“Come for me. I want to hear you come.”
It didn’t take much. She moved her damp finger over her clitoris, whispered his name, and felt her orgasm build. She came with a bucking of her hips against her hand. She cried out, heard his indrawn breath, and knew he wanted her as much as she did him.
“I want to see you, Helen. Now. Tonight.”
A tendril of fear skittered across her scalp leaving a trail of cold in its wake. “You know we can’t do that.”
“I can’t stand it anymore. No one has to know.”
“It’s better this way.” On the phone. Anonymous. Safe.
“Helen, please, I must see you.”
This was an old argument, one they’d been having more and more often. Part excitement, part fear, his desire to meet her fueled her fantasy-lover dreams.
Some things, however, were best left in dreamland. Her Achilles was one of them. “No, it’s not possible.”
“Helen.” His voice changed. Stronger. Angrier perhaps. “I know where you live.”
She clutched her robe to her neck. Oh God. No. He couldn’t.
“You live in a garden, don’t you?” His voice became almost sing-song. “That’s it, my love, you live on Garden Street.”
She yanked the headset off, grabbed the phone off the table, and threw it against the wall with more speed, strength, and agility than she’d used in the last decade.
She flopped back against the pillows and covered her face with her hands. Oh God. He knew where she lived. He’d see what she looked like. Then he’d leave ...
A noise behind her. Like Kitty-Kat paws on the plush carpet. No. Much heavier th—
The first blow knocked her unconscious.
The second crushed her skull.
Chapter One
Max Starr cradled the cell phone to her ear. “Now don’t get pissed, okay, but ... I saw another murder in a vision.”
Homicide Detective DeWitt Quentin Long sighed across the airwaves. “Dammit, Max, that’s not an excuse to get out of meeting my mother tonight.”
“Don’t worry, I’m already dressed for the occasion.” Still, the murder card had been worth a try.
“Good. And, while we’re on the subject, under no circumstances are you to tell my mother about your psychic visions or that you talk to your dead husband’s ghost. Understood?”
Hmm. Two orders in one sentence, and he was using that dictatorial cop tone, too. Obviously the guy felt the pressure with this first “Mom” meeting. Max would have to make an allowance. This time. “I wouldn’t dream of mentioning a thing.”
“My mother wants to know what you’d like for dinner.”
Boy, for a man who didn’t know the meaning of full sentences, he’d used a ton. “I thought she needed a week to clean the house, buy a dress, weed the garden, and plan the menu,” she fired back.
“Yeah, and now she’s down to three choices, chicken, turkey, or steak. What’s your preference?”
Her mouth watered. Witt had previously plied her with chicken and steak. “I vote for turkey.”
“Okay, now we’re square on that, tell me you didn’t see another murder.”
She shook her head despite the fact that he couldn’t see. “I wouldn’t lie about having a vision, even to avoid your mother.”
Another deep, long-suffering sigh. “Max Starr, you’re gonna be the death of me. All right, who got whacked this time?”
“Young woman, late twenties.” She fiddled with the edge of her new suit jacket.
“Location?”
“San Carlos.” The suburb was halfway between San Francisco and San Jose. The drive shouldn’t take him more than twenty minutes in a midweek non-commute hour. “I’m sitting in my car on Garden Street.”
He sucked in a sharp breath, let it out slowly. She almost felt the sound rather than heard it.
“Think you can find me, Detective?”
*
He did, and in five minutes less than Max had thought humanly possible. Damn. He wasn’t riding in to save the day in his black and red Dodge Ram. Jees, she adored that truck. Instead he drove the usual non-descript, tan department sedan that smelled of sweaty bodies, old cigars, and pine air freshener.
Witt parked across the street from her, but didn’t immediately get out. Instead he eyeballed her from his parking spot, the Dudley Do-Right dimple prominent in his chin.
The neighborhood was neat, quiet, and low on traffic. Down the street, a couple of kids played jump rope. A baby’s cry drifted out an open window. In a house two doors down, the curtain flicked aside, then fell back into place. A bike passed between her car and Witt’s, the teenager supreme on his ten-speed.
Witt focused on her.