Secrets Amoung The Shadows (10 page)

He lifted his head and stared at nothing. Maybe he could access it. In the dream he'd seen himself driving down the street, turning at the corner. With a chill, he realized that everything had been so clear, he could remember the names on the street sign. The intersection wasn't far from where he lived.

He nodded and went on down to the underground parking garage. He'd have liked to ask if Fred had seen him a few minutes ago, but the man would think he was nuts.

And he was, wasn't he?

His car was in its usual place. That, at least, was reassuring. He unlocked the door, slid behind the wheel and pulled out, tires screaming...the sound echoing the scream of panic inside his head.

He had no trouble locating Leanne's street. As he turned down it, he immediately and frighteningly recognized the street and the house from his dreams. He parked in front and raced up the walk. The porch light was on, and light came through the windows of the downstairs rooms. Leanne must be home.

There was no note on the door. He rang the doorbell and waited, drumming his fingers on the frame, becoming more and more anxious with every second that passed.

No one answered. He rang again, then pounded. Some of those old bells didn't work very well.

Still no response.

What if he had harmed her? What if he'd gone inside and just didn't remember that part? In his dream of killing her, he'd found an unlocked window on one side of the house.

Sending up a silent prayer that he wouldn't find it, he dashed around the house looking for a window that matched the one in his dream.

It was just where he'd seen it.

Panic surrounded him, pushing against him, trying to suffocate him. If that window was unlocked, he didn't know if he could control that panic.

He reached upward and shoved...hard. The window didn't budge, and he felt a moment of giddy relief.

But despair again overwhelmed him. The death dream was something that hadn't happened. So what if another window had been unlocked tonight, a different window?

He charged around the house, tripping over rocks, trampling flowers and getting scratched by bushes, testing every window on the first floor, ending up back on her porch. That window, like all the others, was securely locked.

What should he do now? Continue pounding on the door, rouse the neighbors and have them call the police? Or go home and spend the night worrying?

A whoosh of air sounded behind him. Before he could turn, something heavy slammed against his back, knocking him to the wooden boards of the porch. An unseen monster with hot breath growled menacingly as Eliot tried to roll over and defend himself.

In spite of everything, Eliot let out a long sigh of relief. At the movement, the creature on his back snarled again, its breath hot on his neck, sending shivers down his spine.

"I dreamed I was here, and I threatened you," he explained. "I called you and didn't get an answer, so I came over." Anguish rose as he realized what she must be thinking. "It's all right," he said. "I'm...myself."

"I'm going to call off Dixie, Mr. Eliot Kane, but she can have your throat between her jaws in a split second if you make one wrong move. Dixie, release."

The weight lifted from his back, and Eliot rolled over, then climbed to his feet. The huge black Doberman now sitting inches away bared her teeth in a snarl at his sudden movement.

"Easy, girl," the short, white-haired man standing beside Leanne quieted the dog.

Leanne studied the man on her porch. He was Eliot now; she was positive of that. Almost positive. She'd been momentarily deceived once that evening.

"Eliot, this is my friend, Thurman Powers...Dr. Thurman Powers, and his dog, Dixie. Thurman, this is the patient I was telling you about."

Eliot flinched at her words, and she realized he must be feeling extremely vulnerable and exposed.

"Why don't we all go inside," she invited, "have a glass of tea and get acquainted."
Get everyone on the same footing instead of Eliot feeling like a victim
.

Both men nodded though she sensed reluctance on Eliot's part. Thurman, however, was like a race-horse at the gate. When she'd gone over to talk to him after Edward left, rather than being upset at her disturbing his retirement, he'd been intrigued by the complexity of Eliot's case, the many unanswered questions.

She went in with the two men, and Dixie followed close behind.

Greta met them at the door, scampering across the area rug, skidding when she hit the hardwood, tail wagging ecstatically in irregular patterns, greeting the four arrivals in turn, including her buddy, Dixie. She was fascinated with the newcomer, approaching him as if he was her new best friend...completely unlike her earlier behavior when he'd been at the door as Edward.

With a smile, Eliot reached down to pet her. "I think she likes me." Leanne studied his face, his smile, Greta's reaction, and she knew for certain he was Eliot, not Edward.

"Yes," she said slowly, watching Thurman for any clues to what he might be thinking, "she does. But she didn't like Edward. She growled at him both times he was here, tried to lunge out of my arms and attack him tonight. You were right. Edward was here tonight and he did frighten me."

He straightened, despair in his dark gaze, and looked from her to Thurman.

"You can trust Thurman. You need to trust him."

He compressed his lips and shook his head. "Edward. That is his name, isn't it? In my dream you called him that, and he was startled. He wondered how you knew."

"Yes, that's what happened." Leanne's lips felt stiff as she verified that Eliot had been the man at her door. "Sit down and I'll go get some iced tea." She indicated the overstuffed gray sofa with small, pale pink flowers that matched the larger flowers in the area rug. Not exactly a professional setting, but she wasn't accustomed to seeing patients in her home.

