Murder In Her Dreams (23 page)

The dreams had left her confused. She
suspected she only understood a small part of them. Tula had said
the rabbit represented the key. Now she had a means to discover
just who the rabbit was. Dealing with a named enemy reassured
her.

“Cassie? Are you still there?”

“What? I’m sorry. I was thinking. We could
check the obituary and maybe even the birth records, but it would
help to know when to look. When did Harrison die?”

“Just about two years ago.”

“How about a month?”

“January.”

“Okay.” Cassie wrote that down. “Any idea
about the age of the child? A lot children are born every
year.”

“Let me think about it. Maybe someone else in
the office may know or maybe we have something in the old personnel
file. I’ll give you a call after I have a look.”

Cassie looked down at her paper. The nail.
She still didn’t know what that meant. “While I’m at it, can you
think of another word for nail?”

“There are all types of nails — horseshoe
nails, roofing nails, brads, penny nails. Why?”

“Because the rabbit has a nail in one
forepaw. It means something, probably something linked to the name,
but I’m not sure how.”

“Well, let me check our records, and then we
can work on the rest of the name. I’ll call you back.”

She had the impression Ian wanted to say
something more.

“Cassie, I want to apologize for my earlier
behavior.”

“Accepted. I’m sure you were just feeling a
little lightheaded.”

“That’s not what I meant. I’m not apologizing
for kissing you. I’m apologizing for throwing you out of my office
and doubting your dreams.”

“Oh.” His admission caught her by
surprise.

“Cassie, I enjoyed the kiss.”

Just thinking about his insistent mouth on
hers made her long to have him hold her in his arms again, but it
wasn’t possible. He had a fiancée.

“I told you.” She struggled to put steel in
her words. “I don’t poach on someone else’s territory.”

“Cassie, Sharon broke our engagement a week
ago. You didn’t give me time to tell you.”

“Oh.” The engagement broken? He was a free
man. He hadn’t been toying with her.

“Cassie, are you still there?”

“Yes, yes, I’m here.” She blushed at her own
thoughts.

“I meant it about the kiss.”

“I ... uh, I enjoyed it too.” Her voice came
out in a low hesitant whisper.

“Once we get Harrison out of the way, I’d
like to spend some time with you.”

Um ... I’d like that.”

“Miss Blake?” Tracy Bolin tugged at Cassie’s
sleeve. “Miss Blake, can you help me?”

“Ian, I have to go. Someone has a question.
Good-bye.”

“Good-bye.” The warmth of his voice implied
all sorts of promises.

As Cassie replaced the phone, her spirits
soared. She and Ian still had a problem to solve, but now they had
a direction in which to look.

“Look out, Harrison. I’m going to find
you.”

“Harrison? Who’s that, Miss Blake?” Tracy
stared up at Cassie.

“No one you know. What is it you need help
with?”

“I want a bunny book. Can you find me a bunny
book?”

Cassie laughed. “Of course, I can find you a
bunny book. Come with me.” She led Tracy to the holiday section of
the picture book collection. Later she would look for her own
rabbit, Harrison whatever his name.

* * * *

Ian hung up the phone, his mind in turmoil.
While part of his thoughts wanted to dwell on Cassie Blake and the
sweetness of her mouth, the other part wanted to focus on Harrison.
How had she learned of James Harrison? Nothing had ever appeared in
the papers. Ian had worked hard to keep word of it away from the
business community. Harrison’s child, if he had one, might hate
him. Both parents had died, but he hadn’t killed them. However, a
child might see their deaths in a different light.

He really remembered nothing about Harrison’s
family. He picked up the phone and buzzed MaryLou.

“Would you check into the old personnel files
and see if you can find a folder on James Harrison?”

“Harrison? Why do you want see those records
now?”

“Something I want to check. Do it as quick as
you can, and ask Jim Mears to come to my office.”

“Will do.”

About ten minutes later, MaryLou came in with
Harrison’s folder. “Jim will be in about four. I’ve left a note on
his desk.”

“Thanks.”

Picking up the folder, Ian then flipped
quickly past the reports on top and several evaluation forms to the
back. He stopped with the standard employee history form. He
scanned down to next of kin and found Mrs. Emma Harrison listed.
She had died shortly after Harrison. Not much in the file. He
flipped back to the tax deduction forms and saw Harrison had listed
two dependents, his wife and what? A son or daughter? His attacker
had been a man. Harrison’s son?

