Sweet Dreams Boxed Set

by Brenda Novak

  She stood and he moved back, just a bit. His gaze was so intense. She couldn’t look away. “You’re telling me—what? That you think this guy is some kind of-of serial killer or something?”

  “I don’t know what kind of killer he is, not yet. All I know is that he’s dangerous, and every single sign is pointing to him being focused on you.”

  The last twenty-four hours of her life hadn’t been such winners. “I wanted to find him at that ball. I wanted to stop him.”

  “We are going to stop him,” Bennett said. “Count on it.”

  They were so close. Adrenaline still spiked her blood. She’d been afraid. She’d been furious. And now…

  “This isn’t a case where you’re just trying to uncover some rich businessman’s secret affairs, Ivy. This isn’t about finding out who stole an antique watch or tracking down a runaway teenager through your PI office…”

  Her chin notched up. “If you’re saying—”

  “I’m saying, yes, I know you handle plenty of PI cases, but this is different. This is life and death, and I am not going to stand by while you get hurt.”

  No standing by. She got that. Her hands rose and pressed to his chest. She felt him stiffen beneath her touch.

  “Ivy…”

  “I don’t want you to stand by.” She didn’t intend to just play the role of the victim, either. “We’re going to be partners.”

  “The hell we are!”

  “We are going to be partners,” she said again. “Because if he is hunting me, then I want you at my side.”

  His gaze searched hers. “You always think you can control everyone around you.”

  No, she didn’t think that.

  “Men jump to do your bidding, and you just take that shit for granted.”

  “I don’t remember you ever jumping.” Quite the opposite. She remembered him leaving.

  “Things aren’t going to keep working that way. I’m not going to risk you.”

  I’m not yours to risk. She didn’t say those words, not yet. But they still seemed to hang in the air between them. He didn’t understand her. Maybe he never had. Did he think she was just playing at the PI business? No, things were different now. Everything was different.

  The fact that she was intimately involved in this murder just made her all the more determined to act—and to prove herself.

  Chasing cheating husbands, my ass.

  “Thanks for seeing me home, Detective,” she pulled away from him and marched back to the foyer. “I’m quite safe now. So you’ve done your due diligence.”

  His steps were slower as he followed her. “I can stay, if you want.”

  She looked back at him. “You think he’s going to come for me again, this soon?”

  “I didn’t think he’d drive his knife into the councilman’s chest, but he did.”

  Her shoulders straightened. “I’ll be fine.” She kept a gun under her bed. And that night, she’d be making sure it was loaded.

  A furrow appeared between Bennett’s brows.

  “Goodbye, Bennett,” she told him firmly.

  He didn’t move. “I want to stay.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “It’s…hell, it’s important, Ivy. I need to know you’re safe.” His hands were clenched at his sides. “Until I get a better handle on this case, until I can figure out what the fuck is going on…I need this. I need to be close to you.”

  He had no idea how much his words hurt. Because those were words she’d wished to hear long ago. Not the whole “what the fuck is going on” part but…

  I need to be close to you.

  “You can stay upstairs. There’s a guest room down the hallway that you can use.” Her voice was grudging and she sighed. “Of course, you know my neighbors will see your car. Everyone will say we’re sleeping together.” Again.

  He stared at her. “I thought you never cared what people said.”

  “I don’t.” She turned and headed for the stairs. “Just thought you should know…”

  He snagged her hand. “Are we going to talk about it?”

  She looked at his hand. So much tanner than her own. So much bigger. Stronger. “You mean the kiss?” She gave a faint laugh. “It was so fast, I hardly think that—”

  “Actually, I meant our past, but, yeah, if you want to talk about the kiss, let’s do it.”

  Crap. She’d walked straight into that one.

  “Want to know why I kissed you?”

  Get out of here. Right now. That warning was flashing in her head and she kept a faint smile on her face as she looked up at him. “I already know why.”

  “You do?”

  “Because you still want me.”

  His eyes narrowed.

  “Want to know why I kissed you back?” Ivy asked him as she pulled away and then headed up the stairs.

  “Why.” A demand, not a question.

  She stilled on the fifth step. Her hand tightened around the banister. “Because I never stopped wanting you.”

  “Ivy…”

  She kept going up the stairs. “Enjoy the guest room.” Because she might want him, she might need him, but she wasn’t crossing that line. Not yet.

  Not when I’m already close to breaking apart on the inside.

  He didn’t understand just what her life had become. She wasn’t about playing things safe. Being the good DuLane, not anymore.

  And she wasn’t ready to share her dark secrets with him, not yet.

  ***

  “I see you,” he whispered as he stared up at the house. Ivy was in that house. Ivy and the detective.

  Were they lovers? Screwing on the stairs? On the floor? In Ivy’s bed?

  That wouldn’t do. He’d picked her. She was his now, for as long as he wanted.

  And he kept his prey until the last breath.

  The detective would require some research, just as Ivy would. He liked to study his prey. Learn their strengths and weaknesses.

  The councilman—he’d been different. The fool got in my way. But it was for the best. He couldn’t afford any loose ends. Too much was at stake.

