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Solid as Steele
Rebecca York


P.I. Mack Steele had loved Jamie Shepherd from the moment he'd met herbut she'd always been off-limits - until her frantic phone call reached out to him in the dead of night.Jamie couldn't deny her fear when her gift returned. Her disturbing dreams were too real - trapped in a macabre fun house, a woman needed her help. Nor could Jamie deny her forbidden attraction to her dark, sexy protector.Lured back to the hometown she'd long ago escaped, Jamie had only Mack to save her from her dreamsand the very real, very twisted killer who'd lured her into his game. But would Mack be enough?









Coming here had been a terrible mistake.


If she could have clawed her way out, she would have fled the dream. But it continued to hold her fast.

The door opened to reveal a man dressed all in black, and in place of a face, he had a death mask.

“You,” he whispered. “How did you get here?”

Her only answer was a scream. She would have run, but her feet were rooted to the floor. And the figure was coming toward her.

Far away, she heard someone calling her name. It was Mack.

“Jamie, wake up. Come back to me.”

She wanted to. She wanted to get out of this awful place. She wanted to come back to him.

She felt his hand clamp around hers. Sensed his desperation. She could hear him. Touch him. But she couldn’t see him. All she could see was the man in black advancing on her step by step. And she knew one thing: there was no escape. He would kill her, just the way he’d killed the rest of his victims.





Solid as Steele


RUTH GLICK WRITING AS REBECCA YORK

USA TODAY BESTSELLING AUTHOR




Rebecca York










ABOUT THE AUTHOR


Award-winning, bestselling novelist Ruth Glick, who writes as Rebecca York, is the author of more than one hundred books, including her popular 43 Light Street series for Harlequin Intrigue. Ruth says she has the best job in the world. Not only does she get paid for telling stories, she’s also the author of twelve cookbooks. Ruth and her husband, Norman, travel frequently, researching locales for her novels and searching out new dishes for her cookbooks.




CAST OF CHARACTERS


Jamie Shepherd—She’d had nightmares for years, but she’d thought they were over.

Craig Shepherd—He’d been the love of Jamie’s life; but after he died, could she put her life back together?

Mack Steele—Would the detective keep his objectivity when Jamie dragged him into a murder investigation?

Gloria Wheeler—Did Jamie’s mother wish her daughter well or ill?

Lynn Vaughn—Was she reaching out to Jamie?

Fred Hyde—Why was he punishing the residents of Gaptown?

Clark Landon—How far would Gloria’s boyfriend go to get Jamie to leave town?

Tim Conrad—Did his murder fit into Jamie and Mack’s fun-house investigation?

Jeanette Baker—She was another piece of the fun-house puzzle.




Contents


Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen




Chapter One


Jamie Shepherd struggled to claw her way back to consciousness, but the nightmare held her fast. She was in a dark, spooky funhouse, trying to find the exit to freedom.

Music from a slasher movie blared from hidden speakers. Eerie green light shimmered around her. And the air was thick with a horrible graveyard smell.

Coughing, pressing her hand over her mouth, she fought to escape, even when she knew on some instinctive level that it wasn’t her dream. She clung to that secret knowledge as she ran down an endless hallway, her breath coming in great gasps, her terror increasing with every step.

Ahead of her was a blank wall. Oh Lord!

She was trapped.

Or maybe not. Struggling to control her fear, she began to slide her hands over the flat surface, searching for a seam or a latch, something that would let her escape from the monster that she knew was behind her.

Finally, her fingers found a small indentation. When she pressed into it, a door sprang outward so fast that she lost her footing and tumbled through.

As she scrambled to right herself, she found she was on a slide that carried her down into the darkness, then dumped her onto a cold cement floor.

She lay there panting, her shoulder throbbing where it had struck the floor. From far away she heard a train whistle blow. Then, much closer, a sound behind her froze the blood in her veins.

He was coming! She had to get away.

After dragging herself up, she stood in the darkness, trying not to let her breathing give her away.

From a speaker in the wall, a grating voice boomed, “You can’t stay there.”

“No more. Please. Let me go,” she cried out.

“Not yet.”

“What have I done to you?”

“You know.”

“I don’t! Please just let me out of here. I don’t even know who you are.”

“Of course you know.”

“No!”

“I’ll let you out if you can find the door. Go back upstairs.”

As he spoke, a spotlight switched on, and she saw steps leading upward.

She clambered up, grasping the railing. At the top, she found herself in another corridor, this one lined with mirrors that distorted her image as they reflected her face and body.

Someone had spattered red paint on the floor. Or was it blood?

She looked behind her and saw a shadowed figure climbing the steps, his pace slow and deliberate, like he had all the time in the world.

A cry rose in her throat when she saw how he was dressed. He wore a black robe, and his face was a skull mask with glowing red eyes. She had seen him before. First just a glimpse. Then a fuller look. And some deep, primal instinct told her she was dead if he caught up with her.

“No! Please.”

She couldn’t let him get her. That thought filled every corner of her mind as she came to a place where the corridor divided.

Which way? Oh God, which way?

As he bore relentlessly down on her, she whimpered and chose the left-hand hallway. Only a few steps later, a bright light flashed in her eyes, almost blinding her, but she kept running because that was her only option.

Then out of the brightness, a black shape loomed in front of her.

It was him. Somehow he had circled around. He must have used a hidden passage, because now he was blocking her path. In his hand, she saw the glint of metal—the blade of a long, cruel knife.

She screamed and raised her arm, trying to defend herself. But the knife slashed into her flesh. As he pulled back and swung down for another blow, pain jolted through her.

Then mercifully, everything went black.

On a sob, Jamie woke, her fingers clawing at the sheet as she tried to drag herself out of the nightmare house and back to her own reality. To her own bed.

It had been a dream. Only a dream. But not about her. It was another woman desperately trying to escape from a madman and just as desperately reaching out to Jamie.

Now the contact had snapped off, vanished as if it had never existed. She wanted to deny that it had been real. Yet in the secret part of her mind, she couldn’t convince herself that it was only a nightmare.

“No,” she whispered, wrapping her arms around her shoulders and rocking back and forth as she willed it not to be true, but denial was not an option. She had been in that other woman’s mind. Felt the terror coming off of her in waves. And Jamie was pretty sure that the scene of horror had taken place in Gaptown, Maryland, the small city in the state’s western mountains where she had grown up.

She’d made what she considered her escape, and she’d vowed never to return to a place where she’d hated her life. Yet a woman from home had reached out to her and pulled her back.

That the contact was in her mind didn’t make it any less real or any less terrifying, and it didn’t absolve her of responsibility to do something.

She lay in bed shivering, her heart pounding like a drum inside her chest as she watched the headlights of cars travel across the ceiling and wondered whether one of the vehicles was coming for her.

“Stop it,” she muttered. “You’re safe in your own bed. That man isn’t in Baltimore. He can’t get you.”

Yes. She was safe. But the other woman…

She pushed herself up and turned on the bedside lamp, looking around the familiar bedroom. The lamp’s glow was enough for her to see the outlines of the sleek modern chest of drawers and the lower dresser that she’d selected because they were so different from the ugly orange maple pieces back home.

After slipping out of bed, she pressed her feet against the oak floorboards, shivering a little in the early-morning cold, then stood up, stiffening her knees to steady herself. Hugging her arms around her shoulders, she crossed to the bathroom, where she filled a glass and gulped down several swallows of water.

She set down the glass with a thunk, then leaned forward and peered at herself in the mirror, seeing her straight blond hair, her troubled blue eyes, the slight tilt of her nose, and lips that were chapped because of her bad habit of taking them between her teeth.

