Dangerous Dreams (A Dreamrunners Society Novel) (16 page)

Jack’s expression softened at hearing this, but his taut stance didn’t relax.

“Then I found out Grey Man knew about my dreams,” she continued, “and he told me you were the one that did those horrible things and I thought, maybe that’s where the connection comes from. I might have seen you in those places–”

“Wait,” he said, jolting back to the here and now. “What dreams?”

“The ones about terrorists. Or they’re not always terrorists. Other types of violence, too. You don’t have them?”

“No. I don’t.”

“Tell me,” she said, “the embassy in the Middle East. How many did he kill?”

Jack frowned. Held up his hand. “Back up a minute. Which embassy?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “You should know more about it than I do by now from the news. I had the dream…I’d say I had it last night, only I never know what time it is in the cell. But it should have happened already.”

“Hold up,” he said. “You’re losing me. You have dreams that come true?”

“It’s more like I’m there. It feels real. You know how dreams are half symbol, how, if you try to remember them when you wake up, they don’t make sense half the time?”

“Like your boss has the head of a poisonous lion fish or a giant shredder is eating your house? Something like that?”

“Wow, you have issues,” she said.

“I have issues?”

“Just saying. My normal dreams aren’t anything like that.”

“Whatever.” He shook off her criticism. “So all those photos I saw were of–”

“A lot of the deaths I’ve witnessed first hand. In the nightmares anyway. Some he showed me were just things everyone has seen in the news the last couple of years.”

“Do the nightmares happen in real time? Like you’re there at that exact moment people die? Or do your dreams take place before or after the real event?”

“Mostly real time, but every once in a while I get them a few hours before. Never more than a day ahead. Never after the fact.”

“And you had one, not that long ago about a bombing?”

“Yes.”

“All right.” He grasped her upper arms firmly. It wasn’t an aggressive move. Instead, it grounded her. “I need you to think about your dream, in every detail. I want you to describe it to me. Everything you can remember. Okay?”

“Okay.”

She went through the nightmare with him. The narrow, sandy street. The little boy on the bike. The building with the American flag. The blue Mercedes. The explosion.

He shook his head. “As far as I know, there hasn’t been an embassy bombing in the Middle East, Afghanistan or anywhere else since you’ve been taken. But I spent half of yesterday driving here, and then most of last night searching for you in the fields.”

He asked for clarification. “Did you see anything that would tell you where you were? Street signs? Names of businesses?”

“The market across the street had something, but it was in a language…I don’t, I didn’t recognize it. It’s not the Latin alphabet like English or German or French.”

“Arabic? Was it Persian script?”

“No idea. It just wasn’t a Western language.”

“All right. Now, the building. You’re sure it was an embassy?”

“I saw an American flag and some soldiers at a narrow metal gate. Are there any other places besides embassies that have that?” she asked.

“Don’t know,” he said. “That’s not my thing. Tell me about the building. How tall? What color? What’s it made of?”

She worked to reconstruct the image in her mind. “Three stories. Tan. Made of stone, but the blocks in all different sizes, and they’d moved some massive cement barricades out of the way in front of it.”

“Anything else?”

“Not that I can think of…wait. The wall facing the street was solid, but it used to have windows. They’d filled them in with more stone.”

“Good. That’s good, Lara. Hold tight.”

He stood up, retrieved the satellite phone from where he’d set it just inside the pantry and hit redial. He walked further into the storage room as he talked, again to someone he called Gavin. Blocked by the door, and with his voice low, she tried, but couldn’t understand any more of Jack’s side of the conversation.

He stuck his head out of the pantry. “What year and model Mercedes?”

“Do I look like someone who would know that?”

Impatient, he muttered something unintelligible, no doubt a non-PC comment about women and car knowledge.

“Old or new?” he asked her.

“Older than me, and it made that odd puttering-clickety noise that some Mercedes make.”

He spoke into the phone. “Seventies era, would be my guess, possibly early 80s. A diesel. Probably the W123 body. Don’t know what the model number would be overseas.”

He listened, scowled at something the other said, and ducked back into the pantry. The conversation continued a couple more minutes, at one point Jack speaking forcefully in that deep growl she’d come to understand was a warning. As with the rest of the conversation, however, the words were muffled.

When he ended the call and returned to the main room, he didn’t look happy.

“What is it?” she said.

“Nothing.”

She closed her eyes, prepared to mourn for the boy with the book bag, and everyone else she’d seen in the street. “Don’t tell me. It’s already happened.”

“No. It hasn’t. That’s not it.”

What, then?

He heard her question. She could tell from the flicker of awareness that passed through his eyes, but he didn’t respond.

