Synopsis:
Irene Kelly is a reporter with a fierce integrity. Detective Frank Harriman is her lover and friend. Now they’re both about to be plunged into political hellfire when a ruthless politician rocks a race for district attorney with a stunning allegation: his opponent’s son is in the clutches of a satanic cult. The charge takes a fatal turn when a local woman is brutally murdered, and the grisly crime scene bears unholy implications. Tracking the clues takes Irene behind the closed doors of an isolated home for troubled youths, where obscuring the truth is only part of a stranger’s diabolic game. To win it, Irene will have the devil to pay.
Sweet Dreams, Irene
Jan Burke
The second book in the Irene Kelly series
Copyright © 1994 by Jan Burke
To John F. Fischer,
who can do
but is especially good at being Dad.
1
FRANK SCARED THE HELL out of me on Halloween, and we hadn’t even finished breakfast. He accomplished this by looking up over the top of the morning paper and saying some of the most frightening words in the English language: “I’d like for you to meet my mother.”
For a minute I hoped he was reading a “Dear Abby” letter out loud, but no such luck.
“What?” I said, not so much because I hadn’t heard him, but as a stalling tactic.
“I said I’d like for you to meet my mother. Do you have plans for Thanksgiving? Maybe you could ride up to Bakersfield with me and join our family gathering.”
“I don’t know. I’ll have to check with Barbara. She may be counting on me showing up at her place.”
He put down the paper and made a who-are-you-trying-to-kid face at me, and said, “You’d rather spend Thanksgiving with Kenny?”
He had me there. “Well, no, I wouldn’t.” Barbara is my older sister, recently reunited with her ex-husband, Kenny O’Connor. Kenny’s dad and I had been the best of friends, even after my sister and Kenny had their messy divorce. His dad, affectionately known simply by his last name, O’Connor, had been my mentor and confidante at the
O’Connor’s death also led to my being reunited with an old acquaintance, the man who sat across the breakfast table from me. Frank Harriman is a homicide detective with the Las Piernas Police Department. Neither of our employers were too nutty over the idea of a cop and a reporter getting together, but we decided we could survive a little criticism, given some of the other things we had survived that summer.
Initially, I had been afraid that our relationship was just a reaction to all of the violence of that time. But those fears had proved unfounded over the last few months.
Fear of thy lover’s mother is another thing altogether.
For some women, this would probably have been a moment of victory. They would read it as kind of promotion, a step up the prenuptial ladder. I remembered when Alicia Penderson, an old rival of mine, ran around bragging that her premed boyfriend was taking her home to meet the family over Christmas. She had started pricing rings the next day. She wanted, as they say, “a rock.” Gibraltar wasn’t available or she would have had a setting made for it.
But I have never been much like the Alicia Pendersons of this world, and so I anticipated meeting Frank’s mother with much the same enthusiasm as a mallard awaits the opening day of duck-hunting season.
Out of the bag of assorted misgivings I had about being introduced to her, I pulled my question to Frank that morning.
“Why do you want me to meet your mother?”
“Don’t you want to meet her?”
“Of course I do,” I said. Some might say I lied when I said that, but what I meant was, someday I wanted to know his mother, and have the meeting part all over and done with.
He had put the paper aside now and was studying me. Frank is unfortunately very good at this, and I can seldom hide my feelings from him. Those gray-green eyes were alive with amusement now.
“She’ll like you,” he said, once again proving his knack for getting to the core of things. I suppose it’s a good skill to have in his line of work.
“How do you know she’ll like me?”
“I know.”
“Frank, I am so comforted by that.”
“Too early to be snide, Irene.”
“Too early to think about meeting your mother. You’re right, I’m afraid she won’t like me.”
“I like you. She’ll like you when she sees how much I like you.”
“For a cop, you have a very optimistic outlook on life.”
He shook his head. “I thought you’d be happy about it.”
“It’s nice for you to invite me. I’m flattered. But for starters, why don’t you see if your mom wants another mouth to feed on Thanksgiving? She may just want to be with her family.”
“She won’t mind,” he said. More optimism.
