Blood Dreams

Chapter Thirteen

DANI DIDN'T REALLY want to sleep that night, mostly because she didn't want to dream. The brain-storming session with Hollis and Paris had produced nothing useful, as far as they could tell, and the knowledge that Bishop was completely rewriting his profile of the killer had done nothing to help. The opposite, in fact.

Maybe that was why both Paris and Hollis suggested that she bring them into her dreams.

"Have you ever taken two people in at once?" Hollis asked curiously.

Dani shook her head. "I'm not sure I can even do that." Hollis sipped her wine and then lifted the glass in a little salute. "Well, I'm game if you decide to try. If you happen to pull us into the vision dream, we can at least try to remember all the details we can, maybe some you've missed."

"And if it's just an ordinary, everyday dream?"

Paris said with a grin, "Then we get to be voyeurs."

"Dammit, Paris!"

Hollis said, "Let me guess. Marc?"

Dani cleared her throat. " Paris thinks she's being funny. It was just one time; I don't even know why I dreamed about him that night, because I hadn't seen him in years."

"Did it ever occur to you," Paris said, "that it might be my doing? That you dreamed about Marc that night, I mean."

"What? How could it be?"

"Something Maggie suggested I try, not long after we first signed on with Haven." Paris held up a hand before Dani could find the words she was obviously seeking. "Don't blame her. The suggestion was that I think of something or someone you had a strong connection to and hold that in my mind as I went to sleep on a night when we had planned to dream-walk. So I did."

"Marc?"

"Well, you were so determined not to talk about him that I knew you still had feelings for him. So I thought about him." She smiled slightly. "Didn't quite expect to find myself in such a passionate dream, but-"

"Jesus, Paris." Dani felt her face get hot and silently thanked the universe that she had been able to bring that dream to an end rather quickly. Or, at least, shove Paris out of it. And why had she been dreaming erotic dreams about Marc, anyway? She'd gotten him out of her system by then.

She had.

Hollis said, "Let's not think about Marc tonight, okay? It's not that I'd deprive you, Dani, it's just-"

Dani held up a hand. "No explanations necessary, really. Look, guys, I don't even know if I can take both of you in."

"Give it a try," Hollis suggested. She drained her wineglass and added, "One of Bishop's many theories is that when you have enough psychics in the same small area, especially if they're all focused on the same case, their energies sort of… overlap. All kinds of weird things can happen, but what usually does, in our experience, is that abilities begin to shift, to change. So, even if you aren't successful in taking us into your dreams, the effort itself might help us or might help your abilities to evolve."

Serious now, Paris said, "Help us how?"

"Well, we're all involved in this investigation. Trying to figure out who our killer is, where he is. The subconscious is damn powerful, especially a psychic's subconscious, and when it's set free of the arbitrary restraints and limitations we put on our minds and abilities while we're awake… anything can happen."

Limits. What are mine? Dani wondered. It was a question she hadn't really considered, even when asked to do so.

Paris said, "When you say anything, I have to wonder if it's always a good thing."

Hollis shook her head without hesitation. "No, there's a risk. There's always a risk when we use our abilities. And dreams are a kind of no-man's land, especially for psychics. Energies can interact in ways we can't predict."

Dani sighed. "Tell me again how that could ever be viewed as a good thing?"

"You know how," Hollis replied promptly. "Whether we like it or not, our abilities evolve. As we use them, as we try to use them, as we test our limits. Now, personally, I don't like walking in cemeteries. Anymore. But I do it now and then, because I don't want there to be a place where I'm afraid to use my abilities."

"I dream whether I want to or not," Dani said.

"But you choose whether to take others into your dreams. I'm betting you haven't done it very many times in your entire life. True?"

"True enough."

"And most of those when we were kids," Paris offered.

With a shrug, Hollis said, "If you don't use a muscle, it atrophies. Not something you want to happen to a muscle that could save your life one day. Your decision, of course, but it's all about control for most of us."

"I don't know," Dani said finally. "I'll think about it."

