Heather Graham - The Death Dealer

“I don’t know what to think,” he said. “A couple of people reported a car driving erratically. The cops wanted to know if I had seen it, too.”

“And did you?”

“I didn’t. I was driving, then…wham. I was out. The air bag saved my life—that’s why the bruises. But I was knocked out. The next thing I knew, I was on a stretcher with a microphone in my face while I was being stuffed in an ambulance. And they were shooting stuff into me, and I was grateful, because I managed to break a leg, despite the air bag.”

She nodded, reached for his free hand and squeezed it. “I’m so sorry, Sam.”

“I’m having a tough time seeing how anyone could have planned to murder me on the highway like that. He couldn’t have any idea who he might kill, and he obviously didn’t succeed in killing me, if that was even his plan.”

“That’s true.” She hesitated. “But what if…?”

“What if…what?” Sam pursued.

“What if he didn’t care if he killed a dozen other people at the same time?” she asked.

Lori Star. Candy Cane.

She lived in a rent-controlled building in Soho. When she opened the door to their knock, she kept the chain on as she looked out. Her eyes were wide, hopeful.

“Are you with another news station?” she asked.

Raif shook his head solemnly, showing his badge. “Sorry.”

“Cops,” she said with annoyance.

“Yeah, cops,” Tom supplied.

She stared at Joe. “But you’re not a cop,” she said. Her voice had changed. It had turned low and sexy. Candy Cane, not Lori Star. How did she know? he wondered. Was she really psychic? Was it his manner? Or just a wild guess?

“Mr. Connolly is a private investigator, and he’s with us,” Raif said.

Joe blessed the fact that he’d managed to keep a great relationship with the NYPD.

The woman still had the chain on the door. “I didn’t do anything illegal,” she said defensively.

“We haven’t come to arrest you,” Raif said.

“Then you should go away,” she suggested, and started to close the door.

Joe put out hand to stop it. “Miss Star, we really need to talk to you. Just for a few minutes.”

He was convinced that she didn’t have any extraordinary talents—not paranormal talents, anyway—but he still very much wanted to talk to her.

She stared at him with wide, powder-blue eyes. Then she sighed, closed the door most of the way and undid the security chain.

“Come in,” she told them resignedly.

She was a small woman, thin, but cosmetically “enhanced” in the breast department, and pretty in a hard-edged way. She wasn’t exactly a high-class hooker, but it didn’t look as if she’d hit bottom yet, either. She had blond hair—enhanced, too, but decently done—and small, sharp features. As she let them in, he saw that she was wearing a silk kimono, but beneath it she had on sweatpants and a Mötley Crue T-shirt.

“Sit down, I guess,” she said, indicating a sofa and two chairs in the living area, which was also the dining area and was connected straight to a typical studio kitchen.

He chose one of the chairs across from where she sat on the edge of the couch. Raif took the second chair, so Tom was left to sit next to her on the couch, perching uncomfortably a few feet away. She picked up a pack of cigarettes, shook one out and lit it.

“Do you mind?” she asked. “Say no—this is my apartment, and I can smoke here if I want to.”

“It’s your funeral,” Raif said with a shrug.

“I still like the smell of smoke,” Joe told her, smiling.

She flashed him a smile in return.

“How long have you been a psychic, Miss Star?” he asked politely.

She hesitated, a strange look on her face. “I’m really an actress,” she said.

Tom made a choking sound. She flashed him a cold glare. “I’ve been an extra in three movies now,” she said.

“Oh, yeah?” Tom asked. “Did you play a hooker?”

Joe shook his head, tempted to put a bag over the man’s head. Tom was too used to interrogating suspects with whom it was necessary to take a hard line.

In this case, though, a hard line wasn’t what was called for.

“Miss Star, please, we need your help,” he said. He had been ready to dismiss the woman’s claims himself, but something about the way she had looked when he’d asked her how long she had been a psychic had given him pause.

After all, who the hell was he to doubt anyone? He’d thought a corpse had spoken to him from a Gurney at the morgue.

She hesitated, looking at him. “Honestly?” she asked. And at that moment, there was something raw and young and vulnerable about her features that got to him.

She was scared.

“Yes, honestly.”

She looked around at the three of them. “This is off the record, right? You guys have to keep what I say between us.”

“If you know anything about an attempted murder…” Raif began.

She shook her head. “I don’t know anything about an attempted murder. Except for what I saw. In my mind.”

A shadow seemed to pass over Raif’s eyes. From now on, he wasn’t going to believe her. Tom seemed to have withdrawn, as well.

“What did you see, in your mind’s eye, and how did it all happen?” Joe said quickly, before either of the other men could say anything to shut her down.

“I was here. At home. Getting ready for the night.”

Tom made a choking sound again.

Joe flashed him a frown. “Were you here alone?” he asked.

She nodded. Then the words suddenly started spilling out. “I sat down here. Right here. On the sofa, like I am now. I lit a cigarette, and I was going to watch some TV before I went to change clothes. But then…it was so weird. All of a sudden it was as if I was in a car. As if I were really there. I could see the traffic in front of me. I was someone else. And I was gunning for a car. A green Cadillac. I knew the car. I knew where it was, because I’d been following it. It was as if I was me, but at the same time I wasn’t me. It was as if I was a passenger in someone else’s body. Oh, God, it was awful. As if I could feel all this hatred…I—the me that wasn’t me—knew not to hit the car myself, but I’m—he’s—a good driver and could make people swerve and stuff. So I…he…she…I don’t know which…did, and then…wham. Crash. There was metal and glass, and a word in my head….”

She stopped speaking. She was trembling, her face ashen. Either she really deserved her shot at Hollywood, or the fear she was feeling was real.

“Miss Star?”

She looked at him, as if she had forgotten that he was there.

“And the word? What was the word?” Joe persisted gently.

“Nevermore,” she said.

“I’m going to the meeting tonight,” Genevieve told Sam. “No matter what’s going on. I can’t help it—I’m worried about my mother. About all of you.”

“Because of Thorne’s murder,” Sam agreed.

“I know he made plenty of enemies, and the Poe angle could just be the killer’s way to throw people off track, but…well, what did you think of his book?”

“I think it was a good book,” Sam said. “The man could write.” He looked past her for a moment, then turned back to her and asked, “I take it you saw that ‘psychic’ on TV?”

She nodded.

“You believe in psychics?”

“I don’t know what I believe.”

She heard a sound then and turned around.

Joe was there, leaning against the wall, arms crossed over his chest as he watched her. She swore silently.

“Joe, hi. Come on in,” Sam said.

She rose uneasily. “You two know each other?” she said.

“We met years ago,” Sam said. “Joe and Matt Connolly were cousins.” He stared at her. “But I guess you knew that.”