Danger Signals

by Kathleen Creighton

  Almost immediately it rang in her hand. She thumbed it on and said. "Yeah, what?" in a deliberate parody of his abrupt manner.

  The chuckle in her ear was repentant. "Okay, sorry. Where shall I meet you? Washington Park's a big place."

  "The gift shop's fine. It's-"

  "I know where it is. Okay, see you there in twenty minutes."

  This time, holding the silent phone in her hand, she felt triumphant but giddy. No mystery why, she was meeting a man for lunch, which was enough of a rarity all by itself. Add to that the fact that he was attractive, sort of…in an odd, tough-guy kind of way…

  No. None of that was relevant. Except for the fact that she was attracted to him.

  Yes, that was what made it an occasion for giddiness and wonder. She was allowing herself to have lunch with a man to whom she very definitely felt attracted.

  For most of her adult life she'd made it a practice to avoid close relationships of all kinds, even friendships with other women. With people who knew about her "gift," there was the inevitable awkwardness, and with those who didn't, the strain of trying to maintain her secret. It had seemed simpler to keep her distance, to keep relationships casual, except for Jeannette, of course, the only family she had.

  And now Jeannette was slipping away from her. Soon she would be truly alone.

  It came as something of a shock to her to realize she was lonely. Had she always been? Was she able to see it only now because there was this person in her life so vital, so dynamic, so complex that he took up a huge amount of space when he was with her. and left an equally huge emptiness when he wasn't? Or was it true-as she'd read somewhere-that loneliness had less to do with the number of people in your life than it did the absence of a particular one?

  If either of those possibilities was true, Tierney realized, she was in big trouble. Because Detective Wade Callahan, no matter how stimulating his company or how attracted to him she felt, was in her life on a professional basis only, and a temporary one, at that. She'd take care, as she always had. that neither he nor anyone else would ever become anything more. So. she supposed she'd better get used to being lonely.

  But for now, she was meeting a man for lunch at the Rose Gardens, and for that, she decided, she would allow herself the sweet effervescence of anticipation. She would put on lipstick and a bright spring sundress in a shade of blue that brought out the color of her eyes. She would wear sandals with a bit of a heel that made her legs look long and shapely. She would smile. What harm could it do, for these few moments, to forget The Gift and simply be happy in a man's company?

  If only such a thing were possible.

  She made it to the Rose Gardens's gift shop in less than twenty minutes, but he'd managed to get there ahead of her. In the manner of men everywhere, as he waited he paced, fidgeting, a paper bag from a fast-food place in one hand, the other in his pocket except when he pulled it out every few seconds to glance at his wrist.

  She didn't mean to listen in on his unguarded emotions, but his pacing path had taken him away from the entrance to the gardens, so he was unaware of her approach and therefore unshielded. And too far away to call to without making a spectacle of them both. She would have expected impatience, even annoyance, given his earlier mood-in her experience, all men seemed to hate waiting. But if he did feel any of that it was being overshadowed by darker, fiercer emotions. Waves of frustration too strong to have been caused by a few minutes' wait. Rashes of violence. Islands of tragedy in a sea of emptiness. A complex puzzle with too many pieces missing for her to see what it was about.

  Her steps faltered, then quickened as she hurried to get close enough to him to call out. Her jaws tightened as she struggled to smile. She was determined to smile.

  "Wade-hello!"

  He executed an almost comical about-face, and she felt instant relief from the emotional barrage. As he strolled lazily toward her the smile on his face revealed nothing but the pleasure of a man greeting a woman on a beautiful spring day. His feelings were completely shielded from her now, so she couldn't even be sure if the pleasure and the smile were real.

  To avoid the almost certain awkwardness of their meeting like this, she gestured toward the fast-food bag he was holding and said. "Was that the best you could do?"

  He arched his eyebrows. "Hey, I'm a manly man. I require red meat." He shrugged and added. "Besides, it was on the way."

  He motioned toward the camera hanging around her neck. "I see you came armed."

  "It's the reason I wanted to come here, actually. I needed more rose photos. I use them for my paintings, and with the Rose Festival coming up I have to have plenty ready to sell."