It was her face. Totally familiar. Yet in the dream she’d been someone else.

Someone she knew? Maybe. But she didn’t want to deal with that now, because it made the nightmare all the more terrible.

She’d felt the woman’s panic. Her terrible need to escape. And then the blackness at the end.

“Oh Lord,” she murmured, her hands gripping the cold porcelain of the sink as she struggled with her confused thoughts. One thing she knew for sure. She didn’t want to be alone.

She had to call someone.

She knew that her friend Jo O’Malley would listen to her and tell her what to do, even at two in the morning.

Back in the bedroom, she sat down and picked up the phone, calling the familiar number.

After two rings, a man’s deep voice said, “Light Street Detective Agency.”

When she didn’t say anything, he asked, “Is anybody there?”

“I…I’m sorry,” Jamie stammered. It wasn’t Jo. Lord, why had she even thought that Jo would be in the office to answer the phone? She was home with her husband, Cam Randolph, and her children, Leo and Anna.

“Jamie?” the man on the other end of the line asked, and she was afraid she knew who he was.

“Mack?”

“Yes.”

Her fingers gripped the receiver more tightly. Mack Steele was the last person she’d wanted to talk to, yet it turned out he was the one on duty.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“I…nothing,” she answered, feeling her heart start to pound all over again. There was plenty wrong, but she didn’t want to talk about it with him. Not when she was in such a vulnerable state.

“It’s something or you wouldn’t have called. Is someone outside the house? Did they try to break in?”

She swallowed hard. “No. Nothing like that. I made a mistake,” she said.

“Talk to me.”

“I’ve got to go.”

Before she could dig herself in any deeper, she replaced the receiver, then sat, shivering, on the side of the bed.

Jo would be in tomorrow. She’d go to her office before she reported to work at the 43 Light Street Lobby Shop, where she’d been a part-time clerk since she moved to Baltimore. They’d talk tomorrow.

She longed to crawl back into the warmth of the covers and lose herself in sleep again, but lying there would be a waste of time. She’d only end up staring at more car lights traveling across the ceiling and thinking about the woman. Or thinking about herself.

And the one rule she’d made after her husband, Craig, had been killed was that she wasn’t going to lie in bed if there was no hope of going back to sleep. Better to get up and do something constructive.

Which was what?

She’d been working on some “baking in a jar” projects for the Lobby Shop. Each clear glass container had layers of dry ingredients like flour, spices and dried fruit that made a pretty pattern. But they were also practical—add some liquids and the ingredients made delicious baked goods. And she’d printed up easy directions for each one.

The jars had sold well during the holidays, and the shop owner, Sabrina Cassidy, had asked for more.

Jamie could put a few together tonight and take them to work with her in the morning.

Glad to have a sense of purpose, she padded to the closet and pulled out a pair of jeans and one of Craig’s old plaid shirts that she liked to wear around the house. In the bathroom, she turned on the shower, hoping that hot water might wash away the chill from her skin.



IN THE OFFICE of the Light Street Detective Agency, Mack Steele turned toward the window, looking out over the sleeping city.

Jamie Shepherd had called a while ago, and he’d known from her voice that something was wrong. Then she’d hung up.

Probably because she didn’t want to talk to him. Well, too bad. Something had spooked her, and he wasn’t going to leave her alone and in trouble.

Trouble?

He clenched and unclenched his fists. Yeah, it had sounded like trouble. She was obviously worried about something. And she was all alone. Had been since Craig Shepherd had gotten killed in a hit and run accident last year.

Before he could change his mind he called Hunter Kelley.

“Yeah?” the sleepy voice asked.

“Sorry to bother you, but I have to go out, and I’m having calls transferred to your phone.”

“There’s a problem?”

“Maybe. Nothing I can’t handle on my own.” He didn’t want to go into a long explanation, so he ended the call, strode out of the office and took the elevator to the basement, where he crossed the alley to the parking garage next door.

After climbing into his car, he turned right, heading for the quiet street in Ellicott City where Jamie lived.

She probably wouldn’t want to see him at three in the morning, but she’d called the office, and she must have had a reason.

He couldn’t think about Jamie without a familiar mixture of desire and guilt.

Her husband, Craig, had been his friend, one of his colleagues at the Light Street Detective Agency. The moment Mack had laid eyes on Craig’s new girlfriend, Jamie Wheeler, he’d wished to hell he’d met her first. Because he wasn’t going to cut in on a good guy like Craig, he’d kept his relationship with Jamie polite and distant, before she’d married his friend and after. Yet he’d had the feeling that she knew there was more to his interest in her than a bit of superficial conversation at office parties.

He’d kept an eye on Jamie. Just watching her with Craig, he’d known the marriage was good. The two of them were perfect for each other. And Craig had told Mack how happy he was. They’d bought a house, talked about kids, lived in the present and made plans for the future.

It had all blown up in Jamie’s face ten months ago when Craig had gotten hit by a car that sped away, leaving her a widow. All of the Light Street men and women had rallied around Jamie, making it clear that she was still part of their extended family, and they were there for her.

He’d told himself it would be all right to let her know he was interested in being more than just friends. Only he’d never been able to do it because he couldn’t let go of the notion that Craig should still be around. Not that he’d caused his friend’s death, of course. Or even wished that Craig would disappear from the picture. But there was no denying the awkwardness between himself and Jamie. Whether it was because she was attracted to him and couldn’t admit it or because he didn’t know how to reveal his feelings for her, neither one of them had bridged the gap between them.



WHEN THE PHONE RANG, Jamie jumped. Who could that be at this time of night, she wondered.

Anticipating more trouble, she wiped her hands on a dish towel and picked up the receiver.

“Hello?”

“It’s Mack. I’m outside. I didn’t want to startle you by ringing the doorbell.”

She glanced at the clock on the stove, then swallowed hard. “Like you didn’t startle me with the phone?”

“Less threatening.”

“What are you doing here?”

“You know I wasn’t going to just let you hang up when I knew you were worried. Can I come in?”

She wanted to say no, but she knew he’d driven all the way from downtown Baltimore to see if she was all right.

“I’ll open the door,” she answered instead.

When she turned on the porch light, she saw him striding up the walk. A tall, attractive, well-built man dressed in jeans and a leather jacket, he looked like he owned the place, and in the darkness, he could have been Craig coming home late from an overtime assignment.

Except that Craig had been blond and green-eyed. Mack had dark hair and dark eyes. And probably dark stubble on his chin at this hour of the morning. Annoyed with herself for thinking of that, she stopped cataloging Mack’s features and switched back to Craig. He was never coming home, and she’d better remember that.

She opened the door but didn’t say, “Come in.”

Taking the gesture as an invitation, Mack stepped into the front hall, then closed and locked the door behind him.

As he took off his coat and hung it on the antique hall tree, she felt emotions well up inside her. Emotions she didn’t want to feel. He’d come here because he was worried, and she wanted to lean on his strength. At the same time, she wanted to tell him she was just fine on her own. But she’d proved just the opposite by making that call an hour ago.

When he turned back to her, tears sprang to her eyes, and she didn’t know exactly where they came from. Maybe she didn’t want to know.

“Sweetheart, what is it?”

She couldn’t speak, couldn’t resist when he reached for her and pulled her into his arms. She should duck away. Instead, with her eyes closed, she leaned against him, breathing in his scent, absorbing his strength. His hands stroked her back, her hair. It felt so good to be held after so long. And not because it’s Mack, she told herself.

