Part 13

Peter noted the pager on the coffee table as he let himself in the apartment. The place was beginning to take on a vacant smell, as though it were in need of airing out.

"I’ve got to start living here again." He spoke aloud, just to hear it echo off the walls. "Either that or move." *I better have this conversation in the shower,* he thought silently as he made his way to the bathroom. Discarded dirty clothing lay on the floor and draped over various pieces of furniture. It was obvious that he hadn’t remained long enough to clean up on any of his few stays . He wouldn’t be staying long this time, either, just long enough to shower, sleep and change clothes. The idea of moving was beginning to have more and more appeal.

Clean, wet, and exhausted, Peter managed to pull on a pair sweat pants before he collapsed on the sofa to get some much needed rest. The dreams began immediately.

**Mandy and he were having a picnic in the park, near his secret place. He had never shared that special spot with any woman before, not even Rebecca. It wasn’t her style. She was a city girl, professional to the core. Candle light and soft music made her smile. She sneezed in the presence of any living plant.

The day was clear and the love of his life was laughing. As Peter laid back on the blanket, Mandy teased him with a fresh strawberry, touching it to his lips then pulling it away as he bit. Reaching up and grabbing her wrist gently, he guided the fruit to his mouth then pulled her into a deep kiss that tasted of strawberries and desire. . . then the scene changed.

They were riding in the Stealth, letting the wind whip their hair, enjoying life and being alive. Peter kept up a nonstop monologue, and Mandy listened intently as if the words he spoke were the only thing that mattered. The scenery flew by, taking on the countryside on the way to Paul’s cabin. The fresh spring air was pine scented, making Peter want to savor that moment forever.

The dream shifted again.

Peter was sitting on the couch looking through a file. . . the Bates file. Jerking upright from the couch, Peter fought to awaken from the dream. He knew how this one ended. Opening his eyes, he turned to catch a glimpse of green silk at the bedroom door. Not realizing that he’d stood, Peter caught himself turning to go to Mandy. He couldn’t make his legs stop moving as he stiltedly walked to the room where his life had ended. Stepping inside without turning on the light switch, he felt gentle arms encircle his chest from behind. Looking down, he saw a familiar ring on too familiar hands. His head spun and his lungs would not work. Peter whirled to find Mandy standing behind him, her arms reaching out for him. He pulled back, his eyes wide with disbelief.

"Is this real or a dream?" he asked, listening to the haunted echo of his voice against empty apartment walls.

"Does it matter, Peter?" the apparition spoke. She stepped closer to him, brushed soft lips against his bare chest. He took her in strong arms and felt the smoothness of the silken nightshirt. She was real. . . but she wasn’t real. He had held the blood-soaked, tattered nightshirt in his hands at the morgue. He had smelled her perfume mixed with death on it. The ring had been there, too. Suddenly, it didn’t matter if it was a dream or reality. He had Mandy back, if only for a few restless hours. She was warm and safe in his arms, and. . . OH MY GOD. . . what was she doing to his body? Peter’s breathing changed again, but not from shock. The apparition was nipping at his chest with gentle bites while her hands roamed over his back and sides, then lower, much lower.

Peter swept the Mandy-ghost up in his arms and carried her to the bed, kissing every inch of her that came near his lips. He laughed out loud, drunk with the sheer joy of having her back. No dream had ever seemed as real as this one, no moment in the twilight world of sleep had allowed him to touch, to feel, to be caressed the way he was being touched at that moment. He didn’t ever want to wake.

They made love as if every moment was the last second on earth.

As Peter drifted off into a blissful, contented sleep, a strange thought popped into his mind. *Am I dreaming that I’m sleeping?*

The apparition in the green silken nightshirt gently disengaged from her lover’s arms and left the bed. She didn’t want to disturb him with her tears. Deep within her, heart breaking sobs screamed to get out. She’d made a deal with the Devil and now it was time to pay the price. Reaching into her purse, carefully hidden under the bed, she withdrew a hypodermic syringe and uncapped the needle. Pressing the plunger slightly, she watched as a drop of clear liquid formed at the tip of the needle. Turning back to her sleeping lover, she eased the needle into an exposed thigh and pushed the plunger home. Peter jerked as if stung by a bee and slapped at the site, just as she withdrew the needle, it’s cargo delivered. A look of confusion appeared in his hazel eyes as he stared at her and then at the syringe. He tried to push himself up from the bed but discovered his arms were made of rubber. He frantically clawed for the nightstand, and his back up Beretta nestled there. Unable to move even that far, he looked into Mandy’s soul with those incredible electric eyes and begged for an answer.

"Why?" his lips formed the word but his body went slack before the sound could emerge.

