Perfect Nightmare

“Hi, honey,” Kara said from the doorway, startling Lindsay out of her reverie. “I was just on the phone with Mark Acton. He said he had twenty-eight people through and thought maybe we’d get an offer or two even before Sunday.”

“Good,” Lindsay said, feeling a surge of relief.

Kara leaned against the doorjamb and cocked her head quizzically. “That’s a change of tune.”

Lindsay shrugged. “I just don’t want any more strangers in my room.” Her eyes met her mother's. “They touched my stuff, Mom, just like I knew they would. They moved things around.”

Kara sighed heavily. “Nobody touched anything, Linds. Besides, how could you tell if somebody moved something?”

“I just can,” Lindsay insisted, and wrinkled her nose at the musky odor that still hung faintly in the air. “And it stinks in here. Can’t you smell it?” When her mother only offered her the kind of indulgent smile that told her she was being humored, not taken seriously, Lindsay felt her face getting red. She wasn’t a child anymore, and her mother shouldn’t treat her like one. But before she could say anything, her mother seemed to sense her mood and quickly changed the subject.

“Dad’s coming home tonight. And we saw some good places today.”

“I guess that’s good,” Lindsay sighed. She flopped on the bed, and the strange musky smell grew stronger.

It was on her pillow!

She jumped off the bed as if it were on fire. “Mom, somebody was touching my pillow. My pillow!”

“Honey—” Kara began, but Lindsay didn’t let her finish.

“I’m telling you,” she said, snatching up the pillow. “Smell this!”

Kara took a quick sniff of the pillow, then shrugged. “Sorry, honey — it just smells like pillow to me. Old pillow, maybe, but just pillow.”

When her mother went downstairs to start dinner, Lindsay ripped the pillowcase off and threw the pillow in the corner.

But it didn’t matter. Everything had changed.

This room, she knew, would never feel the same again.

Maybe it might be a good idea to move after all.

Chapter Eleven

Why she woke up, Lindsay didn’t know. All she knew was that one moment she’d been sound asleep and the next wide-awake.

Wide-awake and listening.

But for what? The silence of the night was almost palpable.

And then she heard it.

The sound of breathing. She relaxed, certain it was her mom or dad checking up on her. Then she realized the door was closed and the room was dark. Faint light came in around the edges of the closed curtains, and that — along with familiarity — illuminated her room just enough so she knew the room was empty.

And yet she could still hear it: raspy, and uneven.

And now she could smell something, too, and as the scent filled her nostrils, she knew what it was: the same musky odor that had hung in the room when she’d come home this afternoon.

And now someone was in her room.

Stay still, she told herself. Stay still and maybe he’ll just go away. She tried to regulate her breathing, but her heart was pounding so hard it was all she could do to keep from gasping for breath.

Though she still couldn’t see him, she felt him move closer, and as the smell grew stronger, she could feel the warmth of his breath on her arm.

He was going to kiss her!

She wanted to scream — wanted to turn on her bedside lamp and flood the room with light, but she couldn’t.

She couldn’t move at all.

The hot breath moved up her arm to her neck, then something touched her hair.

The musky aroma was so heavy she wanted to gag, but even that was beyond her. She felt paralyzed. She tried desperately to move her mouth, to move her hand, but her lips were numb and her arms had become so heavy that her muscles didn’t have the strength to lift them.

She was going to faint! But if she fainted, she wouldn’t know what was happening.

What he was doing to her?

She had to know. Had to!

Now she felt a hand snake up under the covers, and she struggled with her paralyzed body to shrink away from it, to strike out, to hit him, to sink her fingernails into his face and rip the skin from his cheek. But her body wouldn’t obey her commands. She lay frozen as the strange aroma filled her nostrils and the hands roamed over her body.

How had it happened? How had he gotten in? But she already knew — he’d been there all afternoon, hiding, waiting…

A tiny, helpless whimper finally crept from her lips.

One of his hands caressed her cheek and then covered her mouth while the other hand covered her breast, and once again she willed her body to respond. Once again she tried to struggle, tried to scream, and again succeeded in making a tiny sound, but it was no more than a pitiful gurgle in the back of her throat. Yet somehow it was enough to break the paralyzing fear, and then she took a deep breath and found her voice.

She sat straight up screaming.

The hands vanished.

Then her parents were there, and the light was on, and her mom was smoothing the hair from her sweating forehead.

What had happened? He was there — she knew he was there! She’d heard him and smelled him and felt him touching her! But now her parents were with her and she was afraid she might throw up.

“Honey,” Kara said, perching on the edge of the bed and gently drawing a strand of hair away from her face. “It’s all right — it was just a bad dream.”

A bad dream? She rubbed her face. Smelled her hands.

The aroma was gone; all she smelled was the almond lotion she’d used before going to bed.

Her gaze shifted from her mother to her father, who stood at the foot of her bed, wearing his pajama bottoms and a white T-shirt, his eyes clouded with concern.

“Daddy?” she squeaked out.

Her father came around, sat on the bed next to her mother and rubbed her hand as gently as her mother had eased the hair from her forehead. “It was just a nightmare, kitten.”

Her eyes darted around the room as if they were unwilling to accept her father’s words, but everything looked normal.

So it had been a dream — a nightmare. But she hadn’t had one since she was little. And it had been so real.

She took a deep breath, embarrassed now that she had yelled in her sleep and awakened her parents. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

Kara smiled and kept smoothing her hair. “Nothing to be sorry about, darling — everybody has bad dreams.”

Lindsay managed a smile. “I feel so stupid. I—”