  He’d learned that Laxton hadn’t made it to the hospital alive, despite Ivy’s valiant efforts.

  How would she react to that news? Would lovely Ivy blame herself? Would she cry?

  He isn’t worth your tears. Save them all for me.

  He turned away from Ivy’s house. He wouldn’t be visiting her, not yet. There was more to learn first. More arrangements to make.

  Soon enough, Ivy would have her turn.

  I’ll learn those secrets, and those desires. In the end, she would beg for him.

  His prey always did.

  Chapter Five

  Ivy didn’t usually hang out in morgues. They were creepy, seriously creepy. They smelled bad. They were cold. And they made her stomach knot.

  “Are you okay?”

  Ivy sucked in a quick breath and tried really hard not to gag. She so did not have this calm, in-command attitude down. Bennett ruled that kind of attitude. Damn him.

  “Ivy, you look like you’re about to faint,” the ME said. He was an older guy, balding, with warm coffee skin and sympathetic brown eyes.

  Beside him, Bennett grunted. He was not so sympathetic. “She shouldn’t even be here. She can wait in the hallway and—”

  “Thanks for letting me come in, Dr. Battiste,” Ivy said quickly. “I appreciate it.”

  Bennett had looked way less-than-thrilled when she’d trailed him to the morgue. His expression had darkened even more when it became obvious that she and Harvey Battiste knew each other. She’d actually known Harvey since she was about three, when she’d been sneaking off with Harvey and her grandfather on their fishing trips.

  Harvey frowned at her, but he didn’t argue. Instead, he turned toward his exam table and motioned toward the body on display. “Our victim is twenty-five-year-old Evette Summers. Her fingerprints turned up in the system, so ID’ing her was easy.” He exhaled. “She was stabbed fo
ur times, and it appears when the blade was plunging into her, the killer…twisted the weapon, seeking maximum damage.”

  Ivy’s nails bit into her palms.

  “There weren’t defensive wounds on the victim.” Harvey rubbed his chin. “Based on the angle of entry, I doubt our victim could fight back after the first drive of that knife into her.”

  “And she didn’t even realize the attack was coming,” Ivy said.

  Harvey blinked.

  Ivy moved, positioning her body in front of Bennett’s as she remembered that terrible scene. “They were like this when I first saw them.” She pushed her back against Bennett. She took his left arm, wrapped it around her body, and then with his right… “A lover’s pose. She probably thought she was totally safe, until the blade went into her the first time.”

  Bennett’s hold tightened on Ivy.

  “Then it was too late,” she said sadly. “All she had time to do was scream for help.” Help that Ivy hadn’t given to her.

  Harvey nodded. “I have started an exam on Councilman Crenshaw.”

  Ivy flinched and moved away from Bennett. She’d heard that the councilman hadn’t survived long enough to reach the hospital.

  “He had defensive wounds. And his stab wounds were centered close to his heart. A chest attack.”

  “Shouldn’t there have been spatter from that kind of attack?” Bennett demanded.

  Ivy stared down at the woman on that exam table. She was only a year younger than Ivy. Their hair was the same. Their bone structure even similar…

  “There should have been,” Harvey agreed, “but you said your perp had on a tux, right? Maybe when he was leaving, he just ditched his jacket. The blood could have been on it, and nothing else he wore.”

  “Maybe that jacket is still at the convention center,” Bennett mused. “I’ll get the crime scene team to search again. We can’t afford to miss something like that.”

  No, they couldn’t.

  Ivy inched closer to the exam table.

  “Have there been more?” Bennett asked quietly.

  Ivy’s gaze cut to him.

  “Any other victims brought in like her?” Bennett pressed. “With stab wounds like hers? Knives are intimate weapons. The weapons that killers use when they like to get up close and feel their victims die. A power rush.”

  Okay…He was creeping her out a bit. Sounding a bit too much like he understood the killer.

  Harvey rubbed his chin, seeming to think about it. “I’ll have to pull my records, but I seem to recall a Jane Doe with similar wounds who was discovered down here, right about Mardi Gras…about two years ago.”

  Two years.

  “And there might have been one more.” Harvey headed toward the exam table. He stared down at the woman—at Evette—but Ivy felt as if he weren’t actually seeing her. “A younger victim, about four years ago. Nineteen years old, twenty? She was stabbed, too, but actually…she was killed in New Orleans. A colleague told me about her. Her story stuck with me because…” Now his attention shifted back to Bennett. “Because she was found during Mardi Gras, too. And I remember he said finding her killer was going to be damn near impossible because the Big Easy goes mad during the Mardi Gras party.”

  Three potential victims. Four, counting the councilman. Ivy knew this was big. Scary big.

  “I want to see all of those case files,” Bennett instructed. “Right away. Give me what you’ve got on the local victims, and I’d really appreciate you putting in a call to your friend in New Orleans, too.”

  Harvey nodded. “Of course.”

  I need to see those files, too. But she couldn’t very well say that, not with Bennett standing there and glowering.

  “Thanks for your time,” she told the doctor even as she made a mental note to call him later. Harvey would give her the info she needed. After all, he was practically family.

