finished dressing, she grabbed her purse and coat and headed toward the door. Operation Save Connor McLain was now in progress.
* * *
Three days later Michele pulled off what seemed like the one thousandth gravel road she’d traveled. She was in a small park. She knew without looking further that this spot, too, was a dead end. Though it was lightly wooded and near a river, there were no buildings in sight. She turned off the engine and reached for the stack of maps at her side.
She chafed at the feeling of desperate hurry that seemed a permanent part of her these days. It seemed as if she barely got started each day before she needed to turn around. Each day she needed to drive back to the city, wash the day’s dust from the car and carefully park it in exactly the same spot in front of Connor’s house before he was due back from the station.
Each morning she called in to work she felt renewed guilt for letting Julie continue to worry about her. But that was nothing compared to the remorse she felt each night when Connor came home. His concern for her was apparent. He solicitously cared for her, tending to her fake illness, and the slight frown on his brow as he did so made Michele feel like the worst kind of phony. But it also solidified her resolve to keep this man safe from harm.
She rested her forehead against the steering wheel. There was nothing else to do. She was going to have to walk through those nightmares again, trying once again to get one more clue, the one that would turn her in the right direction.
With practice, she’d gotten better at that. She now had a clear picture of the place where the children were being held. She could easily picture it in her mind now, but she still had to find it! She forced herself into the mode she had perfected in the past three days. Gradually she opened her mind to all possibilities, pushing aside the curtains of caution, of fear. The familiar specters lurked in her subconscious, prowling the edges like slavering jackals, evil lurking animals of prey waiting for her to lower her guard so they could pounce on her very sanity. She tore at the cloak of her defenses and concentrated on emptying her mind, studying the way the sun dappled through the leaves of a nearby tree, painting the ground beneath with flirtatious shadows . . .
. . . the sun’s rays made fervent attempts to spread their brilliance, spilling through the cracks of the boarded up windows. Michele made her specter walk to that window again and look out. Ignore the horror, ignore the pain and evil choking the air. Look out through the cracks between the boards and see . . .
Michele’s head snapped to the side, and she screamed faintly as the door on the driver’s side opened. Her hands over her mouth, she looked up at Connor in shock, still so caught up in what she’d just seen that she couldn’t be sure if he was real or a player in the vision she’d just witnessed. She wasn’t left in doubt long. The stream of curses flowing from his mouth assured her that he was indeed very real. And utterly furious.
He ducked and slid into the car, and Michele moved over, to avoid being landed on. He glared at her ashen face for a tense, silent second before snarling, “Surprised to see me?”
Leaning against the far window, endeavoring to calm her image-induced shaking, Michele finally regained her breath. “What are you doing here, Connor?”
He stared hard at her before raising his hands and rolling his eyes. “What am I doing here? No, Princess, I think you have that all wrong. The million-dollar question is, what the hell are you doing here?” He ended on a roar, eyes blazing at her. “And don’t try to tell me that you went for a drive,” he sneered. “Somehow, I don’t think I’ll quite buy it.”
“I wasn’t going to say that,” Michele inserted quietly.
His mouth clamped shut for a moment, the muscle clenching in his jaw attesting to his restraint. After a moment he spoke, his voice controlled. “I was really concerned about you, Michele, you know that? When I thought you were ill, I was afraid that all this had been too traumatic for you, that maybe your body had finally had enough, you know?”
Michele dropped her gaze guiltily.
“So you can imagine how hard it was for me to allow myself to see, really see, what was going on. To make myself wonder at the fact that your car was never in exactly the same spot when I got home at night.”
Michele’s eyes flew to his in shock. He was watching for her reaction. “It was close, mind you,” he continued. “Just close enough to look like someone was trying to put it in the same place. And it was always so damn clean.” He paused for a moment, but Michele stubbornly stayed silent. After a minute he went on. “Add to that the fact that I could never reach you during the day. What was that you told me?” he asked rhetorically. “Ah, yes, you wanted to sleep,” he stressed the word, “and unplugged the phone so it wouldn’t wake you. How could you go on lying to me like that, Michele?”
When she finally spoke, Michele’s words were stark. “I was trying to keep you alive. I hated deceiving you. I did,” she insisted at his snort of disbelief. “But it was necessary. You would have tried to stop me if I had told you the truth.”
His green eyes shot sparks at her. “Damn right I would have, because I’ve been trying to protect you from the wacko who was behind those incidents at your house, and you make that real damn hard to do when you . . . are not . . . where . . . you are supposed to be!”
“And I am trying to protect you!” Michele cried passionately. “Why is it that my motives are any less lofty? I want you safe!” she exclaimed vehemently.
His face softened at her words but quickly grew grim again as she went on. “And I’ll do anything I can to keep you alive. If it means lying to you, I’ll do it. And if it means finding the kidnapper’s lair before the police do, I’ll do that,
too.”
“And exactly how did you intend to go about that?” drawled Connor dangerously, but Michele refused to answer. His gaze fell to the floor of the car, and he reached down and grabbed the stack of maps that had been pushed there in Michele’s hasty slide across the seat. “Parks and Rec, Agricultural Services, Office of Tourism.” He flipped through them before eyeing her balefully. “You were quite the busy little girl, weren’t you?” He dodged her attempt to grab them away and shook out first one and then another, intently studying the markings she’d made on them.
After several minutes he raised his eyes. “Seems like you’ve been withholding some information, Michele,” he said quietly. “You knew I’ve had men looking for days for the building you described. Or are you going to tell me you have no particular reason to be looking for a wooded place in the country, near water?”
Michele sighed in resignation. As much as she damned his intense powers of observation, they were a part of him, probably an important part of why he was such a good detective. And they were all she could count on now to keep him alive. “I’ve seen it clearly.” She spoke with a sigh. “I think I can find it now. I know I’ll recognize it when I see it.”
Connor sat silent for several moments, his mind racing furiously. The first thing he wanted to do was to get her the hell away from here and tuck her away someplace where she would be safe. But even as he acknowledged that wish, he knew it would be impossible. Michele had proven in the past few days that she couldn’t be trusted to stay put and let him do the police work. And the last thing he needed right now was to be constantly distracted by wondering where she was and what she was doing.
If Michele was on to something here, and he was forced to admit that there was a strong possibility she was, he needed her, at least until she was able to find the place. Once that was done, he would find his own way to keep her out of harm’s way.
“All right,” he decided, and Michele gaped at him.
