Dream Man

“What else happened with Arno Gleen?”

Professor Ewell’s face changed, his expression that of mingled pain and hatred. “Gleen was a monster. A pedophile, a sadist, a murderer. Little boys were his favorite. He would kidnap them, take them to a remote place, abuse them for a day or two, then kill them. Unfortunately, there are no secrets in a small town, and when the sheriff called Marlie for help, the news was all over town before sundown. The next day there was a prominent article in the local newspaper about her, mentioning her successes and when she would arrive. Gleen was waiting. As soon as he caught her alone, he grabbed her.”

“But if she’s as empathic as you say she is, why didn’t she sense him?”

“By that time, she had learned how to block, and she automatically did it whenever she was in a town. It was the only way she could function. And there are some people who naturally block their own transmissions; maybe Gleen was one of them. Maybe he was simply a sociopath, and didn’t feel anything for her to pick up. She’s never said. In fact, she’s never discussed it at all.”

Dane was beginning to get an ugly feeling, one that was all too likely. “Did he rape her?” His voice was low and harsh.

The professor shook his head. “He couldn’t.”

Dane exhaled, his eyes closing briefly.

“But he tried.” The professor looked down at his hands, his mouth tight. “He took her to where he had his latest victim stashed. The little boy had been horribly abused. Gleen had him tied to a bed. I believe the child was about five years old. Gleen dumped Marlie on the floor, stripped her, and tried to rape her. She wasn’t a little boy, though, so he couldn’t achieve the necessary erection. Every time he failed, he would hit her, working himself into a greater rage. Maybe he thought inflicting pain would arouse him enough. But it didn’t, and in a frenzy he turned on the child. He stabbed the little boy to death in front of her. There were twenty-seven puncture wounds in the child’s face, chest, and abdomen. And all the while Marlie was linked with the child. She felt him die.”

8

DANE FELT AS IF HE HAD BEEN SCRAPED RAW ON THE INSIDE. HE didn’t have to imagine what Marlie had gone through. He was a cop; he had seen too much to ever have to rely on his imagination to supply details. He knew what beatings really were. He knew what stabbings looked like. He knew how much blood there was, how it spread and spread and got all over everything, even your dreams. He knew how the little boy had sobbed and screamed, had seen in other children’s faces his terror and despair, his pain, his utter helplessness.

Marlie had endured that. And when she had had the vision of Nadine Vinick’s murder, what had it cost her to see those images again? The similarity was sickening.

At some point during the visit with Professor Ewell, his healthy cynicism had gone south. The germ of possibility had been planted. He didn’t like it, but despite himself, he accepted that Marlie had “seen” Mrs. Vinick die. Maybe it was a one-shot deal. According to the professor, after Marlie had recovered from her injuries and the emotional trauma she had suffered, she had had no extrasensory abilities at all. For the first time in her life, she had been able to live normally. It was something she had always wanted to be able to do, but the price had been horrendous. Even after six years, she was still paying it. Now Dane knew why there were no boyfriends.

It made him all the more determined that he would change that situation.

Objectively he could be a little amused at the range of conflicts that were clouding his mind and tangling his guts. He’d always been able to hold himself a little apart, unaffected by most of the worries that gnawed at other cops. Subjectively he wasn’t enjoying it worth a damn. He didn’t believe in paranormal stuff, had always laughed at those who did. Now he found himself not only halfway believing, but trying to figure out how he could use Marlie to find Mrs. Vinick’s murderer.

That last thought tied another knot in his intestines. He wanted to protect her; he didn’t want her involved with another murderer in any capacity. But he was a cop, and his job was to use whatever source he could to solve a crime, especially one as brutal as this. The bastard didn’t need to be walking around, loose among the unsuspecting public. And despite the primal male instinct that told him to keep Marlie away from it, he knew that, if possible, he would use her. He would do everything he could to keep her safe, but the greatest need was to find this guy and put him away. Unless he was a certified wacko, the savagery of the murder was such that he was almost certain to be given the death penalty … but first he had to be caught.

Another conflict was with his own male wariness. No man he knew gladly embraced the turmoil and restrictions of an emotional relationship with a woman, and he was no exception. He liked his life; he liked not being tied down to any one woman. He didn’t want to have to account for his time to anyone, didn’t want to have to consider someone else when making plans for what he wanted to do. But now there was Marlie, and damn it if he didn’t feel as if he’d been cornered. He’d been attracted to a lot of women before, but not like this. This was a fever, a gnawing need that never left him. It had been only four days since he’d walked into Bonness’s office and seen her for the first time, and she hadn’t been out of his mind since. The more he learned about her, the more involved he became. The hell of it was, she certainly wasn’t doing anything to get him involved; he was doing it all on his own, and having to fight her every inch of the way.

She had totally avoided men, romantically and sexually speaking, since Gleen had almost destroyed her. Dane tried to tell himself to back off, to give her both time and space in order to come to trust him, but he knew it wasn’t going to happen. He’d never been the type to sit and wait. He was going to make her his, and pretty damn soon, too. She would understandably be afraid of sex. He, and no one else, was going to teach her that it could be pleasurable, too. He’d never been jealous before in his life, but now he felt almost violent with it. Not jealous of Gleen, God knows, but of every other man out there who would take one look and get lost in Marlie’s bottomless blue eyes. He wanted the right to pull her possessively against his side and glare a warning at any bastard who dared look too long at her.