Maggie Shayne - Dream of Danger

“I need you,” he said.

I gave my imagination permission to play with that for a minute. Then he added, “It’s about the case.”

I sighed as he burst my bubble. “We’re already late for the vet. Besides, isn’t that case old news?”

“Not to the review board. I need you to look over my statement about the extent of your involvement and sign off on it. Particularly since they might decide to come asking you about it.”

“Shit,” I said.

“I need to turn it in by noon.”

It was nine forty-five. I had Myrt’s designer goggles dangling from one finger. Amy held out her hand. “I’ll take vet duty if I can borrow the Subaru.”

“She’ll be scared if I don’t go with her.”

“Yeah. Right up until I get her some McNuggets for the ride over. We’ll be fine. Myrtle loves me. Don’t you, Myrt?”

Mason was still waiting for my answer. Myrt was still under the table, no longer hiding. Snoring instead. Bulldogs snore louder than most lumberjacks. Okay, I’m making that up. I’ve never heard a lumberjack snore, but I bet she’d beat them.

“Wanna go for a ride in the car, Myrt?” Amy asked.

Myrt opened her sightless eyes and lifted her head.

“Well, come on, then,” Amy said.

Myrtle scrambled over to Amy’s feet, where she did the wiggly butt happy dance.

I could not argue with the evidence. Myrtle would be thrilled to go for a ride in the car with Amy, and I would be stuck in a meeting with the man I most wanted to bone, trying not to be blatantly obvious about it. “Bring me back a Happy Meal,” I said, then handed over the goggles and said to Mason, “Okay, I’ll do it. Where do you want to meet?”

Chapter Two

I walked into the little diner like a model walking into a shoot, slow motion, wind in my hair, sun glinting off my pearly whites. In my head, anyway. In real life I’m sure it was a lot less impressive, especially considering that the wind in my hair had turned into a wet November gust, and there was no longer any sun to glint off anything.

It was mud season. October had been spectacular to my brand-new eyes. I’d devoured October. November was just brown. The trees were leafless. There was no snow yet. The ground was barren. Mud season came twice a year, I’d been told. It would return again in March.

Then I saw him, and my mind went as barren as the surroundings. He was standing in front of a booth talking to a waitress when he looked up, met my eyes and smiled. Those sexy dimples flashed at me, and I almost threw up a little from the sheer nervous energy break dancing in my stomach. I know, stupid. I realized I was grinning like a loon and tried to stop, but it wasn’t possible, so I just hurried to the booth and slid into it before he could try to hug me. Because if he hugged me, I was going to go into convulsions or something.

He stood there a second, then sighed and sat down. “Hello, Rachel. Nice to see you again. You look fantastic. How have you been?”

I looked up, catching the edge of sarcasm in his voice. He had the prettiest brown eyes. Like melted chocolate, with those thick lashes you expect on a little boy, not a grown man. He could get any woman he wanted with lashes like that.

“I’ve been good,” I said. “Busy.”

“No more dreams?”

“Not a one. I presume that means no more murders.”

“Not by any of my brother’s organ recipients, anyway.”

I gave a quick look around us when he said that, because really, no one knew but us that his dead brother had been a serial killer, or that a couple of the people who’d received his donated organs had continued his crimes, or that I had seen those crimes being played out in my dreams, presumably because I’d received his corneas. No one knew. And if they did, they wouldn’t believe it.

Both the guys who’d carried on Eric’s crimes were dead. One had taken himself out, and the other had almost killed us. But in the end, we won. End of case.

“How about you?” I asked, ’cause that was the thing to do when you hadn’t seen someone in a while.

“I’m good. Busy. Tying up the last few loose ends so I can move on. Looking forward to that. Moving on.”

“I’ll bet. What about the boys?” His nephews, sons of a serial killer who had no idea what their father had been.

“Jeremy’s depressed. Josh is...well, Josh is Josh.”

“Jeremy’s sixteen. Isn’t that a synonym for depressed?”

“Seventeen. His birthday was last week.”

“Wow. Hard to believe. And how about their mom? She have the baby yet?”

“Any day now,” he said.

Then it was quiet, and I looked up from perusing my menu to catch him staring at me. “You look great,” he said.

“So do you.” I got stuck in his eyes for a second. Damn, I liked him.

He shoved the file across the table to me and I flipped it open while the waitress came with coffee and to ask if we’d decided. I ordered Belgian waffles and sausage. He ordered ham and eggs with home fries. And I studied the pages of the file, not really reading, just sort of skimming and wondering if we’d made the right decision. I’d only had my eyesight back since August. I really meant what I’d said about learning who the new Rachel was, the sighted Rachel. I needed time to figure that out before I got all involved in a romance. And he knew that. Respected it. Besides, he’d just lost his brother, after learning Eric had been a serial killer. He’d just become the only father figure in the lives of his two nephews. And on top of that, he’d been forced to admit that sometimes things happen that we just can’t explain. His life had undergone a radical change, too.

As Keanu Reeves said to Sandra Bullock in Speed, “I’ve heard relationships based on intense experiences never work.”

I flipped the file closed, though I hadn’t read it. “Looks fine to me. But if it’s something they might ask me about later, you might want to email me a copy so I can give it a more thorough look at home.”

“They won’t.”

I blinked and looked at him. “But you said—”

The waitress brought the food. The cook was apparently a speed demon. She set the plates down and asked if we wanted anything else. I muttered, “No, thanks,” and waited for him to explain.

He shrugged. “This is just a formality. The chief is behind me. Hell, he’s acting like I’m his new best friend.”

“Well, you nabbed the Wraith. Only serial killer I’ve ever heard of in our neck of the woods. It’s a big deal.”

“I couldn’t have done it without your help, though.”

I shrugged. “Yeah, well, I couldn’t help the dreams. They just showed up.”

“It was more than that.” He sawed off a hunk of ham, ate for a minute. Washed it down with coffee. “You’re good, Rachel. Your instincts, the way you can read people. You’re like a human lie detector. Only you read more than just lies. You read the emotion behind them. The motivation. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

I almost choked on my waffle, because the praise had come out of nowhere and I hadn’t been expecting it. I quickly took a gulp of coffee, but it was still pretty hot, so I dipped my hand into my water glass, fished out an ice cube and popped that into my mouth. My fingers were dripping and my shirtsleeve had dragged through my whipped cream. Graceful I wasn’t.

I pulled myself together, wiped my fingertips with a napkin, then nipped the whipped cream off my sleeve and popped it into my mouth, because hey, it was freakin’ whipped cream. Then, ready to speak again, I said, “Being blind for twenty years would have the same effect on anybody.”

“I don’t think so. I think you’re unique. Special.”

My lips lifted at the corners and my eyes sort of got wet. “Gee, Mason, I don’t know what to say.”