Saturday, 10:55 a.m.
“Ms. Jackson? Berna Jackson?” Lexie asked, knocking on the warped apartment door. She’d intentionally arrived at the dilapidated building at midmorning. Her hope was to be late enough that Vonnie’s mother would be awake, but early enough that she hadn’t yet left to go out for a liquid lunch that would last dozens of courses and many hours. “I need to talk to you!”
She got no answer. Lexie considered pounding harder, yet she hesitated. The building was quiet. On arrival, she’d seen none of the residents smoking on the outside stoop like there had been the last time she’d visited, nor did any children play on the rusty swing set outside. The dingy halls, lit by bare, weak bulbs, were deserted.
She suspected she knew why. Lots of people would be recovering from a wild Friday night that lasted until dawn. Children had probably been plopped down in front of Saturday-morning cartoons and told to stay quiet for fear of waking somebody up.
Vonnie. God, no wonder she’d so desperately wanted to get out. For her sake, Lexie couldn’t give up. Hopefully, now that Aidan seemed committed to helping her, and the whole town was starting to demand answers, the truth would come out.
She couldn’t deny it felt good to have allies.
She knocked again. “Mrs. Jackson, please open the door. I have some information. I think you’re going to want to hear about what happened at the game last night.”
Mentioning the game reminded her of the rest of last night. As in, her car. She still had to deal with the legalities of that. She’d called her insurance agent this morning, who’d told her she’d need to file a police report. Not up to that, she’d arranged for a rental car. To her knowledge, her poor little Honda still sat on its four flat tires in the school parking lot. It wasn’t going anywhere and could be dealt with this afternoon—when she didn’t have to do it alone.
Somehow, the image of going to the police station and reporting the vandalism seemed a little easier when Aidan was included. He’d made the offer last night, and while it hadn’t seemed entirely necessary then, now she intended to take him up on it. It would be one of their first stops after she met up with him at his place at noon. Hopefully by then she’d be able to meet his eye without revealing that she’d spent all night dreaming of doing wild things with him.
Glancing at her watch and realizing Vonnie’s mother was either dead to the world or already gone, she gave it one more shot. She knocked again, a little harder, and raised her voice as much as she dared. “Please, Ms. Jackson, I know you wanted to talk to me!”
Still nothing, but she did hear a creak from behind her. Swinging around, Lexie saw a robe-wearing neighbor, eyeing her through a cracked door across the hall. This wasn’t the same woman she’d talked to previously, who’d been weary but worried about her neighbor’s daughter. This one looked hard and bleary-eyed, as if she’d been on an all-night bender. And Lexie had woken her up. Not a good way to begin an acquaintance.
“Hi. I’m sorry to—”
“She ain’t home. Ain’t been home since yest’day mornin’.”
A vicious-sounding dog barked from behind the closed door of another apartment in the rundown building. A thin wooden door, a chain, and a dead bolt didn’t sound strong enough to keep it away should it choose to sic. It might, however, keep random drug dealers and thieves from coming too close, which was probably the animal’s entire purpose in life.
Honestly, Lexie found it hard to believe the girl she’d been learning so much about over the last forty-eight hours had grown up here. How had she done it? How had Vonnie had the strength to overcome this when so many could not?
“Do you know where she is?” Somehow, Lexie suspected Vonnie’s mother wasn’t out there holding candlelight protests or staging protest vigils.
“She got the notes you left,” the woman said. “Was supposed to call you.”
“She didn’t.”
“Look, I know fuck-all about where the woman is. She said she was gonna call, so why don’t you stop pounding the door down and get on back to your side of town?”
“Ma’am, I’m sorry I disturbed you, but Ms. Jackson’s daughter is missing.”
“I know that,” she snapped. “Everybody knows Vonnie’s gone.”
“I want to help find her.”
“You wanna help? Get that pussy chief to pay attention to what’s goin’ on down here.”
A familiar refrain. She’d heard the same thing a month ago when researching the original story. Dunston had few fans south of Woodsboro Avenue.
“I think he’ll have to, given what happened last night at the football game,” Lexie said. She briefly explained, concluding, “Believe me, ma’am, he’s not going to be able to ignore this any longer. The rest of this town won’t let him.”
