Emily (Dreamcatchers Romantic Suspense Series Book 1) Read online

  “I’m sorry. It’s OK if you don’t remember anything else. I shouldn’t have pushed you. I’m just so damn scared of something happening to you.”

  His words didn’t stop the flood of tears down her face, in fact, it made it that much harder to hold them back. She had been trying to keep it together for too long. For years, she’d kept everything inside. Her mother, her high school hell, the asshole boyfriend, everything. Emily had learned early on never to let anyone see how much their words or actions had hurt her, and she couldn’t hold it in anymore. She was scared, no—terrified.

  Reece’s arms tightened around her back, and she melted into his embrace as he gently rubbed her back. As she leaned her head on Reece’s shoulder, he tentatively placed a kiss on the top of her head. Emily breathed in his scent. He smelled nothing but safe. There was no room for anything or anyone else when she was in Reece’s arms, and for the first time in over a decade, she felt truly protected and loved.

  Loved…

  Seconds turned into minutes as Reece continued to hold her, whispering the occasional reassurance and continuing to stroke his hand down her back, his lips almost touching her head as he murmured to her. When the last of her tears had dried up, he eased her away from him and looked her in the eyes. Emily could feel the strength of him pulling her in, but there was something else there too. A longing, one that he’d stirred in her and was now reflected back as he held her gaze. Fire burned in his eyes and consumed her as Reece lifted his hands to cup her face, pulling her closer to him again as his mouth met hers.

  Emily’s eyes fluttered closed as his lips brushed against hers in a whisper-light touch, an unspoken promise. Her mouth moved against his, returning the kiss, and Reece shuddered. He deepened the kiss, his tongue tracing and teasing the seam of her lips. She opened to him and his tongue entered her mouth. Emily groaned as his hands tightened against her lower back, bringing their bodies into perfect alignment. He tasted sharp, almost like citrus, a mixture of sweetness and danger. Arousal sparked between them. Reece’s mouth continued to move against hers, his tongue licking at the inside of her mouth, tasting her in return, and then along the edge of her lips. Reece pressed his lips to hers one last time before withdrawing, leaning his forehead against hers, his breaths gasping and quick. Looking into his eyes, she saw a longing, a deep desire for more.

  “My god, what you do to me. Emily…” Reece whispered her name almost in reverence and held her gaze, staring longingly into her eyes.

  16

  Reece leaned back, still holding onto Emily’s waist, and took a deep breath. Kissing her had been absolutely incredible. The feel of her lips, the softness of her skin, and oh my god her taste! He nearly groaned out loud again at the thought. They stood together in awkward silence, and Reece wanted nothing more than to kiss her again, and more. Damn it! He wanted to be with her. This infuriating woman who intrigued him in ways that crossed lines, who could quite possibly break his heart.

  Hell, she’d managed to get past all his defenses, and now he had no choice. Even if she didn’t feel the same way—though he was betting from the way her hand gripped his neck as he kissed her, she did—there was no going back now. He’d keep her safe from this madman terrorizing and murdering innocent women, and then maybe when she was safe again there’d be room in her life for him. Now all he had to do was find the bastard that was stalking her. If only Emily’s visions—dreams—whatever they were, could be predicted or influenced to come on command. A thought jumped into his mind, his brain still spinning from the kiss. God, it was worth a shot. Anything was at this point.

  “What?” Emily asked him, her eyes catching the expression on his face.

  “I have an idea of how you could maybe help Lily. How we can find this bastard,” he said, and waited for her to stop looking at him like he was crazy. He chuckled. That was usually his thing.

  “Tell me,” she said. Emily swiped at her cheeks with the back of her hand, and Reece swore he could see her grow stronger before his eyes, her posture straightening as she stood tall and held his gaze.

  “The crime scene. It’s still taped off and preserved. I can take you there, if you’re OK? Maybe we could walk around it and see if you remember something, see if something comes to you.”

  “Isn’t that illegal, though, crossing a police barrier?”

  Reece smiled to himself, wondering how he could ever have suggested she was ever a suspect. Emily looked like she would sign herself up for fifty years of hard labor at the mere thought of doing something she shouldn’t. With that look on her face, between believing in her psychic abilities or thinking that the woman was in league with a murderous serial killer, the choice was easy. There was no longer any doubt in his mind that Emily was innocent, and that somehow she was able to see what this man, this psychopath that was stalking her was doing in return. That the dreams had saved her life more than once had him thanking whoever was up there listening.

  “It’s OK, you’ll be with me. Consider it doing me a favor, and helping Lily the best way you know how,” he said. She’d want to help her friend however she could, he knew that.

  She nodded with a sad smile that made him want to pull her into his arms and kiss her all over again. Instead, he helped her into her seat before walking around to his side of the car and driving away. They traveled the couple of minutes it took to get to the alley where Lily had met her end in silence. Worry struck deep within him when he realized just how close it was to where Emily lived. He didn’t like to think about the perp being anywhere near her. Even in the same city was bad enough.

  “Ready?” he asked her as Emily stared at the yellow tape that cordoned off the crime scene. Her eyes lingered on the red stain of blood still evident just beyond the line.

