When She Dreams（Burning Cove #6）(12)

She sat down at the desk and pulled out the legal pad. As she had explained to Pru, she knew now why the hero, Bennett North, felt wrong.

    . . . The house looked as if it had been constructed from the scraps of a graveyard—bits and pieces of discarded headstones and abandoned crypts. The gray rock walls loomed over the dark mirror of Winter Lake.

The exterior of the mansion was bleak and intimidating, but it was the interior that chilled Grace to the bone. The high-ceilinged room was draped in perpetual shadow, a gloom that could not be chased off by the simple act of opening the heavy curtains.

Flames leaped from the logs piled on the vast stone hearth, but there was little warmth to be had from them. They clawed a path upward through the chimney, seemingly desperate to escape.

There was no escape for Grace. The position of confidential secretary she had been offered was her only hope. If she retreated to her aging Hudson and drove back down the twisted mountain road, she would be dining in a charity soup kitchen that night.

Her future hung on the reception she received from the master of the house, a man with the sculpted features of a fallen angel.

Bennett North rose from behind the expanse of a polished mahogany desk to greet her.

“Welcome to Winter Lake,” he said.

His voice resonated with the cool polish and unshakable self-confidence produced by old money and a lineage that stretched back to the Old World. He could have stepped out of the previous century.

Grace knew she was looking at a man who not only accepted but embraced the weight of the traditions and secrets placed on him by family, social status, and money. It was clear he was content to be trapped in the past. It was the source of his strength and his power . . .



No question about it, Bennett North was not only insufferable, he was boring. He was a man who was chained to the past, not one who was capable of carving out a new future for himself.

Maggie uncapped a fountain pen, drew lines through the description of Bennett North, and tried another approach.

    . . . There was a sense of resolute determination about him that charged the atmosphere. His fierce will was reflected in his eyes. Bennett North had found himself in hell, but he would not be defeated by its forces . . .



She put down the pen, sat back, and read what she had written. Bennett was definitely on the way to becoming more interesting, and there was no problem figuring out who had inspired the new version. She wondered if Sam Sage would show up in her dreams.

Thoughts of Sage brought a sharp reminder of the coatrack. He really needed to get the thing out of his office.

She slipped the legal pad back into the drawer and got to her feet. She could usually lose herself in her writing, but that was not going to work tonight. The threatening letter and the coatrack demanded attention. She might as well go to bed and get the dreams over with. She knew they would hover on the edge of her thoughts, tugging at her, until she exorcised them.





Chapter 6




The dream . . .

. . . She walks through the empty white corridors of Sweet Creek Manor, opening the door of each room she passes. She does not know who or what she is searching for, but she will open doors until she finds a room with answers inside.

She opens a door and sees the old version of Bennett North. He gives her a confused, pleading look but he does not speak.

“I never found your voice,” she says. “You’re free to go. I don’t need you.”

She closes the door and opens another. This time she sees Sam Sage. He’s standing in the shadow cast by the coatrack.

“Are you afraid of me?” she asks.

“No, but we’re going to have problems.”

“Why?”

“I’m no hero,” he says.

“I’m the writer. I’ll decide.”

She closes the door and moves on to the next room. The extortion letter and a postcard are on the floor.

She knows in the way dreamers do that someone is hiding in the corner of the room, but she can’t see the person.

She also knows, as she usually does, that she is dreaming and that it is time to take control of the script.

She contemplates the extortion letter. Only some of the words are legible in this dreamscape.

Murder

Burning Cove

The Traveler



She turns away from the letter. There is nothing more to be learned from it in this dream. Experience has taught her that if she studies it any longer she will become anxious and frustrated. If she pushes too hard for comprehension she will awaken in a full-blown anxiety attack.

She examines the postcard. It is picture-side down. There is some writing on the back. She can discern two words.

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 from the dreamscape. But just before she steps into the safety of the hallway, she senses motion in the room.