Dreams of Reality (21 page)

That was all the encouragement he needed, to begin another round of lovemaking that lasted until the early morning.

Chapter 18

Skye wasn’t sure but she swore she was still in his arms. She couldn’t be absolutely sure, yet she didn’t want to open her eyes to disappointment.

Taking a check on all her body parts, she realized she was naked under the covers. She never slept naked! She also realized if she didn’t make love last night, then why did every muscle in her body hurt like hell.

Finally she lifted her eyelids to disappointment. She was in her room, in her bed, alone. “Show me again and maybe I will believe it when I wake up alone in my bed.” Those words rang aloud in her head like a bell.

Sitting up, her body gasped as memories flooded. She remembered!

She remembered so vividly, she could have passed out from embarrassment. The only thing confusing her was, even though she remembered calling his name, she couldn’t remember his face. It was a blur. Even when she fudged through breakfast racking her mind over it, she couldn’t really come up with a definite picture in her mind. Was it a dream or reality? If it was a dream, why was she feeling it now, and if it was reality, why couldn’t she remember the details?

It made no sense and she would go crazy if she racked her brain anymore. Taking a long shower, she decided to go to the grocery store to take her mind off of it all, she needed some fresh air. Before leaving she went over to the fax machine, because she heard it go off. It was from John Dandridge. Eager to know what he was talking about, yet wanting to hurry and get out the door, she decided to stick the fax in her back pants pocket and read it while at the grocery store.

Before leaving out the house, she found an old army knife with a belt and wrapped it around her ankle using her loose pants to cover this up. If she was going in public she wanted to make sure she had a weapon of some kind.

As she parked at the shopping strip where she had first met Thaddeus Newman, she convinced herself it was a dream. Talking to Thaddeus these past two days had just made her hallucinations stronger to the point that her mind was affecting her body. It would be impossible for her to have made love to him because she was certain they had not made love at her home.

The place she’d dreamed of was much too expensive, and she had not driven her car last night, because the odometer was in the same place she had left it yesterday. Although there was the question of her pajamas being at the foot of her bed, she could have easily kicked them off since the dream was so intense. Maybe her period was coming, she concluded. Her body always acted strange when her period came on, although the birth control had immediately began to work on cutting down her flow.

So if Thaddeus called her today? She would just pretend like the hallucination never happened. It never happened so why should she feel embarrassed about it. She would act normal when she spoke to him, but she would let him know of the medical center.

He might know someone privately on the police force that could assist her. When she thought about just walking into a police station, she thought about the articles she had found in the library about two cops beating a witness who was part of Trevor Coleman’s case the police were forming against the crime boss. The cops mysteriously received five thousand dollars that could not be traced to any one or any business. Internal Affairs suspected the money had come from ‘an illegal source.’ She did not want to be beaten half to death and left in a coma for the rest of her life, like the other victims. Regular cops could not be trusted when it came to Trevor Coleman.

Getting out the car, and grabbing a buggy, she went inside the grocery store for an uneventful time.

Going to the vegetable aisle first, she picked out a nice cantaloupe. There was a specialty oil rack nearby and for some reason she was drawn to it. Not only did it have cooking oils, but potpourri oils as well. Her fingers clearly weeded out all other bottles and went straight for what her senses were picking up on.

Pulling the bottle off the shelf, she immediately drew it to her nose and closed her eyes.

Behind her a deep voice said near her ear, “jasmine.”

Warm shivers went down her spine, and then she opened her eyes telling herself she was not hallucinating. Turning around abruptly, her eyes went wide as she met those beautiful dancing cinnamon eyes and jumped back from his propinquity. In her haste she knocked over the specialty rack and a table of onions that were behind the rack. She stumbled back and fell hard on her butt under more onions.

Skye was embarrassed beyond belief and buried her face in her hands not believing the reality of this moment.

Others gathered around her, but all she could hear was her heartbeat pounding in her ears.

Closing her eyes tightly she forced herself to take control of her emotions and not act like a ninny around him. His attention was still new to her and she wondered would she ever get use to this man and what he did to her equilibrium.

Composing herself, she took a deep breath and put her hands down. A clerk asked her if she was all right and she nodded.

Thaddeus still stood above her looking concerned. Of course he was, she had just behaved like a ninny. Skye told herself she must get over her nervousness around him.

Thaddeus outstretched his hand to her and she took it hoping her palms didn’t sweat as he gently pulled her up. She almost slipped again on an onion, but he used his other arm to quickly come around her and steady her against him.

Their bodies were pressed against each other and she looked up into his gaze. He was searching for something with his eyes. What?

She quickly lowered her eyes to his neck, and when she still felt uncomfortable, her eyes lowered to his partially opened shirt where she was looking directly at his collarbone.

Her breathing stopped and her mouth dropped open. She wanted to scream, she wanted to faint, she wanted to shake, but her body nor mind would not move or respond to anything she wanted to do. Instead her hands gripped his arms harder until her nails dug in his skin, but he didn’t seem to notice. He was still watching her.

Her eyes would not let go of the strawberry shaped burn scar under his collarbone. She wrenched her hands free from his arms and moved it up to his shirt. Before he could stop her she tore open the shirt revealing the think brawny chest. The crowd that had gathered around them, gasped, but Thaddeus didn’t move as her eyes slowly engulfed the scar then slowly moved over to his shoulder, where he still bore the love bite she had put on him last night.

Tears of realization filled those beautiful lavender eyes, as they slowly moved up his neck, over his tight lips, his flaring nose and to those expressive eyes. Eyes that told her what they had shared was the truth. All if it!

