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Authors: Erin Rooks

In Between Dreams (9 page)

BOOK: In Between Dreams
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“Dreams of loneliness. Like a heartbeat drives you mad in the stillness of remembering…what you had…and what you lost.”

It was surreal. They were sitting on the cold floor in a hotel room in Hong Kong listening to a woman they barely knew singing a song they all somehow knew. Everyone stopped for a moment, and Bailey continued very softly in her talk-sing voice with only Mei in the background,
“And what you had, oh what you lost.”

six.

A
fter Mei was out of the shower, partially dressed, and packed, she advised she wanted to take her time getting ready, and they all reluctantly agreed. The group sat in the living room together in semisilence. The only sound was Mei humming lightly and Halene’s pencil scratching as she drew a new picture. Suddenly Halene shut her notebook making everyone look up at her. It looked like Daniel was trying to look over her shoulder when she did. “Not now, Danny,” she said, and he shot a skeptical look back at her. “Speaking of now, I think Sam and Bailey don’t need us anymore.”

Daniel looked at Halene in an alarmed manner. He looked like she had told him that she’d released a fatal virus in the room.

“What are you talking about?” Daniel didn’t like last-minute changes in plans they had made, confirmed, discussed, and repeated in their planning sessions.

“Come on, Danny. They don’t need us. The plan is set; they have the comfort and the translator. They don’t need a planner and the logic man for this. You got through to her.” Halene gave Daniel a comforting look before standing up to rub his shoulder.

Daniel looked back at Sam and then at Bailey before standing up hesitantly.

“Daniel,” Bailey smiled reassuringly at him. “Don’t worry about her. You promised her she’d be okay, and she will be.” Bailey nodded reassuringly. “She’ll be apples,” Bailey said in an Australian accent with a
wink. Daniel looked down and chuckled before looking back at Bailey. “apples” was another one of Daniel’s Australian slang. Bailey was getting pretty good at understanding all of his phrases: it was like watching a British TV show for the first time. It takes a little while, but after watching a season or two, she’d start to pick up on their slang. That’s what being around Daniel was like.

“You gotta stop butchering our phrases,” Daniel admonished.

He was sensitive about anyone trying to act Australian. He believed his home country was the land of milk and honey. But he was also aware of the older Australians’ view of Americans. They loved them for saving their country from an invasion by the Japanese during World War II. But the younger generations didn’t necessarily agree with that. After the 2000 Olympics, the United States and Australia enjoyed a common link of the Olympic spirit. They also liked that most Americans saw Australia as an ally with common goals. But, like with most countries, they saw the United States as being arrogant in many ways and a nation of violence and overly self-indulgent. Daniel understood Bailey was not that way at all. But his defenses were up today due to the impending mission.

“I’ll do my best,” Bailey said, and flicked her wrist at him, motioning for him to go. “We’ll be fine.” Bailey was also concerned, but she knew it was almost time to begin to travel and worry would only make these last few hours more intolerable.

Daniel walked over to the door, picking up a light jacket and an umbrella, since the weather report was calling for rain. As he moved, Bailey saw the butt of a Smith & Wesson 9-mm pistol tucked in his belt in the small of his back. A frown instinctively appeared on her face with the realization there was real risk here and the stakes were high.

Halene started her walk to the door and turned her head, looking back at the two remaining room occupants. She immediately retreated, walking over to Sam and Bailey to hug them both quickly before following Daniel out of the hotel room. Immediately after the door closed, Bailey moved to the couch where Daniel had been sitting and sprawled out, grabbing the throw blanket from over the side of the couch and snuggling up, “How long is the trip?” Bailey asked tiredly. “I’m sort of
exhausted from breaking up fights for two days,” Bailey exclaimed half joking.

Sam scoffed, “We were fine. You don’t have to—”

“I know I don’t have to, but I really don’t want you two fighting. It’s distracting and counterproductive. Can’t you, like, bond by talking about sports or drinking stories?” Bailey asked.

“Nope. Sorry. He likes soccer, and I like American style football. Maybe we could meet in the middle with rugby?” Sam teased.

