Page 47 of When She Dreams

“Damn,” she whispered. “This is not good.”

Sam watched her closely. “Recognize it?”

“I told you I advised Lillian Dewhurst to get rid of an object that was casting a bad shadow. I worried it was disturbing her dreams.”

“I remember,” Sam said.

“It was a bracelet that was identical to the one you’re holding.”

Chapter 19

There were initials on the back of the crescent moon on Lillian’s bracelet,” Maggie said. “ATS.Lillian said they stood forAstral Travelers Society. It was the name of a group she and some of her friends joined a few years ago. They were all interested in dream analysis.”

She and Sam were sitting across from each other at the table in her room. She had turned on a floor lamp, hoping some strong light would make the situation feel less intimate. She had been wrong. She was in her nightgown and robe and she was alone with Sam in a hotel room at three thirty in the morning.

There was no escaping the sense of intimacy—at least, she could not ignore it. Sam, however, was focused solely on the bracelet sitting on the table. Maggie tried to concentrate on it, too.

She wasn’t sensing the same sort of shadow energy she had picked up from Lillian’s bracelet. The bracelet Sam had found looked somehow ominous, but the primary sensation emanating from it felt more like melancholia.

“The initialsATSare on the moon on this bracelet, too,” Sam said.He examined the inside of the band. “But there’s an additional inscription.To EN, the woman of my dreams.It’s signedDream Master.”

“EN?” Maggie raised her brows. “Beverly Nevins’s initials would beBN.”

“This bracelet may have belonged to someone else.”

“True.”

Maggie touched the bracelet gingerly with a fingertip. Sam watched intently, but he didn’t say anything.

“Hmm,” she said.

“Well?” he asked.

She raised her eyes to meet his, wondering if he was going to make a crack about her dream talent. But one look at him told her he was in a very serious mood.

“It looks exactly the same as Lillian’s except for the inscription,” she said. “But it doesn’t affect my senses the way hers did. There’s a faint tingle of sadness on this bracelet. Depression, perhaps. But that’s all.”

“What does that tell you?”

“Not much, I’m afraid.”

“No sense of violence?” Sam pressed.

“No.” She narrowed her eyes. “Don’t tell me you are taking my sensitivity seriously.”

“I’m taking your intuition seriously,” he said.

“Right. My intuition.”

She was not sure what to make of that.

“Did Dewhurst go out of her way to hide her bracelet?” Sam asked.

“No. She kept it with the rest of her jewelry. It wasn’t a dime-store trinket, but it wasn’t especially valuable, either, certainly not as expensive as most of her other jewelry. She never wore it.”

“How did she react when you informed her she ought to throw it away?”

“She didn’t argue or try to convince me that it was harmless. Shesaid I might be right. The next morning when I arrived for work, we walked to the bluffs. She threw the bracelet into the ocean. A few days later she told me she was sleeping better than she had in a very long time.”

---