  She didn't mention the part about needing the healing powers of the place, and was surprised when he said softly, "Is that the only reason?"

  Something quickened inside her, and she squinted and put up a hand to shield her eyes, though not from the sun. "What do you mean?"

  "Oh, I don't know…just that you said this was a place where most of the feelings floating around are happy ones. I figured, after the past couple of days, you might be needing some of that about now."

  She couldn't answer him-didn't know what to say. She felt idiotic to be so touched by his words. And by the fact that it seemed he'd gone beyond just believing in her gift and was even beginning to understand it.

  The awkward moment stretched, and as such moments often do, ended when both of them spoke at the same time. Tierney said. "What did you want-" and Wade said. "I guess we should-" and it was Tierney who yielded with a small self-conscious laugh.

  "Eat first," Wade said firmly. "Then talk."

  He'd almost forgotten what he'd come for. The watcher in the car outside his apartment this morning, who may or may not have been present at the news conference at police headquarters-it had all faded into background noise the moment he'd turned and seen her coming toward him. the sun making a halo of her hair and painting roses on her cheeks, her rapid pace stirring breezes that flirted with her skirt and teased him with the suggestion of long, slender thighs beneath…

  Hey, dumb ass, she's not your type, remember? A voice somewhere in the back of his mind tried to get his attention. Too complicated! She reads minds!

  Uh-uh-not minds, emotions. And his were under tight rein. He'd made sure of that.

  They decided to eat lunch in a picnic area in the park near the gardens. Tierney chose a reasonably clean table and Wade dusted it off with some of the abundance of napkins he'd grabbed to go with his burger. He tried to remember the last time he'd eaten a meal outdoors under trees with a beautiful woman, and couldn't. He made a mental note to do it more often, assuming he could find a woman willing to go along.

  He hauled the fries out of the bag first, as always, and managed to get a couple of ketchup packets opened before he lost patience and went after the main course. He was about to bite into his burger with his usual gusto when his attention was claimed by the woman across the table from him.

  He watched, his own lunch poised halfway to his mouth, as she unwrapped the foil from an untidy mound of just about every vegetable he'd ever heard of-tomatoes, avocados, cucumbers, some kind of sprouts, and God only knew what else-barely contained between two slices of seriously healthy and crunchy-looking brown bread. His eyes followed, his breathing held in suspense, as she carefully lifted this monster to her mouth, closed her eyes and took a hefty bite. There was a distinct crunch, followed by a soft moan of pleasure.

  Wade's stomach gave a loud growl. He just managed to get his mouth closed before her eyes opened wide and focused on him.

  "Hmm?" she asked, smiling with closed lips in a way that reminded him of a contented cat.

  "Nothing." Which was the only thing he could say without opening up doors between them that were better left shut.

  She chewed, swallowed, picked an errant wisp of sprouts from her lips, then said with a shrug, "You were probably going to say something snarky about my sandwich-and that's not by benefit of my 'gift', by th
e way. Merely what most men would say, I suspect."

  "Maybe I'm not 'most men,'" he said with a certain arrogance, and with veiled eyes and a shrug of his own. Then he looked up at her and smiled. "Not that it surprises me. I should've guessed you'd be a vegetarian."

  "I'm not a vegetarian. Not totally," she managed to say through another bite. "I just forgot to go grocery shopping. With everything that's been…" She let that trail off into silence, and he knew she regretted being the one to invite the shadows back.

  They ate in silence, then, and she waited until she'd finished her sandwich and he'd polished off his burger and tapped into his diet soda before she reminded him why they were there. She twisted the top off a bottle of water, took a sip, then quietly asked, "So? What did you want to talk to me about?"

  He squeezed a glob of ketchup onto the wrapper from his burger, picked up a small bouquet of French fries and dabbed them into the ketchup, thinking it didn't seem right, somehow, to be talking of nightmares and sinister watchers and serial killers in such a setting. Wishing he could enjoy the respite she found in this place.

  But the world, particularly the part of it he lived in, wasn't a rose garden.

