Solid as Steele Read Online Free PDF Page B

about a murder one night, then find out the next day that it really happened.”

Chapter Three
    Jamie swallowed, wishing that Mack would stop using the word murder like a bludgeon.
    â€œTell me exactly what you dreamed.”
    She’d deliberately been vague with the details of the nightmare when she’d told him about it. Now she knew she was going to have to be more specific.
    â€œJamie?”
    She stared straight ahead, her hands folded one on top of the other in her lap. “In the dream, I wasn’t myself. I was that woman, Lynn Vaughn. She was in a…I guess you’d have to call it a funhouse.”
    â€œWhat do you mean by that?”
    â€œDid you ever go to a haunted house on Halloween when you were a kid? Like maybe something set up by a local charity to raise money? They had a bunch of spooky stuff to give the kids a fright, but everybody knew it was all for fun.”
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œIt was like that, only it was serious.” She clenched her hands together as she remembered the experience and the place. “It was dark and enclosed. There was scary music. A musty smell. Hallways with things set up to startle you, like witches jumping out. But some of it was a lot worse. One place had a trapdoor where she tumbled through andended up on a slide that took her to the basement. She landed hard on the cement floor and hurt her shoulder.”
    Jamie winced, remembering the pain.
    She hated dredging up more details, but Mack was staring at her with an expectant look on his face, so she gulped in a breath and let it out before she went on.
    â€œThe light was weird. Someone had worked hard to make the place into a creep show. In one section, there were horror movie posters. Dead-end hallways. Spatters on the floor that looked like blood.
    â€œAt first she was alone. But she kept hearing a man’s voice coming from hidden speakers. Then he was there . With her.”
    Details came fast and furious now.
    â€œHe was wearing black clothes, a black cape, a hood, boots. His face was a mask with a skull. He was talking to her, telling her she was going to pay for what she’d done to him. But he was also telling her that if she could find her way out, he’d let her go. Then she came to a place where she could go right or left. She didn’t want to go on, but he forced her to choose.
    â€œWhen she did, bright lights went off in her face so she could hardly see, and he came at her with a knife. I don’t think it would have mattered which way she went.”
    Jamie rushed on, wanting to get the recitation over with. “He slashed at her, and I felt her pain. Then everything went black. I was hoping she’d fainted, but I was afraid he’d killed her. I guess he did.”
    She said the last part with a little hitch in her voice as she turned to Mack, seeing the set lines of his face.
    When he spoke, it was like he hadn’t listened to anything she’d said. “Explain to me how you knew about what was happening to Lynn Vaughn.”
    She sighed, deep and loud. “It’s what I said the first time. I dreamed about her.”
    â€œThat’s all? You didn’t talk to anyone about her? Get some information from someone?”
    â€œIt was a dream!” She heard her voice rise.
    â€œJust a dream. Out of the blue?”
    The question made her want to open the door, jump out of the car and run down the road to get away from her interrogator, but she was pretty sure she wouldn’t get very far. Mack would catch up with her and drag her back.
    Instead, she raised her chin. Struggling to keep her voice steady, she said, “I used to have bad dreams when I lived in Gaptown. I’d have a nightmare and it would turn out to be true.”
    Before he could demand an example, she went on quickly. “It started when I was nine. I dreamed that Peggy Wickers, a girl in my fourth-grade class, was in an automobile accident. I woke up