Jaid Black (7 page)

Huddled up in the bathtub, Kim wrapped her arms
around her knees, staring at nothing. The nightmare she’d been enveloped in an hour ago, the one that had awoken her from a dead sleep, had been her clearest yet.

It had also been the most horrific.

This time she had seen what the attacker was wearing, though the woman’s figure was still too hazy to discern anything from. She had also gotten a clearer picture about where they were—next to some sort of a building. In an alleyway, perhaps?

Kim bit down hard into her bottom lip as she came to the definitive conclusion that, like it or not, she truly was dreaming about things yet to come. Things that hadn’t happened yet . . . but would.

“Shit,” she muttered to the walls. “What do I do?”

She couldn’t do
nothing,
which was, unfortunately, precisely what she wanted to do. But she wasn’t a cop, either. She could hardly go tracking the killer down, guns blazing, like some rebel with a cause. The killer would laugh his ass off before he did her in, too.

But that woman . . .

She shivered. That woman in her dreams was going to die. How could she live with herself if she sat back and waited for it to happen, knowing she hadn’t done one thing to at least try to stop it?

“What do I do?” she whispered to herself as she drew her legs in tighter against her chest. “What do I do?”

 

 

Nikki’s head shot up from where she was grating cheese for the salad. Almost thirty minutes had gone by—she’d forgotten that she’d left the computer on.

Wiping her hands on the apron she wore, she sipped from her glass of wine before setting it on the marble countertop , then turned around and walked into the den.

She clicked the mailbox icon as she sat down in the chair, grinning when she recognized the familiar screen name.

Richard.

Nikki opened up the email, her heart thumping pleasurably in her chest as she read it.

She took a deep, fortifying breath and blew it out as she clicked the “Reply” button.

YES!!
Nikki typed, her mind made up.
YES!!

Chapter 6

Monday, July 7 8:20 P.M.

“He’s really neat.” Nikki grinned as she handed Kim a
glass of wine from over her kitchen counter. Kim was seated at a bar stool on the other side of it. “We’re going to meet for coffee a week from tomorrow.”

“How were you two introduced?”

Nikki blushed. She cleared her throat as she poured herself a glass of the merlot she’d opened. “We met online,” she muttered.

Kim snorted. “Oh yeah. I’ll just bet he’s a real doll,” she said dryly. “He’s probably eight hundred pounds, bald, and still lives at home with his mother.”

Nikki had figured the same thing when she’d answered his ad, so she couldn’t blame Kim for her skepticism. “Nope. I’ve seen his photo. And,” she quickly added when her friend threw her a
he-could-have-sent-you-anyone’s-photo
look, “I had him checked out by a detective agency.” She smiled. “He’s definitely legit.”

“Smart thinking,” Kim conceded. “In this day and age you can’t be too sure.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Just look at those poor women who died at that Satan worshipper’s hands. If they had practiced more caution, I bet they’d still be alive.”

Nikki’s face scrunched up. “Satan worshipper? This is news to me.”

“Hmm . . . maybe the killer is not a Satan worshipper, then. I don’t know.” She shrugged. “You hear so much gossip in the media these days, it’s hard to make a coherent story out of any of it. Anyway, the one the press calls ‘Lucifer’ is who I meant.”

“Oh—oh! I know who you mean.” Nikki frowned. “Now that you mention it, I do recall a reporter speculating that the murders could be occult-related. I doubt it, though, because I’ve followed the case a bit—not much, but a little.” She shook her head slightly. “It makes for sensational headlines anytime the word ‘occult’ is thrown into the mix, but that doesn’t make it accurate. As someone once said, believe nothing you read and only half of what you see.”

Kim’s look was thoughtful. “To be honest, I don’t watch the news much, so what I pick up on is just bits and pieces here and there.” She grinned. “So the one report I did actually see was a sham, huh?”

“Oh yeah,” Nikki informed her. “The police flat-out said the killings were definitely not occult-related the day after the story you are thinking of aired. The CPD’s rebuttal, however, was given about two seconds of airtime . . . after the weather was reported!”

Kim snorted. “The real Lucifer is probably some middle-aged disgruntled accountant type.”

