The Dream Machine: Book 6, The Eddie McCloskey Paranormal Mystery Series (The Unearthed) (7 page)

“So back to the criminal you have
secluded
here. My wider point is, let's call a spade a spade. He's a dangerous criminal. Let's assume he can and will screw this up for us." I wasn't liking this one bit. "Why is he here?"

"He's participating in the research."

"No, he's actively planning his escape."

She grimaced. "Probably. But that's not our concern."

"But why is he here?"

"Classified, Eddie."

"Naturally." I gave her a look. "But you know."

"Maybe."

The bureaucracy was stifling, excruciating. I felt like I was trying to turn an aircraft carrier...inside a lake as opposed to an ocean.

Did I need to know about this guy? Probably not. But better to know what might be in your blind spot than not. "Does he have any contact with Alison?"

"I doubt it."

"Does she know he's here?"

Manetti thought about it. "We should ask."

"Why the hell is he here?"

Manetti just looked at me.

"Same question for all the other patients here."

She nodded. "There are a dozen others."

"Any other criminals?"

She shook her head.

"Anybody else we should worry about?"

"It's worth finding out, Eddie. But let's not lose sight of the primary objective here. It's you and me and we're running down what information we can glean from Alison's dreams."

"I feel like Tom Cruise in Minority Report."

"You know what the difference between you and Tom Cruise is?"

"I've got about six inches on him."

She fake-laughed. "The difference is a bazillion dollars."

"Just me and you?"

"We have a tactical support team off-site but they're behind the emergency glass. We only break it if we need them. The leg work is on us."

"How far off-site?"

"Boots on the ground here in twenty minutes."

"Good to know."

***

We had a few minutes before the briefing, so I used the time to call Sumiko.

She was in her car. "I'm headed back home. There was another attack last night."

Was the whole world going to hell? Sumiko lived in a nice town way out in the middle of Pennsylvania. Where it was supposed to be safe. "Another?"

"Same MO," she said. "They went after another minority-owned store."

"Lovely." A cloud passed in front of the sun. "Be careful, Mrs. McCloskey. Don't forget that you're a minority."

"I am?"

We descended into the blabbering, lovey-dovey sweet talk of the newly-engaged. I must have told her I loved her five times in the span of a minute and she told me how much she missed me just as many. All the love you's and miss you's and hearing her voice made my general disposition—which was usually grouchy—a little less grouchy.

Manetti poked her head out of the cafeteria door and motioned for me to come in. I said, "I'll tell you all about this when I see you."

"Which will be when?"

"Not soon enough. Stay safe."

"You too."

I had the bitter aftertaste of coffee still on my breath as I went back inside. "Got a breath mint?"

"What are you trying to say?" Manetti: quick to take offense and be all attitude.

"Noth—”

"I'm joking, Eddie."

We took the stairs to the second floor and banged a louie. Nurses waited by a station and people that had to be patients were in the hallway, eating, drinking coffee, talking. They were between twenty and sixty and all seemed happy.

But we were walking the other way, down a short hallway and into a room built for four people, if they were kindergarteners. Manetti and I sat opposite each other at a small metal table, our backs against the walls. There was a conference phone system on the middle of the table. Manetti hit a button and the speaker powered on with the droning dial tone.

She punched in a number. The phone rang twice and a familiar voice answered.

"Good Morning, Agnes and Eddie."

Patterson. He sounded the same. Worldly, preternaturally calm.

Manetti's boss, the one that led their super-secretive team of federal agents. A mystery himself. Educated, always in control. In Oregon he'd lured me in and read me like a book, knowing how I would react before I did. A man that enjoyed playing fast and loose. A man not to be trifled with.

I liked him. I couldn't help it.

"Pater, good to talk to you again," I said.

"Eddie, I'm glad you decided to help. As always, we're working against a clock."

"Several clocks now," Manetti said.

Pater paused. "What did our little oracle dream last night?"

"Breaking and entering followed by a sexual assault."

"Is it real?"

"That's why we're here."

"Of course." I heard the smile in his voice, despite the dire circumstances. This guy's blood pressure did not deviate from 120 over 80. "Forgive my utilitarian approach here, Manetti, but let's work the other hypothetical first. The sexual assault involves one victim, while this other scenario involves many."

"And we're running out of time with it." Manetti shook her head.

“Talk to me about the recon yesterday afternoon.”

“We got the bird in the sky by 2:00PM. We went up and down 95, 695, and 495. Nothing jumped out at me. I’m going to start over with the dream with Eddie.”