  He frowned at the ketchup-draped fries, popped them all into his mouth and went on frowning while he chewed and thought about how to ask the questions swirling like dry leaves in his mind.

  Who the hell is stalking me, and why? Is it somebody from one of my cases? From this case?

  Why am I having The Dream again?

  "I suppose," said Tierney. casually helping herself to one of his fries, "you want to know more about The Watcher. I'm not 'reading' you," she added, fixing her candid blue eyes on his face. "It pretty much has to be that or the case, and if it was the case, you'd probably have asked me to meet you at police headquarters. And-" she popped the French fry into her mouth and munched for a moment "-you wouldn't find it so hard to talk about."

  He confirmed that with a mirthless laugh. "Nice deduction, Sherlock. Okay, yeah. I want to know about this… watcher, stalker, or whoever he is. It is a he, right?"

  "I think so." She tilted her head, considering. "Yes-I'm pretty sure it's a man. Or…men."

  "And you're not picking up on what the guy-or guys-want?"

  "No…but-"

  "But what? If you know anything about this, tell me, damn it."

  "I don't get any sense of anger, or hate-anything that suggests he means you harm. Quite the opposite, in fact. He seems… I don't know. I just keep picking up this sense of longing. Of terrible sadness mixed in with great happiness. Happiness that he's found you, I guess. About the sadness…I'm not sure." She paused, and he watched a tinge of pink wash into her cheeks.

  "What?" he demanded again. "Whatever it is, tell me."

  She shook her head, smiling faintly. "I don't know how you're going to take this, but what he seems to feel for you is…love."

  "Ah, jeez." He gave a snort of disgust and began gathering up the remnants of lunch and stuffing them into the fast-food bag. "Now you're creeping me out, Miss Tee. Seriously. This is all I need."

  Her smile widened, to his further annoyance, but at least she had the good sense not to comment. Instead she added her trash to his and looped her camera around her neck, then gathered her skirt into one hand, giving him a brief glimpse of slender legs while she lifted them to swivel around on the picnic bench.

  "I really need to get some pictures before it heats up and the blossoms start to droop," she said, standing and brushing at the back of her skirt. "Do you want to walk with me?"

  He hesitated, knowing very well he should get back to the job. But he didn't want to leave. Not yet. And not because he hadn't really gotten the answers to his questions. Not about the nightmare. No, not that one.

  He didn't know how to tell her about the watcher outside his apartment that morning. And about the nightmare. Or maybe he just didn't want to tell her. for the same reason he didn't want to go back to work. Because it was nice being here with her like this, not thinking about the ugliness of the job. or the violence and turmoil of the nightmare. Not thinking about the unanswered questions that kept his muscles tied up with tension and his nerves on edge. Right here, right now, he felt a strange lassitude, something so unfamiliar to him he wasn't even certain he could call it by its right name.

  Peace? Contentment?

  It was dangerous, that he knew. Peace and contentment weren't things a homicide detective on a case needed to be wallowing in.

  He got up from the table and carried the remains of their lunch to the nearest trash barrel, dusted off his hands and turned to Tierney, the necessary words of parting forming in his mind. She was waiting for him a few yards away, her head turned toward him. seconding her invitation with a smile along one bare, lightly freckled shoulder. He felt an odd little hitch in his breathing, and the words in his mind melted away, dried up, like the first raindrops on hot pavement.

  What the hell, he thought. A few more minutes isn't going to matter much, one way or the other.

  They walked back to the gardens side-by-side, not hurrying, not talking, just strolling the way people do when they don't want the walk to end. but can't say the things they need to say.

  Until Tierney took an audible breath and said. "Can I ask you a question?"

  He glanced at her, feeling mellow enough to say, "Sure, go ahead."

  "What happened to make you feel you needed to talk to me?" She paused, but not long enough for him to reply.

  "Something did happen, didn't it? Something that upset you before I called and told you about The Watcher being at the news conference."

  His denial was automatic. "I wasn't upset. I just-" He broke it off with some whispered swearing, shaking his head, looking at the ground. "I can't get away with anything with you, can I?"