“I wouldn’t doubt it.” Nikki sighed. “An accountant type. That singular possibility makes you wonder about
all
men.”

“Exactly. Psychos are supposed to look like psychos. Not like some guy named Howie who does your taxes.”

Nikki grinned. “True enough.” She took a sip of merlot. “Speaking of psychos and being extra careful,” she said as she set down the wineglass, “I wanted you to know where we are meeting. Just to have all my bases covered. Richard is a great guy, but you know me.” She winked. “I’ll die a cynic.”

“No, no, that’s not cynical,” Kim said, her gaze drifting away. “It’s smart. You should never meet a man you don’t know for a date without telling someone where you’ll be.”

“True. You probably shouldn’t even meet one you
do
know without telling someone where you’ll be! Anyway, the rendezvous is scheduled for 7:00 P.M. at Jake’s, that rustic little café/bar down in the Flats. I’ve never been there before, but I hear it’s really cute.”

Kim nodded, but said nothing.

One of Nikki’s eyebrows rose. “You okay, hon?”

“Hm? Yes.” She shook her head to clear it. “I was just thinking about . . .” Kim sighed. “I’ve been having the dream again. It stopped for a while and then all of a sudden it came back full force.”

Nikki’s eyes showed her concern. “You feel like talking about it?” she quietly asked.

Kim was silent for a moment, then inclined her head. “Yeah. Yeah, I think I would.” She picked up her merlot, drained it, and then set the wineglass down on the counter-top. “Come on,” she said as she stood up, “let’s go talk in the living room.”

 

 

Kim simultaneously shrugged and sighed. “The same as before. It’s not that there was anything different in the dream, per se, it’s just that the images and impressions of what’s going to happen were a lot more vivid than usual. At this stage I’m sure this is more than a recurring nightmare, Nik. I don’t know how I know, I just
do
.”

She ran a hand through her long, blonde hair. “When the dream begins, I am seeing things from an aerial perspective, like if I was a ghost hovering over the scene or something. That’s how I got a better look at the crime scene this time, and what separated it from previous dreams. There was this bridge and then a dock. . . .”

Kim scrunched up her face, pieces of it still fuzzy. “From there the image zooms in on this dark space. I get the feeling this crime is going to take place next to a building. A building near a dock of some sort. Or something. Arrg! I just don’t know. It’s so frustrating!”

Unfortunately, that location could be just about anywhere. Cleveland alone boasted numerous similar establishments.

“You should go to the police.” Nikki folded her arms under her breasts, her expression as serious as it was troubled. “It can do no harm and perhaps a lot of good if you tell them everything you know.”

“The police?” Kim frowned as she snuggled into the leather sofa in Nikki’s living room. She picked up a pillow beside her that had been placed there for decorative purposes and absently toyed with it in her lap. “They’ll think I’m crazy. Nik, you know that.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. They probably deal with psychics all the time. . . .” She cleared her throat when Kim gave her a
yeah-right
look. “Well, even if they do think you’re crazy, you’ll at least have done your part.” Nikki inclined her head. “Then the burden of guilt is theirs rather than yours.”

“I don’t know. . . .”

“I’ll go with you,” Nikki said, her tone permitting no argument. “You have to do this, Kim.” Her gaze gentled a bit when she realized how nervous her friend was. This would be the first time Kim had been obliged to reveal her dreams to someone other than Nikki. “I know you better than anyone. You won’t be able to look yourself in the mirror again if you don’t do this.”

Kim sighed, her eyes briefly closing. “I know.” She opened them back up, her gaze locking with Nikki’s. “I just hope they don’t laugh me out of the building.”

Nikki’s nostrils flared at the mere thought of it. Nobody but nobody had better dare make light of Kim in Nikki’s presence. If they wanted to snicker behind their backs after they left, fine. But Kim was embarrassed enough about her visions as it was.

“That won’t happen.” Nikki frowned, then qualified her statement a bit. “That
better not
happen.”

 

 

“I know this sounds crazy—believe me, I know that.
But . . .” She sighed, her voice trailing off as she glanced away.

