In Between Dreams (11 page)

“Just because you have a sleeping disorder doesn’t mean you can’t have a life,” he said softly, and rubbed her shoulder. “We’re on a road trip, something you thought wasn’t possible. You can live your life.”

Bailey looked over at him appreciatively; she was truly grateful for him in that moment. “I love you, best friend.”

“Love you more, B,” Jason said back.

Bailey opened her eyes and found herself back in her bathroom, seemingly a million miles away from that trip with Jason. She stood up from
the toilet and looked in the mirror. There were circles under her eyes as if she hadn’t been sleeping at all, and her hair was knotted from sleeping on it wet. She grabbed the brush on the sink and started working out the knots as she hummed “Dreams” by Fleetwood Mac. Her head tilted as the brushing hit the more complex areas of her matted hair. Bailey avoided eye contact with herself during the brushing. She couldn’t help but hate the way she looked. In her dream world, she was pretty, and she wasn’t so grossly skinny. She had color to her skin. Here, in her real life, she believed she was ugly. Too skinny, too white, too exhausted. She never had time to eat, or tan, or work out.

She shuddered from the memory of singing that song on the hotel room floor with Sam, Halene, and Daniel. She needed to get a grip of herself. She couldn’t tether herself to reality.

She walked back in her room, plopped on her bed, and continued to brush through her hair. She glanced at her TV and remembered the DVD was still in the player, so she grabbed the remote and started the movie again, skipping past a couple scenes to get to the part she had fallen asleep to.

She turned her attention to the TV, and her mind clicked in to the well-known portion of the movie. She mouthed the words as the actor on the screen spoke. “You know I don’t drink, Walt. At least not during the day.” The character George grinned at Walter. Bailey’s words became audible as she spoke in unison with him. “Now are we going to take this case or are you going to let it slip through our fingers?” The movie picture framed the two actors in a close-up, bringing drama to the scene.

“George,” Walter and Bailey groaned together.

“I’ll take that as a yes. Give me a glass of scotch and let’s go over the facts.”

“I thought you didn’t drink during the day.” Walter squinted his eyes at the other actor.

“Well, I don’t, not unless it’s almost five, and I’ve convinced my partner to take an impossible case,” George shot back in his best tough-guy voice.

Walter slammed the glass down on the table. “Now, sit down.” Walter glared at George as he happily sat in the seat across from George.
“And get serious. There is a missing person we got to find before someone else finds her first.”

Bailey yawned and stretched a little before grabbing her second glass of water and gulping it down.

Despite her best efforts, Bailey could not stop thinking about the man with the gun. She tried desperately to remember his face, but all she could see was the barrel of the gun, pointed at her. She could describe it perfectly. It was a Beratta XR Storm Compact 9 mm. It was for those who carry a gun tucked in the small of the back or in a shoulder holster—good for tight quarters. She sighed deeply; she was glad she had woken up.

Bailey pressed the “pause” button on the remote to stop the movie. The movie wasn’t helping to calm her down as it often did. She was shaking from the dream’s events that occurred during her last sleep. She pulled out her laptop and did some more research. She tried to recall where she read or heard about the 14K before her last extended nap. She must have read or heard about it in connection with one of her articles. Was it a documentary she’d watched at some point? She couldn’t place it.

No
, she thought to herself.
I don’t need information on the 14K. I’m doing a story on organized crime in the United States
. She took a breath. This had been the first time a dream from her sleep attack affected her thoughts about a real-life article.

Bailey decided to get into a working posture. She arranged all the pillows accordingly. She needed some energy to help with her research. A trip to the fridge would fix that. She felt the cold on her feet as she made her way into the kitchen. The coffee pot was half full of old coffee remnants. She opted for a bottle of water, yogurt, and an aging banana. Bailey cut the banana in bite-size slices and mixed it in with the yogurt in the last clean bowl she could find. She grabbed a paper towel for a napkin and headed back to the bedroom. After setting her food on the nightstand, she crawled into bed and put her laptop on her thighs.

