“Of course,” Grimshaw said smoothly as he removed a small notebook and pen from his shirt pocket. “You can describe your dream. Anything that frightened you that much could have relevance to the investigation.”

I stared at him. “How? I’m not an Intuit or a blood prophet.” I was pretty sure asking me to describe the dream was his way of getting back at me for being snarky, but now that he’d tossed that idea out there, I could see that they all wanted details. More embarrassed than ever, I grumbled, “It was just a silly dream. Have you seen any papier-mâché creatures in business suits running around Sproing?”

“The creature could be symbolic, since paper seems to be at the center of your current difficulties,” Julian said, frowning. “And this dream might be trying to tell you that you understand more about what is going on than you realize.”

I wanted to punch Julian for validating the dream, but I would have needed to push Cougar’s paw off my leg in order to stand up, and I didn’t think I’d succeed. So I described in excruciating detail—because three of the four males in the kitchen kept interrupting to ask for more details—the dream that had caused my various bumps and bruises when my sleeping body obeyed my fuzzy brain and tried to run away without having any clue about its current location.

Stupid body. Stupider brain for not posting a sign that said DREAM THREAT—PLEASE IGNORE.

Of course, even surrounded by guns and fangs, the image of the gauze-headed monster made me want to run, so maybe my various parts, while misguided, weren’t all that stupid. After all, running away was a valid choice.

Which meant Julian might be right about my subconscious trying to tell me something important.

“The car is here,” Ilya said.

“You need your purse?” Julian asked.

Of course I needed my purse. “I can get it.”

“You sit.” Julian disappeared, moving as if he were familiar with the main house and knew how to find my suite of rooms.

I was trying to think of how to tell two men who were so obviously trying not to look like they were wondering if Julian and I were friends or friends that I wouldn’t consider thinking of Julian like that. He was human and he was my friend, not a romantic fantasy. The only thing thinking about that in real terms did for me since the divorce was produce anxiety attacks.

Julian returned with my purse. Ilya and Grimshaw made sure the doors were all locked while Julian escorted me to the Sanguinati car.

“Vicki, go and get checked out,” Julian whispered as he opened the car’s back door. “Seeing the doctor has little to do with you right now.”

I studied his face, parsing out what he was trying to tell me when neither of us knew who or what was listening. And that was the point. An alarm had gone out, and while Ilya Sanguinati, Aggie, and Cougar may have been the only terra indigene visible in the kitchen, they weren’t the only ones who had responded and now needed to be appeased.

Ilya joined me a minute later and we drove to the doctor’s office. Someone had called ahead, warning Dr. Wallace that I was being brought in for unspecified injuries. The people in the waiting room looked surprised when I walked in with my attorney—and a few looked put out when we were immediately led to an exam room. But no one so much as muttered about special treatment.

There was tut-tutting from Dr. Wallace about the bruised toe and comments about me being lucky I didn’t hit my eye, which I had figured out for myself. Otherwise, he didn’t have much to say. The wound above my eye was minor and already healing. The area would be sore for a while, and I should be prepared for soreness and secondary bruises that would show up in another day or two. Goody.

He sounded more like a doctor assuring an anxious parent that the child hadn’t seriously damaged herself. I resented the tone but understood the reasoning. After all, Dr. Wallace wasn’t really talking to me.

A few minutes later, we were back in the car and heading for the Xavier boardinghouse.

“You’ll tell everyone that this happened because I had a bad dream, all right?”

Ilya gave me a curious look. “Does it matter?”

When we left the office, the women looked at my face and then looked away, some with sympathy and a couple with recognition. If humans made a mistaken assumption because it was true more often than not . . . “I don’t want anyone to be blamed for something that was no one’s fault.”

A weighted silence. Then Ilya said, “I’ll pass along the message.”

CHAPTER 29

Grimshaw

Firesday, Juin 16

Grimshaw had never wanted to be an investigator. He didn’t want a desk job or to expend energy on being nice to a small pool of citizens who would comment on or criticize the fact that he was not, and never would be, a people person who knew how to glad-hand and grease the wheel. He wanted to serve and protect. He wanted to be a cop. He accepted that being on highway patrol wasn’t the way to move up the promotion ladder, but he had made that choice because he liked highway patrol. He liked helping people who needed help or apprehending people who broke the law—and he liked that he rarely had to see them again. But like it or not, he was now in league with the Sanguinati and wouldn’t extricate himself from this place or problem anytime soon.

He wanted Ineke at this meeting but had enough political savvy and survival instinct to ask Ilya Sanguinati if that was all right. Getting the vampire’s agreement, he and Ilya settled in the boardinghouse’s parlor with Ineke and Vicki, all of them waiting for Julian to finish a phone call and join them.

Julian entered the parlor, holding a worn box that contained some kind of kids’ game. He closed the door, set the box to one side, and looked at Grimshaw. “I have an answer to your question. You owe someone a favor.”

“I’m good for it.”

“I know.”

“Perhaps we should begin with the dream so that Ms. Xavier can appreciate why we asked her to participate in this meeting,” Ilya Sanguinati suggested.

Vicki DeVine looked a little pale, but that could have been her normal skin tone in contrast to the dark bruises above her left eye. Either way, Grimshaw pulled out his notebook and recounted the dream to spare Vicki from having to repeat it.

“Well, gods,” Ineke said, taking Vicki’s hand. “If I’d had a dream like that, I would have done my best to run away too.”

Vicki wrinkled her face, then winced, telling all of them that even that much movement hurt. “Bed to floor. Not much room to run.”

“I find it interesting that Victoria’s dream included three other women,” Ilya said.

“That struck me too,” Julian said.

Grimshaw looked at the other men and blew out a breath. So he wasn’t the only one who thought that was significant.

Vicki shook her head. “It’s not a big thing. In thrillers, a lot more women are running from the bad thing. The men in those stories are more inclined to look for a pipe or a big stick to whack the bad thing than run away—especially when the men are a group of friends.”

“But one or two still get mauled or slashed or eviscerated before the rest run away,” Ineke said.

“True.”

“Regardless of what happens in thrillers, I think Vicki unconsciously recognized that Ineke could also be a target and was in equal danger,” Julian said with strained patience.

“From Mr. Paperhead.” Vicki’s tone was a swipe at Julian—something Grimshaw didn’t appreciate but was willing to overlook since it could be defensive rather than intentionally hurtful.

“Victoria.” Ilya imbued that single word with disapproval. Didn’t sound like he was willing to overlook the tone. “The shape of the monster that frightened you may be symbolic, but I think the paper head and the business suit are significant. You are embarrassed and are, therefore, trying to diminish the experience by snapping at Mr. Farrow and dismissing his opinion. You should not. Instead you should ask what you and Ms. Xavier have in common.”

“They run their own businesses,” Grimshaw said.

“Other women run businesses in Sproing,” Ineke said. “Sheridan Ames owns the funeral home, and Helen Hearse runs Come and Get It.”