Sweet Dreams Read Free Page B

three others she’d filled with accounts of her dreams. She was certain she’d packed all of them in the trunk until she found one in a drawer under her lingerie. Mister or Miss P. J. Tucker had to open the journal to find out where to contact her. Chandra prayed that was all he or she had looked at. The reason she’d put the journals in the trunk, which was stowed on a ship several days before she left Belize, was that she hadn’t wanted custom agents to read it when they went through her luggage.
    Reaching for her cell, she dialed the number in the e-mail. “May I please speak to Mister or Miss P. J. Tucker,” she said when a deep male voice answered.
    “This is P. J. Tucker.”
    Please don’t tell me you read my journal, she prayed. “I’m Chandra Eaton.”
    “Ms. Eaton. No doubt you read my e-mail.”
    “Yes, and I’d like to thank you for finding my portfolio.”
    “It’s a very nice case, Ms. Eaton. Is it ostrich skin?”
    Chandra chewed her lip. It was apparent P. J. Tucker wanted to talk about something other than the material her portfolio was made from. She wanted to set up a time and place, so that she could retrieve her journal.
    “Yes, Mr. Tucker, it is. I’d like to pick up my portfolio from you. But of course, whenever it’s convenient for you.”
    “I’m free now if you’d like to come and pick it up.”
    “Where are you?” Reaching for a pen, Chandra wrote down the address. “How long are you going to be there?”
    “All day and all night.”
    She smiled. “Well, I don’t have all day or all night. What if I come by before noon?”
    “I’ll be here.”
    Her smile grew wider. “Goodbye.”
    “Later.”
    Chandra ended the call. She punched speed dial for a taxi, then quickly changed out of her shorts and T-shirt and into a pair of jeans that she paired with a white men’s-tailored shirt, navy blazer and imported slip-ons. There wasn’t much she could do with her hair, so she brushed it off her face, braided it and secured the end with an elastic band. She heard the taxi horn as she descended the staircase. Racing into the kitchen, she took the extra set of keys off a hook, leaving through the side door.
     
    The address P. J. Tucker had given Chandra was a modern luxury condominium in the historic Rittenhouseneighborhood. One of her favorite things to do as a young girl was to accompany her siblings when their parents took them on Sunday-afternoon walking tours of Philadelphia neighborhoods, of which Rittenhouse was her personal favorite. It had been an enclave of upper-crust, Main Line, well-to-do families.
    Dwight and Roberta Eaton always made extra time when they walked through Rittenhouse, lingering at the square honoring the colonial clockmaker, David Rittenhouse. Her father knew he had to be up on his history whenever Belinda asked questions about who’d designed the Victorian mansions, the names of the wealthy families who lived there and their contribution to the growth of the City of Brotherly Love.
    Unlike her history-buff sister, Chandra never concerned herself with the past but with the here and now. She was too impulsive to worry about where she’d come from. It was where she was going that was her focus.
    She paid the fare, stepped out of the taxi and walked into the lobby with Tiffany-style lamps and a quartet of cordovan-brown leather love seats. Although the noonday temperature registered sixty-two degrees, Chandra felt a slight chill. In Belize she awoke to a spectacular natural setting, eighty-degree temperatures, the sounds of colorful birds calling out to one another and the sweet aroma of blooming flowers, which made the hardships tolerable.
    The liveried doorman touched the brim of his shiny cap. “Good afternoon.”
    Chandra smiled at the tall, slender man with translucent skin and pale blue eyes that reminded her of images she’d seen of vampires. The name tag pinned to his charcoal-gray greatcoat read Michael.
    “Good afternoon. Mr. Tucker is