A Time to Live (19 page)

“Damn you!” She spat in his face.
“Just stay away from me, you filthy pig. I’m sick of you terrorizing me.”

Michael retreated, wiping the spittle from his cheek.
He battled to control his anger. He didn’t deserve any of this. He had never done anything to her.

“Denise,”
Doc said stepping forward. “Leave Michael alone.”

“Leave him alone?” Her voice rose, attracting the attention of passers-by.
“He mutilates me and walks free and you tell me to leave him alone?”

Doc glanced over his shoulder.
“Go, Michael,” he said.

Denise lunged forward, trying to claw at Michael around Doc.
Michael quickly stepped into the street and hurried away, while Doc and Josh tried to restrain Denise.

“You botherin’ her again, half-breed?” Taylor shouted as he stepped out of the café door with Sanders behind him.

Michael gritted his teeth and clenched his fists, walking purposefully toward the care center.

“I’m talkin’ to you, half-breed.”

“I’m not in the listening mood,” he growled and kept going. He glanced over his shoulder. The sheriff stepped out of his office and approached Doc and Josh. Denise continued to yell at them. Michael kept his stride measured as he entered the care center, but his temper boiled.

“Nikki? Jan?” he called.

“In here.”

Michael wandered back to the file room and saw Nikki and Jan sitting on the floor in the midst of a large stack of files.
Nikki had flipped her hair into a knot, but strands of it still fell into her face. Michael found his foul mood fading at the endearing sight. “Are you ready to go?”

She glanced up and smiled at him.
“Not quite yet.”

Michael fidgeted uncomfortably.
“Nikki, we shouldn’t stay much longer.”

Nikki paused and scowled at him.
“You look a little spooked. What happened?”

Quickly, Michael told her about his encounter with Denise. “I’m worried that the sheriff will haul me in for violating the restraining order if I stick around.”

Nikki muttered something about Denise that Michael did not care to translate. But he found himself smiling at her protectiveness.

“We’re almost finished,” she said.

“Why don’t you go ahead and go, Michael,” Jan said. “I can take Nikki home when we finish here.”

Michael hesitated.
He didn’t like leaving Nikki, but she should be safe in town with Jan. “Are you sure?”

“I’ll be fine, Michael, don’t worry.”

“All right,” he said and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. “I’ll see if I can fix that door.”

She smiled up at him.
“Thanks. I’ll be home in a few.”

Going through the records took longer than Nikki had planned
, but when she got home, she was ecstatic. It was dinner time when Jan dropped her off and she bounded through the newly repaired door with a large stack of copies and reports in her arms.

Michael emerged from the kitchen, smiling.
“I was just starting to get worried.” He pulled her close and gave her a quick, but powerful kiss.

Nikki beamed up at him.
“I found some interesting information and Doc has a computer with internet access so I was able to do some more research.”

“Great, you can tell me about it over dinner.”
He guided her into the kitchen.

“Wow,” Nikki said, gazing at the recently prepared meal.
“You can really cook. I guess that means I’ll keep you.”

Michael shot her a wounded look.

“I’m teasing, love,” she replied and wrinkled her nose at him.

Mollified, Michael began serving the food.

Nikki heard the ruffle of feathers from the corner behind her and jumped, spinning on her heel. A huge hawk sat on a perch, eyeing her curiously.

Michael chuckled.
“Sorry I didn’t warn you. I didn’t want to leave to feed Cetan, so I thought I’d bring her here. I hope you don’t mind.”

“Not at all, Michael,” she said stepping closer to the bird.
“She’s beautiful.”

“Don’t say that too much, it will go to her head.”

Nikki laughed. “May I touch her?”

“She’s tame.
She likes when you scratch behind her head.”

Nikki slowly moved, her finger brushing the feathers.
Cetan cocked her head, the inner lid of her eye half closing as Nikki rubbed. She laughed. “Let me guess, she dotes on attention.”

“Absolutely.”

Nikki chuckled and returned to the table. “Cetan, that’s an unusual name.”

“Actually, no.
It means hawk in Lakota, which Arapaho is a derivative.”

“So you call me dragon in another tongue,” Nikki murmured.

“What?”

“Nothing,” she said grinning.
“Something from another movie. You know, Michael, at this rate I’m going to have to buy a TV and a DVR, and make you watch some movies, just so you get all of my jokes.”

He looked at her and winked.
“Actually, I wouldn’t mind curling up in front of a TV with you, and I can think of a lot of ways to make it very enjoyable.”

“Michael!”

He laughed and joined her at the table, expertly changing the subject. “So, what did you find?” he asked, gesturing to the stack of files.

Nikki arched an eyebrow, trying to dismiss the visions his words had created.
She cleared her throat. “All of the women had high doses of liquid Ecstasy and alcohol in their blood,” she replied, pulling out a report. “Do you know if any of them had a drug habit?”

Michael’s eyebrows flew up his forehead.
“Laura and Joanna? No way. Denise I think may have done some on occasion.”

“Heroine or something she would mainline?”

“Mainline?”

“Inject into a vein.”

“No, she was strictly...recreational.”

Nikki nodded looking at the reports.
“Since the cases are still open, we can’t get autopsies, but Doc was pretty thorough in his prelims. On each victim, he noted needle marks on their arms.”

“Needle marks?” Michael asked, horrified.
“Laura would have never touched drugs.”

“That’s what I thought.
But there’s no traces of residue where anything was injected.”