The door may have eased open another inch. But that could have been her imagination.
“So if you have any idea where I can look for Vonnie’s mother. . . .”
“She said last night she was goin’ to confront the cops,” the woman admitted, begrudging every word. “Gonna handcuff herself to the flagpole to get them to pay attention.”
Lexie frowned. “How much had she had to drink when she said that?”
The other woman’s lip quirked up on one side in jaded amusement. “Just enough to think it sounded like a good idea, but not enough for her to pass out and forget the whole thing.”
“Not good,” she muttered.
“Nope. So I’d prob’ly start by lookin’ in the closest jail cell. And while you’re there, you can ask Dunston ’bout what else is goin’ on down here.”
“Are you talking about the other missing girls?”
“Yeah, well, missing ones ain’t all I’m talkin’ about. Lot more happening in this town that nobody gives a damn about, least of all the police.”
The dog barked again, and the woman froze. As if realizing she’d been about to say something she shouldn’t, she stepped back into her dark apartment, her eyes wide with fear.
Lexie followed, crossing the hall to the other door. “What are you talking about?”
The woman shook her head. “Go on, now,” she urged. “Get outta here.”
“Please, I just want to help!” she said, keeping her voice low.
“Tina?” a male voice bellowed from somewhere inside. “Who you talkin’ to?”
Her mouth fell open, her bottom lip quivering. Lexie recognized that tone, and the terror it brought to Tina’s face. “I’m sorry.” Lexie stepped back, holding her hands out in supplication, not begging for more answers. Not if it was going to land this woman in trouble with that man.
Tina watched her closely, as if waiting for Lexie to push her, demand more. When she realized that wasn’t going to happen, her compressed lips softened a bit. She glanced to the right again, starting to ease the door closed, whispering, “Talk to the fresh fish on the corner.”
“What?”
“The underage hookers,” the woman hissed.
Then the door slid closed with a decisive click. From within came another male bellow. Lexie bit her lip, appreciating the woman’s help, wishing she could come to her aid. But the best thing she could do for her was to get out of here and never let her husband or boyfriend know she’d been talking to a reporter about things he would say were none of her business.
She might not have been raised in a building like this, but she knew how things went here. And once again, as she left the shabby hallway, the shouting voices, the barking dog behind, she could only think about Vonnie.
Just how hard would the girl fight to stay alive if this was all she had to return to?
Saturday, 11:05 a.m.
Aidan wasn’t surprised when Julia Harrington knocked on his door a 1little after eleven a.m. He’d called her last night to fill her in on what had been going on in Granville and to see if she was interested in helping out. She’d asked a few questions, then said he’d see her today, promising to spread the word and find out if any of the others minded working on a Saturday.
Apparently, they hadn’t minded. Because as soon as he answered the door, two of her three employees walked in behind the energetic, dark-haired woman. Barging into his house, they acted as if they’d all worked together every day for the past year. They tossed their jackets on the coatrack by the door. Mick and Olivia both said hello, and then took off to examine the house, leaving him alone with Julia.
“I see you rallied the troops,” he said, knowing how persuasive his former boss could be.
She shrugged, a twinkle appearing in her soft brown eyes. “Most of them.”
“Where’s Morgan?” he asked, lifting one brow, knowing she had to hear the overly innocent note in his voice as he inquired about her mysterious “silent” partner in the agency.
She waved a hand in the air. “Out getting the lay of the land. And Derek sends his apologies—he had another obligation today, but said he’d come tomorrow if we need him.”
They would need him, though probably not by tomorrow. Aidan felt sure several murders had been committed in Granville, but finding out where they had occurred would be tough. Not something that could be accomplished in just twenty-four hours. There was no point bringing Derek Monahan down until they had a place for him to do what he did best—a crime scene.
“As for the rest of us,” Julia added, “it’s not like we have real lives or anything better to do on the weekends. Now, do I have to say it, or is it simply understood?”
He knew what was coming and sighed. “You might as well get it over with.”
“Okay. I told you so.”
“So you did.”
“Crime solving is in your blood and doing it from a thousand miles away was never going to be enough for you. You live for this.”
