“You’re ready for anything, aren’t you?”
The waiter returned with the credit card and the check. Sam added a tip, signed the bottom, and put the card in his wallet. Then he got up. “Ready to try on the new shoes, Cinderella?”
“Ready.”
He cradled her elbow in one hand as he guided her around tables and waiters to the exit. The car was waiting out front, but he only opened the back door and fished out the flip-flops. She kicked off her pumps, realized she was wearing stockings, and got into the back of the car.
“What’s wrong? Change your mind?”
“Stockings,” she said. “They have to go. Flip-flops have that toe thing.”
“Ahh.” He stood there in the doorway, and she thought about telling him to turn around or close the door, but decided to play instead.
She slid her skirt up to the top of the stockings, and pushed them down her legs, one at a time.
He was mesmerized. She couldn’t remember when a man had looked at her the way he was looking at her. And it wasn’t all that revealing; the stockings only went to midthigh. She noticed he only took his eyes off her once, and that was to make sure no one else had the view he was so obviously enjoying. He blocked the doorway with his body. And he whispered, “You’re killing me, you know that?”
“You’d see more than this if I wore shorts.”
“Then next time, wear them.” She left the stockings on the seat and slid the flip-flops on. He took her arm and tugged her out of the car, and this time, he held her hand as they walked down the block, around the corner, to the sprawling, grassy Pinedale Town Park. It was minuscule in comparison to the sprawling state park nearby, but perfect for an after-dinner walk with a handsome man.
They entered one of the walking trails and followed its meandering course through the woods, until they reached the park’s centerpiece, a perfect little pond, currently home to several wood ducks and a pair of swans who were permanent residents. The moon had risen; it hung low in the sky, huge and lopsided, nearly full.
They moved to the benches near the pond, and Sam took off his jacket and slipped it around her shoulders.
She turned to face him. “This is nice. You’re good at this dating thing.”
“So I’ve been told.” Did he look a little guilty when he said that? “You want to sit awhile?”
“No. I want to know if you’re as good at first kisses as you are at first dates.”
He held her eyes, slipped one arm around her waist, and cradled the back of her head with the other hand. It made her feel delicate and cherished. He pulled her to him, bent his head, and brushed his lips across hers lightly, softly, repeatedly, before finally parting them and covering her mouth for a kiss that took her breath away.
The flash hit just as she was starting to reconsider her earlier promise that he wasn’t getting any tonight. It hit bright, hard, and fast. She went stiff in his arms. And by the time he lifted his head away, it was gone.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Two things. Most importantly—the killer. He’s in the park—here, now. I saw you chasing him, wearing just what you’re wearing tonight. So it has to be—”
Before she finished the sentence, the night was split by a woman’s scream.
“Stay close to me,” he told her, and, gripping her hand, he took off running.
SAM tugged her along behind him, and she surprised him by keeping up without any trouble, despite the flip-flops, the dress, and the darkness. It lifted her a notch higher in his estimation that she didn’t stumble or complain or ask to stop. Though after that kiss, it would have been tough to lift her much higher.
He spotted the struggling couple in the wooded area off the trail: a larger form straddling a small one. The small one lay on her back, and the bigger one had her pinned and was pounding her face.
“Police! Get off her, you sonofabitch!” Sam veered off the trail and went crashing through the brush toward the pair. He pulled his gun, but the attacker was already on the run. The perp had rolled off his victim at Sam’s first shout, sprung to his feet, and was racing through the underbrush.
Sam glanced back at Megan. She was already crouching beside the battered victim, her face stricken. She looked his way, as if feeling his eyes on her. Hers were intense, damp, powerful, and furious. God, she was something else.
“Stay here, stay with her,” he said.
She nodded. “Go get that bastard,” she said. “But be careful, Sam.”
He didn’t believe in her powers, he reminded himself. So why did that warning send a chill right up his spine?
Chapter Five
MEGAN knelt there, half afraid to touch the young woman, but knowing she had to. The victim was frightened, traumatized, probably in shock. She needed to know someone was there, that she was safe, and Megan didn’t think words alone could do the job.
She put a gentle hand on the trembling shoulder. “It’s okay, the police are chasing him. He’s not coming back. You’re safe.”
Her eyes—one wide with fear, the other split at the corner, swollen, and bloody—fixed on Megan. She couldn’t have been more than twenty-five, probably younger. “H-h-he h-hurt me.”
“I know. An ambulance is coming. You’re going to be okay.”
A twig snapped, and the woman’s hand shot to Megan’s like a cobra striking, and squeezed tight.
“It’s just a bird. You’re safe,” Megan began, but then the flashes came, rapid-fire, blinding, far more vivid and potent than anything she’d ever felt before.
She was running, her feet hitting the path, a satisfying burn in her muscles and the rush of chilled air in and out of her lungs.
An arm like a steel band snapped around her neck from behind . . .
Can’t breathe!
. . . yanked her off balance, slammed her into the ground.
Something hit her face—her cheekbone exploded in pain.
What’s he hitting me with? God, is it a hammer?
