Waking Nightmare

by Kylie Brant

  He stroked a finger over the pulse that beat slow and steady at the base of Abbie’s throat. The only absolute in police work was the folly of allowing a case to consume you. A cop had to take a step back once in a while to keep his instincts alert. Casual sex could be an easy way to accomplish that, but there was nothing casual about the way he felt about the woman beside him. And worrying about that just might distract him from the inner darkness that sometimes threatened to swallow him.

  Abbie tilted her head and kissed him, slow and languid. As if they had all the time in the world to explore what was between them. And for a moment, he could almost believe they did. He took the kiss deeper and felt the kick to his system as desire arrowed through him. They were pressed together, lips, chests, hips, legs, and her soft warmth beckoned like a promise.

  He could think of no better way to forget the pressures of the case than to steep himself in her. Ryne closed his teeth lightly on the delicate cord of her throat, and she shuddered against him. He wanted to spend the night exploring her, finding every sensitive spot on her body where lingering would have her moaning and quivering beneath him. But his intent was thwarted a moment later when she pushed him to his back and slid down to take him in her mouth.

  His vision abruptly grayed. The soft moist suction was enough to smash his intent to go slow. It was enough to smash all conscious thought to hell and back.

  His fingers threaded through her hair as he endured the sweetest kind of torture imaginable. The rest of the world faded to include only the two of them.

  He endured the torment for long moments, until he doubted his ability to last any longer. With his hands on her shoulders, he urged her up, snaked an arm around her waist, and hauled her closer, sealing his mouth against hers. There was a careening in his blood, a primal beat that throbbed for this woman. Now. Right now. Without releasing her, he reached out his free hand and felt for the foil packets he’d left on the night table. And cursed when he instead knocked the empty food container to the floor.

  The sound of Abbie’s husky laugh was like a match striking flint, and his passion flared hotter. Wilder. He didn’t recall a woman who could get to him faster, make him forget the best intentions in his hunger to have her. Now. Fast and hard and the hell with the precautions.

  It was finally Abbie who got the condom out of the packet, rolled it with excruciating slowness over the thickness of his cock. And then, when he didn’t trust himself not to pull her beneath him and take her with a senseless savage urgency, she lowered herself on him, one hand on his shoulder and the other wrapped around him to guide him into her hot depths.

  Ryne could feel the sweat beading on his forehead, the blood pounding in his veins. Senses were unbearably sensitized as Abbie took both his hands in hers, linked their fingers, and pressed them against the pillows on either side of his head.

  It was heaven and hell. The slide of her skin against his, her taut nipples grazing his chest as she rode him, slowly at first, and then faster as her own desire took over.

  Sensation slapped against sensation, too fast and wild to be identified. There was the slippery hot feel of flesh on flesh, the sound of her gasps, of the groan ripped from him. Because he had to see her, he dragged his eyes open to look into hers, to watch as passion turned them the shade of fog.

  Her hips pumped a quicker rhythm, and a steel bar of desire tightened in his gut. His muscles went taut. He surged upward, driving himself deeper inside her, trying to get closer. She filled his vision, his world, as the ferocious battle raged over them, between them. And then she leaned forward to press her mouth to his, and passion snapped abruptly, wiping his mind, his senses, clean.

  And when he exploded, he thought of nothing but her.

  “You need to lighten up,” Callie advised, inhaling deeply from a cigarette. “All work and no play makes Abbie dull, dull, dull.”

  With effort, Abbie maintained the smile on her face, while repeating to the waitress, “You can take my plate. And I don’t want another beer, thanks.” She looked at her sister after the woman shrugged and cleared the table. “I’ve never developed much tolerance for alcohol. If I had more than one, I wouldn’t be able to drive home.”

  “Did I tell you about the Maserati I drove in Paris last month?” Callie picked up her beer and tipped it to her lips without putting the cigarette down. “I’ve never been much for cars, but Jesus, that one was fast. Took a half a minute to get it up to a hundred.” She laughed, loudly enough to have several people looking their way. “What a blast.”