Maybe, though he wasn’t ready to jump back in with both feet. Now he just wanted to get through this one case, find this missing girl. Then he could do a big Zen self-evaluation on all the choices he’d made in recent months and decide if he wanted to make any changes.
“Are we done now?”
“Not quite.” She squeezed his shoulder. “I’m really glad you’ve taken off the hair shirt. If only you hadn’t bought this white elephant and could move back to Savannah.”
He took no offense, knowing she had decided that his getting involved with this case meant he was ready to go back to everything about his old life. He wasn’t there yet and didn’t know if he ever would be. Going backward seemed a little pointless. Since last night, during those charged moments in the car with Lexie, he’d begun to think a lot about going forward.
“I appreciate your coming,” he said. “Now are you done?”
“Yep,” she said with a cheerful smile.
The others, obviously waiting until he and Julia had finished talking, returned. They’d probably gone through every room of the old house. Liv had been here once, Mick not at all. Hearing them talk as he walked through his usually silent home, he felt a little like the winter warlock from that old kid’s Christmas show. Crowded—but at least part of a group again.
“Nice house, dude,” said Mick Tanner, who had been the last person to come to work for Julia before Aidan’s departure last year. “But I wish it were in Savannah so we had you back.”
They didn’t know each other well. Mick hadn’t come with the others a few weeks ago for their dinner at Ranger Joe’s—the one that had turned out to be so important in linking him to Vonnie Jackson. He wasn’t even entirely sure whether Mick’s abilities had been of help in any of Extrasensory Agents’ cases. But Aidan had thought from day one that he could like the guy, whose unusual background had left him with a great sense of humor and a lot of cool stories.
Plus a large wardrobe of leather gloves. Mick was never without them.
“Doubt I could have afforded it in Savannah. Thanks for coming down.” Aidan extended his hand in greeting, realizing it was the first time, both of them cautious in the past, both having their reasons. It was as if a simple handshake meant they’d passed each other’s test, and even though Mick’s hand was gloved, Aidan knew they’d rounded a corner.
As for Aidan, he didn’t worry he wouldn’t be able to control his ability to stay out of Mick’s thoughts—or anyone else’s. Even Vonnie’s terror couldn’t permeate and catch him unaware because of that mental wall he’d rebuilt. He had to open himself up to it—as he had this morning when he’d again tried to find the girl.
Lexie’s thoughts and fantasies were the only ones that seemed able to invade his psyche whether he was ready for them or not. And that was because he wanted her as much as she wanted him. He knew it.
“Lots of old stuff around here,” Mick murmured, eyeing the room. He studied the antiques, the art, the period furniture—mostly things Aidan had bought off the previous owner because he didn’t want to deal with shopping once he moved in.
“Yeah. Sorry about that.”
Mick shrugged, used to these situations, especially in the south where tradition meant holding on to remnants of the past until nobody remembered what they’d once been used for. Not that Mick ever wondered. Once he touched something, he knew. The older the object, the deeper the history. Which was why the other man would have to keep his gloves on here, amongst all these antiques.
“I’m so glad you called, Aidan. And I hope we can help,” a woman said, the voice warm, yet reserved. That described Olivia Wainwright very well. Of all of them, she had the most reason to be cautious, to protect herself emotionally from what they did for a living.
Hers was a talent he did not envy, an ability that seemed straight out of a horror movie. He wasn’t sure he’d have the strength to use her dark gift had he been cursed with it. That she was still working for Julia said a lot about how well she was able to handle it.
“Hi, Olivia.”
The quiet blonde kissed his cheek. “We’ve missed you a great deal.”
He smiled his thanks, realizing he’d missed them, too. More than he’d been willing to admit as recently as a few weeks ago.
“Make yourself at home,” Aidan said. “Julia filled you in on what’s going on here?”
Mick dropped a pile of printed pages onto the coffee table. “After she called last night, I did some digging on missing persons statistics in Granville.” He whistled and shook his head. “Talk about an anomaly. It’s crazy that nobody has noticed and tried to get to the bottom of this.”
“Someone has,” Aidan replied, sitting in a chair opposite the other man.
“The reporter?” Olivia lowered herself to the arm of a chair, poised and graceful, almost like a perched bird. That was pretty appropriate. She had always seemed a little fragile to him, as well as often giving the impression of being ready to take flight. Considering the things she had seen and felt, he couldn’t blame her. He probably would have run away screaming long ago.
