Dream Man Read online

  “Yes,” he growled.

  “The timing’s a mite suspicious, isn’t it?”

  “I wanted you before that, damn it!” he yelled. “But you were a suspect, and I couldn’t get involved with you. As soon as I cleared you of all suspicion, I was knocking on your door.”

  She smiled. “And it was just pure luck that I could be used in this way, wasn’t it? I don’t mind that part of it, Dane, I really don’t. What I hate is the way you used a personal relationship to set it up—though it wasn’t very personal for you, was it?”

  Red mist swam in front of his eyes. He was so angry that he could feel himself losing control. He got up and walked out of the house, to keep himself from doing something he would regret later.

  Damn, this wasn’t looking good at all. How could she doubt what they’d had together? He’d never felt like this about any other woman, and she thought it meant less than nothing to him. He walked around the yard, the lingering evening heat making him sweat. When he thought he had himself under control, he went back inside, but Marlie had gone back into the bedroom.

  Probably that was for the best. Both their emotions were too raw for them to talk about this sensibly. Tomorrow, when they both had calmed down, would be better.

  Carroll Janes watched the evening news telecast. So that was how they had known! A damn psychic. Whoever would have thought? That certainly wasn’t something for which he could have planned.

  The cops didn’t seem to have much faith in her, but just looking at her had given him chills. And what she had said; how could she have been so vicious? She had called him a worm and a coward. After a moment of hurt, he began to get angry. So he wasn’t anyone’s dream man, was he? What did that little bitch know?

  Actually, he realized, she knew quite a lot. The cops didn’t believe her—for now—but the fact was, she was a real danger to him. As no one else had, she had gotten close to him. The only way she could have seen him was in a psychic vision, and the thought made him feel maddeningly vulnerable.

  It was intolerable. How ignominious it would be for his downfall to come about because of some kook psychic! The trouble was that she wasn’t a kook. She was for real. It was the only way she could know what he looked like.

  He wasn’t safe as long as she lived.

  The solution was obvious. The psychic would have to die.

  23

  JANES CALLED IN SICK THE NEXT MORNING. MARLIE KEEN HAD been listed in the phone book, and he had looked up her address on a city map. He didn’t have any time to waste; he had to get rid of her as soon as possible. And then perhaps he would think about leaving Orlando; he usually remained in an area longer than this, but the psychic bitch had loused things up for him here. They had that sketch of him. They might discount it now, but when the bitch turned up dead, they would give it a lot more credence.

  He smelled setup, but he didn’t dare ignore the situation. It was simply too dangerous for him. But he didn’t take any chances; he switched license plates with a car belonging to an old lady in the apartment building who seldom drove anymore. He would switch them back when he returned, so that if any suspicious cop was watching the traffic on Marlie Keen’s street, when they traced that tag, it would come back as belonging to a Mrs. Velma Fisher, whose car was nothing like the one that had been sporting the plate. But when they checked Mrs. Fisher’s car, the license plate would be there, convincing them that they had made an error in writing down the number.

  His blond curls were snugly in place when he set out. Such an extravagant head of hair was a brilliant disguise, if he did say so himself. They were looking for a bald guy. It was an ingenious way of changing his appearance, because either way, his head was what people noticed: They would look at the blond curls, and not the face beneath it, or, if he was seen during one of his nights, they would notice the slick skull and nothing else. Simply brilliant.

  He rolled down his car window and turned up the radio. That was another piece of psychological subterfuge: Cops wouldn’t expect him to draw attention to himself with a loud radio. If this was a trap, they wouldn’t expect him to boldly drive by, where they could get a good look at him. That was why they never had been able to catch him. He could predict their actions and reactions, but they didn’t have a clue how his mind worked. After all, how could anyone without an imagination begin to understand what it was like to have one?

  So he casually drove by the bitch’s house, and just as casually glanced at it. There was a car in the driveway; why wasn’t she working? The newscast had plainly said that she was employed at a bank. There seemed to be a lot of cars parked along the street. That chill went down his spine again. He didn’t actually see anything, but he hadn’t escaped for so long by being stupid; quite the opposite. This definitely felt like a setup.

  He didn’t risk another drive-by. He drove back to his apartment, switched the license plates again, and thought. If it was a setup, then the cops wouldn’t let the bitch stay at her house. They would have her salted away somewhere they thought was safe. It would be impossible for him to locate her, much less get at her.

  Or would they? The trap would look much more realistic if she appeared to be going about her normal routine.

  There was only one way to check. He looked up the telephone number of the bank where she worked and punched in the numbers. It was answered on the first ring, by a bored-sounding young woman with a breathy voice.

  “Marlie Keen, in accounting, please,” Janes said briskly.

  “Just one moment.”

  Another ring, and a click. “Accounting.” Another female voice.

  “Marlie Keen, please.”

  “Hold on.” He heard the woman say, in a more distant voice that indicated she had taken the receiver away from her mouth, “Marlie, line two.”

  Janes hung up the phone. She was at work.

  He laughed to himself as he went back out to his car. What simpletons they all were, if that was the best they could do! He would follow her when she left work, though of course, if she went to her house, he would break off contact rather than take the risk of driving down her street again.

  His biggest problem, he told himself, was finding some shade to park in while waiting for her to leave the bank.

  He picked her out when she went to lunch; he remembered that thick dark hair and slender build. His heart pounded with excitement, then he sternly brought himself under control. He couldn’t allow himself to make a mistake out of haste.

  He snickered as he followed her. She wasn’t much of a psychic if she couldn’t tell that he was only two cars behind her. But she was still a danger to him, and that couldn’t be tolerated.

  She picked up lunch at a drive-through fast-food window, and returned to the bank. He had no chance to get at her. So he patiently settled down to wait once more.

  She left work at four. He had carefully watched the parking lot. There hadn’t been any suspicious lingerers—other than himself, of course. He hummed as he pulled out a few cars behind her, and kept about the same distance behind her.

  She didn’t make any stops. She drove straight to a smallish house in an older neighborhood. He noted the address and kept on driving. He went to the library and looked up the address in the city directory; the house was listed as the residence of Dane Hollister. Janes’s eyebrows shot up, and he grinned. He knew that name; it had been in the papers quite a bit lately. Detective Dane Hollister was investigating the Slasher murders. Now, wasn’t that a coincidence?

  The bank president hadn’t done it; not even the vice president had done it. But the head of accounting had been called into a meeting with them, and this was one of those occasions when Marlie didn’t need to be psychic to know what was happening. She wasn’t surprised when the department head returned, looking unhappy, and asked Marlie into her office. They regretted the necessity, but their first responsibility was to their depositors, et cetera, et cetera. The bottom line was that Friday was her last day. They felt magnanimous in allowing her to st