Chapter One

Eighteen Years Ago . . .

GRANDMAMA WAS DEAD.

Tess Fairmont sucked in a breath and pursed her lips. No one would see her cry. She looked at her own refection in the mirror. “I hate being ten,” she said out loud. “My legs look like chicken legs. Rodney Wilkens calls me bunny at school because my teeth are too big. And can I please wear makeup to cover up these ugly freckles?. I hate them.”

“No, besides your grandmama would not want to see you in make­up. She loved you as you are.” There was a pause. Then, “Are you sure you want to go to her funeral?” Lorna, Tess’s mother, asked, as she continued braiding Tess’s honey-colored hair. “I know you were very close to her, but you don’t have to go.”

Tess bit her lip for a long moment as she contemplated a way around her mother. “I want to go, Mama. I want to say good-bye. I don’t just want to remember her the way she was.”

“Tess, it isn’t as if she was sick for months. She died suddenly. She looks the same as she did last week. I think it best if you simply remem­ber her that way.”

Tess allowed her mother to finish with her hair. “Please, Mama. I need to see her.”

Mama let out a heavy breath, and Tess knew she’d get her wish.

Two hours later, she sat between Mama and Daddy. Daddy absently held her hand, and the one time she looked up at him, she thought his usual laughing eyes were sad. Now she stared at her new shoes—black patent leather with a heel. Grandmama had taken her shopping less than three weeks ago and had bought them for her. Would Grandmama have believed her if Tess had told her she’d be wearing them to Grandmama’s funeral hardly a month later? Inwardly, Tess smiled. Her grandmama would have laughed and said, “Don’t get all dressed up for me, honey. Make it a picnic to celebrate my life and make sure you play ball.”

Ever since Grandmama saw Dizzy Dean lead the St. Louis Cardinals to an eight to three win in the first game of the 1934 World Series in Detroit’s Navin Field, she was an avid fan. She often confessed to being in love with Dizzy Dean, too.

Tess didn’t listen to Father Brannigan. She hoped she wouldn’t go to Hell for not listening, but thinking of Grandmama and how much fun she was, and how much fun she made everything else, made Tess’s heart feel lighter. And she knew that was what Grandmama would have wanted. She wouldn’t want anyone sitting at her funeral with a heavy heart.

But oh, Tess, was going to miss her so much . . .

“Come on, Tess.”

Lorna drew Tess’s attention with a whisper. Tess looked up and saw it was time to walk closer to the casket, to actually look at Grandmama and to say good-bye. She never wanted to go. But she didn’t want to oppose her mother, or leave without saying good-bye, either. She was already worried that a bolt of lightning might zap through the church roof because she’d been daydreaming instead of listening to Father Brannigan, as the nuns taught. Meekly, she followed her mother toward the ornate pink casket. Pink was Grandmama’s favorite color.

Before she even drew close, Tess saw her grandmama. Her hair was curled a bit more than usual. And Tess thought the pink on her cheeks looked rather funny with the way it was round. Grandmama would laugh hard if she looked in the mirror.

Tess had never seen a dead person, and she wasn’t sure what she’d ex­pected, but this wasn’t it. In fact, except for the pink clown cheeks, Tess still thought Grandmama looked as if she were asleep. Tess had, after all, spent many nights with Grandmama and had even shared a bed with her. So Tess knew what she looked like sleeping.

But she wasn’t sleeping, and yes, Tess would miss her. She stared down at the dead woman’s soft, wrinkled face. How many times had Tess kissed that cheek? How many times had Tess felt those arms hold her close in a warm, healing hug? How many times had Grandmama taken Tess’s hand as they crossed the street in front of Grandmama’s house, because Grandmama often said no one ever gets too old to need a hand to hold?

Tess would never feel any of those things or hear Grandmama’s voice again.

“Can I hold her hand one last time, Mama?” Tess asked.

“Of course.”

Without hesitation, Tess reached out and took hold of Grand­mama’s hand. She was prepared to feel coldness. And she did feel cold, but only for a second before warmth moved up Tess’s arm. Then her throat grew tight. She couldn’t breathe. If she didn’t know better, she’d think she’d tried to swallow a large marshmallow whole and it was caught in her throat.