But it was only his fist, again and again, while he fell atop her, knees on either side, groin grinding against hers, his free hand tearing at her spandex running pants, his white sneakers bright in the darkness.
Rapist! No. Fight, fight him. Don’t let him—
She used her hands, pounding at her invisible attacker, clawing at his eyes, and kicking her feet, though they hit nothing. It was if he couldn’t feel any impact, and with a few more of his blows to her face, she was fighting just to remain conscious.
Megan felt it all. The panic, the fear, the pain of every blow, the hot blood oozing into her left eye and burning there, the weight of him, the smell of his breath. She screamed.
“Hey, hey, come on, talk to me now!”
She opened her eyes, found she was lying on her back a few feet from where the victim lay. Paramedics surrounded the wounded girl. One was leaning over Megan, looking at her as if he thought she might be another victim. Beyond him lights flashed red and white in the darkness, painting everything in alternating strokes of color. She drew a breath, pushed herself up into a sitting position. “I’m okay, I was helping her, and I—I thought I heard him. I just panicked and, uh . . . fell.”
The medic frowned, but then Sam was there, moving the man aside, crouching down and clasping her shoulders, looking at her with worry in his eyes. “What happened?”
“The usual,” she said, holding his upper arms for support. He pulled her to her feet, but she didn’t let go when she got her balance. If anything, she wanted more contact. To be wrapped up in him completely would be a good start.
“Did you get the guy?” she asked.
“No, he took off in what looked like an SUV. It was too damn far away and too dark for me to get a description, much less a plate number.” He shook his head, leading her aside, away from the others. As he did, he slipped an arm around her shoulders and held her close to his side.
Better, she thought.
“You got another flash?”
“Man, did I.
That poor woman is hurting. I think her cheekbone is broken, maybe her jaw too by the way it felt when he hit me. Hit her, I mean.”
He stopped walking, frowned down at her. “You . . . felt it?”
She nodded. “As if it were happening to me. God, I’ve never felt that kind of fear in my life.” She watched the medics lift the gurney and carry the woman to the clearing where the ambulance waited. “At least he didn’t rape her.”
“He didn’t? You’re sure?”
She nodded. Other cops were arriving now, securing the scene, stringing yellow tape. One carried a camera and began flashing photos.
Sam gripped her upper arm, suddenly animated. “Meg, I don’t suppose you . . .” He bit his lip.
“What?”
“Well, did you see him? In the flash, did you get a look at him?”
She thought back. “I was too scared to try, it was happening so fast, you know? I was being pummeled, trying to avoid the blows, trying to cover my face and hit back.” She narrowed her eyes, remembering the experience. “I think there were times when I could have glimpsed his face, I just wasn’t thinking clearly enough to try. And I think he might have been wearing a mask of some sort.”
He sighed. “That’s all right.”
“We have to get her address, Sam.”
He looked at her, frowning as if confused.
She shrugged. “You know me. The most useful piece of information I got from touching that poor woman is that there’s no one to go to her house and feed her cat. She was thinking that, as she lay there. ‘If he kills me how long before someone knows I’m dead, and goes to my apartment to take care of Roderick? Will he starve to death in the meantime?’ ”
“I’ll see to it the cat is taken care of,” Sam told her.
She smiled a little. “I doubt he’d starve, he’s pretty overweight anyway.”
Sam stared at her. “Don’t tell me—the cat you can describe?”
She lowered her eyes. “Maybe it’s because I have a cat of my own. Slender little gray tabby. Hers is big, long-haired, buff-colored, with one green eye and one blue eye.”
“You’re incredible,” he said softly.
“Just not very helpful,” she replied.
He swallowed hard. “You saved that girl’s life.”
“You did that.”
“You knew the rapist was in the park.”
“So did you, the second you heard her scream.”
He shrugged. “So we were both instrumental. The fact is, we have a survivor now. If she got a look at him, we might finally have a description of our boy.”
“I don’t think she did, though. But . . . I hope you’re right.”
“Look, I have to go to the hospital.” He clasped her shoulders, studying her face, really searching her eyes. He looked at her more deeply, more thoroughly, than anyone had ever bothered looking before. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I’m okay. You have a job to do. I’m fine.”
“I’ll take you home on the way to the hospital, all right?”
She shook her head left then right. “Sure . . . but . . . it’s just, I thought you wanted my help on this case.”
“I do, but—”
“Then why not take me to the hospital with you?”
Sam seemed to consider that, then shook his head with real regret in his eyes. “The chief would never get it. He still thinks . . . not tonight, okay? I’ll take you sometime when the place isn’t crawling with cops.”
By now they were nearing the restaurant and his waiting car. He flicked a button on the key ring, and the locks opened. Then he opened her door for her. She got in, then he did, and he started the engine, then paused.
“What was the second thing?” he asked.
“What?”
“When I was kissing you in the park—”
She smiled just a little, the warmth of that memory chasing away the chill that had settled over her.
“—you got that flash, and I asked you what it was. You said, two things, the killer being the most important one. What was the other?”
