The Edge by Catherine Coulter Read Free Book Online Page A

head. “You think I’m psychotic, right?”
    She said slowly, staring at me, “I don’t know what to believe. What did you do?”
    “The next morning I called Paul right away, found out that my dream had actually happened. I’ve got no clue as to why I hooked up to Jilly like that, none.”
    “Jesus,” she said.
    “I had to come here.”
    “You shouldn’t have left the hospital.”
    “There wasn’t a choice. As it was, I waited another two days. The longest two days of my life.”
    She didn’t say anything for a very long time. She rubbed her palm on her thigh. The crease in her tan pants was still sharp. The pants looked as fresh as if she’d just put them on.
    “And you and Jilly never had any sort of link before this?”
    I shook my head. “There are just us four kids now. Our folks have been dead for some time. Jilly’s three years older than me. I’m the youngest. We weren’t all that close really, both of us busy over the past several years, but that’s normal I guess. Then this damned dream happened. The thing is, I feel like something made Jilly go over that cliff—or someone. She was alone in that car, but she wasn’t, not really.”
    “That doesn’t make much sense.”
    “I know,” I said. “I know. At least it doesn’t yet. You want the kicker? At the end of the dream I heard a manyelling.” I drew a deep breath. “It sounded like Rob Morrison. I recognized his voice just now.”
    “Jesus.”
    “There’s no way I can just accept this as a suicide attempt, not unless Jilly tells me it was.”
     
    I sipped a rich Pinot Noir from the Gray Canyon vineyard in Napa Valley.
    “You like the wine?” Paul asked.
    “It’s darker than the deepest sin,” I said, gently swirling the wine in its crystal glass, watching it glide smoothly over the sides. “I met Rob Morrison today, the man who saved Jilly.”
    “Yes,” Paul said. “I met Rob just after Jilly and I moved here. He gave me a speeding ticket. I hear you also spent time with Maggie Sheffield.”
    “Yeah. I don’t know what to think of her just yet, but she seemed okay, once she got over her gut suspicions of me as an FBI agent.”
    Paul sat forward, his hands clenching. “Watch out for her, Mac.”
    “What does that mean?”
    Paul shrugged his shoulders. “Please don’t think that I’m being harsh or a woman hater. I’ll just come out with it. She’s a bitch, a ball-buster.”
    “I didn’t get that impression at all.” I cut another piece of the thick sirloin steak. It was even better than the lettuce and green bean salad at The Edwardian. “She wants to find out why Jilly went over that cliff. I appreciate that. You should too. What’d she do to you? Give you a speeding ticket like Morrison?”
    “No, nothing like that. She wants to blame me for Jilly’s accident. She’s never liked me, believes I’m not good enough for Jilly. I don’t appreciate that at all.”
    It was my turn to shrug. “She didn’t say a word about you, Paul. She was waiting here in her car when I drove up. She wanted to talk to you.”
    “I’d have her fired if I could talk Geraldine into it. The woman’s a menace. She doesn’t like men in general, always giving them grief. Have you seen that damned gun she wears on her belt? It’s ridiculous. Edgerton is a small, peaceful little town. No one—man or woman—should be wearing a damned gun, but she does. Of course, I already spoke to her at the hospital after Jilly was admitted.”
    “It’s not odd at all for a cop—male or female—to want to question someone more than once,” I said mildly, surprised that Paul would spew out that sexist crap. I’d gotten no hint at all that she didn’t like men. “In the excitement and stress of the moment, people tend to forget things. I’ll bet even you will be able to tell her more now than you did then.”
    “About what, for God’s sake? Jilly went over that damned cliff and I don’t know why. She was a little depressed, but