Grandmama, her casket, and everyone around Tess disappeared in an instant. Tess saw whiteness, filled with black spots, and recognized it as the ceiling tile in Grandmama’s bedroom. Her vision moved to the left, and Tess saw Grandmama’s dresser where she kept her jewelry box and loose powder and makeup and her pink hairbrush. In the mirror, she saw Uncle John. He held a pillow in his hands. Tess even smelled Grand­mama’s perfume she always wore.

Then she heard Uncle John’s voice. “I’m tired of waiting for my money, old woman.”

Tess felt her own heart pound in her chest, as Uncle John brought the pillow close to her face. Or was it Grandmama’s face? She just knew she tried to scream and couldn’t, as the cool cotton of the pillowcase filled her world with unending, terrifying darkness. She tried to breathe and couldn’t . . .

The next thing Tess heard was screaming—her own.

Her father, gentle and kind but strong, held her wrists and tried to calm her as she kicked and screamed and punched. His dark, wonderful eyes came into focus, and Tess realized she lay on the floor beside Grand­mama’s casket. Everyone in the room was silent as they stared.

“It was Uncle John,” Tess said breathlessly. “He killed Grandmama with a pillow for her money.”

The gazes of everyone in the room moved to Uncle John who stood nearby. After a long moment of hushed silence, several people gasped, and suddenly, Uncle John turned and fled . . .

Eighteen years later . . .

The horrid dream of Uncle John staring at her with red, hate-filled eyes was whisked away by the shrill sound of her cell phone. Still half asleep and on automatic pilot, she grasped the small device, opened it and held it to her ear. “Yeah?”

“I’ve got a body for you, Tess,” said a familiar voice.

“Yeah?” Tess glanced at the bedside clock and worked to focus on the numbers. One-thirty-eight. It was times like this that she hated being on call for the Chicago Police Department.

“I’ll have her at the morgue for you by the time you get there.”

He hung up without a good-bye or an adios, amigo, but what Tess hated about Detective Jake Williams was not his lack of greeting or salutations. It was the fact that he referred to the body as a “her.” If he’d called the body an “it,” it wouldn’t be so personal. In fact, she wouldn’t have to think of it as a person at all. “Her” made the body a real per­son—a real dead person—a female, a girl or a woman. She would have blond, red, brown, gray, black, or any shade of hair in between. She would be someone’s daughter, sister, wife, mother, friend, or lover.

Tess slid her feet to the floor and forced herself into a sitting posi­tion, fighting the slight dizziness and clouds that still fogged her mind. She rubbed her eyes and reached for her shirt at the same time.

There was no way she’d ever thank Detective Jake Williams for call­ing her in the middle of the night, but there were two consolations. One, his call had ended the nightmare that plagued her all too often. And two, at the morgue, she’d get to see Dr. Michael Adams.

Why did she even think about Michael Adams? Why would she al­low herself to wonder about him? It was, after all, a waste of time. He was smart, handsome, compassionate—at least to the dead. Why would she ever think he would be the least bit interested in a freak like her?

MICHAEL KNEW TESS was in the room. He didn’t have to open his eyes. Even with the absence of perfume, he sensed her. Her own unique woman-scent, over the clean smell of vanilla and some sort of flowery soap, touched him with familiarity and filled him with warmth like sun­shine on a perfect spring day.

Wanting nothing more than to breathe her in, he still didn’t open his eyes as he leaned back in his chair and kept his legs crossed up on his desk. He thought if he remained quiet, allowing her to think him resting, she might draw closer. He knew she kept her distance, even from him, despite the fact that he never gave her reason to.

Finally, he could put it off no longer. “Hello, Tess,” he said.

“Hi, Dr. Adams.”

He liked the sound of her voice too, had from the first moment he met her. Throaty and rich, rather deep for a woman, he thought she could make a mint on the radio or perhaps as one of those telephone sex voices men called, paying with credit cards to listen to nasty words or live out their fantasies.

But he was sure glad she walked into his morgue a few times a week instead.

He still didn’t move, still kept his eyes closed. Yet, he knew she wouldn’t venture far into his office, nor would she touch him. Touch was different for Tess Fairmont. For her, there was nothing casual about touch. She saw things when she touched people—usually dead people. At least, it was the dead people he knew about. He’d seen her touch the dead many times, as she helped the Chicago PD. He heard what she told Detective Williams, and he knew she saw enough to help Williams catch the bad guys. He didn’t understand how she did it, but he respected it and didn’t question it. Even more, he respected her. He’d never known her to be wrong in what she saw.

