Night Moves: Dream Man/After the Night (62 page)

She leaned back, suddenly very tired, and discovered that sometime during their conversation he had draped his arm behind her, so that when she sat back she was all but in his arms. She bolted forward, only to find that heavy arm around her shoulders and herself being urged back once more, and his face was very close to hers.

“Shhh, don’t panic,” he murmured in a dark, soft voice. “You’re still holding my hand, and the other one’s behind you. You’re okay.”

She glared at him. “I am
not
holding your hand,” she snapped. “You’re holding mine!”

“Minor detail. I’m going to kiss you, Marlie—”

“I’ll bite you again,” she swiftly warned.

He shrugged. “I always have had more guts than sense,” he said, and very gently brushed her mouth with his.

It was only a fleeting contact, lighter than a whisper, but laden with a tantalizing hint of his taste. Her pulse leaped again, but he was drawing back before the expected fear could materialize. A tiny frown drew her brows together.

He released her hand, finally, and cupped her chin in his palm. The rough pad of his thumb traced the fullness of her lower lip, his gaze focused on the movement.

“Any bad thoughts?” he asked. His voice was even darker, softer.

“No.” Her response was a whisper.

“In that case . . .”

This time his mouth lingered. He wasn’t holding her; she
didn’t feel constrained, but was somehow helpless to move away. His lips were firm and warm, but tender in their pressure even as they moved, and shaped her own lips to accommodate him. Marlie closed both hands around his thick wrist, and her eyes fluttered shut.

The gentle pleasure of the kiss made her dizzy. She hadn’t expected such tender consideration from him, or the flood of sensation that rushed through her. She made a little sound of confusion, and he lifted his head immediately.

“Are you okay?”

“Y-Yes,” she stammered, her eyes blinking open.

“Good.” He bent his head to her again, and resumed the kiss. His tongue slipped into her mouth, not thrusting deep but inviting her to taste him. Marlie didn’t know what to do; what was happening was so opposite to what she had expected that she couldn’t think. The most stunning fact was that she wasn’t afraid. This was nothing like—no, she wouldn’t even think his name. The shimmering pleasure she was feeling was too precious to destroy.

Hesitantly, trusting a long-unused instinct, she accepted the invitation and sucked lightly at his tongue. Instantly a shudder ran through his big body, astonishing her. She did it again, and he groaned aloud, a deep sound that reverberated through his chest. Delight in this newfound sensual power shyly bloomed inside her.

He suddenly released her mouth and sat back. His skin was flushed, and pulled taut across his cheekbones. “That’s enough. That’s almost too much. I’m going to leave now, before I try to push you too far.”

She blinked at him, her eyes languorous and dazed, as if she wasn’t quite certain what had happened. He wasn’t too sure himself. He hadn’t been that turned on by a simple kiss since he’d been fifteen, and lost his virginity under the stadium bleachers with a seventeen-year-old cheerleader.

He forced himself to stand up before he made a big mistake and changed his mind about leaving. He had kissed her; that wasn’t enough for him, but it was probably as much
as she could stand. All in all, he was extremely pleased with the evening.

“I’ll call you tomorrow,” he said as he walked to the door. She followed him, the awareness rushing back into her eyes. He winked at her. “Your sexy voice turns me on even over the telephone.”

Like a light blinking off, all of the softness vanished from her expression. “I’m glad you like it,” she said flatly. “I screamed so much when Gleen was butchering the little boy that my voice broke. It hasn’t been the same since then.”

H
E WAS SO ALIVE THAT
it was almost painful. Carroll Janes could feel the anticipation pooling in him, the power gathering, until it felt as if he should be glowing. He was always amazed that people couldn’t
see
the power, but then most people really were extraordinarily stupid.

It would be tonight. It was unusual that only a week had passed since the one last Friday, but this was so
easy
, there was no point in putting it off. And it was pleasant, this buildup of power almost as soon as the glow had faded from before. Of course, he couldn’t count on this occurring every week; the really rude ones didn’t happen all that often. And he normally liked to draw it out much longer, maybe even as long as a month, but that was because there were almost always difficulties to be overcome, complications to solve. Jacqueline Sheets had none. She lived alone, and her routine was suffocating in its rigidity. No, there was no reason to wait.

It was odd that it was almost always women who were rude, though there had been a man once or twice whom he
had been obliged to punish. He didn’t like it when it was a man. It wasn’t that a man’s strength made it more difficult; he was contemptuous of that concept. He was strong enough to handle almost anyone, and religiously worked out to maintain that strength. Men simply didn’t offer the pleasure, the opportunity for prolonged teasing while the power built. Men were almost boring. And of course, he wasn’t queer, so at least half the fun was missing. No way would he screw a man. If he was sometimes a bit more lenient with a man’s rudeness—well, it was
his
decision to make, after all, not anyone else’s. If he preferred women, that was no one’s business but his own.

He hummed all day, causing Annette to remark that he was certainly in a good mood. “You must have big plans for the weekend,” she said, and he heard the unconscious note of jealousy in her voice. He liked that. Of course, he had been aware that Annette yearned for him, for all the good it would do her. She simply wasn’t his type.

“A hot date,” he replied, not caring if she heard the quivering anticipation in the words. It might liven up her fantasies.

He thought of Jacqueline Sheets waiting for him. He had been inside her house, and could picture the scene exactly. He knew where she sat while watching television—which was about all she did. He knew how her bedroom looked, what she wore to sleep in: utilitarian pajamas. He hadn’t been surprised. He preferred nightgowns, but pajama bottoms weren’t a problem. She would pull them off for him; they all did, with a blade shining in their faces.