Bailey thought for a moment about the group dynamics as she pulled the blanket up to her neck. Sam made his way to her side. He picked up her feet and put them on his lap as he sat down. She asked, “Isn’t there anything you two have in common?”

“Oh, we have stuff in common,” he said, rubbing her feet. She stretched out a little more and made a soft humming noise to make sure he knew the foot rub felt nice. “The problem is neither of us want to share.”

“You are both great guys.” Sam scoffed at this, clearly disagreeing. “I don’t get why you can’t share the spotlight,” Bailey stated with a frustration in her voice.

“First of all, everyone knows you are the glue of this operation: the functional hero. You’re the one who always gets us through,” Sam said sincerely. Bailey shook her head swiftly in disagreement. Sam continued, “You are, so don’t act like you’re not.”

“Stop it,” she said, and hit his arm playfully. “I am not ‘the hero’; Halene is the brains,” she offered in rebuttal.

“You stop it. Your whole ‘reluctant hero’ routine is cute, but it’ll get old someday,” Sam said with a wink.

“You changed the subject,” Bailey noted, raising her eyebrow at him

He rubbed her feet more rapidly. “I didn’t. I’m telling you something. We’re not arguing over the spotlight. Neither of us planned on being heroes. We’re here because we’re here. We do our thing.” Sam began to ramble; he always rambled when he gets nervous. Bailey has always thought it was kind of cute. “Daniel was right when he said you knew what we’re fighting about. You’ve gotta know. You’re ignoring it, because you don’t want to deal with it.” Sam had stopped rubbing her
feet at that moment, and Bailey could feel his eyes boring into her even though she did not want to look at his face. The issue was there and needed to be broached. She didn’t want to deny it any longer. She didn’t want to ignore it; however, the timing was awful. The timing would always be awful. The fact was, they were never in a position to have a casual conversation. They were always in the middle of a crisis.

Bailey turned and stared at him for a moment; she opened her mouth to respond but nothing came out. She didn’t know what to say. This rarely ever happened for Bailey. Bailey always knew what to say. She wasn’t uncomfortable or upset; she was confused. Was Sam playing games with her like Daniel? And if so, why? What was the point? Bailey opened her mouth to speak again, but only a sigh escaped her lips. Sam chuckled in response and patted her legs. “It’s okay. We can talk about it later.”

Bailey was relieved that Sam had let her off the proverbial hook.

She suddenly wanted so badly to kick Sam in the stomach. She hated the position Sam and Daniel continually put her in.

Bailey yawned loudly and let her eyes droop. “I think I’m going to close my eyes for a minute.”

“Okay,” Sam whispered back.

“All right,” Bailey mumbled half asleep.

Bailey woke up in her bed in the familiar surroundings of Seattle, her head was under a pillow, but she could hear the rain tapping at her window and the music of
The Big W
playing on a loop from the DVD menu screen. She tiredly reached for the remote that was lost in the sheets. When she got a hold of it, she turned off the TV and rolled over in bed and looked at her boring white ceiling. Her head was still in the dream. She couldn’t shake off the thoughts of Sam and Daniel. She wished they were real. Bailey liked the dream world when they were around. She still was a little taken back by their comments to her.

She decided next time they brought it up she would tell them to say what them meant. She’d tell them to stop dancing around the subject and let it out. Once they were straight with her, she could be straight with them.

She knew she didn’t have to worry. It was only a dream. She shouldn’t think about it but it did take up a lot of her existence with these long bouts of sleep lately. But she couldn’t help herself. Bailey reached for her phone to see if she had any text messages or missed calls.

Nothing.

She groaned. She knew the sleep attack wasn’t over. She had promised Mei and Sam that she’d go with them on the excursion to get her, eventually, to Bali. Bailey wasn’t hungry, she didn’t need a shower, and it was pretty late, so she couldn’t call anyone to keep her company. Bailey knew if she lay there too long she would get bored.