At the same time, he wondered what she saw when she touched live people. But then, he seldom saw her get close enough to touch anyone.

He wished she wasn’t afraid to touch him.

“How did you know I was here?” she asked in that wonderful voice.

“You aren’t the only one who sees things sometimes.” He opened his eyes and looked at her.

She’d come into his office far enough to be just across the desk from him. Dressed in jeans and a plain red t-shirt, she wasn’t glamorous. But she was a looker. Her wavy hair was the color of dark honey, and it was pulled back in a simple ponytail. The deep blue of her eyes seemed to cross the desk and grab him. Her full lips invited him to kiss her.

He longed to release her hair from the barrette that held it and run his fingers through it. While she touched him.

Why did he want her touch so much?

Because he knew she never touched anyone freely. Like a child told he could never have a piece of candy, he craved it, knew it would taste wonderful when it finally reached his tongue.

He vowed then and there that he would feel her touch. And he would feel it soon. “And would you please call me Michael? I think we’ve known each other long enough to let go of the formalities,” he said, deciding that if they were going to be skin to skin soon, they should at least be on a first-name basis.

His question seemed to throw her off balance. For a long moment, she looked down at his desk, as if she couldn’t meet his gaze. Michael had no trouble looking at her. She wasn’t very tall, five-two, five-three, tops. And curvy. He liked that about her. She had soft-looking hips that he wanted to grasp in his hands as he pressed her against him and . . .

Hell, he was going to have to stop thinking like this, or he’d better stay tucked in his desk chair. Otherwise, when he stood, she might label him just another hard-up guy who fantasizes about sex every three sec­onds.

Okay, so he did fantasize about sex. But it seemed like these days, he did it when she was either close-by or he thought of her, and he only fantasized about sex with her.

And he wished he knew how to get beyond the barricades she al­ways had up. He also wished he could interest her in more than just dead bodies.

“So, tell me about the latest body,” she said.

She must be reading his mind. Hell, who was he kidding? She was nothing but business as usual. Cool business, at that. If he didn’t find a way to warm her up to him, he was never going to touch her. He was never going to be skin to skin with her. He was never going to move past her barricades and touch her soul. Why would she be interested in some geek who worked with dead bodies more than she did? She probably thought of him as nothing more than a vampire, a man who works in the cold, hidden from the sun with no one to converse with other than the dead.

He had to clear his throat before he spoke. “Female, approximate age late twenties to early thirties.”

“Where’s Detective Williams?”

“He said he had a lot of paperwork to fill out and he had to meet with some bigwigs.”

She seemed to think about that a moment, then said, “He thinks this one is the work of a serial killer, doesn’t he?”

He wondered how she’d jumped to that conclusion, but didn’t dare ask. “Yes.”

“So he’s meeting with the FBI, isn’t he?”

He noticed something in her eyes. Was it fear? “I think so. If this is the work of a serial killer, the FBI would no doubt be involved. Does that bother you?” It was clear to him that it did. He wished she’d open up and share her fears with him. He’d listen. He wouldn’t even force her to get close to him or to touch him.

Unfortunately, she didn’t share her thoughts. He had so hoped to­day would be different—that she would let him see inside, perhaps just a glimmer of the mystery she kept hidden from the world. He wanted to know her. He wanted . . .

Let it go, he thought. Let her go. It’s obvious she’s not interested.

“Why should it bother me?” she asked.

Because you suddenly look as if I’m a pirate making you walk the plank and sharks are waiting for you in the water, that’s why, he thought. He shrugged, as if it didn’t matter. Michael unfolded himself from his desk chair and stood. He stretched to ease the stiffness in his shoulders.

“You look tired.”

“It’s two in the morning.” As if he needed to remind her. “And two cars full of teenagers hit head-on yesterday afternoon. It’s been a busy night.”

“I’m sorry.”

“So am I.” He led her to the door of his office and headed down to the cooler where the bodies were kept. Without a sound, she followed him.

At the swinging double doors that led into the cooler, he paused, his elbow against the door ready to push his way through. He turned back and met her gaze. “When we’re through here, would you care to have a cup of coffee with me?”

Okay, so he wasn’t quite ready to give up on her yet, even if she had turned down every offer he’d made for them to have a cup of coffee together.

This time was no different. “No, thank you.” Her soft voice echoed off the tiled walls around them. Without another a word, she stepped ahead of him and moved into the cooler.