"Because I love you, Peter," Mandy Lexton whispered, the tears falling on her cheeks and running down her face, "but sometimes love just isn’t enough." She fingered the engagement ring on her left hand. Realizing that she had little time to do what needed to be done, she used a tissue to pick up the phone and dial a number.

"He’s ready," she spoke, her voice choked with tears and buried sobs. "Come and get him, Xia, before I change my mind."

[end part 13]

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Part 14

Xia watched from the doorway, unnoticed, as the very-much-alive Mandy gently brushed a stray lock of silken brown hair from Peter’s forehead, then just sat with him for a moment. The drugged detective lay covered with only a sheet on a cot, his wrists secured by handcuffs to each side of the bed’s metal frame.

"Peter?" Mandy gently whispered, hoping to see him open those amazing hazel eyes. Seeing no response, she tenderly traced the curve of Peter’s face, down his neck, to the small scar just over his right collarbone. The scar was not a fresh one, and it had shrunken in even the short time that Mandy had known Peter. His father had been working with him on the scars, trying to heal them. It was as if the older Caine hoped that by taking away the scar he could atone for not preventing it from ever occurring.

Peter had once told her about the origin of some of the faint scars when they lay together, sweat soaked and satisfied. She had touched them gently, as she touched them now, and wondered aloud about his pain, about what he’d been through. The wound remnant that she touched at that moment was a gift from Chan, not long after Peter rediscovered his father. The faint, white three inch scar on his right forearm, near the elbow, was a souvenir of the time Peter and his father had rescued the Ancient from Xia’s father. He received that injury shortly before Tan’s demise.

Two more sets of scars stood out against Peter’s pale skin. A nearly faded entrance wound on his right shoulder and a pair of same-age marks graced his right side. Peter had gotten those protecting his partner, Jody Powell, from a sniper. The other set of scars were long thin incisions on his inner forearms. They looked like they were the result of a suicide attempt. Peter said that in a way, they were. A psychiatrist gone mad had drugged and brainwashed him into slicing open his own veins. She had nearly been the death of him before Kermit intervened.

Touching each mark carefully, she at last traced an outline of his heart. She knew that there was no visible mark there, but the wound was present all the same. She had been responsible for his last, most serious, injury. Her *demise* had taken its toll on the detective, as much if not more than his physical injuries. The only difference was that the scars were not as evident.

"Peter, I’m so sorry. Why did you have to make me love you? It would have been so simple if I’d just stuck with the plan and seduced you, then thrown you away. I couldn’t do it though, I just couldn’t." Mandy’s one sided conversation was whispered to the unconscious Peter, Xia her unintended audience.

"Was he as good a lover as Chan?" Xia asked, her voice purring with venom, doing injury as surly as if she’d used a gun. "Was he better?"

Mandy jerked around, startled, then saw the blond sorceress step forward out of the shadows. There was something dark about the woman’s soul that frightened Mandy, something very evil. Mandy rose and stepped back as Tan’s daughter moved closer to the cot. Xia sat in the spot that Mandy had vacated only seconds earlier. She, too, traced Peter’s scars and touched his bare skin almost lovingly.

"He is easy to fall in love with, isn’t he? Pity he has to die." The blond reptile didn’t have to turn to sense Mandy flinch from her words.

"If only Caine had stuck around, I could have let Peter live, let him continue to suffer his Torture of the Thousand Deaths. Caine would have felt his pain and suffered, too. He left, though," Xia snarled. Her voice deepened and slowed into the hideous sound she’d used the night Mandy’s double was killed. Caine had killed Xia’s father, now he was making her kill a man to whom she found herself attracted. Hate radiated from every pore of her being.

"Do we *have* to kill him?" Mandy asked, hoping her voice sounded casual. She had already revealed too much about her true feelings for the man before them. It was bad enough that she’d watched them murder poor Leah, the woman who looked like her. Leah had come willingly, thinking that she was to be involved in blackmailing a cop. She believed that her only involvement would be as a photogenic bed partner. The ring, the tattoo, and the green nightshirt were just part of the plan. Mandy could still see the confused look on the woman’s face when she saw Peter out cold on the floor, bleeding, and Mandy dressed in the same green nightshirt. They hadn’t even had to tell her to put her hands in front of her face when the first shotgun blast hit her. The scream Peter had heard came from Mandy as she watched her nearly mirror-image murdered.

"Not we--you!" Xia smiled, a cat after eating a wonderful meal of canary. "It will be the final payment for your freedom. After all of these weeks you do want to be free, don’t you?"

