In the Dead of Night (8 page)

The cat purred like a small motor in her arms. She’d never imagined a tough guy like Nick Tyson with a cat. While he took her suitcase down the hall Sara strolled to a wall covered with framed photos. Nick with two men, all three of them shirtless and holding beers. In the background, the bungalow was in the throes of remodeling. Below, a shot of Nick with his mother. Nick in full uniform in front of a classroom full of kindergarten-age children.

Sara found her eye drawn to a photo of Nick with a woman. A blonde with mischievous eyes and a laughing mouth. They were close, wearing cutoff jeans and T-shirts. Nick’s arm was draped companionably over her shoulder. He was looking into her eyes, smiling as if she were the only woman in the world.

His late wife, she realized. Her sister, Sonia, had kept in touch with one of her friends here in Cape Darkwood and told her about the car accident that had stolen her life. Sara felt a belated twinge of guilt for not calling him to offer condolences, but by then she and Nick had lost touch.

She stared at the photo, the intensity in Nick’s eyes, and found herself wondering what it would be like for him to look at her that way….

“Looks like the rain is here to stay.”

Startled, Sara spun, only then noticing the din of rain on the roof.

“I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“I guess I’m still a little jumpy after seeing the tape.”

He grimaced. “I hope the lab will be able to glean enough information to help us.”

“I just can’t figure why my parents had something like that in their possession.”

“Richard Douglas was a movie producer.” Nick shrugged. “Maybe some crackpot sent it to him.”

“Dad wouldn’t have kept something like that. He would have sent it to the police.”

“You’re probably right.”

Troubled by the questions pelting her, Sara set the cat on the floor. “Do you think the tape has something to do with their deaths?”

Nick studied her for a moment, his eyes thoughtful. “I’m not convinced their deaths didn’t happen exactly the way the police said they did.”

Frustration rolled through her. That wasn’t what she wanted to hear. It wasn’t what she needed to hear. She needed Nick to believe her.

“Then why would someone call me out of the blue and state otherwise?”

“I can’t explain that.”

“Why won’t you at least consider it?”

When she started to turn away, he reached out and touched her arm. “I’m trying to be objective, keep an open mind.” He squeezed gently. “Okay?”

She nodded, then watched as he crossed to the dining-room table and switched on his laptop. She joined him as he brought up a law-enforcement site and typed in his ID and password. “What are you doing?”

“The State of California Department of Justice has a Missing and Unidentified Persons Unit. I thought I’d run the name Jenna Sherwood through and see what happens.”

“See if she’s missing?”

Nick nodded as his fingers played over the keys. “Hopefully, we’ll know something in a day or two.”

The name made her think of the film. “Do you think the person who was in the house tonight was looking for that tape?”

“It’s possible. Likely, even.” His brows drew together. “I’m trying to figure out how all of this ties together. The anonymous phone calls. A missing manuscript that may or may not exist. The intruder who stole the notes from you. And now the film.”

Sara considered his words, a chill rushing over her. “A book,” she said abruptly.

“What book?”

“What if your father was working on a book? Another true-crime novel? What if those notes were his?”

Nick nodded. “That fits. But it doesn’t explain the tape.”

“Maybe someone involved with the making of that tape had an attack of conscience and sent it to him to expose whomever was responsible. Or maybe they sent it to him to prove this snuff thing was really happening. Maybe your father was investigating.” Energized by the emergence of a theory, albeit a dark one, Sara began to pace. “It fits.”

“It doesn’t explain why your parents were killed.”

“Maybe they were in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“Why contact you?”

“Maybe this mystery person wants the whole thing exposed.”

“Or maybe it’s like I said earlier and they want the last loose end tied up once and for all.”

Sara jumped with a loud crash of thunder. Embarrassed, she forced a laugh, but it was a tight, uncomfortable sound. “You really know how to make a girl feel safe.”

“False sense of security gets people killed.”

Because the words frightened her more than she wanted him to see, Sara turned away and pretended to study the photos, trying to get her heart rate down.

“I’m not trying to scare you,” he said after a moment.

“You’re doing a good job of it.” Gathering herself, she turned to face him. “But in case you haven’t figured it out yet, it’s not going to stop me.”

He didn’t look happy about it. Too bad, Sara thought. She liked Nick. As a person. A man. She liked the memory of him. But she didn’t need a man telling her what to do. Even if he thought it was for her own good.

Sara was acutely aware of Nick behind her. He stood so close she could smell the piney-woods scent of his aftershave. She knew it was crazy to be thinking of him in those terms, especially when he didn’t approve of what she had come here to do. But she could no longer deny the low-grade attraction that had been simmering between them since the night he’d walked into the mansion.

“It’s late,” she said. “I should probably call it a night.”

He stepped back, putting some much-needed distance between them. “I put your suitcase in the guest room at the end of the hall.”

“Thank you,” she said. “For being there tonight. For letting me stay here.”

