Cursed. Lisa Childs
it on the table between them. He unlocked it and withdrew a thick folder. “These are the people you were more successful at killing over the past eight years.”
He flipped open the folder and fanned out the crime scene photos across the surface of the table as she probably did her tarot cards. He didn’t need to look at the pictures. All he had to do was close his eyes, and like that dream, the images played through his mind. The first girl had been drowned. A young man had been crushed beneath a board weighted down with bricks. Another girl had been hung...as someone had tried to hang Raven tonight. And the worst, the fire...had left behind little of its victim.
Of her victim.
She didn’t look at the photos, either. Instead she held his gaze. The color drained from her face, making her wide almond-shaped eyes look even bigger and her high cheekbones and heart-shaped chin even more delicate. “I don’t know anything about any murders. I don’t even know why you keep calling me Maria Cooper.”
“Because that’s your name. That’s who you are.” Now that he had found her, he had a feeling that he would never be free of her...that this eerie connection that had haunted him would always bind him to her.
She shook her head, tumbling her glossy black hair around her shoulders as she had in his dream. “No. No. I’m not her.”
“Who are you, then?” he asked, humoring her. “You have no ID. No driver’s license. No birth certificate.”
“Is there a driver’s license or birth certificate on file—anywhere—for Maria Cooper?” she asked.
“You know there’s not. There is no evidence you ever existed.” He tapped the photos. “But these. You’re the one person every single victim had in common. You’re the last person every single victim saw...when you read their tarot cards.” In most of the crime scene photos, the cards were still strewn across the table.
She closed her eyes, as if trying to shut out the images before her. But was she like him? Did they live on inside her head, haunting her just as they—and she—haunted him? Then, closing her eyes would give her no reprieve. In fact, sometimes it only made the images more real for him, like those dreams that weren’t just dreams.
She opened her eyes, just a little, and studied him thoughtfully. “That’s why you took my fingerprints.”
He glanced down at her hands, which were slightly stained on the front and slightly scratched on the back. He’d already requested that the sheriff have Raven’s fingernails scraped—to see if DNA could be matched to the woman who denied she was Maria Cooper.
She narrowed her eyes more. “I may have read their cards, but that doesn’t mean I killed them. You have no evidence that I hurt any of them. There’s no way that a judge really issued a warrant for my arrest.”
“No,” he admitted.
She stood up. And so did he, reaching across the narrow table to grab her wrist again. Like every other time he’d touched her, his fingers tingled and images flashed through his mind like a slide show.
His hands cupped her shoulders, and he pulled her closer. Her chin tipped up, her lips parting on a gasp of desire. She dragged in a deep breath that lifted her breasts against his chest. His head lowered, closer and closer to hers...
He hesitated, his mouth just a breath away from her full lips. Hunger burned in his gut; he’d never wanted to kiss anyone more. Never needed to kiss anyone the way he needed to kiss her...
“Let me go!” she said, tugging at her wrist. “You have no right to keep me here.”
“I have every right to keep you here,” he said. Just no right—or reason—to want to kiss her. Hell, she was the last woman he should be tempted to kiss. He knew exactly how dangerous she was.
“You’re a person of interest,” he explained, “and I do have a warrant to pick you up for questioning.” Ignoring the desire that hardened his body, he slid his hand up her arm to her shoulder and gently but firmly shoved her back into her chair. “You’re going to stay here and answer all my questions.”
“You have the wrong person,” she said, stubbornly sticking with her lie. “I’m not Maria Cooper.”
“DNA would prove who you are.”
Fear widened her dark eyes. “You can’t take my DNA without my permission.”
“Unless I get a warrant for it,” he warned her. Since he’d finally found her, he would be able to ask for one—especially since the attack on Raven. But it would be faster than waking a judge in this godforsaken county in the Upper Peninsula if she freely offered it. “If you’re not her, why won’t you provide a sample of your DNA to prove it? To clear yourself?”
“You forget—it’s innocent until proved guilty,” she said, her lips lifting in a slight smile. But it was grim—not taunting.
He had been taunted by other killers, ones who had sat across the table from him, laughing at him during the interrogation. Proud of their crimes. She didn’t act that way. But then, nothing about her was completely what he had expected except for her beauty.
She was so damned beautiful.
But he reminded himself and her, “We both know you’re not innocent. Your name—your description—comes up in police reports across the country going back nearly two decades. Since you were ten years old, you helped your mother run cons on desperate, gullible people.”
And because of that, he doubted she was the real deal. Like so many other self-proclaimed psychics, she was nothing more than a con artist.
She shook her head. “You have the wrong person.”
For a con artist, she wasn’t a very good liar. Then again, most suspects had trouble lying to him. “So prove it.”
She shook her head again.
“You won’t give up your DNA, because you know it’s going to be at every one of these murder scenes.” He tapped the photos again as he settled back onto the chair across from her. He needed to look at those photos, to remind himself what happened to people who got too close to Maria Cooper.
The tip of her tongue slid out and flicked across her lower lip. Was she manipulating him? Did she know how that simple action had his guts constricting with desire? With need?
“Just—just because someone was at the crime scenes,” she stammered, “before the crimes happened, doesn’t mean they were involved in the crimes.”
“Once,” he allowed, “maybe even twice. But four times—five, including tonight? That’s more than coincidence. That’s means and opportunity. The only person who’d be at every one of these crime scenes is the killer.”
“And you,” she said. “You’ve been at every scene.”
First in his mind and then in person. He nodded. “I’ve been looking for you for a long time. Catching you has been my number one priority.”
She shivered—maybe it was because her clothes were wet from the rain. Maybe it was because his determination scared her.
“Number one priority?” she repeated. “Why? Nobody’s died in over a year.”
He cocked his head at her significant slip. “How would you know that unless...?”
“The dates on the pictures.” She pointed toward the corner of one of the photos. “The most recent one is over a year old.”
“Yes, no one’s died in over a year,” he admitted. Most of his colleagues had considered the case cold. That was why he had made the trek to the UP alone, on his own time. He’d been chasing down a lead no one else had considered worthwhile, working a case no one else cared about anymore. “Until tonight...”
She shuddered. “No. Not Raven...”
“It