Just as smoothly, he reached out and grasped her arm, stopping her in mid-step. She turned and looked at him, her expression startled, as if his touch burned her. It was nearly enough to make him let go. He didn’t. “Will you ever say yes?”

“No.”

She stood just inside the room, and he didn’t release her. They stood that way for a long, silent moment, then he said, “You don’t like me because I’m a pathologist, stuck down in a cold cellar where I cut on dead people, right?” He should be too tired to care why she always turned him down, but he wasn’t. She was the first woman to interest him in a very long time, and he never gave up without a fight. But, hell, as hard as she made it to move forward with her, he could have been a dentist trying to pull her teeth.

She blinked at him, as if she didn’t understand the question. Or per­haps she didn’t have an answer. Then she blinked a second time. He stared back, feeling mesmerized. He could drown in her gorgeous blue eyes.

“Which body is it?” she asked, ignoring his question. Her voice sounded deeper, perhaps even rougher, and definitely breathier than usual.

He was just offering a simple cup of coffee, so why did he feel as if she’d just kicked him in the balls? She was more than a head shorter than he, so why did she seem to have the ability to look down at him? He fought the urge to maintain the grip on her arm, to force answers from her. In the end, he let her slip from his grasp. “This one over here.”

Because seven of the ten metal slabs in the room were covered with sheet-clad bodies, he had to move to the far end of the room. He stopped in front of correct slab, but he didn’t remove the sheet.

He met Tess’s gaze. “She’s been tortured, bound with something thin like plastic or wire, and cut up. She isn’t pretty.” He always warned her.

Tess stared back at the man evenly. “None of them are ever pretty.” They were all dead, devoid of color and warmth, their faces appearing hollow and empty. “But I’m always glad you warn me.”

She had no idea why Dr. Michael Adams was a forensics pathologist who preferred caring for the dead and not the living, She had seen the careful, compassionate way he treated the dead and thought his bedside manner would have been wonderful.

And in the last two minutes, she’d felt his touch. There was more than compassion in his hand; there was warmth and caring and unmistaka­ble desire. Her arm still tingled from his touch, and she had to force a swallow through her suddenly tight throat as her entire body instantly craved his heat. Oddly, her lungs were tight when she pulled in a breath. “You care for them, don’t you, even though they’re dead?”

She wasn’t sure why the question popped out. She shouldn’t care that he cared. She should just do her job and get the hell out of here. She shouldn’t look at him again. He was just a man—probably no different than any other, whose thoughts rarely went beyond getting into her pants.

But she wanted to know his answer, and she wasn’t sure why it was so important. Perhaps his offer of coffee was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Perhaps she was just tired of always being alone. Maybe a few hours of sex would be better than being alone. Tess swallowed hard but couldn’t stop the tingle that moved through her at the idea.

His next words grounded her and wiped away all thoughts of sex. “They’re still people. They’re still important. Someone has to care for them.”

“I know that’s true.” Tess looked down at the sheet-covered silhou­ette. She didn’t want to do this, but she had to. By touching this woman, she might be able to save someone else’s life.

“Do you need me to pull the sheet down, or just move it enough so you can touch the hand?” Michael Adams suddenly asked.

“It helps if I see the face,” she replied. She had to lick her lips to bring some moisture to her mouth. She knew that, when it worked, her ability helped Detective Jake Williams, but no one knew how much it took out of her or how sick to her stomach she felt before she put it to the test.

“Let me know when you’re ready,” Michael said, interrupting her thoughts.

She took a deep breath and exhaled, then said, “I’m ready.” As usual, it was a lie. The truth was she was never ready to see them.

Tess forced herself to breathe as Michael pulled back the sheet. She tried to look at the body and not see the woman as a person. She did her best to look past the dark, wavy hair. But the bruises on the delicate lines of her cheeks and the dried blood was impossible to ignore and caused her stomach to twist. She stared at the woman for a long moment, seeing a life violently cut short.

Why this woman? she wondered. Why this woman when my own life seems to float along with little meaning?

She suddenly wanted more.

She suddenly wanted to do more than float along.

And the only way her life could get meaning was if she put it out there . . .

“Michael?” It was the first time she’d used his first name, and she said it hesitantly. Her voice sounded loud and seemed to echo off the room’s walls, and she didn’t look at him. He stood so close that she smelled the clean, man scent of him over the room’s smell of death and disinfectant. Her heartbeat quickened. She thought if he touched her now she might jump right out of her skin.

