Tyler glanced over her shoulder, trying to catch a glimpse of Mrs. Granger through the shop window. “What did you tell her?”
Jared didn’t break his stride. “That in my work as an investigative reporter I’d come across information that someone was out to kill her.”
Tyler stopped in the middle of the sleepy street. “And she believed you?”
His bitter chuckle echoed in the empty space. “She laughed at me. Said she doesn’t have an enemy in the world and that I must have mistaken her for someone else.”
“Did she know Mary Stanwick or Veronica Molinsky?”
Jared shook his head. “Never heard of them.”
“And that was it?”
“I tried to persuade her.” He spoke through gritted teeth. “She just patted my hand—it was obvious she thought I was a nut case.”
At least he hadn’t frightened the poor woman. “Then our work here is finished.”
“Finished?” He continued toward the car. “Our work’s just begun. Since Evelyn Granger won’t be on guard, we’ll have to stand watch for her.”
Tyler groaned. Jared’s porch light might be burning, but there was definitely nobody home. She consoled herself with a reminder of how much he was paying her for this nonsense. And with the fact that he fascinated her.
“I’m a researcher,” she insisted, “not a bodyguard.”
He opened the door of the Taurus for her. “Researchers search for things, right?”
“Of course.” She slid onto the seat and took the Roseville vase from him.
He leaned into the car, his face inches from hers. The sincerity in his intent brown eyes gave no hint of dementia. “Then, as my research assistant, your job is to help me find a killer.”
THE DIGITAL CLOCK beside the bed glowed 2:00 a.m. Using the dregs of her energy, Tyler stripped off her clothes, shrugged on her nightgown and fell across the comfortable king-size bed at the Residence Inn. She was accustomed to long hours at the computer or prowling through library stacks and files, but surveilling little old ladies was out of her area of expertise— and more exhausting.
Jared had insisted they remain in Micanopy’s business district until Mrs. Granger closed her shop for the day. They’d whiled away hours browsing through the shops, eating lunch at a window table at the Wild Flowers Café and ice cream afterward on a shaded bench across from Precious Memories. When Mrs. Granger closed at five o’clock, they’d followed her home. Jared had circled the block a few times, then parked near a wooded lot down the street from the Victorian house, and they had waited.
Twilight had fallen. Jared switched off the air conditioner and rolled down the window. Cicadas and the plaintive hoot of a screech owl broke the stillness. In the intimacy of the car, surrounded by darkness broken only by a dim streetlight at Mrs. Granger’s corner, Tyler studied the man beside her.
She had taken a risk in continuing to work for him, and until now she hadn’t examined her motives too closely. Maybe she’d been afraid of what she would find. Sure, she had wanted to be independent of Gran, but her reason for staying with Jared went deeper than a need for freedom.
From the moment she’d met him, his deep-seated integrity had drawn her. Of course, it had drawn her right into trouble. But as she considered Jared’s chiseled profile, expressive eyes, and the intentness with which he guarded Evelyn Granger, she realized that if she had to be in a jam, Jared Slater was exactly the man she wanted looking out for her.
She fidgeted in her seat, uncomfortable with the tack her thoughts had taken. “I’d never make it as a detective. All this inactivity is driving me bananas.”
“We have no choice. She didn’t take my warning seriously.” He passed her a paper bag filled with Twinkies and bottled fruit juice he’d purchased that afternoon. “Sorry about the limited dinner menu.”
“What good will sitting here do?” She played along with his delusion, hoping to persuade him to give it up. “If someone wants to kill Mrs. Granger, she lives alone. Why wouldn’t the killer just wait until she’s asleep and break in?”
“That’s not his M.O.”
“M.O.?”
“Modus operandi,” Jared had explained. “Each of the other victims was shot late at night in a secluded area away from their homes. He must have followed them for days, learning their routines, watching for the right opportunity.”
She leaned against the headrest and closed her eyes. If Jared had to dream, why couldn’t he concoct nice, normal male fantasies, like being chased by naked, big-breasted women on a desert island?