When his hands began to knead her tense muscles, she sighed and dropped her head to his shoulder. After Craig died, she’d worked hard to be self-sufficient. That resolve seemed to melt away as she nestled into the strength of Mack’s arms.

Despite herself, she let a little fantasy play through her mind. If she lifted her head, he’d lower his, and their lips would meet. She could imagine what they felt like. Imagine what he tasted like.

The two of them swayed together, and she wondered if he was sharing a similar fantasy. If he—

She stopped her wayward thoughts and summoned the resolve to ease away.

“Don’t,” she whispered.

Instantly, his hands dropped to his sides.

Taking a step back, he dragged in a breath and let it out as he stood looking at her. While she tried to figure out what his expression meant, he said, “Tell me what’s wrong.”

Could she?

Talking to Jo had seemed like such a logical move. Talking to Mack didn’t have the same appeal.

To keep from blurting anything right away she said, “Let’s have a cup of tea.”

“Okay.”

He followed her into the kitchen and looked around in surprise at the flour, sugar and other ingredients spread around on the counter. “You’re baking?”

She flushed. “After we talked, I knew I wasn’t going back to sleep, so I started making some of those baking jars we’ve been selling in the Lobby Shop.”

“I see,” he answered, though she was pretty sure the gift items weren’t on his radar.

“They were selling so fast before Christmas that Sabrina asked me for some more,” she answered. “She’s paying me up front for the ingredients and giving me a commission on every sale. Maybe we can make them into a feature at the shop.”

When she realized she was babbling, she stopped. Instead she asked, “What kind of tea do you want? Or would you prefer coffee?”

“Don’t go to the trouble of making coffee. I’ll have whatever you’re having.”

“You’re into green tea flavored with ginger?”

“Maybe not. You got any… Earl Grey?”

There was a moment of silence when they both remembered that Craig had liked Earl Grey.

Turning quickly away, she filled the kettle and set it on a burner, then got tea bags out of the pantry and put them into mugs. As she waited for the water to boil, she finished up the jar she’d been making, then started putting away the rest of the supplies, aware all the time of Mack sitting at the kitchen table watching her. He didn’t sit in Craig’s chair, she noticed. Probably he knew which one to avoid.

As she wiped spilled flour from the counter, he said, “You’ll feel better when you tell me why you called the office.”

“Probably not.”

“Give it a shot.”

The kettle whistled, and she snatched it off the burner, then poured water into the mugs.

“Sugar?”

“No, thanks.”

She added sugar to her own mug, keeping her back to him. After taking a breath and letting it out, she blurted, “I had a nightmare, and I think it’s real.”

“You mean, like you dreamed someone was outside, and you woke up and heard rustling in the shrubbery?” He glanced toward the darkened window. “Do you want me to check around the house now?”

“No. Not someone around here. Someone in Gaptown. Someone in trouble.” She swallowed. “Someone who was calling out to me.”

Long seconds passed before he answered. “That’s your hometown?”

“Yes.”

“They called on the phone?”

Obviously, he didn’t get what she was trying to say. More likely, she wasn’t being very clear. She set his mug on the table in front of him but remained standing.

He shifted in his seat, keeping his eyes on her.

Her throat had turned dry, so that she had to swallow before she could speak. “Not a phone call or anything like that. It was a dream. But…I’m pretty sure it was real.” Absolutely sure. But she wasn’t going to say it that way. Not to Mack Steele.

He turned his mug around on the table. When he spoke, his words were measured. “Dreams aren’t reality.”

“Yeah. Right,” she agreed too quickly. “Everybody knows that.” Rushing on, she added, “It was a mistake for you to come over. I think the best thing for you to do is leave.” As she spoke, she knew that her voice sounded sharper than she’d meant it to be.



ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY miles away in Gaptown, Maryland, the man who now called himself Fred Hyde took off his fright mask and black cape. Still wearing a black shirt, pants and boots, he looked down at the lifeless body of the woman sprawled on the floor of the Funhouse.

Another one punished for her sins, even when she claimed not to know what she had done.

Her name was Lynn Vaughn, and she’d suffered before she’d died. Not so much physically, but mentally. He’d known how to feed her terror and enjoyed every moment that she’d run desperately through his private amusement park, trying to get away from the relentless pursuer behind her.

He’d told her more than once that she had a chance to escape, but that was just part of the fun for him. Really, he’d known all along how their private drama would end. Well, not which of his clever setups would stop her. But there was no question he would get her in the end, because that was his goal. When he set his mind to something, it always worked out the way he wanted.

He clenched his teeth. Except once. One damn time. In this damn town.

Asserting his will, he drove that thought from his mind. He would not think about failure. Not now.

He went back to contemplating his masterpiece. Everything had been planned. Down to the smallest detail. Like the place where the floor had been slippery. And then the hallway where she’d stubbed her toe on an unexpected rock sitting in the middle of the passageway. And it had all worked out the way he wanted. Yet…

He dragged in a deep breath and expelled it sharply. While she’d been running from him in terror, he’d had the strange feeling that someone else was watching the whole performance. Someone he couldn’t see.

But that was impossible, of course. No one else was here. Not an invisible person or anyone else. Only himself and Lynn Vaughn. And he wasn’t going to tell anyone what had happened to her. By the same token, she wasn’t going to call up her friends and relate the nightmare either. He laughed at his little joke, then stopped abruptly.

Nightmare.

What was he thinking? Something impossible. Yet as unsettling thoughts swirled in his brain, he began to work faster, wrapping Lynn in the tarp he’d brought so she wouldn’t get blood in his SUV. Methodically, he rolled up the body, which was still limp enough to handle easily, then carried her out the back door and down the steps to the detached garage.

When he’d deposited her in the back of the vehicle, he pulled down the long driveway and into the mist-shrouded city, heading for the mountains.

His sense of satisfaction increased as he began looking for a good spot to dump the body. The ground was frozen, but he wasn’t planning to dig a grave. He wanted people in this damn town to know.

He was going to make everyone who’d ruined his life four years ago pay for what they’d done. The punishment wouldn’t make up for his loss, of course. But it would be fitting retribution. When he was finished, he’d leave this jerkwater town that was the scene of his misery and never come back.



MACK’S VOICE WAS FIRM when he spoke. “Jamie, I’m not leaving until you tell me why you called the Light Street Detective Agency at two in the morning.”

Anger, anxiety and defiance warred within her. That was none of his damn business, but unfortunately she’d been too quick to make a phone call in the middle of the night, and he’d been the one on the other end of the line. She didn’t owe him anything, yet she heard herself trying to justify her behavior.

“Like I said, I had a dream. A nightmare. It wasn’t my dream, exactly. It was something happening to a woman in Gaptown.”

He kept his gaze on her. “You’re saying it was something that really happened?”

She swallowed hard before answering. “Yes,”

“How do you know?”




Chapter Two


Jamie wasn’t going to start off by telling him she’d been plagued by psychic dreams since she’d been little. She was going to avoid that, if possible. And she wasn’t going to explain that the dreams had stopped when she came to Baltimore with Craig.

Could she convince Mack with a concrete fact? Up till now, she’d avoided using a name, even in her thoughts, because that made the dream too real.

Now she raised her head and said, “The woman’s name was Lynn Vaughn.”

His instant alertness unnerved her. It was like when Craig was working on a case.

“How do you know?” he said.

“I just do.”

“Maybe we’d better check that out.”

“Okay,” she whispered, wishing again that she’d kept her mouth shut. What was Mack thinking now? From the look on his face, she was pretty sure she wouldn’t like his speculations.

“Where’s your computer?” he asked.