  “I thought it was Greece.”

  “What?”

  “I thought you said before you were in Greece.”

  The other woman shook her hair back impatiently. “This was before Greece. Pay attention.”

  Abbie was paying attention. Had been since Callie had surprised her with a call about the time she and Ryne had been leaving work. He’d actually suggested leaving early—it was Sunday after all—to show her a few of the Savannah sights. She’d anticipated talking him into one of the haunted history tours that explore the city’s eerie past.

  Most of all, she’d looked forward to just being with him, without work or sex—however incredible it may be—shading their interactions. But the phone call from her sister had effectively put their plans on hold.

  She hadn’t heard from Callie since she’d shown up unannounced at her house, and she’d been in a constant state of unease worrying about what she was up to. Callie’s sudden invitation to dinner was all the more surprising for its apparent normalcy.

  But the more time she spent with her sister, the less likely it appeared there was anything normal about Callie’s behavior.

  “Abs, look at that guy over there. No, over there. He’s totally checking you out.”

  Abbie flicked a glance in the direction of the loner nursing a beer at the corner of the bar. “He looks like someone minding his own business to me.”

  “No, you know who he looks like?” Callie snapped her fingers. “Like that older brother of the Fentons’. The second, no, the third foster family. Remember them?”

  Abbie did. The couple and their family had been simple people, and particularly ill equipped to deal with a rebellious teen and her traumatized sister. After Callie had run from that home, they’d been removed again, but she and Abbie had never been placed in the same family again.

  But it wasn’t the Fentons occupying Abbie’s attention at the moment. It was her sister’s frenetic state. “Do you have a supply of meds with you, Callie?” She watched her sister’s expression close down, but continued doggedly, “Because if you don’t, we should call Dr. Faulkner. You’re cycling again. You have to recognize it.”

  “I don’t need to be doped up or to have my mind shrunk.” Callie ground her cigarette out in the ashtray with short vicious stabs. It was already filled with half-smoked stubs. “Can’t I even be happy to be with my sister without you wanting to call in the white coats?” She lit another cigarette, puffed, and then blew out a thin stream of smoke. “And the reason I quit going to Dr. Faulkner was because he wouldn’t stop hitting on me. Got to be a drag.” She narrowed her gaze at Abbie. “Wanted me to do him on the desk and reenact playtime with dear old dad. Said it would cure me. So I walked out and saved five hundred dollars an hour. Cured myself.”

  Abbie kept her gaze steady even as her throat dried. Leveling accusations of sexual abuse at people in authority, or those who tried to help her, was yet another of Callie’s self-destructive behaviors. She’d accused two foster fathers, a social worker, and a teacher. Now Dr. Faulkner. “If that’s true, it should be dealt with by reporting him to the police. To his licensing board. It’s not a reason to forgo therapy and meds altogether.”

  For a moment she thought her words would bring on one of Callie’s explosive tantrums. Her sister drew in an outraged breath, fingers clenched on her glass. It could, at a moment’s notice, go hurtling through space. Then a moment later she burst out laughing.

  “If
you could hear yourself,” she said ruefully. “If that’s true . . .” she mimicked. She drew on her cigarette, blowing one perfect smoke ring. “Okay, so I made it up. But sitting in some drone’s office twice a week for fifty minutes isn’t doing me any good. I know what I need, and it isn’t dropping a grand a week looking at ink blots. I’m thinking of going back to school, did I tell you that?” Callie scanned the room before crossing one leg over the other, the act causing her skirt to ride up even higher. “Everyone needs a purpose, right? You have one, even though I’ve never pretended to understand it. I could, too. I was pretty good at nursing before I quit the program, remember?”

  Abbie did. If she recalled correctly, nursing had been one of Callie’s longer stints in school and had come directly after her brief time as an airline stewardess and right before she’d been convinced she could make it on the drag race circuit. “I know you can do anything you put your mind to,” she said quietly. “But you’ll be more successful if you give yourself a real shot at it this time. Get focused first.”

