Sleep No More Read Free Page A

you talked it out.” He was studying her expression. “Yes, definitely tense. This isn’t like you. You’re sure it wasn’t Bonnie?”
    She shook her head. “I wouldn’t lie to you, Joe.”
    “Or Jane? You’re not worried about Jane?”
    She grimaced. “I’m always worried about Jane.” Jane MacGuire, an artist, was their adopted daughter and had been working in Scotland for months. It was sometimes difficult remembering that Jane was an adult and no longer the street kid they’d taken into their home all those years ago. “But that goes with the territory when you love someone. I know Jane can take care of herself.” She smiled. “Are you going to go down the list of family and friends? Stop analyzing, Joe. There wasn’t some mysterious trigger that caused that dream. It was just one of those nutty chase-and-pursuit nightmares.”
    “Someone was chasing you?”
    “Yes.” She frowned. “No.”
    “Well, that’s clear.”
    “I told you it was nutty. I’m not sure it was me that was running.” She shrugged. “But it must have been me because I was so afraid.”
    “Why?”
    “Joe, drop it.”
    “No, I don’t like you to be afraid even of things that go bump in the night. It’s not like you. In fact, it’s damn weird. Talk it out. We’ll get rid of it.”
    That was just like Joe, she thought. Face it, solve it, then send it on its way. It was how he’d become a great police detective: it was how he lived his life. Except he’d never sent her on her way, thank God. He’d kept her close to his heart, and she was grateful every day of her life that she spent with him.
    “Okay, I’ll talk it out. But there’s nothing that really makes any sense. I was running through the woods, and I—”
    He nodded at the trees along the lakeshore. “Those woods?”
    She shook her head. “And no lake. There was an ocean…”
    “What ocean?”
    “I don’t know. Stop interrogating me. I was being chased, and I was trying to catch a bus. It was … bizarre.”
    “What was bizarre?”
    “Stuff I was thinking. Most of it didn’t make any sense. Except for the fear. I knew I had a reason to be afraid. That’s all I can remember. See, just a string of disconnected thoughts and emotions.” She gave him a quick, hard kiss. “There, I’ve talked it out, and I’m much better. Now let’s go to bed and see if you can go back to sleep.”
    He shook his head. “No, I’m not sleepy. Let’s sit over there and cuddle for a while.” He was leading her toward the porch swing. “Don’t worry, I’m through cross-examining you. I just thought it might help. We’ll talk about Bonnie and Jane and you and me.” He pulled her down beside him and drew her into the curve of his arm, with her head in the hollow of his shoulder. “Or maybe not talk at all. We’ve both been pretty busy lately, and I’ve missed this.”
    So had Eve. She could hear the beating of his heart, and it seemed to be beating within her, too. She always felt closer to Joe in special moments like this.
    She had always been alone.
    She was more alone now than ever.
    That poignant thought from the nightmare again. It just proved how disjointed and foolish it had been. Eve had never been less alone in her life. She had Joe and family and friends she loved around her. Life was never perfect, but loneliness was no longer one of her problems. She pushed the memory away, firmly blocking it.
    She cuddled closer to Joe, her gaze on the moonlight on the lake.
    No panic. No danger. No wrenching loneliness.
    Not here with Joe.
    *   *   *
    “I’VE LOST HER,” Drogan said, when Dr. Harry Pierce picked up the phone. “It’s your fault, Pierce. She wasn’t what I expected. I would have handled it entirely differently if I’d realized that she wasn’t what you told me.”
    “Excuses, Drogan?” Pierce asked softly. “What a tough guy you are when you can’t even handle a woman who’s spent almost two decades in an institution. You were