Dream Maker

by Charlotte Douglas

  He bent over the lavatory, sloshed water over his heated face, and stood, staring into the mirror with vacant eyes. A vivid scar, obscured at his forehead by haylike hair, ran from his temple to his chin.

  Jared fought again to waken.

  The man stuffed the gun into his belt and stood at the door of the rest room, watching the ladies’ room across the corridor. The woman stepped out, but her face was obscured. She hurried toward her car. The killer set off after her.

  Exerting every effort to impose his will on the killer’s, Jared battled with the killer’s intent—to no avail. The enraged man continued his pursuit.

  At the sound of running feet, the woman turned. The killer lifted his gun.

  Jared awoke with a tortured scream on his lips. The killer was stalking Tyler.

  And he was the same man who had sat across from Jared in the hospital, two years ago—just seconds before the aneurysm had burst in his brain.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Jared jammed a fist to his mouth to stifle his scream and squeezed his eyes shut. Forcing himself to inhale deep breaths, he attempted to relax.

  It was just a dream.

  A dream brought on by the stress of the last few days. Stanwick was behind bars and Tyler slept beside him, whole and safe.

  Strange that after all this time he should dream about the man from the emergency room. But dreams seldom presented a reason for their existence, drawing out random experiences from the circuits of the brain, like a computer with a faulty program.

  Logic eased Jared’s terror. When his heart ceased hammering like a racing car piston, he rolled onto his side and reached for Tyler.

  She was gone.

  He bounded to his feet and switched on the bedside light. The clock indicated seven-fifteen. He’d overslept. Tyler had planned to leave for her grandmother’s at seven.

  His glance fell on a note pinned to her pillow, and he snatched it up.

  “Tarzan,” she wrote, “you were sleeping so soundly I couldn’t bear to wake you. See you tomorrow at Gran’s. I love you.”

  Everything was as they’d planned, but he couldn’t shake the residual uneasiness caused by his dream. He reached for his jeans and was tugging them on when the phone rang.

  “Mr. Slater,” the caller said, “this is Deputy McSwain at the sheriff’s office.”

  “Yes?” Jared made no effort to keep the impatience from his voice.

  “The sheriff wonders if you’d come in to answer a few questions this morning.”

  Jared swore under his breath. “I’m going out of town—”

  “This won’t take long,” McSwain interrupted. “Sheriff Tillett just wants to clear up some inconsistencies between your story and Stanwick’s.”

  “There’ll always be inconsistencies—the man’s crazy!” Wedging the phone between his shoulder and ear, Jared tied his boots.

  “This inconsistency’s a whopper,” the deputy insisted. “The doctor’s seen Stanwick and states he’s lucid now, and Stanwick claims you killed his wife and those other two women.”

  “What? That’s bull—”

  “And Stanwick’s got a motel owner who corroborates that he was in Georgia the night Evelyn Granger died in Florida.”

  “Look, deputy, I didn’t kill those women. And if Stanwick didn’t, then who—”

  The image of the scar-faced man from his dream flashed into his mind. The man in his dreams hadn’t been Stanwick, and now the killer was after Tyler. The rest area Jared had dreamed about was between Asheville and Hickory, on the way to Chapel Hill. She’d had a fifteen-minute start on him, and he didn’t have a second to spare.

  “McSwain, I didn’t kill anybody, but the man who did is headed east on the interstate.” Jared described the rest area. “Call the highway patrol and have them meet me there.”

  “I wouldn’t do that, Mr. Slater. If you don’t come in voluntarily, the sheriff will have to bring you in for questioning.”

  “Fine. He can pick me up at the rest area. I’ll need all the help I can get.” If I’m not already too late. Jared slammed down the receiver, tucked his gun in his belt, and raced down the stairs.

  Five minutes later, he maneuvered the speeding rental car around the mountain curves of the highway leading to Asheville, where he would pick up the interstate.

  When he reached the outskirts of the city, going-towork traffic slowed his pace, and he prayed that somewhere ahead of him, maybe on the eastern edge of Asheville, Tyler had been delayed as well.