“Yes?” he said.

“I always say no because I don’t like coffee,” she admitted. She didn’t meet his gaze as she spoke, but she felt as if she could read his thoughts. He had to know it was so much more than the fact that she didn’t like coffee since they both knew she could get just about anything other than coffee at a coffee shop.

She suddenly felt as though she could taste the bitter tang of coffee, and she swallowed hard. Closing her eyes, she thought, Not now. I can’t think of that now.

Right then, she had to concentrate on this woman. She had to touch this person with her mind clear in order to see anything that might come to her. Without another word and before any further thoughts could creep into her mind, Tess reached out unhesitatingly and took the girl’s hand in her own.

As Michael tried to decide how to respond to Tess’s sudden revela­tion about not liking coffee, he watched her lift the girl’s hand. He knew from what she’d told him in the past that, at first, she felt nothing but the cold, lifeless touch of death. She’d also told him that if she would be allowed to see anything at all, it would happen fast, after she felt a warmth rush over her. Then she became the victim, and she saw through the victim’s eyes whatever the victim had seen in the last moments of life. Tess had never told him much about exactly what she physically or emotionally experienced, but at times, he knew from her expression that she also felt the pain the victim had endured.

Michael waited and watched her, suddenly realizing he held his breath. He wondered how many people knew of Tess’s gift—or curse, as she often called it. Besides himself and Jake Williams, he doubted there were many.

In fact, Tess kept to herself so much that he wondered if she even had friends. He often saw her eating lunch in the diner, but she usually sat in a booth alone. One of these days, he planned to sit in the booth with her.

There he was, back to putting himself close to her. He might as well face facts; she was closer to Detective Jake Williams. He figured Jake, at least, had her phone number, which was more than he had.

And as for Detective Jake Williams, Michael had been in this cool room with him enough to know Jake’s heart could be just as cool. Then again, perhaps he’d just seen so many dead bodies that he’d become immune to the sight. Perhaps he could turn off his feelings when he came here to examine one, and perhaps later, when he was alone, he gave in to the pain he certainly must feel when he reflected back on the agony he knew the victims had obviously endured. Yes, Jake could be a cool cucumber, but Michael saw the way he treated Tess with respect even though Tess didn’t appear to give Jake the time of day any more than she did him. He supposed he should be grateful for that.

As he continued to watch Tess, Michael thought about the past five weeks. There had been three previous victims, and Detective Williams had called Tess in on all of them. Thus far, she claimed to have received nothing more than fuzzy images when she took the hands of the dead victims. She’d told Michael about blurry, dirty white walls and the mov­ing image of a small, cloudy fish aquarium, none of which could help the police find the killer.

Tess made a sudden movement, and Michael was jerked back to the present. Watching her was difficult, often even more difficult than watch­ing family members grieve when they came into this room to identify their loved ones. At least they didn’t actually feel what had hap­pened to that loved one.

And he knew that Tess was feeling something. He saw her stiffen, and her breathing grew shallow. Gooseflesh popped out on her arms, and she shivered uncontrollably. She was suddenly tense. She opened her mouth, and Michael thought she might scream, but only a ter­ror-filled moan managed to escape. He stared at a single drop of blood that dripped from her hand—the free hand that didn’t touch the woman. Tess’s fist was clenched so tightly, her nails cut into her palm. It took everything he had not to grab her and pull her into his arms. Yet, he didn’t dare move closer because he had no idea what touching her at a time like this would do to her.

Tess wasn’t aware of Michael’s attention. Indeed, she wasn’t herself any longer, and she shuddered at the scene surrounding her.

She sat in a straight-back dining room chair. When she tried to move, pain shot up each arm from the raw burns on her wrists that were caused by plastic wire that bound her to the chair’s arms. She blinked back tears, looked to her left and saw him—the back of a man in the kitchen. He had dark hair and broad shoulders, no identifying marks. Was there something familiar about him? She wasn’t sure.

What frightened her most were the others in the room with her. Five women about her age—twenty-five to perhaps thirty. They were all like her—terrified, tearful, nearly naked, bound to the chairs on which they sat.

Tess tried to study each one carefully, but she was unable to change the past or change anything this victim did in the moments before her death, so she was unable to let her gaze linger on each hostage or on anything about the room unless the victim did.

Then the woman turned her gaze back to the kitchen. “Why are you doing this?” the woman called out. Yes, that was what Tess wanted to know, too.

