But if he was unconscious—she banished the word dead before it could form—then she wouldn’t be able to pick up his mental signals. Feeling even more frantic, she summoned up an image of his partner, Alex Trammell. She hadn’t paid much attention to him, but she was observant enough to be able to recall his face. She closed her eyes, concentrating, hearing her own harsh, fast breathing as she tried to find one particular person. Think! she fiercely commanded herself. Think of Trammell.
It was no use. Nothing.
Swearing under her breath, she grabbed the phone book and ran her finger down the Hs until she found the Hollisters. Why were there so damn many of them? Ah, there it was. Dane Hollister. She picked up the receiver and punched in the number before she could talk herself out of this.
And suddenly she knew that he was all right.
It wasn’t like before. She hadn’t tuned in to his emotions; there was no mental barrage. She just knew. She had a mental picture of him sitting barefoot and bare-chested in front of the television, watching a baseball game and sipping on a beer. He muttered a curse as he reached for the telephone—
—“Yeah.”
Marlie jumped. The word had sounded in her ear just as she had pictured him in her mind, speaking. “Ah … uh. Sorry,” she stammered, and dropped the receiver clattering into the cradle. She stared at the phone, so stunned she didn’t know what to do. She had heard the definite sounds of a baseball game in the background.
Dane shrugged with mild irritation and hung up the telephone. He had missed an out in the game, just in that short time when he’d taken his attention off the screen. He settled back down with a grunt, his bare feet propped on the coffee table and crossed at the ankle. This was the most comfortable he’d been in a while: no shirt, no shoes, the beer in his hand so cold that it made his mouth tingle to drink it.
The caller had been a woman. He knew it instinctively, even though the voice had been low and unusually husky. A smoker’s voice.
He thought of Marlie Keen. Her voice had that little rasp; just hearing it gave him a hard-on every time. Reflexively he looked down at his lap. Bingo.
He reached for the phone.
“Did you just call?” he demanded tersely, after a quick call to local Information.
“I … yes. I’m sorry.”
“Any reason for it?”
He could hear her breathing over the line, the sounds fast and shallow. Something had upset her. “I was worried,” she finally admitted.
“Worried? About what?”
“I thought you might be in some sort of trouble. I was wrong. I’m sorry,” she said again.
“You were wrong,” he repeated, with exaggerated disbelief. “Imagine that.”
She slammed the receiver down in his ear. He winced, angrily started to punch the redial button, but hung up instead. Instead of being sarcastic, he should have tried to find out more about what had her so upset; maybe Nadine Vinick was weighing on her conscience. Maybe she’d been about to spill the beans; Officer Ewan had cleared her, though she didn’t know that yet, but he’d still bet money that she knew the perp’s identity. Now, because of his own big mouth, he had blown the chance to find out, because she sure as hell wasn’t going to talk to him now.
Then he realized that neither of them had identified themselves. She had known who he was, just as he had known who she was.
And she had been right about one thing, damn it. He was in trouble. He looked down at his lap again. Big trouble.
Temptation gnawed at him. He slammed the beer down onto the table so hard that foam sloshed out of the can. Then, cussing at his own stupidity, he picked up the receiver and hit the redial.
“What?” she snapped, answering before the first ring had even completed.
“What’s going on? Talk to me.”
“What would you like me to say?” she asked sweetly.
“How about the real reason why you called.”
“I told you. I thought something was wrong.”
“What gave you that idea?” Try as he might, he couldn’t keep the skepticism out of his tone.
She took a deep, steadying breath. “Look. I had an uneasy feeling about you and I was worried. I was wrong.”
“What made you think it had anything to do with me?”
Dead silence. He waited, but she didn’t say anything. It was such a complete silence, without even the sound of her breathing, that alarm chilled his spine. “Are you all right?” he asked sharply. “Marlie?” Silence. “Come on, babe, talk to me, or I’m on my way over there.”
“No!” Her voice sounded strangled. “No—don’t come over.”
“Are you okay?”
“Yes. Yes, I’m fine. I just … thought of something else.”
“Such as?”
“Maybe it wasn’t connected with you. Maybe it was someone else. I have to think about this. Good-bye.”
“Don’t hang up,” he warned. “Goddamn it, Marlie, don’t hang up—shit!” The dial tone buzzed in his ear. He slammed the phone down and surged to his feet. He’d go over there, check it out—
—And find what? He sincerely doubted she’d open the door to him. Nor did he have a reason, because Officer Ewan had cleared her. That had eaten at him all day; unless something else turned up, and things were looking damn hopeless in that respect, he had no reason to talk to her again. And solving Nadine Vinick’s murder seemed more and more unlikely. It pissed him royally that it looked as if the case would be a real mystery, a stranger-to-stranger killing, the kind that was almost never resolved. Mrs. Vinick deserved better than that.