Death Dream Read Free Page B

morning."
    "Oh, Jace!" she said. "He can wait a few hours. It won't kill him."
    "I guess not."
    "You could phone him and tell him you'll be in after lunch."
    "Nah. He never answers the phone."
    "Then he'll just have to wait for you, for a change."
    Dan nodded unhappily.
    Susan picked up the wicker basket with Philip in it and headed for the kitchen, knowing that it would be better if she weren't in the same room with her husband for a while.

    On the broad sunny boulevard heading toward the school, Kyle Muncrief identified the different kinds of palm trees lining the streets for Angela's benefit.
    "Those over there are royal palms. See how tall and straight they are?"
    "They all look the same to me," Angela said.
    "Oh no, palm trees are as different as people. You'll get to recognize the differences in a little while."
    "It's awful hot here in Florida."
    "I think it's very nice here," Muncrief said. "It's just that you've been living in a place that's a lot colder. You'll get used to the weather here. You'll love it, you wait and see."
    "I guess."
    "You can swim all year 'round."
    "I don't know how to swim."
    "Don't know how to swim? Well, I bet by the time the school term's finished you'll be swimming like a little dolphin."
    Angela said nothing.
    Muncrief glanced down at her. "Do you like to play games. Angie?"
    "Some."
    "I know some terrific games for good little girls. I bet you'd love to play the games I can show you."

CHAPTER 3

    Dan felt a twinge of surprise as he pulled his rattling old dark blue Honda—with its new battery—onto the parking lot in front of the ParaReality building at half-past one in the afternoon.
    For a company that's going to put Disney out of business the place did not look like much. Just a single-story cinderblock building, painted a faded yellow. And the lot was almost empty. It's not a holiday, he told himself. He recognized Muncrief's Jag sitting in the slot closest to the front entrance but there were only eight other cars in sight, all big four-door sedans, several of them bearing the stickers of rental or leased autos. Dan noted that Muncrief's parking space was covered by a thin roof of corrugated metal and the top of his convertible was still down. The other cars were out in the blazing sunshine.
    Thinking that rank has its privileges, Dan eased his Honda into the slot next to the empty place for the handicapped, wondering where all the other ParaReality employees were. They can't all be out at lunch. Maybe—
    "How do!" called a voice from the shade of the front doorway. Dan saw a burly man in a blue security uniform limping toward him. "Ye moughtn't be Dr. Damon Santorini, moughtn't ye?"
    "Mr. Santorini," said Dan as he got out of his car. "Dan."
    "How do," the security officer repeated. He had only one arm. His face was round, apple-cheeked. The cap atop his thick mop of sandy hair did not fit well; it perched up there like a kid on a haystack. He couldn't have been more than twenty-five years old. He put out his left hand, the only one he had.
    "Ol' Jace tole me you was comin' today. Been lookin' out fer ye all mornin'."
    Feeling inhumanly awkward, Dan took the guard's left hand in his own right. "I had a problem with my car," he mumbled.
    "Joe Rucker's the name," said the guard, grinning good-naturedly. "And any friend o' Jace's is a friend o' mine."
    Jason Lowrey had been Dan's partner, team-mate, almost his brother when they had both worked for the Air Force in Dayton. Jace was the genius, the man with the flair for dramatic new ideas and stunning breakthroughs in the field of virtual reality. Dan was the quiet steady guy in the background, the one who made Jace's brilliant ideas work. Jace did not make friends easily, Dan knew, yet this hillbilly guard seemed think the world of him. or maybe it was just the kid's manner.
    "C'mon," said Joe Rucker, "I'll escort ye in."
    It was barely twenty paces to the front door and Dan could have made it faster without the limping kid at his