“I already told you, you’re not to speak unless spoken to. Have I not made myself clear?”

He did something in the kitchen, something that made a scraping sound. Scrape up, scrape back, but Tess couldn’t place it. He paused in his motion. “Have I not? You’d better answer me.”

Tess felt the woman swallow hard. She also felt the woman’s desire to defy him. In the end, the victim said, “Yes, you have. I’m sorry, I still don’t understand why. Why me?”

Tess had a million other questions she wanted to ask, and was frustrated that she only saw and did whatever the victim had seen and done.

The scraping sound continued. It raked on every nerve in her body like nails on a chalkboard. Then it stopped. Above the soft sobs of the woman in the chair next to her, Tess heard her own heart pounding. He turned to her slightly, just enough to show his profile. He had a handsome face and a dimple in his right cheek appeared as he smiled at her.

“You’re all guilty of a crime. And now it’s time for your sentence to be handed down.”

She stared at him, working to place his face. “What crime, Raymond?” the vic­tim asked. “I didn’t do anything to you.”

Good question. And Raymond? Tess felt a small thrill of excitement. She knows his name, at least his first name.

“That’s exactly right, you didn’t do anything. But if you can’t remember your crime completely, I’m sure you’ll be reminded of it in Hell.”

Tess felt she should know more than just his first name, more than if he’d simply told the woman his name was Raymond. He stepped forward, and Tess wanted to scream with frustration because as he moved closer, showing his full profile, the victim did not look at his face.

Then Tess was hit with a soul-deep cold as the victim’s gaze moved to what he held in his hand. A knife, large, gleaming and sharp as a razor. That’s what the scraping sound had been—he’d been sharpening the knife. She tried to swallow and couldn’t.

“Please don’t do this.” The woman’s whispered words burned in Tess’s throat.

Tess knew she couldn’t stop him, knew she couldn’t change what already was. Still, she struggled against the bonds at her wrists, ignoring the pain they caused. Her nails bit into the arms of the chair.

The knife came toward her. When more pain came, she screamed and screamed and screamed . . .

TESS FELT HERSELF falling and couldn’t stop. Then there was only darkness.

She woke to find herself looking up at Michael. It took a long mo­ment for her to gather her wits. When she finally managed it, she discov­ered she was in Michael’s arms and he held her on his lap. A quick glance around told her they were on the small sofa in the hallway outside the cooler.

She tried to jump away from him, but didn’t manage anything more than almost falling off the sofa.

“Whoa.” He kept her from falling and shifted her closer to him.

His touch was everywhere. Warmth, heat, and an electrical current, something like touching her tongue to a nine-volt battery, buzzed through her. She shifted in his arms slightly. Her movement didn’t stop the current.

“No, don’t try to move. Just breathe, nice and easy,” he instructed.

Easy for him to say when all she really wanted to do was melt against him. His closeness was like warm, inviting water flowing around her, flowing through her. She suddenly wanted nothing more than to swim against him.

“What happened?” She had to force those two words out through a still painfully tight throat.

“You screamed, then fainted. I managed to keep you from hitting the floor. I didn’t think you’d appreciate waking up on a slab with the bodies in there, so I brought you out here.”

The concern she saw etched in his expression melted the cold spot in her soul. And his touch was so warm, so vibrant. Along with the current and the warmth of water against her, a bright blue light sur­rounded him. She had to close her eyes against it for a long moment.

“What did you see when you touched that woman?” he asked.

She didn’t answer but merely looked down at herself to make sure there were no holes in her clothes, no blood pouring from wounds.

She was intact, whole. And her only pain was in her chest where her heart beat wildly enough to hurt, but whether her heart raced because of what she’d just seen or because she was in Michael’s arms, or perhaps a combination of the two, Tess wasn’t sure. She started to sit up, but couldn’t. So she remained leaning against him. His hands were so strong, so gentle. He held her as if she were a precious piece of glass he was afraid he’d break.

“Easy,” Michael said. “Are you feeling up to talking about what you saw?”

She wasn’t feeling up to it, never would be, but she had to do it any­way. “He . . . he . . .” It was impossible to speak as she gasped for breath, feeling as if she’d just sprinted a mile.

“It’s all right. I know what he did to her. You don’t have to think about that part. Just concentrate on the part that will help Detective Williams find him and stop him before he hurts another woman.”

