Mind Reader (21 page)

“You can’t use your hands, and you just heaved all over the bridge, but you’re not—” He propped his elbow on the
armrest and rubbed his temple. “The girl, right?”

“Right.” Caron snuggled down and closed her eyes. Maybe, if she just didn’t think about riding, if she prac
ticed the exercises Dr. Z. had taught her, her stomach would
stop rolling and pitching like a ship in a storm.

Parker chanced a covert look at Caron. Her arms lay
folded over her stomach. Even when she’d been heaving out
of the car door, she hadn’t used her hands.

He frowned and sped up to get through a caution light. If these empathy pains of hers were faked, she was carrying them a bit far. He’d seen the sweat sheening her skin, seen her ribs heave, her muscles contort. She hadn’t been
faking it.

The candy bars. That was the only explanation. Her
physical symptoms were real. That didn’t mean she was psychic, but her pains
were
real. Yeah, too much
candy. Of course.

“You said we were going home.”

He glanced over. “We are.”

“I need to go to the apartment, Parker. To
my
home.”

“But you’re sick.”

“I need to, Parker.” She rubbed his thigh with her fore
arm. “Aren’t you the man who said I had to face this?”

“That was before you threw up all over the street.”

“My apartment, Parker,” she insisted, closing her eyes
and mumbling something about smooth roads. “I’m through running.”

Parker clenched his jaw, whipped the car around and drove to her apartment. The slot next to his Porsche was
empty. He pulled in and turned off the ignition. Caron was
sleeping, half on his shoulder, half against the seat. He
hated admitting how good she felt beside him. And how guilty he felt because she felt good beside him.

He looked down at her, at the fringe of lashes dusting her
cheeks. Half the health problem could be the candy bars;
she hadn’t eaten right all day. But he had the feeling she
didn’t eat right many days. That could explain her illness in part. But not completely. And it couldn’t explain his
concern.

He got out of the car and walked around to her side.
Yeah, that was probably all there was to it. If he’d stuffed three candy bars into his stomach in one day, he’d be sick, too. He opened the door, wishing he believed it.

“Caron.” He touched her shoulder. “You’re home.”

She grunted but didn’t awaken fully. Parker reached in and scooped her into his arms, then carried her into the
building. He gave the steps a wary look. Before, he’d been
so frantic to get upstairs to her that he
hadn’t noticed the
condition of her building. Looking at it now, he had half a
mind to buy the blasted thing just to get it up to code and make it safe. But, just as quickly, he decided against it.
Caron would resent his interference.

He looked down at her face. She was exhausted. That,
too, could be making her ill. What had been faint smudges
under her eyes this morning were dark circles now. She’d slept some last night—he’d watched her—but she hadn’t
rested. She’d tossed and turned, fitful. Whether it was real
or imagined, this abduction business with Misty was eat
ing at Caron.

He dug through her purse for the keys, then opened the
door. An amateur could pick the new lock with a toothpick; the dead bolt barely penetrated the wood. Yet
anyone who really wanted in would just cut a hole in the wall. Locks kept honest folks honest. Criminals were more
persistent.

Irked, Parker kicked the door closed, then immediately
flinched. But Caron didn’t seem to hear it slam. She was still sleeping, her hair hanging over his arm like a golden
waterfall. Very pretty. Very touchable. Why couldn’t he get a firm grip on his feelings for her and keep them tamped?

He walked straight through to her room. Standing be
side her bed, he considered undressing her. But his body’s
reaction to just the thought of that had him shoving back the
flowered coverlet and putting her down on the bed.

He eased off her shoes, then stepped back and looked at
her. His heart swelled. She looked so...peaceful.

That thought had him frowning, narrowing his eyes. He
hadn’t noticed it before, but when Caron was awake, she
never looked peaceful. Why was that?

When she’d been teaching at Midtown, she’d seemed happy. Personally, he’d thought her life a little lonely. She didn’t have any close friends, just her students, her mother
and her aunt Grace. But her relatives were in Mississippi,
too far away to visit more than once a month.

Her
lashes fluttered, but Caron didn’t open her eyes. Was
she dreaming? She was a likable person. A bit testy when
people were slow to catch on to what she was telling them,
but likable. She was dynamite-looking, yet she emitted a strong signal that discouraged men from getting close.

He
let his gaze wander around her room. A bulletin
board with drawings the kids
had done nearly covered the
far wall between a dresser and a desk. She had welcomed her students with open arms and an open heart; even from a distance, Parker had seen that clearly. He looked at the pictures. One drawing faintly resembled a frog, and it conjured up the memory of her playing leapfrog with the kids.
She’d been in her glory. Her hair in a swinging ponytail, her
oversize pink sweater flopping around her thighs, her
laughter...
 
He could still hear her laughter.

It was getting harder and harder to reconcile the woman Harlan had believed her to be with the Caron Chalmers
Parker was coming to know.

Thoughtful, he glanced back. Curled on her side, she was
sleeping comfortably. Tempted to crawl in beside her, he
turned and headed for the door.

Halfway there, he paused for a long second, then turned and walked back. Before he could think of all the reasons he shouldn’t, he bent over and placed a tender kiss on her forehead, then left the room and softly closed the door.

