Obsession Untamed (Feral Warriors #2)(10)

She gave him a wry look that held a hint of a smile. “You’re a pain in the ass, you know that?”

His expression softened the way her father’s used to after he’d scolded her, right before he told her he still loved her. The liar.

“I wouldn’t be doing my job if I weren’t.” Phil waved his hand toward the door. “Now go home and turn on the television. And make it a comedy. When you walk in here Wednesday morning, I want you looking like the living again instead of the half-dead.”

Delaney made a face at him but didn’t say any more as she rose, lifted her hand in a brief farewell, and left. Taking a long weekend might actually work to her advantage. Maybe if she weren’t so tired, she’d start seeing the visions clearly again, without the accompanying migraine.

Then, if she could just figure out where the next murder was taking place, she might be able to get there in time to stop it. Or at least, in time to catch the murderer.

That son of a bitch was going down.

As she walked to her car, she prayed she’d get another vision soon. But as she slid her key into the ignition of her Toyota SUV, her head exploded with pain. Too soon.

The keys dropped to the floor with a jangle as Delaney grabbed the steering wheel, gasping. Her vision went until all she could see were wildly colored jagged shapes that cut through her head and stole her breath with excruciating agony. Her skin turned to ice even as beads of sweat rolled between her br**sts.

A scream tore through her brain. A scream not her own.

Amid the tearing color she caught glimpses of a scene. An unknown woman’s face contorted in terror. A body lying on a pitted and stained linoleum floor.

The visions and colors flew at her, clawing at her mind until the pain ran in bright red rivulets that slowly turned to black.

“Hey, lady!”

Delaney blinked, a god-awful noise blaring in her ears as she awoke with a jolt. She straightened, releasing the steering wheel. The noise abated at once.

The horn. She’d been leaning on the horn.

The fog of confusion dissipated through the ache that still filled her head. She’d had another vision. Or maybe just one hell of a migraine. A migraine with dead people.

The tapping resumed on her window, and she turned to find the garage attendant staring at her through the glass. She reached for the keys, remembered they’d fallen, and leaned down to search for them with shaking fingers. Finally, she managed to snag them, start the car, and lower the window.

“Are you okay?” he asked worriedly. “Did you pass out or something?”

“I fell asleep. I’m fine.” With that, she backed out of the parking space and left the garage to join the heavy flow of traffic. Phil had told her she looked half-dead. She was beginning to think he might have been closer to the truth than she wanted to believe. Maybe she was coming down with the flu. The visions were just fever-induced hallucinations.

And maybe the man who’d attacked her had given her something in addition to the visions. Some kind of deadly disease.

She groaned. If she still felt so bad in the morning, she’d go to the doctor. Right now, all she wanted to do was to get home and sleep. Please God, without another vision, or she’d never make it home at all.

She white-knuckled it the entire trip to Fairlington, but made it without incident. As she fumbled with her keys in the lock of her condo, a cat leaped into her line of sight, startling her. Her keys fell from her nerveless fingers, but the pretty tabby barely seemed to notice, sliding instead around her ankle.

“Sorry about that, fella. Where’d you come from?” She stroked the animal’s orange-striped fur as she bent down to retrieve her keys. “You’re a pretty thing, but you don’t want to stay near me tonight. If I’m getting sick, like I think I am, things are bound to get disgusting. Go home.”

But he only purred and rubbed his face against her pant leg. Delaney gave his chin a scratch, then rose and managed to get the key in the lock. As she pushed open the door, the cat raced inside.

Blast it. She was so not up to chasing a cat. Unless he changed his mind fast, he was going to have to spend the night.

The animal turned and sat in the bedroom doorway, watching her as she set her briefcase on the large dining table that constituted the only real furniture in her living room. On the table sat her laptop and computer and a host of case files. Covering the walls of the room were maps, photos of the missing, and the crime-scene photos of the dead. Her office away from the office. Although Phil had made her promise not to come in to work any more than fifty hours a week, she never quit working, as the too-shrewd man knew all too well.

She met the cat’s eerily sharp gaze. “Believe me, if you’re looking for a home, this isn’t it.”

She swayed on her feet and grabbed the back of the nearest straight-backed chair wishing, for once, she’d bothered to buy a sofa. The only place she could relax was the bed. And that was where she needed to be.

The cat’s soft, deep purr caressed her frayed nerves, as if he sensed how lousy she felt. It was kind of nice feeling like someone cared, even if he was really just asking for food. Maybe with her working more hours from home, she could take having a pet off that wish list reserved for the distant future. A future she hadn’t thought she was going to see for a brief few minutes in the laundry room of the Potomac Side Apartments.

The cat moved out of her way as she went into the bedroom, then resumed his watchful pose as she pulled off her suit jacket and tossed it on the bed.