Hidden in Dreams (9 page)

The traffic around Miami was awful. Jacob had been there often enough, for reasons he saw no need to explain. Which Elena took to signify that a woman was involved. Without his guidance she doubted they would ever have arrived at their destination. He directed her down small palm-lined roads, through a subdivision of one-story concrete bungalows, until they turned onto the main shopping street of Coral Gables. They halted in front of the Ritz-Carlton, an upscale hotel of brick and glass that was built to resemble an Aztec pyramid, right down to the hanging vines that tumbled down the stepping-stone structure.

They followed the instructions passed on by Jacob’s colleague, and took the elevator to the top floor. A portly young man was seated where the elevators opened into the main hallway, talking softly into his phone and making rapid notes. He held up one finger, signaling for them to wait. The young man did not appear to have a single sharp edge to his body. Even his voice was soft, a melodious tone that lingered on each word. Elena decided his patients probably all loved him for his voice. Every word seemed to carry the promise of comfort.

He shut the phone and stood. “Forgive me. That was a patient I had to cancel because of the issue bringing us together. Dr. Burroughs, what an honor. I have long admired you from
afar. Bob Meadows. I loved your book. Positively adored it. I’ve read it six times. Or is it seven? Never mind. Thank you so much for coming.”

“The fact that we’ve remained friends is an indication of how much I value the man,” Jacob said.

“Never mind Jacob. He was born with a rampant gene. All behaviorists possess this. It requires them to spend their entire lives hunting madly for order inside the chaos of human existence.”

“Bob and I were roommates in college,” Jacob said. “We’ve been arguing ever since.”

“And with good reason. When I heard what he’d said to you at the Emory event, Dr. Burroughs, I was mortified. Jacob has always assumed that a good mind and a faculty with words make him right on all matters. It is one of his greatest faults. I hope he has apologized.”

“Profusely,” Jacob confirmed.

“Please come this way.” Bob Meadows started down the carpeted hallway. “My patient is extremely concerned about confidentiality. He’ll no doubt insist upon hearing this from your own lips. I’ve been treating his daughter, who has a substance abuse problem. Then six days ago, he called and requested an appointment of his own.”

He knocked on the double-doors of a suite. At a muffled response from within, he opened the doors and said, “Senator, your visitors are here.”

•    •    •

United States Senator Mario Suarez was a bullish man. Everything about him was stubby and aggressive, even the way he sat. He crouched on one corner of the seat, as though angry with the need to remain in the chair. He gripped the chair arms hard enough to bunch his shoulders and crease his suit jacket. “I want you to stop these dreams.”

“Dreams,” Jacob repeated. “Plural.”

“Two of them. Bob here tells me the others have also had the second one.”

Bob confirmed, “All five of the clinicians we’ve been in touch with have reported the same.”

“This second dream,” Jacob said. “Could I confirm, Senator, it follows the pattern of—”

“The street, the crowd, the line, the soup kitchen. Yeah, it’s the same.” His English was perfect, and harsh in the manner of one used to wielding power. Mario Suarez was a very familiar face, a spokesperson for the Latin-American community, conservative and family-oriented and hardworking and determined to call this country their own. He was Cuban by heritage, and impatient by nature. “I got the message. Now call them off.”

Elena had no problem letting the others speak. Jacob glanced her way, noted her determined silence, and said, “It’s not that simple, Senator.”

Senator Suarez tapped his gold ring on the chair arm. A rapid staccato beat. “What about some kind of pill?”

“We’ve been through this,” Bob Meadows said in his serene voice. “The others who used sleeping aids all found themselves trapped in the dreams. They say it just cycles over and over.”

“That can’t happen. Once is bad enough.” The senator punched the space between him and the window. “You see the mess this country is in right now. I’ve got a hundred different crises I’m supposed to be dealing with. I can’t go into the next finance committee meeting and scream my head off about some dream.”

Jacob asked, “What if this is the only way the dreams will stop?”

Elena felt herself confronted by the dreaded prospect and shuddered.

Senator Suarez barked, “Forget it. Not happening.”

“Just think about it for a moment,” Jacob pressed gently. “Every recipient of these dreams has felt an urgent need to tell the world. What if the dreams stop once you all tell the world—”

“I’ll take the dreams.” The senator’s teeth ground with angry determination. “Look. My grandfather sailed here from Cuba with my father in his arms. My grandmother died in the crossing. I’ve spent my whole life to get where I am today. I do this for my people. I’m not going to shame myself or them or my grandfather’s memory by standing up and making a fool of myself.”

Elena had a sudden sense of an unseen portal opening before her. Beyond it was an image of what was coming. What now seemed inevitable. As though everything had been leading up to this point. The recent book tour, the notoriety, her move to Florida, Rachel’s arrival, even the meeting with Jacob Rawlings—all of it moving steadily toward this moment.

Jacob said thoughtfully, “What if it only requires one person?”

“A spokesperson,” Bob Meadows agreed. “Someone who makes the announcement on behalf of all the dreamers.”

Senator Suarez brightened immensely. “Now you’re talking.”

“This could work,” Bob said. “It will need to be someone who can garner this level of attention . . .”

All three men turned her way. Elena saw the door looming up ahead. She knew it was there, and knew she had no choice but to say the words. Even so, she had to claw for the breath to speak.

“I’ll do it.”