Pater said, “Problem is, all those interstates look the same.”

“Yes.” Manetti gave me a look. “But we’ll solve this.”

“What’s the plan of action on the rape scenario?”

She took a breath. “I’m hooked into local LE. They’re going to put out an alert today to be on the lookout.”

“That’s it?” Pater’s voice turned stony. “We need more than that, Agnes.”

Manetti bowed her head. “We don’t have anything to go on.”

“We don’t,” I echoed. The rape dream had come through less than eight hours ago, Manetti was running on four hours of sleep over the last two days, and the video didn’t reveal anything. I didn’t like Pater browbeating Manetti.

“What about the house? What does it look like?” Pater asked.

“All we see is the bedroom,” Manetti said. “And only from one angle.”

“And all we can see from that angle is the bed, the woman, and the nightstand.”

“No pictures on the wall?” Pater asked.

“No,” we both said.

“How about the windows?”

“We only get a brief sidelong view of one,” Manetti said. “The people in the dream are unrecognizable.”

“Why?”

“Their faces have no detail. They’re blurred.”

Pater said, “Manetti, how are you going to manage both dream scenarios?”

“I have Eddie.”

Pater said nothing.

I decided to offer my dumb idea. “Why don’t we release a still from the video? Get an early one, just of the woman, before the guy comes in. Put it out there and ask people to call us if it’s their house or someone they recognize.”

Manetti said, “Every sicko and their mother is going to call.”

“We can put someone on a phone,” Pater said. “Send me the video and I’ll make it happen.”

“Will do, thanks.”

“I’ve got Eddie security clearance, so bring him up to speed. Everything you know about this, he should know,” Pater said.

Oh yeah. Security clearance. I felt like James Bond. If James Bond were an American and had exactly zero training.

Pater was still talking to Manetti. “You’ve got the bird and the tack unit on standby.”

“Thanks.”

“And Eddie,” Pater said, “thank you for your help. We’re stretched thinner than the Maginot Line.”

“Did you fight in World War Two?” I asked, making a crack about his age.

“No, Eddie. But I’ve been in some pretty bad places.” He hung up without another word.

“Where else has he been?” I asked Manetti.

She forced a laugh. “Like I know that. Alright, let’s get back to work.” She pulled a strange-looking laptop out of her bag. It looked like it was made out of rubber.

“What the hell is that?”

“Classified.” She flipped it open and it started immediately. She already had the file she wanted me to see open. She clicked on the icon and a video popped up.

The dream was shown from the vantage point of someone driving a car. A long, busy road stretched out ahead and cars zipped past going the other way. In a few seconds, I understood why Manetti had been scoping out the interstates between D.C. and Philadelphia.

I kept my eyes on the screen. “Alison’s dreams are usually local, aren’t they?”

Manetti kept her eyes on me. “So far, all of them have been.”

It was true what Pater had said. “All interstates look the same.”

In the video, the car changed from the right lane to the middle. The rest of the vehicles were discernible, but I couldn’t get a good look at any license plates. As the driver changed the radio, I saw a short, slender, smooth arm that likely belonged to a woman.

“Same deal,” I said. “Why don’t we release this image to the public and ask people to call us if it’s their car?”

“When I sent the rape video to Pater, I sent this one too.”

With each passing mile marker, I was growing more and more anxious. I strained my eyes to check the mileage on the markers but they were too far away to see clearly and the signage along the road was blurred and almost always out of the frame based on the angle.

“Something bad is going to happen, right?”

“Yes.”

There was nothing on the dashboard that would give away the identity of the person. But then I realized the dashboard was itself a clue.

“We’re running an analysis on the dash,” Manetti said, as if reading my mind. “It’s definitely a sedan.”

I chuckled. “So what do you guys need me for?”

Manetti said, “I’m waiting for you to tell me that.”

I kept my eyes on the screen and flipped her off. I knew what she was doing: goading me, challenging me, hoping to find a chip on my shoulder. I hated tests and hated when someone tried to psycho-manipulate me, but all the same I
did
want to help.

“How long is—”

Before I could ask the question, the point of view began to shift. It pulled away and turned into a bird’s eye view. The dream continued to track the same car, though from this height it was impossible to determine the make and model. Ahead, the other cars braked hard and fish-tailed. I expected to hear the squeal of brakes, but these videos came without sound. There was a massive pile-up of vehicles as more and more slammed into the mass of metal. People were getting out, wondering what had happened. The car in which the dream had started ended up tangled with a few others.

