The Dark Gate

Chapter 4

Jack’s sugar-spun fantasy of spending his life with the one woman who could cure his madness crumbled beneath a slug of hard reality. How could he have forgotten Larsen Vale was a liar?

She stood beside him, her fingers gripping the back of his leather sofa, her face pale, her eyes wide with guilty dismay.

He’d called her into the living room to ID the bald girl Henry had seen at the end of the tape. Instead she’d visibly jerked at first sight of the prime suspect, the latter-day Pied Piper who seemed to have led the little group right out the store.

“You know him.” The implications ricocheted across his brain.

“What?”

“The Pied Piper. The leader. You’ve seen him before.”

Something pained moved through her eyes. “No.” She unhooked her fingers from his sofa and turned to face him, raising that stubborn chin. “I recognized the cancer girl.”

She looked so damned innocent standing there in her soft pajamas, her golden hair damp and curling under her jaw. Another man might have believed the act of innocence, but not a cop. Not him. Beneath those soft golden lashes, her wide eyes crawled with guilt.

Jack slammed the remote on the table. “Don’t. Don’t lie to me. You nearly came out of your seat when you saw him.”

Larsen crossed her arms over her chest, her gaze sliding away. “If I reacted to him, it was only because of his weirdness.”

He stared at her, feeling the fragile connection between them fray and split. “How stupid do you think I am?”

She froze, then seemed to shake herself loose, her gaze shifting to the blank television screen. “I swear to you, Jack, I’ve never seen him before.”

Dammit. His fingers flexed with the need to grab her and shake her, to scare the crap out of her until she told him what he wanted to know. At the same time, he wanted nothing more than to sink to his knees and beg her to trust him.

He turned away from her, shutting his eyes over the battle raging inside him. “Go to bed, Larsen.” Before he destroyed what tenuous connection remained between them, losing his only chance at a life without madness, his only chance at a future.

Larsen paced the darkened bedroom, the room lit only by the soft wash of light slipping under the door from the hallway. She’d been pacing for more than an hour, but she wasn’t the only one still awake. Beyond the door she could hear the low sound of the television and knew Jack was still up. And probably still furious with her. What was she going to do?

She couldn’t tell him what she knew. As a kid, she’d believed she somehow caused the tragedies she foresaw. The shame and self-loathing kept her silent. Then in college, she’d done some research on visions and premonitions and realized she was just a type of fortune-teller. Seeing the future didn’t mean she was causing it. But neither did it mean others would understand, if they knew. It didn’t mean they’d accept her, not think she was a freak. It wasn’t a risk she was willing to take.

But now she didn’t know what to think. The albino saw her. He saw her. If she were merely a fortune-teller, merely a seer of the future, that wouldn’t be happening. So, what did that make her visions? What did that make her?

The old fear that she was somehow to blame clenched like a fist in her stomach. The feelings that she was evil rose like bile in her throat.

She couldn’t tell him. She couldn’t tell anyone. But those cop eyes of Jack Hallihan’s saw way too much. He already suspected she knew something. He had an uncanny ability to see right through her lies. He was dangerous. She needed to get away. In the morning, she’d make some calls. She wasn’t a prisoner…yet. But he certainly wasn’t going to let her walk out of here after she’d given herself away with that video.

No, she needed help. The kind one got from friends in high places, which she happened to have, thanks to her skill in the courtroom. She’d rescued the daughter of a D.C. circuit court judge from an abusive marriage just last month. She had little doubt George would put a bug in the right ear and she’d be free of Jack Hallihan before lunch.

Regret pressed down on her with surprising force.

She’d been attracted to him for months. But that mild infatuation was nothing compared to the attraction that had built over the past couple of days, catching fire in his arms tonight. Strangely, her attraction to him was more than physical. When he wasn’t playing cop, he was good company. Fun, sexy.

Her fingers trailed over her lips. And the man could win awards with his kissing. She remembered the way he’d held her, the way he’d pressed her against the sink cabinet until she’d had no doubt of his desire.

A warm rush of longing turned her knees weak and she sank down onto the bed. If only things were different. If only—

Her sight suddenly vanished. Pain split her skull.

Heart lurching with fear, Larsen grabbed her aching head as another vision hit her like a sledgehammer.

She recognized the Old West decor of Tony Jingles, a restaurant on Q Street, not far from the pharmacy where the young intern had been abducted. As before, she watched from above, as if she hovered near the ceiling, wrapped in an unnatural silence.

Dread balled in her stomach.

She didn’t want to see this.

She tried to close her eyes, tried to wake herself up or to shake herself out of the scene, but she remained rooted. Trapped.