“She’s the one who brought you in, right?” Olivia added.
“Yes,” he said. “Lexie Nolan. She came over a couple of days ago to enlist my help.”
Mick pointed a gloved finger at a few pages of printouts—Lexie’s articles. “She really got the shaft . . .”
“I know.”
“Kinda like you,” the man added, sounding more matter-of-fact than sympathetic.
Aidan appreciated the sentiment, but didn’t feel the need to dwell on that mess just now. If he decided to return to work after this investigation, maybe he’d be ready to revisit the Remington case, do a play-by-play of what had happened and his culpability in it. But not now.
“After I read this stuff,” Mick said, “I did what any detective with half a brain would have done. I looked all over the country for every missing girl named in this article and got the hits on the same two that the dimwit local police chief did.”
“Unlike him, you didn’t decide that was enough and stop there,” Aidan said.
“Right.”
“And you discovered?”
“Nothing. Absolutely nada. Not an arrest, not a single bank account, not a speeding ticket, not a credit card application, not an unemployment claim. The paper trail ends here in Granville. It’s like they were just scooped up by aliens and removed from existence.”
Not aliens. A human monster. But the result was the same. “Yeah, that’s what I figured.”
“So tell us about this reporter,” said Julia, who had been nosing around the room, flipping open magazines and peeking unrepentantly into cupboards. The woman had a lot of energy and was always on the move. “Why’d she let herself get shut out?”
He told them what he knew, everything Lexie had shared, including her boss’s problems. Right up through last night’s drama on the football field, and in the high school parking lot.
He didn’t mention the ride home. Or those moments they’d sat in the car, just breathing the same air and connecting in ways he couldn’t yet define. And God knows, nothing about the shared dream. None of that was relevant to the case. Besides which, it was way too personal.
As he spoke, he found himself thinking again how tough this must have been on Lexie. He’d gone through his own trial by fire, but at least he’d had friends and colleagues ready to stand by his side if he asked them to. From the sound of it, she’d had no one. Her one ally, Walter, had been distracted, dealing with his own family crisis, so she’d been on her own.
“Sounds like she made quite an impression,” Julia said, eyeing him closely.
Olivia was just as bad. “Quite an impression.”
Mick seemed oblivious to the undertones. Probably because he didn’t have that know-it-all gene most women had when they sensed a guy might be interested in a female.
“Ms. Nolan is coming over at around noon,” he said, glancing at his watch, ignoring the smirk on Julia’s face as he suddenly called Lexie by her proper name. Damn, she was like a bloodhound. “She wanted to go back over to try to talk to the girl’s mother today.”
“I’m looking forward to meeting her,” Julia said. “She sounds tough.”
“Tough, yeah.” His lips widening, he couldn’t help adding, “Just don’t call her perky.”
Julia’s speculative gaze intensified. “My, oh my.”
His smile, combined with the tone of voice she’d heard probably had the woman ready to give Lexie the third degree about her love life, her marriageability, and her stance on kids. Which was ridiculous since he’d never been interested in love, marriage, or kids. Not with what he’d seen throughout his life, from his own family to every other fucked up one he’d worked with.
God, why on earth did he decide he wanted these people back in his life and his business?
“We’ll be good,” Olivia said softly, knowing exactly what he’d been thinking.
“Okay, no clue what you guys are talking about, but can we get back to work?” Mick asked. “Aidan, what are you feeling about this missing girl?”
He wasn’t asking about Aidan’s emotional feelings. They all knew that. With these people, who understood just how capricious their abilities could be, there was no fear of building false hopes or expectations. They knew as well as he did that visions could have many meanings and didn’t always lead to the right answer in time. So he had no problem sharing what he knew.
“First,” he said, looking at the women, “you should know you’ve met the latest victim.”
They both appeared surprised, but when he reminded them of their evening out a few weeks ago, immediately remembered their pretty, friendly young waitress.
Olivia appeared stricken. “Did you touch her that night? Have you connected with her?”
