Dream Eyes

forty seconds to get it open. The stack of bills inside told him everything he needed to know about the old lady.
    “A little paranoid, weren’t you, Granny?” he said to the emptiness. “You didn’t trust anyone, not even your own son. Well, you knew him better than anyone else, didn’t you? After all, you were his mother.”
    There was one other item in the safe, an old-fashioned checkbook register.
    He shoved the cash and the checkbook into the small black backpack he wore and went downstairs. He exited the house the same way he had entered, through a rear window.
    He found the car where he had left it several blocks away in a parking lot behind a grocery store. He drove the nondescript vehicle back to the airport and turned it in at the rental counter. He had used one of his spare sets of identification to rent the car. He liked to keep a lot of extras on hand, not only for himself, but also for Gwen and Abby. Just in case.
    It occurred to him that Abby probably wouldn’t need that kind of security backup anymore now that she was marrying into the Coppersmith family. That clan took care of its own. And something about the energy between Gwen and Judson Coppersmith told him that she might not need her brother much longer, either.
    The thought of losing his sisters to the Coppersmiths threatened to stir up the dark waters deep inside. Since their days at Summerlight, Abby and Gwen had been there for him. Abby had taught him the ropes of the hot books business. Gwen had always been around to drive the nightmare monsters back into the depths. The bad dreams hadn’t surfaced in a while, but he knew they were still swimming around down there in the bottomless pit.
    Okay, so Gwen and Judson were sleeping together. No problem. At this point it probably didn’t amount to anything more than a one-night stand. Maybe two or three nights. Whatever. It didn’t mean he would lose her, too. What was happening between the pair was just the natural result of a lot of adrenaline, excitement, danger and mutual physical attraction mixed up together. He’d been there often enough to know how the chemistry worked.
    But a chill went through him. Gwen didn’t do casual sex, and while the relationship between her and Judson had ignited quickly, it did not look like it would burn out fast. Even Wyatt Earp had noticed the heat between those two.
    He did not want to think about what his nights would be like if the dream monsters returned. He did not want to think about what his world would be like if he lost both of his sisters to the Coppersmith family. So he got some coffee and found a private space in which to suck up the caffeine while he went through the bankbook that he had found in the wall safe. Numbers were always interesting, especially when they were linked to money.
    After a while he took the small computer out of the backpack and went online. It didn’t take long to find what he was looking for. He was as good at finding interesting stuff hidden in cyberspace as he was opening concealed wall safes.
    Really, he had been born for a life of crime.

Twenty-seven
    S he sensed the dark energy of Judson’s psi-charged dreamscape just as she was about to slip into a lucid dream of her own.
    She was in her robe, nightgown and slippers, curled up in the chair in front of the fire with her feet tucked under her. She was orchestrating the delicate trance-like state, summoning images from the scene of Louise’s murder, when the currents whispered to her from the other room.
    Her first thought was that the unfamiliar tendrils of dreamlight had been generated by her own self-induced hallucination. As often as she had gone into the waking dreamstate, she could never be sure of what she would experience. Trances were, by their very nature, unpredictable.
    But when she heard Judson utter an urgent, half-choked shout, she was jolted out of the trance.
    She stood quickly. Max was awake, too. He sat up on the bed and gazed fixedly toward the doorway into the other room.
    Judson groaned.
    Gwen hurried to the doorway. In the faint light from the fireplace behind her, she could see Judson sprawled on the bed. His ring was infused with sun-hot light.
    Max jumped down from the bed and joined her in the doorway, meowing in a low, uneasy manner.
    Gwen heightened her talent and slid into a waking trance to get a sense of what was going on in Judson’s dreamscape. She was not surprised by the explosion of amber lightning that crackled in the