He didn’t know how long he stood there, but it had probably been a while. When he opened his eyes, he had an idea which way he needed to go, which way he needed to walk. Sweat was trickling down his spine and running into his eyes, but he didn’t pay it any attention. He’d dealt with worse than the Texas sun before. As he started to walk, he slid the backpack off his shoulder and pulled a bottle of water out of it.
Colby didn’t know how long this would take.
It could take five minutes. Or five hours.
Experience told him it would probably be somewhere in between.
The line in his gut pulled him in a slow, drawn-out ramble from the strip joint, heading west. The route meandered, up and down streets, through alleys, back and forth. What could have taken a few minutes to drive took him hours as he followed that slowly unfurling line.
And every step made the hum in his head grow louder.
By the time he stopped, that hum was a scream.
He found himself standing in front of a towering crumble of a warehouse. It took up most of a city block and half the windows were busted. Graffiti appeared here and there in random spots. It didn’t look like anything had been done to clean it up, although considering the area, that wasn’t a big surprise. This wasn’t exactly prime real estate. Some of the gaping squares were boarded over. Others weren’t and those empty holes seemed like eyes, staring at him.
The entire place felt of death.
Here.
She had died here.
She had died with her screams trapped in her mind, because she hadn’t had the breath to voice them. She’d died in pain and terror, choking on it.
Closing his eyes, he fought his way past those screams to find something—something that would help. Something that could end this. He stood there, lost in the moments of her death, his lungs aching, his throat burning.
There was an echo of pain that danced all along his body, and if he’d been able to think it through just then, he would have realized it was probably related to the dozens and dozens of shallow cuts all over her body.
There had been the rasp of a rough towel as her killer had soaked up the blood, the glint of madness in his eyes as he crouched over her.
Look at him closer, sweetheart, Colby thought. He needed to see better. Needed to see the man’s face.
But all he could clearly make out were the eyes. The eyes of a man who knew he was insane…and didn’t care.
In the back of his mind, Colby could hear a voice. A man.
He was singing.
Singing.
“Would you dance…if I asked you to dance…”
“THERE’S SOMEBODY STANDING outside the warehouse.”
Mica looked up at her partner as she stuffed the files into her workbag. “Huh?”
“Where the latest victim was found. A couple of uniforms were doing a drive-by and they saw him. He’s just standing there.” Phillips flipped his phone around and showed it to her.
But even before she saw the lousy image, she knew. Mentally, she swore. Okay, Captain, and how do we keep it quiet now?
She kept her face blank as she peered at the image. “Don’t worry about it. He’s a friend of mine—I’ve asked him to consult on the case with me.”
“The captain know about that?” Phillips studied her with a narrow look.
“I told her I’d be exploring a couple of avenues.”
“And you didn’t bother to fill me in?” He took a step closer to her, lowering his voice. Disgust and irritation darkened his eyes.
Of course, that wasn’t all that different from any other day, she knew. Phillips lived to be pissed off at the world in general. And he reserved a special level of pissy for her. Refusing to let him get to her, she calmly said, “Right now, there’s nothing to fill in but a big blank. This could be a dead end. He hasn’t given me anything and I don’t know if he will.” Liar.
He crowded into her space. “That isn’t how this works, damn it. What you know, I know, got it?”
“You want to take a step back there, Phillips?” she suggested, her voice mild.
He didn’t. He loomed closer, his eyes level with hers as he demanded, “What’s going on, Greer? You’re keeping me in the dark more and more, and it’s pissing me off.”
With a vague smile, she eased away, forcing some distance between them. She could finish the damn case with him, damn it. Finish it, and then talk to the captain. If that didn’t do it, she’d put in for a transfer. She hadn’t been overly thrilled when the department stuck her with Phillips. He’d been bounced from just about every other member of the squad, and if he didn’t stick with her, the captain would have more problems on her hands as she figured out what to do with him.
That wasn’t Mica’s problem, either. She didn’t care. She just plain didn’t care.
“You going to answer me?” he demanded. “What in the hell is going on?”
“Right now, nothing. This probably isn’t going to add up to much,” she lied baldly. “If it does, I’ll bring you in. But for now, no reason for both of us waste to our time.”
He wasn’t buying it. She could see it in his eyes.
Yet one more thing she didn’t care about. Riffling through the files, she pulled out the one that had been their priority for tomorrow. “Why don’t you head back to her work, see if you can’t find anybody she talked to that last day? Somebody had to know something.”
He took the file but lingered there a moment, tapping it against his leg as he studied her. “We’re supposed to be a team, right? We work it together. Not I take off this way, you take off that way.”
