Cold Sight

by Parrish, Leslie

  “Where do you live?”

  She gave him the address, and he punched it into his GPS, being totally unfamiliar with the area. Maybe he needed to get out a little more. He’d certainly been given reason to today.

  “I can give you directions,” she insisted.

  “It’s okay. Just relax. Close your eyes. Let it all go for a couple of minutes.”

  She sank deeper into the leather seat. “Mm. You have a nice voice, Aidan. Do you have a hypnotist act on the side?”

  Laughing softly, he started the car and pulled out of the lot. “Not a chance. I’ve met too many hypnotists to even consider it.”

  “You mean in your line of work?”

  “Not exactly.” He shifted, not thrilled with the direction of the conversation, but not hung up about it, either. “A few of them tried to cure me of my ‘delusions’ when I was a kid.”

  He didn’t have to look over to know she’d opened her eyes and was staring at him. “Oh.”

  “They came on the scene after the religious wing nuts who tried driving out whatever demons must have taken over my body.”

  She jerked upright. “Good God!”

  “Whatever,” he said with a shrug. “Some people hear about psychics and see fraud. Some see magic. My parents saw demonic spirits.”

  “They really held exorcisms?” she asked, sounding shocked.

  “ ‘That’s those crazy papists,’ ” he said, quoting his father. “Southern Baptists hold prayer circles.” His tone dry, he added, “It was that or call the National Enquirer and make a fortune touting me as the half-alien mind-reading boy. And they’re just not the type.”

  “Thought you didn’t read minds, alien-boy,” she said with a deliberate snicker, as if knowing they were skirting the edges of a difficult subject.

  “I don’t,” he replied, smiling as well. “So feel free to think whatever you want about the bastard who trashed your car.”

  “Huh. I don’t have to hide those thoughts. I’d be happy to share them, as long as you have a dictionary full of four-letter words to refer back to.”

  “I’ve got a pretty extensive vocabulary.”

  He didn’t blame her. A few choice words had entered his mind when he’d seen the car, too. Not all four-letter ones, though. At the top of his list was coward. Only somebody who had no guts would take such petty revenge on a woman who was just doing her job.

  Though maybe the vandalism was something to be thankful for. It beat somebody taking a pair of scissors or a sharp object to the car’s owner. His hands tightened on the steering wheel at the thought of it, his stomach churning and a faint red haze appearing before his eyes.

  “So,” she said, getting back to the fun topic of his whacked-out family, “the folks don’t like having a psychic for a son, huh? I can sympathize—my mom hates that I’m a reporter.”

  Deadpan, he asked, “Why would she feel that way about such an admirable profession?”

  She swatted him lightly in the upper arm. He didn’t even stiffen at the contact. Progress.

  “She wanted college and a career for my brother. House and babies for me. Now he’s a trucker and lives in her basement, and I never married, moved away, and will never go back.”

  “To?”

  “Chester, Indiana, population twelve hundred.”

  One-upping her, he said, “Freemont, Arkansas, population twelve. All of them members of my father’s congregation.”

  “What a couple of big- city big-shots we are to have ended up in this metropolis.” She gestured out the window as they drove downtown. Sounding a little less amused, she added, “Though, of course, you are a newcomer, most recently of Savannah, as I recall.”

  He stiffened reflexively.

  “I’m not going to pry.”

  “You already have, I assume?”

  “Only through the public record.”

  “And that’s always so reliable.”

  “Maybe you’ll tell me your side of the story someday.” As if knowing where his mind immediately went, she clarified, “Off the record. Just like everything else.”

  He nodded slowly. “Maybe.” Then, knowing he owed her one, he added, “I’m sorry I was so abrupt with you yesterday.”

  “Career hazard.”

  Perhaps, but she didn’t seem like the rest of the people in her career. Maybe it was just because of this one case, this particular story, but Lexie seemed bigger-hearted than most of her brethren. “You’re not supposed to get so personally involved with something like this, are you?” he asked. “You need to remain detached to do your job.”

  “Hello, pot, I’m kettle,” she said, sounding tart. She obviously had been reading about him, had seen the truth lurking in his own history—Aidan had almost always become too personally involved with the cases on which he worked.

  “Touché. But I’ve learned my lesson.”

  “I hope not,” she murmured, gazing out the windshield at the oncoming headlights. “I mean, I hope you haven’t stopped caring about the people you’re trying to save.”

  “You can’t save them all, kettle.”

  She wrapped her arms around herself, as if cold, though the evening was balmy. “Maybe that’s why I so desperately want to save this one.”

  “Vonnie?”

  She nodded. Falling silent, as if considering whether she wanted to say more, she finally continued. “There was this girl who lived in the next town over from where I grew up.”

  Ahh. He’d half wondered whether she had a story, something that drove her on, pushed her to do more than another person might in this situation. “Someone you knew?”

  Shaking her head, she continued. “A few years older than me, but still in elementary school. She disappeared while riding her bike home from the park one day.”

  He knew this sad tale. Or at least dozens like it.

  “It was all any of the adults were talking about. Neighborhood watches started up. We weren’t allowed to walk to friends’ houses alone or go to the playground by ourselves anymore. Everybody was in a panic. My parents included.”

