Читать книгу Dream Weaver - Jenna Ryan - Страница 10

Johnny returned to Blue Lake late that afternoon. He’d felt something black and ugly pressing in on him, a stream of memories and reactions he was neither prepared to handle nor capable of offsetting.

He needed to breathe, to recenter himself and find his focus. It wasn’t so much that he’d lost it—his world since he’d met her had been Meliana—but having been immersed in a seductively evil role for so long, he tended to stray into rather unpleasant areas from time to time.

He phoned Julie as he drove north.

“She’s holding something back,” he said. “She’s a good actress, but I could see it in her body language, in the way she was moving and walking.”

“I’ll talk to her,” Julie promised. “You’re only an hour away, Johnny.”

“I’ll be back tomorrow. I just need a little time to chill and think.”

He ended the call and ordered himself to be steady. He could chill out over the past while he thought about the present.

What did this rose guy want from Meliana? How far would he go to get it? Was Meliana in danger?

Johnny frowned, glanced in his rearview mirror. He should have stayed in Chicago, should have taken his wife out for dinner. He could have worked on her until she’d agreed to come to Blue Lake with him.

Easily said in retrospect, not so easily done with Meliana. When she was on call or the hospital was short staffed, a bulldozer couldn’t budge her from the city.

The lakeside house was dark when he arrived. He unlocked the door, went in and switched on the first lamp that came to hand. He was heading for the fridge and a cold beer when a pair of headlights slashed across the front window.

Johnny recognized the shape of the cruiser, made it two cans and dropped onto the sofa.

“Door’s open, Zack,” he said through the screen.

“I took a chance and swung past on my way back from Woodstock.” Deputy Zack Crawford caught the beer Johnny tossed him. He looked around the tidier-than-usual main room. “Either Meliana’s back, or my mother’s been here. I’m guessing my mother.”

Johnny rested his head on the cushions. “I’m in trouble. She’s started making dinners and freezing them for me.”

“She needs someone to fuss over, and I’ve been out of town a lot lately.”

“Business?”

Zack sat on the ottoman and popped his beer. “You could say that. I’m taking a course—paramedic training. I signed up in late spring and still have a fair distance to go, but when I’m done, I’ll be able to get out of here and down to the city.”

“Why not train to be a cop?”

“Being a deputy’s what I fell into, Johnny, not what I wanted. It’s all about saving people’s lives, right? I’m tired of slapping kids’ wrists in the summer and making sure old Harry Riley gets home from the bar in the winter. Just do me a favor, and don’t tell my mother.”

“She doesn’t know?” Johnny took a long drink. “How’d you manage that?”

“I lied.”

“Good a way as any, I guess.”

Standing, Zack crossed the floor to the large side window. He had a build similar to Johnny’s, lean and rangy, with long legs and blond-brown hair. That’s where the resemblance ended. Zack’s eyes were green and his nose was slightly skewed from a bad break in high school. He brushed his hair back from a cleanly sculpted face, had a quick grin, a bad knee and a small scar on the left side of his jaw.

“What are you looking at?” Johnny asked when Zack peered around the blind.

“Just wondering if you can see Tim Carrick’s place from here. Mrs. Wilmot at the post office swears she saw him walking naked in the woods last week.”

“Tim’s the hairy guy with the beer gut, right?”

“Have you seen him around?”

“Not naked, but yeah, I see him all the time on weekends. He was loading his pickup with old crates last Sunday.”

“Strange guy.” Zack sipped his beer. “You see him up here, you think he’s a hillbilly, right? But he’s a salesman during the week. Pharmaceuticals. He walks naked in the woods, glares at everyone he meets, then takes off to the city and pushes his company’s pills on anyone who’ll listen. It’s no wonder his wife left him.”

“Was she the woman I used to hear shouting in Spanish?”

“Portuguese. Her name’s Vivianne. Meliana knew her. She was half English, half Brazilian. They watched Wheel of Fortune sometimes over at Tim’s place when Mel came up for the weekend. She took off about a year ago.”

“Back to Brazil?”