“Except when that’s the best way to do it,” she said easily. Then she pushed around him, hefting the strap of her bag over her shoulder. She didn’t have time for this. Besides, she wasn’t quite ready to share Colby’s abilities with the biggest asshole in the squad—talk about potentially compromising the case.
She could just see it now—“Supposed Psychic Hired to Help Find the Surgeon.”
If that happened, the shit would hit the fan, and no telling how their killer would react.
chapter five
Would you dance…if I asked you to dance…
If I asked you to dance…
Dance…
Dance…
The vision of bright lights, the flash of the woman as she strutted across the stage whirled through his mind, over and over.
Would you dance…
Colby couldn’t find any respite from it, no matter what he did.
Would you cry…
He saw the first victim. Bound, bloodied, brutalized, her mouth open in a silent, traumatized scream, revealing the bloody stump of her tongue.
She wouldn’t have been able to cry anymore, Colby knew.
The second victim had fought, and she would have screamed long and loud. The broken, discordant tunes of the song bumped around in his head without truly connecting.
The first victim—he’d cut out her tongue.
The second—he’d taken her hands.
Which had killed them, he wondered? The shock, the blood loss? They’d been alive when he mutilated them.
Would you dance…
“Colby.”
He managed, just barely, to keep from flinching. The sound of Mica’s voice was an interruption but a welcome one—it pulled him from the blood and despair. Slowly, he turned and watched as she came striding across the busted-up pavement of the parking lot, the worn heels of the boots she wore crunching over the gravel, busted glass, and cigarette butts.
Without saying anything, he turned his attention back to the warehouse.
The broken chords of music still sounded in his mind, but they were faint now.
She came to a stop next to him, standing almost shoulder to shoulder. Although the summer sun was still burning white-hot, she wore a light jacket to cover the weapon at her side. The wind teased the ends of her ebony hair, and he found himself thinking of a time when he’d had the liberty to do
the same thing, toy with her hair, maybe curl his hand around her neck and pull her close.
Not anymore.
It had been a long, long time since he’d had the freedom to touch her as he wanted.
That really sucked.
If he had that freedom, he’d…
“What are you doing here?” Mica asked.
The fantasy shattered before it barely had time to form. Figures, he thought sourly. He could have used a few seconds lost in a hot daydream after spending an eternity trapped in a nightmare of death.
“This is where she died.” He shrugged, letting it go at that. There wasn’t much of anything else to say beyond that as far as he was concerned. The victim had died here—was it really any surprise to Mica that she’d found him here? He doubted it.
The victim’s soul, her spirit might cling to this spot the longest. And it was possible that she’d already moved on. But her emotions would linger, and that was what he needed.
Those emotions, and the ability to tap deeper into them.
“Guess I should have figured you’d find it,” Mica said softly.
“Yeah. Probably.” From the corner of his eye, he could see her measuring stare.
He knew what she’d ask before she even asked it. “Have you found anything?”
He closed his eyes, once more letting his mind drift to the sound of that hypnotic voice, the discordant little tune. “He sings to them.”
Mica stiffened.
Slanting a look at him, she asked levelly, “What do you mean, he sings to them?”
“Just that. I don’t have all of it yet, don’t know if it’s anything other than toying with them.”
He slid her a look and watched as she grimaced, saw it when the wheels began to spin inside her head. “What song?” she demanded.
Colby lifted a brow. “I just said, I don’t have it all yet. Just a line here or there, and frankly, pop music isn’t my thing. I’ll figure it out.”
“Sing it to me.”
Colby just stared at her.
She glared at him and then turned away, started to pace. “So is he, like, trying to serenade them or what?”
He watched her, vaguely aware of the soft mutter of her thoughts pressing against his shields. After a moment, Mica shook her head. “No. That doesn’t feel right.”
“He’s not serenading them. Not exactly,” he said quietly, shifting his gaze back to the building, the pull of death tugging at him once more. Would you dance…He jerked himself away, forced his mind to focus on the moment, on Mica. It wasn’t as easy to separate himself as it had once been. Wasn’t as easy to do this shit solo, without any anchor at all—the darkness wanted to suck him under. “It’s not a serenade and this isn’t a seduction thing for him. He doesn’t want these women. He wants something, but it’s not them.”
Colby closed his eyes again, tried to tune in more on that song without letting it pull him completely in. It danced in his mind, moving further and further out of reach now. Unless he went deeper…Sighing, he turned away and met Mica’s eyes full-on. He saw the intense focus there, the determination.
He saw the frustration as he said, “That’s it. I’m done for now.”
“Done?” She shot a look between the warehouse and him. “What do you mean, you’re done? I need to know more about the singing. What are the words? Do you know the tune?”
