Night Vision Page 2

  “It’s a very, very bad idea.”

  He frowned at her. “That’s what your vision was about? My camping trip?”

  She nodded. “I saw torrential rains, high winds, soaked, miserable kids, and tents getting torn to shreds.” She frowned. “And I got a bad feeling—something about a tree. Big pine, lots of dead branches.”

  “The one where the vultures roost,” he muttered.

  “Could be. I didn’t see any vultures. Still...if I were you I’d change the date.”

  She got into her car. He stood there, holding her door open, staring in at her. “You’re not kidding about this, are you?”

  “Nope. If I were making it up, I’d predict something much more important. I mean, this isn’t earth-shattering, but you might stay drier if you listen.” She shrugged. “I may not change the world with my visions, but I’m never wrong.”

  “Never, huh?”

  “Well. Almost never,” she said, recalling that she’d made a complete fool of herself with the chief of police this morning.

  “Then how come you didn’t know I was sitting here clocking your speed?”

  She pursed her lips, saw the twinkle of humor in his eyes, and knew he wasn’t ridiculing her. He didn’t believe her either, but he wasn’t being mean. He wasn’t calling her a liar or a sinner. “I’ve been asking myself the same thing, to be honest. If I hadn’t had the vision of getting to the bank too late, I wouldn’t have been speeding. I wouldn’t have been stopped. And I wouldn’t have been late. As it is ...” She shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe we were supposed to meet.” That was it. She knew it the moment she said it, with a certainty she rarely felt about anything.

  “You think?”

  “I do.” She stuck her hand out the window. “Megan Rose.”

  “So it said on your driver’s license,” he said. But he took her hand in his, and it was warm, smooth, and firm. “Sam Sheridan.”

  “Good to meet you, Sam.”

  He lifted his dark, thick brows, maybe a little surprised she had used his first name. He shouldn’t be. The man belonged on a police-hunks calendar. And besides, she’d known him forever. It wasn’t her fault he had no way of knowing that. He was far more stunning, she thought, in person.

  “I hope next time it’ll be under more pleasant circumstances,” he said.

  And there would be a next time, she had to make sure of that. “Will you do me a favor, Sam?”

  “What’s that?”

  “A favor? It’s something nice you do for someone else.” He smirked at her, and she smiled in return. “If you should take my advice about camping this weekend, and something important results from it, would you let me know?”

  He frowned at her, obviously unsure she was being serious.

  She shrugged. “You never know. One of these days, this so-called gift of mine might actually do something useful. So will you call if you get the feeling it has?”

  “Sure I will.”

  She smiled, tugged a little card from her purse, and handed it to him.

  He looked at it. “Celestial Bakery?”

  “You were expecting me to tell fortunes for a living, I’ll bet.”

  He shrugged, tucking the card into his pocket. “I’ll call.”

  “I hope you do.”

  She fastened her seat belt, put the car into gear, and pulled into the nearest driveway to turn around, since it was already too late to make the bank.

  Sam stood in the woods of Letchworth State Park, huddled with the boys currently enrolled in the Pinedale Police Department’s Cop-Camp program. All the kids were shivering and soaked to the skin. Their tents hadn’t held up to the gale-force winds, and he doubted these trees were going to hold up against them much longer. He could have kicked himself for ignoring Megan Rose. Not that he thought her claims of psychic powers were anything. Hell, she could have figured this storm was coming from watching the Weather Channel.

  Though the local weather reports had completely missed it.

  Something creaked ominously overhead, and her voice whispered through his brain, yet again, the way it had been doing for three consecutive nights now.

  I got a bad feeling. Something about a tree...

  He looked up at the tall, haunted-looking tree the kids referred to as the Vulture Roost, as the woman’s words whispered through his memory.

  Big pine, lots of dead branches.

  A limb creaked and groaned.

  “Everyone out from under the tree!” Sam shouted. As he said it, he herded the cold, wet teenagers out of the relative shelter of the woods and into the open, and the full fury of the storm. “Move it!” They moved it. And when they were standing in the clearing that had seemed like such a perfect campsite, he heard a loud CRACK and saw an overweight limb crash to the ground right where they’d all been standing, and a chill shot all the way to his toes.

  The boys and his Cop-Camp co-counselor, Derrick, were all staring at him. One of the kids said, “How did you know?”

  “Heard the limb cracking,” he replied, making his voice loud enough to compete with the storm. “What, you telling me none of you heard it?”

  The entire group of boys shook their heads side to side.

  “Well, I heard it. Good thing, I guess.”

  “Yeah. Darn good thing,” Derrick said. He was searching Sam’s face as if he didn’t quite believe him.

  Sam looked away, recalling Megan Rose’s warning. She couldn’t have seen that limb breaking on the Weather Channel.

  Then again, it wasn’t a huge leap of logic. A storm, plus a forest, equals falling limbs. It was only common sense. Although...how did she even know he was taking the kids camping?

  “I think maybe we need to get out of here," he said.

  “What about the gear?” Derrick asked.

  “Leave it. We can’t protect it anyway. We’ll come back when the weather breaks and grab whatever’s left. I think the faster we get out of these woods, the better.”