She lifted her brows as the warmth left her in a rush. “Oh. That.” She looked him dead in the eye. “It was the clear message that you’re still keeping things from me. Important things.” She shrugged. “Go figure.”
OF course he denied it all the way back to her house, tried to cover it, but she knew. She’d felt it clearly when he kissed her. It was lingering, lurking beneath the real passion, the heat that rose between them—there was a reason he was kissing her. A reason he was even with her at that moment, and that reason was not the one he was trying to make her believe.
He didn’t want to date her, and he didn’t believe in her visions.
She sighed, disappointed. It didn’t matter. She had to stick with him, see this thing through, because she, too, had reasons for being with him.
The dreams.
Besides, there was something about him. Something she liked. Not the lying, though. She didn’t like that at all. At least he didn’t seem like any sort of a threat to her. He’d even given her a card with his cell phone number on it, in case she needed him. As if he were feeling . . . protective of her.
Megan dropped her coat on the back of the sofa and kicked off her shoes—belatedly realizing she still wore the borrowed flip-flops. Her pumps were in the back of Sam’s car. She sank into her favorite chair, and Percy jumped into her lap, nuzzled her chin. She petted her cat, thinking of the other woman, and her own pet at home alone as she stroked soft fur. “What do you suppose that fellow’s keeping from me, Percy?” she asked.
Percy purred and arched his back to her hand for more affection.
“Lot of help you are. Hell, I suppose being the psychic, I ought to know. Then again . . .” She glanced across the room, to where her computer sat collecting dust. “I suppose I could do a little research, couldn’t I?”
She set Percy aside, ignored his mewling protests, and crossed the room to flip on the PC. A few mouse clicks later she was online, running a search on Samuel Sheridan. She was surprised at the number of hits that came up, news articles, mostly. Old ones.
Samuel Sheridan, Killed in Line of Duty.
Officer Shot Down in Robbery Attempt.
Hero Cop Gives All.
She clicked on the first link, which took her to a newspaper’s Web site, but not to the article. So she went back to the search results and tried again, finding the same outcome every time. Frowning, she looked more closely at the links, each of which gave just a line or two of the accompanying story, and realized the links were more than a decade old.
Of the three newspaper sites, only one had a “Search the Archives” button, and she used it, relieved when the article actually showed up.
Whispering a silent thank-you to whoever had come up with the idea to put the last twenty-plus years of articles online, she read through the piece, and realized Sam’s father had been a cop too, and that he’d died in the line of duty just a few days after his thirty-fifth birthday. This article was about him, not her Sam.
“Samuel Sheridan Jr. was shot at point-blank range when he attempted to foil a liquor store robbery in progress last night. Both suspects were also killed.”
The article shocked her, but not so much as the line that brought her to a grinding halt.
It is a painful irony that Samuel Sheridan’s father, also a police officer, was likewise killed in the line of duty at the age of thirty-five. In the elder Sheridan’s case, death came by way of a high-speed pursuit that ended in a fiery wreck, in the fall of 1950.
She blinked slowly. Both Sam’s father and his grandfather had been police officers, and they’d both died in the line of duty at the age of thirty-five? God, how awful. Sam couldn’t have been more than a child when his father died. The story was published in 1977. How old could he have been then? He’d mentioned at dinner that he had a birthday coming up.
A low growl made her turn her head sharply. Percival stood on the back of th
e sofa, staring toward the front door, his back arched and the hair on the scruff of his neck bristling. His tail switched back and forth.
“Percy, what’s wrong?” She looked toward the door too, suppressing a shiver.
Percy jumped to the floor and darted across the room, ducking through the slightly open bedroom door and out of sight.
As a guard dog, he left a lot to be desired.
Megan saved the article to her hard drive, then quickly clicked the disconnect button, got up, and walked to the front door. She hadn’t locked it behind her when she’d come in, she thought. After what she’d witnessed tonight, that should have been the first thing she thought to do. She turned the locks now, even while peering through the glass panes, but they were more decorative than functional. Beveled and pebbled. Pretty, but useless.
She backed up enough to flip on the outdoor light, then moved to the nearest window to push the curtains aside and peek out.
She saw no one. Nothing. She thought she would have felt better if she had. A local dog trotting by or a neighbor out for a walk. Her cat had sensed something out there. But what?
A car passed by, and its lights fell on a solitary figure, standing across the street. A man. Just standing there, staring . . . at her house.
Megan jerked away from the window, swallowed hard, then forced herself to lean closer again, to take another look.
White sneakers.
The attacker in the park had been wearing white sneakers. It was the one thing she’d noticed, the way they stood out so prominently in contrast to the darkness of the night, and of his jeans.
Jeans. White sneakers and blue jeans. Okay, at least she had something to tell Sam.
What the hell was the killer doing outside her house? If it even was him. Hell, there were probably lots of men running around in white sneakers and jeans.
Not standing outside your house, kid. There’s only one of those.
She reached into her pocket, pulled out the little card Sam had given her. Then she dialed his cell phone and prayed he would answer.
Man of My Dreams Page 10