“Stay as long as you want.”

Feeling awkward and unsettled, she turned away and fled to the guest room.

Rain poured with the roar of a thousand waterfalls. Seven-year-old Sara huddled beside her mother’s body. Giant sobs wracked her. Oh, how she wanted her mommy to wake up and hold her and tell her everything was going to be okay.

But Sara knew the bad man was out there. On the balcony. With a gun. Covering her face with her hands, she pressed against her mommy’s shirt and closed her eyes. The scent of roses and baby powder, the lingering warmth, chased away the terror.

A gust of wind made her lift her head. A fresh wave of horror enveloped her when the man walked into the room. Water dripped from his raincoat onto the floor. Behind him the curtains billowed wildly.

A whimper escaped Sara when she saw the gun. Horror transformed into wild panic when he raised the weapon and aimed it at her face. She cried harder. Great, shaking sobs tearing from her throat.

“Mommy. Wake up. Mommy!”

The bad man wiped his face with his sleeve. “Sorry, kid,” he whispered.

Sara saw tears in the man’s eyes, and for a crazy moment she wanted to run to him, throw her arms around his hips, beg him to stop. But she was too afraid to move.

She closed her eyes.

The ensuing gunshot rocked her brain.

And Sara began to scream.

“Easy. Whoa. It’s me.”

The familiar voice pried into her consciousness. Strong hands gripped her shoulders. Disoriented, Sara brushed at the hands, tried to twist away. All she could think was that the man with the gun was in the room, that she and her family were in danger.

“Sara. It’s Nick. You’re okay.”

Recognition cut through the fog of terror. Sara blinked him into focus. His face registered. Strong features and concerned eyes. His hands firmly but gently squeezing her shoulders. The fear receded back into its deep, dark hole.

She knew it was silly, but she looked toward the window, almost expecting to see the man with the gun. The nightmare had been so terribly real….

“You cried out in your sleep.” Nick tilted his head as if to get a better look at her. “You okay?”

Sara tried to smile, but it felt phony on her face. “Yeah, just…embarrassed.”

“Don’t be.” He grimaced. “That film was pretty hard to stomach.”

Only then did she realize he thought the tape had given her nightmares. “It wasn’t about the film.”

“Then what?”

“I dreamed about the night my parents were killed.”

His eyes burned into hers. “Did you remember something?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know. It’s almost as if…after all these years my subconscious is trying to tell me I saw more that night than I ever realized.”

“More than you were able to tell the police,” he finished.

She nodded. “It’s hard to tell how much of the nightmare is from the power of suggestion and how much of it might be a true memory trying to surface.”

“You want badly to exonerate your father.”

“Yes, I do. That’s why I don’t trust this.”

He nodded as if he understood. “What do you see in the dream?”

“I’m there. In my parents’ room. My mother is on the floor. I’m huddled against her. When I look up there’s a man in a raincoat standing on the balcony. He has a gun.” A tremor rippled through her at the memory. “I’m terrified. I look at him. I think he’s crying. He raises the gun, points it at me. I close my eyes. The gunshot sounds like a crack of thunder.” She shook her head. “It always ends the same way.”

“Do you recognize the man?”

“No.” But something pinged in the back of her mind. Sara raised her gaze to Nick’s. “But I think I may have seen him before.”

“You mean recently? Or as a child?”

“As a child. My God.”

“A friend of your parents? Who?”

Rubbing at her temples, she wracked her brain. “I don’t know.”

For several minutes she focused every ounce of energy on remembering. But her mind refused to open those doors to the past. Slowly, she became aware of Nick’s proximity. She was sitting propped against her pillows. He sat next to her, so close their bodies touched. His arm wasn’t quite around her, but rested protectively over her shoulder.

Sara knew it was crazy to be thinking of how solid he felt against her when she should be focused on prying the memories from her head. But there was no way she could ignore the butterflies that had taken flight in her stomach or the hard pound of her heart against her ribs. She was honest enough to admit neither had anything to do with the nightmare—and everything to do with the man.

“Sometimes memories emerge in their own time frame,” he said after a moment. “You can’t rush them.”

The words were thick, his voice deep and rough. Sara knew better than to look at him. But then she’d always been drawn to danger. She risked a glance to find his eyes already on hers.

“I don’t know if these are memories, Nick. I don’t know if these dreams are something my subconscious has manufactured because I want so badly to exonerate my father.”

“The mind is a powerful thing,” he said slowly.

“Especially when you combine it with the heart.”

She knew he was going to kiss her. Just as she knew it would be smarter for her to turn away. To slide from the bed. Leave the room. Pretend nothing had happened. The timing was all wrong. Neither of them were looking for a relationship. She wasn’t sure she wanted to spoil the tentative friendship they’d formed in the last days.

But the pull to him was as powerful as the storm-driven waves that crashed incessantly against the beach. She made a half-hearted attempt to avert her face. But he caught her chin with his fingertips and turned her face to his.