She’d been sleeping for almost two days, and it would probably be a good time to try to get a little work done. She sat up and grabbed the small laptop she kept under her bed. She had her work computer on her desk, but she kept her personal laptop under her bed for her social media surfing. She often used it for late-night investigating on her writing assignments as well. The amount of data on the Internet was incredible.

She needed to do some research on the Triads in the United States, more specifically Seattle. This was the first time that her dreams ever meshed with her actual life. Sierra, her boss, had asked her for this report last month. Until now, it never really interested her.

She clicked on the first link that came up:

       
The name most associated with organized crime within Hong Kong is the many branches of Chinese underground society and organizations known as the Triads
.

       
Triad gang activities are mainly territorial and commonly involve the following types of offenses:

      

Extortion and protection racketeering of shops, small business, hawkers, construction sites, car valet services, and places of public entertainment such as bars, billiard halls, etc.;

      

Monopolizing control of nonfranchised public transport routes;

      

Monopolizing control of decoration companies operating in newly built public housing estates;

      

Street-level dangerous drug trafficking; and

      

Illegal gambling, prostitution, and pornography
.

       
Although one of the most famous criminal organizations in the region, the Triads are not the only source of organized crime in Hong Kong
.

The Triads are involved in smuggling (both goods and people), the counterfeiting of goods, overall corruption of government and private corporations, and prostitution syndicates. These are all the result of organized groups operating in the territory. Generally, organized crime groups in Hong Kong keep a low profile, and many of its most profitable activities do not attract high levels of public outrage, e.g., illegal gambling and copyright piracy
.

Since organized crime does not necessarily equate with street crime, it has been said that Hong Kong society can be lulled into a false sense of security. With no high levels of street crime and no great numbers of Mafia-style organized crime syndicates, it has been suggested that the people of Hong Kong believe that their society is, in law and order terms, healthy and clean, although this may not be the case
.

As she was reading, she realized this information was confirming information she already knew. She had been reading up on the Triads for a couple of days. No wonder her dreams had the Chinese connection. She smiled to herself, sighed, then started looking for more detail. She silently wished for Sam, a real-life Sam—he would be able to read all of the sources in Mandarin.

She internally scolded herself for thinking of him. “He’s not real,” she mumbled to herself. “Not real.”

God, how did I become this person? This crazy person who wishes for people I’ve made up in my head?
she thought to herself. She whimpered a bit and shook her head furiously as if to shake the thoughts of Sam from it.

She decided to look for a book to order online to help her out. Sierra wanted flesh on the bones of her skeleton of a story. Bailey needed to step it up to give that to her.

She looked through countless books that came up when she typed in “Triad,” all of which seemed be fiction novels. She knew she could find something of real value; she needed a more in-depth look into the Triad. She needed a source that was high in context and content and low in nonsense.

She searched again for Chinese organized crime. The search was larger and gave her smaller list of results. She looked through them. She sensed she was getting closer to a legitimate source, but none of these would get her all the background information she needed. She rubbed her lips together and began typing in the search box again.

Chinese organized crime in the United States.

“Bingo!” She praised herself.
Tongs, Gangs, and Triads: Chinese Crime Groups in North America
by Peter Huston. She quickly ordered it and paid the extra fee to get it delivered within a day. She closed her laptop with a sense of accomplishment. She was on her way to becoming a great investigative reporter like James. The reporter Sierra couldn’t shut up about. She had two sources, a book and her own Internet research. She knew she needed to be careful and not let what she thought she learned in her dreams affect her writing. The imaginary factoids of her dream state were interesting, but chances were they were not accurate.

She shook from cold chills and pulled the blankets up to her neck. She lay back in bed and let her eyes droop and fell back into a deep sleep.

Bailey woke up in Hong Kong. She saw Sam standing over her. “You having a nightmare or something?” Sam asked.

Bailey stared at Sam with a wide mouth and looked around the room before rubbing her hand over her face and whimpering. “Or something,” she said. She was being dramatic but she was exhausted and confused. “How long was I out?”

BOOK: In Between Dreams
13.07Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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