Read Online Blood Dreams by Kay Hooper - Free Book Online Page A

Miranda isn’t staying. Are you, Miranda?”
    So that’s part of it. She’s worried about Miranda. Something must have happened to her in the vision dream.
He had wondered if these last years had taught Dani at least that she could no more control fate than anyone else could, despite her glimpses into an often grim future. Now he had his answer; she was still fighting that inescapable truth.
    The federal agent looked at Dani with, Marc thought, an oddly compassionate little smile, and said, “It might not make a difference, Dani. Whether I go or stay. You know that.”
    Miranda knows it too. That fate does what it will, despite everything we do to try to change it.
    “I know you need to go. Back to Boston, or to Quantico, or somewhere. Anywhere but here. Because if he’s here—you can’t be.”
    “What am I missing?” Marc demanded, intent on confirming his suspicions.
    Paris stirred and also spoke up for the first time in a while. “It’s about Dani’s dream, Marc. The one she told you about earlier this afternoon.”
    Marc turned his gaze to Dani and waited until she finally looked back at him. “What about the dream?” he asked.
    Dani drew a deep breath, let it out slowly.
    And told him.
     
    M arie Goode wasn’t a fanciful girl. Never had been. She wasn’t the type to jump at shadows or thrill to ghost stories, and if she heard a strange sound in her apartment late at night, she’d grab a can of pepper spray and go see what, if anything, was there.
    Usually nothing was, though once she had discovered a raccoon on her deck, raiding her bird feeder. The pepper spray hadn’t been necessary on that occasion, since the creature had been as wary of her as she was of it, and fled.
    Her father kept saying he didn’t like it that her apartment was on the ground floor of the complex, and Marie was on the waiting list for a larger apartment on an upper floor, but she’d never felt particularly vulnerable where she was. There were good locks on the doors, and while the complex
was
on the outskirts of town, it was still a safe, well-lit area.
    Which was doubly a good thing right now, since her old car was in the shop, hopefully being fixed, and she had to walk from her job at the small restaurant several blocks away. If she couldn’t get a ride, at least.
    On Wednesday night, no ride was available. And a private party celebrating an upcoming wedding had stayed late, which meant it was later than usual when Marie helped close up and set off on foot toward home.
    She wasn’t nervous.
    At first.
    It hadn’t really cooled off much in early October, but the summer had been brutally hot and too dry, so, in defeat, a lot of the trees had simply dropped dead brown leaves without the customary colorful show first. During the daytime, the dead leaves everywhere were a depressing sight; at night, with a fitful breeze, it was a bit creepy.
    The leaves rustled and whispered as the air currents caught them and slid them along the sidewalk and against the buildings Marie walked past. It was as though a small crowd of people followed her, just out of sight, and whispered among themselves, keeping their secrets.
    Now
that
was a fanciful thought, Marie decided. And why was she thinking such absurd things?
    She realized her hand had crept up to the nape of her neck, and she could literally feel the fine hairs there standing straight out.
    Her common sense gave her obviously overactive imagination a stern talking-to, and Marie stopped on the sidewalk, turning slowly to study her surroundings. Nothing at all unusual met her gaze.
    The breeze died down just then, so the whispering leaves were stilled and silenced. The sidewalk was well lit, as it was all the way to her apartment complex.
    A car passed her, then another going in the opposite direction.
    An ordinary night in Venture.
    See? There’s nothing wrong. Just your imagina—
    In the moment of absolute silence, after the car passed and before the breeze stirred up again, Marie