Loving Night: Dream Catcher Series ~ Book 2 (16 page)

Karen and Phailin were excited
about the new dimensions to Stephanie’s gift and the way she had decided to
corral them. Neither of the women had heard of anyone controlling precognition
in any way, but they were still supportive of Stephanie’s attempts. A week had
passed since the argument between Stephanie and Chaz, so she’d had plenty of
opportunities to practice her theory.

“I’m still being sucked into the
emotions of whatever the vision is, but it’s getting easier to immediately
shake it off. I find an inanimate object in the scene to focus on and my mind
splits its observations. I don’t seem to be missing out on any details even
though I’m not giving 100 percent of my attention. It’s like having music as
background noise when I’m trying to focus on a project at work. Of course, it’s
possible that these dreams aren’t as much of a challenge as the ones involving
Chaz will be. Who knows?” Stephanie popped a grape into her mouth as she
participated in this three-way call that was on the cell phone’s speaker.

“I guess we’ll just have to wait
and see,” Karen commented. “Hopefully you and I won’t be so strongly connected.
I love you, Steph, but I also love my sleep.” Everyone laughed.

“And I’m glad that you don’t need
me to meditate with you on Sundays,” Phailin added. “I don’t mind, but it’s
good to see that you are stronger.”

“Yeah, I feel confident about where
I am with this gift. Everything feels right.”

Stephanie’s words couldn’t be
truer. All of these women felt peaceful. They only talked for a few minutes
longer before Phailin had to get off the call so that she could start preparing
dinner for her husband. David wouldn’t care if his wife served him hot dogs,
but Phailin was determined to give him a good meal whenever her work schedule
allowed her to be at home. Everyone promised to talk again soon before hanging
up.

Stephanie wiped the counter, slid
her cell phone to one edge of it, and plopped a lump of unshaped dough onto the
center. Kneading was always relaxing.

Tonight would be homemade pizza
night with popcorn and an action movie. That should relax Chaz. Maybe she’d
even offer to burn some incense and give him a massage before bedtime. While
Stephanie hadn’t had any dreams specific to him that indicated anything was
wrong, he seemed tense and a little distracted.

She giggled at the image of making
sure he was comfortable before tucking him into bed.

That thought led to another
thought: in just a few months, they would welcome their first child. Stephanie
would enjoy tucking her—she was almost positive of the baby being a girl—into
bed, eventually reading stories, watching her grow from an infant to a toddler.
She could hardly wait to be a mom. Chaz was excited about those same things; he
was going to make a great dad. Their baby would be loved and cherished and
encouraged.

“I hope that smile is for me.”
Chaz’s voice nearly made her jump across the room. She hadn’t heard him come
in. He walked over to her and dropped a kiss on her shoulder. Despite the cool
weather outside, Stephanie was dressed in a tank shirt and thin yoga pants. “I
was thinking about taking you out for dinner to make up for being gone all day
on a Saturday.”

“We can do that tomorrow.” She
covered the dough that she had rolled into a ball before turning to face her
husband. “I want to stay home and have you all to myself.”

“Deal.” He kissed her forehead. “Do
you want to know what I was doing today?”

“Sure—if you want to tell me.” She
stepped over to the sink so that she could wash the sticky flour from her
fingers.

“I was looking at cars.”

“Cars?”

“Yep.” He leaned his elbows on the
counter. “You need a new car and I wanted some ideas about where to start. Of
course, I don’t plan on picking it out; I’m only making sure the safety rating
and gas mileage are good.”

“Why do I need a new car?”

“Besides the fact that yours is six
years old, you need one where the doors open a little wider so that we can
easily get the baby carrier in and out. Plus, I want both of us to have the
highest safety ratings we can afford.”

“Are you getting a new car, too?”

“Nope. My SUV is already what we
need.”

Stephanie shrugged, indicating she
wouldn’t resist his decision, and leaned toward her husband for a brief kiss.
Again, she thought about how comfortable her life was at the moment. Her gift,
her career, and her marriage were all at a place of peace. That feeling stayed
as the couple stood side by side chopping the vegetables that would go on the
pizza and into the salad.

~
~ ~ ~ ~

Only minutes after Chaz arrived at
work, he was called into a meeting with Roy and Steve. His instincts instantly
told him that he wouldn’t like what they had to say. He was right.

“I’ve been keeping up with the
interrogation of Brian Pleasant,” was how Roy began the meeting the second the
door to the conference room closed. He slid folders across the table for both
of his employees. “We’ve held him in custody for these past weeks in order to
verify the information he provided as part of his attempt to get us to reduce
the charges. You won’t be happy with what we’re learning.”

Steve and Chaz skimmed over the
pages of the latest briefing summary. When Chaz closed the folder and stared at
the table for several minutes, the other men in the room remained silent. They
knew that when Chaz spoke again, he would have processed the information and
begun formulating a strategy to deal with the fact that Paul Watkins was trying
to relocate to Cincinnati.

“Obviously, my first priority is to
make sure our paths don’t cross since he probably wants to kill me,” he stated
wryly. Chaz was supposed to be serving a three-year prison sentence in Arizona
as Chaz Winters, the alias that Paul Watkins knew him under. “My second
priority is to go back through the reports that have been submitted by each
Field Office to see whether we are missing anything that could add to or
strengthen the charges we already intend to make. Finally, I want to be on the
team that puts the handcuffs on him. It does no good for me to destroy my cover
identity, so I don’t need for him to see me. I simply want to see him.”

