Dream Man (32 page)

“Take him in for questioning, and find out about any life insurance policies he had on her,” Bonness said.

“Or maybe if he caught her fooling around. I’ll try to calm the reporters down, but I can’t say much until we actually charge the guy, so they won’t believe me.” He looked depressed at the thought of facing the horde of shouting reporters.

“At least we’ll be able to do something about this one,” Freddie said. Trammell walked over to join Dane, and they went outside. Reporters were mobbing Bonness, shouting ques-tions at him. He was trying to talk, but they kept interrupt-ing him. “I guess Marlie didn’t have a vision with this one,” Trammell said.

“Not even a glimmer, but it was scary anyway; it wasn’t a vision, but this afternoon she sort of locked on to him. He had picked out his next victim, but something happened and he lost her.”

Trammell whistled. “How’s Marlie?”

“On edge. It’s wearing her down.”

“No wonder. I wish there was some way to make it easier for her.”

“I’ll make damn sure she’s okay,” Dane said grimly. “By the way, how’s the work going on my house?”

“The floors are almost finished, and the furniture will be delivered this weekend. You can move back in on Monday, if you want.”

Dane snorted as he got in his car. “Get real, buddy.”

Trammell laughed. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. See you in the morning.”

As Dane had expected, Marlie was still awake when he got there. “It wasn’t him,” he said, and watched the tension ease out of her face. She looked very small, curled up in a corner of the couch with her robe pulled tightly around her. “Probably the woman’s husband did it, and tried to make it look like the other murders.” He held out his hand to her. “Come on, honey, let’s go back to bed.”

Janes carefully controlled his elation Friday afternoon as he watched the indignant customer stalk away. Annette was there, so it wouldn’t do to let even a hint of his emotions show. At last! He was going to savor this one; too much time had passed, three weeks, for him to accurately compare it with the last one. Besides, he had concluded that it was the haste of the last punishment that had ruined it for him. He would do this one the way it should be done, with slow and careful planning, letting the anticipation build. He needed at least a week to do it properly.

He checked the calendar, though of course, he didn’t need to. It was just a part of his incredible precision. Yes, the earliest possible date would be next Friday night. The weekends were the best because those were his off days, and he could sleep late the next day. Let the media hoopla, satisfying as it was, die down a bit. The frenzy had nothing to feed on, though there had been that silly burst of hysteria the other night when some salesman had offed his wife and tried to blame it on him. It hadn’t worked, of course; the stupid bastard hadn’t had the same attention to detail. The cops had immediately seen through him. The television reports had sounded a tad disappointed.

Yes, this one would be good, maybe the best yet. The woman had been a complete bitch, the kind he had always despised on sight: lean, tanned, brittle, overloaded with jewelry of questionable taste. She flaunted her money. She might have a security system, or even guard dogs. The possibility was intriguing. It would be a real test of his genius, if she did. He disregarded the probability of a husband; that had never stopped him before.

He looked down at the name she had scribbled, repeating it in his mind, savoring the syllables. Marilyn Elrod. Antici-pation was already flooding his body with energy. Marilyn Elrod. He hummed a few bars of a song, substituting her name. Mar-uh-lynn, O Mar-uh-lynn, ta dum de dum some-thing. It was played before the Preakness race. The joke was, she didn’t know she should be running. Friday night, Marlie asked him how work was coming along on his house. Dane lied without hesitation.

“It’s almost finished,” he said. “There’s been a delay on the furniture Trammell ordered.”

The furniture was in place, and everything looked great, but he had no intention of moving out of Marlie’s house until the killer was caught. Another weekend had come and gone without a murder. A few sarcastic reporters were beginning to ask if the police were
certain
there was a serial killer, or had they just been spooked by a similarity between the murders of Nadine Vinick and Jackie Sheets?

“Feel anything today?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Nothing concrete. Just kind of uneasy.” And when she had been driving home, she had passed a young couple so engrossed with each other that they had been passionately kissing there on the sidewalk. She had been in that automatic state that takes over when driving, her guard down, and suddenly she had been reading the young man. Again, it had been such a shock that she had immediately shut down, withdrawing from the emotional contact. She had had the wry thought that she hoped they would find somewhere private soon, given the intensity of the young man’s arousal, or she wouldn’t be the only one shocked.

