They sat quietly for a couple of minutes, watching the activity in the front yard of the burning house.
“You saved my dog,” Chloe said after a while. “And probably Fletcher and me as well. Thank you.”
“Sure.”
She pushed some hair out of her eyes. “Hector went for Madeline. Trying to protect me. I’ve never seen him do anything like that before. I think that in another life he must have had some guard dog training.”
“Maybe. Or maybe he was just acting on instinct. He’s a tough dog. The medic seemed pretty sure he’ll make it.”
“Thanks to you. But I need to get him home from the vet as soon as possible.” Anxiety laced her voice. “He’s got abandonment issues. If he wakes up in strange surroundings—”
“The vet will know how to deal with him.”
“Yes, I suppose so.” She exhaled slowly. “Sorry, I’m a little rattled.”
“Understandable.”
She looked around as if seeing the interior of the car for the first time.
“Nice ride,” she said.
“Thanks.”
“But it’s going to smell like smoke after I get out.” She fumbled with her seat belt. “Probably cost you a fortune to get the interior cleaned.”
“I can afford it. And you’re not the only one who picked up some smoke and soot tonight.”
She glanced over her shoulder into the backseat, where he had tossed his jacket. “No, I guess not.”
He watched her take a couple more stabs at the belt buckle, missing each time. He reached over and buckled it for her. She exhaled, rested her head against the back of the seat and closed her eyes.
“I’m sorry,” he said finally. He couldn’t think of anything else to add to that. What did you say to a woman after you had hit her with a wave of nightmares?
“That is one heck of a talent you’ve got,” she said. Her voice was absolutely neutral. “The second one, I take it? The one you think means you’ve been hit with the Winters Curse?”
He watched the smoking house. “I’m still learning to control it. For obvious reasons I haven’t been able to run a lot of experiments.”
“Yeah, I can see the problem there.”
He had literally terrified her tonight. She’d probably have nightmares about him for weeks. Not the best way to impress a woman on a first date.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“Sure. Just a little jittery, that’s all. The adrenaline, like you said.”
He almost smiled. His very own gutsy, hard-boiled private eye.
“I’m sorry,” he repeated.
“Forget it. Under the circumstances, I’m more than happy to cut you a little slack.”
He got the car started. “So, do you do this kind of thing a lot?”
She opened her eyes and looked straight ahead through the windshield. “Almost never. I hate this kind of work; it’s always messy.”
“Rose said something about Monroe being your sort of ex.”
“Ex-boyfriend, not ex-husband. We stopped seeing each other several months ago. Last quarter he dated Madeline Gibson. When he tried to end it, she started stalking him. Madeline didn’t understand Fletcher. She didn’t realize that he has a very predictable pattern.”
“What kind of pattern?”
“Every quarter he picks out a new female student in one of his classes and fires up a relationship. Said relationship always comes to an end when the quarter is over. For Fletcher, a new quarter always means a new girlfriend. He is the quintessential serial monogamist.”
“Madeline did not take it well when he explained the rules?”
“No. She became increasingly intense. She was always there, waiting outside his classroom. She showed up at his gym while he was working out. The little gifts began to appear on his front step. Flowers. Fresh coffee and doughnuts. She always came around after midnight. Fletcher tried to talk to her, but she just laughed and said she was teasing him.”
“So he contacted you?”
“We had stopped seeing each other, but we were still friends. He knew what I did for a living, of course. And he was desperate to keep the problem under wraps.”
“You told the cop that Monroe was worried about the fallout at the college.”
“Fletcher’s dating pattern has started to cause talk. There have been complaints from other members of the faculty and some nasty gossip. At the college level it’s certainly not unheard of for instructors to date their students. But when it happens over and over again, people do tend to notice. And not everyone approves.”
“In other words, Monroe was looking at the possibility of losing his job.”
She turned her head and looked at him. “You appear to have grasped the big picture here, Mr. Winters.”
“My other talent is for strategy, remember? I get big pictures and bottom lines.”
“Yes, Fletcher was afraid that he would lose his position if he made an accusation. He wanted to deal with it privately.”
“So he came to you to get proof.”
“I turned up a lot of stuff on the Internet, of course. It’s amazing what people will write in their blogs and on their personal websites. They treat cyberspace as if it were a private diary. Madeline chatted at length about the affair. Her obsession was clear, but she did not implicate herself in the stalking. She just wrote that she had given Fletcher a few presents and that he had not appreciated them. He wanted photographic proof of what was going on.”
“You took the case because you felt sorry for him.”
“And because we’re still friends,” she said. “I could tell that he was very nervous. Fletcher is a nice guy. Intelligent. Fun to be with. Even-tempered. Great sense of humor. What can I say? I like him.”
“You didn’t mind that he terminated your relationship at the end of the quarter?”
“Well, actually, I was the one who ended it,” she said.
“Because you found out about his serial monogamy?”
“No, of course not.” She sounded genuinely surprised. “His dating pattern was one of his two best features as far as I was concerned.”
“What was the second one?”
“His commitment phobia. The problem was that once Fletcher discovered that I also have commitment issues he kept trying to fix me. Probably some form of misguided projection.”
“Misguided projection.” He realized that he was still grappling with the serial monogamy thing and the commitment issues. Somehow, he hadn’t seen either coming.