When She Dreams（Burning Cove #6）(61)

“It’s the truth. I know you don’t believe me. That’s because you’re not a lucid dreamer. You don’t know what happens when someone like me takes the drug.”

“Is that right?”

“Even if you don’t understand how it affects me, you must realize we need the enhancer to take the Guilfoyle Institute to the top.” Arthur started to pace the room. “I’ve been thinking.”

“That doesn’t usually end well.”

“I’m serious,” Arthur said. “We don’t need the actual formula for the drug. I’ll bet a sample of it would be enough.”

“What do you mean?”

“We could take some of it to a laboratory and have it analyzed,” Arthur said. “Once we know the ingredients, we could pay a chemist to make up the enhancer for us.”

She inhaled smoke while she considered his words. For once he had a glimmer of an idea.

“Maybe,” she said. “But there’s the problem of getting a sample of the drug.”

“We know Oxlade brought some with him, enough to run several experiments on me and a few of the conference guests.”

“I agree it would be useful to have the enhancer,” Dolores said. “What about Lodge? Do you need her, too, Arthur?”

“She’s not important. I told you, the only reason I talked to her after the performance was to get her to stick around. I was afraid that if we lost her we would lose Oxlade and the drug.”

He was lying, just as he always did when it came to his women.

“Sounds like you managed to lose Oxlade all by yourself,” she said.

Arthur gave her an anguished, pleading look. “Darling, you have to understand. Everything I did was for us.”

“Everything you did—everything you ever do—is for you.”

“That’s not true. You know you’re the only woman I’ve ever loved.”

“Go away, Arthur. I don’t want to talk to you anymore tonight. I need to think.”

“Sure, right, I understand.” Relief flashed across Arthur’s face. He gulped the remainder of his drink and set the glass on the cart. “You’ll come up with a solution. You always do. I’m going to take a walk in the gardens. You know how it is after a performance. I need to work off the energy.”

“You do that,” Dolores said.

You stupid, self-centered bastard.

She opened the French doors and went out onto the terrace. She had to get control of the situation. Arthur had put all of her goals at risk with his impulsive nature. If they lost the Institute, she would lose her inheritance.

It dawned on her that she had succeeded in marrying a man who was just like her father—a self-centered womanizer who cared only about himself. How had that happened?

She could not afford to waste time dwelling on the past. She had to save the Institute, and that meant saving Arthur from his own worst impulses. As they said in Hollywood, he was the box-office draw. She had always done what she had to do to protect him and their shared future. That probably made her the Institute’s version of a studio fixer.

She certainly knew what it felt like to be forced to extricate her moneymaking star from a situation that could take them both down, a situation he had created.

But this time was different.

Why was he obsessed with Margaret Lodge? She did not fit into the category of rich, glamorous, and beautiful. She was not connected to Hollywood. Yes, Arthur was impulsive, but even for him this was an unusual—make that unique—distraction.

His first priority was himself. The more she thought about it, the more it seemed unlike him to risk his own dream by having a fling with a woman who did not offer him any of the things he wanted.

There was only one possible explanation. After all these years Arthur had concluded he no longer needed a partner with a sharp mind for business and marketing. He was convinced he required one who was a powerful lucid dreamer, a woman who could help him transform the Guilfoyle Method from a flashy con job into a genuine therapy—a dazzling operation that delivered real results and would draw the attention of Hollywood celebrities. He wanted a woman who could help him fulfill his vision of his own future. A woman who could make him a star.

Emerson Oxlade had apparently convinced Arthur that Maggie Lodge was the real deal—a lucid dreamer who could use her talent to open a pathway to her psychic senses.

That was the reason Arthur was obsessed with Lodge. It explained everything.

Dolores dropped the cigarette onto the tiles of the terrace and ground it out with the toe of her high-heeled shoe.

You’re not going to replace me that easily, you stupid bastard.

It was time to clean up Arthur’s latest mess.





Chapter 35




The doorman touched his cap and opened the door of the hotel lobby. Sam nodded at him and then steered Maggie to the front desk. They picked up their keys and headed for the stairs.

Inside his room, Sam checked the fedora for damage and grimaced when he saw the oily smudge on the brim. It was worse than he had thought. You couldn’t get that kind of stain out. He wondered if it was legitimate to put the cost of a new hat on the final bill.

He shrugged out of the trench coat and examined it briefly. There were some dark streaks on it, but they blended in with the other evidence of hard use. When he hung it on the brass wall hook he got an unpleasant jolt in his right shoulder. There would be a few bruises in the morning. He was not getting any younger.