"I'm not."

"Yes you are."

She huffed a breath out and crossed her arms over the sheet covering her. "Fine, I dream."

"Yes, you've established that. What I want to know is what had you screaming out tonight."

She grinned.

"Besides me," he added.

"What the hell, you already think I'm weird anyway."

"No I don't. Eccentric maybe, but not weird." He shrugged. "Weird is for...well, the weird."

"There's women missing."

He frowned, the normally teasing glint gone from his eyes, eyes now shadowed by a flatness and pain she'd witnessed in him in passing moments. "Women?" he asked.

She nodded and stared into his dark eyes. "Women. He takes them because of the color of their eyes. I have dreams about it."

His eyes widened, then he frowned and glared at her. "What?"

"Someone is out there taking women with pale blue eyes. He's been doing it for a long, long time."

He stilled, not that he'd been moving, but it was as if he'd frozen. His face, normally handsome, if rugged and brusque, seemed carved of marble.

"Tell me."

The intensity in those two words rolled off him and slammed into her. She licked her lips.

"I don't know. I can't see it all, not him exactly. I know he smokes. I know he's Caucasian. I'm not sure why he does it. I don't think they're the same. Not all of them. Not like hair or whatever." She struggled to make sense of it all, an old frustration rearing its head to tangle with her mind. "It's like...like..." She shook her head and sat up, keeping the sheet tucked under her arms. "It's like those commercials or the scene in a movie where someone is dying and images flash quickly past each other. So if you had to stop and think, it's hard to see, but you know what you saw." She raked a hand through her hair. "I'm messing this up. I can't think. I just know that...that..."

A jar with her name... That meant...

"He killed her," she whispered, staring down at the mess of tangled sheets.

"Who?" Rogan asked, his voice deep, commanding.

She shook her head again. "I don't know. I don't even know what her name was, or which jar she was." She muttered the last, more to herself than to him. And she remembered again what he'd done to the first woman she'd dreamed of.

"He's killed so many. So many all over the place. And he keeps them..." She trailed off and looked at Rogan now sitting on the opposite edge of the bed, his back to her.

"Do you see him?" he asked quietly.

She frowned and took a deep breath. "Sort of, but nothing clearly. I know that doesn't help. That's what the detectives think, it's what they always think. It's not like I can control it for God's sake. I just see what I see."

The need to pace tapped through her, but she knew her legs just weren't quite steady enough.

Rogan twisted at the waist and looked at her, piercing her with those dark eyes. "Start at the beginning."

Cora thought of how to begin. "It's always in dreams. I don't see it otherwise. It's not like a flash of foresight or sight or whatever. It just comes to me when I dream. I think that's when he does it. At least that's the way it feels to me."

He didn't say anything.

"The room echoes like it's...empty, or a basement or something. There aren't any windows. I see the women tied to the bed. The first had red hair, red hair that was tangled and messy. The other had dark hair. Both had eyes the color of mine."

And she told him the rest of it.

Chapter Fifteen.

Rogan listened as she spoke. Her voice soft, monotone. He listened as she described women bound, captive and terrified. How the bastard taunted them, teased them, and in the end killed them.

He stood and paced.

Where earlier he'd been warm and as content as he'd been in years, now he was cold, chilled. His heartbeat thrummed against his ears.

He listened, the possibility of finally having answers thrilling through him, just as the rational man in him fought it.

Who was this woman really? She advertised as a psychic, made no bones about hiding that fact. Yet he couldn't help wondering if she was just a fluke, just playing him. And if she was, what the hell was her con? What was she after? He'd picked her out, he'd found her. Her friend had set them up, but hell, he was honest enough to know he'd clicked onto something with Cora from the first moment he laid eyes on her.

So where did that leave them. Then something she said registered and fell into place. He stared at the floor, took a deep breath and looked back to the woman sitting on the bed, her face as pale as the moonlight. "What-" Rogan cleared his throat. "You said-" He shuddered against the thought.

