Dream of Danger (A Brown and De Luca Novella)

by Maggie Shayne

  “So we’ll hop onto 17 West and take it from there.”

  “How about we hop straight to the nearest Dunkin’ Donuts for a large high-test and some sugary carbs first?”

  He glanced my way as he stopped at a traffic light, his focus shifting from internal to external. He’d been going through the motions while guilt churned in his gut, I knew. I could read people. And I could read him better than anyone else. While he stared at my face, latching onto it like a drowning man latches onto a life preserver, I said, “They still have that pumpkin spice coffee. Once Thanksgiving’s over, it’s gone and we’re on to whatever they do for Christmas. Holly berry pinecone surprise or whatever.”

  The shadow lifted. I saw it just as the traffic light changed. He smiled a little, then made a face as he drove on. “Pumpkin coffee?”

  “You’ll taste mine. You’ll be impressed.”

  “Doubtful.”

  “I’m getting a Boston Kreme doughnut, too. Don’t even argue with me.”

  “I wasn’t going to.”

  “You’re getting one, too. You’re thin. You losing weight?”

  “Not on purpose.”

  My stomach growled. Most unladylike. He grinned at me and I shrugged. “What? We’re discussing doughnuts, what the hell do you want from me?”

  At the word doughnuts, Myrtle lifted her head and emitted a soft woof.

  Mason’s smile widened. Pearly whites meant he was okay. “There’s a DD within ten minutes. Can you stand it that long?”

  I looked back at my dog, then at him, and then at the floor, heartbroken. “We’d better find something healthier for her. The vet says Myrtle is obese.”

  “Is he still among the living?”

  He knew me too well. “Only because Amy was the one who took her in for her checkup. If it had been me...well, never mind. What do you think? Find something Myrtle can share on the road?”

  “I’ll think of something,” he promised.

  Damn, though. I’d really wanted that doughnut.

  * * *

  Mason had pulled into a McDonald’s drive through and ordered Myrtle the chicken from a grilled chicken sandwich. Then he drove on to the DD so I could have my doughnut and coffee. He got coffee, too, and a plain doughnut. Who the hell eats plain doughnuts? Then he parked the car and fed Myrt her unbreaded, unfried, white-meat chicken.

  She loved it. Didn’t beg for my doughnut once. His either, though, like I said, plain. Who’s gonna beg for that? Given the choice, even I would rather have the chicken.

  No. No, I wouldn’t.

  We took her for a short walk in a weedy vacant lot near the DD, then popped her back into the car, backseat again, and were on our way.

  An hour later, give or take, we came upon Amy’s practical little Ford Focus parked on the shoulder of the highway on a long stretch between exits.

  I think every muscle in me tensed up at the sight of that car. I was trying to look at the area around it, but my eyes wouldn’t let go of the car itself, straining so hard to see inside that they watered. I was terrified I’d see a body. Amy’s body, toppled over in the front seat. I didn’t.

  “Looks like she had a flat.” Mason pointed to the rear passenger-side tire as he pulled to a stop behind the ca. Wehind tr and got out. His phone was in his hand before he’d taken even two steps from the Monte Carlo. “Don’t touch anything, Rache. Nothing, okay? Be careful where you step, even. Really, just don’t get too close.”

  “I know. I know. I’m not a rookie. I’ve banged a detective. As you well remember.”

  I was trying to ease my nerves with humor, but it wasn’t working and he knew it. He kept his eyes on me as he spoke to someone. A 911 operator, I guessed. I moved closer to Amy’s car, resisting the urge to race up to it and yank open the door. Instead I walked along the pavement side of the car, shielding my face with my hands and peering into the car without touching it.

  It wasn’t empty. Amy’s suitcase was in the backseat. Her backpack and handbag were in the passenger seat. Her keys were in the ignition.

  “State police are on the way,” Mason said, joining me beside the car. “Anything look odd?”

  “Yeah. Her purse. It’s right on the passenger seat.” I looked around at him, met his eyes. We both knew that wasn’t a good sign. If she’d left on her own, she would’ve taken her purse with her.

