Now You See Her Linda Howard(77)

But now where she was going to sleep was a moot question, because it looked as if she wasn't going to be getting any sleep for quite a while. That was assuming her next bed wasn't in a jail cell.

"Here," she said, going over to the painting. The two detectives ranged themselves slightly behind and on either side of her, in case she tried to do something stupid, like run. She didn't look at them as they studied the painting. She knew exactly what they were seeing, and what they were thinking.

"Ms. Sweeney." Detective Ritenour's tone was flat. "Would you like to tell us how you knew the details of the murder scene?"

"You won't believe me," she said helplessly.

"Try us. "

"I didn't." She stood as still as a small animal with a wolf sniffing at the entrance to its lair. "I painted it in my sleep."



Fleeting Yeah, sure expressions went over their faces. "We'd like you to come down to the precinct with us. This painting will be taken as evidence…" Aquino's voice droned on, but Sweeney didn't listen. She tried to beat down the panic that threatened to choke her. They couldn't prove she killed Candra, because she hadn't done it. She tried to hang on to that thought.

"I painted it in my sleep," she repeated stubbornly. "I walk in my sleep sometimes, and when I wake up, I find that I've painted something. Wait—there's another painting I did, of a hot dog vendor who was killed several days ago. His name was Elijah Stokes. There was a witness who saw a man running away, so I couldn't have had anything to do with that murder." She hurried to the closet and took out the painting, carefully not looking at the face that had always worn the sweetest expression God had ever put on a human being, and now never would again.

Ritenour took that canvas and grimly examined it. "I'm not familiar with this case," he said. "We'll have to check it out."

They didn't believe anything she said. Belatedly she realized she might find herself charged as an accessory in Elijah Stokes's murder, if she didn't manage to do something. She had been deliciously warm all day, but now a faint chill raced up her back. Automatically she hugged her arms, rubbing them.

"This isn't the only weird thing that's been happening." They weren't listening, their minds closed off to any explanation she could give except the obvious: she had been at the scenes. Panic congealed into a cold lump and settled in the pit of her stomach. She had to keep trying anyway.

"Please get your shoes and purse," Detective Aquino requested.

She did, and a coat to go over her sweatshirt, though they gave her disbelieving glances. The high that day had been in the eighties, and the late afternoon was still warm. She couldn't feel any internal heat, though, just the spreading chill of terror. She tried to control it, tried to keep calm, because that was the only way she had of helping herself.

Aquino took her purse and looked through it, then gave it back to her and took her arm.

"Listen to me," she said in as calm a tone as she could manage. "When we get in the car, pay attention to the traffic signals."

"We always do," Ritenour said with heavy irony as they escorted her from the apartment.

"No, I mean to what happens." She was trembling like a leaf, her breath hitching. "You won't have to stop. The lights will turn green when we get close. They always do for me. And there'll be an empty parking space right in front of the station for you." She felt as if she were babbling, but she couldn't stop.

"If that's so," said Aquino politely, "then people would pay you a fortune just to ride around in their cars with them."

They put her in the backseat of a nondescript sedan. She noticed there weren't any door handles in back, but at least there wasn't a wire cage in front of her. The paintings were placed in the trunk. She forced herself to stillness, imposing a tiny bit of control on a world that was coming apart around her.

Had she been officially arrested, or were they just taking her in for questioning? She didn't know the procedure, didn't know what came next. She should probably call a lawyer, she thought, but who she wanted to call was Richard. She needed him. But the cops had already had him in for questioning, and calling him would just drag him back into this mess.

The traffic light at the corner turned green. "Did you see that?" she asked. "It turned green."

"Yeah, they do that occasionally," Aquino said sarcastically.

The next one turned green, too. And the next one. Sweeney sat very quietly, not pointing out the obvious again. They would notice every light now.

The traffic cleared from in front of them, cars switching lanes, turning down other streets. The sedan didn't have to slow, but kept a steady pace. As the seventh traffic light turned green at their approach, Ritenour turned in his seat and gave her an unreadable look, but neither he nor Aquino remarked on the phenomena.

As they drove up to the precinct house, a car pulled out of a parking space directly in front of the building. She thought Aquino said, "Shit," under his breath, but she wasn't certain.

The precinct was boiling with humanity. Peeling green paint, metal desks and filing cabinets, shouts and curses and laughter all running together, armed men and women in blue uniforms: Sweeney's impression of all this was a blur. Soon she was sitting in a very uncomfortable chair in a dingy little room, thoughts roiling in her mind, but no bright ideas on how to prove herself popped out of the cauldron.