Darlings of Paranormal Romance (Anthology) (75 page)

Today, she had no choice. She had to
come here. She couldn't stand by and let this guy kill again.
Still, it was a long shot to ask the police to believe her when she
couldn't supply a time frame, a name, or even the location of
victim or killer. She just didn't know.

She squared her shoulders. Hitched up
her faded jeans. No more. Disbelief or not, she had to do this. She
ran up the last few steps.

The interior of the station felt no
less imposing. Twenty-foot ceilings lined with dark wood created a
doomsday atmosphere. Great. She lined up and waited. When her turn
arrived, she stepped to the counter.

The officer glanced at her. "Can I
help you, miss?"

Wiping her damp palms on the front of
her jeans, she took a deep breath and muttered, "Yes." She paused,
eyeing him carefully. How could she tell the good cops from the bad
ones?

The older-looking officer, his
expression encouraging and steadfast, helped calm her nerves.
Except her ability to judge people had never been good. Sam
hesitated a moment longer before the words blurted out on their own
accord. "I need to talk to someone about a murder."

He raised his eyebrows.

"Two murders." Even she recognized
the apology in her voice.

His eyes widened.

Okay, she sounded like she had one
screw loose. Still there wasn't any delicate way to approach this.
She dropped her gaze to her tattered sneakers, almost hidden
beneath her overly long pants.

"What murders, miss?" His voice, so
kind and gentle, contrasted with the sharpness of his
gaze.

Shifting, she glanced around. She
didn't want to talk about this out in the open. The line of people
started several feet behind her. Still... She leaned closer.
"Please, I need to speak with someone in private."

She twisted the ribbing of her forest
green sweater around her fingers – a response to the intensity of
his gaze. Catching herself, she stilled, as if locked in space and
time. Not so her stomach, which roiled in defiance. This had to
happen now, or she'd never be able to force herself back
again.

When he nodded, she breathed a deep
sigh of relief. "Thank you," she whispered.

"Go take a seat. I'll contact
someone."

Sam spun away and stumbled into the
next person in the line behind her. Flushing with embarrassment,
she apologized and retreated to a chair against the far wall. She
closed her eyes and rubbed her face as she tried to calm her
breathing. She'd made it this far. The rest...well...she could only
hope it would be just as easy.

It wasn't.

"Okay. Let's go over this one more
time." The no-nonsense officer sat across from her in the small
office. His crew cut had just enough silver at the tips to make him
distinguished-looking, accenting what she suspected would be a
black and white attitude.

He
scratched on the paper pad for a moment and frowned. He tossed his
pen and opened a drawer to search for another one.
"
Two
women have
been murdered? You just don't know
who
?" He glanced from his notes to
her, in inquiry.

She shook her head. "No, I
don't."

"Right,"
he continued, staring at her. "You don't know by
whom
? You say one man killed both
women, but you don't know that for
sure
? And you don't
know
where
these
women could be. Is that correct?"

Sam nodded again. Her fingers
clenched together on her lap.

"Therefore these women,
if
they existed and
if
they were murdered, could have
lived
anywhere
in
the world –
right
?"
He quirked an eyebrow at her.

"Right, but..."

"Just answer the question. Could
these women and their supposed killer be, for example, in
England?"

Her shoulders sagged. Why couldn't
anything be easy? "Theoretically, yes. But I'm not––"

"I have enough dead women right here
in Portland to go after. Why would I waste time working on a
'possible two more' that could have happened anywhere? Not only
that...you're saying that one woman was strangled and then stabbed
and the other one was just stabbed. That's not normal. Killers tend
to stick to the same method for all their kills." His annoyance
pinned her in place. "Prove that a crime has happened."

The detective tilted his head back,
his arms gestured widely. "Show me a body, either here or somewhere
else, and I'll be happy to contact law enforcement for that area.
Until then...if you don't have anything else, why don't we call it
a day?" He waved in the direction of the door.

Sam stared at the irate officer, her
initial optimism long gone. The problem was, everything he'd said
was true. She didn't have anything concrete to tell him. She'd
hoped the description of the ring would help validate her story.
Frustration fueled her irritation. Both boiled over.

"It's
because of my abilities that I know these murders occurred
close-by." Sam poked her finger toward the floor. "I'm not strong
enough to pick up images from so far away. These
are
your cases – you just need to
identify them."

"How?" he snarled. "You've given me
no physical descriptions, no names, and no location markers. How
can I identify them?"

All the
fight slipped down her back and drained out her toes. She studied
him for a long moment. How could she get through to him? "The first
woman will be in your case files and for this morning's
victim...chances are it hasn't been called in yet. I'd hoped that
knowing there was more than one victim would make you take notice."
She paused. "Can't you use the ring to track the killer down?" She
leaned closer. "He
will
kill again, you know. You
will
remember this conversation
later."

He shrugged, his eyes darting to the
open doorway. He was obviously wishing she'd disappear, preferably
forever.

Sam assessed his face and found only
disbelief. Her shoulders sagged. It wasn't his fault. He'd reacted
as she'd expected. Skeptical and derisive. Sam flipped her braid
over her back and rose. She'd tried. There'd be no help
here.

"Fine. I don't have any proof, and I
didn't think you'd believe me, but...well, I had to
try."

She straightened her
back, thanked the glowering officer, and escaped into the hallway.
Ahead, the front glass wall glinted with bouncing sunlight. Freedom
beckoned. Her pace quickened. By the time she'd rounded the corner
and caught sight of the front entrance, she'd broken into a half
run.