His mouth brushed hers with the gentle touch of a feather. The contact was light, hesitant, but Sara felt it deep inside. She fought the slow wave of pleasure that engulfed her. She didn’t want Nick’s kiss to sweep her away. But her will was no match for the electric spark that burned low and hot in her belly.

The sound of protest died on her tongue. When she opened her mouth to stop the temporary madness, the only sound that emerged was a sigh. It reverberated through her entire body. And while her heart beat with a rapid-fire tempo, her muscles turned to jelly.

The next thing she knew, Nick’s hand was at her nape, tilting her head back. His kiss turned voracious, and he ravaged her mouth with his. Sara knew she should not let this continue. She should not let herself get sidetracked or give Nick the wrong impression.

But his kiss made the world tilt beneath her feet. It made her blood run hot, her body burn until she thought her skin would melt. She kissed him back with a ravenous hunger she’d never before experienced. It rampaged through her body, a crazed beast running out of control with its first heady taste of freedom.

Her every sense heightened to a fever pitch. She was keenly aware of his mouth against hers, his kiss firm and demanding. She could feel the scrape of his whiskers against her skin. The warm pressure of his fingertips at her throat. His other hand seemed superheated as it rested against her waist. She sensed the restlessness within him, and she knew if she didn’t put a stop to this, those restive hands would begin to roam. It frightened her to think she might not have the intellectual wherewithal to stop.

Sara had never considered herself impulsive or prone to making bad decisions. She’d had relationships in the past, but no man had ever made her ache. In the last two minutes, Nick Tyson had changed everything. If only her heart would stop pounding, she could think long enough to do the right thing and pull away.

Vaguely, she was aware of a crack of thunder outside. The wind rushing through the trees. She could hear Nick breathing hard. But all of it was nearly drowned out by the jackhammer rhythm of her heart. It was too much. Too powerful. Too
breathtaking.
And far too dangerous to continue…

A clever turn of her head and Sara broke the kiss. Nick’s face lingered close to hers for the span of a heartbeat, then he pulled back and sat up.

“I’m sorry.” His voice grated like rusty steel.

Sara couldn’t meet his gaze. Her body still vibrated with the remnants of his kiss. “It’s okay,” she said. “I just…I was…” For the life of her she couldn’t think of how to end the sentence.

“Caught up in the moment,” he finished.

“Something like that.” Their gazes clashed, held. Heat simmered within his. Electricity seemed to arc between them. He was still sitting on the bed. Too close. There was too much heat between them. Too much temptation zinging back and forth.

As if realizing they were about to repeat a mistake that never should have happened in the first place, he rose abruptly. “I didn’t mean for that to happen. I’m sorry. I was out of line.”

“Me, too.”

Nick paced to the door, then turned to look at her. “You going to be okay?”

Sara tugged the blanket up to her chin. “I’m going to be just fine.”

His gaze lingered an instant longer. Then without another word, he opened the door and walked out.

N
ICK LAY
in the darkness and listened to the storm, trying in vain not to think of Sara sleeping in the next room. What the hell had he been thinking? Marching in there when she’d been in the throes of a nightmare and kissing her? The truth of the matter was he hadn’t been thinking at all. At least not with his head.

“Idiot,” he muttered.

The alarm clock on the night table told him it was almost 4:00 a.m., but Nick knew sleep would not come again tonight. He told himself he was merely worried about the film they’d found. But he was a cop and an experienced one; he didn’t get overly keyed up over the job anymore.

He didn’t want to admit that he was a hell of a lot more wound up over Sara than he was the film.

What the hell had he been thinking?

“You weren’t, buddy,” he muttered.

He wanted to blame his sudden case of lust on a year of celibacy. On the fact that he was finally healing. That he was ready to move on with his life. He wanted to believe he would have acted the same way with any pretty female. But it was a flimsy lie. Sara Douglas wasn’t just any woman. Nick knew it sounded ridiculous, but he’d been half in love with her since he was a kid. Could those kinds of immature feelings survive two decades? Could they survive adolescence and maturity? Marriage and the black grief of losing the love of your life?

Nick didn’t want to believe so. He didn’t want to have any complicated feelings for Sara. He much preferred even keel over powerful and complex. But after touching her, after kissing her, he knew there would be no going back to the way things were before.

Troubled by the reality of that, he threw his legs over the side of the bed and put his face in his hands. He was going to have to keep his distance. That would be difficult with her back in town and digging into a twenty-year-old murder mystery. Even more difficult knowing she was in danger. Could he keep her safe and still keep his distance?

Walking into the bathroom, he twisted the shower knob, going heavy on the cold and tried not to think about Sara Douglas or the turn of events that had put her in danger. Nick had done all he could to keep her safe. He’d offered her refuge at his home.

Now, it was up to Sara to do the smart thing by backing off and letting the police handle the rest.