Man of Her Dreams, Debra Webb [my reading book txt] 📗

of having any of his own was, thankfully, nil. He’d become obsessed with other people’s children, had probably thought he could make them his own weird kind of family. His need to rule had gotten out of control with little Christina Fairgate and she’d ended up dead. Like the others…out there somewhere calling to Darby.

But she knew what the shrinks who’d evaluated him the few days he’d stayed in jail hadn’t uncovered just yet. Lester’s problem went way back—he was trying hard to make a family be what he thought it should be. The extreme measures he’d been willing to go to in order to accomplish that end spoke volumes about his past. Maybe he’d been abused in some way as a child.

She shoved aside the theories. Regardless of what had or hadn’t happened in his past, he was a damned psycho who didn’t deserve to live. He’d been playing at this serial killer thing for years without getting caught. It wasn’t until he’d gone into the “escalating” phase that he’d screwed up. All that time, he’d done his hunting far away from his home territory. Impatience had spawned sloppiness and he’d started seeking his prey right in his own backyard. And Darby had picked up on his presence. When he took a child close to her, it had been the final push her heightened senses had needed.

The pirogue rounded a turn in the waterway and the rickety old cabin came into view. Positioned a couple feet off the ground to protect against flooding, it looked ready to collapse. A stovepipe stuck up from the roof, jaunted at an odd angle. Pots and pots of blooming flowers overflowed on every available surface.

Dread pooled in Darby’s stomach. She felt sick, repulsed by the place. Though she knew it was just a house, that the evil had come from the man, not the place. Still, seeing his lair again made her want to heave. The police should have burned it to the ground…but it was evidence. Yellow crime scene tape was draped haphazardly around the perimeter of the structure.

But it hadn’t stopped him from crossing that line.

He’d been here.

She knew—felt it all the way to her bones.

She closed her eyes and listened for the voices that would lead her.

The instant the pirogue bumped into the lopsided dock, she stood. The boat bobbed, making her stomach dip.

“Wait.”

Aidan set the push-pole aside and tied off the boat.

Darby didn’t want to wait. She wanted to find them. Good sense screamed at her to wait until daylight. But she didn’t need the light…she had the voices. They would lead her. The urge felt stronger than ever before. So powerful. So consuming. She couldn’t not do this.

How could she have possessed this kind of…gift…all this time and not known the full extent of it?

Because you hadn’t wanted to see. You refused to look.

The pull was more than she could bear. She couldn’t wait.

Bracing her foot against the decaying wood, she pulled herself up onto the dock. Aidan reached for her, keeping her steady when she would have swayed.

He held her back when she started for the house. He didn’t speak but he was scanning the area, as if he suspected someone or something was out there.

Where were the police, she suddenly wondered? Aidan was right. They should be here.

He was here.

The realization hit her with enough force to rock her. Aidan’s strong arm steadied her.

“He’s here,” she murmured, her heart stalling in her chest.

“I know.”

She opened her mouth to ask how he could know but he started moving forward, propelling her alongside him.

The night sounds amplified, pressing in around her. Her imagination she told herself—not real.

She thought about Bigfoot and all the old pirate stories she’d heard. Even the ones about some parts of the bayou being cursed by a voodoo queen. Foolish. Just stories passed down from generation to generation. Stories where fact and legend collided.

Then she thought about the gossip that bodies of previous residents were buried in unmarked graves throughout the swamp. She imagined there was some truth to that one.

But the children…they didn’t belong here.

She had to make sure they were found.

At the rear corner of the cabin, Aidan detained her once more, bent down and pulled a small handgun from an ankle holster. She blinked, stunned that she hadn’t considered before that an FBI agent would carry a gun. He seemed so capable without one.

Moving on autopilot now, she didn’t resist when he ushered her behind him before rounding the corner.

At first, she didn’t see the body sprawled in the thick grasses. But something, a raccoon maybe, scurried away from where the man lay.

Darby’s heart rushed into her throat, sticking there like a tennis ball.

Aidan crouched down, his attention divided between their surroundings and the body on the ground. He checked for a pulse and shook his head. She exhaled a shaky breath, forcing her heart back into her chest where it started to pound frantically.

He reached into the man’s pocket and pulled out an ID. Cop. Detective. NOPD.

Aidan’s head came up. His posture stiffened ever so slightly, but Darby noticed. She felt it, too—the subtle shift in the atmosphere. The sudden silence of the nocturnal creatures. Dead silence.

He came here for something.

The rush of the epiphany shook her.

Aidan’s gaze collided with hers, as if he understood what she’d just experienced.

Impossible.

“He’s waiting for something,” she whispered.

“There would be more than one officer on duty at a stakeout like this,” Aidan commented, his full attention focused on the encroaching trees and the eerie stillness.

While she still turned over this newest information, Aidan was suddenly next to her, tugging her toward that ominous tree line. She wanted to ask him what he thought he was doing. But she knew from his brutal grasp and relentless pace that there was no time for questions. Whatever he’d seen or heard, she hadn’t sensed it. Hadn’t experienced any warning of danger.

Her so-called extra sense was unreliable. Dammit.

A welcome surge of reckless anger solidified her determination.

She would make