He snarled at her, but she squirmed out from beneath him and rolled until her feet hit ground. Then she was gone, running as she’d never run before.
From behind her came a sound that was part howl, part roar. And all promise...
Jessie shot up in the bed. She was soaked in sweat and shook all over. She’d almost let him—how could she? Submission. She hadn’t thought that lay within her. Anywhere. Even in a dream, that she would come so close to that disturbed her.
She shuddered and rubbed her arms. Why had the dream turned on her like that? Was it because she’d demanded an audience with the elusive Braden?
Braden was intimidating as hell. Perhaps Troy was right.
She should’ve been careful what she asked for.
* * *
Zach’s fingers curled, digging the nails into the steering wheel. His left leg bounced as he drove through Winnipeg.
The restlessness wasn’t stemming from something physical. It came from inside him. Or rather, from inside his head.
It was the end of a long day. Although not as long as the last three weeks. Today marked the first time he’d not gone out early. Cara was right. He needed to quit. To accept the women were dead and move on.
If only he could eliminate the image of pleading gray eyes. They followed him everywhere. Likely because his mind was a mess. Emotions oozed from him as if his brain had been poked full of holes. People had been wincing and avoiding him all day.
He’d never been so overextended.
He eased the van into Inkster Blvd’s curb lane and turned into the parking lot of the heavy equipment repair place. Suddenly, the ache in his head altered to stabbing pain.
Someone was mentally screaming. He struggled to pinpoint it, searching for clarity. There were just too many people mentally yelling theirpain,anger, andconflictto the cosmos. It was probably a fight. A nasty one, by the feel of it, although it surprised him how sometimes he was sure people would be tearing each other apart, only to find them avoiding each other. What went on inside was not always obvious on the outside.
He sighed and rubbed his forehead. It wasn’t their fault he could hear them. But this time, whatever hammered against his fragile mental walls was especially powerful. He winced as he pulled the van around to the delivery entrance and backed it in.
“Hey Zach.” The head diesel mechanic nodded as he walked to the van and lifted the door. What Zach felt wasn’t coming from him. The mechanic only emittedfrustrationandeagernessto end his workday.
Zach’s fragile mental state and crumbling walls affected everyone who came close. The mechanic’s brows dropped and his movements became more hurried. The man didn’t know what was going on, but he instinctively knew to avoid Zach’s energy.
This was why Zach hung around with animals. And why he didn’t have many friends. Or rather, any. With the possible exception of Cara.
The van’s door rolled open on freshly oiled tracks, revealing the boxed truck parts within. Zach’s last delivery was swiftly unloaded. He rolled the door closed on an empty van, barely registering the friendly exchange of farewells with the rapidly fleeing mechanic.
His head had gotten worse. Driving away, Zach paused at the exit to Inkster.
It was a good thing he’d stopped. A pulse of pureterrorlanced through him, strong enough to make the world around him blur.Bloody hell.He’d once been in the vicinity of someone who’d been beaten and robbed. By the time he’d tracked the man down, he was lying, bleeding, in an alley.
This had that kind of intensity. Zach blinked moisture from his eyes. Home was to the left.
He turned right.
Instantly, the sensation offearincreased until he could barely see. He took another right, onto an access road, to get off the busy street. He’d no sooner done so than another pulse sent him swerving the van to the roadside, where he stopped. He took a series of deep breaths as the sensations pummeled him. Whatever was going on was uniquely bad. This wasn’t any spousal conflict or bout of road rage.
The opening pulse ofterrorhad been intense. Now it had dropped to an enduring kind offear. It resonated through him, on and on. Like they’d lost all hope. And if he wasn’t mistaken, it was coming from more than one person.
Female. They were female.
Female.
My god. Jessie. The missing women. Twenty-one long days... and now there was something. Could it really be them? Were they alive? His heart thundered in time to his head. He concentrated. Were there three? The fear was overpowering, so there was no way to be sure.
He took the van out of park and almost hit another vehicle as he pulled off the shoulder. He pushed through the headache and tried to pinpoint where it came from. Fortunately, there wasn’t much traffic. He was deep in the Inkster Industrial Park, weaving along roads that accessed warehouses and storage facilities. Most were behind secure fencing and had identifying signs attached to them. But not all. And the deeper he drove, the older and more dilapidated the buildings became. Even the road surface deteriorated into pothole mayhem.
Thefearand thepainjust kept increasing. Until he was panting, trying to see through it. He rubbed at throbbing temples with shaking fingers.