“In the office.” Craig’s old office, which she’d kept looking like he’d left it so that when she sat at the desk she could pretend he was going to come to the door and ask her to get out of his chair.

She and Mack walked to the office, where Mack stopped for a moment in front of the desk before sitting down and booting up the machine. Jamie took the beat-up easy chair where she’d liked to sit and read while Craig was working in the evening. Usually he’d work late, and then they’d go upstairs and—

She ruthlessly cut off that line of thought. As Mack waited for the computer to go through the start-up routine, he said, “Lynn Vaughn, right?”

“Yes.”

He brought up one of the programs you could use to locate people and typed in her name, plus “Gaptown.”

Jamie sat with her pulse pounding, wondering if she had everything backward. What if it had been her dream, and she’d somehow pulled that woman into it? When Lynn Vaughn’s listing came up, he dialed the number from his cell phone and put it on speaker so they could both hear. She sat clenching the arms of the chair as a woman answered on the first ring. It was the middle of the night, but obviously she wasn’t sleeping.

“Lynn?” Mack asked.

“No. Who is this?”

“I’m an old friend of Lynn’s. I was hoping to get in touch with her.”

“At three in the morning?”

“Sorry. I didn’t realize the time,” he said, lying with the same facility that Craig had exhibited when he worked a case. “Is she there?”

Jamie could hear the tension in the woman’s voice as she replied.

“Lynn didn’t come home this evening, and she didn’t call me. That’s not like her. I’m worried.”

“Have you called the police?”

“I—”

“You should do that,” Mack said.

“What did you say your name was?” the woman asked.

Instead of answering, Mack clicked off and swung the chair around so that he could look at Jamie.

“Will she have your cell phone number on her caller ID?” Jamie asked.

He shook his head. “How did you know Lynn’s name?”

She thought about how to answer. “I…don’t know.”

“And you don’t have any specific information about her tonight?”

“What kind of information?”

He shrugged and kept his gaze on her.

“Like I told you, I had a dream,” she repeated.

His reply totally startled her.

“I’m going to Gaptown in the morning.”

Her own response was just as startling. “If you’re going, I’m going, too.”

“You don’t need to do that.”

“I’m not staying here if you’re driving up there,” she said, hearing her urgent tone and wishing she didn’t feel compelled to return to the scene of so many unhappy memories before Craig had offered her an escape hatch.

She’d been taking classes at the local community college and working at the Star Bar and Grill when she’d met him. He’d come to town investigating an insurance fraud case in which a doctor had colluded with patients. Dr. Bradley had documented injuries after automobile accidents, injuries that he wrote up as much worse than they really were. The patient would get a nice insurance settlement, which he split with the doc.

The moment Craig had walked into the restaurant, she’d been attracted to him. They’d gotten to talking, and he’d told her he’d be in town for several days. He could have eaten at a lot of different places, but he kept coming back when he knew she’d be on shift.

He’d been out of his element and lonely. She’d been friendly, and they’d ended up getting something going. They’d had a lot in common. He was from a small town, too. In Ohio. Only he’d had a scholarship to one of the state colleges.

After he’d sewn up the case against the doctor, he’d had another job that had brought him back to town. And after that, he’d kept returning to visit her. She’d moved to Baltimore to be with him, and gotten a job in the shop at 43 Light Street with Sabrina Cassidy. Pretty soon after that, she and Craig had gotten married.

Because she’d been ambitious, she transferred her credits to UMBC. She’d just gotten her degree in history when Craig had gotten killed, and she’d canceled her law school plans. Better to wait awhile before getting back into serious studying again.

“I’m spending the night,” Mack said, totally disrupting her thoughts.

Jamie blinked. “You certainly are not!”

Mack kept his gaze on her and his voice even. “I don’t want to leave you alone tonight.”

“Because you suspect I’m up to something illegal?”

“Of course not,” he answered, too quickly for her taste.

“You shouldn’t be alone. That’s all.”

She stared at him, knowing that she wasn’t strong enough to physically run him out of the house. She wasn’t going to get Craig’s gun and point it at him, either, but she didn’t have to make this easy for him.

In a voice dripping with ice, she said, “If you want to sleep on the couch, go ahead.” As she spoke, she remembered that the bed in the guest room had clean sheets, but she kept that to herself.

“Okay,” he answered, his tone mild. “You go on up and I’ll stay down here.”

The fight knocked out of her for the moment, she turned her back to him and without another word, she walked out of the kitchen.



MACK WATCHED THE RIGID set of Jamie’s shoulders as she exited the room. He was sure she hated having him here, but that wasn’t going to make him back down. He was worried about her, and he was glad she hadn’t put up too much of an argument. Still, she was being as inhospitable as possible. When she had climbed the stairs, he walked into the living room and looked at the couch, which wasn’t exactly going to be comfortable for his six-foot-two frame. She hadn’t even offered him a blanket, but an afghan lay along the upper edge of the backrest. He kicked off his shoes and arranged several small, square pillows behind his head. Then he unfolded the afghan and lay down, trying to adjust the covering so that it would warm both his feet and his shoulders.

Had Jamie taken her clothes off upstairs and gotten back into bed? Or was she lying on top of the covers in her jeans and plaid shirt? Craig’s plaid shirt, actually.

He forced himself to stop thinking about what she was doing up there and focused on earlier in the evening. She’d been genuinely upset when she’d called the office. So what was going on?

Perhaps she really had some inside information on Lynn Vaughn, but didn’t want to admit what she knew, so she’d made up the nightmare story to create an explanation.

He glanced at the stairs, then walked quietly back into the office where he sat down at the computer again. After another furtive glance at the door, he called up the secure database that Light Street used and accessed Jamie’s phone records. As far as he could see, she hadn’t made any calls to Gaptown in the past few weeks. And she hadn’t received any, either.

Again he glanced at the door and listened for sounds of activity upstairs. After long moments of quiet, he opened Jamie’s email and looked at her messages. Once more, he found nothing that had to do with the reason she’d called Light Street.

He breathed out a small sigh, relieved but feeling guilty about snooping.

Still, he’d like to know if she’d been back to Gaptown in the past few weeks.

He wished he could stop thinking and acting like a detective when it came to Jamie. She’d asked him if he thought she was up to something illegal. He didn’t want to believe that, but the alternative didn’t exactly make sense. Although she’d said she’d had a dream in which she watched something bad happen to Lynn Vaughn, she’d never spoken of any psychic experiences before, nor had Craig ever mentioned anything like that about his wife. But would he tell anyone else something that weird?

Mack couldn’t help wondering if Jamie was stressed beyond the breaking point by her husband’s death and then life on her own. Of course, he wasn’t going to say that to her.

Trying to turn off his inconvenient thoughts, he returned to the living room, laid his weapon on the coffee table and lay down. Eyes closed, he courted sleep. It wasn’t that easy with two little pillows under his head and his stocking feet sticking out onto the end table. But he finally dozed off.

In the morning he was startled awake by a crashing noise.

Springing off the sofa and reaching for his weapon, he looked for the source of the sound and saw a light in the kitchen. As he rushed in, gun in hand, he saw Jamie, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, standing in front of the stove, where she was lighting a burner that held a heavy frying pan. Presumably, she’d just slammed the pan onto the burner by way of a cheery good morning gesture, leaving no doubt that she was still pissed at him.

She turned and gave him and the weapon a considering look. There was no need for her to ask how he’d slept because that was all too obvious—he’d tossed around in rumpled clothes most of the night.

He brushed back his hair and ran his tongue over his teeth. “I don’t suppose you have an extra toothbrush?” he asked.