  As traffic retarded to a crawl, he pounded the steering wheel with his fists, while fear and frustration chewed at his gut. If Tyler was hurt, the fault would be his for not sending her away the moment he’d met her. God knew, he’d had enough warnings from his dreams.

  As the traffic began to flow again, memories tortured him with their sweetness—his first glimpse of Tyler, standing on his doorstep like a snow queen with ice glazing the incredibly long lashes of her eyes and the cold nipping her porcelain cheeks to a delicate pink; her compassionate response when he’d revealed his terrible dreams; her plucky courage when the Volvo had wrecked; her triumph over her fear when he’d hurtled down the cliff face with her girded to his back. And sweetest of all, the glow of love in her eyes when he’d kissed her beneath the pulsing water of the shower.

  He pressed the accelerator, heedless of the speed limit. If he didn’t reach her in time, he didn’t care what the law did to him.

  His shoulders ached with tension, and he felt as if he’d been driving all day, but he’d only been on the road a little over two hours when he spied the exit sign for the rest area he’d seen in his dream.

  Fear for Tyler almost incapacitated him as he drove into the parking area and spotted Tyler’s car at the far end. Closer to him stood another vehicle—a battered green car, the killer’s. No other cars or trucks were in sight, except those zooming by on the highway.

  Jared screeched to a stop, jumped out and raced toward the rest rooms. Banging open the door to the women’s room, he drew his gun.

  “Tyler?” His voice echoed in the empty room.

  He pivoted and dashed toward the men’s room. It, too, was empty. Crashing out the rest room door, he darted into the parking area. The cars remained, but the killer and Tyler were nowhere in sight.

  Anxiety almost suffocated him. He tried to think. The killer had a gun. If he’d used it to hijack another car, Jared might never find Tyler. Maybe it was already too late.

  NOT LONG BEFORE, Tyler had lowered the car’s visor against the glare of the morning sun that rose over the foothills. When she’d awakened, she’d longed to stay in bed with Jared and pass the morning in languid lovemaking, but he slept so soundly, she’d hesitated to wake him.

  Instead, she’d stuck to their original plan, scribbled a note, and kissed him goodbye. Now the morning stretched fresh and calm ahead of her, as if in compensation for the terror of the past several days.

  In a few hours, she would reach Chapel Hill and dazzle Gran with the news of her engagement. The old girl would be delighted. The tobacco-rich blue blood of the Slaters of Virginia would more than meet Gran’s requirements for a suitable husband for her grand-daughter, and when Jared arrived the next day, Gran couldn’t help falling in love with him.

  Tyler hummed along with the car radio. She’d been through hell with Jared, but that was over now. Life was good. She remembered when she’d kissed him goodbye—his fine, dark hair a stark contrast to the pillow linen, the muscles of his biceps bulging against the sheet. His strength had saved her from Stanwick’s bullets. His love had added new meaning to her life.

  She giggled. If she would fall off a cliff for him, she would follow him anywhere. Daydreams of their life together consumed her—long walks in the mountain woods, intimate evenings in front of the fire, passionate lovemaking in the loft bedroom, producing darkhaired, brown-eyed children.

  A rest-area exit sign interrupted her reveries. She’d been driving two hours straight and needed to str
etch her legs. A cup of vending-machine coffee wouldn’t hurt, either.

  She flipped on her turn signal and eased into the exit lane. A battered green car pulled in behind her.

  After parking, she climbed out and breathed deeply of the fresh mountain air that was only faintly tainted by fumes from nearby traffic. Raucous cries of blue jays, fighting over picnic scraps, disrupted the morning quiet. She grabbed her handbag and walked briskly toward the rest room.

  A few minutes later, she exited, searching her purse for change for the vending machine. The arm around her neck and the gun barrel pressed to her temple came out of nowhere.

  “Do as I tell you, lady,” an angry voice snarled in her ear, “or I’ll blow you away right where you’re standing.”

  Disbelief melded with the fear that surged through her. Had she survived Stanwick’s attacks only to die at the hand of a petty thief?