“I think so.” He quickly told them what he’d experienced—the scents, the scream, the words repeating in his brain. He also told them about this morning’s utter silence, nothingness, which had left him feeling even more concerned about the teenager’s welfare.
“The king?” Mick asked doubtfully. “Are we talking an Elvis impersonator here?”
“No clue,” he said, not willing to discount anything as ridiculous or improbable.
Julia, who’d still been circling around the room like a shark, suddenly jerked her attention toward the front hall. “Will you excuse me?” she asked.
Aidan nodded, used to these types of interruptions. He didn’t direct her to the bathroom, knowing something else had caught her interest. Something only she could see or hear.
“Tell Morgan he owes me ten bucks. The Redskins lost!” Mick called after her.
Julia glanced back, wrinkled her nose at the other man, and then strode out of the room.
“You been able to collect on one of those bets yet?” Aidan asked, curious and a little surprised at how easily Mick kidded his boss about a subject everyone else treated very carefully.
“Hell, no. I keep threatening Julia that she’s going to have to make good on them if she keeps letting him bet against me. For a guy with all the answers, he’s got no head for football.”
After second later, Julia burst back into the room, reaching for her purse and tugging her keys out of her pocket. “We gotta go.”
Seeing her tension, he immediately rose, as did the others. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s your reporter friend,” Julia explained as she turned and stalked back out. Aidan’s heart skipped a beat. He stormed after her and overtook Julia at the front door, grabbing her arm, every muscle in his body snapping to attention. “What about Lexie?”
“You said she went down to talk to the victim’s mother. Is that in a bad part of town?”
The tension rose. “Yes.”
“You know how to get there?”
“I’ll figure it out,” he growled, ready to explode if she didn’t tell him what was going on.
“Okay, let’s go. Morgan says she’s about to get in some kind of trouble.”
That was all he heard, all he needed to hear. Aidan didn’t hesitate. Nor did he look back to see if anybody else was coming. He flung open the front door and stalked toward his own car.
“Let me drive!” Julia called. “So you can jump out when we get there.”
The way she said it made him realize they had no time to waste. “Fine. But go fast.”
She chuckled as she ran toward the driver’s seat. “I don’t know any other way to go.”
Saturday, 11:45 a.m.
Lexie thought she had seen the worst of life in the Boro when she’d gone to Vonnie’s apartment. Now, though, as she stood at the mouth of a narrow alley thick with trash and bejeweled by flecks of broken glass, she began to know better. In the shadowy channel between two ugly brick buildings, she was trying to talk to two suspicious, hostile teenage girls wearing platform shoes, booty shorts, and push-up bras.
They were young—one sixteen or so, the other probably a bit older. But their eyes held the misery of much longer lifetimes. One was white, one black. Both were utterly broken.
She’d definitely hit rock bottom.
Honestly, if she hadn’t gone looking for them, it wouldn’t have occurred to her that girls this age were walking the streets of Granville. Of course, every town had its pros and everyone knew the inn out by the interstate rented rooms by the hour. But she’d never envisioned a thriving climate for teenage prostitution here.
Unfortunately, once the girls had realized she wasn’t a paying customer looking for some kinky, same-sex thrills, they’d wanted nothing to do with her.
“Please, I just want to talk to you. I’m a reporter; I’m not here to cause any trouble.” She dug for her wallet. “I’ll pay you for your time.”
The teens looked at each other, then around the alley, as if suspecting a setup. Finding a couple of twenties, she shoved the money at them. They took the cash, then both crossed their arms, visibly belligerent, but no longer attempting to walk away.
“I’m trying to find out what happened to Vonnie Jackson.”
One of the girls immediately frowned. “Fuck Vonnie. Thinking she was all better’n us.”
“Chill, Ruby,” said her younger friend.
“And the others,” Lexie quickly added. “All the other missing girls.”
“Wait!” said the younger one. “You’re the one wrote them articles about the Ghoul.”
The Ghoul. Damn you, Dunston. Gritting her teeth, she replied, “Yes.”
“He’s real, ain’t he? You had it right all along.”
“I think so.”
“And now he got Vonnie?”
She could only nod.
The older one—Ruby, whose lips were as red as her name—rolled her eyes. “Who gives a shit? Vonnie got what was coming to her, being stuck up and too good for the neighborhood.”
