As she pulled a small, rusty metal cart behind her, the bag lady with the stringy gray hair hanging down in her eyes came up alongside Rachel. Several people walked between them as they hurried along the sidewalk, and eventually Rachel moved ahead of the pitiful old woman. But it seemed she could not escape. Either the woman was following Rachel or by some odd coincidence they were heading in the same direction. After several blocks, Rachel’s instincts warned her that the bag lady was indeed tailing her. The poor thing probably wanted to ask for a handout. Just as Rachel reached the red light where she would cross the street, she paused on the curb and turned to face her stalker.

The woman had disappeared.

Odd.

As she crossed the street, Rachel kept glancing over her shoulder. Sensing that someone was watching her, she felt a nervous foreboding.

When she stepped up on the curb onto Second Avenue, she looked back once again. No bag lady. Instead a bucktoothed redhead in thick glasses, wearing a Stetson and boots, appeared as if out of nowhere, her step quick and agile. The unattractive cowgirl wannabe hurried past Rachel, not even bothering to apologize when she brushed into her in passing.

Shivering with an unnatural fear, Rachel stopped dead still and looked in every direction. Strangers surrounded her. Unknown faces stared at her. Weird-looking women in costumes that hid their true identity gawked at her.

Suddenly a tall, handsome young man came toward her, his dark hair and blue eyes heartbreakingly familiar. Jake Marcott smiled at her. Rachel sucked in a deep, terrified breath. A deadly arrow stuck out of Jake’s bloody chest.

The walking dead.

No, this isn’t real. I’m hallucinating.

Rachel woke suddenly, startled for several seconds, uncertain about her surroundings. She lay there, darkness encompassing her, her heartbeat thumping maddeningly inside her head. The residue from her nightmare mingled with reality when she realized she was in the guest bedroom in Charlie and Laraine Young’s home in Portland.

It had been a dream. Just a dream.

No, it had been a nightmare. The gray-haired bag lady stalking her. The ugly, rude, redheaded cowgirl. Jake Marcott’s smiling corpse. None of them had been real.

She shoved back the covers, slid to the edge of the bed, and sat there for a couple of minutes, allowing herself time to awaken completely. Her mind whirled with thoughts, some coherent, others jumbled and confused. Standing solidly on the wooden floor, she stretched her arms over her head, then down to touch her toes. Awake and slightly shaken by the nightmare, she went into the bathroom, flipped on the overhead light, and turned on the faucet. After dashing cold water in her face, she stared at her pale reflection in the vanity mirror.

Her eyes widened. Her mouth gaped. Realization dawned as the water trickled over her cheeks and seeped down her throat. Oh my God! Dreaming about Jake-about his bloody corpse-wasn’t surprising, all things considered. But why a bag lady and an ugly cowgirl?

Because during the past few weeks, she had actually encountered both a dirty old bag lady and an unattractive redhead wearing a Stetson and boots. And there had been a plump blond nanny strolling along with a baby buggy, too. All three of them rather weird.

Disguises!

Each of them had been wearing a disguise. The bag lady, the ugly redhead, and the plump blonde.

Had they all been the same person?

Of course!

Someone was stalking Rachel, keeping tabs on her, playing some sort of sick game.

Rachel dried her face with a hand towel and returned to the bedroom to get her cell phone. She glanced at the digital clock on the nightstand. Five-thirty. Would he be awake at this hour? Probably not.

She flipped open her phone and typed in a text message, then sent it to Dean.

When you wake up, contact me. We need to talk.

Within minutes she received a reply.

I’m awake. Call me. Or come over to my place.

Immediately she called him.

“What’s wrong?” he asked the minute he answered.

“Someone has been stalking me for the past few weeks.”

“Why are you just now telling me?”

“Because I just now realized it,” she said. “I can’t believe it took me this long to realize what was going on. Even though she was wearing disguises and changing them to throw me off, I should have sensed something.”

“Slow down, honey. You lost me at the word disguises.”

“My stalker was changing her looks, wearing different disguises when she followed me.”

“Are you sure about this?”

Rachel blew out an aggravated breath. “I’m not sure of anything. It’s five-thirty in the morning. I had a horrible nightmare in which Jake’s smiling corpse appeared to me. I have to go to Mandy’s funeral this afternoon and…” She clicked her tongue. “I’m just a little scared.”

“Want me to come over there?”

“No, you’d just wake up Charlie and Laraine.”

“How about I pick you up and we go somewhere for an early breakfast?”

“Give me thirty minutes to grab a shower,” she told him. “I’ll leave Laraine a note telling her where I’ve gone. I’ll meet you out front.”

“Wait inside, just to be safe, until you see me drive up.”

“You don’t think she’s outside this time of the morning, just waiting for a chance to attack me, do you?”

“I don’t think she wants to kill you,” Dean said. “At least not yet. She’s playing with you, tormenting you. And she’s bold about it, too. She took a chance every time she put on a disguise and followed you. What if you’d recognized her?”

“I wish I had. I wish I’d realized what was happening, but my mind has been so cluttered with facts about Jake’s old murder case and about Mandy’s recent murder that I couldn’t see what was right under my nose.”

“So now you know. You’re aware of what’s been happening. You’ll be on the lookout for her.”

Rachel’s heartbeat accelerated, the thought of actually coming face-to-face with the mystery woman unsettling.

“Rach?”

“Huh?”

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Just a little rattled. Sometimes nightmares have a way of seeming a little too real.”

“What are you wearing right now?”

“What?”

“Do you have on a gown or PJs or do you sleep in the raw?”

Startled by his question, it took her a full minute to realize what he was doing and why. “Not very subtle, McMichaels. It’s obvious you’re trying to get my mind off the stalker.”

“Yeah, that and I’m curious as to whether you’re naked right now.”

“Sorry to disappoint you, but I’m wearing a ratty old Alabama T-shirt.”

“I like a woman who goes for comfort in her sleepwear.”

“Do you now?”

“In case you’re interested, I sleep in my briefs.”

“Why would I be interested?”

“For the same reason I’m curious about you.”

“Look, let’s end this silly game right now.” She wasn’t good at flirtatious game playing. She was an up-front, what-you-see-is-what-you-get kind of woman. If he came right out and asked her to have sex with him, she probably would. “Pick me up in thirty minutes.”

“I’ll be there, honey. With bells on.”

Dean studied her as she sat there, her small, delicate hands wrapped around a white coffee mug, her gaze focused on the black liquid inside. Just looking at her turned him inside out. He couldn’t get her out of his mind. Why didn’t he just tell her that he wanted her? The worst that could happen was that she’d say no. And it wasn’t as if he’d never been rejected before. But she wasn’t just any woman. This was Rachel.

Besides that, she wasn’t going to stay in Portland. She was here for only two reasons-the reunion and reopening the Cupid Killer case. For twenty years, he hadn’t been a blip on her radar, and truth be told, he hadn’t consciously thought about her all that often, so why couldn’t he just accept that they were friends and nothing more? Once that had been enough, or at least he’d convinced himself that it was. But he wasn’t a horny teenage boy having sex with other girls while he thought about one girl in particular.