Falling Awake

flashed his Mapstone Investigations ID at the manager of the apartment house on the outskirts of Raleigh where Katherine had lived and asked to borrow the key.
    “Place hasn’t been cleaned yet,” the manager warned.
    “No problem,” Ellis said.
    He let himself into the apartment, closed the door and took a moment to steep himself in the gloomy shadows. He was intensely conscious, as he always was on such occasions, of the respect owed to the memory of the dead.

    After a moment, he walked slowly through the apartment, examining every detail closely, storing up the images to be examined later in his dreams.
    The blood that had soaked the beige carpet had dried to a terrible, all-too-familiar shade of muddy brown. The killer had toppled the bookcase, emptied drawers and yanked pictures off the walls, no doubt in an attempt to create the impression of a wild, frantic burglary.
    When he finished the unpleasant tour he returned to the living room and stood for a while near the patch of dried blood.
    That was when he noticed the one object that did not look as if it belonged in the apartment. The crime scene tape had come down. The police had obviously not considered the item to be evidence. He picked it up and tucked it under his arm.
    At the door he paused one last time, allowing the dark, haunting atmosphere to flow over and around him.
    I’ll find him, Katherine, he vowed.

2
    B ELVEDERE C ENTER FOR S LEEP R ESEARCH , NEAR L OS A NGELES , C ALIFORNIA
    i had this really weird dream last night,” Ken Payne said from the doorway of Isabel Wright’s tiny office.
    “Sorry, Ken, I don’t have time to talk about your dream right now.” Isabel picked up a stack of computer printouts that was only a little higher than Mount Rushmore. She started toward her desk. “I’ve got an appointment with the new director in a few minutes.”
    “This will only take a minute.” Ken lowered his voice and checked the hallway furtively. “In the dream I’m driving a car toward an intersection and I know I have to brake or there will be a crash but I can’t take my foot off the accelerator.”

    “Ken, please . . .” The toe of her shoe struck the heap of dream logs she had been forced to pile on the floor because every other surface in the cramped room was covered with books, journals and notebooks.
    She staggered under the impact. The stack of printouts in her arms wobbled ominously, affecting her balance. She felt herself start to topple to the side.
    “Oh, damn.”
    “Here, let me take those.” Ken moved out of the doorway and deftly plucked the printouts from her hands.
    “Thank you.” Relieved of her burden, she grabbed the back of her desk chair and managed to steady herself.
    Sphinx, Martin Belvedere’s large, ill-tempered tortoiseshell cat, glared from behind the steel grid door of his carrying cage. Isabel knew that excessive human commotion irritated him. Actually, there were a lot of things that irritated Sphinx. He was not in a good mood in the first place because life had changed drastically for him a few days earlier, when Martin Belvedere had dropped dead from a heart attack. Now he was fuming because she had stuffed him into the carrier.
    Ken peered around the stack of reports, searching the cluttered office. “Where do you want me to put them?”
    She pushed several annoying tendrils of hair out of her eyes, mentally cursing Mr. Nicholas, her new hairstylist.
    Mr. Nicholas was only the latest in a long series of stylists who had promised her the sun, moon and stars. More to the point, he had practically guaranteed that the new cut he had created forher, a style that curled just above her shoulders and framed her face with airy wisps of hair in various lengths, would give her instant sex appeal. The sucker had lied through his perfect white teeth. Her social life had not taken a great leap forward since the last trip to the salon. It had, in fact, slid backward a few notches.
    But deep down she knew that, even as she mentally heaped recrimination upon his handsome head, she could not really blame Mr. Nicholas. She had no one to blame for her wretched social life but herself.
    For as long as she could remember, the only thing men wanted to do to her or with her was tell her their dreams.
    Not that she was interested in dating Ken Payne, she thought. He was a cheerful, good-natured sort, always ready with a smile and a funny story; the kind of friend you could call when you needed someone to help you