“This time was so different,” she said, still out of breath, her words shaky as the fear slowly dissipated.

“How was it different?”

She shook her head as she searched for the right words to describe her experience. “It wasn’t just a flash or a moment of bits and pieces, as it usually is. It was vivid and real, like dropping into the middle of a movie. I saw him—his profile, I mean. He seemed so familiar, and she knew him.” Tess met Michael’s warm, concerned gaze. “And what’s worse is that he plans to hurt other women. I saw five of them, all tied up just as I was. I mean just as she was.”

“As soon as we get upstairs, I’ll call Detective Williams. How do you feel?”

“I think I’ll be all right,” she lied. With all the effort she could mus­ter, she moved off his lap and worked to sit up next to him without having to lean on him like a crutch. She tried to stand and weaved slightly, and she found herself wanting to reach out to him, to touch him.

She frowned, confused. She shouldn’t want his touch, shouldn’t need it. She didn’t want to need it or to want it in any way. Yet, it was as if her body leaned toward him without any command from her brain. When he placed an arm around her waist to steady her, Tess let him.

She admitted to herself that his touch was not like anyone else’s. He was not a hormone-controlled teenager. He’d held her in his arms, and yet, he didn’t act like a man who planned to put his hands where she didn’t want them. Even now, she felt mere concern in his touch. Why had she ever feared his touch? It was warm, secure, and safe. In his touch, she felt trust, as if that current in him moved from his hands and into her soul. She could be sure about him. In his hands, she felt pure goodness and gentleness.

Still, she shouldn’t want his touch. She’d learned long ago that touch often led to pain—pain she didn’t want and pain she didn’t think she could handle. She’d rather never again feel someone’s touch than to feel that pain. Still, she didn’t pull away as he led her toward the stairs, and he never let go of her.

When they reached the top of the stairs, she said, “My legs feel so heavy, so weak. I can’t believe how drained this has left me. It’s as if the woman’s terror sucked out every ounce of my energy.”

“Have you ever felt that way before?” He pulled her closer against him and steered her into his office where he led her to an old sofa he had stashed in there.

“Yes, but not this much. And—”

“And what?”

“And usually after I touch someone and have a vision, I have a head­ache,” she answered. That was putting it mildly. Sometimes a mere flash of vision could make her head feel as though someone had put an ice pick in it. “Tell me what else happened,” she said. “Did I say anything?”

“No, I already told you. You flinched as if you were in pain and moaned, and then you started screaming.”

“That was because I felt him stick her with that knife.”

She’d spoken without thinking, but if it shocked him, he didn’t show it. His voice was cool and professional as he asked, “Have you ever felt that before?”

She absently rubbed her face and took a deep breath. But when she closed her eyes, she saw the scene again—his next victims; his hideous smile. “I usually feel the victim’s emotions, not so much physical pain. I don’t remember ever feeling anything as strong as this. But then, I’m not sure any of my visions have ever been this vivid, either.” She sighed. “Why do I do this to myself?”

“To help people. Here, take this.”

She looked up to find he held a mug out to her.

He smiled. “It’s not coffee, I promise. It’s just water. It’s all I have right now.”

She took it from him. Her fingers brushed his, and even though it had been just minutes since she’d felt his warmth, the heat of him star­tled her. It didn’t burn, like the sudden touch of a match. It was more like she’d been out in the cold darkness for a long time and now drew close to an inviting fire. It made her want to turn so that each part of her body could experience the warmth, too.

Her hand shook, and she was forced to hold the glass with both hands. But she took a drink and let the water’s coolness wash through her raw throat. She sat quietly while he moved to his desk and picked up his phone. She felt suddenly cold and fought down a shiver at the loss of the fire that was Michael. And yet she still saw the deep outline of his blue aura around him—his clean blue, warm and pure aura. It shim­mered to blue-green at times as she watched. Why had she never seen that before? Probably because he’d never touched her before.

“You saw him?” he asked her as he dialed.

“Yes, his profile, and his other intended victims, all bound to chairs, too. I also saw that same cloudy fish tank that I’d seen during my previ­ous visions. Detective Williams is right. He does have a serial killer. And today’s victim knew his name.”

“His name?”

“I—I mean she called him Raymond.”

Michael swore under his breath, then he spoke into the phone. “Detective Williams? This is Michael Adams. Yes, Tess is here, and I think you’d better get back here as soon as possible. You should proba­bly bring one of your police artists, too.”