Sometime later the punch of an elbow in her rib cage had awakened her. “She’s walking the dog.”
“Now that’s the most excitement we’ve had in hours,” she grumbled sarcastically. “How long do we keep this up?”
“Until we catch some sign of the killer. Once he’s arrested, Evelyn Granger will be safe.” He twisted in the seat to keep an eye on Mrs. Granger, who had paused on the other side of the street while the Pekingese watered a neighbor’s mailbox.
Tyler bit her lip in frustration. Even if there was a killer, Jared wouldn’t know him if the man walked up and kicked him. For the hundredth time, she’d wondered how anyone could possess such a frustrating mix of normalcy and insanity.
To avoid saying something she would regret, she’d scrunched down in her seat and kept quiet.
They’d waited for an hour after Mrs. Granger’s lights had gone out at midnight. Jared had finally admitted the woman was probably safe for the remainder of the night and they could return to the Residence Inn and grab some sleep.
Now, Tyler snuggled gratefully into the fresh sheets of the bed, stretched to turn off the beside light, then drifted into unconsciousness.
THE TRILL OF A mockingbird outside her window awakened her, and sunlight flooded the room. She stretched lazily, grateful Jared hadn’t awakened her with predawn nightmares.
After a quick shower, she dressed in shorts, a cotton T-shirt, and sandals, then sauntered downstairs. The Murphy bed was folded back into the wall and the sound of the shower in the downstairs bathroom informed her that Jared was awake.
She switched on the television in the sitting area and listened to the local news as she filled the coffee maker.
As the announcer read the latest headline, her hand froze at the faucet. “Around one-fifteen this morning as she walked her dog, Evelyn Witek Granger, longtime Micanopy resident and antique dealer, was shot to death.”
Tyler dropped the carafe with a crash, and glass splintered in the stainless-steel sink.
Jared Slater wasn’t crazy, after all.
Chapter Eight
“Leave it,” Jared spoke behind her. “The housekeeping staff can clean up the glass after we’re gone.”
Slack-jawed with amazement, Tyler abandoned the shattered coffee carafe and turned to face him. Evelyn Granger was dead, just as Jared had predicted, and he couldn’t have done it. They were driving back to their motel at the time Evelyn’s killer had struck. “Your dreams were right—”
Everything made sense now. Jared wasn’t the paradox of mania and reason she’d found so hard to comprehend. The torment in his eyes wasn’t madness, but misery flowing from some paranormal wellspring that provided him a glimpse of future tragedies—tragedies he’d so far been unable to forestall. Water dripped from his hair, running down his high cheekbones like tears, but the agony in his eyes mirrored suffering too deep for weeping.
What a fool she’d been. She should have known he wasn’t crazy. Then again, perhaps some part of her had sensed the truth. Maybe that was why she’d stayed with him, and now yearned to comfort him, to wrap her arms around him and beg forgiveness for having doubted him.
She moved toward him, then halted at the sound of the continuing newscast.
“Police,” the announcer droned in a bland Midwestern accent, “are looking for this man and his female companion for questioning.”
Tyler stumbled into the sitting area and listened in horror a
s the newscaster dictated a detailed description of her, Jared, and their rental car.
“What are we going to do?” she asked. “They probably want to talk to us because we came into town asking about her. But we can’t tell them the truth. They’ll never believe it.”
Jared, barefoot and dressed only in jeans, pulled her into his arms and clasped her shivering body against the warm expanse of his muscled chest. His lips moved against her hair, and his breath warmed her cheek. “You didn’t believe me until now, did you?”
She tilted her head and met his gaze. “Can you blame me?”
He tightened his arms around her. “If you thought I was crazy, why did you stay?”
Heat flamed her face. She wanted to admit she was falling in love with him, but the words lodged in her throat.
“It must have been the hazardous-duty pay,” he said. He released her and stepped away, avoiding her eyes. “And the duty just became more hazardous.”
“With the police after us?”
He turned and met her gaze head-on. “That, too.”
“Too?” Fear cinched her lungs, squeezing out the air. “What else is there?”