“Miami, I heard. Tim doesn’t talk about her, and most of us are too weirded out by the guy to press. Man, I tell you, I like it here, but I won’t be sorry to lose this place. Small-town dynamics and all. You’re lucky you’re FBI. People hesitate before poking their nose into a federal agent’s business.” Zack regarded his watch. “Ten-thirty. If I want out, I’d better hit the books.”

“Are you on duty tomorrow?”

“Four hours’ worth. Phil and I are pulling part-time shifts right now. Sheriff Frank got back from his Shriner’s convention in Gary today. I’ll catch you later, Johnny. Keep an eye out for Tim.”

Just what he needed, Johnny reflected, a nudist neighbor who liked to walk in the woods. A man who no longer lived with his wife. A guy with two different and distinct sides to his personality.

Disgusted with himself, Johnny got off the sofa and made a circle of the room. He shouldn’t be here. He’d given in to a moment of panic and flown. He could handle city life—he’d done it for years. Meliana had urged him to go, he’d felt the pressure building in his head, he’d caved and fled. What a wuss he’d turned into.

He gnawed on the side of his lip, glanced at his jacket, then released a breath and snatched it off the hook. Keys. Where? He searched the room twice, felt his pockets. There was nothing except an old shopping list inside.

He checked the top of the fridge, then his computer desk. He had e-mail, he noticed and gave the mouse a tap.

It wouldn’t be Mel. She preferred the phone. And his supervisors in Chicago weren’t likely to…

The thought dried up, simply vanished when the message appeared on screen. His blood turned to ice as he read it.

MELIANA’S MINE.

YOU TOUCH HER, YOU DIE.

MELIANA WAS UPSTAIRS in her home office, reviewing the file of a patient scheduled for surgery the next day, when she heard the commotion outside. Her brows went up as she checked her desk clock. Twelve minutes past midnight?

The men’s voices grew louder. She recognized them, and for a moment rolled closer to the window to listen.

“Fat lot of help you’ve been, Grand. You hang around for less than a day, then rush back up to your lakeside retreat so you can bury your head in the sand. If that’s your plan of action, you should stay there and leave the dirty work to those of us who can handle it. Man, do you think about anyone but yourself these days? Some creep waltzes in here, plants a flower in your ex’s lingerie drawer and steals some of her stuff. The cops shrug their shoulders, you take off and, meanwhile, some sicko’s running around with only his crazy brain cells functioning. It’s depraved.”

“Done yet?” Johnny asked when he ran out of breath. Meliana recognized the tone. She closed her eyes as she heard Chris’s muffled “Oomph.”

However, knowing Chris as she did, she imagined he’d given Johnny a hard shove or two to punctuate his earlier points.

No matter what he’d been through, Johnny wouldn’t use his fists unless he was pushed right to the wall. In the case of Chris Blackburn, that wall might be mere inches from Johnny’s back, but he still wouldn’t have precipitated a physical fight.

Shannon reached the front door ahead of her. Lokie, who’d been returned to her that evening, lagged behind.

“Coward,” she accused, and gave the dog’s head a scratch.

Lokie barked and sniffed her hand for a treat as she opened the door.

“Who do you think you are?” Chris demanded, red faced.

He was broader than Johnny and taller by about three inches, yet somehow Johnny’s presence always managed to dwarf him. Still, Chris outweighed Johnny by a good forty pounds. In an all-out fight, that could present a problem.

Motioning for the dogs to stay back, Meliana leaned on the doorjamb and regarded the pair of them.

“This is my house, and you’re trespassing.” Johnny pitched his voice lower than Chris. He wouldn’t shout unless it was absolutely necessary. “Go home, Blackburn.”

Chris responded by shoving him again. “This is Mel’s house. You moved out, remember? She lives here, I live two doors down and you have no business being here.”

Meliana caught the gleam in Johnny’s dark eyes and cleared her throat. “Don’t like to spoil your fun, guys, but you’re making a lot of noise for this time of night.”

“Andy wears earplugs.” Chris shot Johnny a hostile look. “He’s the only neighbor within range, and anyone in the park at this time of night doesn’t care what we’re doing.”

“I care.”

“Yeah, well, I caught your ex skulking in the bushes.”

“He’s not my ex,” Meliana reminded him. “Johnny has every right to be here, Chris.”