The scene below appeared disturbingly normal. The afternoon sun shone through the slats of the window blinds, illuminating a half-empty restaurant. On the television in the corner, the Baltimore Orioles mascot bounded across the field in what appeared to be pregame shenanigans.

A flash of white caught her eye and everything changed.

The albino strode into the restaurant, turning the patrons and wait staff to stone. Forks and glasses dropped onto the tables, food-laden trays crashed silently to the floor.

The only natural movement came from a booth nearby. A middle-aged woman with a round, intelligent face stared around her in disbelief. She opened her mouth as if yelling, then began to shake the two people in the booth with her—a man Larsen presumed was her husband and a pretty young woman, probably her daughter.

The woman looked up to see the albino approaching. Her eyes widened with shock, then turned to fear as her husband’s hands closed around her throat and he began to choke her. The albino motioned to her blank-faced daughter. The girl climbed out of the booth and, like the bridesmaid before her, stood motionless as he raped her in front of her mother’s dying eyes.

With his white hair swirling around his face, his eyes glowing like yellow-green embers, the albino’s head jerked up and he met Larsen’s gaze. Through his song, he smiled malevolently.

And reached for her.

Jack paced his living room, slapping the television remote against his thigh in an agitated, bruising rhythm as the newscaster droned, becoming just one more voice in his head.

Who was she? Ice Queen or siren? Angel or devil?

Winning her trust was a luxury he could no longer afford.

His last doubt that she was involved in this case had evaporated as he’d watched her react to the surveillance video.

His sanity be damned. His first responsibility was to the people of D.C. It was high time he got to the bottom of Larsen Vale’s involvement. Before that bastard committed another murder or assault.

With weighted feet, Jack strode to his bedroom and rapped on the door. “Larsen?” When she didn’t answer, he pounded harder. The door, not fully latched, swung open to reveal a figure huddled on the floor in the sweep of hall light.

His heart lodged in his throat. “Larsen, what happened?”

She stared at nothing, her eyes glassy and filled with horror. He crossed to her in three quick strides and knelt in front of her, searching for sign she’d been injured, but he saw nothing out of the ordinary. No arrow sticking out of her. No blood.

He cupped her face in his hands, his palms encountering the cool clamminess of her skin. “Talk to me, Larsen. What happened?”

Long lashes swept up. Tormented eyes met his gaze and slowly filled with tears. Sobs began to rack her slender body.

“Are you hurt?”

She pressed her lips hard together, but shook her head.

His fear slid away. Keen protectiveness warred with frustration even as he pulled her against him in a move that was at once alien and utterly natural. She fit against him perfectly, her arms sliding around his neck, her face buried against his shoulder.

She belonged to him. In a way he couldn’t describe, he felt it in his bones.

Jack stroked her damp hair as her crying slowly subsided. She wasn’t injured, not physically at least. Whatever tormented her came from within. Was it fear that hounded her? Guilt?

He felt the tension drain out of her as he rubbed her back.

“I need to know what’s going on,” he said quietly. “I can’t help you if I don’t know.”

Too late, he realized she’d cried herself to sleep. Resigned, he lifted her into his arms and carried her to the bed, then lay beside her, his fingers twined with hers.

Blessed silence filled his head, perhaps for the last time, as he gazed at the woman who stirred so many conflicting emotions in him. Come morning he was going to have to break through her defenses to get at the truth. No matter what it took. Even if it meant earning her hatred, and losing his last chance.

Larsen woke to the smell of coffee and the sound of a soft rain pattering against the window. Her arms, which were always on top of the covers when she slept, were buried beneath a sheet tucked up to her chin, as if someone had pulled the sheet over her during the night.

Jack.

She’d woken just before dawn to find her back pressed against his chest, his arm tight around her. She’d felt so safe, so secure, she’d fallen right back to sleep. Something warm and soft moved in her chest. If things were different, if they were different, he might just be a man worth taking a chance on.

But though he might be able to protect her physically, he was, ultimately, a cop who saw too much. And she was a woman with secrets she could never share. Premonitions. Death.

Tony Jingles.

The terrifying memory slammed into her and she struggled from beneath the snug sheet and sat up, heart pounding. The albino would strike again. Another rape. Maybe another death.

She raked her hair back from her face and stared at the plain blue sheet bunched at her knees, her mind spinning. She’d seen her own death at the wedding reception, yet she hadn’t died. For the first time ever, one of her death visions hadn’t come true. Were these visions different from the ones she’d had as a child, or had she simply never believed she could change things, so never before tried?

Oh God, what if she could have saved her mom from that car accident all those years ago? Her scalp began to tingle with the horror of the thought. Don’t. Don’t go there. What was done was done. She couldn’t change the past. But maybe…maybe…she could change the future.

