Dream Man Read online

  “But now you can be certain he’ll come after me. He won’t forgive an attack on his ego.” She was facing forward, not even glancing at him as he drove.

  Dane took a firm grip on his temper. He had known she wouldn’t like being exposed as a psychic, but he hadn’t expected her to immediately realize he had set up the entire situation, or to react by goading and taunting the killer.

  “How did you know?” he asked a moment later, his voice as grim as his face. “Did you read my mind?”

  “You can’t get over your fear of that, can you?” she gibed. “You can relax; your head’s too thick for me to get even a glimmer from you. But the reporter was a different story. She might as well have been carrying a sign. Why didn’t you call her anonymously?”

  “She knows me, knows my voice. Besides, I owed her a favor for some information she got for me last year. Breaking a story would help her at the station.”

  “Then by all means, if it will help her, throw me to the wolves,” she said, her voice flat. Now that the first shock of betrayal and exposure had passed, several likelihoods had presented themselves, none of them pleasant. She had fretted over his lack of commitment, over the way they had never even discussed their relationship, and now she knew why. For Dane, there was no commitment; he had simply been marking time until the killer struck again, so he could put his plan into action. He had played her perfectly, setting her up for that scene. She thought of what it had cost her to go to that house, and got even angrier.

  “I haven’t thrown you to the wolves!” he snapped.

  “Haven’t you? You’ve set me up as bait.”

  “Damn it, he’s not going to get anywhere near you! Do you think I’d take a chance on something like that happening? I’ve arranged for a policewoman to take your place. She’s already at your house. All you have to do is pack some clothes, and I’ll take you to a safe house until it’s over.”

  “No,” she said, just as flatly as before.

  He slammed his fist onto the steering wheel. “Don’t fight me on this, Marlie. You don’t have a choice.”

  “I’m not going to a safe house.” She thought of being confined for days, perhaps weeks, with shifts of officers to guard her, and knew she couldn’t tolerate it. Her nerves were already raw; that would simply be too much.

  Very evenly he said, “I can take you into protective custody and lock you in a cell, if you’d prefer. I don’t think you’d like it.”

  She whirled on him, incensed by the threat. “I don’t think you would either, Hollister. I can’t stop you from doing it, but I promise you that I’ll make your life miserable if you do.”

  “For God’s sake, use your common sense! You can’t stay in your house. Or do you think I’d planned to actually use you as a tethered goat?”

  “Why not? Why stop short of that? Using me has been your plan all along, hasn’t it? Personally, I think you carried it a little far by moving in with me, but I suppose you needed to be on hand when I had another vision, so you could get the ball rolling.”

  His head snapped around. “Just what you are saying?”

  “That if you’d bothered to ask me, Detective, I’d have gone along with your plan if it would help flush out the killer. I hate being exposed by the media, because this will wreck my life again, but I’d have done it. You didn’t have to sacrifice your body for the cause.”

  Furiously he slammed on the brakes, stopping the car with a force that jerked her forward in her seat. Luckily there was no one behind them or they’d have been rearended. He was as infuriated as she. “Getting involved with you has nothing to do with this!”

  “Doesn’t it? I’ve been puzzled by the situation from the very beginning. Can you honestly say that you didn’t have this plan in mind before you moved in?”

  His jaw worked. “No.” Damn if he’d lie.

  “I didn’t think so.”

  “Moving in wasn’t part of the plan.”

  “It was just too much to resist, wasn’t it?” she taunted.

  Roughly he seized her shoulders. “You’re damn right it was. I wanted you, and when I got the opportunity to move in, I took it. Or maybe you think I’ve been faking all those hard-ons?”

  “That doesn’t prove anything. I think you’d get an erection if a fly landed on you.” She tried to jerk away, but he tightened his grip.

  Dane took another grip on his temper; the first one hadn’t lasted very long. “Our relationship has nothing to do with this. They’re two totally separate things.”

  “If you say so,” she drawled, mimicking his accent.

  “Damn it, Marlie—” An angry blast of a horn interrupted him, and he darted a furious glance into the rearview mirror. Several cars were lined up behind him. He stomped the accelerator. “We’ll finish this at the house, while you pack.”

  “I’m not going to a safe house.” The words were stony, implacable. “I’m going to work tomorrow just like always. You’ve probably wrecked that, too. They’ll probably fire me, but I’m still going to try.”

  “You aren’t going to be fired!”

  She stared out the window. So he thought he could just use her to bait his trap, and afterward everything would return to normal? “You can pack, too.”

  He slanted a look at her. “What?” He couldn’t stay at the safe house with her.

  “I want your stuff out of my house.”

  For the first time, the conviction in her voice pierced his impatient anger. Marlie wasn’t just upset; she was deeply, coldly furious, and she hadn’t believed a word he’d said. His stomach knotted. He inhaled deeply, reaching for control. “Okay. Maybe it’s for the best, for now. I’ll see you as often as I can at the safe house—”

  “I am not going to a safe house. Can’t you understand English?”

  “Maybe you don’t,” he said slowly. “Honey, I’m not giving you a choice in this. You can’t stay in your house.”

  “Then I’ll stay in a motel, or rent an apartment. I am not going to be locked up because of your schemes. As much as I can, I’m going to live a normal life. I’m going to work, if I have a job, and I’m going to do normal things, like laundry and shopping and going to movies. I lived like a virtual prisoner for the first twenty-two years of my life. I’ll be damned if I let you lock me up again.”

  He thrust his hand through his hair. God Almighty, he hadn’t expected her to dig in her heels like this. This was a Marlie he hadn’t seen since the first week he’d known her, and somehow he had let himself forget about her temper. The woman sitting beside him was seething like a volcano, and wasn’t likely to cooperate with him in anything he suggested. He decided to shut his mouth, for now, and cu his losses.

  The remainder of the drive was accomplished in silence. When they reached her house, there was a strange car in her driveway, and Trammell’s sports car was parked out front. Marlie got out and went inside without looking at Dane.

  Trammell and Grace were both there, as well as a young policewoman who resembled Marlie in size and general coloring. Trammell stood when Marlie entered, took one look at her face, and said, “Uh-oh.”

  Coming in behind her, Dane sharply drew a finger across his throat, silencing any other comments.

  Marlie turned in time to see the gesture. She gave Trammell a cool look. “Were you in on it too?”

  He shifted uneasily. “Not until yesterday.” He had become accustomed to thinking of Marlie as someone who was vulnerable and needed protecting, but there was a look in those deep blue eyes that suddenly made him wary. Dane had told him about Gleen, but until this moment he really hadn’t seen her as a woman who, tied and helpless, had nevertheless spat defiance at a crazed killer. “I take it you’re unhappy.”

  “A mite disturbed,” she said, her tone heavy with irony. “I barely lived through one attack from a maniac with a knife, so it bothers me to be set up as bait for another one.”

  Dane flinched. He hadn’t thought of it that way. “You’ll be safe,” he said. “Do you thin