Cora sat still and waiting, the sheet wrapped and twisted around her. "You said he liked their eyes. That was the way he chose them." He shut his eyes. "Jars? He keeps them in jars?"

When she didn't move, he opened his eyes and stared at her, willing for just a moment to believe she was the real deal. "You said he keeps their eyes as souvenirs in jars." His voice was sharper than he'd intended.

She nodded, not looking away from him. "Yes. His angels. He likes them watching over him."

"Jesus." Rogan continued his pacing. The blackouts... He shook his head. Then he whirled and stood in front of her. "You said you know it's happening right now?"

She nodded and tucked a strand of blonde hair behind her ear. Shifting so her knees were pulled to chest, she answered, "Yes."

"Is it always at the same time?" he asked, digging.

A rueful grin tilted her lips. It wasn't amused. "That would be real convenient wouldn't it? Then I'd know exactly when to go to sleep if I wanted to help, or just stay awake so that I wouldn't have to mess with it."

He raked another hand through his hair. If she dreamed of it happening now... Just moments ago...

For just a second, he allowed himself to believe, really believe and a dark cloud that had hung over his head for the last three years lightened. Maybe she could help him clear his name-if she was real.

"When you woke up, you said something about he had your name?" Did she just dream that?

Her eyes dilated until the black seemed to shove the pale blue away. "Names, neatly labeled, to go with the eyes." She licked her lips. "Analise, Bettie, Ballena, Candice, Daniella, Ginger... Such a pretty angel. Cora. Here's her place," she muttered.

He jerked at the name. Without realizing it, he grasped her shoulders and glared at her, bending down so they were eye to eye. "Who? What were the names again?"

She blinked and frowned, repeating them.

Ginger...

Cold iced him. Tied. Terrorized. Eyes in jars.

Bile rose up the back of his throat, but he clamped down and fought against the nausea.

"Who is he?" he strangled out, knowing his fingers were digging into her shoulders.

She pulled against him. "I don't know."

"If I find out you're lying to me..."

She put her hands up and shoved against him. "Let me go!"

He raised his hands palm up. "Sorry. God, I'm sorry."

His heart slammed against his ribs, a muscle twitching in his jaw. He leaned over, grabbed his pants off the floor and jerked them on, not bothering to button them as he stood looking out her window. The dawn was still hours away, but he wouldn't be sleeping anymore tonight.

He looked at her over his shoulder. "If I find out you're conning me, or the police in some misguided idea, I swear I'll make your life a living hell."

She struggled to get out of bed, the sheet tangled around her and not letting her go. On a huff and muttered curse, she ripped it aside and stormed from the bed. She marched up to him and poked a finger in his chest. "You ass! I can't believe..." She took two steps back from him. "After everything..."

Whirling, she stormed to the bathroom and slammed the door.

Rogan closed his eyes and leaned his head against the cool glass.

What the hell was wrong with him? This situation just reaffirmed his long held belief his life was shit. Plain and simple. He was, as Clayton often said, a shit magnet.

Cora O'Donnell. He'd have Clayton run her. See if he could unearth anything. If he could, fine. Rogan would deal with it.

Part of him wanted her to be a fraud, wanted to hold onto his anger. For if she was, then she'd be wrong about this bastard having Ginger.

The stupid idea it could be another Ginger, another woman with pale eyes flashed momentarily through his brain. But he'd never been one to put a lot of stock in coincidences. He dealt with facts as his job, on instincts and training from his past.

Facts said Cora O'Donnell believed herself to have psychic abilities. Facts said she was talking to the cops. Facts said a woman was missing.

Fact was he was already falling fast for the weird woman.

He smiled, surprised at the ease of the thought.

Instinct told him she was as honest as she was eccentric. That she saw and felt what he'd heard and seen as pain in her eyes. Instinct knew Ginger was long dead, she'd never been the type to just up and leave.

His head and his heart.

Facts and instincts.

Hell.