“I’m giving you a month’s severance pay and a plane ticket to Raleigh-Durham,” he said. “I’ll pay someone to drive your car back to Chapel Hill, too.”
“Whoa.” She held up her hands in objection. “We’ve been down this road before. I didn’t say I wanted to quit.”
He crossed his arms over his chest in a stance that defied protest. “You don’t have a choice. I’m firing you.”
Anger and hurt flooded through her. “Why? The killer’s still out there. Don’t you want my help in finding him?”
“There’s no time to argue.” His granite expression didn’t waver. “The police will figure out where we are soon, so we have to get moving. I’ll drop you at the nearest airport.”
“I’ve been shot at, almost killed in a car crash, and the police are after me, all because of you.” Her voice swelled in pitch and volume. “And now you’re booting me out without an explanation? You owe me better than that.”
His stony look melted, to be replaced by an expression of such tenderness and pain, it took her breath away. He placed his arm around her and drew her down on the love seat beside him. Cradling her cheeks in his hands, he probed her face with pain-filled eyes. “My greatest hope was to avert Evelyn Granger’s death—and to prove to you that the murders in my dreams are not inevitable.”
She covered his hands with hers. “It’s not your fault. How were you to know Evelyn Granger would walk her dog again in the wee hours of the morning?”
“The killer knew.” He dropped his hands to her shoulders. “Don’t you see? I have to find this man before he kills again.”
“All the more reason for me to stay and help,” she said, tracing his cheekbone with her finger.
He grasped her hand and pressed his lips against her palm, creating a pleasurable surge of warmth through her. Abruptly, he dropped her hand, stood and moved away. “You can’t stay.”
His rejection stung, but she couldn’t leave him, not now. “I won’t—”
“You have no choice.” He whipped around to confront her, brown eyes blazing with flecks of green fire. “You are his next victim.”
Shock robbed her of breath. “You’ve dreamed about me?”
He nodded, and the gravity of his expression frightened her as much as his revelation. “Before I ever met you.”
His initial reluctance to hire her, his blunt attempts to send her away when the storm eased made sense now. He’d been protecting her. Dear God, if she’d been halfway in love with him before, he had just pushed her over the precipice, and there was no turning back. “I can’t leave you to face this alone.”
Stubbornness flashed across his taut features. “And I can’t allow you to stay and be killed.”
She crossed the room, twined her arms around his chest, and pressed her cheek against his heart. He remained as rigid and unresponsive as a fence post.
“Your dreams don’t always have to come true,” she said. “If we’d waited just a few minutes longer at Mrs. Granger’s, we could have scared the killer away.”
He clutched her to him with a fury that drove the air from her lungs. “Don’t you see? If I know what the killer is thinking, it’s possible he knows my thoughts, as well. Maybe he knew we were there and simply waited until we left.”
She splayed her fingers across the firm flesh of his chest; keeping contact with his reassuring heat drove away her terror. “Are you sure he can read your thoughts?”
He pulled her close again and rested his chin on her hair. “No, but it seems a reasonable explanation. The killer’s always one step ahead of me, and I can never catch up.”
She swallowed hard and forced herself to pose a question whose answer she dreaded. “What did you dream about me—about my death?”
Only the droning voice of the TV weatherman reverberated in the room, and seconds ticked away before Jared answered. “It happens at my house at Lake Toxaway.”
She sensed he was holding back, but she didn’t press him for details. What he’d revealed gave her the opening she needed. “Then, as long as I don’t return to the mountain house with you, I’m safe?”
He nodded. “So far, the actual murders haven’t varied from what I’ve dreamed.”
“Then I’d better pack, so we can get out of here before the police come looking for us.”
She felt the tension ease from his muscles before he released her. “Then you agree to go home to Chapel Hill?”
No way. Jared feared she would be killed if she stayed with him, but only Jared knew the killer’s mind. Therefore, only Jared could keep her safe. Besides, who else would protect her? Certainly not Gran.
She had to stay with Jared. Even if she wasn’t falling in love with him, she couldn’t leave him now. She needed him to keep her alive.