Johnny rested his butt on the iron rail. “Nice try, though. Now tell her what you were doing.”

Chris’s fingers twitched. “I was checking the place for perverts.”

“By sitting in the backyard and staring up at her bedroom window? He was waiting for you to go to bed, Mel,” Johnny said with contempt.

Meliana hooked his arm and drew him toward the door. “You’re like two kids fighting over a toy. Thanks for the thought, Chris, but I’m fine. You can take off.”

The look he sent Johnny smoldered. “I’ll hear if she screams.”

Meliana held fast to Johnny’s arm while Chris stalked away. “Let it go, okay? You copped an assignment he wanted. He resents you for it. Maybe it even scares him a little, seeing how it affected you. He could have been the one who almost got swept under. The outcome might have been worse if it had.”

“Blackburn’s got a granite skull. He’d have come out of it just fine.”

“Now you’re flattering him?” Meliana urged the dogs inside and closed the door. “This balled-fist stuff you guys do totally baffles me. Are you friends or not?”

“Not. One guy wants another guy’s wife, he’s no friend.”

“Remove me from the picture. Closer then?”

“Unlikely.” Johnny scowled. “Maybe. I don’t know. Are you all right?”

“Sure. Why wouldn’t I be?”

“No more roses?”

Guilt and a trace of renewed fear trickled in, replacing amusement. “Not so far.” She rubbed her palm on the leg of her jeans. “Do you want coffee?”

He hesitated. “You were working, weren’t you?”

“Homework for an op tomorrow. I’m clear on the details. Why did you come back?”

“Because I felt like a wimp for leaving.”

“You plowed a fist into Chris Blackburn’s stomach. I wouldn’t call that wimpy.”

In the kitchen doorway he stopped, brows raised. “You changed the appliances.”

“They were my grandmother’s.”

“Were?”

Meliana opened the stainless steel fridge. “She died fourteen months ago, Johnny. I was going to tell you when your assignment was done, but—well, I didn’t.”

Johnny swore, raked a hand through his hair and began to pace. “I liked her.”

“I know. There was no funeral, only a memorial service on Maui. She wanted me to have her appliances. They were brand-new, and she knew how much I love to cook.”

“Hell.” Johnny dropped onto a tall counter stool. “I should have been there.”

She pushed two plates, a knife and half a coconut cake into his hands. “Don’t beat yourself up over something you can’t change. No one expected you to come, least of all me. I knew you were FBI when I married you. Anyway—” she ran a teasing finger along the line of his jaw “—I wasn’t alone.” His expression went from blank to suspicious so quickly that she laughed. “My brother was there, and Julie flew over with me.”

He narrowed his eyes. “You want me to tell you what I’m thinking right now?”

“No.” Because he wasn’t doing it, she picked up the knife and sliced into the cake. “But I think I should tell you something.”

“Good or bad?”

“You decide.” She licked frosting from her thumb. “The rose guy sent me a pair of white stockings, tied with a white ribbon and bow.”

Johnny trapped her chin. “It was this afternoon, wasn’t it? When you left your office.”

“The package was hand delivered, or at least hand placed. No one downstairs remembers receiving it. Reception said it just appeared. Probably true.”

His eyes held steady on hers. “Did you give it to Julie?”

“Not yet. I handled everything carefully—not that I think there’ll be prints.”

“Where’s the stuff?”

“Upstairs in my office.” She waited a beat, then added. “There was a card.”

“Damn it, Mel.”

She raised the cake knife. “Don’t give me that look. I’m not being stupid, and I’m not taking this lightly. I just wasn’t sure if I wanted to tell you first or Julie.”

“What did the card say?”

She sighed. “‘Accept this token of my love, Meliana. Accept my love. Accept me. We are meant to be.’”

Anger sparked in his eyes. “And you sat on this?”

One thing Johnny Grand had never been able to do was browbeat her. She leaned forward on her elbows and said clearly, “Yes, I did. Make a fuss, and I’ll take my cake and leave you here in the dark.”

Johnny regarded her for several long seconds, then made a sound in his throat and reached into his back pocket. “This came for me today while I was here in Chicago. I sourced it to a South Side Internet Café.”

Meliana scanned the brief message. It was more malevolent than hers and, as a result, far more frightening.

