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."