8

T
he phone call came as they stepped from the elevator into the hotel lobby. Elena reached into her purse. “I’m sorry. I thought I turned this thing off.”

“You probably did,” Bob Meadows said. “My daughter claims the newest ones have a mind of their own.”

“This is Elena.”

Rachel Lamprey’s voice was brusque to the point of rudeness. “Where are you now?”

“The Ritz-Carlton.”

“The one in Coral Gables, yes? I know it. Hold on.” The phone went silent.

Jacob asked, “Who is it?”

“The same woman who called as we were leaving Orlando. Her name is Rachel Lamprey.”

“She’s a patient?”

“No. Rachel is . . .” Elena wondered how to encapsulate Rachel and Miriam and the ancient tomes and all that had gone before.

Bob supplied, “Another dream recipient?”

“No. But she is definitely involved.” Elena held up one finger as the phone clicked back to life.

Rachel said, “The company jet will be landing in the Coral Gables private airfield in exactly eighty minutes.”

“I drove down in my car.”

“A corporate staffer will meet you planeside. Give them the keys. They will drive it back to Melbourne. I will have a car deliver you when we’re done here.”

“I can drive—”

“This can’t wait. Things are happening.”

“All right. But how are you able to—” Elena stopped talking because the line went dead.

•    •    •

The hotel shared a small hill with a pair of apartment buildings and a high-rise office complex. The circular brick drive sloped down to join the town’s main shopping street. Jacob and Bob Meadows listened carefully to her description of Rachel Lamprey and the mysterious summons, then both men agreed that if the corporation considered it so urgent as to send a private jet, they should probably make themselves available. Bob Meadows suggested they walk down to a shop he knew that did nice takeout meals. There was nothing at the regional airfield but a fuel depot, the offices, and some candy machines.

The two men slipped into the easy companionship of years. They talked as professionals and as friends, going over the meeting with the senator as they had probably discussed hundreds of other cases. They did not exclude Elena. She was given space in their small company, and made welcome. Her silence was simply part of the moment, a trait they accepted because they accepted her.

Elena wished she could share their camaraderie. It would have been so nice to spend an hour or so talking as a clinician in
the company of her peers. But the prospect of going public loomed before her. Its huge anxious bulk enveloped her. She felt isolated and alone.

Elena had no idea why she disliked the public spotlight. There had once been a time when she had thought fame would be nice. While she was writing the book, she had often imagined herself standing at the podium and expounding to the world. But once she arrived in that very spot, she had discovered that it was a poisonous light, at least for her.

In her experience, the problem was not the glare of publicity, but rather everything else. All the potential goodness was leeched away by stress and travel and repetitive questions and empty faces. Most of the radio and television interviewers had no idea who she was, or what she had written. They had assistants who read the book and prepared the questions and made all the arrangements. Elena arrived on set, was prepped by these same aides, had her face and hair fashioned into a brittle mask for the cameras, then was ushered into an uncomfortable chair that still smelled from the last guest. The interviewers did not speak to Elena at all. Instead, they played for the camera and the unseen public. Elena was made to feel like a rank amateur, granted a brief moment on this very odd stage, before being whisked off and her place taken by another amateur, everyone competing for a spot in an alien world.

Her public appearances were hardly any better. She was always rushed. The greater her acclaim became, the larger the crowds, the less time she had to speak meaningfully with anyone. She was met planeside by a handler who whisked her from book signing to interview to podium. She arrived at her hotel late and exhausted. She was woken up too early, and forced into another whirlwind day. Over and over, until she saw nothing and felt less.

And now it was all about to happen again.

Elena’s sense of disconnect from Jacob and Bob’s discussion meant she was the only one who saw the approaching threat.

A figure rode toward them on a motorcycle, one of those machines where they were crouched like jockeys on a racehorse. The driver wore black leather with red lightning bolts on the jacket and the pants. His face was hidden beneath a helmet with a mirrored surface—at least Elena assumed it was a man; she could not be certain. His knee-high boots were drawn up almost to his chest, and he leaned forward to grasp the controls. It was a machine built for speed, and yet the motorcycle crawled down the street. The engine rumbled like a pot about to explode.

It was neither afternoon nor dusk, but rather another of those slow Florida processions toward night. The sun had long since set. But there was no hurry to the close of day. The sky was streaked with a painter’s languid brush, as if nature wished to apologize for the storms and the humid heat. Jacob and Bob walked in tandem just ahead of her. Their heads were back, as they softly laughed toward the sky.

The motorcyclist removed one gloved hand from the handlebars and slipped it into the top of his boot. He came out with something black and long. Elena realized this was a silenced gun.

As this was still registering, Elena noticed the white van just ahead of them. A side door was open, and the shadows inside congealed into approaching doom.

“Down! Get down!”

Elena threw herself into the two men. They fell onto the pavement in an astonished heap, landing behind a delivery truck. The silenced guns sounded like a stuttering engine of death.

Elena knew their only hope was to raise the alarm. She had no idea she could scream as loud as she did.

From their position beneath the truck, she could see copper casings fall like lethal rain on the vehicle’s other side. Fragments
of the building struck her. Sparks flew off the pavement. And still she screamed.

It seemed like eons before the motorcyclist roared away. The van’s engine boomed and the tires screeched and suddenly it was over.

Only then did she see the blood oozing from Bob’s forehead.

9