  "Oh, I think you can," she said, and he heard a smile in her voice. "When you want to. But you want to tell me this. You just don't quite know how."

  "Okay," he admitted after some more muttered blasphemy, "you're right, I did want to tell you." He held up a hand. "But I wasn't upset. Just ticked off. Weirded-out. Or something. Not upset. I don't get upset." He took a deep breath. And purposely didn't look at her. knowing for sure she'd be smiling.

  "All right, it was just a dream I had. One I've had before, going way back to when I was a kid. Hadn't had it in a long time, though, and then yesterday you told me you'd picked up…something from me. Something about…violence. Terror, you said. Something bad happening that scared me pretty bad, but you said there was somebody there…" He had to stop, wasn't sure why, suddenly he just couldn't go on.

  "The Protector." Tierney said softly. "Someone who made you feel safe."

  "Yeah." He said it on an exhalation, then ran a hand over his hair. "The thing is, that pretty much is my dream. The one I've been having since I was a kid. Last night I had it again, only this time I heard my mother's voice. I told you I don't have any memories from before I was adopted, and that was the truth. But I do have this dream, and now I'm starting to think it might be some kind of memory." He paused, and this time she didn't attempt to fill the silence, just waited for him to continue. "Anyway, like I said. I heard my mother's voice. Only she's not the protector. She's…the violence. The terror-part of it, anyhow." His jaws tightened, and he could hear the hard edge in his voice. "I'm pretty sure I know what it was, that part of it. Domestic violence is something I've learned a lot about, in my line of work. Unfortunately. What I still don't get, though, is the part about this…protector."

  "You never see who it is? In the dream, I mean."

  He shook his head. "It's dark. Then someone comes and turns the lights on, so bright they blind me-hurt my eyes. And I always wake up before I can see the person-the protector's face." He gave a short laugh. "I assume it's a person. My little brother insisted it was an angel."

  Tierney smiled, lifted her camera and zoomed in on a cluster of yellow blossoms tinged with blush pink. A man on the opposite side of the rose be
d checked, then moved quickly a few steps farther on so as not to ruin her shot. Then he paused to lift his camera, too.

  She checked the viewing screen, then glanced up at Wade. "So then…you woke up?"

  "Yeah. It was early, just barely starting to get light. But I figured there wasn't any point in going back to sleep, so I got up. I went over to the windows and looked out at the street-I don't know. I always do that first thing when I get up. Force of habit. Anyway. I spotted a car parked across the street, and a guy was sitting in it."

  Tierney lowered her camera and frowned. They'd moved on to another rose bed, this one a cream and red bicolor, a favorite of hers. On the edge of her field of vision, she saw the man with the camera stoop to smell one of the fragrant blossoms. Waves of contentment and pleasure wafted across the bed like perfume. She relaxed and murmured. "The Watcher?"

  "It was the first thing I thought of. Call me paranoid if you want to, but in my line of work paranoia's a good thing. A little paranoia can keep you alive. Anyway, I tried to catch the guy-ask him what the hell he was doing parked in front of my house in the dark of the morning- but he drove off before I-" He broke off and ran a hand over his close-cropped hair. "Hell. I blew it, that's all."

  She felt his chagrin and embarrassment and knew better than to ask why or how. "And then a few hours later." she mused. "The Watcher shows up at your news conference."

  Her mind was only half on what she was saying; she'd deliberately chosen a path that would intersect with the stranger's, and the distance between them was closing rapidly. Would he step aside and try to avoid her? Or-no, he was standing in the pathway gazing at the sea of glorious blossoms, his face alight with…

  Joy. Love. Nostalgia.

  The man was immersed in memories, happy ones.

  He came to himself as Tierney and Wade approached, and looked around, appearing startled. But with a friendly smile, saying, as he stepped quickly aside. "Oh-sorry, am I in your way?"

  He had a nice voice, mellow and rich. A nice face, too. And kind eyes. But, Tierney thought, there was something weary about them, too, as if they'd seen much that was neither nice nor kind.