Hidden in Dreams (20 page)

Elena had to clear her throat before she could say, “Are those the pearls she is wearing in the painting?”

“Yes. I have them upstairs. In her jewelry box. I haven’t ever worn them. Maybe someday.” Stacy turned from the painting to look at Elena. In the half light her gaze was dark, ancient. “I haven’t ever talked about that before. Not to anyone.”

“I am so honored,” Elena whispered.

“The year after Mom died, I woke up screaming one morning. I’d dreamed I couldn’t remember who Mom was, or what she looked like. So Daddy . . .”

Elena swallowed hard. “Your father had this portrait done. And hung where you could always come and see her. Not where you had to look at her every day. But where you knew she was when you wanted to come and visit.”

When Stacy turned back to the painting, the wet streaks on her cheeks reflected the light through the windows. “The artist asked me what I wanted most to see in the portrait. I told her, paint this portrait with the same care Mom used putting on her makeup before she went to meet Daddy. And show the love she always had for us.”

Elena cleared her own eyes and waited where she was, giving the young lady the time and space to knit her world back together. She knew she would soon share a number of her own stories with Stacy. But not now.

Finally Stacy smiled and said, “Dinner’s ready.”

Elena had thought the moment could not be any more complete. Then as they reentered the kitchen, the young lady reached over and took Elena’s hand.

•    •    •

They ate at the small breakfast table, set in a windowed alcove off the back of the kitchen. The table had only two chairs, so Reed brought a third in from the dining room. Elena ate with real appetite, and loved the sense of belonging. Over coffee she shared with them her experiences from the past few days. Twice she wondered if she took things too far, covering in depth such issues before Stacy. But Reed gave no indication that he objected, and Stacy certainly appeared to follow it all. And something more. Elena found herself observing the scene from a distance. As though she was both the person talking and an observer standing on the kitchen’s other side. She saw she was not merely accepted, but welcomed.

As they cleared the table, Elena described how Jacob had refused to pray with her. How she had felt a door closing, one that had no handle on her side.

It was Stacy who finished the thought. “As though Dr. Rawlings is the only one who can open the door he closed.”

“That is how it appeared to me,” Elena agreed.

“I wonder how often God feels the very same thing,” she said.

They stood there in the kitchen and prayed a final time, then Reed asked, “Will you be safe in your home?”

“SuenaMed has supplied me with a security escort.”

Reed shook his head. “I can’t get over how their CEO is one of the dreamers.”

Elena kept her gaze on Reed, but the words were meant for his daughter. “A great deal of what I’ve shared with you is confidential.”

“Stacy is a pro when it comes to keeping secrets,” Reed assured her. “And so am I.”

The wave of comforting calm accompanied Elena on her drive home. She smiled her way into bed, for once not even caring how tired she was. The sense of being surrounded by the strength and love of friends was that great.

Which only made the dream’s arrival that night all the more savage.

•    •    •

The next morning Rachel called Elena to confirm that others had also suffered through another dream. Rachel then offered to send a SuenaMed limo for her. But Elena preferred to remain in control of where she went and how. And this morning Elena wanted the time alone, not just to separate herself from the dream, but more important to ponder how they might begin the hunt.

Her phone rang as she drove through the condo’s gates. Elena pulled to the side of the road. As hoped, the call was from Reed. She connected and said, “Thank you for phoning me back. I’m sorry to have called so early.”

“I’m the one who needs to apologize. I’ve been up for hours.
But I make a habit of not looking at my phone until after my quiet time.”

“There’s been another dream.”

“You had it also?” Reed asked. “We all have.”

“Can you talk about it?”

By the time Elena was done, her voice had lowered to a clipped murmur. The telling was that hard.

Reed was silent for a long moment before asking, “Where are you?”

“Headed to Orlando. All the dreamers are gathering for an online conference call before we go public.”

He pondered, then came back with, “I have a meeting this morning with the auditors that can’t be put off. Would you like me to drive over and join you once that’s done?”

“What about your other appointments?”

“Everything else can wait. Plus, I’d very much like to be able to help.”

She released the fear and tension she had been carrying since the dream’s onslaught. “In that case, there is nothing I would like more.”

•    •    •

The company’s front drive was rimmed by news vans. Security guards flanked an orange barrier holding back an army of cameras and newscasters and journalists. Reginald stood outside the SuenaMed entrance, nervously pacing beyond the phalanx of reporters. As soon as Elena rose from the car, the camera lights flashed on.

Elena was greeted by a hundred shouted questions. Reginald said something that was lost to the clamor. Elena followed him into the ornate lobby and was confronted by a dozen screens all showing her face. Everyone in the crowded foyer stopped and
stared as she passed. Reginald gave no sign he noticed them. “Someone informed the press about the new dream. Ever since the news broke, CNN has played your interview on a continuous loop.”

Which explained the half dozen calls Elena had received from Vicki Ferrell, her editor. Elena started to ask who was behind the leak, and decided it did not matter.

The elevator doors closed on the faces and the noise. Elena wished it were easier to breathe. Reginald asked, “Was the dream as bad as they say?”

“They’re all bad. This one was . . . different.” She studied his reflection in the bronze doors and asked softly, “What’s wrong, Reginald?”

“Rachel took a call in her office. Now she’s vanished. I can’t find her anywhere.”

That did not explain the trembling of his hands, or the nervous tic beneath one eye. “Reginald, look at me. What is really the matter?”

“All I have are rumors.” He refused to meet her eye as the elevator doors opened. “The conference room is just across the hall.”

