had full control over it and could make these two Russians leave anytime he wanted. But he wasn’t sure of that. He also didn’t want them to leave. At least not yet. He wanted to hear more of what this man had to say.
The Russian sensed what Shannon was thinking. A sly smile showed on his lips. “You know you were lying to her before,” he said. “About us not bothering you again if you keep sticking your nose in our business. You know we will come for you. Her too. And you know we will hurt her. Very much. You don’t even have a gun to protect her, do you?”
Shannon involuntarily shook his head.
“What type of detective don’t have gun,” the Russian mused. “
There was some truth to that. Shannon had never gotten a gun permit as a way of showing Susan that he wasn’t going to take any dangerous cases. At least that was the plan. Now it was too late. Even if he applied for a permit tomorrow, it would take six months. How was he going to defend Susan against these Russians if they came after them? With a roll of quarters? A baseball bat? What good would that do against two stone cold killers armed with.45s?
The Russian smiled thinly. “So that is the answer,” he said. “You never got gun to prove your love. How romantic. But leaves you now, how you say, up shits creek. If you have any brains you keep nose out of our business!”
“How is that cult your business?”
“Not smart question to ask.” The Russian looked over at his partner and smiled sadly. “Never see my friend before want a woman as bad as yours. Look at him, he barely knows where he is now. I let him do what he wants, it will not be pretty sight.”
“Fuck you. How is that cult your business?”
“Then I answer this way,” the Russian said with a tired shrug. “A secret.”
“Who the fuck are the two of you? Ex-KGB?”
“Anything possible,” the Russian said, again shrugging.
Dmitry’s breathing had become more ragged as he stared at Susan. The older Russian glanced at him and told Shannon how it could be interesting anyway to let his friend do as he wants. “We can see how well you control your dreams,” he said, his laugh ugly and coarse.
“Okay, okay,” the Russian said. “Don’t get your panties in uproar. You want us leave, we leave. Just ask yourself if you want us back for real.” He turned to his friend and pulled him by the arm. “Next time, Dimi,” he promised him. “We see her again and I will let you do what you want.” Dmitry reluctantly let himself be dragged to the door, all the while staring with a hot white intensity in Susan’s direction. Then, without the door opening, the two were gone. As if they’d faded into the air.
In the split second between semi-consciousness and waking, Shannon felt as if he were in freefall. Then he swung up in bed, his heart racing a mile a minute, his body damp with sweat. In a near panic he reached out and felt Susan next to him. The sheet had slipped off her and his hand touched her bare thigh. She was sound asleep. He let his hand linger there for a long moment as he tried to slow down his breathing.
The room was dark, shadowy. In his dream the room had been as bright as daylight. Slowly he regained his orientation. He squinted at the alarm clock and saw it was three-twenty-four in the morning.
He sat motionless for several minutes as he tried to make sense of his dream. It had seemed ultra realistic with none of the sloughing through molasses feel or lack of control that a normal dream has. But he never felt as if he had complete control over it, and at times, wasn’t even sure he was dreaming. This was something other than the lucid dreams he’d been experimenting with.
He left the bed and walked to the bathroom sink. There, he splashed cold water over his face, then risked a look at himself in the mirror. He shuddered involuntarily at what he saw. His face looked drawn, his eye and jaw still swollen badly, his skin the same whitish-gray color he’d seen on dozens of drug addicts he’d encountered over the years. Lowering his head he splashed more cold water over his face, this time avoiding any glance of himself in the mirror.
As he thought more about his dream, he wished he had a chance to discuss it with Eli. He knew that it was partly his subconscious warning him about things he’d overlooked, such as the Russians being able to locate him through Susan’s name. In the morning he’ll have the front desk change their registration to an alias. He also knew he had only been fooling himself before. If he kept digging into that cult, those two Russians would come after him again. There was no chance that they wouldn’t. Maybe his dream was simply a warning to him to drop the case. As he thought about it, he felt unsettled. He knew he couldn’t drop it. He couldn’t just leave Pauline Cousins and her daughter to fend for themselves. He was going to do what he had to and worry about the Russians later.
When he got back in bed, Susan turned over so that the side of her face pressed against his chest and her legs lay over his. Shannon put his arm around her thin shoulder. He lay like that for a long time just feeling the shallow, rhythmic rising and falling of her breathing. Eventually, he closed his eyes but didn’t sleep again that night.
Chapter 9
Had the Gibson family home been in Aspen it would’ve made a nice ski lodge. As it was, sitting on a cul-de-sac with a lake view, it was impressive. A big stone Tudor styled to look as if it had been built in Europe during the nineteenth century. An attached four car garage did little to alter the illusion.
Shannon tried the front door, found no one home, then went back to his car to camp out. At a quarter past eleven it was hotter than it had been in Boulder all summer. He had parked in the shade and had the driver and passenger windows rolled down, but even so felt like he was baking in an oven. He was trying to get comfortable in his seat when a police cruiser pulled up behind him.
The cop took his time making his way from his cruiser to Shannon’s door. When he got there, he leaned into the open window and asked if Shannon wouldn’t mind telling him what he was doing there.
“I checked in with the desk sergeant at your North Main Street station when I arrived in Wichita,” Shannon said. “I told him my reason for coming here.”
“Sir, would you mind telling me.”
“Not at all. My name’s Bill Shannon. I’m a private investigator from Boulder, Colorado. I’m looking into Linda Gibson’s murder and am hoping to be able to talk to her parents. If you’d like I could show you my PI license.”
“Yes sir, I think that would be a fine idea.”
Shannon handed him his license. The cop couldn’t have been much older than his early twenties. Medium build with a military-style buzz cut and mirrored sunglasses hiding his eyes. He took his time studying the license before handing it back to Shannon.
“Sir, I’d like to ask you how you got those cuts and bruises on your face.”
As polite a manner in which his questions were asked, the cop’s hand still moved an inch or so towards the butt end of his nightstick. “A couple of Russian mobsters tried to persuade me to drop another investigation I’m working on,” Shannon said.
The cop stood motionless for a minute as he leaned into the open window, all the while smiling pleasantly. Then he told Shannon to stay where he was while he checked his story. Taking his time, he sauntered back to his cruiser and spent a while on his radio before coming back to Shannon’s car.
“Sir, you did report in at the North Main Street station as you said,” he told Shannon. “I’d like to ask whether Mr. or Mrs. Gibson expect you here.”
“They’d have no reason to.”
“Wouldn’t it have been common courtesy?”
“I thought it would be better this way.”
The cop kept smiling his pleasant smile. “Now why would that be?”
Completely straight-faced, Shannon looked into the cop’s mirrored glasses and told him that he didn’t call ahead of time so the Gibsons wouldn’t worry unnecessarily. “I don’t think it would be much fun to have to wait several days to be asked questions about your daughter who’s been murdered,” he added.
“Now, that’s good you’re keeping their welfare in mind,” the cop said drily. “And you’re right, they don’t need
