The Secret Night

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“What’s your name?” Nick demanded.

A long pause. Then, in a barely audible voice she replied, “Emma Birmingham.”

“This is a trick,” he said flatly. “Caldwell sent you to…to what? Seduce me into trusting you?”

Her eyes blinked open again, and she focused on him, her brow furrowed. “In the dreams, you were always nice…very nice….”

“Yeah, well, that was just a dream, wasn’t it?” he muttered, knowing it wasn’t true. Something had already happened between them. Something he didn’t understand.

But Caldwell might very well understand it. Nick felt a wave of cold wash through him as he stared down at the woman lying on his couch. He had known Caldwell was getting stronger. Had that demon projected a vision of Emma Birmingham into his mind? Had Caldwell gained so much power that he could do such a thing—and do it without even being in proximity to his victim?

Emma—if that really was her name—tried to push herself to a sitting position but failed. As she fell back against the sofa, her features twisted in pain. Still, she forced her gaze to focus on his, and he knew she was trying to project her sincerity.

“Caldwell didn’t send me,” she insisted. “You have to believe that.”

“Do I?” He knew his voice was cold and harsh, but his thoughts were in turmoil. He should take her straight to the emergency room—and make sure she wouldn’t remember where she’d gotten shot. He could take away her memory and her identification, so nobody would know who she was. But even as he considered that plan, he rejected it.

He couldn’t forget the dream. Suppose he was wrong about Caldwell’s orchestrating it? Suppose Emma had somehow reached out to him on her own? Or, even more likely, because she had been at Caldwell’s enclave and in need of help, and because he himself spent a good deal of time making plans to bring down his old enemy, they had simply found each other. Two people, both isolated, both focused on a common foe—and one with the extrasensory powers that would make a bond between them possible. That the bond had taken such an erotic turn could have been the result of his own long abstinence and, to be completely honest, his loneliness. God knows, he’d been lonely….