When She Dreams（Burning Cove #6）(57)

Oxlade had fallen for Guilfoyle’s con just like most of the audience.

Another hand shot up. A man rose to his feet.

“Shortly before my brother died he told me that he left all of his money to me. We buried him last week but we can’t find the will. Where should we look?”

“I see a house darkened by recent death,” Arthur said. “There is a road. A garden. There is water nearby.”

“A pond?” the man asked eagerly. “My brother had a fishpond behind his house.”

“Yes, a pond,” Arthur said. “There is a hidden safe somewhere inside the dark house.”

“Huh.” The man dropped back into his seat, unsatisfied. “We searched the damn house.”

“You must search it again,” Arthur said. “I can do no more tonight. I must rest. No. Not yet. Something is wrong.” A visible shudder arced through him. He rose to his feet, eyes brilliant and hypnotic. “I see a figure cloaked in shadows.”

Oxlade frowned, glanced at the notebook on his lap, and looked up quickly, apparently confused.

“Calm yourself, Mr. Guilfoyle,” he urged. “Remember, you are in control of your dream trance.”

“I must know what this spirit seeks. I sense that it is malevolent. Dangerous. It is hunting.”

Maggie heard the audience take a sharp collective breath.

Oxlade appeared torn now. Maggie knew that part of him wanted to believe Guilfoyle was experiencing a true psychic vision, but another part was skeptical and decidedly worried.

“You must control yourself, Mr. Guilfoyle,” he said firmly. “Describe what you see.”

“The hunter moves through the shadows,” Guilfoyle declared in a resonant voice. “He stalks a woman. I must warn her.”

“Who is this woman?” Oxlade asked, clearly alarmed and bewildered.

“She is close,” Guilfoyle said. “Very close. Perhaps here in this room.”

There was another shocked gasp from the audience.

Oxlade tried to take control. “Wake up, Mr. Guilfoyle.”

“I fear the hunter is the spirit known as the Traveler. I must stop him. Only I can protect the woman he stalks. I cannot leave the astral plane until I have sent him away. I will not let him hurt her.”

“The Traveler.” Oxlade stood abruptly, breaking the spell Arthur had cast over the audience. “This is ridiculous. There is no such being as the Traveler. You are hallucinating, Mr. Guilfoyle. I insist you snap out of the trance immediately.”

“I’ve had enough,” a man in the front row bellowed. He rose from his seat. “This is an act. Guilfoyle is trying to scare us into signing up for his program. My wife and I are leaving.”

“But, Henry,” the woman in the seat next to his said. “We can’t leave now. I haven’t had a chance to ask my question.”

“Come along, Martha.” Henry gripped his wife’s arm and propelled her up out of the seat. “I agreed to let you watch this idiotic performance because I thought it would make you realize Guilfoyle is a fraud.”

“Henry, please, you’re making a scene,” Martha hissed.

Her husband ignored her. He steered Martha up the aisle and opened the door. Light from the hallway slanted across the theater. People got to their feet, mumbling uneasily, and headed for the exit.

Stuck on the far side of the room, Maggie stood and waited for the theater to empty.

Onstage, Guilfoyle and Oxlade were both on their feet. Oxlade clutched his notebook in one hand.

“I understand you are an actor,” he said, his voice tight with anger. “I realize you are trying to put on a show. But I will not allow you to make a mockery of my theories. Is that clear? If there is one more incident like the one that just took place, I will terminate our arrangement.”

He stomped offstage, not waiting for an answer, and disappeared into the wings. Arthur smiled at Maggie, a slow, knowing smile that she knew was intended to be intimate and seductive. Ice touched the back of her neck and trickled down her spine.

“A moment, if you please, Miss Lodge,” Arthur said.

He descended the steps at the side of the stage and walked up the aisle toward the entrance of the theater. He closed the door and turned to confront her from the opposite end of the last row of seats.

“I have something of great importance to say to you. In spite of what Oxlade just said, I was not acting tonight. While I was in the trance I sensed an ominous presence on the grounds of the Institute. Whatever it is—whoever it is—it is hunting you.”





Chapter 32




Another flicker of glacially cold electricity sparked across Maggie’s senses. She was alone with Guilfoyle in the theater, and he had positioned himself between her and the door.

“I don’t believe for a minute that anyone is hunting me,” she said. She gripped the strap of her handbag very tightly. “I am going to leave now. Mr. Sage will be waiting for me at the lobby entrance.”

“Sage is your chauffeur as well as your research assistant?” Arthur asked.

“He is very useful.”

“Evidently.” Arthur chuckled. “How long have you known him?”

“Not long,” she said, aiming for a breezy, who-cares tone.

“How does one go about hiring a research assistant?” Arthur asked, seemingly intrigued.