  Bennett took her elbow and rather hurriedly escorted her from the ME’s office. As soon as they were in the hallway and that door closed behind them…

  “What in the hell!” Bennett exclaimed. “You aren’t supposed to be here!”

  She squinted up at him. “Where should I be?”

  “Getting a security system installed!” He threw up his hands.

  “Oh, yes, Hugh is supervising that for me. No worries.” She gave him a bright smile. “A little bird told me about your meeting with the ME, and I figured it was important for me to attend.”

  “Important?” The word seemed strangled.

  “Since we’re partners and all—”

  “We are not partners!”

  She sighed. “Fine. We’re two independent investigators who happen to be working the same case.”

  Jaw locked, he gritted out, “I’m the homicide detective in charge and you are a witness and a potential victim. You aren’t investigating the case.”

  “Um, I kind of…am, investigating, that is.”

  His lips parted, but he didn’t speak. Maybe he couldn’t. Ivy would consider that a win for her. “There’s no point fighting this,” Ivy told him bluntly. “I’ve got more connections in this town than you can count. I’ll get the info that I need and we can either share things, or, well, I can get ahead of you.”

  His eyes squeezed closed. She felt as if he did that a lot.

  “Are we going back to the convention center now?” Ivy asked him. “Because I think we need to be there when the crime scene techs sweep again for that jacket. They won’t have a whole lot of time, you know. Another ball is scheduled to occur there tonight, and there’s no way the mayor will let that place stay a crime scene. Too much rides on Mardi Gras, and you know it.”

  His eyes cracked open. “I’m going to the convention center.”

  Uh…

  “You are staying away from my case. You’re a civilian.”

  Why did he make that word sound like a curse?

  “It’s too dangerous for you to get involved in this case.” Then his hands closed around her shoulders. His voice softened. “Don’t you see that I’m just trying to protect you?”

  And don’t you see that I’m trying to help the victim?

  Their gazes held.

  “Same old Ivy,” he finally muttered. “You think your family’s money can buy your way just about any place, don’t you?”

  His words hurt. He didn’t know what she’d done—he didn’t know anything about her. “Same old Bennett,” she whispered back, aching for them both. “Seeing only what you want to see. And missing out on something great right in front of you.” She pulled away from him. “Good luck with your investigation.” Then she headed down the hallway.

  She didn’t look back.

  ***

  “I couldn’t help but overhear…”

  Bennett glanced over his shoulder as the door to the ME’s office opened. Dr. Battiste lifted his brow. “Well, I overheard because I was listening.”

  What the hell?

  “I don’t like the way you were talking to Ivy.”

  He was starting to think that everyone around him was insane. “This case isn’t some walk in the park.” No, if his gut was right…then they might just be looking at a serial killer.

  Not the fuck again. He’d barely escaped the last serial he’d faced, and he had the scars to prove it. The bastard had nearly gutted him, and Bennett had watched as his partner died right in front of him.

  And Ivy thinks I’ll let her partner with me on this case? Hell, no. The last thing he ever wanted was her put at risk.

  “Ivy knows how to handle the dark side of life,” Dr. Battiste said.

  She did? Since when? His head cocked as he studied the doctor. “You’re the little bird.”

  “Can’t say I’ve been called that before…”

  “You told Ivy that I was coming in today, didn’t you?”

  Dr. Battiste shrugged.

  “Why would you do that? She doesn’t need to be involved.”

  “If he’s hunting her, then she needs to know every
thing about this case.” Dr. Battiste’s voice was flat.

  He was missing something. Something big.

  Dr. Battiste smiled at him. “Ivy and I meet for lunch on Saturdays. Every Saturday. Since her grandfather passed, well, someone needed to fill that void for her. I’m the one who taught that girl how to bait her first fishing hook, and I’m the one who watched her cry when she learned that the fish die once they’re reeled in…Ivy doesn’t like to kill things, you see. She learned real quick how to catch and release…”

  He hadn’t realized how close those two were. Actually, he hadn’t known they were close at all.

  “You really think all she and her grandfather did was take fluff cases?”

  He didn’t—

  “I didn’t know you were that piss poor of a cop.” Dr. Battiste walked past him. “My mistake. Why don’t you try doing a little research on the Sebastian Jones murder? Go see what you turn up, Detective Morgan.”

  Bennett watched him go, frowning now.

  And wondering if he knew Ivy at all.

  ***

  “Why in the hell do you want to do this to yourself?”

  Ivy glanced up at Hugh’s question. They were in her den, no, the parlor, and she’d just pulled up a search engine on her computer. Dr. Battiste had emailed her the names of the other potential victims, and she wanted to see what she could find on them. “This?” she asked carefully.

  He sighed and shook his head. His hair was the same dark shade of her own, his eyes a deep brown. He was the older twin, by fifteen minutes. Older…and stronger. At least at birth. He’d been six pounds. She’d been barely three. She’d stayed in intensive care for weeks. Her mother had told her that the doctors hadn’t been sure she’d survive.

  She had.

  “Why do you keep trying to atone for what he did?”