She waited several beats before taking pity on him. “In the medicine cabinet.”

He went upstairs, used the facilities, then washed his face and brushed his teeth. After rubbing his dark stubble, he reopened the medicine cabinet and got out one of the pink disposable razors.

Her shaving cream was on the edge of the tub, and he used that, too, feeling guilty about taking liberties, but he was feeling more human when he came back down.

The smell of eggs, bacon and coffee drew him to the kitchen, where Jamie was moving briskly about, getting down plates. He could tell from her quick movements that she wanted to pitch him out of the house.

“Anything I can do to help?”

“I’ve got it under control.”

He poured himself a mug of coffee, then helped himself to eggs from the pan and bacon from a plate sitting on the stove.

“Toast?” she asked.

“That’s okay.”

“Do you want it or not?” she snapped.

“No, thanks.”

So much for civil conversation.

After she’d sat down across from him and taken a few bites of the eggs, he said, “You still want to come with me?”

“No.”

“Good.”

“But I’m going anyway. I think you’re going to need me.”

“What does that mean?”

“I guess we’ll find out.”

Half of him wished he hadn’t been on duty last night, and the other half was glad that he had been there when she called, but he couldn’t tell her that or much of anything else.

“Pack an overnight bag,” he said.

“Why?”

“Because it’s a long ride and we might not get back tonight.”

“Fine.” She ate a piece of bacon before asking, “What about you?”

“We’ll stop at my house. I keep a bag packed.”

She nodded, then got up and scraped the rest of her breakfast into the trash. He ate a few more bites, then cleaned off his own plate.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“About what?”

“Upsetting you.”

She made a sound like harrumph and began cleaning the pan where she’d cooked the eggs, her shoulders rigid.

He turned away, went back to the living room and folded up the afghan.

“I’ll be right back,” she said over her shoulder as she climbed the stairs. When she was gone, he waited a moment, then pulled his cell phone from the holster on his belt and called the office.

Max Dakota answered. “Mack, I see from the log that you checked out last night. Where are you?”

“Something came up. I need to make a quick trip to Gaptown.”

“Because?”

He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “It’s personal,” he said, glad that Light Street detectives had a lot of freedom. Still, he held his breath until Max said, “Okay.”

“I could be out for a couple of days,” he added, just as Jamie stepped back into the living room and stopped short when she saw he was on the phone.

As she gave him a long look, he said, “I’ll talk to you later.”

“Who was that?”

“The office.”

She kept her gaze on him as she asked, “Did you say you’re driving a nut to Gaptown?”

“Of course not,” he snapped, then changed the subject, striving for an even tone. “You packed fast.”

“We’re not going out dancing,” she muttered.

“Yeah. Right.

“Do you want me to take out the trash?” he asked. “I mean, since you’re going out of town.”

She hesitated for a moment. “All right. The cans are by the back door.”

He pulled the plastic bag out of the kitchen trash can and carried it outside. When he came back she was loudly shaking out a new bag, and he knew she was uncomfortable with him doing a job her husband had obviously taken care of when he’d been alive.

The little kitchen drama set the tone for the trip to western Maryland. After a quick stop at his house to pick up his bag, they headed down Route 70 toward Hagerstown, then onto Route 68 toward Gaptown—the supposed scene of her nightmare.



JAMIE SLID HER EYES toward Mack, then away as she sat in the front seat of his SUV, wondering what she was doing there. She could have stayed home, but she’d insisted on coming along, and once she’d committed herself to the trip, she’d known that he wasn’t going to let her drive her own car.

Now she felt trapped in the front seat with Mack Steele, wishing she were anywhere else. What if the dream was something she’d conjured up out of her own anxiety? She’d be embarrassed that Mack was driving her all this way to check out a figment of her imagination, but that would be the end of it. Despite her mixed emotions, she clung to that hope as they drove west, the terrain becoming more hilly the farther they got from Baltimore. Her refuge. She’d established a life in the city, and she was going to keep living there.

Last week, she’d gotten a letter from her mother, asking her to come home for a visit. She’d ignored the request, because going home always stirred up the bad feelings between herself and her mother’s boyfriend, Clark Landon, along with memories from her childhood that she’d rather forget.

Her earliest recollections of her father were of him staggering around the house drunk, yelling at her mom. Because of his fondness for the bottle, he’d barely been able to support the family with a series of jobs for the railroad, a couple of trucking companies and then as a delivery man for a local flower shop. Because home hadn’t been a warm and comfortable place, she’d spent as much time elsewhere as she could. She’d haunted the library and gone home with friends after school. But the time would always come when she had to go back to the dilapidated bungalow where she lived. And she never knew what she was going to find there. Maybe her parents would be fighting. Or maybe Dad would be at one of the bars he frequented, and Mom would lock the door to keep him out. Then he might smash a window to get in and cut his hand and end up in the emergency room.

Dad had finally drunk himself to death before he was fifty, which had made home life calmer. They’d gone on welfare, which hadn’t even made much difference in their lifestyle.

She’d still been living at home when she’d met Craig. Moving to Baltimore had been the first step in her break from the past. They’d had four good years together, and when he’d gotten killed, she’d been in danger of slipping into depression—until she’d pulled herself together and started over again on her own.

She’d thought she was in pretty good shape—until she’d woken up scared and shaken last night after a nightmare trip back to Gaptown.

The closer they got to home, the more her nerves jumped and the more certain she was that she wasn’t going to like the outcome of this trip. Not at all.

“Slow down,” she said. They were the first words she’d uttered since she’d gotten into Mack’s car. “There’s a speed trap ahead.”

He pressed on the brake and they rounded a curve, where a cop car with flashing lights had stopped another motorist.

“Thanks,” he said. “Was that a psychic insight?”

“No,” she snapped, then continued in a milder tone.

“I’m a native. I know the cops are lying in wait for out-of-towners around that bend.”

When she saw a highway sign coming up, she felt a little jolt as the exit name flashed by. Smokehouse Road.

“Take this exit,” she said.

“Why?”

“Take it,” she insisted.

“Why?” he asked again.

“I don’t know for sure,” she answered honestly. “But I think we’re going to…find something.”

She gripped the sides of her seat as he took the exit a little too fast. She wished she knew why she was giving him these directions. Or maybe she already knew, and she didn’t want to admit it.

“Right or left?” he asked with an edge in his voice when they came off the exit ramp.

“Right,” she answered, wondering why she was so certain where they were going. There was absolutely no hesitation on her part as she gave him directions.

They drove for a few more moments before she told him to turn onto Jumping Jack Road.



FROM A HIDING PLACE where he was sheltered by the woods, the man who called himself Fred Hyde took a bite of the caramel, nut and chocolate bar he’d brought along. He chewed with appreciation as he watched the activity down the hill through binoculars. All those cops rushing around looked like a bunch of ants serving their queen.

He laughed. Yeah, ants.

He’d considerately left the body where it was going to be easily spotted—along the side of the road in a nice open valley. Then he’d made himself comfortable up here, waiting for the fuzz to show up and get to work. They’d be from Gaptown, but he knew there was a cooperative investigative unit that drew on some of the other surrounding jurisdiction.

He’d seen them find Lynn Vaughn’s I.D., so they knew who she was, but they didn’t know why she was here. And, of course, he’d worn rain gear that wouldn’t leave any fibers on the body. He’d also moved the woman from his property to this location, so they weren’t going to find any clues to his identity.

But he wanted them to understand that something serious was going on in their little town, with its speed traps and cops who were so quick to do their duty.