  We walked around to the front of the car. After snapping photos with his cell phone from every angle and noting that the shoulder was too hard for footprints, Mason laid a palm on the hood of Amy’s car. “Cold. It’s been here a while.”

  “Overnight, I’ll bet. The kid—Mike?—said she left at eight-fifteen, and we’re only an hour and twenty from her place.”

  He nodded in agreement, and we moved slightly closer for a better look at the flat tire. The jack was lying on the ground nearby. Mason hunkered down and leaned in. “Hell.”

  “What?”

  He lifted his head, looked me right in the eye. “Looks like some blood on the jack handle.”

  My stomach convulsed, and for a second I thought I was going to lose my doughnut. Instead, I staggered a few steps backward, ’cause I damn well didn’t want to see Amy’s blood on that jack. I clawed my phone out of my pocket and dialed her number one more time, in sheer desperation. “Answer me, dammit, Amy.”

  The phone rang in my ear.

  And then it rang again, from somewhere nearby.

  Frowning, I lowered my phone. “What the...?”

  “It’s under the car!” Mason dropped onto his knees and reached for it, yanking it out from under her car. When he got to his feet, I saw he had an evidence bag in his hand, using it as a glove to handle the phone.

  I heard sirens. The state troopers were on their way. I hurried up to Mason, leaning over his shoulder. “Check the phone, fast, before they take it into evidence.”

  He did. “Wait, wait, wait. She had the camera app open.” He tapped his thumb on the plastic bag repeatedly as the sirens drew closer.

  The last photo she’d taken came up on the screen.

  It was the tailgate of a white pickup truck, license plate and all, and it was taken from very near where we were standing. We both looked just past the front of Amy’s car. That truck had been parked right there. Right there.

  The state troopers came into sight, siren screaming.

  “Send that to my phone,” I said.

  “Rachel, it’s evi th, it’dence. Procedure—”

  “Procedure, my ass.” I yanked the phone from him so fast I should have taken his hand off at the wrist, then tapped Share Photo. Hit the first letter of my name, and my email address popped up. I tapped Send and handed the phone back to him as the police cruiser pulled up behind his car.

  The two troopers came up to us with their gray uniforms and those wide-brimmed state trooper hats. They had the coolest uniforms, I thought. But they could use a little more color. All that gray. Black stripe up the side. Too dull. Mason set the bag with the phone in it on the roof of Amy’s car, freeing up his hands to fish out his badge. He wasn’t too happy with me. I could tell from the vibes wafting from him. I liked when he was liking me a lot more than when he wasn’t.

  Why wouldn’t he be pissed, though? It seemed as though I was always doing things to jeopardize his career or make him jeopardize it on my behalf. We were so

  not good for each other.

  Chapter Six

  I hung around long enough to get bored with procedures. The troopers ran the pickup truck’s plates, and they came back as stolen from a Mercedes six months ago. No help there. I told them what I knew, including that I’d found the phone and sent myself the pic, in hopes that would keep Mason out of trouble. I even helped string a little police tape from a few feet behind Amy’s car to thirty feet in front of it, to include the spot where the mysterious pickup truck had pulled over. But by the time the crime scene techs arrived to start gathering evidence I was itching to be moving instead of standing still.

  “
Mason, can’t we leave now? I want get back on the trail. Amy’s in trouble. There’s no doubt of it now. We have to find her, and we have to do it fast.”

  He nodded. “We’ve already got an APB out on that pickup. The minute we get a hit on it, we’ll go. No point in leaving sooner when we could be heading in the wrong direction.”

  “We won’t be heading in the wrong direction. They were going that way.” I pointed. “Everyone on this side of the highway is going that way.” Hell, he was looking at me, but not really seeing me. He was in full cop mode.

  “They could’ve got off the highway at the next exit. They could’ve pulled a Uey in the next turnaround and headed east.”

  “They say once a bloodhound is onto a scent, he’ll follow it right off a cliff if you don’t hold onto him. Are you in bloodhound mode, Mason?”