“What about the Ecstasy?”

“That’s ingested, they found it in their stomachs, combined with alcohol. There was also evidence where they were tied down, but Doc thinks because of the bruising, they were kept like that for several days. The tracks occurred over several days as well.”

Michael shivered, staring at his plate, his gaze distant.

Nikki paused and gently gripped his hand. “Michael, I’m sorry, I know this has to be terrible for you to hear.”

He looked up at her, his amber eyes grief-stricken.
“I’m all right, sweetheart.”

She sighed and looked at her notes again.
“Anyway, the officials can’t figure out why the needle marks are there if they weren’t used to inject anything.”

“Did you find anything else?”

“Not much. The M.O. is the same, that’s why they think it’s the work of a serial killer. What I don’t understand is why Denise survived the attack and the others were murdered.”

“At the trial, the theory was the attacker....”
He gulped a breath. “Was going to kill her, but was scared away by one of her...customers before he could finish the job. The john called the sheriff, that’s why she survived.”

“Michael, you know how I feel about you.”

“I know...but...how can they think I did this, Nikki?”

“I don’t know,
Michel
,” she whispered and Michael smiled at her. “Yet, the theory that the attacker...not you...was interrupted makes sense. With the other attacks, the killer was more careful.”

“But why focus on women in my life?
Before all of this started, I didn’t have any enemies who hated me enough to do this.”

Nikki shrugged.
“Serial killers can be set off by anything - even small stuff. Was there anyone who was angry with you before all this started?”

“Taylor, of course, because I put him in jail.
And the people who work for him.” He paused for a long moment. “No...that wouldn’t be enough.”

“What?”

“Josh’s ex-fiancée. Tiffany hit on me and I refused her. She swore I would pay, but she was drunk when she said it. Then she went back to Florida. Besides, a female doesn’t fit the profile for these crimes.”

“Very true.
Anyone else?”

“No,” Michael said, rubbing his eyes tiredly.

“What about Taylor’s body guard?”

Michael shrugged.
“He arrived a day before Denise’s attack. That’s almost too convenient.”

“I agree.”
Nikki sighed, staring at the reports. “The answer is here somewhere, I know it is.”

“Don’t work yourself so hard, sweetheart.”
He paused and frowned. “What else do you have there?”

“
It’s research I found on the internet about liquid Ecstasy. I didn’t have time to read it, so I printed it out for later.”

Michael nodded and jabbed his fork at her dinner.
“Well, eat now, before it gets cold.”

She chuckled and nodded, but even though the meal was delicious, Nikki couldn’t stop thinking about all the information she had discovered.
Somehow, she was going to get Michael cleared.

****

That evening, Nikki curled on the couch, her head on Michael’s lap, reading the research on Ecstasy. He helped a little, but she could tell his heart wasn’t in it.

“Hey, you okay?” she asked, looking up at him.

“Yeah,” he replied, but his jaw was tight and his amber eyes bleak.

She let the matter drop and kept reading.
“Hey, check this out, Michael.” She pointed to an article and read. “Liquid Ecstasy, also called GHB has been researched since the ‘60’s for its medical benefits. But its side-effects are too unpredictable. Did you know that it can elevate the body’s temperature so much that it causes complete cardiovascular breakdown?”

He arched an eyebrow.
“What other research were they doing?”

“Anesthesia, treatment for narcolepsy, and even exploring benefits for psychiatric patients.”

Michael nodded, but suddenly his gaze grew distant and she felt a terrible shiver pass through him.

Nikki sat up.
“Michael, what’s wrong?”

He bolted to his feet, his expression panicked.

“Michael?”

“Oh God,” he whispered, his hand tearing through his hair.
He began to pace. “I feel it.”

Nikki bounded to her feet as well.
“Feel what? What’s wrong, Michael?”

“Remember...I told you...my instincts.
Something is terribly wrong, but I don’t know what.” He continued to pace, his gaze snapping from corner to corner.

Nikki swallowed hard.
His actions reminded her of a trapped animal. “Is it the intruder?”

Michael shook his head.
“I...I don’t think so, it feels different.” He stopped, gulping a deep breath, and staring at her. His gaze was pleading, almost fearful.

She slowly approached and cupped his cheek in her hand.
Michael closed his eyes and released his breath in a ragged sigh. Nikki instinctively wrapped her arms around him, pulling him so his face was buried against her neck. He held her tightly, as if afraid to let her go.

“You okay?”

“Yes,” he whispered, his voice muffled. “It’s fading now.”

“Should we go outside and look around?”

“No,” he said harshly. “I don’t want to leave you alone and I don’t want to risk taking you with me. We’ll find out what it was soon enough.”

“Let’s go to bed, Michael.
You need to rest.”

He nodded
, but his expression was still troubled.

Nikki brought him to bed and made love to him.
At first, she had trouble getting him to relax, but soon he responded to her, the terrible episode seemingly forgotten. She discovered that he enjoyed it when she took the initiative and he was a very attentive lover. She didn’t mean to stay up so late, but one thing led to another and it was one in the morning before she settled beside him. Michael wrapped his arms around her, holding her tightly, and fell asleep almost immediately.

Nikki had just started to doze off.
A loud banging on the front door nearly scared her to death and Michael vaulted out of bed ready for a fight.

The banging continued.
“Miss Matthews!” a muffled voice barked. “It’s Sheriff Boyd. Open up!”