Night Moves : Dream Man/After the Night Read online

  He was five foot ten, but his erect carriage often fooled people into thinking he was taller. And he was generally considered a nice-looking man, he thought: in good shape, thanks to twice-weekly visits to a gym; thick, curly blond hair; even features. He enjoyed dressing well, and was always meticulous in his grooming. Attention to detail meant the difference between success and failure. He never let himself forget that.

  He wondered what Annette would say if she discovered the power he kept concealed, under perfect control until it was time to be unleashed. But no one suspected, least of all Annette. Fooling them all so completely gave him immense satisfaction; the cops were so stupid, so utterly outclassed!

  He was patient enough to wait until Annette took her afternoon break before going to the computer to see if Jacqueline Sheets had a charge account with the store; to his delight, she did. It was always so much easier when he had this initial access to information. He wasn’t interested in her payment record, however. The information from each customer’s credit request form was at the top of each file, and that information included the spouse’s name and occupation. Jacqueline Sheets was divorced. He clucked his tongue. What a pity, she couldn’t maintain a relationship.

  Of course, that didn’t mean she lived alone. She might have children, or a live-in boyfriend, or a lesbian roommate. She might live with her mother. Any of those scenarios would make his task more difficult, but by no means impossible. He almost hoped such a complication would develop, for it was a truer test of his nerve and intelligence. It was unusual to have another transgressor so soon after the last one; he was a bit curious to see if he would be sharper, like an athlete intensifying his training, or if the opposite would be true. He hoped he would be even stronger and faster, his mind clearer, the surge of power more intense.

  When he left work, he could already feel the anticipation humming in him. He ignored the pleasurable sensation and followed his normal routine, for of course, he couldn’t allow it to strengthen now; it wasn’t time. The pleasure would be all the more intense for having waited, once he let it go. So he drove to his apartment, read the newspaper, popped a microwave dinner into the oven. While it was heating, he set the table: place mat, napkin, everything just as it should be. Just because he lived alone was no reason to let his standards slide.

  Only after it was fully dark outside did he allow himself to get out his map of the Orlando area and locate Cypress Terrace, marking the route from his apartment with a yellow highlighter, carefully memorizing the turns. It was closer than he’d expected, no more than fifteen minutes by car. Convenient.

  Then he went for a pleasant, leisurely drive, enjoying the mild spring weather. This first reconnaissance was little more than a drive-by, to locate the house and fix it in his mind. He’d also notice a few other details, such as how close the other houses were, if there were a lot of pets in the neighborhood, how many children seemed to be around. If there was a fence around the yard, how many cars were parked in the driveway, or if there was a garage. Little things like that. Details. Later he would find out more, much more, discovering more on each trip until the final reconnaissance, when he would go inside the house itself, learn the layout of the rooms. He would let the pleasure begin building then, for there was something delicious about wandering through her house when she wasn’t there, touching her things, looking in her closets and bathroom cabinet. He would already be inside her, and she wouldn’t even know it. It would lack only the finale.

  He drove past 3311 Cypress Terrace; there was a narrow, one-slot carport instead of a garage, and a five-year-old Pontiac occupied the space. There were no other cars, no bicycles, no skateboards, nothing to indicate kids. Only one light was on in the house, indicating that there was either only one person there, or everyone was in one room. Usually it was the former.

  He circled the block and drove by a second time; twice was all he allotted himself on one trip. If anyone was watching, which wasn’t likely, the second pass would be attributed to someone lost, while a third pass would be suspicious. The second time he noted the fence that ran down the left side of the house, on the opposite side of the carport. Good. A fence was nice concealment. The right side was more open than he liked it, but all in all the situation was very nice. Very nice indeed. Everything was falling into place.

  • • •

  Marlie had been curled up on the couch, reading a book that was only mildly interesting and slowly feeling herself relax. She had felt the strain all day long, wondering if Detective Hollister would be waiting in the parking lot when she left work as he had been the day before. She wasn’t certain she could handle another of those hostile confrontations with him, but at the same time she felt curiously cast adrift when she walked out of the bank and he wasn’t there. It was like waiting for the other shoe to drop, only it never did.

  She leaned her head against the back of the couch and closed her eyes. His face formed behind her eyelids: the rough planes, the broken nose, the hazel green of those deep-set eyes. Not the face of a sophisticate; even if the features had been more even, the expression in those eyes would always set him apart. They were the piercing eyes of a predator, always watching. She rather thought that the people of Orlando could count themselves lucky that he had come down on the side of the law, making criminals his natural prey instead of themselves. Now, added to the force of his own nature, was the look that all cops had: that all-encompassing cynicism, the cool distance, the wall that those in law enforcement erected between themselves and those they served.

  She had known a lot of cops, had seen it in all of them. Cops relaxed only with their own kind, with others who had seen the same things, done the same things. None of them went home and told their spouses about the meanness and depravity that they saw every day. What a great topic that would have been over dinner! Cops had a high divorce rate. The stress was incredible.

  Cops had never known how to take her. At first, of course, they had all thought of her as a joke. After she had proved herself, though, they had all become very uneasy around her, because her psychic insight had included them. Only a cop understood another cop: That was a given. But she had felt their emotions, their anger and fear and disgust. They couldn’t erect that wall against her, and they had felt vulnerable.

  Then, six years ago, she had had to learn how to read people’s emotions the way everyone else did, by picking up subtle clues of body language and voice tone, by reading expressions. She had been like a baby learning how to talk, because she had never before had to rely on visual clues. For a while she hadn’t wanted to learn, all she had wanted was to be left alone in the blessed silence. But total isolation wasn’t human nature; even hermits usually took up with animals. Instinctively, once she had felt safe, she had begun to watch people and read them. It was difficult to read Detective Hollister, though. Her mouth quirked with wry humor. Maybe she had such a hard time reading him because she could barely stand to look at him. It wasn’t that he was repulsive, because for all his rough features, he wasn’t, but rather because he was so intense. He made her uncomfortable, glaring at her the way he did, battering at her until he forced her to pull up memories she would rather forget.

  She wasn’t afraid of him; no matter how much he might try, he couldn’t tie her to Nadine Vinick’s murder, because there was no tie. He couldn’t find evidence that didn’t exist. The uneasiness she felt—

  Marlie froze, her eyes flying open and focusing on nothing as she mentally searched the feeling that had crept over her. It wasn’t a vision, or anything else that overwhelming. But she definitely sensed a vague, cold malevolence, a threat.

  She got jerkily to her feet and began pacing as she tried to order her thoughts. What was happening? Was the knowing truly returning, or was she experiencing a perfectly normal reaction to a lot of stress?

  She had been thinking of Hollister, and all of a sudden she had felt uneasy and threatened. Easy enough to understand that, if Hollister was the source of the threat. Most people wo