She hadn't wanted to admit that the very idea of bringing anyone else into a vision dream-especially this one-scared her in a way she couldn't really explain.

Still, as she tossed and turned that night, she was very aware of the sheriff's department cruiser that had escorted them home and would remain parked outside, with Marc's deputies keeping watch over her despite her protests. That reminder of potential danger was added incentive to test her limits.

Plus, Dani admitted to herself that Hollis's challenge had made her uneasy, and not just because she didn't want to lose an ability she hardly understood. There was also that creepy voice in her mind, and the very important question of who-or what-it belonged to.

Maybe Paris and Hollis could help her figure that out somewhere in the depths of her own sleeping mind.

And what if dream-walking somehow helped them to identify or even find this killer and avert the fiery ending of Dani's nightmare vision? Wasn't that worth taking a chance?

Would she ever be able to forgive herself if she didn't take the chance and what she had seen came true?

No.

And they were both psychics, both unlikely to be harmed by her energies. Right?

Right.

Dani stopped tossing and turning, forcing herself to relax. She closed her eyes and began going through the relaxation and meditation techniques she had been taught, all the while holding in her mind the questions of who and where the killer was.

Ready or not, guys, here we go.

"Okay, this is new." Dani found herself standing at the intersection of two seemingly endless corridors. Each corridor was hospital-like in its gleaming cleanliness, and each was lined with closed doors.

"Hey," Paris said, beside her on the right, "I thought you always started someplace familiar, to ground the dream. This doesn't look like anyplace I've ever been."

"Me either," Hollis said from Dani's left side.

"I do always start somewhere familiar," Dani said, a faint uneasiness stirring inside her. "But I've never been here before."

"Well, your subconscious brought us here for a reason," Hollis said with a shrug. "There are four corridors and three of us, so I say we split up."

"No," Dani said. "We stay together, always in sight of each other."

"It's one of her rules," Paris said to Hollis. "She's afraid somebody could get lost in her dreams."

"Well, do you know it couldn't happen?" Dani demanded of her twin.

"All I said was that the sense of self-preservation would probably pull the visitor out even if you weren't near to give them a shove," Paris said.

"Yeah, but you don't know that for sure. And I'd really rather not have somebody else's consciousness taking up residence in my dreams, thank you very much."

"Okay, okay."

Hollis said, "I'm sort of glad I don't have siblings. Look, if we're not going to split up, then somebody flip a coin or something. I know dream time is different from real time, but my dreams usually end right at the good parts, so let's not waste time arguing when we could be looking for some sign of this creep-and any connection to Dani."

"I knew you had at least one more motive for trying this," Dani said.

"Bishop's suggestion. But he's right; we might be able to find the connection, assuming one exists."

Dani shrugged, aware that, as was often the case in her dreams, she was calm, that initial uneasiness fading. She chose the corridor she had been facing. "This way, then. Not that I have any idea what we're looking for. I doubt it'll be him."

"Some representation of him, maybe." Hollis tested the first door on the left. "Locked. Damn."

"This one too," Paris reported from the right side.

Dani hesitated but then kept walking. "Maybe they're all locked. Maybe my subconscious doesn't have a clue."

"Dani, maybe we should stop and think about this." Paris reached out to touch her sister's arm, and they both jumped.

"Ow! Paris -"

"What just happened?" Hollis wanted to know.

"Sorry I forgot," Paris said to her sister, then looked at Hollis. "Secondary ability. I channel energy. When I'm awake, it's barely enough to cause static on radios if I hold one in both hands, but when I'm asleep it's a little stronger."

"And when she's asleep and with me," Dani said, "it's a lot stronger. We have no idea why."

Hollis looked interested, but before she could say whatever was on her mind, they were all startled by a scream.

A woman's scream of agony, breaking off with chilling suddenness.

It echoed up and down the corridors, bouncing off the hard surfaces until it seemed there were dozens of screams, hundreds of them, endless screams pounding against them.

"Where-?"