  “I think so,” she said, taking in a deep breath. Reece got out of the car and made his way around to her side to open her door. Emily took his offered hand and held on as if her life depended on it.

  Jesus, maybe it did.

  Reece suppressed a shudder. Maybe this had been a bad idea.

  “Hey,” he said, turning her chin with a finger and drawing her attention away from the blood on the ground. “If this is too much, you don’t have to this.”

  “No, I want to,” Emily replied, her voice breaking just above a whisper. He nodded and she dropped his hand and ducked under the tape surrounding the alley. Reece followed, admiring the way she worth the strength she’d found within herself. He didn’t know her whole life story, but he had a feeling that Emily had more depth, more heart to her than she initially let on. He stood back and kept watch as she walked through the crime scene, stepping around the blood stains and carefully avoiding touching or brushing up against anything. She spoke to herself out loud just under her breath, seemingly re-enacting her dream. He watched her closely, storing away everything she said for later reference. Maybe between the two of them they could decipher another piece of the puzzle. Emily was smart, and a hell of a lot stronger than he’d initially given her credit for.

  “Anything?” he asked, and she shook her head, and then frowned.

  “But, I don’t think these women are chosen at random. I think he knows us, each of us, and intimately. I think he follows us first.”

  Reece’s ears pricked “Why do you say that?”

  “I don’t always walk home, and even then I usually take the greener route and come from the north side,” Emily pointed in the other direction. “That night, when he attacked me in the alleyway, I hadn’t even planned to go there. I’d worked later than intended, and after my boss told me to go home, I decided to stop in and grab dinner at the diner.”

  “Do you go to the diner on specific nights?”

  Emily smiled. “Sometimes. One of the waitresses is a friend. Cathy, you remember. The one who gave you the third degree as to our relationship status,” she ended the sentence with air quotes, blushing at the words, and Reece chuckled. Despite their surroundings, she was still adorable. She continued, “But, I ha
dn’t planned to go there that night. It was a split-second decision when I smelled their fried chicken. That man, he couldn’t have known I’d be there in advance.”

  “And Lily, did she ever go there?”

  Emily shook her head apologetically. “I was just getting to know her. I don’t know if she ever ate at the diner. I do know that she lived further north on this street than I do, and so why would she be down here? Getting to and from work would be easier going the other way anyway.”

  The thought had already occurred to Reece, and he wasn’t sure if he liked Emily echoing the sentiment. They were altogether too close to Emily’s own home for his liking. Emily walked back to the edge of the tape barrier and he pulled her in for another hug before walking her back to the warmth of the car. She was right, whoever this guy was he had to regularly frequent this part of town. Reece thought back to his training. To be so familiar with the area, including all the winding back alleyways, it was highly likely the perp either worked or lived close by or both. His lips thinned with determination. It was a huge step in the right direction.

  “One more thing,” Emily said from beside him. “I don’t know if it’ll help.”

  “Tell me.”

  “In my dreams, I remember seeing a tattoo on his arm. Just a peek, but it looked tribal.”

  “Thank you, Emily. You’ve helped immensely,” Reece drove her home and pulled up outside her apartment. He wanted to follow her upstairs, but tonight wasn’t the time. He’d seen how visiting the place where Lily had been killed had affected Emily. She needed a break, and he needed to follow up that lead.

  “I’ll wait here until you’re inside. Please, try and get some sleep, and if you need anything at all, don’t hesitate to call my cell.”

  Reece waited until the door to Emily’s apartment block closed behind her and he drove off, heading toward his office. He knew that something Emily had said tonight would help him tie everything together and nail this bastard. He just needed to figure out how.

  17

  A week had passed since the night of Lily’s death—and just a single day since her funeral—before Emily finally built up the courage to go back to work. Her dreams had been silent the entire time, and she was beginning to think that perhaps grief would keep them away forever. She hated herself to even think it because their absence was intrinsically linked to Lily’s murder, but if the universe had given her a break from it all when she needed it the most, she’d take it.

  Reece had been a pillar of support over the past few days. He rang to check in with her every morning, and visited most nights, landing on her doorstep with takeout and a smile. What he didn’t do was kiss her again. Apart from the odd shoulder squeeze or the light touch of his body as he brushed past her in a doorway, he didn’t get any closer to her than sitting on the other end of her couch. Emily was beginning to think that the unplanned kiss was all they would ever share, that it had pushed him so far that he was afraid to be close to her at all. Reece had invited her out with him on a couple of occasions, to get coffee or go for a walk when the weather allowed, but Emily couldn’t help but think it was more to avoid being in closed spaces with her than any desire to be romantic. She’d opted to stay in, both to avoid confusing herself anymore and just plain avoiding people in general. She wasn’t in the mood to see anyone anytime soon.