He riffled the rest of file, but saw nothing
about a son or daughter. As a boss, Ian had never pried into the
personal lives of his employees. He knew MaryLou had children
because she talked about them. He couldn’t remember James Harrison
ever talking about his family. From the files at least, it looked
as if there had been a child. According to Harrison’s original
application form, he had been born in Columbus, gone to school and
college there. He had listed all local employers.

A knock on the door interrupted his
thoughts.

Jim Mears ducked his head in the office. “You
wanted to see me?”

“Come on in and sit down.” Ian motioned to
the chairs in front of his desk. “You remember Jim Harrison?”

Mears frowned, a look of distaste on his
face. “Yeah, he used to have my office.”

“That’s right. Do you know anything about his
family? His wife died shortly after he did, and I never heard any
more after that. He had a child, didn’t he?”

“Yeah, he had a kid, a boy in some Ivy League
school in the East, Yale or Princeton, one of those.”

A son. “Did you ever meet him?”

“No, he was away at school most of the time.
Only came home for holidays.”

“Do you know his name?”

“Hmm, Bob, Burt, no that isn’t right. It
began with a ‘B’ I’m sure. Brent? Brian? Hmm, Brad ... Bradford,
that’s it.”

“Bradford Harrison?” Ian wrote the name
down.

Mears nodded. “Yeah, Jim really took pride in
the kid. He had pictures of this long-haired, bearded beanpole in
the office and talked about him all the time. Said he was smart. I
guess you have to be to get into those schools, but it costs a lot.
Oh...”

Suddenly, Mears reddened and looked at Ian.
“I guess that’s why he stole that money.”

Ian sighed and closed the folder. “It may be.
We never found any trace of the money.”

“What brought all this up?”

The fewer people knew about the accidents,
the better Ian liked it. He hated misleading Jim Mears, but until
they found Bradford Harrison, Ian wanted nothing to alert his
quarry.

“I’ve been cleaning out some files and came
across a couple of things of Harrison’s. I thought his family might
like them, but I wasn’t sure where to send them.”

“I can’t help you there.”

“With a name, I may be able to track the kid
down. If you think of anything else about Bradford Harrison, let me
know. Thanks for the help.”

“Sure, sure thing.” Mears stood up. “Guess
I’d better get back to work. The way things are going, we may have
some twelve hour days coming.”

“Tax season. Some people always wait until
the last day. Once we file the majority and get those extension
requests in, we can take it a little easier.”

“I can’t wait. See you later.” Mears hurried
off.

Ian pondered what to do next to locate more
on Bradford Harrison. Perhaps, he should let Cassie know. He
thumbed through the book until he found the Arlington Library. He
dialed the number and asked for Cassie Blake.

“Hello, Cassie Blake speaking.”

“Cassie, Ian. James Harrison had a son named
Bradford Harrison. He went to some Ivy League school, like Yale or
Princeton. Nobody has heard anything about him since.”

“Bradford Harrison.” She drew out the name.
“Brad for short?”

“What? Brad?”

“Sure, it’s just like one of those rebus
riddles the kids love so much.” She sounded excited, her words
tumbling out one after the other. “Remember the nail? The rabbit
had a nail in its paw. The rabbit, a hare. A son. So that’s
Harrison. And the nail, a brad. Brad Harrison. It all fits.”

“I guess it does make a crazy kind of sense,
and Harrison’s son is Bradford Harrison. Now we know who the gunman
is, how do we find him?”

“We have the name, but it doesn’t lead us
anywhere. At least with it, I don’t have to search the obits
now.”

The discouragement in Cassie’s voice made Ian
pause. How did they go about finding someone? Hire a detective?

“Yeah,” he muttered, “I see what you
mean.”

If he wanted to know about potential employee
or customer, he’d ask MaryLou to do a credit check. They could do
one on Brad Harrison.

“Cassie, we could run a credit check. It will
tell us where Harrison is or at least his last known address.”

“Can you do that?” She sounded skeptical.

“We have access to the TRW files and to
Equifax. They’ve got records on everybody.”