Though she certainly disagreed, Lexie wasn’t about to antagonize them now that they were talking. “What about the rest? Brittany and Shayna, Tracy, Jessie. . . .”
When she said that last name, the two prostitutes exchanged a quick, secretive look. Not one other word had inspired the reaction, just the mention of the first victim, Jessie Leonard.
“You knew Jessie?”
“She was . . .”
“Can it, Tyra,” said Ruby. “We don’t know jack shit, lady. Ain’t our business to know.”
Lexie wasn’t about to give up, not when Tyra looked ready to share something important. The girl’s eyes were huge, and her mouth trembled. She was completely cowed by her friend.
“Please, Ruby,” she urged, “don’t you want to get this guy off the streets before he comes after you or somebody you do care about? He’s targeting girls from the Boro, probably nine in the past few years. How long do you think it’ll be before this becomes your business, when it’s your sister, your cousin, your best friend?” Staring hard, she added, “Or you?”
Ruby’s lip curled up a sneer. She opened her mouth, as if to say something caustic, but not a word came out. Slowly, reluctantly, she closed it again. Though anger still shone clearly on her face, she had conceded the point. For all the toughness and swagger, this was still just a kid. Grunting and shaking her head, she looked away, giving tacit permission for Tyra to speak.
“What can you tell me about Jessie?” Lexie asked.
“I heard stories ’bout where she was goin’ that night. The night she disappeared.”
“What kind of stories?”
Tyra visibly swallowed, looking around again, toward the shadowy depths of the alley into which they’d ducked for their conversation. “That she was joinin’ the club.”
“At school?”
Ruby snorted. “Hell, no.” She glared at her friend. “And she wasn’t joining it, any more than any of us join it.”
Not following, Lexie pressed them both. “What is this club? Where?”
“Middle’a nowhere,” Tyra said. “They blindfold us on the ride out so I don’t know for sure. Big ol’ fallin’-down house out in the country, can’t even see the road from the front of it.”
“Who’s in the club?” she asked, knowing she was onto something.
“No idea,” Tyra said. “Just know girls like us is invited to come along sometimes and there’s lotsa men.”
Girls like them. “Prostitutes?”
Ruby’s mouth tilted up on one side, though her ancient smile held no humor. “Uh-uh, they like their girls sweet. But after you leave the club? Well, that’s a whole ’nother story.”
“What the hell’s goin’ on?” a harsh voice suddenly called.
Seeing the girls’ faces twist in fear, Lexie spun around and saw a white man, probably in his mid-twenties, heavily pierced, wearing leather and chains. Burly and scowling, he looked less like a greasy TV pimp than a Hells Angel. But judging by the way the girls began explaining what they were doing—and how much they’d been paid for it—that’s exactly who he was.
“Get back out there,” he snarled at them, encircling Ruby’s upper arm in one beefy hand. He squeezed hard, then shoved her toward the entrance of the alleyway. Neither of them looked back, hurrying on their impossibly high heels out to their corner.
“I was just talking to them,” Lexie said, edging after the girls. She was in trouble here, serious trouble. It hadn’t even occurred to her that she could be attacked on a sunny Saturday morning on the streets of dinky little Granville, even if she was in the Boro. “I’ll be going now.”
He grabbed her arms, just as punishingly as he’d grabbed Ruby’s, and pushed her toward a brick-walled building. Lexie tried to twist away from his brutal grip. She was in pretty good shape, but her three times a week Zumba class was no match for his bulging muscles.
“Let me go,” she insisted, knowing he was trying to scare her. “I’m working on a story.”
“’Bout my girls? You better keep your mouth shut.” He shoved her against the wall so hard her back screamed. Her head thunked against it, hard enough to make her vision spin.
“No,” she said, blinking away tears of pain, “not about that. I’m looking for the Ghoul.”
“You found one.” He released one arm so he could grab her throat. And squeezed.
Lexie tried to swallow, but was thwarted as he pressed harder. Her breaths were shallow. She couldn’t seem to draw a full one as he closed his hand tighter against her windpipe.
This guy wasn’t just trying to scare her off. He could really hurt her.
