He clenched his fists. “It can’t be over. Carla and I have had a bridge between our dreams all our lives. For as long as I can remember, I’ve been visiting a scrubby wasteland that seems like a stage set for a Mad Max movie. Carla’s been traveling to a woodland called Sanctimonia. And every one of these dreams, hers and mine, are in Latin.”
Kara’s eyes widened. “Somnium.”
“That’s one word. We’re talking an entire lexicon of the language, which neither one of us could begin to translate when awake. If dreams are real, we’re alive over there. This can’t be over.”
Igor set his martini down. “Conflict. Confusion. This is where Gabriella comes in, no?”
Although the ice had been broken, Kara didn’t run away this time. She stayed put in the booth, smoking for all she was worth. Her cigarette shook in her hand, but she didn’t leave.
Brewster took a deep breath. “The cops came to my house this morning and told me Carla died in a subway accident a year ago.”
“Brewster, I’m so sorry, I—” Kara crinkled her forehead. “Hold on. Did you say a year ago?”
“Uh-huh.”
“But you’ve been seeing each other?”
“Yeah.”
She snuffed out her cigarette. “After she died?”
“According to the cops, after I killed her. They think I pushed her in front of the train.”
Kara and Igor exchanged an open-mouthed glance. They turned to him and spoke in perfect harmony. “Why would they think that?”
He’d lost them. Kara seemed ready to bolt again, this time with the trucker fast on her heels.
“I’ve been set up! A week ago, two witnesses dreamed they saw me standing next to Carla on the platform. Somehow those dreams triggered false memories of an actual event.” He spread his hands. “That’s where Gabriella comes in, I think.”
“Gabriella.” Kara spat out the name. “Fallen angels can manipulate dreams in ugly ways. If she’s messing with you and your girlfriend, you both better run for the hills.”
“I can drive you there when I get my goddamn truck back,” Igor said.
She glared at him. “Does this really strike you as the time to crack jokes? Remind me to leave you at home next time.”
“Back up.” Brewster locked eyes with her. “Did you just say Gabriella’s a demon?”
“No. She’s an angel who fell but wishes she hadn’t. That’s what my uncle thinks, anyway. Fallen ones are always trying to win their way back into heaven, and they think nothing of dragging us mortals into their twisted schemes.”
That did sound like a puppet master, all right.
Kara grabbed a pen out of her purse and started scribbling on a napkin. “Henry’s not really my uncle. He’s an extraordinarily old man, and I’m one of many in his long line of begats. Do you follow me?”
“Like a great-granddaughter?”
“Add a few greats.”
Igor pressed his lips together and nodded, in total solidarity with his girlfriend.
And why not? If some people could spill out of their dreams into the wrong time and place, why couldn’t certain uncles with “gifts” live for a century or three? The scribes who wrote the Old Testament probably wouldn’t argue against either count.
Kara slid the napkin across the table. She’d drawn a map of the interstate heading north, a county road in Wisconsin, and an X west of Kenosha labeled Sacred Heart Cemetery. “Henry has always been overly protective of me, so I normally take his warnings with a grain of salt. But he had deep worry in his eyes when he told me to steer clear of Gabriella.”
“But I’m not involving you. I’m just trying to find out how to—”
She flicked her hand at the napkin. “I’m out. If you want to take your problems to Henry, he brings flowers to his late wife Sarah’s grave every morning. That’s the only place I know where to find him.”
“Can this guy help me?”
“What are you trying to do?” she asked.
“Change the past.”
She snatched the napkin back. “Leave the past alone.”
A snippet of hope took a roller-coaster dive through Brewster’s stomach. Kara wouldn’t have admonished him if changing the past was impossible, would she? He grabbed the napkin and shoved it into his pocket. “Look, if he’s the unapproachable type, maybe you guys could come along and—”
Kara shrank away.
“Just to introduce me.”
“Brewster, bad things can happen when Gabriella gets involved. My best place is on the sidelines, keeping a low profile, and making a normal life with Igor.” She turned to the trucker, shrugged, and smiled. “Well, it’s a life, anyway. Visiting Henry would drag me deeper into whatever this is.”
“Okay. You say I’ll find him at that woman’s grave?”
“Every morning.”
But the morning was long gone. “Tomorrow, then.”
“Use the word vagrant when you approach him. That’s our code word.”
“Why?”
“Because if Henry thinks some random stranger is interrupting his visit with Sarah—”
Igor smacked his glass on the table. “Thunder! Bolts of lightning! Witchcraft!”
Kara turned to the trucker, eyes burning with all of the above. “Remind me again why I left a perfectly good boyfriend to take up with the likes of you?”
The trucker flashed an easygoing smile. He took both her hands in his. “Tomorrow is my hedge against boredom. Come, my gypsy, and tell me your future instead of mine. What dreams will flit behind those hazel eyes? What colors will please you as you gaze at the rising moon?”
She softened instantly, caught in the spell of the out-of-context poetry he’d cast on her.
Brewster slid out of the booth. Tomorrow was his hedge against boredom, too. He needed to break a fallen angel’s spell if he ever wanted to gaze at the rising moon with Carla again.
CHAPTER 27
Meanwhile, ninety miles north, in Kenosha
Henry Stoddard trudged across weedy grass into the farthest corner of a forgotten cemetery until he reached the stone that marked his late wife’s grave. A wilted bouquet of roses at his feet sagged over the mouth of a clay vase. He set them afire with a sweep of his arm and watched them burn across the darker colors of the spectrum. The remains