  Her sister had a gift for ignoring anything she didn’t want to hear, so Abbie wasn’t surprised when she switched topics. But the subject she brought up then shook Abbie to the core.

  “Did you ever wonder what would have happened to us if our old man hadn’t taken that header down the steps?”

  It wasn’t a subject she wanted to discuss. Or to think about. Especially now, under Callie’s all too avid gaze. But she answered honestly, “Sometimes. Sometimes I do.” When she found herself alone and shaking in the dark, with the echoes of that voice all too real in her mind, she wondered that exact thing. And worse.

  “Best thing that ever happened to us. Sometimes the end really does justify the means, don’t you think?”

  Abbie stared at her sister, uncomprehendingly. Then as logic filtered through, a horrible thought occurred. “What do you mean? What end justifies what means?”

  Callie ground out the cigarette she’d taken only a few puffs of. “Filthy habit. I don’t even know why I started again. I only smoke when I’m drinking.”

  But Abbie found it impossible to leave the subject alone. “Callie, what do you know about . . .” She’d never been able to bring herself to call him her father. “About his death?”

  But her sister’s eyes were on the screen above the bar. “Hey, you’re on TV again.”

  Abbie stared at Callie, wanting to press her, knowing the futility of it. Everything her sister said in her current state had to be taken with a grain of salt anyway. She knew that.

  “You shouldn’t wear so much black,” Callie said critically, her eyes still glued to the screen. “It makes you look washed out.”

  Abbie sent a quick glance to the TV, which was muted, but the newscast had already gone on to something else. They’d taken to showing just the clip of Dixon, Brown, Ryne, and her on the police headquarters steps, while the anchors rehashed what was known about the investigation. Dixon’s hope that the press conference would keep the media happy was unfounded, so far as she could see. It seemed to Abbie that it only provided fodder for a sensationalized daily summary, which provided no useful assistance at all.

  “You’re famous,” Callie said, turning back to her with an odd little smile on her lips. “And so’s your cop. The cameras love him. Takes that edge of mean he has and makes him look dangerous.”

  She could only shake her head, unable to keep up with the jumps in her sister’s concentration. But Callie had called it right enough; Ryne had an edge, and he was dangerous. On levels she had no intention of sharing with her sister.

  “You know I’ve never cared for what you do,” Callie said suddenly. “All those cops and bodies.” She wrinkled her nose. “But you must be good at it. And that makes me proud. Sometimes I think you’re the only good thing I’ve ever done, Ab.”

  Abbie’s eyes burned with tears that refused to form. She reached out to cover her sister’s hands with one of hers. And the sense of futility that filled her was as familiar as it was heartbreaking. “I know what I owe you. I’ve always known. I can be grateful for your bravery while still being miserable at what it cost you.”

  Callie squeezed Abbie’s hand and for a moment there was a rare clarity in her eyes. A moment when Abbie felt a genuine closeness to her sister that had always been lacking.

  Then Callie pulled away and reached for her beer, taking a long swallow. “I’ve always told you, worrying about me is a waste of your time. Didn’t you know? I’m indestructible.”

  Callie widened one bleary eye to focus on the grimy clock face on the tavern wall. Abbie had run off hours ago. But that was when they were at the restaurant, she recalled. A couple hours and a few bars ago.

  But no, Abbie was back. She swayed, clutched the edge of the bar, and peered at the flickering TV screen mounted next to the clock. That familiar footage was being played, of her sister and the cops, talking about the handful of nothing they had on the Nightmare Rapist.

  “There she is, everyone, my little sister.” Callie held up her shot glass, toasted Abbie’s image. “Special consultant to Savannah’s finest. Guess that makes me a celebrity, too. She’d be nothing without me, know that?”

  She downed the tequila, barely noticed the path it scorched down her throat, and rolled the shot glass down the bar to the bartender. “Next one should be free, Ty. Got a famous sister, you know.”

  A male voice called from the pool table, “Hey, Callie, that really your sister? She don’t look like you.”

  “She don’t got your tits,” another put in, and laughter sounded.

