Deadly Dreams Read Online Free PDF Page B

this case would be finished, too. The realization brought a flicker of relief.
    “You might want to run a Sam Crowley and have him brought in for questioning.” Surely it was small and petty to feel a thread of satisfaction at his surprised look.
    “Why?” But he was pulling a notebook from the pocket of his navy muted-plaid suit jacket and unhooking the pen clipped to it. “Is he someone you ran into on the job? Does he have a history of this sort of thing?”
    “No, he’s the man Heather Bixby was coming to meet this morning.”
    In the act of writing down the name, his gaze bounced to hers. “She told you that?”
    “When I pressed her.” Because they were freezing, she tucked her hands in her coat pockets. She couldn’t resist the opportunity to needle him a bit. “You really thought a woman would fix herself up like that to walk the dog?”
    His eyes narrowed. “I said there was something odd about her coming to a place like this when it was still dark.”
    “Not that odd, as it turns out.” She hunched her shoulders a bit, wishing she’d taken the time to change her clothes. The thin yoga pants weren’t much of a barrier to the chilly breeze. “I think you’ll discover they had a tryst planned, which I hate to think of occurring in front of the dog, but there you go. Crowley shouldn’t be hard to find. He’s got a sheet.”
    McGuire flipped the notebook shut and slipped it back into his pocket. “Let’s hope his record includes assault and playing with matches,” he said, in dark humor. “Make my life a helluva lot easier.”
    “I don’t think it’ll be that simple. But he may have seen someone in the vicinity. If this guy is as enthralled with fire as I suspect he is, he’d want to hang around and watch as long as he dared.”
    The watery moon glowing through the crossed branches of the nearest tree. His nude body silhouetted against the bright flames, arms outstretched.
    “I’ll have him brought in.”
    The ME and her assistants were transferring the remains to a stripped-down gurney. Deliberately, she moved away, leaving the CSU techs and the ME to their jobs. Having delivered the information she’d gotten from Bixby, she was overcome with a desire to be gone. And after today she’d have nothing more to do with this case. Certainly, Raiker wasn’t going to get his way this time round. The man might be some kind of wizard when it came to knowing his people, but he’d miscalculated if he thought throwing her into another case would rid her of misgivings about returning to the work.
    It went deeper than that. The hell of it was, Raiker, more than anyone else, should understand.
    McGuire had joined the CSU techs and was directing the search. One of the men was rephotographing the area where the body had lain. Risa drifted farther from the activity, into a grid the detective had searched before moving on. Something about the tree drew her. It had figured in the dream last night, although the details were fuzzy. Its two largest branches had grown into an X, and it stood directly to the east of the cement pad. The closest vegetation to the fire, it was still far enough away to have escaped unscathed. She wondered if that were by chance or planning.
    Although she hesitated to draw conclusions unsubstantiated by facts, she had a feeling that the offender left very little to chance.
    Leaning against the tree’s massive trunk, she stared at the blackened cement pad that had held the human carnage. The vantage point placed her directly beneath the juncture where the tree’s branches bisected, like a sentinel with crossed fingers. A mental snippet from the dream flashed across her mind. Of the way moonlight had paved a watery glow through the fork of those branches . . . a diffused spotlight for the horror being played out in the night shadows.
    But the moon hadn’t been out last night, had it? She frowned a bit, trying to recall. When she’d gone to bed after midnight, the sky had been a