Page 15 of When She Dreams

Guilfoyle Method

She picks up the postcard and turns it over to see the picture.

There is an illustration of a charming Mediterranean-style town on the front. Whitewashed buildings topped with red tile roofs line palm-shaded streets. The ocean sparkles in the sun. The scene is almost too perfect to be real, a movie-set town.

There are words written across the picture postcard. She can read them clearly.

welcome to burning cove, california

She sees the shadow that hangs over the town. Anxiety unfurls its dark wings. She knows she needs to end the dream. Now.

She drops the postcard on the floor and hurries toward the door, her exit fromthe dreamscape. But just before she steps into the safety of the hallway, she senses motion in the room.

This is not part of the script.

She turns and sees Emerson Oxlade lunging toward her, a syringe in one hand.

“You belong to me,” he says.

Panic sweeps through her. She is losing control of the dreamscape. She runs for the door. It is like trying to move through quicksand...

She yanked herself out of the dream, opened her eyes, and sat up on the edge of the bed. Her pulse was beating too quickly, and she could not seem to take a deep breath.

“Breathe,” she whispered into the darkness. “Your nerves are fine. You know how to breathe. Just breathe.”

After a few minutes she grew calm. When she was satisfied she had her nerves under control, she switched on the lamp and reached for the dream journal on the nightstand. She wrote down what felt like the important elements of the dream before they could slide away; before she could convince herself she was imagining things.

When she was finished she studied her notes. Her intuition was telling her that the answers she sought were in Burning Cove and that she needed Sam Sage to find them, but she already knew that.

All in all, not one of her more useful dream journeys.

Chapter 7

The phone on Sam’s desk rang at five minutes after eight o’clock the following morning.

“I have a collect call for Mr. Sage from Detective Flynn of the Keeley Point Police Department,” the operator said. “Will you accept the charges?”

Sam winced and then reminded himself he would be putting the cost of the collect call on his bill.

“Yes, I’ll accept the charges,” he said.

“Go ahead, Detective Flynn,” the operator said.

“Sage? This is Flynn. I got your message when I walked into the office a few minutes ago. Why are you looking into the Jennaway drowning?”

Sam got the familiar whisper of certainty that told him he was on the right track. The fact that Flynn had phoned as soon as he received the message answered the key question. A homicide cop a hundred miles away had better things to do than return a call to a private investigator—a stranger—unless the detective had a few questions of his own about the death.

“I’ve got a case of blackmail here in Adelina Beach that appears to be tied to Miss Jennaway’s death,” he said.

“The name Sage sounds familiar. Are you the cop who arrested Chichester for the Bloody Scarf Murders a while back?”

“Unfortunately, yes.”

“What do you want to know about Jennaway?”

Sam hung up a few minutes later and studied his notes. He was reaching for the receiver when the phone rang again. Two phone calls before eight thirty in the morning. Business was picking up at Sage Investigations. He could think of only one person besides the Keeley Point detective who would be calling at that hour. He got a pleasant little jolt of anticipation when he picked up the receiver.

“Sage Investigations,” he said.

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