She pulled up her browser and started searching. She found out a lot of information on what the Chinese organized crime groups do in America opposed to in China.
Extortion
. Which was basically the act of
securing money and favors from businesses or people by intimidation or blackmail. Extortion or blackmail was large in the Chinese culture and very big when it came to businesses in China towns throughout the United States. It was noted that even if a businessman turned one group in for extortion, then another group would be waiting in line to begin their own brand of extortion. The groups called it “protection.” They would “protect” the business from the other gangs in the area for a certain fee. But the fee wasn’t protecting the business from the other gangs, per se; it was protecting them from that particular group.

She couldn’t help but think of Bai. He was being extorted, blackmailed, because of Mei. He was under the pretense that if he did not do as they said, she would be the one to suffer. Bai loved Mei so much that he couldn’t imagine something happening to her. Unfortunately, Bai didn’t know that Mei had already been hurt by Yin and his men.

She closed her eyes and tried to remember Yin’s last name. She knew Mei had said it, but she couldn’t draw it back. She typed in “Yin” and “14K” into her search. A hodgepodge of information appeared on her screen. She clicked on a link that was in Chinese and couldn’t read anything. She looked at the picture that was in black and white and looked like it was taken by a private detective. A man walking out of an apartment, he was hand in hand with someone who wasn’t in the picture, aside from their hand. She copied the text and looked for a translating website.

She pasted the information into the English translation website. The words translated to: “Yin Huang is suspected to be a pioneer of his father’s underworld. Photographed.”

“What the—” She furrowed her eyebrows at the screen for a moment. “What does that even…” She became concerned about her memory now. She would have seen this before. Was she losing her memory of her work? She felt a wave of alarm.

She wondered if “underworld” was another phrase for Triad in China. Or had it translated it wrong? “A pioneer of his father’s underworld,” she mumbled, and chewed on her lip. “A pioneer of his underworld…” she whispered out loud as she thought again about the data she was reviewing. It was obvious her research was affecting her dreams.
Chinese gangs, violence, and corruption were streaming into a dream world she knew was a vivid chain around her sleeping neck.

Bailey used his full name to search for him on the images tab. She didn’t know what she was looking for. She found a lot of artwork by a man who lived in Bali with the same name. She located two or three pictures of Yin, one of them was the same she had already seen. Another was a picture of him and an older man at what looked like some gala event.

That must be his father
, Bailey thought. She found one more picture of him looking smug. He was taking a mug shot.

Bailey clicked on the picture to make it larger. It was an American mug shot. The words on the board he was holding were in English. The interest around the research was building in her. She felt a new kind of energy, the energy that she got whenever she was interested in what she was researching.

The words “New York FBI” were on the top of the Yin’s identification board. The photo was from five years ago. She searched his name again with “New York.” She found an article with that picture connected to it. She squinted at the screen as she read the article.

On Friday, March 19, 2007, at approximately 2:41 p.m., an Asian man was pulled over for speeding. When he did not have a driver’s license on him, the police asked that he open his trunk. He would not leave his car or open his trunk. The police report stated that the man was aggravated and unwilling to conform to anything that he was asked
.

Once the man, who had told the officers his name was James Johnson, had finally exited the vehicle, his car was searched. Upon finding an unlicensed assault rifle in the trunk of what was found to be a rental car, the man was taken into custody to the FBI, where he was booked and spent the night
.

The police learned the man’s name was Yin Huang from Hong Kong, and he is suspected to be a large part of the organized crime in one of China’s largest cities. His hearing is set for April 14, 2007
.

Bailey jaw dropped slightly, and she had to close her laptop. She felt sick to her stomach. It had to be the common aspect of Chinese names. She must have seen it in her earlier research, and it somehow lodged in
her subconscious. How had she known Yin’s name before now? She felt her gut sink. She couldn’t think about this anymore. She lay in bed with a queasy feeling in the pit of her stomach and her face full of concern. Her brain seemed to be screaming at her. Her thoughts were too loud.

