She stayed where she was. “I think I’m going to skip it and turn in now.” Stemming the protest she saw on his lips, she added, “The bed is looking pretty tempting. When it comes to a choice between sleep and food, this is one time sleep wins, hands down.”
She must have looked worse than she thought because he gave her one searching gaze before nodding. “All right. I’ll see you in the morning, then.”
“See you in the morning,” she echoed. And gave an inner sigh of relief when he disappeared.
She hadn’t been lying. She was in desperate need of sleep.
But she was more desperate to avoid giving in to temptation and making a decision that both of them might come to regret.
Risa fell asleep almost immediately. But it wasn’t restful. Images fast-forwarded through her mind, too many to be individually identified. Myriad snippets that made a visual collage that melded and reformed into a constantly changing kaleidoscope of images.
Kristin figured in them, although not the one-dimensional image from the photos. “Just give me a chance,” she told the unsmiling man with a shaven head. “Let me show you.” Smoke filled the room and the two of them began to cough. And Risa felt her lungs heave and gasp for oxygen again.
Jerry Muller peered through her window but did nothing to help. “Hannah,” dream Risa cried. “I have to shoot the window but my weapon doesn’t work.”
“That’s because it’s wet,” Jett Brandau told her. “Rubbing alcohol all over it.” She watched as Jett faded to be replaced by a young blond boy racing down the street outside Tory’s. The boy shimmered at the edges, transformed into Darrell. “You can’t get good coffee at Tory’s,” the dream Darrell informed her. “It always burns. Burns right down.”
A car hurtled through the air, somersaulting over and over before bursting into flames. Juicy emerged from it, carrying a gas can. “Dead is dead,” the man pronounced. “Unless it isn’t.”
Scenery flashing by a car window backdropped against a night sky. Slowing at the Route 104 sign. Turning left. Then bumping over the rutted road, branches scratching at the car top. On the windows. The branches started on fire, flames licking along them, allowing them to reach into the car and wrap the figure inside in a smothering embrace.
Then the branches separated to show a man, eyes wide with terror. He was tied to a chair with flames shooting up all around him, smoke rolling through the air.
Walter Eggers.
“I’d do it again,” he shouted, rage and panic battling in his voice. “I’d do it all again.”
And then she was back in her mother’s home, eyes glued to the damaged roof, the flames gnawing merrily at the edges of her bed. And no matter how hard she tried, dream Risa couldn’t get off that bed. Not even when the fire hissed and crackled next to her ear, turning her hair into a halo of flames. Melting the skin from her face like wax dripping down a candle . . .
The sound of panic was torn from her. She sat straight up in bed, her heart hammering like a Thoroughbred’s just under the wire. She was cold, frigid straight through, but her flesh was hot to the touch. As if the fire from the dream had licked along it as the flames consumed her bed.
But it was the victim in the dream that she was most concerned about. It had been too late to save Mark Randolph. She couldn’t be too late to save Eggers, too.
On weak knees she went to the dresser where she’d left her purse. Took out her cell and then tiptoed to the bedroom door. Eased it open. Nate’s door was closed. And the relief that filled her at the thought made her limbs go even weaker.
Quietly, she moved down the hallway. Turned unerringly toward the garage door. But didn’t find the computer case he’d left there. Undeterred, she padded barefoot into the kitchen. Then checked the family room.
Nate had left his laptop on the leather couch, as if he’d worked while he watched TV before turning in. It was off, but she’d watched him boot it up earlier that day. When she did so, she typed in the username and password he’d used to access it at the station. And then she opened the investigation case file and scrolled through it until she found the number she was looking for.
Her fingers were shaking so much she twice had to start over. And