  His blinked twice. I thought I saw the normal-guy light come back on behind his eyes. “I’m sorry. We’ll go soon. Just give me a few more minutes. I don’t want to miss anything the forensics guys turn up.”

  I rolled my eyes and stomped back to the Monte Carlo, got into the passenger side and pulled out my phone to check the photo Amy had taken. “What about that truck made you so nervous, Amy?” I studied it, enlarged the photo as far as it would go and then scrolled around it, looking for details. There were two men in the shot. One was sitting on the passenger side, nothing showing but the back of his head, and that was in shadow. I thought his hair was short, neat and dark—though that could be the shadow—and I could extrapolate from the shot that he was a tall guy. I stared at him, mentally slotting in Mel the plumber like a transparent overlay in my mind. It could be him. It could also be about a million other guys of similar bs iCuild and coloring.

  I could see a little bit more of the driver. He’d been in the process of opening his door and getting out when Amy had taken the shot, so one arm was extended, and he was leaning out a little, one foot on its way down to the road. His hair was thick and dark brown, tufts of it sticking out from under a navy-blue knit hat. His face was in profile, aiming downward. A little blurry. I made the photo smaller for a clearer look, and then the details were too small to see. I needed to get the thing onto a bigger screen. Not that I expected to recognize the guy. There was nothing familiar about him.

  The truck itself was an older model, an off-white—or maybe once-white—Chevy. With the tailgate up I couldn’t see if anything was in the bed, but the plates were clear as day, which was a plus.

  “Her credit card was used last night at a gas station five miles back,” Mason said without preamble as he opened the driver’s door and got in. “We need to head back there.” I saw the troopers run past, so I guessed they were coming, too.

  “I don’t think it’ll help,” I told him as he pulled onto the highway, sped up to the next turnaround and made U-turn to cross the median and head back the other way. “She obviously used the card before whatever happened, happened.”

  He drove a little farther, but I was getting more and more uncomfortable with every tenth-mile marker we passed. “This isn’t right,” I finally said. “Mason, this isn’t freakin’ right.”

  Apparently, my tone got to him, because he frowned at me. And then I guess my expression got to him, because he slowed down. “Talk to me, Rachel. What’s going on? You having a...a vision or something?”

  “No, I’m not having a fucking vision. I don’t have visions. I have dreams. Or had. Past tense. I had dreams because I got your brother’s eyes, and the guy who got his heart was killing people. Period. It was a fluke, and it’s over. How many times do I have to tell you? I’m not psychic. I’m not one of those airy-fairy lunatics who tell the cops they’ll find the missing corpse near a body of water. Jesus, Mason.”

  He pulled the car over onto the shoulder, stopped and gripped the steering wheel, then seemed to choose his words with care. “Just tell me what you want me to do,” he said at length.

  “You don’t have to go back to the gas station?” I was feeling bad for snapping at him. He’d given up his Thanksgiving to help me find Amy. I shouldn’t take my gut-churning fear out on him.

  Ever.

  “I’m not officially on this, Rache. I’m off duty and out of my jurisdiction. The troopers will tell me what they find out as a professional courtesy, though. And just for the record, the reason for going back to the gas station is because that’s where she might have caught the wrong people’s attention. Someone who works there might have noticed that truck and whoever was in it. But we can do whatever you think is best. So just tell me. What do you want me to do?”

  I drew a deep breath, trying to figure out how to do it without looking completely batshit, and then decided it didn’t matter. Hell, he’d seen me sleepwalk straight to a crime scene. If he hadn’t run screaming by now, he wasn’t going to.

  “I want you to turn around and drive the other way. The way we were going to begin with.”

  He looked at me for about three seconds, then nodded and said, noddedÀsaid, “You got it.” He pulled the car out and hit the next turnaround, and the tight feeling in my chest immediately started to ease up.

  I sighed in reaction and relaxed in my seat a little, and he noticed because he noticed everything. Everything.

  “Better?” he asked.

  “Yeah. Thanks.” I moistened my lips and added, “And thanks for not asking.”

  “Oh, I’ll be asking. Just not right now.”

