Silence fell, After a few seconds, Dane realized that she was finished. She still sat stiffly in the chair, her gaze locked on the window blinds.
Lieutenant Bonness seemed disappointed by Dane and Trammell’s lack of reaction. “Well?” he demanded impatiently.
“Well, what?” Dane straightened away from the wall. Rage had slowly built inside him as he had listened to the flat, emotionless recital, but it was a cold, controlled anger. He didn’t know what the bitch’s motive was in coming here, but there was one thing he knew for certain, and he didn’t have to be any sort of mindreader to figure it out: She had been there. Maybe she herself had murdered Mrs. Vinick, maybe not, but she had been in that house when it had happened. At the very least she was an accomplice, and if she thought she could waltz in here with that bullshit story and get a lot of media attention while she jerked them around, she had tangled with the wrong guy.
“What do you think?” Bonness snapped, irritated that he had to ask.
Dane shrugged. “A psychic? Get real, LT. That’s the biggest load of bullshit I’ve ever heard.”
Marlie Keen stirred, slowly unknotting her hands as if the movement were difficult. Just as slowly she turned her head and looked at Dane for the first time. Despite his icy rage, his stomach muscles contracted abruptly in reaction. No wonder Bonness had been taken in! Her eyes were the deep, dark, fathomless blue of the ocean, the kind of eyes a man could look into and forget what he’d been saying. There was something exotic about them, other than the richness of color: a sort of otherworldliness that he couldn’t quite grasp. The expression in them, however, was easy to read, and Dane knew beyond a doubt that he hadn’t exactly overwhelmed her with his charm.
She stood and faced him, squaring off with him as if they were two adversaries in the old West about to draw down on each other. Her face had gone calm and curiously remote. “I’ve told you what happened,” she said in a clear, deliberate voice. “You can believe it or not; it doesn’t make any difference to me.”
“It should,” he replied just as deliberately.
She didn’t ask why, though he paused for her to do just that. Instead her mouth twitched into a tiny, humorless smile. “I realize that I just became your prime suspect,” she murmured. “So why don’t I save your time and mine by telling you that my address is 2411 Hazelwood, and my telephone number is 555-9909.”
“You know the routine,” he said with sarcastic admiration. “I’m not surprised.” He moved a step closer to her, close enough that she had to look up to maintain eye contact, close enough to intrude into her space and subtly threaten her. “Or maybe you’re just reading my mind, since you’re psychic.” He put an unflattering emphasis on the last word. “Maybe you can tell me what comes next, unless you need a crystal ball to tell you what I’m thinking.”
“Oh, that doesn’t take a mind reader, but then you aren’t very original.” She paused, then gave him that little smile again. “I have no intention of leaving town.” She wasn’t backing down, and his stomach muscles knotted again. At first glance she had looked like a drab, a nonentity afraid of making herself more attractive in any way, but the first look into her eyes had forcibly changed that opinion. The woman facing him didn’t lack self-confidence, and she wasn’t the least bit intimidated by him even though he was almost a foot taller. Something else stole into his awareness. Damn, he could smell her, a sweet, soft scent that had nothing to do with perfume and everything to do with female flesh. His involuntary reaction made him even angrier.
“See that you don’t.” His voice was low and harsh. “Is there anything else you see in your crystal ball, anything you want to tell me?”
“Of course,” she purred, and the sudden glint in her blue eyes told him that he’d walked right into that one. “Go to hell, Detective.”
4
DAMMIT, HOLLISTER!” BONNESS GLARED AT HIM. “DID YOU have to be such an asshole? The woman came in here trying to help, for Chrissake! She told us some amazing stuff—”
“Amazing, my ass,” Dane interrupted, still aware of the fury boiling up inside, though now at least half of it was directed at himself. “If she didn’t do it herself, then she was there when it was done. She did it, or she’s an accomplice, and she’s daring us to catch her by feeding us this loony psychic story.”
“She knew details that no one but the killer, or killers, could have known,” Trammell said tersely. “Hell, we’ve all heard the kind of crap those so-called psychics describe in their so-called visions. ’I’m getting an impression of the letter C,’” he mimicked. “’It’s something to do with the letter C. And it’s wet … Yes, yes, I’m definitely getting the impression of wetness. The body is close to water.’”
“Which narrows it down to the whole fucking state,” Dane finished. “That wasn’t a psychic vision she described; it was an eyewitness account. The lady was there when it happened, and she just placed herself at the top of my list.”
“She couldn’t have done it,” Bonness protested weakly, his disappointment plain.
“Not alone,” Dane agreed. “She wouldn’t have been strong enough.”
“We definitely should check this lady out,” Trammell said.
The lieutenant sighed. “I know you think it was a goofy idea, but psychics have really helped in some cases I’ve been involved in.”