Marc nodded thoughtfully, as if taking her at her word. There was no way she could know Candace Hegel had been alive when the killer had thrown her in the lagoon, or that the victim had been wrapped in a plastic tarp.
He reached into his pocket. “If we had an article of clothing belonging to the deceased, could you get an ‘impression’ from it?”
“Probably not. It doesn’t work on command. I can’t always-”
“Would you try?” he asked, pinning her with a look. “It would mean a great deal to her family.”
Her stormy-gray eyes were black-rimmed, thickly lashed and startlingly beautiful. “All right,” she said softly.
He handed her the gauzy purple scarf, noting Lacy’s sudden tension beside him.
Puzzled, Sidney focused her concentration on the swatch of fabric, letting it slide through her fingers, caress her skin. Marc watched her in utter fascination, mesmerized by the performance. She was very, very good. To look at her, eyes closed, moist lips slightly parted, breath coming in short, soft pants, one would think she was lost in sensation, completely unaware of their presence.
And sexually aroused.
As her chest rose and fell, her nipples pushed impudently against the cloth of her sleeveless cotton top, hardening before his eyes.
Damn, she was good. Marc didn’t have to look at Lacy to know she was equally riveted. He couldn’t imagine a more provocative display.
Unless she actually started touching herself.
To his disappointment, her eyes flew open and she pushed the scarf away from her, cheeks tinged pink.
“Very nice,” Marc murmured when he was capable of speech.
“What do you do for an encore? Strip naked?”
Her eyes darkened. “Why don’t you two play your twisted sex games with someone else?” she retorted, looking back and forth between them.
“
“Well, that game-” she pointed at the slinky, purple scarf “-involved two women. And neither of them was Candace Hegel.”
“Oh really?” he drawled. “My mistake.” He glanced sideways at Lacy. “I assure you I wasn’t a participant. What were these lovely ladies doing, by the way?”
“Drop it,” Lacy warned under her breath.
“Never mind,” he sighed, training an appreciative eye on Sidney Morrow. He’d underestimated her. She was frighteningly intuitive, a consummate actress and the best damned charlatan he’d ever seen.
Her distract and dazzle technique was wickedly effective, he had to admit. He couldn’t have been more turned on. “Let’s go,” he decided, stifling his lust. “No more games.”
“I can leave now?”
“After a brief stop, yes, you’ll be free to go.”
Lacy gave him an incredulous stare, which he ignored. Yes, it was foolhardy to let her walk; she might be an accomplice to murder. If physical evidence didn’t point to a male perpetrator, he’d consider her the prime suspect.
Whatever her role, he’d be watching her like a hawk until he figured out what she was up to, and before he let her off the hook, he couldn’t pass on the chance to shake her up again.
With grim determination, he led her down to the morgue.
Chapter 4
Sidney shot daggers into Lieutenant Cruz’s well-formed back with her eyes as she followed him down a dark staircase. He’d set her up on purpose by giving her an article of clothing that belonged to Detective Lacy, not Candace Hegel. The attempt to prove her false had backfired, yet Sidney was the one wallowing in humiliation.
When she’d held the slippery fabric in her hands, a thrill had raced through her, as undeniable as any of the emotions she channeled secondhand. She’d felt the scarf trailing over her naked body, followed by a woman’s eager mouth, and she’d responded.
She couldn’t believe how she’d responded. Intensely aware of his presence, even while under the sensual spell, she had mistakenly assumed she was witnessing a
The very idea of it heated her cheeks.
Equally embarrassed, Detective Lacy had made her excuses, leaving Sidney to complete whatever sinister task Lieutenant Cruz had in store for her. They stopped in front of a heavy door marked Morgue.
“Oh, no,” she said, shaking her head.
“Oh, yes,” he countered. “You’re going to use that psychic touch on Candace Hegel.”
“No,” she repeated, shivering. This morning’s chill was back with reinforcements.
“I still have that arrest warrant, if all else fails,” he warned.
“Have you ever heard of a body cavity search, Miss Morrow? It’s very invasive, I assure you. Especially for someone as sensitive as you.”
Fury washed over her. “You are such a bastard,” she said.
A muscle in his jaw ticked, but he made no reply as he unlocked the door. Leading her into the depths of the cavernous interior, he located a metal locker and pulled out the horizontal drawer. Before she could turn away, he unzipped the body bag.
Sidney felt the color drain from her face.
“What do you want? Her hand?” With callous indifference, he opened the bag further, exposing a woman’s head and upper torso.
It was Sidney’s first glimpse of death.
Candace Hegel’s attractive features were slack, robbed of beauty, devoid of expression. Her naked chest was bisected with a hideous, Y-shaped incision, and with no oxygenated blood pumping through her body, her skin was strangely discolored. Her lips were dark and her areolae an odd purplish-gray. She looked…cold.
Taking the corpse’s pale, limp hand away from her side, Marc held it out toward Sidney, his expression inscrutable.
Her eyes filled with tears as she pressed the dead flesh between her two palms.
Marc caught her as she fell.
He couldn’t believe she’d actually held her breath until she passed out-what kind of grown woman would resort to such extreme measures? Laying her out on the floor carefully, he reevaluated her motives. Maybe she was just a sad, lonely basket case, one who truly believed she had special powers.
However she’d come by her information, he couldn’t imagine her hurting anyone, and she didn’t deserve to be treated this way. He rarely used cruelty as an investigative technique, and had to admit his motivations for doing so now were more about his personal bias than about her.
In his opinion, psychics were little better than vultures, picking on the bones of the bereaved. Because of people like her, his mother was still trying to communicate with his father via the spirit world. She couldn’t let go of him, a man who hadn’t been worthy of her affection while he’d been alive.
It drove Marc crazy, thinking about all the time she spent chasing ghosts. Walking down dark alleyways and being ushered into back rooms. Paying money in exchange for lies.
Clenching his jaw in annoyance, he stared down at Sidney’s chalk-white face, waiting for her to resume breathing. She didn’t. After falling unconscious, the body’s natural inclination was to kick up the oxygen, yet she lay there, as quiet as Candace Hegel’s corpse.