The horror charging through her system slowly changed to excitement. What if she could stop the murder at Tony Jingles? What if she could save that woman and her daughter, and possibly end the albino’s rampage once and for all?

Sudden restless energy shot down her limbs. With a kick of the sheet, she climbed out of bed and began pacing the room. Jack was a cop. He could stop the attack and catch the murderer.

But how could she tell him what she knew without telling him how she knew it? She’d find a way. She had to. For once, just maybe, her death visions could be used for good instead of bringing evil.

Jack poured himself a cup of coffee as he dug his fingers into his scalp, trying to ease the volume in his head. The damned voices were getting louder, as if each day they invited more and more guests into the party.

“Headache?” Larsen said from behind him, entering the kitchen.

He jerked his hand away, nearly spilling the coffee, and turned to face her. She looked soft and delicious this morning, her hair sleep-tousled, her pajamas clinging in all the right places. Blood pooled between his legs as he remembered the feel of her pressed against him during the night. He’d slept. Eventually. But now, with her awake, all he wanted to do was to sweep her up and carry her back to that bed, preferably without those soft, clinging pajamas.

He tore his gaze away from her and shoved the coffee carafe back under the brewer. It was time to play tough cop, not horny fool. But damn, she looked good.

“Do you get the Post?” she asked. Her gaze met his, then darted away with a glimmer of fear. She must know he intended to dig her secrets out of her this morning and he hated that she did. Hated that she feared him. An innocent woman would have nothing to fear.

“It’s in the foyer,” he told her. “The plastic sleeve is wet. It’s been raining since dawn.”

She returned moments later holding the newspaper in one hand and a folded white sheet of paper in the other. “I think you’d better see this.”

At the strained look in her eyes, he set down his mug and reached for the folded sheet. A handwritten note. As his gaze skimmed the bold black letters, the hair rose on the back of his neck.

Tony Jingles. This afternoon. The Dupont Circle Rapist strikes again.

His gaze pinned Larsen. “Where’d you find this?”

“It fell out of the newspaper when I picked it up.”

She was lying. He wasn’t sure how he knew that. The answer wasn’t necessarily in her gaze, which was finally meeting his, nor her erect, self-assured stance. Nor was it in the stubborn, upward thrust of her chin. He simply felt it in his gut. And he’d long ago quit second-guessing his gut. The question was, what was he going to do about it?

He skimmed the note again. Did it matter? Didn’t he have what he needed—a way to catch that son of a bitch? If he still had questions afterward, he’d interrogate her then.

He’d know where to find her. Larsen Vale wasn’t going to make another move unless he said so.

Larsen’s nerves were eating her alive.

She paced Jack’s living room, her sandals clipping over the hardwood floor as she waited for word from the Tony Jingles stakeout. The Orioles game was scheduled to begin in twenty minutes unless they called a rain delay, which was a real possibility given the drizzly skies.

The woman cop Jack had sent to babysit Larsen walked through the living room on one of her quarter-hourly rounds. The woman, Sergeant O’Malley, wasn’t much in the way of company. Short, stocky and unsmiling, she’d relinquished no more than one-word answers when Larsen tried to engage her in conversation when she’d first arrived. When the cop wasn’t making her rounds, she remained firmly by the kitchen door.

Outside, two male cops kept an eye on the house. Larsen hadn’t considered the fact that whoever supposedly put the note in Jack’s paper obviously knew where he lived. Of course, that person had been her, though she could never tell him that. So she cooled her heels in a protective custody with no means of escape short of outside intervention.

It wouldn’t take much to get herself out of here. She was convinced of that. A phone call, maybe two. Heaven knew she’d made enough of them already this morning, apologizing for yesterday and clearing her calendar for the next few days until the police caught the albino and ended this nightmare.

Why was she hesitating? Maybe because if she left now she’d never know what happened. Larsen stared out the front window at the damp, gray afternoon, the trees in front of the row house wilting with the drizzle.

And maybe the problem was Jack himself. She needed to get away from him. She knew that. But it didn’t change the fact that she was drawn to him in a way she hadn’t been to a man, to anyone, in longer than she could remember. But staying here was foolish. She was playing with fire.

With a sigh, she turned from the window as the clock on the chest in the corner chimed two o’clock. The Orioles game was about to begin. Her heart gave a nervous kick. If she was right about the murder happening pregame, it would happen soon.

Larsen turned on the television and stared as the Orioles mascot ran onto the field exactly as she’d seen him in the premonition. Chills raced over her skin, standing her hair on end. The murder had begun. The memory of that vision, that nightmare, replayed in her head like a horror film—the restaurant, the albino, every patron hypnotized but one. And she’d sent Jack and the D.C. police into the thick of it. With guns.

A sudden, horrible thought struck her. What if he controlled them, too?

Oh, God, what have I done?

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