  Derrick nodded in agreement. “You heard him, boys. We’re out of here.”

  “I heard that,” one of the teens said.

  As soon as he managed to get warm and dry and stop shivering, Sam promised himself he was going to tell the pretty redhead that her warning had been dead on target. He supposed he owed her that much. And he had to see her again, anyway. Chief’s orders. Though he kind of thought he’d have wanted to see her again even if that hadn’t been the case.

  There was something about Megan Rose that had brought his senses to life in a way he’d never ever experienced before. Which was not a good thing, considering that the chief suspected she was somehow involved with a murderer.

  Chapter 3

  She stood at the counter, blinking in surprise at the man who stood on the other side.

  He wasn’t wearing his uniform, but that didn’t interfere with the instant recognition, nor with the tingling awareness that came with it. He was still gorgeous. Still familiar. Still important to her, even though it made no sense he should be.

  She tipped her head to one side. “I wasn’t speeding, I swear,” she said.

  He smiled at her. “That’s what they all say. How do you know I’m not here for the doughnuts?”

  She let her gaze slide down the front of him. “It doesn’t take a psychic to see you’re not big on doughnuts, Sam.”

  He shifted a little, as if self-conscious under her scrutiny, so she brought her eyes up to his again. There was a hint of fire there. “Actually,” he said, “I’m here to keep my promise.” He shrugged. “Well, technically, the promise was to call if anything happened, but I decided to come by in person.”

  Megan frowned, her attention shifting instantly from his looks to his words. “Something happened?”

  “Yeah. Something happened.”

  “Hold on a sec.” She turned toward the kitchen in the back and called, “Karen, I’m taking a break. You okay by yourself?”

  “Sure thing,” Karen called as she came walking out of the
kitchen, wiping her hands on a towel.

  Megan took off her apron as she came around the counter. “We can talk over here. You want some coffee?”

  “No, I’m good, thanks.”

  She led him to one of the small, round tables. There were only a handful. Most people came here to pick up orders and carry them home, but now and then someone liked to just get a doughnut or pastry and relax with a cup of coffee.

  “This is a really nice little place,” he said. “You seem to be doing well.”

  “Yeah, yeah, enough with the small talk. What happened? Did you go on that camping trip?”

  “I did. It’s a program the department has for at-risk teens. Cops volunteer, take groups on camping trips a few weekends every summer. It’s a good program.”

  “Sounds like. So what happened?”

  He pressed his palms to the tabletop. “I don’t even believe in this stuff. I mean, I never have.”

  She gnawed her lip and tried not to bark at him to get to the point already.

  “It was just like you said it would be. A storm hit, even though the weather service predicted it would miss us by fifty miles. We had high winds, heavy rain, tents blowing all over hell and gone. Everyone was huddled near a copse of trees for shelter.”

  “Please tell me no one was hurt.”

  He looked her dead in the eye. “No one was hurt. It was close, though. I don’t know what happened. All of the sudden your voice was in my head, repeating what you said the other day. And I thought I heard a limb creaking. I got everyone out of the way just before it fell.” He shook his head slowly. “It was huge. Came crashing down where we’d been standing. I have to tell you, Megan, if it hadn’t been for your warning, someone could have been seriously hurt. Or worse.”

  She sat there for a long moment, just staring at him. “You’re not just messing with me, are you?”

  He lifted his brows. “Why would I do that?”

  She lowered her head. Her father had pretended to believe her once, just to trick her into elaborating on what she had seen, so he could punish her for even more lies. And after her vision came true, her mother had never forgiven her.

  “We went back this morning,” Sam was saying. She shook off her painful memories and focused on the present. “To gather up the gear. Several trees had come down in our camping area. It was a mess, Megan. Could’ve been a real disaster.”

  She let her lips pull into a smile. “I can’t believe it. All my life I’ve been waiting for this gift to be useful. Helpful in some way.”

  “It’s never been before?”

  She shook her head. “It...tried to be once. But I couldn’t make anyone listen.”

  He tipped his head, silently urging her to go on. But she shook her head firmly. “It doesn’t matter. Ever since then it’s been little things. I’d know when the phone was going to ring and who would be calling, or when the deliveryman was going to be late. I’d know which roads were going to be jammed with traffic and where to find a parking space. I knew Karen over there was going to get a puppy long before she ever thought about it, and I always know what people will order when they come into the shop.”

  “Doughnuts, right?”

  She smiled at him. “Hey, you’re psychic, too?”

  “Well, just so you know, this time you did some good.”

  She sighed in relief. “You don’t know what that means to me. I’m so glad you kept your promise.”

  He nodded. She started to get up and he said, “So what now?”

  Frowning, Megan settled into her chair again. “What do you mean, what now?”

  “Well, I mean, this can’t be it. The end of it.”

  She tipped her head to one side.

  “Look, you said yourself you couldn’t understand the vision that resulted in us meeting that day. That you would have made the bank on time, if not for the vision messing with your head, so you drove too fast and ended up with me stopping you, right?”

  “Well, yeah. But–”

  “But what? You said it that day. Maybe we were supposed to meet. And we did, and you wound up saving a bunch of kids because of it.”