Though terrifying, that thought chased away any remnants of simple fear. There was no thought, no considering. Instinct just kicked in. No way was she giving in without a fight.
Leaning back against the wall and letting her eyes droop, Lexie sagged a little, as if losing consciousness. As she’d hoped, his grip on her throat loosened. When she felt him start to pull back, maybe to see if he’d actually killed her, she reacted. Jerking a knee up hard, she aimed for his groin, shoving at his chest with her free hand at the same time. She didn’t make full-on contact, but judging by the pain in her knee, got him with at least a glancing blow.
He bellowed in pain. “Bitch!”
Kicking at him, she grabbed at the hand holding her throat, but couldn’t hold it away for more than a few seconds. Her ploy hadn’t gotten her free and now his rage made him squeeze harder, as if he fully intended to kill her. His eyes bulged and his face had reddened with utter fury. She began to feel light-headed, and her legs wanted to give out, in truth this time.
Lexie couldn’t believe this was real. She was a few feet away from a major street, a block from her favorite bakery—a place she’d been to dozens of times. Can this really be happening?
“Let go of her, you son of a bitch!” a voice snarled.
Strange, that had sounded like Aidan’s voice. Which was crazy, since he couldn’t possibly be here, and she didn’t think he was capable of that kind of fury. Maybe she was having some kind of hallucination as she lost consciousness.
Then her attacker was violently yanked away. Bending over, Lexie heaved in several deep breaths. Her throat ached, and so did her head, but right now she could only think of how grateful she was to the strange man who had saved her life—the man who was now brutally punching her assailant.
“Oh my God,” she whispered, her voice hoarse. Because the strange man was Aidan.
“Lexie, are you okay?” a woman’s voice asked.
Blinking, she looked into the pretty face of a dark-haired stranger, who eyed her with worry. That made her again wonder if she was dreaming this, having one big hallucination as she dangled by the throat from some brutal psycho’s fist.
“You’re going to be fine,” said a second woman—a blonde—putting an arm around her. The two pulled her away from the wall, toward the end of the alley where a car waited, its doors open as if all the occupants had leapt out in a rush.
“Aidan,” she whispered, pulling away. Maybe this was real. If so, no matter how strong her dream-lover was, she seriously doubted he was a match for a thug who could be armed and almost certainly would not fight fair.
“He’s all right,” the blond-haired woman said.
Turning around to see for herself, she nodded in relief when she realized Aidan wasn’t alone. Another man was with him. Together, they had wrestled the burly pimp to the ground and were whipping her assailant’s own leather belt out of his pants to bind him with.
“I’ve called 911,” one of the women said. “Let’s go sit in the car and wait for help.”
But she wasn’t moving. Now that she could breathe easily, Lexie felt much more clearheaded. She had a headache and a sore throat, but was otherwise fine. And what she most wanted right now was Aidan, who was bent, with one knee on the pimp’s back.
When he finished lashing the man’s hands together, Aidan finally looked over at her. Their eyes met and locked. His were slate-gray and livid, fury etched on his handsome face. Remote and cold, he looked more than capable of ripping apart the man who’d attacked her, or anyone else who happened to get a little too close.
She would not have imagined it if she hadn’t seen it with her own eyes, given his usual calmness and intellect. But right now, Aidan looked utterly primal, as capable of brutal violence as any embattled soldier.
As their long stare continued, the bloodlust began to leave him. She saw the movements of his chest slow as he took a few deep, calming breaths. Then he slowly rose to his feet. Not sparing a single disdainful glance at the man on the ground, he walked toward her. With each long stride, his anger seemed to further melt away. As his gaze moved over her—the tangled hair, the probably bruised throat—his rage was replaced by almost tangible tenderness. Protectiveness. As if they were much closer than either of them would have believed possible.
The dreams.
He was treating her like a lover, enraged for her, fighting for her. Now wanting only to see for himself that she was really all right.
When he reached her, he didn’t pause, didn’t slow in his steps. He merely walked right into her, putting his strong arms around her shoulders and drawing her tightly against his chest.
“You’re okay,” he whispered as he tenderly stroked her back. “You’re fine. You’re safe, Lex. I’ve got you.”
