When She Dreams（Burning Cove #6）(23)

The effect was disorienting. It created strange afterimages. She wanted to look away but for a moment she was transfixed. She did not sense the other presence in the room until she heard movement behind her.

She knew then that things had gone terribly wrong. She had to get out of the theater, back to the safety of the lobby.

The door closed.

“What?” she said. “Who’s there?”

There was no answer. With the door shut there was no light from the hall to modify the flickering lights. She tried to scramble backward, away from the shadowy figure, and nearly lost her balance.

“Stay away from me,” she warned.

She came up hard against the aisle seat in the last row. The shadow moved toward her. She could not make out a face. She continued to retreat, using the backs of the seats in the last row to guide her. If she got to the aisle on the far side of the theater, she could run toward the stage and perhaps escape into the wings.

The shadow closed in quickly. Beverly reached the last seat and turned to make a dash for the stage.

The needle burned when it struck her shoulder from behind. The sedative took effect quickly. She collapsed into the aisle seat.

She was unconscious when the killer injected another drug into her arm, the drug that stopped her heart.





Chapter 11




The reception was at its height. The lobby was packed, but Maggie knew the crowd would soon start to dwindle. People would be departing for dinner and a night on the town. This was Burning Cove, after all. Tomorrow the conference attendees would be listening to lectures and attending demonstrations, but tonight there would be dancing and cocktails in shadowy nightclubs and hotel lounges.

“The imposter will probably leave soon,” she said. “We should go out to the car and prepare to follow her.”

“What’s the point?” Sam kept his attention on the crowd. “She’s obviously in town with the goal of being noticed. She’ll be going to dinner at a fashionable restaurant and will then drop into a hot club. We won’t learn anything watching her drink and dance for the rest of the night.”

“What do you suggest?” Maggie asked, irritated but also curious.

“She’s a celebrity. Everyone in town is aware she’s here. It shouldn’t be hard to find out where she’s staying.”

“Right.” Maggie experienced a rush of excitement. “We locate her hotel and search her room while she’s out on the town tonight. l should have thought of that myself.”

“You just did. Consider the idea your own, because that wasn’t what I had in mind.”

She glanced at him, intrigued. “What’s your plan?”

“We’ll get the name of her hotel and call on her tomorrow morning when she’s likely to be alone.”

“What good will that do? You said yourself she’ll deny everything.”

“Maybe,” Sam said. “But we’ll learn a lot, not just by talking to her but by having an opportunity to catch her when she’s not playing Aunt Cornelia. She’ll be off balance.”

“Hmm.”

“Trust me, finding us at her door early tomorrow morning will make her very nervous,” Sam said. “She won’t have the safety of a crowd. She’ll be alone.”

“So?”

“Nervous people tend to panic. They make mistakes.”

“I suppose that is one approach to this situation. Nevertheless, I prefer my plan. We’ve got a perfect opportunity to search her hotel room tonight, assuming we can find out where she’s staying.”

“A perfect opportunity to get arrested for breaking and entering,” Sam said. “We’re sticking to my plan. I’m the expert, remember?”

“I know, but—”

“Well, now, this is interesting,” Sam said quietly.

Maggie realized he was focused on the other side of the room. She followed his gaze and was just in time to see the fake Cornelia disappear through the arched entrance of a dimly lit hallway.

“Maybe she doesn’t know the ladies’ room is in another wing,” Maggie said.

“She knows where she’s going.” Sam set his unfinished champagne on the console table. “Stay here. I’m going to follow her.”

“I’ll come with you.”

Sam hesitated but evidently concluded he did not want to waste time arguing. The fake Cornelia was already out of sight.

“All right,” he said, “but we don’t want anyone to notice us.”

“Don’t worry, the only person in the room who might pay attention to me is Oxlade, and he left some time ago,” Maggie said.

Oxlade aside, it was clear she and Sam had not drawn the interest of anyone else at the reception. She was proud her cover story had worked. The Guilfoyles had greeted them politely when they’d arrived, but they had spent the rest of the evening mingling with attendees who evidently ranked much higher on the social ladder. The four attractive dream guides were doing the same thing—charming the obviously more affluent guests.

“Let’s go,” Sam said.

They made their way around the edge of the crowd and went into the shadowed hallway the imposter had entered. The main light fixtures were off, but a wall sconce glowed at the far end of the corridor where it intersected with another wing.