•    •    •

Their conference call was one step off of a full-blown panic. Arrayed on a massive flat screen that dominated one wall of the conference room, the dreamers revealed their base natures, angry or panicked or teary or bossy in turn. Only two individuals remained removed from the noisy fray. One was Elena. The other was the CEO of SuenaMed. Trevor Tenning sat and frowned his way through the others’ alarm. He gave nothing away.

Elena did not speak once. Instead, she spent much of the time reliving the dream itself, allowing the images to wash over her, feeling the dread and the intense pressure to speak and act
anew. Only now there was something overlaid upon it all, a sense of being shielded from the worst of the fray. The longer she sat there, the more she became certain that Reed Thompson and his daughter were praying for her.

Elena stared at the dreamers on the flat screen and nodded at a few points she only half heard. Jacob served as moderator. Elena watched his subtle direction and knew there was nothing she could add to the man’s highly professional management. She let the images sweep her away.

The dream had started the same as all the others. A shadowy messenger had appeared at her door. Elena wondered why she felt it necessary to answer his call and allow him to enter. But at a deeper level she knew she had no choice in the matter. It was like studying an image through rushing water. The dream had progressed to the same image as before. Elena had stood in a soup line. Only this time, the entire city was there with her. Everyone. The billboards that dominated the cavernous walls held the same two words,
DISASTER STRIKES.

As she read the headline, all color washed from the dream. The result was a sepia image from the Great Depression, only this was now her reality. As the line gradually moved toward the counter, Elena knew there would not be any food left for her.

Suddenly the air was filled with the ringing of a church bell. Two booming tolls, counting down the days remaining before disaster. Elena knew this with utter certainty. The world had only two more days to act.

The other dreamers had received precisely the same impression. Two days.

•    •    •

Elena rubbed her face hard, trying to draw herself away from the dream and back to the ongoing discussion. The oval conference table reflected the fourteen images displayed on the massive flat
screen. Only four figures remained blue now, the others having accepted that their voices needed a face. One of those who remained hidden was the Federal Reserve bank executive. As usual, Agatha Hune did not say a word. Rachel had not appeared. And Reginald Pierce had vanished after ushering Elena inside.

Jacob was seated to her right. He used a moment of loud wrangling to ask where Rachel was. Elena replied, “I have no idea.”

“Is something the matter? I mean, between us.”

Elena looked at him. Really looked. It all came back to that one missing element. The choice he had made.

But before she could reply, the conference room door opened and a very pale Rachel Lamprey announced, “I have some bad news.”

When the faces on the screens stopped their bickering, she went on, “The French dreamer, Jacques Aines, is dead.”

•    •    •

“We just received word,” Rachel said. She was seated in the conference chair closest to the doorway. The people on the screen were silent, the faces watchful and frightened. “He suffered convulsions about six hours ago. He lives in the apartment next to his sister; she was there and saw it happen. The doctors think it was an epileptic fit, but he has no such history.”

She went silent, her dark eyes staring blindly out the wall of floor-to-ceiling windows. Beyond the glass, another summer storm crept toward downtown Orlando.

When she appeared unable to continue, Reginald Pierce said softly, “He arrived at the hospital in a comatose state. He died soon after.”

Rachel shook her head. “I can’t believe this has happened.”

Reginald looked at his boss. “This is not your doing. You’re six thousand miles away.”

The woman looked shaken to her core. “I feel responsible. For all of this.”

“You’ve done all you possibly can for the dreamers,” Reginald said. When she did not respond, he said more sharply, “You need to focus, Rachel.”

She blinked and glanced at her watch. “The news conference should have begun half an hour ago.”

“That’s right,” Reginald said. He looked at Elena in desperate appeal. “Will you handle this without her?”

She had been debating whether this was the moment to tell them that she was going to back out entirely. Instead, she heard herself say, “Of course.”

But as they were signing off, Agatha Hune spoke for the first time. “Something has just come in. I’ll read you what it says. The New England Bank of Hartford, the sixth largest financial institution in the US, has declared that it is temporarily unable to meet its obligations and is closing its doors. Federal inspectors are on hand to take over and assure an orderly dispersal of funds.”

There was a moment’s stunned silence, then a voice asked, “What does it mean?”

“It means our economy is tanking,” another replied.

“No, no. What does it
mean
? If this isn’t the thing that’s coming in two days, what is?”

“Ruin,” another participant muttered. “Disaster.”

“We have to
do
something.”

“That is absolutely correct.” Reginald stepped to the teleconference controls. “The news conference is our next step. Elena?”

As she rose from her chair, Elena fastened her gaze on Mario Suarez. The senator’s stare burned a hole through her heart.

19

R
eed Thompson was waiting in her SuenaMed office when she emerged from the press conference. Elena shut the door and pressed the button by the light switch. The glass walls overlooking the interior work areas went opaque.

Reed shook his head. “Back in my power days, only a select few places had these. The Senate Intelligence Committee, the White House secure offices, and so forth. I heard they were everywhere these days. But it’s still amazing to see.”

Elena didn’t want to discuss the high-tech walls. She wanted to hold him and be held. “I’m so glad you came.”

When he finally released her, Elena took his hand and they walked to the elevators. When they emerged in the lobby, Jacob Rawlings stood there, clearly waiting for her. His surprise at seeing Elena and Reed together was evident. Elena felt Reed’s fingers start to slip away, but she tightened her grip. She knew she would always remember this moment, holding Reed’s hand and feeling the emotional connection, while Jacob observed them, his gaze tight. Elena suspected few women had chosen another man over Jacob Rawlings.