When Darkness Falls(33)

“Devon. Haven’t you figured anything out yet?”

“Figured what out?”

“All right, I’ll show you.” She backed off. “I need your laptop.”

Unable to follow the change in subject matter, Devon stared at her.

“Laptop? Wireless?” Lydia said.

“Uh, yeah.”

He had to type his password three times before he got it right. Lydia sat at the desk and started typing. Devon washed dishes that didn’t need washing. He tried not to think. About the dream, her claims about it, about Lydia wearing her robe showing her unmarked skin, clicking away at his keyboard.

“Where’s your calendar?”

“In Outlook.” Let her find it. He refused to stand behind her, lean over her, see her breasts at the opening of the robe, feel her body heat.

He returned to the bedroom with his guitar, practicing leads, wondering why he’d let Lydia in, or encouraged Haley to go away. None of this would have happened if she had not gone away.

Lydia called to him from the living room. When Devon didn’t answer, she brought him printed pages.

“What are these?” Devon asked.

“Articles from the Tribune. Seen them before?”

“Doubt it.”

Devon glanced at the headlines. Woman Murdered in Bucktown. Night Terrors Continue. Serial Murderer in Chicagoland?

“But you’ve heard about the case,” Lydia said.

Devon shook his head, but he realized he had. Haley had talked to him about it, and so had Al, both concerned that she shouldn’t be out alone at night. He’d forgotten about it as soon as it was settled that she would borrow Al’s car when she worked late and park in front of The Underground, instead of taking the Red Line and walking from the station. He looked away from the pages. His anxiety made it impossible to concentrate at times, but he felt sick that he’d forgotten something that could pose such a danger to Haley.

“Don’t you ever check the news? I heard about it in L.A.”

“It’s part of my anti-anxiety program. No news,” Devon said.

“Read it.”

He read about the women found strangled with bite marks on their bodies. The police had found no connection between the victims, but in each case the perpetrator left the same DNA.

Devon thrust the pages back at Lydia.

“Notice anything about the dates?” Lydia said.

“Dates?”

Lydia tapped the pages. “The first ones were in the two months before you got married, and the most recent happened the same weekends Haley was away.”

“So?” He swallowed. It hurt his throat, which felt like sandpaper.

“You don’t see it.”

“I see that you’ve lost it.” He went back to fingering chords, forcing his mind away from Lydia’s words. The air in the bedroom grew warmer and heavier.

“Your dreams,” Lydia said.

His brain skittered to the edge of a memory, a half-image of himself hurtling through shadows in the cold. He threw the pages on the floor. What she was saying was insane. “They’re just dreams.”

“Last night wasn’t a dream.”

“Yes, it was.”

“You ought to listen to me, Devon. I’ve got a lot to tell you.”

“You don’t have anything to tell me.” Devon went down to the living room, pulled the sheets off the sofa bed, and closed it. “I don’t know what’s wrong with you, I don’t know where you’re coming up with these things or why. What you hope to gain by it.” He grabbed the small pile of her clothes by the couch and stuffed them in her bag. “But I’m not listening. I don’t know what you’re into now, and I don’t want to know.”

“You will, though.”

Lydia unbelted her robe and let it drop to the floor. Her body was muscular but curvy, her skin ivory and flawless and so familiar. She reached into her bag for a short navy blue dress, slipped it over her head, then took out thigh high navy stockings and pulled those on as well.

“I’ll go now.” Lydia put on her shoes. “And you’ll come after me.”

“Don’t bet on it.” Devon opened the front door.

“I already did.” Lydia slapped an envelope into his hand. “You know where to find me.”

Her heels clicked on her way down the stairs. The door swung shut, echoing in the apartment.

Hands trembling, Devon sank onto the couch. More printed articles lay on the trunk. He tore the pages into scraps and fed them into the kitchen garbage disposal.

As he flipped the switch and listened to the mechanism grind, his head pounded. He couldn’t see how Lydia had known about his dream. And if she was trying to tell him his other dreams were real and he had really killed those women, her unmarked body proved exactly the opposite.

Back in the bedroom, Devon bent over the guitar again. Dreams couldn’t hurt anyone, no matter how vivid the sensations he’d felt.

But something was happening. He didn’t know what, and he didn’t think any doctor or any shrink, or any living person could tell him.

He opened the envelope Lydia had given him and found what he expected to find.





Chapter Fourteen


Haley trudged out of Union Station at Adams Street, a bag in each hand, and her guitar in its soft case across her back. Five cabs idled in line. The first honked its horn. The driver, a middle-aged dark-skinned man with a trimmed beard, leaned out the window. “Ride?”