“That’s basically what I expected
you to say.” Roy nodded. “With the exception of the Damien Granger project, all
of your cases are being divided between the other analysts. Effective
immediately, you’re reassigned to the task force with Steve. We can’t let Watkins
get established in our city. This bastard needs to be brought in sooner rather
than later.” He turned to Steve. “Spend the rest of the morning bringing Chaz
up to speed. I’m going to meet with the prosecutors so they’ll understand why
we have a vested interest in making sure Brian Pleasant is held in custody for
as long as possible.” He stood and walked out of the room, closing the door on
the other men.

“Let me summarize what we already
know.” Steve pushed his chair away from the table and crossed an ankle over the
opposite knee. “After our case in Erie ended, Watkins chose Buffalo as his next
site for a proposed gambling operation. Unfortunately, he had to delay the venture
because of problems in Chicago. It seems that he doesn’t play well with others and
is in danger of losing parts of his territory and scope of activities that he’d
already been trusted with. He’s trying to expand beyond the I-90 corridor in
preparation for what seems unavoidable. Our area isn’t as tightly organized as
the northern regions. That’s why he’s here.

“We have several charges that we
can stick on him and a few of them are even felonies. But, the more serious
charges remain unverified. Agent Long was debriefed and can testify that money
was exchanged between Granger and Watkins when Granger was under the impression
that he was getting a partner instead of being the target of a hostile takeover,
but that information might not convince a prosecutor to pursue those charges. The
brothel could have been the felony that would have given weight to the other
investigations and brought this problem to a close. Without it, we’re going to
have to go back through the files and determine whether we can turn a minor
charge into a major felony. My instinct tells me that something important is
being overlooked.”

“Are we still tracking him in
Cincy? Have we tied him to any local activities?” Chaz asked.

“Not yet. There are rumors that we’re
trying to get Pleasant to corroborate.” He shrugged. “It seems that his cousin
is a captain in Watkins’ organization; that’s how Brian was recruited to help
the crime boss. The forensics department has allocated a technician to retrace
the activity on his official and personal computers to see whether we can find
out what internal FBI data he accessed. If successful, that might give us an
idea of where to start.”

“This could turn into a huge
problem.” When Steve nodded, Chaz continued with, “My priorities don’t change.
I’m not interested in Brian Pleasant’s activities. Forensics can only implicate
him in criminal activity, not Watkins. I’m only concerned with staying in the
background and figuring out what I can add to our investigation.”

“We’ve been authorized unlimited
overtime. As a member of the task force, you now have access to all of the
reports that have been submitted on this project.  I’ll get the notes I’ve been
making.”

“Paper notes?”

Steve smiled and said, “They can’t
be hacked.”

Not even a full minute had passed
between Steve walking out of the room and Stephanie sending Chaz a text
message.

Stephanie:
Vision. Can’t talk
now. You won’t leave work until after 9. I will deliver dinner for 3 at 6:30.

Chaz:
Thanks

As he put his phone away, the
thought crossed his mind that Stephanie might get pulled into this case. That
would be fine, especially if she could help them find the needle in a haystack
that could pull these investigations together.

Steve returned with copies of handwritten
pages and memos that had been sent to members of the multi-regional task force
assigned to track Paul Watkins and other criminals whose activities were
crossing the boundaries of FBI territories.

“This will probably work best if we
take different cases. You can have Ohio, Northern Pennsylvania, and Western New
York. I’ll take Illinois and Northern Michigan. If you see indications that a
scenario involves one of my cities, let me know and I’ll do the same. If the
information indicates we need to broaden our search to cities that haven’t
already been addressed, we’ll split those as we find them. Let’s compare
summaries at the end of each day.” He dropped into a chair next to Chaz and
leaned forward as if he wanted make sure the rest of their conversation
couldn’t be overheard.

“Roy didn’t say it, but obviously
you’re in a much more precarious situation than I’m comfortable with. We don’t
know which of Watkins’ men—if any—saw you in Erie. We do know that he didn’t
appreciate Chaz Winters taking $250,000 of his money without him getting anything
in return. So, tell me what you want to do in order to stay safe.”

Chaz only needed a moment to
address the issue of his safety.

“If we can confirm that Brian
Pleasant didn’t access any information about me that would blow my cover
identities, I’m not worried about Watkins’ men tracking me between my home and
FBI headquarters. I will, however, curtail social plans that require me to be
in public places for any more than a few minutes until Watkins is arrested. I’d
appreciate getting photos of all of the known players.” He took a deep breath.
“Stephanie knew our plans and says she’s bringing dinner since we’ll be working
late.”

Steve’s knowing smile matched Chaz’s.

“The interesting thing,” Chaz
continued softly enough that Steve was reminded that they shouldn’t be overheard,
“is that she didn’t wait until nighttime to tell me this.” He watched his team
leader’s brows wrinkle as he considered that piece of information before his
eyes opened wide in a questioning stare. “Things have evolved.” Chaz confirmed
with a shrug and turned his attention to the papers the other man had given
him.

Steve made sure that Chaz didn’t
have any questions about the handwritten notes before the men separated and
returned to their individual cubicles. Reviewing the material was going to be a
long, tedious process.

When the men took a break for
lunch, they met at Steve’s vehicle so they could discuss Stephanie.

“So, tell me what has evolved.”

“She’s having daytime visions now,
and I also think she might be willing to play a role in our investigation—but I
need to ask her again. My wife is a lot tougher than she was last year. I don’t
think she’ll scare easily.”

“Good.” Steve studied Chaz’s face
for a while. “Are you okay with her helping us?”

“Since I was told that she has to
do her part to protect this family, I guess I’ll have to be. She’s going to
make her decision independent of my preferences.”

“Okay. We’ll figure out what you
can tell her and wait for her to have a dream about it. Of course, I’m still
not going to put her involvement in any of our reports.” Steve laughed. “Roy
isn’t going to look at me like I’m crazy. I just got this job and would like to
keep it for a while.”