The Vanishing Stair (Truly Devious #2)(13)
“In this case, I don’t think it’s a metaphor,” Lucas said. “It may be the truth.”
“Rancourt is dead. We know that for a fact.”
Lucas tightened his grip on Victor’s hand. “Yes.”
“We destroyed all the files and the artifacts that we found in his lab, but what if we missed something?”
There was nothing reassuring he could say, Lucas thought.
“We’re doing all we can do,” he said. “We’re staying vigilant.”
CHAPTER 5
Catalina awoke on the last tendrils of the old nightmare, the one in which she and Olivia tried to flee deep into the Fogg Lake caves to escape the stranger who had just murdered a man. But no matter how hard they struggled, they could not find the right current of energy. Each time they attempted to enter a tunnel, they found themselves at the edge of the lake.
“We have to go into the caves again,” she tells Olivia. “It’s the only way to escape.”
“We can’t go inside,” Olivia explains in the unnaturally calm tone of dreams. “If we do, we will go mad and throw ourselves into the deepest part of the lake. We will drown.”
But the dreamer tries another path. Once again she finds herself at the edge of the bottomless lake. She realizes that she is holding a fork and suddenly understands that they can use it to find their way through the caves.
She turns to tell Olivia that everything will be okay now. Olivia is not there.
Catalina sat up abruptly, her pulse skittering, and swung her legs over the side of the bed. She knew that most people would probably turn on the lights and walk around for a few minutes in an attempt to suppress the dream images. But if you were raised in Fogg Lake, you learned to analyze your dreams.
It didn’t take any great insight to understand why the old dream had come back tonight. The anxiety of the past had been roused from the depths by the drama at Marsha Matson’s house.
There was no need to be alarmed. The fact that Olivia had not texted or phoned was a good thing. It indicated that the big date with Emerson Ferris had gone well. Olivia was no doubt sound asleep at that very moment, wrapped in the arms of her lover. She would probably be glowing when she walked into the office a few hours from now.
Catalina went to the window. A fiery sunrise illuminated the sky over the Cascades. It had been a long night. Hopper had vanished by the time the police arrived on the scene, but he had left plenty of evidence inside the house. The bottle of champagne had his fingerprints all over it. There were traces of his blood on the front porch. Best of all, the security camera had caught almost everything.
In addition to the statements that she and Marsha had given, she had been able to provide the cops with a great deal of Hopper’s personal information, including aliases that he had used over the years. The authorities were certain it would not be long before he was taken into custody.
After the police had finished, Marsha had declared that she could not spend another night alone in the big house. Catalina had driven her to a downtown hotel that had plenty of reassuring security and waited until she had checked into a room.
Catalina had returned to her apartment building, where there was also a respectable security presence, including a twenty-four-hour concierge on the front desk, a lot of surveillance technology and a private guard who patrolled the garage and the perimeter of the building at night. She and Olivia had good security inside their own apartments, too. When you were in the investigation business, you got a little obsessed.
There had been other cases that had ended badly. She and Olivia usually dealt with those by having drinks together and talking. But Olivia had not been available this time. She had spent the night with the man of her dreams.
Maybe Emerson Ferris was the right person for Olivia. Catalina tried to analyze her doubts about Ferris. There was nothing obviously wrong with him. She and Olivia had both researched him thoroughly before Olivia went out on a second date. By every objective measure he was a good man, just as Olivia had said that afternoon. He was honest. Stable. Successful. Kind to animals. And he shared Olivia’s artistic interests.
Maybe I’ve gotten too cynical, Catalina thought. Maybe there was hope after all for a couple of Fogg Lake girls who were trying to pass for normal in the outside world.
The fire in the sky was fading now, transforming into a cloud-streaked dawn. Catalina turned away from the scene. The restlessness that had kept her awake for much of the night was getting more intense, but she could not identify a legitimate cause. She wasn’t on the verge of a full-scale anxiety attack, she decided, but she could not shake a persistent sense of dread.
She went to the closet and found her workout clothes. She would join the other early risers in the fitness center on the top floor of the apartment tower. Maybe exercise would help her calm down.
An hour later she showered, made a pot of coffee and sat down to her customary breakfast: unsweetened Greek yogurt, peanut butter on a slice of rye toast, and blueberries. The meal was as predictable as her wardrobe. Maybe she needed to get a life. On the other hand, she had nearly been murdered the previous night, so maybe her life wasn’t so boring after all. It was a matter of perspective.
By the time she finished she was so unnerved she dared not finish the coffee. She was afraid the additional caffeine might push her over the edge.
She could no longer resist the urge to contact Olivia.