  She shook her head. “Not necessarily. You said you heard the limb creaking.”

  “Yeah, but no one else did. I’m not even sure I really heard it, or just thought I did because of what you’d said.”

  “Okay, maybe.”

  He nodded. “I’ve been thinking about this ever since that limb fell. And the more I think about it, the more I think it would be stupid not to see where this thing might lead.”

  Shaking her head slowly, she said, “I don’t understand. What thing?”

  “Us. Working together.”

  She blinked precisely three times. “You want to work for me at the bakery?”

  “I want you to work with me on crimes. One crime, in particular.”

  She closed her eyes. “Jeez, Sam, I’m nowhere near good enough for something that important.”

  “I think you are.”

  “Well, you think wrong. One time I get a decent vision, and you want to turn it into ...” She let her voice trail off, because she couldn’t resist asking, “What crime in particular?”

  He lowered his head, she thought to hide a look of triumph, and a suspicion whispered through her brain. “A string of sexual attacks. All connected. The department is stumped.”

  “And?”

  “And what?”

  “What are you leaving out?” she asked.

  He shrugged. “I’m up for a promotion. If I can be instrumental in solving this thing, it will be in the bag.”

  She frowned at him for a long moment, feeling deflated. She’d liked him, at first. Thought he was genuine. Maybe, being psychic, she should have picked up on the fact that he was looking to get ahead, willing to use her to do it. It hurt that the first person to believe in her gift had to be so small-minded.

  Pushing back her chair, she got to her feet.

  He reached out and clasped her hand.

  The flash hit her hard, snapping her head back with its impact, and sucking her out of her waking state, and into a vision that burned her brain with its brightness. Girls. No. Women. Two beautiful women, laughing and talking both at once, and him, Sam, right in the midst of them. And then there was something else. The dead woman, Sarah Dresden, the tattoo and the river.

  The vision released her as if dropping her from a great height. She hit the earth so hard it jarred her teeth.

  “Hell! Are you okay? Megan?”

  She opened her eyes, found herself sitting back in the chair where she’d started out. He wasn’t. He was kneeling close beside her, and across the room Karen was looking over the counter at her.

  “Who are they?” Megan asked. “The women, the two women?”

  He shook his head.

  “All S names. Sabrina and Shel—Shelly?”

  “Shelby. They’re my sisters.” He was looking at her as if she’d sprouted horns. “What did you see? Is something going to happen to them? Are they in trouble?”

  She shook her head slowly. “They’re fine. Who is your mother, anyway, Cleopatra?”

  He frowned even harder. “I don’t know what you– ”

  “You all look like you belong in the movies. Your sisters are as gorgeous as you–uh–as you probably already know.” God, she hated the slightly stupid state in which that powerful vision had left her.

  He was crouching there on the floor, looking up at her, the concern in his eyes slowly being replaced by amusement. “You’re not too hard on the eyes yourself, Meg. You okay? Better now?” He pushed her hair behind her ear, and she was surprised at how intimate the small gesture seemed, how right it felt, and how hard she had to fight not to lift her hand to cover his and press it to her cheek.

  “I’m okay,” she said. “You lied to me, though.”

  “I did not. I really am up for a promotion.”

  “But that’s not why you want to catch this guy. It’s not about the job at all. It�
��s about your sisters. They’re local, I take it?”

  “Local, single. Walk to their cars alone sometimes. Jog in the park. Used to, anyway.”

  “They even have S names. Just like Sarah Dresden.”

  He nodded.

  “Did all the victims?”

  “No. It’s coincidence. But it still drove it home for me. How it could just as easily happen to one of them,” he said. He averted his eyes. “The thought of that bastard going after one of my sisters–”

  She nodded. “You want to protect them. And you feel for the victims because you see them as someone’s sisters, too. You have a real empathy for them.”

  He frowned. “I’m not sure how much I’m going to like hanging out with a woman who can see through me that easily.”

  “Shouldn’t be a problem, unless you have something to hide. Which you don’t. Not anymore, at least.”

  “And what is that supposed to mean?”

  She pursed her lips. “I heard on the news that Sarah Dresden’s body was found.”

  “So?”

  “But they didn’t say where.”

  He didn’t look at her. “We like to keep some information private, Megan.”

  “But you already know that I know where she was found. You already know I phoned your chief and told him where that body was located, and that she had a tattoo, and I’d lay odds she was wearing red sneakers, too.”

  He avoided her eyes and moved back to his seat. “I’m not allowed to tell you any of that.”

  “You don’t have to tell me. What I don’t know is why your chief denied everything I told him that day. Or why you’re really here with me now. Is it because you believe I can help you with this case, or because you suspect me of something?”

  He lifted his head, met her eyes. “You were right about the body, the tattoo, the sneakers. The thing is she was found a couple of hours prior to your call. The chief isn’t convinced there wasn’t a leak.”

  “I see.”

  “I don’t suspect you of anything, Megan. I like you.”

  She searched his eyes, looking for the lie, and found sincerity there instead.

  “To be honest," he went on, "I’m not entirely convinced you can help me on this case, but I’m willing to give it a try if you are.”