“He threatened your life.” She glanced at the living-room window, visible across the open island. “Why do I think he’s serious?”

“Because people like this exist, Mel. Always have, always will.”

“Why choose me? And you?”

“Because you’re beautiful, bright and talented. And he figures I might be in the way….” He paused, looked away. “I think.”

She was quick enough to follow his sudden shift of thought. “This has nothing to do with your work, Johnny. Anyone who might want to hurt you the way you’re thinking would simply put a bullet through my head.”

“Not everyone uses a simple approach, Mel. One guy I was involved with prefers torture to a shot in the head. His name’s Enrique Jago. If something’s illegal, he’ll take it on. He pimps his own wife to business associates. My contact thought he might have made me near the end.”

“Did he?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t think so, but I could be wrong.”

She quashed the tendrils of uneasiness in her stomach. “Why would he send me roses? It’s a form of torture, I’ll admit, but there are much nastier versions if he’s really into it.”

“He’s different with women.”

“In what way?”

Johnny leaned forward, trapped a strand of her hair and brought it to his lips. His lashes shielded his eyes as he replied in flawless Spanish, “To invoke terror in the heart of a woman is to be granted power over her. Total power. The power to choose whether she lives…” Using her hair, Johnny tugged her forward until their lips touched. “Or whether,” he whispered against her mouth, “she dies.”

The last thing Meliana wanted to do was kiss him. It would get her all tangled up again, and she still wasn’t untangled from their separation. But she let herself tumble in because that’s how it had always been between them. A quick fall followed by a fiery meltdown.

She opened herself to him, let him explore while she touched him, tasted him, inhaled him—and tried very hard not to let reason sneak in.

He slid a hand into her hair, cupped her head and held her in place while he quite literally ravaged her mouth.

Deep kisses, she thought in a daze. They numbed her mind and sent her emotions spinning out of control. Only Johnny could do this to her. Only Johnny had ever really done anything to her. Only he had ever hurt her.

She wanted to push against his chest, but she didn’t rush it. The heat of him made her want to slide in deep and stay there. It wouldn’t be a safe or secure place, but it would be exciting. And Meliana lived for excitement. Or she had once.

She pressed her palm to his heart, felt it beating hard and fast against his ribs. “Johnny, stop,” she managed, and drew back. “Just—stop.”

He did, with an effort that was visible even to her blurred mind.

He closed those stunning eyes of his and let his head fall forward. “Sorry,” he said, then gave a soft laugh and breathed out, “No, I’m not.”

In his real life he’d never been much of a liar. Meliana collected what composure she could and stepped away. When she saw the dogs staring at them with lolling tongues, she found her sense of humor and felt a smile work its way across her lips.

“We had to go and complicate a perfectly workable situation, didn’t we?”

“I did it, Mel. You just…”

“Tripped and fell against your mouth?”

“If it keeps things level, yeah.”

She hesitated a moment, then brushed the hair from his face. “Nothing’s ever been level for us, Johnny. Not then or now.”

“And we’re doing our utmost to see that it stays that way.” He flicked a finger between them. “This is why I slept at Andy’s last night and will again tonight.”

She glanced next door. “He’ll love you for waking him at this hour. Andy’s sleeping habits tend to follow the sun.”

“He got a parking ticket last week. I’ll ask Julie to fix it. That’ll square us. Can I take the cake?”

She nodded, but stopped him before he could leave. “It wasn’t your fault, Johnny.”

From the doorway, he regarded her. “Tonight or overall?”

“Both. I don’t need to blame you for anything.”

“You never did.” He sent her a miserable look and wrapped his fingers briefly around the door frame. “But I do.”

SHE WOULD KEEP HER BALANCE, Meliana promised herself. She repeated that every time her thoughts strayed into dangerous territory for the next three days.

Johnny hadn’t meant to mess with her head, or her emotions, but how could he not when she’d loved him so much it hurt. Still did love him, if she was honest with herself. Always would, no matter how divergent their life patterns became.

He’d worried that she would grow to fear him. Although she never had, she’d glimpsed the violence inside him. They’d fought, bitterly, when he’d returned. Over what, Meliana couldn’t say, but at the root of it had been both a lifestyle and an alter ego he’d embraced just a little too fully for a little too long.