He would have liked to keep enjoying the show, but he had work to do. He took a last bite of the candy bar and crumpled the wrapper, but he wasn’t dumb enough to drop the trash where someone could find it and maybe get a line on his DNA. Instead he put the crumpled paper into his pocket and started down the other side of the hill to where he’d left his car. Things were moving faster now. He had to set up the funhouse again to get ready for the next victim.



“NOW WHAT?” MACK CLIPPED out as he continued down the blacktop.

“Keep going,” she directed, hardly able to speak around the tight feeling in her throat. Pictures were forming in her mind, but she thrust them away. She could be making them up. She hoped she was making them up.

He drove past a couple of farms and a country store.

“You know this area?”

“Of course. When I was in high school, my friends and I would come out here to drive around.”

They didn’t speak again until she saw a crossroads with a restaurant, bar and gas station.

“Turn left here.”

He slowed the car and made the turn. From the small commercial area, they drove into the mountains, where they passed widely spaced farms and houses. When they rounded a steep curve, they were stopped by a police car with flashing lights blocking the road.

A few cars were pulled up along the shoulder, and several spectators were standing along the blacktop, craning their necks toward the center of the activity, where two more patrol cars were pulled up, along with an ambulance.

Mack rolled down the window and pulled up beside a man in jeans and a plaid shirt who was standing on the shoulder and staring toward the cop cars. “What’s going on?”

“Guy found a woman’s body.”

Jamie had been hoping against hope not to hear that news. Now she dragged in a sharp breath as the words slammed into her.

“A local resident?” Mack asked.

“Don’t know. The cops have been asking if we know a Lynn Vaughn. That must be her name.”

Jamie felt a shiver go over her skin as her worst fears were confirmed. She’d been with Lynn Vaughn in her dream. She’d been afraid someone had killed the woman, and now she knew for certain it was true.

“You know her?” the guy asked, looking from Mack to Jamie and back again.

“No. We just happened down this road. I guess we’d better go back the other way,” Mack answered easily, giving nothing away before he rolled up the window, made a U-turn and got them out of the vicinity. He kept going toward the road where they’d exited the highway, then turned into the parking lot of the country store they’d passed earlier. After finding a parking space, he cut the engine and turned to Jamie.

His face looked grim. “I thought maybe the dream came from your imagination,” he said.

She lifted one shoulder. “Even after I gave you a name, and you confirmed that she was a real person?”

“Yeah.”

“Maybe that’s what you wanted to think, but I knew something had happened.”

“You dreamed about a murder that turned out to be true….”

Somehow she managed to keep her voice even as she said, “I was hoping it didn’t end that way.”

His eyes boring into her, he said, “People don’t dream about a murder one night, then find out the next day that it really happened.”




Chapter Three


Jamie swallowed, wishing that Mack would stop using the word murder like a bludgeon.

“Tell me exactly what you dreamed.”

She’d deliberately been vague with the details of the nightmare when she’d told him about it. Now she knew she was going to have to be more specific.

“Jamie?”

She stared straight ahead, her hands folded one on top of the other in her lap. “In the dream, I wasn’t myself. I was that woman, Lynn Vaughn. She was in a…I guess you’d have to call it a funhouse.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Did you ever go to a haunted house on Halloween when you were a kid? Like maybe something set up by a local charity to raise money? They had a bunch of spooky stuff to give the kids a fright, but everybody knew it was all for fun.”

“Yeah.”

“It was like that, only it was serious.” She clenched her hands together as she remembered the experience and the place. “It was dark and enclosed. There was scary music. A musty smell. Hallways with things set up to startle you, like witches jumping out. But some of it was a lot worse. One place had a trapdoor where she tumbled through and ended up on a slide that took her to the basement. She landed hard on the cement floor and hurt her shoulder.”

Jamie winced, remembering the pain.

She hated dredging up more details, but Mack was staring at her with an expectant look on his face, so she gulped in a breath and let it out before she went on.

“The light was weird. Someone had worked hard to make the place into a creep show. In one section, there were horror movie posters. Dead-end hallways. Spatters on the floor that looked like blood.

“At first she was alone. But she kept hearing a man’s voice coming from hidden speakers. Then he was there. With her.”

Details came fast and furious now.

“He was wearing black clothes, a black cape, a hood, boots. His face was a mask with a skull. He was talking to her, telling her she was going to pay for what she’d done to him. But he was also telling her that if she could find her way out, he’d let her go. Then she came to a place where she could go right or left. She didn’t want to go on, but he forced her to choose.

“When she did, bright lights went off in her face so she could hardly see, and he came at her with a knife. I don’t think it would have mattered which way she went.”

Jamie rushed on, wanting to get the recitation over with. “He slashed at her, and I felt her pain. Then everything went black. I was hoping she’d fainted, but I was afraid he’d killed her. I guess he did.”

She said the last part with a little hitch in her voice as she turned to Mack, seeing the set lines of his face.

When he spoke, it was like he hadn’t listened to anything she’d said. “Explain to me how you knew about what was happening to Lynn Vaughn.”

She sighed, deep and loud. “It’s what I said the first time. I dreamed about her.”

“That’s all? You didn’t talk to anyone about her? Get some information from someone?”

“It was a dream!” She heard her voice rise.

“Just a dream. Out of the blue?”

The question made her want to open the door, jump out of the car and run down the road to get away from her interrogator, but she was pretty sure she wouldn’t get very far. Mack would catch up with her and drag her back.

Instead, she raised her chin. Struggling to keep her voice steady, she said, “I used to have bad dreams when I lived in Gaptown. I’d have a nightmare and it would turn out to be true.”

Before he could demand an example, she went on quickly. “It started when I was nine. I dreamed that Peggy Wickers, a girl in my fourth-grade class, was in an automobile accident. I woke up crying, and my mother came in to calm me down. She was angry that I’d gotten her up in the middle of the night. She told me it was just a nightmare and to go back to sleep. I lay there the rest of the night, thinking about it. Then in the morning, Peggy didn’t come to school and the teacher told everyone about the accident.”

She stopped to catch her breath, then went on. “I’d have dreams like that off and on. Sometimes one every six months, sometimes it wouldn’t happen for a year. It was always something bad, and it always turned out to be true. It stopped when I moved to Baltimore, and I thought I was over it. Then last night, it happened again. I think it’s because it was happening here.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Are you saying you don’t believe me?”

“It’s a pretty strange story.”

“Why would I come up with something so weird if it wasn’t true?”

“You tell me.”

She exploded with an unladylike curse. “I told you everything I could.”

“Why did you call the Light Street office in the middle of the night?”

She wasn’t going to tell him that she’d awakened wishing her husband were lying beside her in bed. Instead she said, “I was upset when I woke up. I was hoping to talk to Jo. She wouldn’t have put me through the third degree.”

“She would have been remiss if she hadn’t questioned you.”

“She wouldn’t have acted like I was part of a murder conspiracy!”

Mack sighed. “Okay.”

“So you finally believe me?”

“Do I have a choice?”

Jamie heard herself saying words she thought she would never utter. “Why don’t you drop me off at my mom’s house. I’ll catch a ride home on my own.”

“We can visit your mom, but then we’re going to try and figure out what happened to Lynn Vaughn. Where’s the house?”

Feeling trapped, she gave him the address. Maybe she could slip out the back door and call one of her old friends in town while he was having a nice chat with the family. That thought made her bite back a sharp laugh. Yeah, Mom and Clark were going to charm the pants off Mack.

She felt her stomach knot as Mack put the address into his GPS. Apparently going to see Mom was as threatening as being questioned about a murder.

