she
thought, I should let myself think about Jason MacKenzie.
Then, half sitting against the headboard, her fingers
clutched around the bedclothes, she tried to go to sleep with the lights on.
And thoughts turned to dreams…
Chapter Five
A fire crackled, fragrant with charred pine smoke,
casting light and shadow against the ceiling. Undertones from the nearby bay
layered a surging bass rhythm beneath the rustle and snap of the flames. A
mattress on the floor, layered with soft old flannel sheets caught the light
and the warmth and the shadows.
The shadows.
Emma’s heartbeat quickened. A man eased over her. Jason.
The heat of his naked chest brushed her bare breasts, tickling and tantalizing.
His lips sought the hollow at the base of her throat, nuzzled, drifted lower.
A log broke and the fire surged greedily into it,
shooting light across the ceiling to disperse the shadows. But the shadows
lunged back.
The shadows.
Emma woke with a start. Darkness enveloped her and for an
instant her heart tripped. The shadows surrounded her, murmuring and reaching,
stirring the scream that hid in the depths of her fear.
Light flashed, vanquishing the lurking darkness for an
instant of time. But, in that instant, reality reached her.
My bed. I’m in my bed.
She turned her head on the pillow. The bedside lamp was off.
So was the digital display of her alarm clock. The power was out. The
crackling, snapping sound from her dream…light flashed again, outside and
thunder rumbled. Rain struck the bedroom window, its patter like the lick of a
flame at a log.
Emma pushed herself upright in the bed. A storm. It’s just a
storm.
Two storms, she realized a second later. One outside her
apartment, the other inside her. Her body was warm and moist from the internal
tempest and her pulse throbbed in intimate places. Images from her dream, of
the man at the center of it, lingered in her mind, driving that pulse to a more
urgent pace.
She resisted. She had somehow repressed the memory of such
dreams before and allowing them free thought now could only lead to trouble.
But as the outside storm intensified and the shadows appeared to move around
her, she found such thoughts as reassuring as they were troubling. Lying down
again, she pulled the sheets up over her head and let those thoughts take her
back to sleep.
* * * * *
Early morning sunlight streaked through the window behind
Jason’s desk as the last of the storm clouds dispersed. The brightness
blanketed the old photograph lying on top of the Campanero case folder. Jason
figured the picture was about forty years old. The crime scene boys had found
it inside a shoebox under the bed in the victim’s bedroom.
In the photo, Amalia Campanero sat on a swing with a young
man whose arm draped her shoulders. There was a faint family resemblance
between the two, something about the eyes and the set of each chin.
Fiddling with a cracked ballpoint pen, Jason sat back and
considered that resemblance. Emma St. Clair had suggested a sibling innocently
enough but Jason had a hunch she might be right. In fact, her suggestion touched
off a little alarm at the back of his head that shouted, “Pay attention!”
He tapped the pen against his desk and wondered if Emma’s
casual suggestion had risen from a similar instinctive alarm. Brian Reiser had
once told him that doctors relied on hunches as much as cops did. Emma St.
Clair struck him as sharp enough to be in tune with her more instinctive
nature. She certainly had the most intelligent eyes he’d ever seen. Intelligent
and sexy at the same time, those eyes seemed to peer right inside his brain,
find his libido and stroke it until—
Dropping the pen, Jason tried to force the beautiful medical
examiner out of his mind. She got in the way there far too often since he’d
left her in that restaurant yesterday. A major distraction was what she was.
Grabbing his computer keyboard, he dragged it forward. The
gold shield displayed in the
thought, I should let myself think about Jason MacKenzie.
Then, half sitting against the headboard, her fingers
clutched around the bedclothes, she tried to go to sleep with the lights on.
And thoughts turned to dreams…
Chapter Five
A fire crackled, fragrant with charred pine smoke,
casting light and shadow against the ceiling. Undertones from the nearby bay
layered a surging bass rhythm beneath the rustle and snap of the flames. A
mattress on the floor, layered with soft old flannel sheets caught the light
and the warmth and the shadows.
The shadows.
Emma’s heartbeat quickened. A man eased over her. Jason.
The heat of his naked chest brushed her bare breasts, tickling and tantalizing.
His lips sought the hollow at the base of her throat, nuzzled, drifted lower.
A log broke and the fire surged greedily into it,
shooting light across the ceiling to disperse the shadows. But the shadows
lunged back.
The shadows.
Emma woke with a start. Darkness enveloped her and for an
instant her heart tripped. The shadows surrounded her, murmuring and reaching,
stirring the scream that hid in the depths of her fear.
Light flashed, vanquishing the lurking darkness for an
instant of time. But, in that instant, reality reached her.
My bed. I’m in my bed.
She turned her head on the pillow. The bedside lamp was off.
So was the digital display of her alarm clock. The power was out. The
crackling, snapping sound from her dream…light flashed again, outside and
thunder rumbled. Rain struck the bedroom window, its patter like the lick of a
flame at a log.
Emma pushed herself upright in the bed. A storm. It’s just a
storm.
Two storms, she realized a second later. One outside her
apartment, the other inside her. Her body was warm and moist from the internal
tempest and her pulse throbbed in intimate places. Images from her dream, of
the man at the center of it, lingered in her mind, driving that pulse to a more
urgent pace.
She resisted. She had somehow repressed the memory of such
dreams before and allowing them free thought now could only lead to trouble.
But as the outside storm intensified and the shadows appeared to move around
her, she found such thoughts as reassuring as they were troubling. Lying down
again, she pulled the sheets up over her head and let those thoughts take her
back to sleep.
* * * * *
Early morning sunlight streaked through the window behind
Jason’s desk as the last of the storm clouds dispersed. The brightness
blanketed the old photograph lying on top of the Campanero case folder. Jason
figured the picture was about forty years old. The crime scene boys had found
it inside a shoebox under the bed in the victim’s bedroom.
In the photo, Amalia Campanero sat on a swing with a young
man whose arm draped her shoulders. There was a faint family resemblance
between the two, something about the eyes and the set of each chin.
Fiddling with a cracked ballpoint pen, Jason sat back and
considered that resemblance. Emma St. Clair had suggested a sibling innocently
enough but Jason had a hunch she might be right. In fact, her suggestion touched
off a little alarm at the back of his head that shouted, “Pay attention!”
He tapped the pen against his desk and wondered if Emma’s
casual suggestion had risen from a similar instinctive alarm. Brian Reiser had
once told him that doctors relied on hunches as much as cops did. Emma St.
Clair struck him as sharp enough to be in tune with her more instinctive
nature. She certainly had the most intelligent eyes he’d ever seen. Intelligent
and sexy at the same time, those eyes seemed to peer right inside his brain,
find his libido and stroke it until—
Dropping the pen, Jason tried to force the beautiful medical
examiner out of his mind. She got in the way there far too often since he’d
left her in that restaurant yesterday. A major distraction was what she was.
Grabbing his computer keyboard, he dragged it forward. The
gold shield displayed in the
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