“Just a line or two. I’ll figure it out after I have a minute at my laptop.” Colby shrugged and started to walk. He had to pause a minute and think—which direction had he come from? Instinct had led him here, but it wasn’t going to do a damn thing to get him back to the hotel. And he needed to get back. Soon. Now that he’d cut the tether between him and the mess that had pulled him here, he was teetering close to a mental crash.
“Damn it, Colby.”
He looked back, lifting a brow as Mica came storming toward him. “Yeah?”
“Are you listening to me?”
He rubbed the back of his hand over his mouth as his head started to roar. “Ahhh. No. I guess I wasn’t. Not intentional.”
Hotel. Food. Bed. He placed one foot in front of the other. Five steps. Ten steps. The roaring in his head got louder, his vision spun until it felt like he was spinning. Okay. Maybe reevaluate. Food. Then cab. Then hotel. Then bed. As the roaring turned into a deafening cacophony, the summer sun beat down on him with brutal intensity, and he swallowed, feeling his stomach churn. There was nothing in it but water.
Still, he felt like he was going to puke—
Mica’s hand gripped his arm. “Shit, it still hits you this hard?”
“Don’t worry about it,” he said brusquely, pulling back. No. It didn’t still hit him this hard. When he wasn’t following the trail of something, he was just fine. When he had a partner to anchor him, he was fine. But on his own, it was still tricky. And he was out of practice. Psychic skill wasn’t any different than any other gift—if you didn’t train it, it got harder to control, harder to manage.
He shrugged her hand off and got back to walking, digging the phone out of his pocket. Up ahead, he could barely make out the familiar yellow arches of a McDonald’s. The cab could pick him up there—where was there, though?
“Colby, if you walk away from me one more time, I swear, I’m decking you.”
He sighed as Mica planted herself, all five feet nine inches, in front of him, a hot light glinting in her eyes. Shoving his hand back through his hair, he looked away. “Damn it, what do you want, Mica?”
“You’re not walking,” she said quietly. “And you’re not going back to the hotel where you’ll just drop, either.” She held out a hand.
Eying her palm with distrusting eyes, he flicked her a quick look. “What—you going to smack my hand, now?”
“No. I’m getting you food. And then I’m getting you to bed.”
Even the thought of that made her belly ache, Mica realized. Getting him to bed. Alone! she insisted. Alone. Not exactly how she wanted things and it didn’t help the way he was watching her. It was a sleepy, lambent look from under his lashes, and she couldn’t help but think of the times when he’d looked at her in just that way after they’d spent some time tearing up the sheets.
Although the memories really shouldn’t be clear, so vivid in her mind. Not after all this time.
Hell, she shouldn’t be thinking sex at all when she looked at him. Not now. Stupid, stupid, stupid—
Until he’d swayed on his feet, she hadn’t realized he’d been caught under the crashing weight as the vision ended. It had hit him like that before—before they’d started working together, and when they’d first started trying to figure out how to mesh their abilities. But she’d expected…hell.
She guessed she’d expected him to get better about it, because if he was still prone to going through this hell, yet he still kept at it, how much more of a coward did that make her?
Not right now, she told herself, staring at him, at the endless blue of his eyes, at the tumbled, gold-streaked brown hair as it fell into his face, and at the mouth she so desperately wanted to feel against hers. Again. Not just one time, not just for one more night, but…
A car drove by, the engine rattling, the music booming from shitty speakers, shattering the moment. Mica dragged her gaze from his and swallowed. “Come on. You need to eat—we both know it. The last thing you need is a two-mile walk back to the hotel.”
chapter six
If she’d thought a meal might do a damn thing to break the tension between them, she would have been wrong. But she hadn’t been banking on that. There was too much still left between them, things unsaid. Things that should probably remain that way.
If she was wise. Because if she started saying all the things that were still unsaid, she’d probably start wishing she could do the things that were still undone—and maybe even the things that had been done. Just not recently. Making love with him. Lying in the bed next to him and listening to him breathe as he played with her hair. Laughing with
him, talking with him…and before it had gotten to be too much, even working with him. Just being with him.
Yeah, she didn’t need to start thinking about all of that, and if she spent too much time with him, she would. She needed to be smart. Except she knew she couldn’t be. She’d thought she’d been smart all those years ago when she ran from something that overwhelmed her.
Since then, she’d spent years regretting it.
Years…years regretting the one decision she’d thought she had to make, listened to what she’d thought was the voice of reason. Since then, she’d asked herself more times than she could recall if she hadn’t made a mistake. And now…she just didn’t know. The only thing she did know was that she couldn’t leave him yet. Not yet.