“Oh, my God,” she said. “He’s not going to do anything. The first time I have a chance to maybe help some people, give a warning and this guy of yours, Gavin, isn’t going to tell anyone? Why?”

“Lara, you have to understand–”

“He doesn’t believe me.” Incensed, she began to pace, eyeing the door to the outside. “Why? Because he needs a sample first? Someone to die when I say they’re going to die before he’ll take me seriously?”

“Lara, I believe you,” Jack said. “And I think Gavin does, too. But you have to look at it from his perspective. He doesn’t know you. For all he knows, the information you’ve given us is a plant.”

She stopped pacing, stunned. Was she mistaken, was he, or Gavin, or both calling her a liar, purposefully giving them false information?

“What are you implying?” she asked.

“A plant by Grey Man,” he said. “It’s possible he could have told you about the bombing while you were drugged, shown you images, given you every detail, and you only think the dream was yours. Then let’s say Gavin, who does have contacts in the State Department, by the way, passes along what you’ve told us. Except there’s no bomb threat. There never was. The whole thing was a ruse. The Greys follow the fake intel back to its source, Gavin, and suddenly they have a way to get at us.”

She glared at Jack as if meeting him for the first time and discovering she didn’t like what she saw. What had happened to the thoughtful man who had come to her aid when she lay feverish in bed?

“No! That was my dream,” she said. “Mine. No one spoon-fed it to me with a syringe full of hallucinogens. I’ve lived with these horrors for over three years. Do you think I wouldn’t be able to tell my own nightmares from some sick drivel Grey Man whispers in my ear? You’re right, Jack. I am a Lost One. Just like the ones you’ve described. I don’t have a life anymore because of those dreams. No friends. My old ones thought I was becoming schizophrenic when I told them about my dreams and asked them if they thought they might be real. I don’t have the heart to look for new friends. No lover either. Do you think I can have a life around other people when half the time I wake up screaming bloody murder out of a sound sleep? I’m just this side of being locked up in the nuthatch. But one thing I know. That was MY dream, and I don’t lie.”

“Lara–”

“Tell him he has to do something. He can’t just let those people die if there’s a chance the place in my dream can be found in time. Get back on the phone and tell him.”

“Lara, he’s my boss. More than that. In the Society hierarchy, he’s like a commanding officer. I take my orders from him, not the other way around.”

“Well I have an order for you. And him. You can both go to Hell.”

She was getting out of here. She strode to the door, grasped the doorknob, turned it and yanked with all the mad she had in her.

It refused to open.

She rattled the knob, turned it the other way, and pulled hard again. Still nothing. Confused, she studied the door, looking for a lock or a latch, or something to explain why the door didn’t open. Zero. She faced a simple looking door with a knob and nothing else.

“Let me out!” She pulled and pulled and beat desperately at the door, but it wouldn’t open. She couldn’t get out. She spun around to confront him.

He pinned her against the door. Each of his large hands had one of her own, his fingers driving into the center of her fists, prying her hands open. He spread her tightly folded fingers apart so that his could slide in and interlace with hers. Heated skin met heated skin, while his hard chest trapped her in place with her back to the door’s rough planking. His face was inches away. His lips were inches away. They mesmerized her as they shaped words, spoken in a voice so deep and unflinching she failed to hear him at first.

“You don’t trust anyone,” he said again.

She shook her head, whispered, “No.” Struggled still. “Let me out.”

Fierce indigo eyes snared her attention and wouldn’t let her look away.

“Tell me you trust me,” he said.

“Open the door,” she said.

“Show me you trust me.”

The kiss was a shock. It was also a command, but she didn’t know who had issued it, him or her. Lara couldn’t help herself. If this really was nothing more than a dream, it was a dream she wanted and needed badly to distract her from the pain and horror her life had become. Her body made her respond. It told her to pull him to her as fiercely as he did her. He released her hands and she found herself burying her fingers in his hair, loving the feel of it, sleek as a panther’s fur. She combed downward through the black silk until that sensation gave way, and her fingertips smoothed over the taut muscles of his shoulders. Another surge of lust swept through her as she felt his manhood grow hard between them.

What are you doing?
She asked herself.

Thinking too much
, he answered for her.

This is insane. All of it
.

Life usually is
.

She wanted. She wanted so much she couldn’t have. A haven. Raw sex. Understanding. Wildness. She had no idea what this was, if she was really here, if he existed, if there were one or two of her or him. She didn’t think about the interrogation room or Grey Man. Lara simply didn’t care. At this moment, she felt instinctively safe in the arms of the man who claimed her lips with ruthless passion. She moaned and met his thrusting tongue in play.

Suddenly her back arched.

But it wasn’t pleasure.

She couldn’t breathe.

Invisible hands circled her throat, strangling her.