She slid her arms around his waist, burrowing tighter against him, certain she had never felt more secure in her entire adult life. They had barely touched before now—except in her dreams. But stepping into this man’s embrace was like trying on something new and discovering it was exactly what you most needed and had been seeking your whole life. They just fit.
His heart thudded against her chest, and they were so close her lips brushed against his warm neck. Aidan’s spicy scent filled each breath and their bodies molded together, softness melting into hardness, until they were like one person standing in the alleyway.
Lexie let it happen, took the silent comfort he was offering and lost herself in it. It had been a long time, so very long, since she’d leaned on anyone, or felt anything other than completely and totally on her own. For years, she had relied on only herself. She’d been proud and determined, certain she was up to any challenge and while it was nice to have other people around, she hadn’t let herself need them.
That was all well and good, and she’d done a fine job of living that way. Until today. When she’d been shown that things could get really ugly, really fast, and she wasn’t always able to take care of them all on her own. Sometimes, she really did need someone else.
Funny, though. It suddenly felt it wasn’t him hauling that beast off her that she’d so needed. It was this: this moment, this embrace, this connection. Having a welcoming pair of arms to step into and a strong hand on her back, a powerful heart beating against her and his voice whispering tender reassurances.
This was what she’d most needed.
She knew Aidan was every bit as affected. There was no reserve, no stiffness. He held nothing back. Gone was the strong sense of self-protection that usually kept him from getting too close to anyone. Inviting all the trouble and anxiety that touching anyone could cause, he’d not only touched her, he’d imprinted himself on every inch of her and didn’t seem to care one damn bit that he might suffer for it later.
“It’s all right, angel,” he murmured.
The truth washed over her and rather than sucking in a shocked breath, she could only sigh as she acknowledged it was true. This mysterious man had shared her dreams. Because in them, while making the most erotic, intense love to her, he’d called her that. Angel.
She tilted her head back to look up at him, getting a little lost in the blue-gray channels to his soul, and whispered, “It was real.”
He shook his head once. “No. It was just a dream, Lexie.”
“But you were there? You were part of it?”
He hesitated, then slowly nodded. “I was there. Not intentionally, I promise you, but yeah. I experienced it, too.”
Mortification should have flooded her. She should have at least looked away to try to collect her thoughts and figure out how to deal with something so blatantly embarrassing. Or maybe she should have gotten indignant, worried about her loss of privacy. She could have made a joke, slapped his face, run away, anything.
She did none of those. Instead, she lifted her arms to wrap them around his neck, twining her fingers in his hair. His eyes widened, as if he had been expecting some other reaction. Maybe an hour ago, he would have gotten one. But not now, not when she’d had a brush with danger that had reminded her of just how alone—and how lonely—she had been for so long. He’d banished that loneliness in her dreams, and made her feel safe after today’s ugly reality.
“Aidan?” Lexie smiled at him. “I’m glad you were there.”
Without saying another word, she lightly brushed her lips across his, a first kiss that wasn’t their first—one that was much more demure than those they’d shared in the richness of her heated imagination.
She didn’t intend for it to be more and would have let herself drop back down after that brief meeting of their mouths. But she couldn’t. Aidan’s arms tightened around her and he held her up.
They shared a breath. Then he kissed her back.
Lexie closed her eyes and savored the connection. This wasn’t a quick brush of lips. Yet they didn’t engage in a kiss of deep, hungry passion like they’d shared in her dreams. Instead, it was a sweet joining that asked questions and made promises, a kiss of familiarity and longing. His mouth tasted familiar—warm and welcoming. And his tenderness revealed far more than words ever could have about how glad he was that she hadn’t been hurt.
In another place, at another time, without an audience, it would have deepened. Feeling a low, insistent hunger rising inside her, Lexie knew how much she wanted it to. But they were not alone and the circumstances were less than ideal. So they finally ended the encounter on a mutual sigh.
Aidan let her down, but he didn’t step away immediately. Rubbing a thumb across her cheek he whispered, “I’m glad, too.”
A sharp trill of a siren suddenly echoed down the alley and they both realized this was over, for now. It was time to get serious again, time to deal with what had happened to her, and to utilize the information she’d gained this morning.
And time to focus on all the realities she’d totally ignored while indulging in a first real embrace with the man of her dreams.