Jenna Ryan - Dream Weaver

Mood music played softly in the background. Several more jarring sounds thrummed in her head.

Her stomach clenched as she removed a pair of silver-white stockings, tied with a white ribbon and topped with a white bow. Attached to the bow was a small white card.

“I’m going to change my favorite color,” she murmured, and drew a curious stare from one of the patients.

She turned toward the window, breathed in and read the message.

Accept this token of my love, Meliana

Accept my love.

Accept me.

We are meant to be.

Johnny returned to Blue Lake late that afternoon. He’d felt something black and ugly pressing in on him, a stream of memories and reactions he was neither prepared to handle nor capable of offsetting.

He needed to breathe, to recenter himself and find his focus. It wasn’t so much that he’d lost it—his world since he’d met her had been Meliana—but having been immersed in a seductively evil role for so long, he tended to stray into rather unpleasant areas from time to time.

He phoned Julie as he drove north.

“She’s holding something back,” he said. “She’s a good actress, but I could see it in her body language, in the way she was moving and walking.”

“I’ll talk to her,” Julie promised. “You’re only an hour away, Johnny.”

“I’ll be back tomorrow. I just need a little time to chill and think.”

He ended the call and ordered himself to be steady. He could chill out over the past while he thought about the present.

What did this rose guy want from Meliana? How far would he go to get it? Was Meliana in danger?

Johnny frowned, glanced in his rearview mirror. He should have stayed in Chicago, should have taken his wife out for dinner. He could have worked on her until she’d agreed to come to Blue Lake with him.

Easily said in retrospect, not so easily done with Meliana. When she was on call or the hospital was short staffed, a bulldozer couldn’t budge her from the city.

The lakeside house was dark when he arrived. He unlocked the door, went in and switched on the first lamp that came to hand. He was heading for the fridge and a cold beer when a pair of headlights slashed across the front window.

Johnny recognized the shape of the cruiser, made it two cans and dropped onto the sofa.

“Door’s open, Zack,” he said through the screen.

“I took a chance and swung past on my way back from Woodstock.” Deputy Zack Crawford caught the beer Johnny tossed him. He looked around the tidier-than-usual main room. “Either Meliana’s back, or my mother’s been here. I’m guessing my mother.”

Johnny rested his head on the cushions. “I’m in trouble. She’s started making dinners and freezing them for me.”

“She needs someone to fuss over, and I’ve been out of town a lot lately.”

“Business?”

Zack sat on the ottoman and popped his beer. “You could say that. I’m taking a course—paramedic training. I signed up in late spring and still have a fair distance to go, but when I’m done, I’ll be able to get out of here and down to the city.”

“Why not train to be a cop?”

“Being a deputy’s what I fell into, Johnny, not what I wanted. It’s all about saving people’s lives, right? I’m tired of slapping kids’ wrists in the summer and making sure old Harry Riley gets home from the bar in the winter. Just do me a favor, and don’t tell my mother.”

“She doesn’t know?” Johnny took a long drink. “How’d you manage that?”

“I lied.”

“Good a way as any, I guess.”

Standing, Zack crossed the floor to the large side window. He had a build similar to Johnny’s, lean and rangy, with long legs and blond-brown hair. That’s where the resemblance ended. Zack’s eyes were green and his nose was slightly skewed from a bad break in high school. He brushed his hair back from a cleanly sculpted face, had a quick grin, a bad knee and a small scar on the left side of his jaw.

“What are you looking at?” Johnny asked when Zack peered around the blind.

“Just wondering if you can see Tim Carrick’s place from here. Mrs. Wilmot at the post office swears she saw him walking naked in the woods last week.”

“Tim’s the hairy guy with the beer gut, right?”

“Have you seen him around?”

“Not naked, but yeah, I see him all the time on weekends. He was loading his pickup with old crates last Sunday.”

“Strange guy.” Zack sipped his beer. “You see him up here, you think he’s a hillbilly, right? But he’s a salesman during the week. Pharmaceuticals. He walks naked in the woods, glares at everyone he meets, then takes off to the city and pushes his company’s pills on anyone who’ll listen. It’s no wonder his wife left him.”

“Was she the woman I used to hear shouting in Spanish?”

“Portuguese. Her name’s Vivianne. Meliana knew her. She was half English, half Brazilian. They watched Wheel of Fortune sometimes over at Tim’s place when Mel came up for the weekend. She took off about a year ago.”

“Back to Brazil?”

“Miami, I heard. Tim doesn’t talk about her, and most of us are too weirded out by the guy to press. Man, I tell you, I like it here, but I won’t be sorry to lose this place. Small-town dynamics and all. You’re lucky you’re FBI. People hesitate before poking their nose into a federal agent’s business.” Zack regarded his watch. “Ten-thirty. If I want out, I’d better hit the books.”

“Are you on duty tomorrow?”

“Four hours’ worth. Phil and I are pulling part-time shifts right now. Sheriff Frank got back from his Shriner’s convention in Gary today. I’ll catch you later, Johnny. Keep an eye out for Tim.”

Just what he needed, Johnny reflected, a nudist neighbor who liked to walk in the woods. A man who no longer lived with his wife. A guy with two different and distinct sides to his personality.

Disgusted with himself, Johnny got off the sofa and made a circle of the room. He shouldn’t be here. He’d given in to a moment of panic and flown. He could handle city life—he’d done it for years. Meliana had urged him to go, he’d felt the pressure building in his head, he’d caved and fled. What a wuss he’d turned into.

He gnawed on the side of his lip, glanced at his jacket, then released a breath and snatched it off the hook. Keys. Where? He searched the room twice, felt his pockets. There was nothing except an old shopping list inside.

He checked the top of the fridge, then his computer desk. He had e-mail, he noticed and gave the mouse a tap.

It wouldn’t be Mel. She preferred the phone. And his supervisors in Chicago weren’t likely to…

The thought dried up, simply vanished when the message appeared on screen. His blood turned to ice as he read it.

MELIANA’S MINE.

YOU TOUCH HER, YOU DIE.

MELIANA WAS UPSTAIRS in her home office, reviewing the file of a patient scheduled for surgery the next day, when she heard the commotion outside. Her brows went up as she checked her desk clock. Twelve minutes past midnight?

The men’s voices grew louder. She recognized them, and for a moment rolled closer to the window to listen.

“Fat lot of help you’ve been, Grand. You hang around for less than a day, then rush back up to your lakeside retreat so you can bury your head in the sand. If that’s your plan of action, you should stay there and leave the dirty work to those of us who can handle it. Man, do you think about anyone but yourself these days? Some creep waltzes in here, plants a flower in your ex’s lingerie drawer and steals some of her stuff. The cops shrug their shoulders, you take off and, meanwhile, some sicko’s running around with only his crazy brain cells functioning. It’s depraved.”