  Then again, perhaps avoiding the world at large wasn’t such a great idea. Emily had had many conversations with her reflection in the bathroom mirror lately, and even one with her face staring back at her from the shiny surface of the refrigerator. She’d talked to herself about her seeming waning sanity the day before, which just made her feel even more like she was seriously losing the plot, but then that was a regular event now. What was really freaking her out was the conversations—arguments even—with herself about the drug that Reece had become. Her stupid heart kept doing flip-flops every time she heard his distinctive knock on her front door, or when his name blinked on her caller ID. Her head swam with images of him, and she’d catch herself smiling at the memory of that scorching kiss, running her fingers across her lips like some stupid teenage girl. Without him seemingly trying, Reece had ingrained himself into her life so thoroughly that it seemed as though he had always been there. Yesterday evening Emily had found herself sitting on the sofa just staring into space, waiting for the knock on her door to let her know he was there. As hard as she tried, she couldn’t get him out of her head, nor could she bring herself to tell him to stop coming over, so it was time to do the next best thing and throw herself back into work.

  The girls she’d met at the bar that night, the night Lily had—No! She wasn’t going to think about that this morning—had invited her to come out with them again last night for drinks in Lily’s honor. A kind of memorial of sorts. They’d all seen Reece when he’d hurried her out of the office after she nearly lost it in front of the entire building that morning. He was welcome too, of course. Emily had thanked them but found a reason not to go, just as she’d refused Reece’s attempts to get her to leave her apartment the past week.

  What did he want from her? She couldn’t figure him out, and that frustrated and intrigued her to equal degrees. She couldn’t take any more of his caring, heartfelt words and expressions while at the same time his moving just to avoid their hands touching, or to stop his thigh brushing up against hers as she sat down next to him. Oh, he tried not to make it obvious, but Emily had felt the rejection anyway. Her heart constricted at the thought of cutting ties. Reece was the only one who believed her, trusted what was happening to her, but it was time. Time to forget any attraction she had to Reece—no, Special Agent Knight—and move on. She’d been there and done that before on the mixed signals, and it always ended badly. She refused to make that mistake all over again.

  Emily stood up from her desk to stretch out her cramping back and saw Krystal from IT waving at her from across the floor. After everyone had witnessed her mental breakdown near the elevators Emily had been mortified, but her co-workers had been warm and welcoming on her return that morning. Her boss had referred to the magazine as ‘the family’ during her interview, and Emily was now seeing the truth in that. She wondered if Lily would be happy for that, wherever she was now. She’d always been trying to get Emily to join in with the girls when she’d been alive, and now her death was bringing them all together. Emily smiled and raised her hand in a return greeting when her phone’s loud vibration on her desk drew her attention back to the mountainous pile of work that had accumulated in her absence. Her phone skittered across the surface, nearly toppling one of the large piles of folders. Emily groaned as she grabbed it and answered the call before her phone took a header off her desk. She was never taking time off work again.

  “Hello?” she said into the phone, having answered in too much of a rush to check the caller ID. She took a seat with a frustrated huff. It was a shame she didn’t have a bottle of whiskey hidden underneath all this somewhere.

  “Did Interrupt you?” Reece’s soothing voice sounded on the other end of the line, and Emily closed her eyes. She told her stupid heart to behave and calm down before she gave herself a heart attack. Naturally, it ignored her.

  “From scaling the mountain of paperwork on my desk?” she said, trying to make light of the situation. It was either that or give in to the giddy-headed teenager she was feeling like, and Emily was done with that.

  “Well then it’s not an interruption then, but a well-deserved break,” Reece answered with a chuckle.

  Emily sighed. “Tell that to my boss.” An awkward silence fell over the line. She wanted to tell him that she missed him already. It had been nearly a whole day since she’d seen him, and he’d missed his daily phone call the that morning though he hadn’t said why. Geez, she was starting to act like a neglected girlfriend, and Emily was sick of reminding herself for the millionth time that the kiss didn’t mean anything. But it had. It had meant a whole lot, to her. Truth be told, she had a feeling that to Reece the kiss h
ad been one of pity. A fragile girl breaking down like an idiot, with no other way to stop her freaking out, well maybe a kiss would make her stop and take notice. That was the only way she could take it because ever since then he’d been acting like touching her again would have been committing a mortal sin.

  “Well, maybe this will cheer you up a little. I’m calling to let you know that Chicago P.D. have arrested a suspect. I’m heading down there now to join in on the interview.”

  “That’s great!” Emily exclaimed, sitting forward. Could this really be almost over? She’d tried not to think about it, but in the back of her mind, she hoped that once the murders were solved and the killer went to jail that the dreams would disappear along with him. Now hearing Reece’s news, she really hoped that it would come true. If it didn’t, she might be tempted to lobotomize herself.

  “I’m optimistic, but please don’t stop any safety precautions. Right now, he’s just a suspect. We’re interviewing him and running forensics. If anything matches, we’ll go from there.”

  “What if you don’t find anything?”

  Reece sighed. “He was picked up revisiting the crime scenes—more than once—and he matches your physical description. If we don’t find anything, that doesn’t mean I give up or stop looking. Just because you can’t pin anything on someone, doesn’t mean they’re not guilty.”

  Emily bit the inside of her cheek, her hope fading just a little. God, she just wanted all this to be over.

  “Emily, you still there? Maybe you could come down a look at a few pictures, see if you can pick him out of a lineup?”