Determined not to dwell on that now, she went about her business as usual at the hospital.

She made her rounds, turned the envelope, stockings and card over to Julie, covered the overload in the E.R. and even sat in on one of Charlie’s clinics for twenty minutes during an afternoon break.

The man was amazing. She knew serious skeptics who were willing to give his methods a try.

“He’s a whacko genius.” Julie came up behind Meliana, who’d paused in the doorway to observe Charlie’s newest group. “Do you think he does hypnotism?”

“I doubt it.” Meliana swiveled her head. “Are you looking to get hypnotized?”

“No, I’m looking first for you, whom I’ve found, and second for Sam, who’s been complaining of headaches again.”

Sam Robbins was Julie’s stepbrother, a quiet young man with a talent much more freakish to Meliana’s mind than Charlie Lightfoot’s. He was one of those rare people who could scan a page in a phone book and memorize it instantly, names and numbers.

“Sam’s probably downstairs unloading food trays.” Meliana gave Charlie a quick wave before closing the door. “I’ll talk to Elizabeth Truman in Neurology. Maybe she can schedule a round of tests. It could be that Sam’s brain takes too much in at one time and can’t cope with the overload of information. Tell him to stop reading for a while.”

“Maybe I’ll send him fishing with Johnny up at Blue Lake. No praise intended, and no idea why, but Johnny’s really good with Sam. Must be a big-brother thing.”

“You’re worried about him, aren’t you?”

“A little. Don’t forget, his father died of a brain aneurysm.”

“I’ll talk to Liz,” Meliana promised. “So what’s the deal with the stockings?”

“Zip so far. Whoever this guy is, he’s taking all the necessary precautions. Is Johnny still around?”

“He went back to Blue Lake. Broken pipe in the downstairs bathroom. Eileen Crawford found it when she came to clean.” She nodded forward. “There’s Sam now.”

“With an overstuffed cart as usual.”

“It’s a long way down to Food Services.” Meliana grinned. “He’s saving himself a trip.”

“Sam!” Julie called.

He halted so abruptly he almost rolled the cart into a housekeeping trolley.

“Head in the clouds,” Julie muttered.

“Hi, Sam,” Meliana greeted. She saw him press his temple under a messy cap of dark curls. “Headache?”

“They come and go.” He sent her an affable grin. “Julie says it’s all the junk food I eat.” The smile faded and he stared at her lab coat. “Your pager’s going off.”

“It is?” Surprised, Meliana felt her pocket. “I don’t hear it.”

He regarded her with innocent brown eyes. “That’s because it hasn’t…”

When the device began to beep, Meliana and Julie both frowned at him.

“It just—came to me,” he said and checked the cart for slippage. “I need to get this downstairs. Later, okay?”

Meliana started for the nurses’ station. “This is a new thing, right?”

“I have no idea.” Julie strode along beside her. “Do you think—He couldn’t be, like, psychic or something, could he? I mean, we use psychics from time to time on impossible cases. My captain half believes they’re for real.”

“That seemed pretty for real to me,” Meliana said. “Problem?” she asked the duty nurse.

“You’re needed in Emergency, Dr. Maynard. We’ve got a four-car pileup with injuries.”

“On my way. Try not to see it as a burden,” she said to Julie as they took the elevator down. “Call it a gift, and let Neurology check him out.”

“Yeah, sure. Mel.” Julie caught her wrist as the door opened. “I’m only a little spooked about Sam. I’m worried about you. This rose guy could be totally deluded. At the very least he’s got a big problem. And you’re sitting right at the heart of it.”

I’M ANGRY. I’ve been that way for days now. It’s not Meliana’s fault, it’s her ex-husband’s. Except he isn’t her ex yet, which is partly why I’m angry.

I warned him to stay away from her. He didn’t listen. I’m going to make him listen.

Meliana will understand. She has to. I don’t know why she lets him into her house. It’s her house, not his, not anymore. They’re finished. Meliana’s mine now. My dream will come true.

I won’t let him come back into her life. I hope she understands that. I can’t believe she’d want him back.

I think I might have to hurt him.