Dream Man by Linda Howard Page A

told them on Monday. Trammell came over to stand beside him, his dark gaze inscrutable as he watched Dane. The first sheet came out. It was a photocopy of a newspa-per article. Quickly he scanned the headline: teenage psychic FINDS MISSING CHILD.
    Trammell whistled, the single note almost soundless.
    Page after page followed. They all had a common theme: Marlie Keen’s psychic abilities. Some of the articles seemed to be from psychology magazines, or were papers on para-psychology. Several grainy photographs were printed, show-ing a younger, almost childish-looking Marlie. Most of them were newspaper articles, reporting how “noted psychic” Marlie Keen had worked with police to solve various cases. The articles were all from the Northwest, he noted. Oregon and Washington mostly, though there were a couple in Idaho, one in northern California, one in Nevada.
    Sometimes she was described as a “youthful clairvoyant,” once as “lovely,” twice as “extraordinary.” It was a com-mon theme in the articles that the local police forces had been, at the beginning, both skeptical and derisive of her talents, until she had done exactly what she had said she could do. Usually it was to find a missing person, though on a couple of occasions she had helped find kidnappers. Several times it was mentioned that, when not involved in a case, Miss Keen lived in Boulder, Colorado, at the Institute of Parapsychology. A Dr. Sterling Ewell, a professor of parapsychology at the Institute, was quoted several times.
    Trammell was standing right beside him, reading each sheet as he did. They were both silent. Even though they had been forewarned, by Marlie herself, reading about it in black and white was unsettling. Then one stark headline jumped out at them: killer at-tacks psychic. Dane grabbed the sheet, holding it taut as it was printed, and they began reading as it emerged from the machine. There had been a series of child kidnappings in a remote area of Washington; one child had been found dead, two others were still missing. Marlie had been brought in by the local sheriff, with whom she had worked before in another town, to help find the children. Just before she had arrived, another child had disappeared. A big article about her had been printed in the paper the same day. That night Arno Gleen had kidnapped Marlie from her motel room and taken her to the same place he had taken the most recent missing child, a five-year-old boy. He had been seen, though, and the sheriff alerted. It was a small town; they were able to identify Gleen and track him down. But the little boy was already dead when they got there, and though they were in time to save Marlie’s life, she had been severely beaten.
    Her condition, “poor,” was reported in a subsequent article. Then there was nothing else. Absolutely nothing. Dane checked the date on the last article. A little over six years ago. For six years Marlie Keen had literally disap-peared from the public eye. Why had she relocated to Florida? As soon as he had the thought, he pictured a map in his mind and knew why. Florida was as far from Washing-ton as she could get and still stay in the country. But why, after six years of anonymity and a completely normal life, had she walked into the lieutenant’s office and told them about Nadine Vinick’s murder?
    “It couldn’t have been easy,” Trammell murmured, his thoughts obviously following the same path. “To have involved herself after what happened the last time.”
    Dane ran his hand through his hair. Part of him was elated, the last doubt demolished. There was an explanation for her knowledge. If he still couldn’t quite believe, at least now he had to suspend his disbelief. There was no longer any reason at all for him to stay away from her; he could go after her the way his body had wanted right from the beginning. But another part of him, perversely, didn’t want to accept what he had read. Half of it was the sheer unlikelihood of it,