“How vivid was this dream when you woke up?”
“Very.”
“How about now?”
“Still very vivid.”
“Then what I’m wondering is whether you had a lucid dream or instead had left your body.”
“I didn’t leave my body,” Shannon said. “I didn’t feel any of the twisting and ripping sensation that I felt that time with Winters.”
“It’s not always like that. You could’ve transitioned gently from the dream plane to another plane of existence.”
“That’s not the case. Linda didn’t seem real to me. Her skin had this unnatural sheen to it. Almost like she were a ceramic doll.”
“Like she was something very fragile?”
“Yeah.”
“That fits. She was projected as the image you needed to see her as. I’m telling you, Bill, I think you had an out-of-body experience.”
“What I’m thinking is something got slipped into your chai,” Shannon said. He found himself drumming his fingers hard along the table surface. The same antsy feeling he had earlier was back again worming its way into his gut.
“Jesus, Bill, why are you so upset about this? This is what you’ve been working towards.”
“I’m not upset, it wasn’t an out-of-body experience, okay?” Shannon checked his watch and pushed himself out of his chair. “I’ve got to get going. I’m meeting someone at eight. Usual time tomorrow morning?”
Eli nodded slowly, his lips pursed as he studied Shannon. “Normal time tomorrow’s fine.” Then showing a thin smile, added, “I still don’t understand this reaction from you. It’s not as if I rubbed your nose in the fact that your beloved Red Sox lost to the lowly Colorado Rockies two nights ago.”
“They took two out of three, which is better than your Yankees have been doing with Tampa Bay.”
Eli crossed his thick arms, his deadpan expression back in place. “A low blow,” he said. “Try to tell me tomorrow why the idea of that being an out-of-body experience upset you as much as it did.”
“Christ, Eli, I’m telling you I’m not upset. Besides, that’s not what it was. See you tomorrow, okay?”
Shannon nodded to his friend as he moved quickly out of the shop. He had a half hour before he was going to stop by Devens office, but the uneasiness that had worked its way into his gut made it hard for him to sit still. He walked fast down Pearl Street, taking deep breaths as he moved. Two blocks from
He took several deep breaths and tried to empty his mind as he stared at the Flatirons off in the horizon. He knew part of the reason for his uneasiness was worrying about those Russians, knowing that he and Susan couldn’t move back to their apartment until they were taken care of. And while he knew Susan could more than adequately take care of herself, he still couldn’t help worrying about her going back to that yoga studio. The thought of his dream being an out-of-body experience bothered him too, maybe more than the rest of it.
He had the thought about that dream being something more real when he first woke up from it. The idea of it had nagged at him all morning. Before meeting with Eli, he tried convincing himself it was only a lucid dream, maybe an extraordinarily vivid one, but still just a dream. He knew why the idea of it being more than that bothered him so much. For five years he’d been trying to learn how to leave his body so he could find his mom and his old partner, Joe DiGrazia. More than anything he wanted to tell them both how sorry he was about what Charlie Winters had done to them. And now that he finally had a chance to do that, he was so wrapped up in a case that he blew it. The opportunity he’d been wanting for so long was gone.
He started laughing as he thought about how much this bothered him.
The thing was he knew it wasn’t bullshit. How could it be with all those years Charlie Winters had invaded his dreams? Even if he could come up with an explanation for that, how could he ignore the time he shot out of his body and floated above it, watching as Winters tortured him by his broken fingers, twisting harder with that nutcracker until those fingers ripped off, then his body, now free, turning on Winters with that knife…
Shannon stood silently for several minutes. Slowly the muscles along his jaw relaxed. He closed his eyes and repeated silently to himself for several minutes that if he could leave his body once he’d be able to leave it again, and that he wouldn’t allow any harm to come to Susan or himself.
His cell phone rang, interrupting him. He felt calmer though, his affirmations working better than cigarettes or shots of Black Bush ever did. He answered the phone and it was Mark Daniels letting him know he had gotten his message the other night. “I owe you one for letting me be there when you go through that condo,” Daniels said, his voice cheery. “What time do you want to do it?”
“How’s nine this morning?”
“Works for me.”
“I’ll pick you up at the station at eight-thirty, we’ll go over the crime scene photos, then -”
“Wait a minute! What’s this shit about crime scene photos?”
“You were going to check that for me, right?”
“Yeah, well, I’m still waiting on word from my captain.”
“You should probably get his word soon,” Shannon said. “At least if you want to be there when I go through that condo.”
“What the fuck you pulling on me?”
“Nothing, except I expect this to be more of a two-way street with us. It’s not going to be just me doing you favors.”
“You just doing me favors?” Daniels sputtered out, nearly choking on his words. “How about me checking on that girl at the True Light cult for you?”
“You did talk to a girl there,” Shannon said. “If you’d actually seen her instead of only talking over an intercom we’d know whether that girl was Melissa Cousins. As it is, neither of us has a clue who you talked to.” There was dead silence on the other end, then Shannon heard some ragged breathing as if Daniels were trying hard to compose himself. Shannon asked, “Do you want me to stop by at eight-thirty or not?”
“Yes, stop by,” Daniels said before hanging up.
Shannon checked his watch. He still had fifteen minutes before he needed to stop by Devens’ office. He found a bench facing the Flatirons, sat down and tried to sort out his thoughts. The downtown mall was beginning to show more life as tourists and locals geared up for the weekend. More rollerbladers decked out in spandex skated by, as did more bicyclists, and more couples whose rubbernecking clearly marked them as being from out of town. A guy wearing a suit and tie and a rubber Dick Cheney mask strolled by with a Capuchin monkey on his shoulder. The monkey was also dressed up in a little suit and tie. Shannon guessed that the monkey was supposed to be George W. Bush. He had to admit it was clever, but not too smart. Even at that hour he could tell it was going to be another hot day. It wasn’t going to be too comfortable for either of them dressed up like that. He felt sorry for the monkey.
Devens peered curiously at Shannon. “What happened to you?” he asked.
“An accident.”
“An accident? Not due to our investigation?”
“No, a different matter.” Shannon paused while he rubbed his jaw and looked over at one of the Navajo storytellers in Devens’ collection. He had a weird impression that the mother and three children in the clay piece of pottery were also giving him their rapt attention. “Maybe you can help me out with something? I’d like to find whatever I can about a property here in Boulder. I’m pretty sure it was purchased within the last two years.”