  “Take my purse, my car, whatever you want.” She forced the words through trembling lips and shoved her bag upward and over her shoulder.

  “Shut up!” The man knocked the handbag into the hedge that lined the walk.

  When he made no effort to retrieve it, her terror grew. The man was no thief. “What do you want?”

  He tightened his arm around her neck, crushing her throat. “Your cooperation. Now, move!”

  He shoved her ahead of him. She dug in her heels to impede their progress, but the man’s strength overpowered her. He pushed her off the walk and around the side of the building, the cold, oily surface of the gun barrel pressed into her skin.

  She considered screaming, but the only beings within hearing were the blue jays, still squawking over picnic spoils. She strained to view the rest-area entrance, hoping for an approaching vehicle, but the road remained deserted.

  In spite of her resistance, her burly attacker managed to drag her easily across the open space to the fence that circled the perimeter.

  At the fence, he eased his grasp but didn’t withdraw the gun or allow her to see his face. “Climb over.”

  “No.” She’d had enough training in self-defense to know never to enter a vehicle or a secluded area with an assailant—if she wanted to stay alive.

  He burrowed the gun deep into the hollow of her cheek. “Over the fence or I kill you here.”

  “Then kill me. I’m not going into the woods with you.” She stiffened her shoulders, waiting for the shot, wondering if she would feel it or hear the concussion of the blast.

  She expected to die. What she didn’t expect was to be tossed over the fence like a sack of potatoes. Her burgundy slacks caught on the top wire, breaking her fall. She felt them rip just before landing on her face in the humus of the forest floor. She pushed to her knees, spitting out leaves and dirt, ready to run.

  A hand on her collar jerked her back. “You ain’t going nowhere except where I tell you.”

  She attempted to turn, but the hand twisted her blouse to restrain her movements, dragged her to her feet, and shoved her through the underbrush, deeper into the trees.

  Branches lashed her face as she crashed through dogwood and maple saplings, creating more and more distance between her and the rest area, her only source of help.

  Her muscles, still sore from yesterday’s exertion, screamed in protest, and she stumbled, falling face-down in the leaves. A knee between her shoulder blades prevented her from getting up, and horror rose like bile in her throat as hands fumbled at her waist, removing her belt from her slacks.

  Dear God, he’s going to rape me.

  She struggled, kicking against the man’s weight, but he caught her arms, pinned them behind her, and tied her hands with her belt. Hauling on her belt until she feared her arms would be wrenched from their sockets, he jerked her to her feet.

  She gulped in air and screamed at the top of her lungs. “Help, somebody, help!”

  “Scream all you want. We’re so deep in the woods, ain’t nobody going to hear you.”

  He twisted her to face him, but she couldn’t bear to look at him. With a growl, he thrust her backward against a tree trunk, hooked his foot around her ankles, and yanked her feet from under her. Her bottom thudded against the ground, jarring her entire body. Her teeth nicked her tongue, and the metallic taste of blood filled her mouth.

  Determined not to surrender to panic, she raised her head and caught her first full glimpse of her tormentor, a tall and bulky man whose faded clothes matched his features, giving him the washed-out appearance of an overexposed snapshot. Small eyes, so pale a blue they were almost colorless, assessed her from a face ripped from forehead to chin by a ragged scar. Ash-blond hair, wispy and thin, fell across his waxen forehead.

  He towered over her and nudged her with his foot. “I don’t mean you any harm—”

  “You could have fooled me,” she snapped. Every muscle in her body shrieked with pain.

  He backed away until he came up against a tree trunk about six feet from where she sat, then slid to a sitting position with his gun pointed at her heart. “I just want you to do me a favor, then I’ll let you go.”

  He’s lying.

  Deceit permeated his voice and his posture, and for a moment, she wished he would kill her and be done with it, rather than taunt her further with promises of release. But if she was destined to die, she wanted to know why.

  “What kind of favor?” She prayed it wasn’t sexual; that he would kill her quickly and cleanly without assaulting her first.

  He reached into his faded denim jacket with his free hand, and extracted a folded sheet of paper from his shirt pocket. “Just sign this letter, Miss Harris.”