He had checked out the kitchen. Her knives had been in disappointing shape, with dulled edges barely capable of slicing a banana. She was obviously not a very good cook, or her knives would have been in better condition. He had selected a filleting knife and carried it home, where he had spent the past two nights painstakingly putting a razor edge on the blade. He hated having to work with inferior tools.

He could barely wait for the night, when the ritual would
begin, as his father had taught him. When you are rude, you are punished.

•  •  •

Dane had called Marlie at seven that morning, just to say hello and ask if she’d slept well, and the irritation in her voice had made him chuckle. She was still resisting him mentally, but physically it had gone much better than he had ever hoped. He had kissed her, and she not only hadn’t been afraid, she had enjoyed it. Considering her background, that was a giant stride forward.

He grinned like an idiot all the way to work. He had kissed her! So what if it had been a kiss that would make the average teenage stud roll his eyes in boredom? What did teenage studs know? They weren’t interested in anything but squeezing breasts and a few quick thrusts. He was old enough, thank God, to know that the slower it was, the better it was. He might be crazy with frustration by the time Marlie came to him, but after last night he had no doubt that it would happen. He was dizzy with delight, anticipation fizzing in him like champagne bubbles.

Trammell was already there when Dane walked in, his dark eyes sleepy as he leaned back in his chair and watched Dane approach. People moved around them, talking and swearing; telephones rang incessantly, the fax machine and photocopier hummed almost without pause. A typical day, but Dane didn’t feel typical. He was still smiling as he went to the coffee machine and poured two cups of coffee. He sipped one as he returned to his desk, and gave Trammell the other. “You look like you need it. Bad night?”

“Thanks.” Trammell cautiously tasted it, eyeing Dane over the rim. “It was a long night, but not a bad one. Well? Did you find out anything interesting yesterday?”

“Quite a bit. For one thing, let’s say I’m not as skeptical as I was before.”

Trammell rolled his eyes. “What about Marlie? What’s she been doing for six years?”

“Trying to recover,” Dane said briefly. “Arno Gleen beat
her, tried to rape her, and when he couldn’t, he killed the kid in front of her. According to Dr. Ewell, the trauma of it severely damaged, maybe even destroyed, her paranormal abilities. Evidently this vision about the Vinick murder is the first psychic tickle she’s had since then.”

“So the psychic stuff is coming back to her?”

Dane shrugged. “Who knows. Nothing else has happened.”
Thank God.
“I talked to her last night, asked a few more questions about what she saw in the vision, and she remembered a couple of details.”

“Like what?”

“The guy is about six feet tall, he’s in very good shape, and he isn’t from the South.”

Trammell snorted. “That really narrows it down for us.”

“It beats what we had before.”

“Agreed. Anything beats nothing. That’s assuming we accept a psychic’s vision for leads, because a court sure as hell won’t accept her as evidence.”

“What choice do we have? There
is
nothing else. This guy didn’t leave a clue. I’ll take any lead I can get, and worry about proof when we find him.”

“Actually,” Trammell said slowly, “we’ve already talked to someone who fits that description.”

“Yeah, I know. Ansel Vinick. He’s as strong as a bull, and even though he’s lived in Florida for over twenty years, he still has a midwestern accent.” He hadn’t been surprised; very few people who weren’t raised in the South ever managed to get the accent right. The movie and television industries never had. “But my gut says he didn’t do it.”

“He had opportunity.”

“But no motive. No boyfriend, no insurance. Nothing.”

“Maybe an argument that got out of hand?”

“The medical examiner didn’t find any bruises on her that would indicate blows. She wasn’t just killed, she was slaughtered.”

“The textbooks say that when there are that many stab wounds, the killer was really pissed at the victim. And that if
he spends a lot of time doing it, he probably lives in the neighborhood. You know the numbers as well as I do: Eighty percent of the time, when a woman’s killed, it’s her husband or boyfriend who does her in. And a lot of the time, the killer is the one who calls the police when he ‘discovers’ the body. Vinick fits into all of the categories.”

“Except for the first one. If they were arguing, no one knows anything about it. The neighbors didn’t hear anything, they always seemed to get along fine, and Vinick didn’t act unusual in any way at work that night. And she was raped, but there wasn’t any semen. Marlie says the perp wore a rubber; why would Vinick bother? She was his wife, for Pete’s sake. Finding his semen in her wouldn’t be incriminating. What really bothers me,” he said, thinking hard, “is her fingers. Why chop off her fingers? We haven’t found them. There wasn’t any reason to cut off her fingers, unless—”

“—she scratched him,” Trammell finished, dark eyes shining intently. “She scratched him, and he knew about DNA profiling. He cut off her fingers so forensics couldn’t get a skin sample from under her nails.”

“Vinick was wearing a short-sleeved shirt that morning,” Dane recalled. “Do you remember any scratches?”

“No. It’s possible he could have had some on his chest or upper arms, but the hands and lower arms are the most likely location.”

“Don’t forget the cut screen in the bedroom. If Vinick had done it himself, to make it look like a forced entry, wouldn’t he have made it more obvious? He didn’t strike me as a subtle type of guy, anyway. And everything that Marlie told us dovetailed with what we found at the scene. It wasn’t Vinick.”

“Wait a minute,” Trammell said. “Marlie didn’t mention the fingers, did she?”

Dane thought about it, then shook his head. “No, and it doesn’t seem like the kind of detail anyone would forget.”
The omission troubled him, and he made a mental note to ask her about it that night.

“All the same, I’d feel better if we talked to Vinick again,” Trammell insisted.

Dane shrugged. “It’s all right with me, I just feel like it’s wasted time.”

Trammell tried several times that day to get in touch with Mr. Vinick, between the hundred other things they had to do, but there was no answer. He called the trucking company where Mr. Vinick worked, and was told that he had been off all week, and all things considered, they really didn’t expect him to return to work for at least another week.