Caron heard the click and smiled. What he’d been
thinking she couldn’t tell; her hormones were humming,
and the shield hiding his thoughts was firmly in place. But
that
tender kiss told her his thoughts hadn’t been bad ones,
and for now that was enough.

Parker was coming around. He might not believe her just
yet, but he was coming around. And Misty was sleeping soundly. Caron could rest easy for a time. She scrunched
her pillow and let herself drift off.

For the first time since Sarah James’s death, Caron for
got to remind herself not to dream.

Chapter 6

Parker stood in the dark at Caron’s living room window. Staring down at his Porsche, he hoped it would still be
parked there in the morning—unstripped.

Rubbing his neck, he walked back to Caron’s bedroom door. In the morning, she’d be mad as a hornet at him for staying. But he couldn’t leave. What if she got sick again?

His hand on the knob, he bent to the door and listened.
No noise. Nothing stirring. He peeked in and saw her
curled on her side, in the same position she’d been in hours
ago.

Winding back to the sofa, he bumped his shin on the corner of the coffee table and plopped down, then shifted and squirmed, trying to find a comfortable position. But he’d already proven that six feet of man couldn’t get com
fortable on five feet of sofa.

He propped his head on the armrest, scrunched up his
legs and, giving up on finding a place to put his arm,
crooked it over his chest. Man, he’d be stiff for a week.

A lump tortured his spine. The sofa had more lumps than
his mother’s gravy. Helga, now, could make good gravy.
His stomach growled, reminding him that he’d missed din
ner.

He closed his eyes and recalled the Thanksgiving Helga
had been down with the flu and his mother had cooked.
Classic rubber turkey; dry as dust. Megan had wrinkled her
freckled nose and demanded their mother promise never to cook again—except for baking cookies. He chuckled softly
and wondered what Caron’s Thanksgivings had been like. Her days after school had been very different from his.
She’d soaked up every detail of his tales like a love-starved
sponge.

Knowing that she had been starved gnawed at his stomach. He gave it a rub, but the ache didn’t go away. “You’ve
got it bad, Simms,” he told himself. “Really bad.”

The red light pulsed, setting the raindrops beading on the
sign to flame. “Rue de Bourbon,” Caron read, knowing that she was dreaming, that this had all happened before...the night Sarah James died.

But this time it would be different. This time the spell
ings on signs wouldn’t confuse her. This time Sarah wouldn’t die.

It was dark, after midnight. Cold and rainy. Blustery winds whipped at electrical lines strung down the street, at tree limbs, making a shimmering, eerie sound.

Driving slowly down the street, Caron saw the man in dirty jeans leaning against the lamppost, his booted foot
propped. He tugged the bill of his cap low over his eyes and
took a drag from the cigarette cupped in his hand. Its tip
glowed orange.

She saw the bar, the sign above its door. Two men ambled out, a woman between them. Her hair was long and black, dusting the hem of her short skirt. They were drinking from paper cups, laughing, celebrating Christmas.

Caron was not. She was frantic, fighting for breath, her arms aching as if her blood circulation had been clamped
off too long. Her head swam, her breasts and thighs burned
as if branded by white hot pokers, and her jaw throbbed.
Sarah had been struck. Again.

Caron veered right, pulled up to the curb and parked.

“No,” she told herself, feeling herself tossing on the
sheets. On some level, she knew she was in her apartment,
in her own bed, asleep. She could feel the cotton sheets, stiff
from the clothesline, pricking at her back. She knew, and yet this was too real, too different, to be a dream.

She felt the car’s cold metal door handle against her
hand. Heard it snap open. Saw the rain splattering onto the street. She screamed at herself. “Don’t get out. Don’t go in.
Sarah is not here!”

But she did get out.

And she did go into the bar.

Hot tears blurred her eyes, pooled, then tumbled down her face. “I made a mistake,” she cried. “It was the street sign, not the bar. It was the street—” Deep sobs grew to hopeless wails. “Sarah! Oh, God, please! Please, I made a
mistake!”

He heard something.

Groggy, Parker opened his eyes. His shoulder was numb.
He grunted and half rolled, half fell off the sofa.

“I made a mistake!”

Caron? He jumped up and ran into her room.

He heard her sobs. Deep, pitiful cries of despair, an
guish and regret. “Caron, what’s wrong?” He moved to the
bed and reached for the lamp to turn on the light.

“No, don’t,” Caron said. “Don’t.”

He sat on the edge of the mattress. She rolled toward him
and put her hand on his knee, shaking hard. He covered it
with his. “What’s the matter? Are you sick again?”

She didn’t answer.

Parker rubbed her arm, her shoulder. At some time while
he’d slept, she’d put on one of her flannel gowns. He was
coming to like them. “Talk to me.”

“It won’t help. It...happened.”

Her voice, weak and thready, tugged hard at him. He
wanted to hold her, but did she want to be held?
 
She needed
it, he decided. He needed it, too. Seeing her like this tore him apart and made him ashamed. Shifting around to lean
against the headboard, he pulled her into his arms. “Come
here, Caron.”

When she snuggled close and buried her head against his
chest, he knew he’d done the right thing. God, but he hated feeling her tremble. He rested his chin on her head and
whispered against her hair. “Shh...it was just a dream...
 
Don’t cry, talk to me. At least trust me with your dreams.”