The place was at the south end of town—the low-rent district—and she gave the familiar location a critical look as they pulled up in front of the one-story bungalow. The lawn and shrubbery were scraggly, the porch sagged and paint was peeling from the wooden siding. Home sweet home.

Embarrassed that one of her friends from Baltimore was seeing this house, she climbed out and headed up the cracked sidewalk with Mack right behind her.

She thought about him as a friend, she realized. Maybe associate was more accurate. Or maybe they were playing detective and suspect.

At the front door, she stopped and knocked. From the corner of her eye she saw a curtain move in the dirty front window and guy with a ruddy face and thinning hair look out.

Clark Landon. Too bad Mom’s boyfriend was there.

He opened the door and stared at Jamie.

“What’s the Princess of Baltimore doing here?”

“Mom asked me to visit.”

“But that’s no reason for you to stop by, is it?” he shot back.

Mack cleared his throat. “I asked Jamie to show me around Gaptown.”

Clark took notice of the man standing behind Jamie and straightened his shoulders. “And who the hell are you?”

“Mack Steele. A friend of Jamie’s.” He didn’t say, “Nice to meet you.”

If Mack hadn’t been right behind her, she might have turned and left, but now she was trapped by her own bad idea.

“Hey, Gloria, you won’t believe who’s here. It’s your hoity-toity daughter.”

He stepped aside, and Jamie and Mack walked into the living room, which was cluttered with two beat-up sofas, an old-style clunky television set and beer cans on the maple coffee table. The brown carpet had turned several shades darker since Jamie had been home last. To the right, in the kitchen, the sink was piled with dirty dishes. The house smelled like cabbage that had been cooked a week ago and left out.

She shifted her weight from one foot to the other, wondering how she could have brought Mack here.

As they stood awkwardly in the middle of the room, Clark grabbed a corduroy car coat from a hook beside the door.

“I’m going down to Louie’s,” he said, then stepped out the door, slamming it behind him.

“Friendly,” Mack muttered.

“He and I never got along.”

“He’s not your father, right?”

“Mom’s longtime boyfriend.”

She closed her mouth abruptly as Gloria Wheeler shuffled into the living room. Jamie tried to see her from Mack’s point of view and took in a woman in her late fifties with graying hair dyed black-cat dark, a ruffled yellow blouse and beige polyester slacks, the outfit finished off with scuffed red slippers.

No hug. No kiss. And she didn’t invite them to make themselves comfortable.

Mom just stood with her hands on her hips and gave Jamie a long look, then switched her gaze to Mack.

“I wasn’t expecting you to drop by, and Clark sure didn’t warn me that you had someone with you,” she said in an accusing voice.

Jamie wondered what difference that made. Would Mom have rushed around cleaning up? Would she have had the table set so she could offer them tea and cookies? Or maybe she’d have changed her clothes and put on real shoes before coming out here.

“We were in town,” Mack said, “and Jamie mentioned that she wanted to stop by.”

“In town for what?”

“I’m a private detective on a case. Since Jamie’s from here, I asked her to show me around Gaptown, Mrs.…?”

“Wheeler,” she supplied as she looked Mack up and down, then switched her gaze back to her daughter.

“You’ve taken up with another detective?”

Jamie answered in a rush. “I haven’t taken up with him.”

“I was a friend of Jamie’s husband, Craig,” Mack said.

Mom’s knowing smile made Jamie cringe. What did she think? That they were sleeping together?

“I guess it was a bad idea coming here,” she said.

Gloria shrugged. “You said it, not me. You too good for Gaptown now?”

Unable to contain her exasperation, Jamie asked quickly, “If you didn’t want me here, why did you write to me?”

Gloria tipped her head to one side, considering. “I didn’t write you.”

“But I got a letter from you last week.”

Gloria’s voice hardened. “Not from me you didn’t.”

Jamie swallowed, wondering why her mother was lying, but she knew from experience that making a point of it wasn’t going to get her anywhere. “I guess this was a mistake,” she murmured. “We won’t take up any more of your time.”

“Suits me.”

Without waiting for Mack, Jamie turned and fled the house. On the porch she took a deep breath. Behind her, she heard him say, “Nice to meet you, Mrs. Wheeler.”

Yeah, sure.

Then he was hurrying after her down the sidewalk. When she’d climbed into the car, she kept her gaze down as she fumbled with her seat belt. Her hand was shaking, but she finally got it hooked.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “It was obviously a mistake dropping in there.”

“Yeah.” He pulled away from the curb, and they rode in silence for a few moments until Mack cleared his throat.

“Was your mom like that when you were little?”

“Like what?”

“Mean. Self-centered. And not much interested in keeping her house or herself neat.”

“She was never much for housework, but she wasn’t so mean when I was little. I think she started reacting to her life.”

“Some people cope better than others.”

“She’s a very dependent woman who can’t function without a man to take care of her. Not that Clark Landon does much for her. My dad drank. She couldn’t leave him either. After he died, she went looking for another man and ended up with Landon, unfortunately.”

She sat tensely in her seat, expecting some kind of cutting remark about Gloria from Mack. Instead he pulled up along the curb, under the branches of a maple tree and turned toward her.

“I understand better than you think. My home life was no sitcom, either.”

That surprised her. “What do you mean?”

He laughed, the sound low and rough. “From what I can pick up on short acquaintance with Gloria, I guess my mom was the polar opposite of yours. When I was ten, she decided that she was tired of taking care of a husband and two kids. One day my older brother and I came home from school, and she wasn’t there. We went looking for her and found out she’d cleared out the clothes she wanted and left the rest for Goodwill.

“There was a note on the kitchen counter telling my dad not to try and contact her, and that she’d taken her share of the money in their bank account—which turned out to be most of it, since she said she’d been an unpaid housekeeper for years. That was the last we heard from her.” He sighed.

“I don’t actually know if she’s dead or alive. I guess, being a detective and all, I could investigate and find out, but it doesn’t seem worth it.”

“I’m sorry,” Jamie murmured as she tried to imagine what his childhood must have been like.

“Yeah, well, I guess neither one of us had the pleasure of growing up in a stable home. After she bailed out on us, Dad did the best he could, but he had to work, which left me and Sammy on our own a lot of the time. At least there was an upside. It made me self-sufficient. I learned to cook and do my own laundry. And I can sew on a button, come to that.”

Jamie searched his face, touched that he’d revealed so much to her when he could have simply kept silent. She’d always thought of him as stable and grounded, and now he was letting her know that he’d overcome some serious obstacles. He was doing something else as well. Trying to help her understand that his visit to her family hadn’t shocked him. She appreciated the effort.

She’d been through an emotional wringer during the past twenty hours, and the glimpse into his unhappy background made her want to…

What? Thank him for revealing himself? Or maybe the wounded look in his eyes made her want to let him know that everything was all right. Whatever that meant.

Without fully understanding her own motives, she reached for him and pulled him close.

She’d felt safe in his arms last night when he’d come rushing over to find out what was wrong, and she’d never thanked him for that. She’d only bristled at the questions his job had compelled him to ask.

Suddenly, everything had shifted. When she eased back and tipped her face up, she found that her mouth was only inches from his. It had been a long time since she’d kissed a man, and she’d be fooling herself if she tried to deny that she’d thought of kissing this man. For heartbeats, neither one of them moved, except for their shallow breathing. It wasn’t too late to stop. Somewhere in her mind she knew she should pull away, but she stayed where she was for a charged second and then another.

She wasn’t sure which of them moved to close the gap, maybe both of them.