Then a tractor-trailer entered the frame.

The driver tried to stop. But if the cars hadn’t been able to, this guy had no chance. The tractor-trailer had at least ten times the mass of the other individual vehicles. No way was it stopping in time.

The tractor went right and the trailer drifted forward, till the vehicle was barreling down on the pile-up
sideways.

“What’s that thing carrying?” I asked.

“Something explosive.”

“Oh my God…”

The tractor-trailer hit the rearmost vehicles and after a brief pause there was a sudden blinding flash. Once the brightness dissipated, I saw smoke. Then, fire. Then people scattering. Then people trying to get away but stuck between burning cars. A man pinned between a sports car and a truck as the fire engulfed him. A woman carrying a small child…

But the dream continued from its bird’s eye point of view, hundreds of feet above the wreckage. Making it impossible to identify anything or anybody. Then the video stopped.

“That’s all there is,” Manetti said.

“How many times have you watched this?”

“Between two hundred and a million times yesterday.” Manetti stood and leaned back against the wall.

“Did you show this to Alison? Maybe she knows the driver.”

“I haven’t even met her yet.”

“When can we see her?”

Manetti didn’t check her watch. “Three hours. You stay here and work the videos. I’m going to get back in the bird.”

“Now that I have clearance, I’m going to talk to Zane.”

She nodded. “For a doctor, he’s alright.”

“For a cold-hearted ball-buster, you’re alright too.”

“I’m sorry, honey,” her father said.

“Me too, sweety,” her mother said.

Alison couldn’t be bothered to put on a smile. She was all out of fake. The doctor had delivered the news she’d been expecting: the so-called miracle cure hadn’t cured anything except her ability to keep food down.

Now, back in her bedroom at The Dream Factory, she had a surprising, overwhelming urge to go back home. The doctors couldn’t help her. She was doomed to die a horrifying, seizure-riddled, slow burn death.

“Don’t act like that.”

“Like what?” they both said.

“Like I’m dead already. I still have…maybe one hundred and eighty days left.”

Her mother looked away. Her father put a hand on her shoulder. “What can we do, Allie Cat?”

She didn’t know if it was the drugs or the nickname that made her feel like she was going to barf. Managing not to squirm under his paternal touch, Alison looked away also, out the same big window her mother was.

“Nothing. Nobody can do anything.”

“Do you want to come home?” Dad asked.

Alison almost said
yes
. Her jaw shifted, her mouth opened, the tongue flicked. She made it all the way to
yuh
before her conscious mind hit the brakes.

“Allie?” Dad leaned in further, wrapped his arm around her shoulders.

Goddamnit she was crying. She was
crying.

“Aw, honey.” Dad hugged and then Mom, and they smothered her with affection. The teenaged part of her wanted to push them away, but inside that little girl—the one that never seemed to go away, no matter how hard she tried—poked her head out and let them hold her.

“I have…to stay,” she said. “It’s important. You know…maybe I can help.”

Mom and Dad pulled away and pride filled their eyes. It made her feel so ashamed, so guilty…

No, goddamnit, don’t feel bad. There is no right or wrong. There is only now and you might not have a next.

Quickly, decisively, she wiped under her eyes and got out of bed and walked to the window. Even with her glasses, the outside world was beginning to look a little fuzzy. The duck pond was more an ink stain that bled into the surrounding bank. The trees multiplied and bubbled out. Disgusted, she pulled her glasses off and without thinking faced her parents.

They were only sitting ten feet away but they too were blurry now. Without her glasses their faces held no detail anymore. If she had just walked into the room, she would have no way of knowing what they were feeling. And the crippling fear of losing her sight came flooding back. She would be dead soon, but before that happened, she would be totally helpless.

“I’m going to stay,” she said. “I have to.”

She couldn’t see their faces but didn’t have to. Dad hung his head and Mom wiped under her eyes. Her decision to stay and continue with the research project had disappointed them, and that had made her feel…happy?

“I’m sorry,” she said, feeling sorry and not feeling sorry. “But I have to do this. Don’t you see?”

“See what, sweety?” Dad asked, his voice airy. She could hear the hope in it. The naïve optimism that she would change her mind and just come home.

“There has to be a point…to all this. I can’t die just thinking…there was nothing.”

“Honey—”

“Don’t, Dad. Stop lying to me.”

He held out his palm and looked down. That much she could see without her glasses.