When She Dreams (Burning Cove #6)(24)

Maggie heard the crisp click of fashionable high-heeled evening sandals echoing from the far end of the hall. She saw the shadowy figure of the fake Cornelia turn the corner and vanish into the adjoining wing.

Sam stopped and opened one of the French doors. “We’ll cut across the courtyard. It will be faster.”

Maggie followed him out into the darkened garden. They went quickly along a flagstone path lit by a nearly full moon. A fountain murmured softly in the shadows.

“What if the doors on that side of the courtyard are locked?” she asked.

“I doubt if they are,” Sam said. “Why bother? The courtyard is secured on all four sides. But even if they are locked, it won’t be a problem.”

“Meaning you can pick a lock?”

“You learn things when you arrest bad guys.”

“I’ll bet. You were definitely right about one thing—the imposter seems to know where she is going. If she was looking for the ladies’ room she would have turned back by now.”

The windowed doors that lined the hallway on the far side of the courtyard were, indeed, unlocked. Maggie followed Sam into the gloom of another dimly lit corridor. He drew her to a halt and touched her lips with one finger. She got the message.

The imposter was nowhere to be seen. Maggie was starting to fear they had lost their quarry when a woman’s scream echoed from the far end of the hall. The primal sound raised the hair on the back of Maggie’s neck.

“Sam,” she whispered.

“Stay here,” he ordered.

He started forward just as the door at the end of the corridor slammed open. The imposter flew out, silhouetted by bursts of flashing lights. She was no longer screaming. She appeared to be running for her life. Her long skirts whipped around her ankles.

She did not notice Sam until he loomed in her path. She scrambled to a stop, stricken.

“Please don’t hurt me,” she gasped. “I won’t tell anyone. I swear, I won’t tell anyone.”

“Don’t move,” Sam said.

The imposter froze, automatically obeying the command. He stepped around her and disappeared into the room.

Maggie hurried forward and stopped directly in front of the fake Cornelia. “What’s wrong? What happened?”

Her sharp tone of voice broke the momentary spell cast by Sam’s order. The woman took a rasping breath.

“I don’t know,” she whispered. “I had nothing to do with it.”

“Are you all right?”

“I have to get out of here,” the imposter said.

She dodged around Maggie and fled down the corridor, heading toward the lobby.

Maggie went to the doorway and looked into the disturbing storm of flickering lights.

“Sam.”

“Stay where you are,” he said. “I just need to find—got it. Hang on.”

The flickering lights abruptly ceased. A second later a bright spotlight came on, illuminating the stage at the front of the room. The heavy red velvet curtain had been pulled aside. She took a few steps into the space and realized she was standing at the back of a small ornate theater.

She shivered. Shadows—visible and invisible—cloaked the rows of seats. Something bad had happened in the room.

Out of long habit she suppressed her senses.

More lights came on, softly glowing wall sconces this time. Sam appeared from the wings and walked out into the spotlight.

“Found a bank of light switches back there,” he said. He studied the metal canister sitting on top of the phonograph turntable. The device was dark and still now that it had been turned off. “What the hell is that thing?”

“It’s a kind of flicker machine.” Maggie walked down the aisle toward the stage, intrigued. “There’s a strong light inside. When it’s on, the light flashes out through the cutouts in the canister rotating on the turntable. People who study dreams sometimes use flickering lights to induce hallucinations or a trance. But, generally speaking, you have to sit quite close to the device to get the full effect. That one is an unusually large and powerful version. It must have frightened the imposter. That’s why she ran out of here.”

Sam shielded his eyes with one hand and looked toward the back of the theater. “No, that’s not what sent her into a panic.”

He went down the side steps and loped up the aisle on the far side of the theater. Maggie turned to see what had riveted his attention.

The invisible shadows that seethed in the theater were anchored to the seat at the end of the last row, where a woman in a cocktail gown was slumped, unmoving.

Sam touched the woman’s throat with two fingers.

“She’s dead,” he said quietly.





Chapter 12




Detective Brandon pushed his battered fedora back on his head and surveyed the contraption sitting on the stage. “What the hell is that gadget? Looks like a Halloween lantern on top of a phonograph.”

“I’m told that’s exactly what it is,” Sam said. “It creates a lot of flickering lights that can induce a trance in some people.”

He and Brandon, the head of Burning Cove’s small homicide division, were standing on the stage of the theater. They were not alone in the room. A doctor was concluding an examination of the body in the last row. Arthur and Dolores Guilfoyle waited in the aisle near the entrance. When Sam had informed them of the death, they had both appeared stunned. Now their faces registered anxiety and tension.