  * * *

  I don’t know what the hell was going on and I didn’t want to think about it just then. Hell, when I was having visions—no, not visions, dreams—of serial murders, the one thing I had figured out was that there was no figuring it out. I could drive myself crazy, and damn near had, trying to understand why it was happening or how the hell it could be happening at all. None of that had helped. What had helped, finally, was just shutting up and paying attention. Looking for details in the dreams and following where they led.

  This wasn’t the same thing. It wasn’t a dream. It was just a feeling. A lot like the feelings I get when I talk to people. The way I can tell when they’re lying and what kind of emotion is compelling them to: guilt or shame or pride or whatever. I can tell a lot about people. Some of it from the little telltale wavers and warbles and pitch of their voices. Some of it from something else. The energy they give off or whatever. It wasn’t ESP. There was no such thing as ESP. It was just the result of having been blind for twenty years, and having to learn to rely on my other senses.

  This felt very similar. I knew Amy was in trouble just as sure as I’d known her boyfriend Mel was a lying sack of shit the first time I’d set eyes on him. And I also knew she was in the direction we were now heading. Now, maybe that was a little harder for me to explain. Maybe being blind for twenty years shouldn’t turn me into a human Amy detector. Maybe it made no sense at all. But it was happening, and I didn’t have time to try to make sense out of it right now. It had a logical explanation. Everything did. I’d figure it out in time.

  Right now all that mattered was finding Amy before those two assholes in the pickup murdered her and dumped her in a swamp somewhere.

  “Hey.” Mason put a hand over mine where they were folded in my lap. “You okay?”

  “Yeah, why?”

  “You’re trembling.”

  “I do not tremble. I’m shivering. Turn up the fucking heat, why don’t you?”

  He complied, even though he and I both knew I was shaking from fear, not cold. I could talk a big game, and he would always let me. It was one of the things I loved about him. Liked about him, I mean. His phone rang. He picked it up fast and hit the speaker button. “Detective Brown,” he said.

  “Trooper Simpson,” the other guy replied. “Your MP bought gas here at 9:36 p.m. last night. Security footage shows that pickup was here at the same time. Two men in it, just like in the photo. There was no interaction between them. Ms. Montrose left alone. The pickup pulled out a minute and a half behind her.”

  Ma
son looked at me. I looked back. “Anything else?” he asked.

  “Yeah. One guy got out of the truck briefly. Walked out of camera range. But neither of them ever went into the store Cto m">

  “They were following her,” I said.

  “Looks that way, ma’am.” Then, to Mason, “We’ll keep you posted, Detective. You’ll do the same?”

  “Absolutely. Thanks for the info.” Mason disconnected.

  “What the hell is going on?” I wasn’t really asking him. I was asking...I don’t know. Fate. The universe. God.

  “I don’t know. But it’s looking now as if this was premeditated. Which means it was probably someone she knew.”

  “Mel. She probably threatened to tell his wife about them, like you theorized. He probably got some friend to help him shut her up. Or hired a pair of thugs to—”

  “You still feel like we’re going the right way?”

  I nodded and realized that he was trying to distract me from where my dark thoughts were heading. I also realized that it was gett

  ing superhot in Mason’s car. And that I was still shivering.

  Chapter Seven

  While we drove, Mason talked to his boss, Chief Subrinsky, a man I’d grown to respect, even though he was everything I usually hated. A rule book—quoting, frequently shouting, type-A personality who wouldn’t know a Zen moment from a Zumba class. But he was all about the job. Doing it right. Doing it well. Doing it honestly. And since the job was protecting and serving the public, he was a damn hard guy to hate. Even if he did yell too much.

  The chief was presumably filling Mason in, and I didn’t even bother asking why Mason didn’t put him on speaker. He was protecting me. Making sure no shocking information got blurted out without sufficient preparation. Like that they’d found Amy’s body or something.

  And since that wasn’t the kind of thing I wanted to hear blurted out, I didn’t give him a hard time about acting as my personal defense system. It was kind of touching, which was kind of weird, because if any other male had played the I’ll-protect-the-delicate-female card, I’d have coldcocked him.