“I agree to stay away from Lake Toxaway. But you’re not getting rid of me.” She rose on tiptoe and brushed his lips with a fleeting kiss, then raced up the stairs before he could respond.
GRIPPING HIS LUGGAGE, Jared sprinted across the four-lane road that ran beneath the interstate.
Tyler, carrying her bags, kept pace beside him. “Where are we going?”
In the May sun, reflecting with August intensity off the pavement, Jared crossed the parking lot of the motel diagonally across from the Residence Inn. “Room 107. I called for a cab to meet us there in fifteen minutes.”
“But our rental car—”
“If the police have our descriptions, you can bet they have that license number by now, too.”
He held open the lobby door, then followed her inside. The air-conditioned air hit him like an arctic blast, and a desk clerk glanced up at their approach. “May I help you?”
“Do you have a gift shop?” Jared kept his voice casual. Their escape depended on not drawing undue attention.
The clerk pointed down a hallway, and Jared motioned Tyler ahead. Halfway down the hall, he followed her into a cubbyhole of a shop, stuffed with Florida tourist souvenirs, postcards, T-shirts, and flamingo yard ornaments in Day-Glo pink.
Tyler picked up a cigarette lighter shaped like an orange and replaced it with a shudder of disgust. “What are we doing here?”
“Camouflage.” Jared snatched a pair of Ray?Ban sunglasses and a University of Florida Gators ball cap from the racks.
Copying his example, Tyler selected red-framed sunglasses with huge lenses and a wide-brimmed straw hat with an attached scarf to cover her dark hair. He paid for their purchases in cash.
“Where’s the closest Nations Bank?” he asked the clerk as she bagged their items.
She rattled off an address that he committed to memory.
When they stepped out of the shop, he directed Tyler toward a rear entrance that led to the pool. Still carrying their luggage, they skirted the landscaped pool deck and ducked through a passageway filled with maids’ carts an
d a vibrating ice machine, which gave access to the parking lot in front of rooms 101123. He stopped in front of Room 107 and piled their bags by the curb.
While they waited for the cab, he removed their purchases from the bag and ripped off the tags. After donning the sunglasses, he pulled the bill of the cap low over his eyes.
Tyler adjusted her sunglasses, then tucked her French braid beneath the crown of the straw hat and tied the scarf at her nape to cover the rest of her hair.
“All I need is a second-degree sunburn to look like a genuine tourist,” she said with a wry grin.
His heart wrenched at the sight of her, smiling up at him behind huge goggle lenses. She hadn’t abandoned him, even when she’d believed he was crazy. Now, with the threat of death hanging over her, her courage hadn’t wavered. Her continued refusal to desert him touched his lonely heart. He silently vowed to protect her, with his life if necessary. The danger she faced made him more determined than ever to catch the unrelenting killer who stalked his dreams.
“Here’s the cab.” She pointed to a vehicle rounding the corner of the motel.
Jared breathed a silent prayer of thanks. So far, so good.
A few minutes later, the cab deposited them in front of a suburban branch bank, and Jared removed their bags and stacked them by a street bench.
“I won’t be long,” he told her. “Try not to look too conspicuous.”
He endeavored to follow his own advice as he entered the bank lobby and extracted his bankcard from his wallet, but remaining inconspicuous would be tough once he requested $20,000 in cash. Within hours, he wouldn’t be able to access his account without fear of being traced. Twenty thousand would have to suffice until they’d located the killer.
The fresh-faced young teller seemed unimpressed with the size of his withdrawal and counted out his cash with a polite but bored expression. Jared forced himself to saunter from the bank, knowing it was just a matter of time before the police connected with Bobbie Hendrix and learned his identity.
He cursed himself for a fool when he saw Tyler sitting on the green bench, her head back against the seat as if basking in the sun. She looked like a very attractive tourist in her sunhat and red-and-white sundress. If he’d kicked her out when she’d first arrived on the mountain, she would be safe now. Instead, in his selfishness, he’d kept her close. Now, somehow, he had to convince her that her trust in him made her more vulnerable, not safer.
Dream Maker Page 11