He took a deep breath and blew it out in a rush as he heard the water running in the bathroom.

He at least owed the woman an explanation.

When the door opened, he waited, watched her reflection in the dark window, then turned. "I have a story to tell you, then I want you to go over everything again." He rubbed a hand over his face. "Everything."

She stood glaring at him from the bathroom doorway. "Why should I? So you can call me a liar again?"

He nodded, sighed and sat in her wide, worn chair, covered in some sort of yellow material. "I deserve that. And I'll apologize again." He leaned over and held his head in his hands. "In my defense, you shocked the hell out of me."

For a moment, there was only silence across the room, then she padded across the room to sit on the edge of the bed across from him. "I'd already told you, sometimes I see things."

He scoffed. "Yes, but seeing things, like what your friend might be doing and knowing who's on the end of the ringing phone differs slightly from seeing some wacko torturing women before he kills them and keeps their damn eyes."

She didn't answer, and he hadn't expected one.

Rogan closed his eyes, inhaled and leaned his head back against the chair. He opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling, raking another hand through his hair. "I-" He cleared his throat. "I was in Special Ops in Afghanistan. Four years ago our team was hit hard. I survived, not sure how. Lost two others. And another guy and me, well, we were going to be discharged. I woke up at Ramstein in Germany, hardly remember the stay there. Shrapnel in my head."

He remembered the spikes of constant pain in his head when he woke up. The sound of voices, the images of explosions, of his comrades flying through the air. The muscles in his shoulder and across the back of his neck tightened.

"My commanding officer talked to some people and I ended up with a suit job, more or less. I worked for the Army Unit of Criminal Investigations. I was stationed at Ft. Hood, Texas when everything fell to hell and back." He took a deep breath, laced his hands between his knees and continued to look at the floor.

"I was dating a woman, with eyes the color of yours, except different. She was tall, worked in computer programming on base. Dark hair-didn't take crap off anyone." He smiled at the memory. Then he looked up to Cora who sat calm and still on the edge of her bed, anger no longer pulsing off her. "We'd had a disagreement, nothing serious. She said she was going shopping at the local mall." Now he couldn't even remember what they'd bickered over that long ago morning. Marrying probably. She kept pushing the date back and he'd wanted to push it forward. "She didn't come home. I called her phone, the mall, the cops, the base MP's. Nothing." He took another deep breath and separated himself from the memories. He looked at the woman now sitting across from him. "For two days she didn't come home. I was frantic, called her parents, called everyone we knew. Then Colonel McClafferty showed up on my doorstep and I knew it could only get worse. Since I was the last to see her, and admitted to our disagreement, I was apparently put at the top of their list. There was also the fact that while stationed at several bases before my tour, women had gone missing on or near the bases where I was stationed. But I also had a tight alibi for other women that fit the profile and were missing as well. Seemed to be their only glitch. But when I was asked to leave, I was too angry, too mired in self-pity and fear for Ginger to fight them. I didn't care. So I resigned without another look back and a cloud over my honor."

He watched her, waited as she sat still and silent.

When she didn't speak, he added, "I came out here because two months ago, a woman down in Phoenix was reported missing. Granted there was another in Idaho that might have fit the bill, but I decided to come here to Arizona. I was actually on my way out to California to talk to the families of some missing women there."

His heart was hammering still and he wished he were outside to get some fresh air.

"Why did you sleep with me?" She motioned to her face. "Was it because of my eyes?"

He smiled and stood. "No. Your eyes are very beautiful. And since you're wondering, they're similar, but not like hers. Yours are more..." He knelt on the floor by the bed, his hands over hers in her lap. "Yours are more pure blue. Hers had yellow flecks in them. Not that it matters. Different as night and day."

"What was the first thing you noticed about me?"

He wasn't going to lie. "Your eyes."

"Great." She tried to pull her hands away, but he didn't let go.

"But then I noticed your outfit and thought you were kind of weird."

She pulled harder on her hands, still he didn't let her go.