  She hadn’t mentioned her father before, just her mother. But he didn’t want to interrupt by asking for more details than she was already providing.

  “Who wouldn’t be?” He didn’t really expect an answer, the question was rhetorical. He had plenty of experience with hysterical parents. Discovering your child was missing was something one never got over. Caroline Remington certainly hadn’t.

  He buried that memory, focusing on the here and now, not to mention the road. They were turning into what he assumed was her neighborhood and would be at her door momentarily. Soon she’d exit the car and he’d go home and maybe tomorrow they’d go back to being a little more formal, a bit more aloof. He wouldn’t be putting his hand on her shoulder and she wouldn’t be baring her soul about a bad childhood memory.

  Which, for some reason, made him lift his foot ever so slightly off the gas pedal as they cruised slowly down the block. “So how did you react? What were you thinking?”

  “I was afraid. It was all anybody talked about. I remember being terrified for months, having nightmares. Probably like every other seven-year-old girl in the area.”

  Seven. Jesus. “Did they ever find her?”

  “Yes,” she said, her voice thick. “Her body was found in a neighbor’s shed, rolled up in an old rug. Guy was a convicted sex offender; he’d killed her a few hours after taking her.”

  Aidan wasn’t at all surprised. If parents knew just how close monsters like that were to their nice, normal homes and neighborhoods, they’d probably never let their kids out the door.

  “Hell, I’m sorry,” he said.

  “Me, too.”

  He listened for the softly spoken instructions from the smooth, computerized voice on the GPS, which told him to turn into the next driveway. No more delaying. They had arrived at her small, one-story house on a quiet street with dozens of other homes that looked just like it.

  Pulling up in f
ront, he moved the gearshift to park, and waited. Lexie didn’t hop out right away, nor did he move to go around and open the door for her. As if they both just wanted to sit here in the darkness and talk for a few more minutes.

  “There was one thing that always stuck with me,” she finally said. “A conversation I overheard one night when my parents thought I was asleep.”

  He turned to look at her, noting the way the dash lights brought reddish highlights to her blond hair, which had tumbled out of its ponytail at some point today and now fell around her shoulders in soft waves. He’d found her pretty before; now, seeing the strength of her profile, the softness of her cheeks, the fullness of her lips, he acknowledged that she was, in truth, a beautiful woman. Her passion and drive only made her more so.

  “My mother said it would have been better if they’d never found her. That knowing how awful her final hours were was too much for a parent to bear, and it would have been kinder for them to go on believing she was still alive somewhere, hoping they’d see her again someday.”

  He’d heard the theory before. Didn’t agree with it, but he’d heard it.

  “My father, though, felt the opposite. He said knowing the truth, and knowing she couldn’t ever be hurt again, would be better than going to bed every night for the rest of your life wondering if your child had just endured another endless day of brutalization and torment. With nothing but more days just like them ahead of her.”

  He swallowed hard, having met people whose minds filled with that very thought every single time their heads touched the pillow. “Your father sounds like a smart guy.”

  “He was,” she murmured.

  Filing that tidbit away—that she’d been especially close to her father and he’d died—he said, “That’s why this is so personal to you, why you have to find them. Find her.”

  “Yes, that’s why.” She finally lifted her gaze from her own clenched hands. “And I’m not going to give up until I do, whether Vonnie Jackson is alive or dead.”

  He let the words sink in, noting her will and her determination. Aidan understood so much about her now. He already knew her relationship with her boss had a lot to do with the loss of her father, and her recklessness had probably come about from rebelling against her mother.

  He also knew that every single day she waged a battle against men in power who wanted to control her, or men without it who wanted to hurt her—or merely objectify her. Lexie’s life was a constant balancing act as she tried to follow her conscience and do her job, despite obstacles and enemies. Every day she kept on going, kept fighting.

  Knowing her, even for such a brief time, was suddenly making him question every choice he’d made in the past year. Because she could have run; she could have quit, could have given up. But she hadn’t. So what did that say about him?

  “Okay, Lex,” he finally said, “we do this together.”

  He knew she understood everything he was trying to convey. That he was with her, that he wasn’t giving up, either. That she was no longer alone.

  She glanced over, her eyes gleaming, moist. He sensed the woman didn’t cry often—didn’t allow herself to cry often. Seeing the way her lashes fluttered and her lips quivered, he couldn’t help reaching out, giving her a bit of the human connection she seemed to need.

  Aidan touched her in the darkness, brushing his fingertips against her soft cheek. He didn’t think about what it might cost him, how her thoughts and memories might later invade his consciousness. He merely thought of the now. Of her need. Of the attraction he’d felt for her from the start, which had built every minute since.

  She hesitated for the briefest of seconds, as if knowing a touch was something he never offered lightly. Then she curled her face into his hand, and her soft hair fell over his wrist. Her warm exhalations flowed across his skin, her breaths deep and steady.

  They remained still, motionless for one long moment. But he had the feeling it was one of those moments when everything changed.

  Neither of them spoke, nor did they move closer, try to change or deepen the connection. This was enough. At least for now.

