Blood Dreams

'All I know,' Marc said deliberately, 'is that it scared the hell out of you. So I'm guessing that even if you aren't sure, you suspect what you heard came from the killer.'

'That's not possible.'

Marc's frown was gone, yet his face managed to be harder than ever. 'You're already… keyed on to this killer, right? Dreaming about him?'

She had never heard that particular terminology, but it did make sense to her. 'In a manner of speaking.'

'We both know it's all about connections with you. I assumed you were having the vision dreams because Miranda's a friend and there was a threat against her.'

Dani hesitated, then nodded. 'So did I.'

'Any chance the killer keyed on you because of the vision dream? That he somehow caught one end of a connection straight back to you?'

'I don't know.' God, I hope not. 'Maybe. Or maybe, if it happened at all, it was somehow through Marie Goode. If he's watching her-'

'She isn't psychic,' Marc said. 'What if he is?'

Dani drew a breath and said, 'I don't have to be an experienced investigator to know that if this killer is psychic, we're in very big trouble.'

'Either way, whether he is or isn't, you're still scared as hell, Dani. Because he's touched a part of you not many people have touched. Whether you made the connection or he did, it's real. It exists. Do you think I can't see that? Do you think I can't feel it?'

'Marc…'

'We both know those kinds of connections aren't easily severed once they're made. And he could hurt you, couldn't he? He could come after you in a way that no physical barrier, no wall or locked door or bodyguard with a gun could stop.'

Not something she wanted to think about, because it did scare the hell out of her. Especially since it eerily echoed the whisper she had heard.

Still, with forced lightness, she said, 'I'm safe. At least until we find that warehouse.' She heard herself say it.

She only wished she could believe it.

Gabriel pulled the Jeep off the otherwise deserted road and behind a tangle of some kind of vine he didn't recognize. 'I hate it when somebody changes the rules,' he grumbled.

We don't know that anybody did.

'Bullshit, we don't know. The SCU is supposed to be all but invisible here in this investigation, and he's about as visible as it gets.'

You said he seemed inconspicuous.

'Seemed being the operative word. Temporary being a better one. Just as soon as this town wakes up to the knowledge that two of their own have been murdered, have been butchered, you can bet strangers are going to get noticed. And probably shot.'

I think you're exaggerating. But best we keep a low profile and work as fast as we can.

'I heard that.' He got out of the Jeep and paused beside it only long enough to dig a smaller backpack from the big duffel bag in the backseat, then locked up the vehicle. He moved through the woods along the road for twenty or thirty yards, then came upon the disintegrating blacktop drive leading to a fair-sized cluster of buildings that had once housed some kind of manufacturing plant.

What was manufactured?

'Details, details.'

They might be important, you know that.

Gabriel sighed and shrugged the backpack off one shoulder. He opened a pocket and pulled out a map of the county that boasted numerous areas circled in red. He studied the notes scrawled in the margin for several moments. 'Plastics.'

Nothing more specific than that?

'Not on the map. But if I remember the research from yesterday, it was plastic hangers, something innocuous like that. Just a place that made useful things.'

And got closed during a downsizing of the company. I remember now.

He replaced the map in the backpack and continued on his way, following the old blacktop all the way to the buildings. The first one he came to was so featureless he didn't have a clue what it might originally have been designed to house; all he saw was the big rusting padlock on the windowless door.

Gabriel turned the heavy padlock up so he could see the bottom and knew from the amount of rust that his picks would be useless; a hammer and chisel, he thought, wouldn't be able to cut through the years of rust.

'Hey, a little help here.'

Sorry. My mind wandered.

'Well, wander it back, will you? Lock. And not one I can pick without a chisel. Or maybe some C-4.'

Just a sec. Wait… There.

He heard the sharp click, and found the padlock opening in his hand. It was still rusty and unwilling, but it opened.

'Still got the magic touch, Rox.'

Yeah, yeah. Check this place out and let's leave.

'You getting antsy?'

I also don't like it when somebody changes the rules. Be careful, Gabe. I have a bad feeling.

There were few things in the world Gabriel respected as much as his sister's had feelings, so he paused at the unlocked door long enough to get both a flashlight and a gun from his backpack. Then he put his shoulder to the door and forced his way into the derelict building.

* * * *

Back in the conference room. Marc filled the others in on both the interview with Marie Goode and Dani's experience.

'I don't like this,' Hollis said.

'Which?' Paris demanded. 'And join the club. Marc, I hope you don't mean to leave Dani unguarded.'

'I don't.'

Dani didn't protest, just looked at Hollis and waited. She was trying very hard to pretend that she was unconcerned, that the slimy voice of a killer in her mind didn't terrify her to her marrow, and knew all too well that at least two people in the room were perfectly aware of exactly what she was feeling.

Three, really, as Hollis's words made clear.

'Having that sort of contact with evil is about as bad as it gets,' she said to Dani, her tone matter-of-fact even though there was sympathy in her expression. 'Did the connection feel solid?'

Dani forced herself to think about it and finally shook her head. 'Not really. As a matter of fact, it ended very abruptly.' When Marc said my name.

'You've never been telepathic,' Paris noted. 'Even within an established connection, it's more feelings than thoughts.'

Dani carefully avoided looking at Marc. 'This was both-sort of. Cold, hard, complete sentences. But sort of like an echo.' She shook her head. 'I can't remember all the details of my vision dream; maybe this was just that, a leftover echo of something I hadn't consciously remembered.'

Marc looked at Hollis, brows raised. 'Possible?'

'Sure. It could also be possible that Dani's abilities are evolving, or that either she or the killer somehow established a connection between them. Or…'

'Or what?' Marc demanded.

Dani knew what he was asking and also knew he didn't want to suggest to Hollis to anyone that the killer might be psychic, as he had speculated. She was grateful when the other