Thomas wasn’t certain what to say. In all the years he’d been on the force, he’d never once had a psychic approach him. That was stuff for the movies, not for the CPD. And this particular psychic—Kimberly Cox—was telling him she was having dreams about the devil himself.

He had been tracking this killer for
nine years
. He was obsessed with him—perhaps a bit too obsessed. Because of that singular fact, Thomas had failed to meet certain expectations in his personal life, more frequently than he felt comfortable admitting. After awhile, the grueling hours he put in hunting his nemesis—his obsession—eventually got under the skin of every woman he’d ever dated.

And yet all these years and failed relationships later, Lucifer was still alive and well, still raping and torturing victims before killing them off in a belated act of mercy . . . or was it a final display of power? There were periods when he got scared and stayed underground until he couldn’t take it anymore and needed the release a kill provided—sometimes those periods lasted over a year—but inevitably he always reemerged, even more sick and sadistic than before.

It had been years—
years
—and now Kimberly Cox, a shy teacher of physics from the snooty Eastern Academy, claimed that she could help narrow down where and possibly when his next kill would occur. A bit too easy for Thomas’s way of thinking. Life didn’t work like that.

“Listen, Dr. Cox . . .”

“You don’t believe me,” she whispered, her eyes unblinking as she looked away from him once more. “I knew you wouldn’t believe me.”

Something about her seemed so sincere. Thomas didn’t doubt for a second that the Ph.D. schoolteacher believed herself to be a psychic—he himself merely doubted that she actually was one.

“Look, lady,” Detective Ben O’Rourke said on a frown as he surged to his feet. Ben wasn’t assigned to this case, but he’d been the officer who had found Linda Hughes’s body, so had been collaborating with Thomas on parts of it. They’d been going over notes together when the ladies had come in.

Linda’s remains had been discovered by accident when Ben had been off duty, heading home after a night out with buddies at a bar in the financial district. He’d immediately secured the crime scene before reporting it to headquarters.

“It’s not that we don’t believe you,” Ben began in a patronizing tone of voice that clearly said just the opposite.

“Bullshit,” Dr. Cox gritted out, rising to her feet. Her nostrils flared as she locked gazes with Ben. “This was a waste of my time.
You
are a waste of my time. I knew I should have kept it all to myself.”

Ben’s eyebrows rose but he said nothing.

Thomas ran a hand through his short, dark hair, sighing. “Please,” he murmured to Kimberly Cox, “have a seat.” He motioned for her to sit down again, then threw Ben an exasperated look.

People complained that Thomas was too surly and abrasive. Clearly those people had never met Ben, he thought with a frown.

“No, thank you.” The schoolteacher’s nostrils flared. “All I’m trying to do is save some poor woman’s life. Do you think this is easy for me, coming here when I knew I’d be ridiculed? Because it’s not. Far from it, in fact!”

That Thomas could believe. If word got out about this little visit, her schoolteacher days in Snootyville would be over.

“Please,” Dr. Cox’s friend murmured to her. “Have a seat, Kimmie. We’ll leave soon.”

Thomas’s gaze darted over to the friend. Dr. Nicole Adenike was her name. She was a respected trauma surgeon at Cleveland General, a fact he’d quickly found out as soon as he’d been informed that the ladies were waiting in his office. The first thing he always did was check out an informant’s history. In this case he hadn’t had to look far—a couple of beat officers had recognized her face from having escorted perps into the hospital to have their injuries cared for.

Ben too had been familiar with Dr. Adenike. Thomas imagined that she and Ben wouldn’t be getting along very well during future hospital visits. Anger was radiating off of her in waves. She didn’t seem to hold Thomas in much higher regard.

This particular informant, or informant’s friend, rather, had been glaring daggers at Thomas from the minute she’d whisked her schoolteacher friend into his office and witnessed as Ben had all but laughed at Kimberly Cox’s “information.” Add to the fact that Thomas, while not as abrasive about it as the extremely unsubtle Ben had been, was still just as skeptical, and it showed. Apparently the pretty surgeon’s estimation of Thomas had plummeted even further when he’d failed to believe everything that came out of Dr. Cox’s mouth as though it was the gospel truth.