  “Thank you,” she finally murmured, her lips brushing ever so lightly against the fleshy part of his palm before she lifted her head and stared at him.

  “You’re welcome. Good night, Lexie.”

  Saturday, 5:45 a.m.

  Lexie couldn’t remember the last time she’d had such vivid dreams, the kind that were so intense, it was hard to know where fantasy ended and reality began. She only knew that as she woke up, she had to sit straight up in bed and blink a few times, plus pat her hand on the pile of rumpled sheets beside her, just to be sure she wasn’t still asleep.

  Because in her dreams, she hadn’t been alone beneath those sheets.

  “Good God.” She swung her legs off the bed and sat in the darkness, trying to slow her rapid breaths. She’d had nightmares a lot lately. Bad ones. But last night was the first time she could recall dreaming about hot, sweaty sex with a guy she hadn’t even known a few days ago.

  If Aidan McConnell really had the kind of skills and talents she’d dreamed about, he didn’t have to worry about going back to work as a psychic. He could get a job providing satisfaction to women. She’d hire him. Dream Lexie had taken every little bit of physical pleasure she could get from the man until she’d been totally wrung out and unable to move.

  Her breaths evened out, but nothing cooled off the heat in her. She was hyped up, her nerve endings afire, every feminine part of her in thrall to the fantasy delights of the night before.

  Considering they hadn’t even kissed, and Aidan had done nothing more than gently touch her face, she couldn’t understand why her nighttime rest had been consumed by him. Yes, he was incredibly good-looking, but she’d met good- looking men before and her subconscious hadn’t spent entire nights indulging in wild fantasies about them. It seemed like it had gone on for hours, dream after erotic dream about being with him, touching him, having Aidan in every way a woman could have a man. Thinking about it, she suspected she’d actually been rocked awake by a real orgasm about an hour ago, but had interpreted it as part of the illusion.

  “You are losing it,” she told herself as she got up and stumbled to her bathroom. “And you need to get laid.” Preferably by someone who could satisfy her and then be easily forgotten.

  Which left Aidan McConnell out of the picture. He wouldn’t be easily forgotten. The man had already taken up residence in the most secretive, hidden part of her brain, where her deepest fantasies and sensual wishes resided. Though she hadn’t communicated with that part of herself for a long time—it had been eighteen months since she’d slept with anyone—she knew she wouldn’t be shutting it down again soon. Not when it had been so thoroughly awakened.

  Standing at the sink, she eyed herself in the mirror, seeing the tangled hair, the moist, parted lips, the pucker of her nipples against her T-shirt. She didn’t look like a woman who’d had erotic dreams; she looked like one who’d had an actual erotic night. As if she’d truly given herself over entirely to her new lover and he’d given her immense satisfaction.

  But now she was awake. And very—very—needy.

  Part of her wanted to go back to bed, to lose herself in that decadent bliss again. This time, she wasn’t even sure she’d have to fall asleep before the images overtook her thoughts. She was, for once, easily remembering every detail of her dreams.

  Wow, the details. Obviously she had a wild side she’d never tapped into before.

  A worried thought flashed through her mind, because everything about last night—and now—was so out of character for her. “Did you do this to me?” she asked, speaking not to her reflection but to the man she’d dreamed about. Had he somehow caused last night to happen?

  Crazy. Whatever he might be able to do when it came to the woo-woo stuff, she definitely could not. Psychic ability wasn’t catching. The simple touch between them in the car might have left him with some residual sensations, but it s
houldn’t have done anything to her beyond feeling nice at that particular moment.

  And it had. Really nice. But there hadn’t been any mystery, any otherworldly stuff about it. From the minute she’d met Aidan, she’d been overwhelmed by his magnetism. He hadn’t used any powers to arouse her, beyond his own strong sexual appeal.

  She didn’t breathe a sigh of relief yet, however. Because the way he’d described his abilities brought another worrisome thought to mind. What if he tapped into her dreams? Were they floating around, her own invisible lust-print on the world, waiting to be discovered? Could he see what had been on her mind throughout the long night hours, envision the erotic moments that had played out behind her eyes? If so, how would she ever face him again?

  “Naked and on a flat surface,” she immediately whispered, not giving it a second thought.

  She didn’t know where the response had come from; she knew only that she meant it, as if she’d always known that’s where they would end up. No, she hadn’t gone to bed imagining he was with her. She’d liked his touch, liked the warmth that had been building between them. Still, she hadn’t truly thought about them having sex, beyond the general he’s-so-damn-hot stuff.

  Now, however, when she did think about it, she had to wonder whether her subconscious was telling her to just drop any mental barriers and go for it if she had the chance.

  Okay, so he wasn’t an unchallenging, no-strings guy.

  She didn’t see him as the type who would indulge in meaningless one-night stands, not when intimate touching opened him up to so much potential conflict. She already knew he wouldn’t be easily taken and forgotten. But that didn’t mean she shouldn’t want to go right ahead and take him.

  So take him. Her heart beat a little faster and she went soft inside. Oh, yeah, she definitely wanted to take him. She just wasn’t sure how. Or when.