Tears leaped to Mandy’s eyes and she turned away, unable to trust her voice. She had been a party to all of this. She had known that Xia planned to kill the young woman who looked like her, and make Peter believe that she was dead. She’d known it from the time that Xia had insisted the pair get identical tattoos on the same day. Mandy had even agreed to "haunt" Peter after her death, even though she had never needed to. Peter had done a better job of haunting himself than she had ever dreamed. Now this. She was going to shoot the only man she had ever, or would ever love. *All this for money,* Mandy thought to herself. *I stole five million of Chan’s dollars and I needed to be free of the Witness Protection people to get it, so I sold my soul to Xia and destroyed a good man for money.*

Xia laughed. Watching the young woman’s torment was almost as good as watching Peter’s. It was so rare to find a "working girl" with a conscience. It felt good that she had control over Chan’s former lover. Chan had betrayed her father, had not avenged his death at Caine’s hands. He had even helped Caine at Li Sung’s tournament.

"Did you ever tell young Caine that you were a protected witness?" Xia asked. Not receiving an answer, she knew what the reply should have been. "Then obviously he doesn’t know about your past in Chan’s stable of high-priced *escorts.*"

"Why are you bringing that up now?" Mandy asked, hating that she sounded timid and afraid. "That was long ago."

"Not so long ago, Amanda Clearmont." Xia smiled even more when she saw Mandy’s flinch at the use of her real name. She’d had so many names in the last five years, it was impossible to remember who she really was. "You were Chan’s mistress for only a year before you turned on him and sent him into hiding. You never did answer my question about him. Was he the better lover. . . or was Peter Caine?"

Knowing that she was defeated, not really caring anymore, Mandy turned to Xia and allowed her to see the fury she had hidden. There was little chance that she would emerge from this alive, why not show her claws?

"How could you even ask that? Chan was a heartless, money and power hungry machine that used. He toyed with peoples lives, smiling at the turmoil he caused. He betrayed everyone who came near him. Chan didn’t make love, he took control of a woman’s body for a few brief minutes. He didn’t give pleasure or get pleasure, he simply used."

"Is that why you turned against him, sold him out to the FBI, because he was a lousy lover?" Xia was obviously getting pleasure out of inflicting pain on Mandy. Sitting so close to Peter Caine, Tan’s daughter could feel the heat from his body, could sense the nearness of his skin, could smell the fragrance of him. She longed for him, lusted to have him touch her the way she knew he’d touched Mandy. He was the son of the man who murdered her father, but she felt attracted to him as she had no other. Still, she could never allow herself the pleasure of his company. . . and Mandy had.

"I ran to the Feds because it was time for him to grow tired of me, and I didn’t want to die." Mandy watched Xia caress Peter’s sleeping body and felt a rush of jealousy. *Don’t do this!* she told herself. *You have to stay focused if you are ever going to get out of this one alive. She is twice the killer Chan ever hoped to be. You were a fool to make a deal with her. You won’t get your freedom from the Witness Protection Program or from Chan. Cross her and you’ll just get dead.* There was no reason to mention the money she’d stolen, or the lies she’d told the Feds. Chan was not the forgiving sort. He cared little that she had betrayed him. He cared a lot that she’d made a fool of him and taken money from him, power from him.

Xia rose and reached out with one slim hand. She made the motion in air of turning something around. Mandy spun to face her mistress as if pulled by strings.

"Remember, Amanda, I have power that Chan only dreamed about. Help me and I will give you your freedom from him. Cross me and you will beg for death." The coldness in the sorceress’ eyes chilled Mandy to the bone. She felt her body go stiff, knew that Xia had control, and was powerless to fight her.

"Get him dressed. I trust you followed my orders and brought some of his clothes from the apartment. We can’t have his father see him like that , now can we?" Xia casually tossed the keys to the handcuffs on the floor. Eying the bag beside the bed, she smiled. Mandy had remembered the clothes. It seemed such a pity to cover a body such as Peter’s. *I doubt that Mandy would be able to shoot him while he’s naked,though,* thought Xia to herself, *so soon after sharing his bed.*

"You have one hour to say good bye to Peter Caine, then you will have to kill him. His father will come running as soon as he feels the chi leave his son’s body. . . but by then it will be too late. It’s time Kwai Chang Caine began his own Torture of a Thousand Deaths." With that last horrible revelation, Xia exited the room. Mandy collapsed on the floor, feeling utterly drained. She knew she couldn’t rest, however, she had to work fast if she was going to keep the man she loved alive.

"Oh, Peter, please wake up. I need you to help me save you." Mandy whispered to the silent man. "Come on, wake up."

There was a small groan from the naked man chained to the cot, and his eyes opened a slit.

[end part 14]

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