Dreaming Death (Krewe of Hunters #32) - Heather Graham Page 0,1
just a nightmare. And it’s over.”
“See?” her father said proudly. “Judith, she’s smart as a whip.”
“We still have to do something about...whatever it is!” her mom said.
“We will,” her father promised.
They kissed her good-night.
“Leave the hallway light on?” she asked.
“Yes, sweetie,” her mom promised.
They left her, she fell back to sleep, and the dream didn’t come again.
Not that night.
* * *
Her name was Dr. Patricia Blair, and she was very nice. Stacey liked her just fine. She had worked with her dad and David Hanson Investigations before.
Dr. Patricia encouraged Stacey to talk, and she listened and didn’t mock. Stacey might have been twelve, but she’d spent a lot of her time with grown-ups, and she knew how to deal with them. She never resorted to tears or dramatics. She tried, in a calm and even voice, to explain the way the dream had come.
First, just the burning eyes.
Then, the demon face.
Then, the man in her father’s study...
The good doctor did everything a psychiatrist was supposed to do, Stacey knew. She asked if Stacey was having any problems at school. Was she, perhaps, being bullied?
No. She loved school. She liked her friends. She was in a magnet school for music. Nerds did not bully nerds. They were all...nerds.
She was surprised when the doctor asked her to describe the nightmares in more detail. And equally surprised by the way the woman listened to her. The doctor then asked her mom if she might have a friend speak with Stacey as well.
Was he another doctor?
No, just an amazing man with incredible insight.
He seemed old; tall and thin with white hair and a face that was somehow beautiful.
Stacey liked him. People around her were calling him Mr. Harrison, but he told her his name was Adam, and he liked being called that.
He also asked her to go over the details of the nightmare. He listened to her so intently, and his nod was sincere as she finished.
“Someone is going to kill my dad...and my mom, I think. But they don’t believe me. Everyone just thinks I’m a kid with crazy nightmares. Well, I am a kid with crazy nightmares, but I’m still so scared!”
“Let me talk to your parents,” he told her. “They’ll listen to me, I hope.”
Adam did talk to them, but they were in another room, and she could only catch parts of the conversation.
“I don’t think my family is in danger, but I guess the most worrisome case I’ve been on is the McCarron case,” her father told Adam Harrison. “And what I have strongly suggests something far more nefarious than money laundering and even his illegal drug running from within his company. I have pictures of McCarron himself going into the hospital the night Dr. Vargas and Mr. Anderson died in the stairwell—and it sure as hell looks like he’s carrying a gun of some kind in a holster—his jacket moved while he was walking.”
“You think McCarron forced them down the stairs?” Adam asked.
“I don’t have any solid proof. Proving anything on this... Well, the prosecutors need more. I think McCarron and his pharmaceutical empire are guilty in many cases of ‘accidental’ or ‘natural’ death, but I don’t know if what I have is enough. I’ve kept gathering, but not everything has gone to the police yet. Obviously, I go through what I have and try to sort the wheat from the chaff. That’s what I do.”
“But you have pictures of McCarron entering the Anderson Building thirty minutes before Richard Anderson and Dr. Vargas were found dead next to each other on the landing at the foot of the stairs,” Adam said.
“Anderson and Vargas were found by one of Dr. Vargas’s associates, Dr. Henry Lawrence, and Lawrence was so upset at finding his beloved mentor that he moved the body and tried every conceivable medical maneuver to bring him back, but Anderson was gone.”
“Yes,” Adam said. “I’ve read all the reports. Richard Anderson’s was supposedly a natural death—a heart attack at the top of the stairwell, causing him to fall all the way down. That’s what the ME said. And Dr. Vargas supposedly tripped on the same steps in his haste and died trying to reach Anderson to help him. So the scene made it appear. It was tragic, everyone said, so there wasn’t much of a police investigation.”
“Here’s why I’m involved. Sally Anderson didn’t believe it. She said she’d heard her husband arguing with someone a week before his death. All he would ever say to her was there