  Her head jerked up in surprise. “You know my name?”

  “I know all I need to know about you.” He licked his bottom lip, a gesture that made her shudder.

  “But how—”

  “That’s not important now. Just sign this paper, and I’ll let you go.”

  Instinct told her the moment he’d obtained her signature, she was a dead woman. Her only hope was that someone had arrived at the rest area and heard her screams. If she could stay alive long enough, maybe help would come. “I never sign anything I haven’t read first.”

  “What are you, a lawyer?” He scowled. “God, I hate lawyers.”

  “I’m a librarian,” she replied.

  “I hate books, too.”

  Her heart pounded. “So, what does the paper say?”

  He smoothed open the sheet against his knee. “Jared Slater—”

  “Jared! How do you know Jared?”

  He spat like a man with a bad taste in his mouth. “I wish to hell I didn’t. I can’t get the man out of my head. I know everything he’s thinking—and he knows too much about me.”

  Understanding exploded like a bomb in her head. This man—not Pete Stanwick—had haunted Jared’s dreams. “Stanwick didn’t kill his wife!”

  “That worked out good, didn’t it?” His smile reeked of evil. “I made that bastard suffer. First, I killed his wife, and now everybody’s thinking he did it.”

  Her hopes for survival plummeted. Her captor had killed before, so he wouldn’t hesitate to kill her, too.

  “Who are you?” she demanded.

  “Don’t you know by now?” He leaned back against the rough bark of the tree and narrowed his colorless eyes. “Ozzie Anderson was my father.”

  “You’re Arnie?”

  He nodded, looking pleased with himself.

  “But your mother said you were in Alaska.”

  “Ma and I had this all worked out. She’d cover for me while I paid back the bastards that killed my daddy.”

  She shook her head in disbelief. “But Veronica Molinsky, Mary Stanwick and Evelyn Granger had nothing to do with your father’s execution.”

  He shrugged. “But they were related to the men who did it. Ma and me wanted those men to suffer like we’d suffered all those years. Once I kill Slater, I’ll finish off the others.”

  Fear for Jared renewed her determination to escape, to warn
him. She pushed herself upright, hoping to seize a chance to bolt. “Why kill Jared? He knew nothing about your father.”

  Arnie’s vicious cackle filled the stillness. “Yeah, but he knows too much about me. If I don’t get him out of the way, they’ll catch me before I can finish off the others.”

  She nodded toward the paper. “And that’s what the note to Jared is about?”

  “Yeah. It tells him when and where to meet me.”

  She arched her eyebrows. “Why would he do that?”

  He grinned, exposing yellowed teeth. “Because you’ve signed it. Because it says the only way he’ll ever see you alive again is to meet me.”

  Arnie Anderson was going to kill her anyway. She wouldn’t help him trap Jared by signing his death warrant. “I’m not signing anything.”

  He heaved a sigh of frustration. “Have it your way.”

  “Then you’ll let me go?” She clung to the glimmer of a chance.

  “You?” he said with a mocking snort. “No way, lady.”

  Then he raised the blued barrel of the revolver and aimed it between her eyes.

  Her last thought was of Jared and how much she loved him.

  JARED SCANNED THE AREA, searching for any clue that Tyler might be close by. Sunlight glinted on a gold clasp in the hedge, and he withdrew a purse from the bushes. Tyler’s wallet and keys were inside.

  But where is she?

  The killer could have forced her into another car and be miles away by now, or he could have dragged her into the surrounding woods. If Jared chose the wrong direction to search, he might never see Tyler alive again.

  Desperate, he closed his eyes and concentrated. He’d never entered the killer’s mind except in dreams, but now his only hope to save Tyler was to thrust himself into the killer’s thoughts to discover where she was.

  Sweat beaded his forehead as he blocked every sensation and focused on the killer, recalling every nuance of his face, every thought and black emotion. A whirling vortex of darkness sucked at him, drawing him deeper into nothingness. Fear clutched at his gut, breaking his concentration, but he swept it aside, homing in on the mind of the man who had kidnapped the woman he loved.