Then the realization dawned that twice now she had been able to control the contact, to break it off. Even before, at the height of her abilities, she hadn’t been able to do that. She had learned how to partially shield herself, but had never managed complete protection. Okay, so the initial contact had slipped in, when she had been relaxed; she had still been able to immediately sever the connection. She hadn’t wanted the return of her abilities, but suddenly she was filled with a sense of triumph, and contentment. Gleen hadn’t won, after all. The healing process had taken a long time, but in the end, she was the victor. She had emerged from the trauma even stronger than before, better able to control the gift that had been given her. She had even, with Dane, gotten past the physical terror and learned the joy of sexual pleasure. She couldn’t have done it two years ago, even a year ago, but her healing had finally progressed to the point that she had won.

“Is he hunting?” Dane asked.

“Who knows? Like I said, it wasn’t anything concrete. Maybe it’s just that I dread tonight so much.”

“Maybe I can do something about that,” he said in a slow, deep tone. He was leaning against the cabinets while she threw together a quick meal, getting in her way as usual. She looked at him and went weak in the knees. He looked so thoroughly male that every cell in her body responded. Dane was always slightly rough-edged, even when his clothes were freshly ironed, but even more so now with his shirt wrinkled, his dark hair disheveled, and his jaw showing both the mark of this morning’s assault with a razor and the need for another shave. As always, he still wore his shoulder holster, the butt of the big pistol sticking out under his armpit; he was so accustomed to being armed that he no longer noticed it. Those sharp hazel eyes were greener than usual, and held a predatory gleam as he watched her.

“Maybe you can,” she agreed, her own voice huskier than usual. Maybe, nothing; she was certain of it. His sexual power over her was so strong that the only thing that kept her from panicking was the knowledge that, when she chose, she could drive him just as crazy. She might have doubts about his emotional involvement, but there was no mistak-ing his physical response. All she had to do was brush against him, or give him a certain look, or even do nothing, and he would get aroused. It sometimes startled her, for she was certainly not a sex kitten by any stretch of the imagination. She had always deliberately dressed to downplay her femininity, because she had never wanted to attract attention of any kind. None of that mattered with Dane; it was as if he never saw the clothes, but looked straight through to the woman. She still dressed the same, out of habit and convenience—after all, the clothes were
there
—but now, a bit surprised at herself, she realized that she didn’t feel the need to continue the camouflage. Things had changed. She didn’t have to hide herself away to protect her mental privacy, nor did she have to worry about the sickening intrusion of sexual advances. Dane intruded with sexual advances quite often, and there wasn’t anything the least sickening about them. She was stronger. Her abilities had changed. She had healed, and was in control. She felt another little jolt as she truly realized, for the first time, that she was no longer at the mercy of her own mental powers. She could dress any way she wanted. She could buy the trim, stylish clothes she had always admired, or even something downright sexy.

“What are you thinking?” Dane asked uneasily. “You’ve been staring at me like I’m Tweetie Bird, and you’re a hungry cat.”

She let her gaze drop lower, and delicately licked her lips.

His face changed. He straightened away from the cabinet, every muscle in his powerful body growing taut. Then he reached out and deliberately turned off the stove. She raised her eyebrows at him. “This may take a while,” he explained, his eyes heavy-lidded as he pulled her close. Nothing happened that weekend, though Marlie couldn’t shake the uneasy anticipation. She was beginning to think she would feel that way until the man was caught. But she managed the tension better than she had the weekend before, perhaps because of her newfound confidence. She tested her control when she stood talking to Lou for a while on Saturday, deliberately opening herself up; she immedi-ately read her neighbor’s emotions, and when she decided to stop, the flow was blocked. It was like opening a door and closing it again. She could do it!