Eliot moved toward the sofa, and she went into the kitchen, escaping for a moment until she could regain her composure. This was her first experience with MPD. It was eerie to be frightened by a man then attracted to him all in the same evening.

Bringing Thurman in on the case had definitely been the right thing to do. Not only did she need his expertise, but with another doctor present, she'd have to remain strictly professional. If he and Eliot were compatible, she could, if necessary, request that Thurman take over the case.

Yet, perversely, because she was personally involved, because she admired Eliot's gritted determination in defiance of the agony in his eyes, in spite of her fear of him and of becoming too involved with him, she wanted to be the one to help him.

Thurman sat on the sofa beside Eliot, and the two were engaged in quiet, intense conversation. Greta had curled into a small ball in Eliot's lap, and Dixie had her head on Thurman's feet with her rump against Eliot's ankle. Animals...and Thurman...were foolproof, she thought. They saw the inner person. Eliot had certainly won over the animals. He had a core of goodness—but he also had the potential for evil. She'd be very interested to get Thurman's opinion of him after he left.

"Eliot's been telling me a little about his situation," Thurman said as she handed him a glass of tea. "Very interesting."

Thurman always had been the master of understatement.

Eliot accepted his drink, his fingers touching hers, sending darts of sensation through her body as he took the glass from her. She drew back immediately.

"Thank you," Eliot said, his eyes meeting hers, and for a split second she wondered if he were thanking her for the tea or the touch.

This was ridiculous! She had to stop acting like a lovelorn teenager.

She moved hurriedly across the room and took a seat in an arm chair.

"Leanne," Eliot said, "a few minutes ago you said Greta didn't like Edward—didn't like me." The last words seemed to be dredged up from his depths, an admission he could barely stand to utter.

"That's right. She wanted to attack him. I had to hold her when he was at the door." How odd it was to be talking about him as though he were a separate entity from the man on her sofa. Yet she couldn't bring herself to speak of him any other way. The two were very separate. A body was the only thing they shared.

"But she likes me now. How can that be possible?" He was grasping at straws...all he had to grasp at this point...hoping against the evidence that he hadn't been the one who'd come to her door.

"Animals are very sensitive to moods," she said. "I'm sorry, Eliot." And she was—so desperately sorry. "You were here. I could have been mistaken the first time, seeing someone across the street that I'd only seen once before. But not this time. I saw you from only a few feet away. I talked to you."

He nodded, his long, square-tipped fingers continuing to gently caress the little dog, and she found herself doubting her own words. Part of her couldn't quite accept that Eliot and Edward occupied the same body, the same mind. But that was a subjective view, she reminded herself. She didn't want him to be a sick man, especially a sick man with an evil side that hated her.

"Edward was angry when he came here," Eliot said. "He always seems to be angry."

"Yes, he does," Leanne agreed. "What's he angry about?"

"In my dream I got the impression that he's angry at everything. The world. Me and you. He resented that you rejected him and not me. He's tired of my having things he doesn't. He resents me. I know that doesn't make any sense. I...he, we have the same things. But that's what I got from him."

It did make sense, of course. Split personalities saw themselves as individuals. If Edward had been suppressed for years, he might feel he'd missed out on a lot of things. But this wasn't the right time to tell that to Eliot.

"I got the idea he didn't remember the scene in my office with Bruce Hedlund. He tried to make me believe he did, but he didn't." She glanced in Thurman's direction to see how he would interpret the information. If this personality was missing memories, could there be a third personality involved, one who held those missing memories?

Thurman returned her gaze, giving a brief, barely discernible, nod.

Eliot scowled. "No, he didn't remember. He was upset that he somehow missed it. He thought he needed to pay closer attention so I don't regain control."

"He's worried you're going to regain control?"

Eliot nodded. "That's what he was thinking in the dream."

"Eliot," Thurman began, "do you ever dream about other people besides this Edward?" She'd been right. He, too, was wondering about a third personality.

Eliot's hand stopped stroking Greta. His eyes widened in fear then narrowed in speculation. "You think I have more than one of these...these Mr. Hydes running around inside my head?"

"I think it's much too early to make that kind of diagnosis. Have you had other dreams besides the ones about Edwards?"

"I don't usually remember my dreams, but up until this thing started, they were pretty normal. You know...lying on the beach one minute, climbing a tall building or falling off a cliff the next. And I never before had this sense of watching somebody else, feeling somebody else's emotions. I..." He paused, then took a deep breath. "That's not quite true," he said slowly, haltingly, as if dragging the words from some half-forgotten cavern. "When I was a boy I used to dream about Edward. It seemed to be part of the games we played. I kept pretending even in my sleep. He and I would go treasure hunting on lost islands and things like that in my dreams. Mom and Dad used to get upset with me. They thought I spent too much time with this imaginary friend and too little with real kids."

The muscles in Eliot's jaw tensed, and Leanne knew the answer before he spoke. "Like me," he said. "Even then he looked like me."

Leanne exchanged a quick glance with Thurman, a knowing glance. They would discuss this revelation later, this further confirmation of multiple personality, dissociated at an early age. "These thoughts you have that seem to belong to somebody else, do you think they're Edwards's thoughts?"