Killer Dreams Read Online Free

stupid.”
    “Of course not.” He paused. “It’s those damn wires, Sophie. I’m afraid of doing something wrong. He’s better off with you.”
    “Yes, he is. But I showed you how to connect the monitor. It’s simple. Just the index-finger pulse-ox and the backup chest band. Michael does it himself now. You just have to check the monitor to make sure it’s working properly. You’re his father and I won’t have him cheated. For God’s sake, he doesn’t have the plague. He’s wounded.”
    “I know that,” Dave said. “I’m working on it. It scares the hell out of me, Sophie.”
    “Then get over it. He needs you.” She hung up, blinking to suppress the stinging tears. She’d hoped Dave was making an adjustment at last but it didn’t look promising. The safe haven she’d set up for Michael with his father was disintegrating before her eyes. She’d have to think of something else, make other plans. Before that hideous day she’d thought their marriage could make it, although they were having a few problems. She’d been wrong. It hadn’t been strong enough to survive more than six months after she’d gotten out of the hospital.
    But, dammit, he
had
to be there for Michael if he needed him. He had to be.
    Keep calm. She couldn’t do anything right now. She’d find a way to protect Michael. Go to bed. Go to sleep. Then go back to the hospital where she could keep herself busy doing what she’d been trained to do.
    Help people, instead of planning to kill them.
     
    “I’m asking you to release me from my promise,” Jock Gavin said when MacDuff picked up the phone. “I may have to kill a man.” He waited, listening to the Laird cursing on the other end of the line. When he stopped, Jock said, “He’s a very bad man. He deserves to die.”
    “Not by your hand, dammit. That’s all over for you.”
    It could never be over, Jock thought. He knew that even if the Laird did not. But MacDuff wanted it so badly that he was willing it so. “Sophie is going to kill Sanborne, if I don’t. I can’t let her do it. She’s been hurt too much already. Even if she doesn’t get caught, it will scar her.”
    “She’ll probably back down. You said she didn’t have the killer instinct.”
    “But now she has the skill. I’ve given it to her. And along with the skill, she has the hatred and a sense of doing the wrong thing for the right reason. That will push her over the edge.”
    “Then let her do it. Get out of there.”
    “I can’t do that. I have to help her.”
    MacDuff was silent for a moment. “Why? What do you feel for her, Jock?”
    Jock chuckled. “Don’t worry. Not sex. And, God knows, not love. Well, maybe love. Friendship is love too. I like her and the boy. I feel a bond because of what she’s suffered. What she’s still suffering.”
    “That’s enough for me to worry about if it’s making you take up old habits. I want you to come back to MacDuff’s Run.”
    “No. Release me from my promise.”
    “The hell I will. I’ve left you on your own to find your way for a long time. It was damn hard for me. The only thing I asked was that you keep in contact and that there would be no more killings.”
    “And there haven’t been.”
    “Until now.”
    “It hasn’t happened…yet.”
    “Jock, don’t you—” MacDuff stopped and drew a deep breath. “Let me think.” There were a few minutes of silence and Jock could almost hear the Laird’s mind clicking, turning over the possibilities. “What would make you come back to the Run?”
    “I don’t want her to kill Sanborne.”
    “Can we get the FBI or a government agency on it?”
    “She said she’d tried. She thinks there’s a payoff.”
    “It’s possible. Sanborne’s got almost as much money as Bill Gates and that potential could be pretty dazzling to most politicians. What about the media?”
    “Sophie was in a mental hospital for three months with a nervous breakdown after the killings. That was one of the reasons she