‘It was no dream!’ her mind screamed.

With all the strength, confusion, and disgust inside of her, she bawled her fist up and connected it to his face. The crowd gasped louder.

He still didn’t move or respond.

“YOU... STAY AWAY... F-FROM ME!” she screamed backing away sobbing with every word, gasping for every breath. The blackness tried to engulf her, but she shook it away, grasping at her inner strength, pushing her consciousness to not give in to the panic attack that was blanketing her being.

He could see she was fighting herself not to fall to pieces.

Damn, what had he done? Damn, Damn, his selfishness. Thaddeus tried to repair the damage and explain. “I didn’t know it was you until last night. I didn’t know for sure until you showed up at the door.” He tried to grab her, but she jerked away.

“DON’T TOUCH ME,” she seethed through clenched teeth.

There were too many emotions grabbling inside of her making it difficult to speak, to think, to breathe.

“Please don’t do this,” he begged. “I thought-” He couldn’t finish because the tears from her eyes flowed too heavily. This was affecting her more than he thought. He hadn’t thought this through carefully. Damn, Damn, Damn!

Gathering her strength like a robe to enshroud her soul, she ran out the store not stopping until she reached her car.

He followed her, but she had pulled off before he reached the little black Escort. He cared little about anything else. Her mind was not stable and he needed to make sure.

Calling Craig he admitted everything. He even admitted being a selfish bastard. “I don’t care what you have to do, we have to find her. She looked ready to crack. Please Craig, help me.”

“I’ll see what I can do. What time does your flight leave?”

“Fuck that! I won’t leave until I know she is all right. Come get me.” He would just call Thomas to let him know to go to Chicago without him to meet Detective Heart about the daughter.

“I’ll be there in an hour and we’ll go by her place.”

* * *

When she arrived home, she almost turned into the driveway, but saw the front door opened and pulled away slowly not attracting attention to her car. Going to a nearby party store she pulled her car into the parking lot. Walking around the block down the alleyway, she went back to her house from behind. Peering over the fence of her backyard, she recognized Alan and Dr. Ryan Carter standing on the back porch having a cigarette. They were in deep frustrated discussion.

“...should haven taken the drug away from them then, Rye and not waited for them to find out so much. How the hell could you not know they’ve been out the country since yesterday? I told you to keep tabs on them. They probably told her everything.”

“If they told her everything, she would have been at the nearest police station last night not up at the River Place with Newman. She probably doesn’t realize a damn thing. I find her very naïve and readily acceptable to the situation. That’s why she was the perfect candidate,” Dr. Carter defended himself.

“Naïve? That bitch has got evidence that connects us to the center.” He shook a hand full of papers. “All my pop needs to know is that you let her go and you’re toast Ryan. You’re gonna end up just like your partners—dead.”

Other noises could be heard from inside the house, and Alan angrily called in from the back door, “Stop making all that fucking noise for the police come.”

She ducked down the alley again and waited in an unknown backyard storage shed until nightfall. Waiting gave her time to sort out her thoughts and feelings about Thaddeus Newman. As she relaxed and concentrated more, her thoughts made the strawberry shaped scar more evident in her mind and what she had done last night. The love they made had not been given from a man with lustful intentions and as she remembered how wanton she had behaved the end results was bound to happen, yet he still could have stopped her. He must have known she wasn’t in her right mind. ‘He must have!’ she repeatedly tried to convince herself.

Feeling herself becoming frustrated about this matter, she turned her thoughts to how she had gotten in this situation. She had always been a person who didn’t trust anyone, so how had she allowed this drug to come into her life.

The only way she could reason everything was that, Dr. Himes was a doctor. She had always been close to Dr. Welch and moving to the big city all alone away from Dr. Welch had probably shifted her trust over to these doctors. These doctors weren’t really there to help people, but to hurt them, caring not whom they killed to get their stupid research to work.

When the coast was clear at her home and all was quiet, she jumped over the fence going straight to the doghouse. Dr. Carter and Alan now knew how much information on them she knew and she didn’t want to die. Now the police needed to know and she needed to enlist the help of the only person she trusted at this moment—Thaddeus.

As she was about to leave out the yard, several police cars pulled up and a detective car came all the way in the driveway. She ducked down behind the doghouse and watched. The driver got out saying, “Stay in here, Thad. I want to check the house one more time.

This might not be good.” He walked in the house. Soon as the other policemen followed, she gasped as Thaddeus got out the car. How did he get involved so soon?

Thaddeus, being stubborn as a bull, went into the house as well. Soon as the coast was clear she hopped back over the fence and went around a neighbor’s house while they were all inside.

There was one cop on the porch waiting, but not looking her way. She checked to see if the back of the detective car was unlocked. To her blessing, the handle went all the way up and she crawled inside with her bag and ducked down.

After fifteen minutes, both men sat in front. “Dammit Thaddeus this would have never happened if you had listened to me. You knew getting near her would do this.”

“Don’t talk to me. Don’t say one word to me,” she sneered at Thaddeus. “I never want to speak to you again.” Both of the men could hear the wavering of her voice on the brink of insanity.

Thaddeus forgot reason and started to speak again. “I will throw you out of this car, if you keep being selfish, Thaddeus. You even admitted when you wanted me to find her you were a selfish bastard,” Craig threatened. “She has been through enough of your shit so don’t say one more fucking word or I’ll make sure you can’t see straight. Dammit, I should have pulled you from undercover when I knew you were too emotionally involved.”