“Check it out, and let me know.” She paused.
“I’ve got a funny feeling about this. I think it has to be someone
with access to your office.”

“No way. I didn’t recognize the gunman.
Surely, I’d recognize someone I worked with.”

“What about cleaning staff? Or the building
owner’s staff? He could even be on the construction crew.”

“Construction crew?” Ian laughed. “They
wouldn’t have keys to my office.”

“The cleaners would. And they would also know
about the construction.”

“That would explain the bricks and the
gunman. A cleaner would have keys to the building and the
offices.”

“Of course.” Cassie sounded excited. “Then we
can eliminate the construction crew, can’t we?”

“Yeah, but that still leaves a lot of
choices. We’ve got to narrow this down somehow.”

“What about the coffee?”

“The coffee?” Ian frowned. “Look, I’m still
not sure about the coffee.” Silence hung between them for a
moment.

“Look, Ian, you can’t accept part of it and
discard the rest.” Her voice had grown hard. “The coffee points to
someone in your office or at least someone there at the time the
coffee was made.”

Ian sighed. “Nobody else had any problems
with the coffee or got sick. We never tested it. The only evidence
comes from your dream.”

“And they’ve been right so far. Then there
was the motorcycle.”

“What motorcycle?” Suddenly, Ian saw Justin
and Bert racing out of the parking lot, side by side, on twin
Harley Davidsons.

“The black motorcycle that almost ran me down
when I left your office.”

“You didn’t tell me that.” Ian gripped the
phone harder.

When the gunman had threatened Cassie, he had
acted instinctively to protect her. Now, it seemed Harrison had
tried to kill her before. Somehow, some way, he would find Harrison
before he could do any more damage.

“Well, I never really had the chance to tell
you. It happened right after I spilled the coffee.”

“Bert and Justin ride motorcycles.”

“Bert and Justin?”

“Two young men who work for me.”

“What if Harrison used an assumed name?”

“What are you getting at, Cassie?”

Ian’s stomach churned. James Harrison all
over again. He didn’t want to believe that someone he saw every
day, someone he trusted, could possibly be planning murder.

“Harrison could be one of them. What do you
know about them?”

Ian dredged through his memory for the facts
on the two young men. “Bert Hansen is an accounting major we hired
a year ago, and Justin Lord joined us about the same time as our
co-op student from Columbus State. Justin’s been one of the best
we’ve ever had.”

“Bert Hansen?” Cassie paused for a moment.
“Is he a weightlifter?”

“Yeah, how did you know?”

“I met him at a friend’s party a few weeks
ago. I didn’t know then he worked for you. Bradford Harrison. The
initials are the same.”

“So?”

Cassie sighed. “Criminals often choose
aliases based on their initials. At least that’s what I gather from
all those true crime shows.”

“Maybe, but I can’t see Bert as the criminal
type.” Not Bert, he was far too nice a kid, but that left Justin.
No, neither could be a potential murderer.

“Did you check his references?”

“Of course we did.” Ian tried to temper his
annoyance. He sighed. “I’ll check them again.”

“That would be a good idea.”

“Cassie...” Ian stopped, hesitant to
proceed.

Regardless of who Brad Harrison might be, he
had tried to kill him and had threatened Cassie. He didn’t want to
worry her, but she was far too trusting. He struggled to find the
words to make her recognize her danger, but not to frighten her too
much. The motorcycle and the gun — that made two attempts on
Cassie’s life.

“Yes?”

“Look, I’m a little worried about you.
Harrison has tried twice to kill you.”

“Me? It’s you he’s after, remember?”

“Yeah, but you keep getting in his way. He
might come after you first next time. Please, be extra careful. You
do lock your car?”

Cassie sighed. “Yes, I lock it.
Satisfied?”

“No, I won’t be satisfied until we locate
Harrison. Once we do, you and I have some serious business to
discuss.”

“Serious business?”

“About the future, our future.”

“Oh.” She sounded just a little breathless.
He hoped that meant she wanted one with him.

“Good-bye, Cassie.”

Ian replaced the phone and sat back in his
chair. Bert or Justin? He found it hard to choose between them. So
far as he remembered, they both had backgrounds unrelated to
Harrison. He tried to look at Cassie’s assertions objectively.