Murder Game (GhostWalkers, #7)(123)

The sound of two rifles was simultaneous. The Norton twins fired from opposite sides, and both bullets struck the killer in the head. The body toppled from the bike in slow motion, and rolled back down the slope into the ravine.

“Eight down,” Kadan said softly.





CHAPTER 20


“Where the hell is Tansy, Nico?” Jeff Hollister asked. He spun around in a wide circle and then crouched down to examine the dirt, looking for tracks. “She should be right here.”

Nico hurried toward a slight slope. “We wove the dream carefully, and we should have pulled her into it when we opened this sequence.”

“I told her exactly what to keep in her mind when she drifted off to sleep and I recorded every detail. Kadan agreed to play it for her as she went to sleep. She has to be here.”

Nico ran along the top of the narrow ridge. “She’s not here, Jeff. Something’s wrong.”

Jeff frowned and closed his eyes, searching through the dreamscape. “Not another living person. You’re right, she’s not here. Something went wrong. Wake up.”

Nico found himself in a recliner, Jeff across from him. Gator stood between them, guarding their bodies as they dreamwalked. He regarded them with alarm. “You couldn’t have killed the son of bitch that fast.”

“We lost her. She wasn’t there, Gator,” Nico said.

Jeff hit the arm of the chair with his fist. “The only answer is, while we were spinning our dream, Dunbar spun one she was more familiar with and pulled her in before we could draw her into ours. He has her. We have to get to her immediately. She’ll be under his control. She doesn’t dreamwalk.”

“Get Kadan on the phone. He’ll know if she has recurring dreams,” Nico said. “Hurry. We don’t have much time.”





So much blood. It rose like a river, the current strong, threatening to pull her under. Tansy gasped and turned, looking in all directions, trying to find Kadan. He’d held her; she remembered the feeling of being safe in his arms. His velvet voice whispered to her; she felt his mouth against hers, so tender she ached inside. She knew he was beside her, knew it, but she could no longer feel him.

A shadow moved in the distance, striding toward her, taking the shape of a man. He waded through the blood, an evil grin on his face. She gasped, fighting for air, unable to move, afraid to speak, to draw attention to herself. Around her, she heard the wails of the dead.

“You’re dreaming, Tansy. Wake up,” she murmured, a litany of hope, but not believing for a moment that she would.

She even closed her eyes and prayed—that when she opened them, the shadowy figure would be gone. Instead, he was closer. A man of medium height, nondescript, he would get lost in a crowd. Not handsome, but not plain, a man with intelligence in his eyes who gave off a kind of cunning energy she recognized. Her heart sank. The puppet master.

“Tansy Meadows, how nice to finally meet you.” He stood a short distance from her, his eyes running over her face, drinking in her fear, looking more feral than any animal she’d ever photographed. He was a predator, skillfully camouflaged in a sheep’s skin.

Tansy straightened, lifting her chin, her heart beating fast. “You.”

He smirked. “You were fairly good at keeping me out of your dreams. I was surprised what a worthy adversary you really were. Not quite my equal, but very good.”

“Why would you think I’m not your equal?”

“I found you. You couldn’t find me.”

Her eyebrow shot up. “A reporter found me. You read about me in a newspaper and guessed. But you can’t find my parents and you didn’t track me by yourself. I, however, tracked and found you. Your safe little home just off base is not so safe. Your little shed where you carve your illegal ivory pieces for your game of murder is now my domain. And I know your name, not by cheating, but by being the elite tracker that I am. I found you, James R. Dunbar.”

Tansy took a deep breath, forcing herself to keep a look of utter contempt on her face when she was quaking inside. There’d been a plan. It didn’t involve wading through blood, but she remembered, there had been a plan, and Kadan had whispered she would be safe.

Fury twisted Dunbar’s face. He turned bright red, his face mottled with color. “You bitch.”

“Why do men always resort to calling women bitches when we kick their asses? I found out a lot about you, Dunbar. For instance, you have an amazing amount of money in an offshore account. It seems your puppets don’t have a clue you’re raking in the dough while they do the work. You take contracts and kill for money. I’ll admit it’s rather brilliant. You actually designed your own killers. You dream up a little game, prepare the cards with specific victims right down to the exact details on how they must be killed, and you direct your puppets to do the killing for you. Even if they got caught, you’d walk away clean.”

The red faded from his face, and his features turned crafty and a little pleased by the flattery. “You are a clever girl. I underestimated you.”

She shrugged. “Most people do. I’ll bet they underestimate you all the time.” She had to keep him talking while her mind struggled to remember the plan. She wanted to stay at a distance from him, but she couldn’t move and he was easing closer.

“I think you underestimate me, Tansy,” Dunbar said. “You found me out when no one else ever has, not even Whitney . . .”