***

11:10 am

Detective Brandt Sutherland smiled at
the young rookie. "Thanks, Jennie, I appreciate this."

Pink bloomed across her features,
accenting her age, as did the ponytail high on the back of her
head. Did they still wear those in school? As a new recruit, her
arrival last week had caused quite a stir, her fresh innocence a
joy to the department full of jaded detectives.

"Sure, any time." She gave him a shy
tilt of her lips at first, which then turned into a real grin
before she hurried back to her desk. Still in the hallway, Brandt
opened the file and glanced at the photos. His stomach dropped. His
mood plummeted further as he checked out the other pictures in the
stack. Another one. Damn it.

A commotion down the hall caught his
attention. Glancing up, he frowned. What was that? A small bundle
of moving clothing and flying hair bolted toward him. Brandt jumped
out of the way. His open file smashed against his chest, only to
end up in her path anyway as the tiny woman dodged sideways in a
last-ditch attempt to miss him.

"Easy does it. Watch where you're
going." He reached out to steady her as she stumbled. His hand
never quite connected as she slipped away like thin air.

Huge chocolate eyes, framed by long
velvet lashes, flashed. "Excuse me," muttered the waif before she
continued her sprint to the front door, her long braid streaming
behind her.

"Wait," he shouted, but she'd gone,
leaving Brandt with an impression of soft doe eyes – evocatively
large, yet filled with unfathomable pain. Brandt felt like he'd
just been kicked in the stomach – or lower. Mixed impressions from
those eyes, flooded his mind. Frustration. Defeat. Pleading for
help, but no longer expecting to receive any. Yet, he could have
sworn he sensed steel running through her spine. Somewhere along
the line, life had knocked her down, but not out. Never
out.

He took several steps after her, only
to watch her bolt out the front door.

Who the hell was she? He shook his
head in bemusement. Two seconds and he'd felt enough for a
psychological profile. Yeah, right. Still, how could anyone have
that much torment going on and still function? Staring after her,
he wished she hadn't escaped quite so fast. He didn't know what she
needed or why, but surely he could have helped somehow.

His curiosity aroused, he walked into
the office at the end of the hall, and studied the lone occupant.
"Kevin, were you just talking to that young lady?"

"What young lady?" Detective Kevin
Bresson looked up from his keyboard, his gray eyes confused and
disoriented. Reaching up, he jerked on the knot of his
tie.

"The tiny one that's all
eyes."

Kevin's brows beetled together and
then comprehension hit. "Oh, the skinny one." He shook his head and
grimaced. "Jesus, I'd stay away from her, if I were
you."

Brandt stared toward the front
entrance, unable to forget her haunting image. Or his inclination
to follow her. A compulsion he had trouble explaining even to
himself. "Why?"

"The moon must be full or close to it
– the wackos are coming out of the woodwork."

"She's nuts?" Brandt pulled back
slightly, jarred by Kevin's comment. "No way."

"Yup, crazy as a bedbug." Kevin
checked his desk calendar, pointed on today's date. "Look at that.
I'm right. It is a full moon tonight."

Brandt readily admitted he didn't
know much about the cosmos, still he'd have bet his last dollar
there'd been sanity in those eyes. There'd also been a hint of
desperation, as if she'd hit the end of her rope maybe, but at
least she'd known it.

"So what did she want?" Brandt worked
to keep the interest out of his voice.

Kevin tossed his pen down on the desk
and leaned back. "She tried to tell me this crazy-ass story about
waking up inside another woman while she was being murdered." Kevin
snorted. "I've heard a lot of stories over the years, but that one
topped my list."

Brandt straightened, stepped closer.
"She's a psychic?" He didn't quite know how he felt about
that.

Kevin shot him a disgusted frown. "If
she is, she's not a very good one."

Brandt frowned. "Why? What did she
have to say?"

"Something about a killer murdering
two
women.
Both
times, she says she witnessed
the murders as they happened, from
inside
the dead women's bodies." Kevin
shrugged as if to say
People, what can you
do
? "Even odder, she says this killer used
a different MO each time."

That was unusual, yet not unheard of.
He only had to think of the animal he was hunting. If he was right
about him, this guy constantly changed his methods.

"Did she offer any proof? Some way to
identify the killer? Did she know who the women were?" At Kevin's
shaking head, Brandt felt pity for the woman. He hadn't been here
at this station for long and he didn’t hold a position that invited
confidences – only, detectives were the same across the country.
Some were good cops with limited imagination, some had too much
imagination and had a hard time playing by the rules. Kevin
appeared to be squarely on the side of the disbelievers and rule
makers.

Brandt, well, he'd admittedly done
more rule breaking than was probably good for him. Old-fashioned
detective work did the job most times, but not always. And he
didn't give a damn where the help came from, as long as it came. He
couldn't resist asking, "Anything concrete?"

"Nope," Kevin answered with a
superior half-smile. "I told you – lots of nothing."

Brandt stared out the hallway teeming
with people. It had to be lunchtime. "Damn." Just before walking
through the doorway, he turned back one last time. "Nothing
useful?"

"Nope, nada."

Disgusted, Brandt walked away. At
least that partly explained the panic in her eyes.

"Except the ring," Kevin called out,
snickering.

Brandt spun around. "Ring? What
ring?" He walked over and put his palms on the desk. "You didn't
mention a ring."