"I can't tell-"

Dani…

"Dani, your nose-"

Dani woke this time curled up on her side, her head throbbing in a way it never had before. She tried to push herself up on one elbow, vaguely surprised at how stiff and sore she felt.

Then she felt something else and reached up to find a thick wetness around her nose and mouth.

Her hand came away red with blood. She reached to the nightstand for a tissue and held it to her nose, then looked toward the doorway of the bedroom just as Paris reached it.

Paris didn't look so hot; though there was no nosebleed, she was pale and her eyes had a curiously bruised look to them.

"Marc just called," she said. "We have another missing woman."

Friday, October 10

"It isn't Marie Goode?" Dani asked as soon as Marc came into the conference room.

"No, she's present and accounted for. Still under guard, and considering a trip to Florida to visit her folks, but fine."

"Who's the missing woman?" Hollis asked.

"Her name," Marc said, "is Shirley Arledge. Twenty-four, five-two, a hundred and ten pounds, delicate build. Another blue-eyed blonde. Her husband just got back from a business trip into Atlanta and found her gone. No note, no missing luggage or clothes, her car's still in the driveway, and-most important according to him-her cat's in the house, and she'd never leave without him."

"Do we know how long she's been missing?" Hollis asked. Like Paris, she, too, was visibly tired and had seemed just a bit withdrawn since arriving a few minutes before.

Dani felt guilty as hell.

"Hard to say. Husband left Tuesday, and he said they hadn't scheduled any check-in calls for such a brief trip, that her plans for the week had been working in her garden, getting it ready for winter. She was nesting, he said. They'd been trying to get pregnant."

"Christ," Hollis muttered. She studied the photo of Shirley Arledge and unconsciously shook her head. This was not the woman she had seen at the crime-scene pool.

Marc added, " Jordan just called in and said they've found a basket with some garden tools on a brick pathway behind the house. Evidence she'd been working out there, but nothing to indicate a struggle or any kind of violence. Teresa's on her way out there, but I'm betting we won't have any forensics to speak of."

"How was the cat?" Dani asked. "Hungry or not?"

"Not, but it doesn't tell us much; they have one of those dry-food dispensers that hold enough kibble for at least a week, as a convenience, and her habit was to fill it up every Monday."

Dani started to speak, then thought better of it.

"What?" Marc asked, apparently picking up on undercurrents.

Or simply reading her expression, the probability of which Dani found more than a little unsettling.

"I'm not a cop," she said.

"So? Dani, you're here for what you bring to the table, and that includes any relevant dreams, thoughts, speculation, or hunches and intuition. Let's hear it."

"Okay. I hope to God I'm wrong, but let's assume that Shirley Arledge is or will be the third victim of the serial killer here in Venture."

"Possibly the fourth," Hollis said, and explained what she had seen at the crime scene the previous day.

"You're sure this isn't the woman you saw?" Marc asked, indicating the photograph.

Hollis shook her head and went to pin the photo on the bulletin board beside those of Becky Huntley and Karen Norvell. "I'm positive. I don't know who she is or why nobody's reported her missing-yet-but it's a safe bet she's a victim of our killer."

"Shorty's at the crime scene with the pool-maintenance people," Marc said. " Jordan rousted everybody first thing this morning; whatever you saw must have spooked him."

"Or I did," she said ruefully. "I'm told it's a bit unnerving to watch a medium trying to communicate with a spirit."

"Well, we'll know in the next few hours if there's any real evidence in that pool." Marc looked at Dani. "You: were saying, if Shirley is a victim…?"

"Then maybe we know now what the killer's been doing all these weeks. Maybe he came straight here, to Venture, already had or found his safe place, and got it ready. And then started selecting his victims."

"Hunting," Paris said. "But not one at a time, more like a… group of potential targets. He had a pretty good I.D. on all of them before he moved on the first one."

"It makes sense," Dani said. "Just like in Boston, these women were grabbed as they went about their lives, and in each case the timing was perfect; they were outside, unprotected, with no witnesses. He never had to break down a door or even shatter a window to get at them."