  A bearded man pressed up against her. Slowly she swung her head to look at him. She didn’t remember his name, but she recalled being on top of him a few nights ago, in the front seat of his pickup, with his jeans pushed down around his boots. What he lacked in grooming he made up for with stamina. “I like sisters.” He grinned, showing a missing left bicuspid. “I mean, I like doing sisters. She into three-ways?”

  “Fuck off.” Suddenly furious, she grabbed an empty pitcher off the bar, and swung at his head. He ducked, barely managing to avoid being clobbered with it.

  He backed away. “What the hell’s wrong with you tonight? Crazy bitch.”

  She smiled nastily, and watched anger seep from his expression, to be replaced with caution. “Think I’m crazy? You have no idea. The only three-way action you’ll be getting is you using both hands on your scrawny dick in the john.”

  “Here’s your shot.” The bartender set the glass down in front of her. “Chandler,” he addressed the man behind her. “Shove off. I don’t want no trouble.”

  Reaching for her purse, Callie withdrew her billfold. Strange, how that impulse to protect her baby sister was still sharp. Still instinctive.

  Or maybe not so strange. She’d protected Abbie most of her life, hadn’t she? Sacrificed more, God, more than anyone could imagine, just to keep her safe.

  “Put your money away. I got it.”

  She threw a flirtatious look at the newcomer beside her, but her mind was still on her sister. She was proud of Abbie. She’d told her as much, hadn’t she? But it got hard sometimes to see her going about her life, like the past was some untidy mess she’d mopped up and forgotten. Like it didn’t still live inside her, a living breathing darkness that touched everything she did. Everything she was.

  “Forget your sister.” The stranger leaned both forearms on the bar, looked over at her. “Bet you’re more interesting than her anyway.”

  Callie looked at him more carefully then, smiled slowly. She wasn’t a fan of long hair, but at least his was pulled back away from a face that would almost be considered pretty if it wasn’t for his eyes.

  They were hard. A little cruel. And she knew she’d take him home tonight and try him on. She was having one of those nights where she felt a bit cruel herself.

  Because Callie had sacrificed herself to the monster that had been their father, Abbie had escaped their childhood unscathed by the nightmares that
haunted Callie’s every waking moment. If she didn’t love her so much, it would almost be enough to hate her sister for that fact alone.

  It would almost be enough to wish for such a nightmare to befall Abbie.

  Chapter 16

  “What’ve you got, Tinkerbell, one of those fancy coffee drinks?” McElroy dropped heavily into a chair beside Abbie in the interview room, the steaming liquid in his Styrofoam cup splashing precariously. He eyed her disposable cup with lid.

  “It’s a cappuccino.” She waited for the expected jibe, but it didn’t come. The man nodded, sipped from his coffee.

  “Those aren’t bad. I used to have a machine. One of the things my wife took with her when she left.”

  Ryne looked up and over the room, and it gradually quieted. Which was fine with Abbie, because she found herself more than a little creeped out by McElroy in an affable mood. Captain Brown opened the door just as he began speaking and slipped into a chair in the corner.

  “Isaac came up with a possible lead on the syringe found in Juarez’s vehicle.” Ryne nodded at Holmes, who rose, straightening his dark ill-fitting suit. “The syringe is brand name Reston, which is one of the best-selling in the country. Client base is around five hundred thousand, including an expanding Internet market. But there are lot numbers, which will narrow the search. We finally got their client list this morning, after haggling forever over the court order.”

  “We’ll be using a dozen uniforms to help with the grunt work on this,” Ryne said, “concentrating on clients in an area within a hundred-mile radius of Savannah, especially the mail drops. This could turn out to be a strong lead, and we’re going to wring it dry.” He turned his attention to the detective who had just sat down again. “Isaac, you and Wayne will concentrate on the mail drop clients. McElroy, you’ll coordinate the uniforms talking to the rest of the clients. Did any of the businesses experience a theft of syringes? Are they disappearing faster than usual? If anything sounds promising, follow up the phone calls with a visit.”