man fell to his knees, cursing him in a slurred voice.
“Tell you one thing,” Hans said. “With this idea of yours that it’s one of us? Next time you call, I won’t be meeting you alone in a dark alley.”
The screams were hideous. They reverberated through her skull, bouncing and echoing, one after the other. Risa burrowed deeper into the covers, trying to muffle the cries. The nearby tree swayed in rhythm with the cries, its twisted branches reaching out as if to extend assistance.
The heat from the flames seared her skin. The smell from burned flesh filled her nostrils. Her lungs.
And through it all, the nude figure danced before the flames in a frenetic exultation at what he’d wrought.
Her eyes opened, the breath sawing in and out of her chest. And the relief of discovering it was just a dream almost overtook the dread of knowing they were back. Really back. Her breath shuddered out of her lungs at the realization. It hadn’t been a one-time thing. This had been a near duplicate of the one she’d had the night before last.
She sat up, used the sheet to wipe the perspiration from her face. There had been nothing new in this rendition. Except for the fact that she’d been closer. Not just a passive watcher, but near enough to smell. Hear. Feel.
Pushing her damp hair away from her face, she discovered her hand shaking. Goose bumps broke out on skin that was still overly warm to the touch. She crossed her arms to rub at the raised flesh. And forced herself to concentrate. To examine each minute detail and try to draw information from it.
Coming to a sudden decision, she surged from the bed, found her legs unsteady. Flipping on the lamp on her bedside table, she tugged open the lone drawer.
The tablet and pencil had sat unused the entire time she’d been here. There was a time when she’d thought—hoped— they’d go unused forever. And the possibility had elicited twin spires of hope and despair.
Shoving aside the thought, she drew out the drawing pad. Flipped it open. Better not to think. Better to dwell on the individual elements of the dream. They lost power that way, extracted from the whole. They’d absorb her for a time. Until the sketch was complete, a vivid reminder of what her unconscious had wrought.
It had been this way for nearly three decades. Since the first time she’d pointed to a newscast showing a murder suspect and announced to Hannah and whoever the boyfriend had been at the time that that was the bad man from her recent nightmare.
Her head began to throb, a common enough souvenir from the dreams. She worked through the headache, anxious to have the task done. When she was on a case, she treated each sketch as part of her personal investigative file. After the drawing was complete she’d jot down notes, impressions.
Like the figure was definitely male. In good shape. More than that she couldn’t be certain. At least not until the next time the vision recurred.
She knew from experience it wouldn’t be long. And if they were going to torture her sleep, they may as well be put to good use.
That idea is what had driven her to join the academy in the first place. That desperate need to make the psychic episodes useful. If she was never going to be normal, if she was going to spend her life a freak, the dreams damn well would count for something.
Chapter 7
Risa had meant to get an early start that morning. It wasn’t as if she’d gotten much sleep the night before. Her mouth pulled up humorlessly as she waved at Darrell behind the bulletproof glass and quickened her step toward the conference room.
But she hadn’t counted on her mother being awake. Hannah hadn’t even been to bed yet, although the bus had probably had her home by two A.M. “Too much to do and not enough time to do it in,” she’d told Risa. But it had given them a few minutes to sit down and visit. Their paths hadn’t crossed much in the last couple days. As a result, Risa had been later than she’d wanted in calling for a cab. Then it had taken longer than expected at the car rental agency. She couldn’t depend on taxis to get to and from the station daily.
Slipping into the conference room, she found it full. Nate was talking and Morales was standing silently in the front