Dream Man Read online

  Dinner was relaxed, with a lot of joking and teasing. Marlie asked Trammell when Dane’s house would be finished, and he lied without turning a hair. More delays, he said solemnly.

  Grace told Marlie all about the wedding plans she was making, and how lucky it was that they had planned on a long engagement because she would need all the time to plan a large, formal wedding. Trammell broke out in a slight sweat as he listened to the discussion, but the look of wild panic was gone; he was adjusting to the idea of marriage in connection with himself.

  A series of thunderstorms, normal during the hot summer nights, popped up and entertained them with dramatic flashes of lightning and booms of thunder. After dinner, Trammell took several photographs of them all, and that led him into showing the thick albums of shots he had taken over the years.

  Dane figured prominently in a good many of them, and Marlie studied his face with interest. He looked different, somehow, in the stark black-and-white photos Trammell had taken. Seeing her interest, Trammell settled beside her to tell her all about every shot.

  It was earlier than usual when Marilyn Elrod arrived home, but the passing storms had knocked out the electricity at the bar, and the patrons had been politely but firmly invited to leave. She was also tipsier than usual, and when the garage door didn’t lift, she pressed the button on the opener again. Still nothing happened.

  “Damn it,” she muttered, pointing the opener directly at the doors and holding her thumb on the button. Nothing. She threw it onto the car seat beside her. “Stupid batteries.”

  She tottered in her high heels up the walk to the front door, then stood weaving as she tried to remember the code for the security alarm. She only had a few seconds after unlocking the door, she didn’t remember how long, to punch in the code and prevent the alarm from sounding. She hated that damn alarm, so shrill it hurt her eardrums. The security system had been James’s idea, not hers. Men and their gadgets.

  It took her a minute to notice that the little red light above the lock wasn’t shining. Damn, was everything in the house malfunctioning?

  Then she laughed softly to herself. Of course! The electricity was off here, too. She should have noticed how dark the neighborhood was.

  She fumbled the key into the lock and opened it, stumbling a bit over the threshold as she went inside. Damn, it was dark as a tomb! How was she supposed to see?

  Candles, she thought. She had candles. She had bought an assortment of incense candles, thinking of the sexy atmosphere they would make when she brought a lover home. There hadn’t been any lovers yet, but she was prepared just in case. James had probably had some flashlights around, but she didn’t know where they were. It was likely he had taken them with him, the bastard. He wouldn’t want his little dolly to be caught in the dark.

  But where had she put them? The kitchen? That didn’t seem like the right place to put incense candles.

  On the other hand, that’s where the matches were, and maybe she had put them there. She slipped out of her heels as she felt her way through the dark house to the kitchen. She found the matches first and struck one, relieved by the small flare of light. Three of them burned down before she located the incense candles.

  She lit one immediately, to give herself light. Well, this was a fine end to a boring evening, she thought in disgust. She might as well go to bed, since she couldn’t even watch television.

  She carried the sack of candles in one hand and the lighted candle in the other as she went upstairs, only stumbling once. “Oops,” she whispered. “Have to be careful. I’m carrying fire.” The thought made her giggle.

  In her bedroom, which she had changed completely after James had left—she had burned all the sheets the bastard had slept on—she lit the candles one by one and set them on her dresser, so she could see the effect when they were reflected in the mirror. Yeah, she thought. Pretty damn sexy. The thick aroma of incense rose, and she coughed a little. Maybe she should go for unscented candles.

  She began to undress, leaving her clothes were they fell. The incense grew stronger, and she coughed again.

  She halted, her head tilted a little to the side. Had she heard something? She waited, but the house remained silent. Too silent, she thought. Yeah, that was the problem. She was accustomed to hearing the quiet hum of the refrigerator, the clocks, the ceiling fans. Without them, she was too aware of the sounds outside.

  When she was naked, she pulled on a robe and belted it loosely at her waist. She was suddenly too sleepy to do the complete cleansing cream routine, so she simply wet a washcloth in the dark bathroom and scrubbed it over her face, then dropped it in the basin.

  She yawned as she went back into the bedroom. The candle flames flickered, sending up sickening waves of incense. She leaned over to blow them out, and a face appeared in the mirror.

  She whirled around, a scream lodging in her throat.

  “Hellooo,” the man said softly.

  20

  THE ALBUM WENT SKIDDING ACROSS THE FLOOR, STARTLING everyone. Marlie was on her feet, swaying, her face utterly white. Her pupils were so constricted that only tiny black dots remained, the intense blue of the irises dominating her stricken face.

  “Dane,” she said. Her voice was thin and almost soundless.

  “Oh, hell.” He lunged out of his chair and caught her weight against him as her knees began to buckle.

  “What’s wrong?” Grace cried in alarm.

  Both Dane and Trammell ignored her, their attention focused on Marlie. She was breathing in heavy, jerky gasps, her eyes wide and fixed as she stared at something they couldn’t see.

  “Dane?” she said again, pleading despair in her voice. Her hands clutched his shirt, twisting the fabric.

  Dane gently eased her down onto the couch. “I’m here, baby,” he said, hoping she could hear him. “Is it happening again?” She didn’t answer. He shook her insistently. “Marlie!”

  The jerky breaths roughened into dry sobs. “He’s looking at me,” she said in a voice that was no longer hers.

  Dane couldn’t get her to respond again. She sat motionless, her breathing evening out until it was barely perceptible. Her eyes were open and unseeing, unblinking.

  “Shit,” Trammell said softly, crouched beside Dane. “When I said she could have a vision here as well as at home, I was joking.”

  “Alex,” Grace said in a very clear, determined voice. “What is going on?” Her lack of understanding proved that Trammell had been his usual closemouthed self, not telling even Grace about Marlie’s abilities.

  Dane didn’t take his worried gaze off Marlie’s face. She was beyond his reach and he didn’t like it, didn’t like knowing that she was going through hell and there was nothing he could do. The waiting was over.

  “Alex.” Grace sounded as if she were about to resort to violence.

  “Go ahead,” Dane murmured absently to Trammell. “You might as well tell her.”

  “Tell me what? What’s wrong with Marlie?”

  Trammell stood up and put his hand on Grace’s arm. “Marlie’s psychic,” he explained softly. “She has visions of the murders while they’re happening.”

  “Psychic?” Grace glared at him. “I’m warning you, Alex Trammell—”

  “It’s true,” Dane said. Violently he wished that it weren’t. “She’s having a vision now. Another murder is happening right now.”

  “If this is a joke—”

  “It isn’t,” he said flatly.

  “Don’t tell anyone,” Trammell instructed. “Other than the three of us, and Lieutenant Bonness, no one else knows.”

  She looked uneasily at Marlie. “How long does this last?”

  Dane checked his watch. It was 10:36, earlier than the other two murders had happened. “I don’t know. Half an hour, maybe.” The last time, when Jackie Sheets was killed, it had taken him longer than that to bring her out of it. Somewhere in the city, at this very moment, another woman was dying a horrible death; Marlie was gone from him until it