Dream Man by Linda Howard Read Free Book Online Page A

fathomless blue of the ocean, the kind of eyes a man could look into and forget what he’d been saying. There was something exotic about them, other than the richness of colon a sort of otherworldliness that he couldn’t quite grasp. The expression in them, however, was easy to read, and Dane knew beyond a doubt that he hadn’t exactly over-whelmed her with his charm.
    She stood and faced him, squaring off with him as if they were two adversaries in the old West about to draw down on each other. Her face had gone calm and curiously remote. “I’ve told you what happened,” she said in a clear, deliberate voice. “You can believe it or not; it doesn’t make any difference to me.”
    “It should,” he replied just as deliberately.
    She didn’t ask why, though he paused for her to do just that. Instead her mouth twitched into a tiny, humorless smile. “I realize that I just became your prime suspect,” she murmured. “So why don’t I save your time and mine by telling you that my address is 2411 Hazelwood, and my telephone number is 555-9909.”
    “You know the routine,” he said with sarcastic admira-tion. “I’m not surprised.” He moved a step closer to her, close enough that she had to look up to maintain eye contact, close enough to intrude into her space and subtly threaten her. “Or maybe you’re just reading my mind, since you’re psychic.” He put an unflattering emphasis on the last word. “Maybe you can tell me what comes next, unless you need a crystal ball to tell you what I’m thinking.”
    “Oh, that doesn’t take a mind reader, but then you aren’t very original.” She paused, then gave him that little smile again. “I have no intention of leaving town.” She wasn’t backing down, and his stomach muscles knotted again. At first glance she had looked like a drab, a nonentity afraid of making herself more attractive in any way, but the first look into her eyes had forcibly changed that opinion. The woman facing him didn’t lack self-confidence, and she wasn’t the least bit intimidated by him even though he was almost a foot taller. Something else stole into his awareness. Damn, he could smell her, a sweet, soft scent that had nothing to do with perfume and everything to do with female flesh. His involuntary reaction made him even angrier.
    “See that you don’t.” His voice was low and harsh. “Is there anything else you see in your crystal ball, anything you want to tell me?”
    “Of course,” she purred, and the sudden glint in her blue eyes told him that he’d walked right into that one. “Go to hell, Detective.”

Chapter 4
    “Dammit, Hollister!” Bonness glared at him. “Did you have to be such an asshole? The woman came in here trying to help, for Chrissake! She told us some amazing stuff—”
    “Amazing, my ass,” Dane interrupted, still aware of the fury boiling up inside, though now at least half of it was directed at himself. “If she didn’t do it herself, then she was there when it was done. She did it, or she’s an accomplice, and she’s daring us to catch her by feeding us this loony psychic story.”
    “She knew details that no one but the killer, or killers, could have known,” Trammell said tersely. “Hell, we’ve all heard the kind of crap those so-called psychics describe in their so-called visions. ‘I’m getting an impression of the letter C,’” he mimicked. ‘“It’s something to do with the letter C. And it’s wet…
    Yes, yes, I’m definitely getting the impression of wetness. The body is close to water.’”
    “Which narrows it down to the whole fucking state,” Dane finished. “That wasn’t a psychic vision she described; it was an eyewitness account. The lady was there when it happened, and she just placed herself at the top of my list.”
    “She couldn’t have done it,” Bonness protested weakly, his disappointment plain.
    “Not alone,” Dane agreed. “She wouldn’t have been strong enough.”
    “We