Bailey glanced at the alarm clock on her nightstand and noted the time. It was 12:31 a.m., and she knew she needed to make an appearance at the office soon. It was Thursday morning, and she knew that she should probably go back to work tomorrow. She drank two more glasses of water and decided it was time she went back to sleep. Half of her hoped she went back to China in her dreams, and the other half hoped that she never had to see the inside of that hotel room ever again. She turned off her TV, popped two sleeping pills, and she drifted into a troubled sleep.

eight.

B
ailey awoke slowly. Her eyes drifted open and landed on the clock. It was 8:02 Thursday morning. She had slept through the night. She quickly realized she had no dream the night before. The sleep attack was over. The dream sequence was different than others in that it ended with her dream version of herself being shot. Or she thought she had been shot. It was still fuzzy.

During most sleep attacks, she was always with the same people and always helping others. And she would wake up back in her bed when whatever they were trying to fix was accomplished. However, this time they hadn’t gotten Mei where she needed to go. They hadn’t saved her. It ended so abruptly.

Bailey frowned at that fact as she looked at the bare ceiling of her studio apartment. “It was just a dream, Bailey,” she told herself dumbly.

She swung her legs over the side of the bed, stood, and stretched. She walked into the bathroom and looked in the mirror at her reflection. The bags under her eyes weren’t nearly as prevalent. She took a breath before hopping in the shower. She resolutely decided not to waste any more time dwelling on her dream. She had her life to deal with. The sleep attack was done for now, and that normally gave her a sense of relief.

After her shower and a feeble attempt at yoga, Bailey had an hour-long call with her boss Sierra. She then got dressed in her version of business casual: tank top and jeans. Next she initiated a couple text conversations
with friends explaining that she was no longer Sleeping Bailey. She then sat at the desk in an otherwise unused corner of her studio apartment and wiped the dust off her screen and keyboard that was beginning to viably collect. With her hands hovering over the keys, Bailey rolled her neck back and forth to get rid of the stiffness as her computer booted up. Once the screen was fully awake, she brought up her e-mail and opened the most recent one from Sierra. Whenever Bailey came out of a sleep attack, Sierra piled work on her, because she knew she needed to take advantage of her fully functioning time. Bailey learned she had two time-sensitive articles on top of her investigative reporting article.

B -

I have two stories that you are going to love writing. There is a new play at the Paramount that needs reviewing (and I hear it’s terrible). I can’t wait to see you rip this play apart
.

For the second, I need the softer side of Bailey. The head coach of the Seattle Seahawks is undergoing a triple bypass surgery this week, and I need reactions and good thoughts and all the bullshit. So get an interview with his wife and…you know what to do. This is due sooner rather than later. Surgery is next Friday. Hustle
.

Welcome back from the dead
,

S

Bailey sighed loudly, she was normally more than ready for work after a sleep attack, but emotionally she was still a bit hungover. She pressed on, going online to buy a couple tickets to the musical at the Paramount. She figured she would invite a friend to come along. After that, she called Mrs. Sarah Stevenson, Joey Stevenson’s wife (“Mrs. Seattle Seahawks”).

Bailey was very lucky. Sierra let her work from home for the most part, because she liked Bailey and her work. She went in the office a
couple of times a month for meetings and to keep in contact with Sierra, but for the most part, she was able to do her work from the comfort of her studio apartment. Her sleep attacks made it close to impossible to have a normal job, so she was lucky to have this one. She couldn’t spare it.

Bailey had been awake for a few hours, and she was already feeling worn down. She scolded herself internally for her lethargy and lay down to take another nap, a nap that would hopefully be restful and dreamless.

Hours later, her phone rang relentlessly, waking her from her nap. “Hello?” she croaked. She looked at the clock; she’d been sleeping for about two hours. She scrunched up her nose. She felt bad that she wasn’t working harder on her articles.

“Hey,” her friend Olive answered. “Sorry. Did I wake you? I thought your sleep attack was over and you’d be up for the day,” she spoke quickly. “I just called to confirm our date for Thursday to
Next to Normal
. I’d love to go with you. I haven’t seen you in what feels like a year.”