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gazed around Morganna Patterson’s modest home. She had gone into Malcolm’s office to have a heart-to-heart talk with him about the type of assignments she’d been getting. He had listened to her complaints and then had turned the cards on her by giving her the one assignment none of the other reporters wanted: to investigate Mrs. Patterson’s story—or at least pretend to be doing so.
    Christy had to admit the woman seemed kind and sincere, and when she had arrived at the Pattersons’ home she felt awful to see it in such disrepair. Before leaving the office she had pulled the Patterson file out of dead storage to take it home and read. Although everyone had pretty much written it off as fiction, Christy figured it would be interesting reading for the weekend, if nothing else.
    She glanced up when Mrs. Patterson reentered the room with a pitcher of cold lemonade. The woman was such a gracious hostess, and Christy’s heart went out to her. Malcolm had said the woman’s daughter had run away and her husband had died within the same year, so she was living all alone.
    “You look too young to be a reporter,” Mrs. Patterson said, smiling, pouring lemonade in two glasses.
    Christy smiled. She was getting used to that comment. “Yes, I’m probably the youngest reporter Malcolm has on his staff right now. I graduated from college two years ago and worked as a reporter for the Houston Chronicle before deciding to take the job here.”
    Deciding to jump right into the interview, Christy clicked on her tape recorder and said, “Tell me about your daughter, Mrs. Patterson.”
    She watched as sadness crept into the woman’s eyes. “Had she lived, Bonita would have celebrated her sixteenth birthday two days ago.”
    Christy lifted a brow. “That was the most recent day she came to you in your dreams?”
    “Yes.”
    “And you said when she came to you it was to warn you that another girl was about to be abducted?”
    “Yes.”
    “And did she give you any information about the girl? A name? The town where she lived? Anything?”
    Morganna shook her head. “The only thing she could tell me was that her name was associated with Christmas.”
    Christy frowned. Christmas? Would the girl’s name be Mary? Angel? Star ? “Is there anything else you can remember?”
    “No, I’ve told you everything. My heart goes out to that young woman’s family, whoever she is. Bonita explained once in an earlier dream how after being taken, she was put in the cargo section of this boat with other young women—all of them had been snatched and were frightened for their lives. They were told that no harm would come to them if they did what they were told and accepted how things would be from then on.”
    A gentle smile touched the woman’s features. “Of course that was probably Greek to Bonita, who always had a mind of her own. Being rebellious came naturally to her. After a few months of being some man’s love slave she couldn’t take it anymore and tried to escape. It was then that she met her death.”
    A lump formed in Christy’s throat. She didn’t want to ask, but she had to. “And how did she die?”
    The woman hesitated, then took a deep breath as tears filled her eyes. “Bonita was beheaded in front of every other woman to show what would happen to them if they tried to escape like she did.”
    Christy didn’t say anything, and for a moment she had forgotten that whatever Morganna Patterson was telling her was nothing but a figment of the woman’s confused imagination, although it had sounded real.
    “And this place that your daughter was taken, where is it?”
    The woman shook her head. “I don’t know, because Bonita was never sure. All she knew was that it was in a foreign country, where the men spoke a language she didn’t understand. She was put in this harem with other teenage girls between the ages of fourteen and nineteen, from all over the world. Each girl was to serve whatever man chose her as his