It wasn’t an entirely satisfying experience, however; she found that Lou was extremely disapproving of the situation next door, with that man, even if he was a police officer, just blatantly moving in. Lou felt it set a bad example. Marlie wondered who she was setting a bad example
for,
since she was the youngest person in the neighborhood anyway. Most of her neighbors were retirees. It didn’t help when Dane chose that moment to come out on the front porch, wearing only a pair of disreputable jeans. Because they had spent a lazy day around the house, he hadn’t shaved. He looked big, rough, slightly dangerous, and wholly masculine, with his powerful chest bare. “Hi, Lou,” he called.

“Sorry to interrupt. Honey, do you know where I put my gun oil?”

“You didn’t,” she replied. “You left it out
. I
put it in the kitchen, second drawer from the right.”

He flashed a grin at her. “Sorry.” Then he disappeared back into the house. Lou’s face was stiff, her eyes wide as she stared at the spot where he had stood. Marlie shifted uncomfortably. This was one time she definitely didn’t want to open that door and feel what Lou was feeling.

Then Lou exhaled in a long sigh. “Holy cow,” she said.

Her cheeks looked a little flushed. She gave Marlie a slightly embarrassed look. “I may be old-fashioned,” she admitted, “but I’m a long way from blind.”

Marlie entered the kitchen a few minutes later to find Dane calmly reassembling his pistol. There was no way he could have cleaned the weapon in the time that had elapsed. “You did that deliberately,” she accused, keeping her voice level with an effort. Lou had still been a little giddy when she had gone inside. He grinned, not pausing in his brisk, practiced actions. “I like ruffling her feathers,” he admitted. “I thought about unsnapping my jeans, but I decided against it. Overkill.”

“It’s a good thing. You might not have made it back into the house unscathed, if you had.”

“Really pissed her off, huh?”

“Not exactly.”

He glanced up, his expression quizzical. Marlie smiled sweetly at him. “Lou fell in lust with your manly form, big boy.”

After a startled moment, he began laughing. He was too heavy for her to budge his chair, so she shoved the table away and planted her hands on his shoulders as she strad-dled the chair and sat down on his lap. His laughter stopped, that familiar tenseness hardening his features. “I know how she feels,” Marlie whispered, nuzzling his jaw. Her heart pounded at the scent of him, all hot, musky male mingled with the sharp odor of gun oil. She moved slowly against the ridge in his jeans.

“Wait.” His protest was feeble. “I have oil on my hands.”

“So? I’m washable,” she murmured, and that was all he needed to hear. The weekend was wonderful. She ignored the frisson of alarm that was always there, never quite allowing her nerves to settle down, and enjoyed what she had. There were no visions, no false alarms of copycat murders. She suggested going over to his house to see how everything looked, but he was in a lazy mood and didn’t seem interested. They watched television and read. They tried out recipes… or rather, Marlie tried them out, while Dane kept her company and sampled the results. And they made love, often. It was exactly the type of life Marlie had always wanted, and always thought impossible. By Monday, with nothing happening over the weekend, the press reports were scathing. The Orlando PD had overreacted, like Chicken Little squawking about the sky falling. One columnist suggested that not only had they made fools of themselves on the basis of two similar murders, but the hoopla might even have triggered the copycat murder of Felicia Alden.

“They forget,” Dane said sarcastically, “that the depart-ment isn’t responsible for all the publicity; the media did that. We’ve been trying to keep everything as low-key and under wraps as possible.”

Marlie gave him a troubled look. “But now, with them calling it a false alarm, people will stop being as careful. It’s giving him a greater opportunity of success.”

“Tell that to the press. All they’ll give you is the smart-ass answer that they don’t make the news, they just report it.”

“If reporting was all they did, that would be fine. But they angle it, they slant it, they ‘interpret’ it.”

He saw how truly upset she was; he was pissed off, but the press reports bothered Marlie on a deeper level. He remem-bered that her experiences with the media generally weren’t pleasant, and he swiftly changed the subject.

Janes was pleased with what he had accomplished over the weekend. He had made several casual trips by the Elrod house, and been delighted by what he had discovered so far. The house was large and upscale, set in the middle of a big lot with an excess of landscaping that would provide plenty of cover. Six-foot-high fences marked the boundary lines of almost every lot in the neighborhood, which further re-stricted any nosy neighbor’s observation.