Hollis said, "No way to chalk that up to chance. Not the three times here, and sure as hell not the dozen times in Boston."

"But in Boston he didn't have the time between victims to do much hunting, and there sure as hell hasn't been much more here," Marc objected-but then nodded. "Of course. The X factor: Is he or isn't he psychic. That's what tipped off Bishop, wasn't it? The hunter was moving too fast to spend much time searching for his prey between attacks, yet there each victim was. Perfect time, perfect place, perfect opportunity. Exactly when and where he wanted them, when and where he expected them to be. Almost like magic."

"Or like he knew," Dani said.

Hollis was nodding. "The more-traditional profilers insisted that the killer had likely selected most if not all of his targets early on, that he knew their habits and routines long before he got his hands on them. And that makes sense, up to a point, but it conveniently ignores the several instances where the victim was alone and vulnerable-and in a situation not a normal part of her routine-when she was taken. Once, maybe, the killer got lucky. Not more than once."

Paris closed a folder and pushed it away from her with a slight grimace, which Dani knew the others would probably read as distaste rather than what it was: the response to a pounding headache. "And then there's Annie LeMott," she said. "If I'm reading the files right, even the traditional profilers agreed that the killer wasn't interested in the limelight and would not have grabbed Annie if he had known who she was."

Marc offered another objection. "But wouldn't he have known? If he was psychic, if that was how he was hunting his prey?"

"You'd think." Hollis was scowling at no one in particular. "Damn, no wonder Bishop's still trying to get a handle on this guy."

Dani rubbed the back of her neck in a vain attempt to soothe the stiffness there but forced herself to stop when she realized Marc was watching her. "Look, one doesn't necessarily negate the other. Think about it this way: If he isn't psychic and did have to spend time studying and hunting each victim, we have several instances where he couldn't possibly have known in advance where his prey would be, because the women were somehow outside their normal routine. If, on the other hand, we assume he was so lucky because he's psychic and hunted them that way, then the only victim who doesn't really make sense is Annie LeMott. Who she was made her a dangerous victim, and if he was psychic he should have known that."

"Maybe he couldn't read her," Paris suggested. "Even the strongest psychic isn't a hundred percent."

"As far as we know, that's true," Hollis said. "Plus, some people have shields, either naturally or because they needed at some point in their lives to protect themselves, and even the strongest psychics we know of can't get through walls like that."

Paris nodded. "Exactly. So even if he is psychic, and if he does have more bells and whistles than we do, we can't know for sure that he doesn't have some of the same limits. In fact, he must have, given that he's at least nominally human. So he's out trolling, he already has eleven notches on his belt, and if I remember correctly, there was nearly a week between the eleventh victim and Annie. Right?"

Hollis nodded. "Right. Boston was jumpy as hell, and very few women ventured out alone."

"So he hasn't been lucky in that sense. If there's plenty of prey but none of it's vulnerable, unprotected, alone, then this hunter doesn't come out of the dark. And he really, really needs to feed."

Dani said, "I know the animal metaphor fits, but-"

"Sorry. Anyway, he's out hu-trolling, and crosses paths with Annie completely by chance." Paris frowned. "Does anybody know what she was doing out alone?"

Nodding again, Hollis said, "She and a friend went to a movie, together. Rode together, sat together in the theater, were careful not to be alone, just as they had been warned to be. Went back to the apartment building where they both lived, together. Approximately a half hour later, a neighbor saw Annie about to take her trash out. That's the last anyone saw of her."

Paris shook her head a little, jolted from the mental exercise of trying to solve a puzzle by the reminder of a young life snuffed out. "Man, you do everything right and then get tripped up by something utterly ordinary."

"Such is life," Hollis noted. "Or fate or destiny, if you believe in that. Because not only did Annie spend those few precious minutes about ten yards from the safety of the door of her apartment building, but she just happened to be exactly the killer's type, he just happened to be close enough, and for whatever reason he couldn't know or guess that by grabbing her he was making his first real mistake."