“Jamie.” He said her name as their mouths met, and he moved his lips over hers in a kiss that was tender and needy and sexy, all at the same time.

Wanting to shut out the world, she closed her eyes so that she could focus on the man who held her in his arms.

She liked the taste of him. The texture of his lips. The heat of his body. Without even thinking about what she was doing, she felt her arms encircle his neck. In response, he gathered her closer as he turned his head first one way and then the other to change the angle of the kiss.

Somewhere in her mind, a voice spoke. This is wrong. You shouldn’t be in his arms. You shouldn’t be kissing him. But it was impossible to heed that voice when it felt like the most natural thing in the world to be close to him like this. As she nestled in his embrace, she could imagine what it would be like to share more than this kiss with him. Not just a sexual encounter but all the emotions she’d kept bottled up inside her for long, lonely months.

His tongue played with the seam of her lips, asking her to open for him, and she did, so that he could explore the line of her teeth, then stroke the sensitive tissue on the inside of her lips.

She made a small sound deep in her throat, telling him she liked what he was doing. When his tongue dipped farther into her mouth, hot, needy sensations curled through her body.

His hands stroked up and down her ribs, gliding upward to find the sides of her breasts, making her nipples tighten. She wanted to beg for more. She’d forgotten where they were. Forgotten why she shouldn’t allow this man such liberties.

She tangled her hands in his thick, dark hair, loving the slightly rough texture. For months she’d wanted to touch him there, and now she had the freedom to do it. Sensations she hadn’t experienced for too long bombarded her body and overwhelmed her mind.

Wanting more of him, she eased back a little so that she could pull open the front of his leather jacket and press her hands against his broad chest.

“Yes,” he murmured, his mouth still on hers.

She rubbed her hands against him, feeling hair crinkle through his shirt. It would be dark and thick and textured like the hair on his head.

Through the fabric, she found a flat nipple, feeling it stiffen at her touch. Her other hand found the placket of his shirt. When she slipped two fingers inside, he dragged in a sharp breath.

Her own nipples had tightened painfully, and she pictured herself dragging his hand to her breasts. Before she could do it, the sound of a car horn intruded into the fog of her brain.

Jerking away from Mack, she looked wildly around and saw a pickup truck pulling into the driveway just ahead of them. An old guy behind the wheel was glaring at them like they’d been filming a porn movie in the street.

Mack cursed under his breath and started the engine. The car bucked as he pulled away from the curb.

Jamie flopped back into her seat, fumbling with the seat belt, her face hot.

“Sorry,” he muttered as he put distance between themselves and the homeowner.

She made some kind of sound that could have been agreement or condemnation. It would be easy to accuse him of taking advantage of her, but she knew that it wasn’t true. She’d been a willing participant in what they’d been doing, and she wasn’t even sure how far they would have gone if they hadn’t been interrupted.

She might have admitted as much, but his next words sent her mind spinning off in an entirely different direction.

“There are some things you didn’t tell me about Lynn Vaughn’s murder,” he said as he put distance between themselves and the guy who’d so rudely knocked them out of whatever fantasy they’d been sharing.

“Oh great. You can’t deal with kissing me, so you’re switching back to Lynn Vaughn?” she said, hearing the grating sound of her own voice.

“Can you?” he asked.

He had a point. She’d ended up in his arms with very little provocation, and she’d started touching him in ways that were totally inappropriate. She had no excuse for that, other than her own emotional instability.

She sighed. “Okay, we can get back to business. What do you want to know?”

“You told me that you’d have dreams about bad things happening to people you knew, and they’d turn out to be true.”

“Yes.”

“Are you saying that you knew Lynn Vaughn?”

The question had edged into territory she didn’t want to explore with him. “Why do we have to keep talking about this?”

“Because I’m going to have to call the police if we don’t.”




Chapter Four


The threat had the effect Mack must have been striving for. “I didn’t say it, but I did know her. She and I went to high school together.”

“Why didn’t you tell me that?”

“It wasn’t relevant.”

He looked at her, then turned back to the road. “It could be. Any detail could be.”

When she said nothing, he asked, “Were you close?”

She sighed. “We weren’t best buddies, but we knew each other. I know that when she graduated, she went to the University of Maryland in Baltimore. She became an emergency room nurse.”

“Did you keep in touch with her?”

“No. I kind of avoided Gaptown. I think you can figure out why.”

“Yeah. But why do you think Lynn reached out to you? Did she know about your dreams?”

“I didn’t advertise it. Nobody knew. Except Mom.”

“Would she tell anyone?”

“She kept it between us, because she didn’t want people to know there was something weird about her daughter.”



A FEW MILES AWAY, Fred Hyde was touring the funhouse making sure everything was ready for the evening’s entertainment. He’d had a very satisfying time selecting the exhibits. He’d used some of the same ones as for his last guest. Others were new, and he’d taken down the funhouse mirrors. Those were too much of a cliché. Now he was trying to decide if he was going to use a witch’s face or a demon for the pop-up display on the first floor.

The witch had worked very well. But it might be amusing to give the green-and-purple-faced demon a try.

Still pondering the choice, he went back through his music selections, most of which he’d pulled from the soundtracks of slasher movies, although he also liked that spooky “Night on Bald Mountain.” He’d mixed and matched the tracks, and he hummed along as he listened to some of the cuts, then decided on the disc that started with the Night of the Living Dead and continued on to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

After he’d satisfied himself with the preparations, he went downstairs to look at the woman who was sleeping in the cell he’d constructed in the basement. He’d built the walls of cinder block, and the door was reinforced, so there was no chance of escape.

The woman on the narrow bunk inside was lying on her back, her blond hair fallen across her cheek. As he stood over her, he suppressed the urge to brush it back.

Better not touch her until he was wearing his gloves and his Locard suit. Well, it wasn’t anything official. That’s what he called it. Locard was the French forensic scientist who’d first pointed out that when two objects touched, each would leave traces of themselves on the other. But that wasn’t going to happen with his suit made out of neoprene.

He took a step back, still staring at the sleeping woman. He’d drugged her, and she wasn’t going to wake up for several hours. Plenty of time for him to go out to dinner, then put on his outfit. He’d be wearing it when he let her out of the cell, and then the games would begin. Of course, there might be fibers from the cape. But that didn’t matter. He’d bought it at a vintage clothing store in Boston, so nobody was going to connect it with murders in western Maryland.

After making sure the door to the cell and also all the doors to the house were locked, he climbed into his SUV and drove to an area down by the Potomac River where there were some shops, artists’ studios and restaurants. The Chamber of Commerce or some other group was sprucing up the town, but they’d left some major messes. Right down by the river was a half-demolished brick building that used to be a dye works. It dragged down the whole area. And there should be more restaurants to choose from. He’d had Italian for dinner last time before the fun. This time he was going to try that place where you could get Maryland crabcakes and barbecued ribs.



MACK HAD CONTINUED DRIVING as they talked, and Jamie looked up to see that they were on a road that ran parallel to the CSX train yard where more than a hundred freight cars were parked.

“Where are we going?”

“You said the funhouse was in Gaptown. Maybe we can find it.”

“Gaptown’s a big place.”

“Not like say, Baltimore or Washington. Maybe you’ll have some…insights.”

“Okay.” She took in a sharp breath.

“What?”

“I do remember hearing a train whistle in my dream.”

“Which means it could be down here.”

“No. The train goes right through town. There are even bridges over the tracks on the west side—the elegant part of town. You can’t get away from CSX. The railroad’s been here since before the company bought the Chesapeake & Ohio.”

“Then which way should we go?”




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