“Noble! Wake up.”
“What is it?”
“Why are you in my bed?”
His voice was groggy. “You weren’t feeling well and asked me to stay. Are you okay now? Did you throw up again?”
“No, I’m fine, but I want to sleep alone now.” Tina sounded nicer than necessary.
“Are you sure?”
Jamey strained to hear.
“I was having the strangest dream about us.”
“Here are your pants.”
Tina’s voice was too low to decipher all her words but “negligee” was clear enough.
“You got that for your birthday and insisted on wearing it to bed.”
Okay, Tina hadn’t brought back clothing. That was good news.
Noble said something he couldn’t hear.
“No, Noble.”
Jamey stood, ready to run in.
“I feel ill. I want to sleep alone. But thanks for offering.” She was patronizing him. Jamey had to think that if he’d been the one in the sexy dream with Tina, he might be begging to stay in her bed too. He ducked back into the guest room and waited. Noble’s steps thudded down the back stairs. From the guest room window, Jamey watched Noble cross the lawn and enter his cottage.
Tina’s bedroom was illuminated by a shell nightlight in the wall, just enough light for Jamey to see Tina sobbing into a pile of tissues. He paused at the door. “Are you sad he left or…?”
Her nose blowing was abnormally loud for such a little person.
“No, I’m not sad he left.”
He sat beside her on the bed, kissed her shoulder and waited.
She blew again. “I don’t want to jump into dreams.” She sniffed and patted her wet cheeks. “I’m having a hard enough time with everything. I don’t want a creepy ability, too. And why was Noble sleeping beside me tonight? I have no memory of going to bed with him.” She sniffed and blew again. “Maybe we had sex.” She said the last part in a very tiny whisper. “Probably consensual but I’ll never know if I can’t remember.” She looked at Jamey. “I don’t know which is worse, having sex with Noble and not remembering, or discovering I jumped into his horny dream.”
Jamey bristled. “Tina, this is serious if you can’t remember if you had sex with Noble, consensual or not.”
“As serious as dream jumping?” She looked pitiful. “That seems pretty horrible, if you ask me. Oh God, I feel like I’m losing it and there is no way back.”
Jamey didn’t trust himself to speak. If Noble screwed her without her knowledge or permission…
She turned to look into his face. They were only inches away. “Why were you here, anyways? I thought you weren’t invited to the party?”
Had she forgotten? “I was going to jump your dream tonight.”
“Oh, I forgot.” She seemed disoriented.
“When I arrived, Noble was here so I sat under the window.” He gestured to the front yard below. “And jumped when you entered a dream.”
Tina wiped her nose. “Wow. You’re good.” She threw her pile of tissues into a wastebasket.
“I wasn’t sure it would work but I seem to be able to piggyback your dream jumps.” He squinted at her. “Have you ever jumped someone’s dream before tonight?”
“I don’t think so unless I jumped into that sexy dream with you? Or was that my dream and you jumping?”
Aha. There was a new possibility. He shrugged. “You were the jumper tonight because you’d arrived in Noble’s dream before me.”
She groaned.
He knew how it felt to discover you had a scary talent you didn’t want. He smiled apologetically. “I really don’t know that much about it, except how it works for me.” Putting his arm around her shoulders, he pulled her in. “You entered Noble’s dream. Probably you two were touching in the bed?”
Tina looked exasperated. “I don’t remember anything. There was a surprise party. I supposedly drank too much, which was weird because at dinner I only had two drinks with a lot of food and when I got back here, I only had one, or maybe none.”
“What were you drinking?” Jamey squinted.
“Wine at dinner, water here.” She pointed to the glass on the bedside table.
He picked it up and swirled around the last tiny bit in the dim light. “Do you mind?” Jamey reached for the switch on the bedside lamp.
Tina inched closer to Jamey, their shoulders touching. “What is it?”
“Sediment, of some kind. Maybe a sedative.”
“I didn’t take one, I know that.”
Jamey frowned. “It’s never good to mix alcohol with that stuff. I’m going to have it analyzed.” In the light he noticed how drawn her face looked. “You’ve got to be exhausted. Should I leave, or stay in case Noble comes back?” He preferred staying but given what Tina had gone through already, she might not agree.
She put her head in her hands, and then looked up quickly. “Do you have that headache again?”
Jamey shook his head. “Not nearly as bad.”
“Do you think you should stay, in case you get the headache worse. I can watch you. Or what about if I fall asleep and have the diving dream?”
His heart melted and pooled at his feet. She was still trying to help him first, then herself. A good sign. “Maybe, yes.” Jamey looked at her. “I’ll stay.” He knelt and took her hands in his. “I can also drive you to the clinic if you want to do a rape test.”
The corners of her mouth twisted. “No. I couldn’t do that.” She looked away. “I just couldn’t, especially seeing Noble and I … maybe I led him on in my drunkenness.”
“Or druggedness.” Jamey bit back the words that would impose his opinion on her. “Your choice but if you want to go back to sleep, I’ll take the chair.”
She bit her bottom lip and glanced toward the door.
Tina had plenty to be scared about. A rapist for a friend, dream jumping, a ghost in her bedroom and getting drugged – all on her birthday.
“You can sleep in the bed, Jamey. There’s lots of room.” She said it so casually. He agreed. A few days earlier, they’d shared the bed. “Okay, but I’ll take the side closest to the door.” If Noble was slipping drugs in her drink and raping her, this game just leapt to a whole new level.
* * *
Tina and Jamey woke to the noise of the doorknob jiggling, then Noble’s voice. “Tina? Tina, open the door.” He pounded against the barrier as his voice rose to a frantic pitch.
She lifted her head off the pillow and noticed the clock. 7:04. She didn’t need to open the shop today. “Noble, what is it?” Jamey lay awake on his back, fully-clothed on top of the covers, watching her.. His jaw was clenched and she could imagine what he was thinking.
“Tina, open up. I just saw Jamey’s car out there.”
She sat up in bed. “Noble, relax. You are waking me because you saw a jeep?”
“I don’t trust him.”
“Oh my God, Noble. There are loads of yellow jeeps on this island.” Tina was glad she’d locked the door. Noble was becoming more of a problem with every hour. “Start coffee. I’ll be out in a few minutes now that you woke me.”
Jamey lay still while Tina shot him an apologetic look. “Headache?” she mouthed.
He shook his head slightly and sprang silently off the bed.
By the time Tina got to the door, Jamey was hiding in the closet. Maybe he didn’t have a headache, but she had a whopper. Ibuprophen would be the next thing she swallowed before coffee. Her mouth was dry and her head felt like it was stuffed with soggy insulation. She hated this feeling.
When she returned to the bedroom Jamey was gone. Had he jumped out the window with his soldier moves? All of this was getting to be too much and now Noble was lecturing her about taking a break from Maui. Her parents must have gotten to him because he sounded convinced that she was under too much stress. “Get off the rock for awhile,” he’d said.
All Tina really needed was to find Hank’s body. She did not need a break from Maui.
Pulling on a pair of patterned board shorts and a T-shirt, she felt the room drop in temperature. The windows were open but the curtains weren’t fluttering. This coolness came from inside the room. And it was not pleasantly cool, like an early morning Maui breeze. More like swimming into a cold patch of water. Acutely alert, Obi whined and sniffed the air. His unrest suggested it wasn’t her imagination. Tina looked around the room. She waited. Did this have something to do with Jamey?
A tingling sensation crept up her spine like a centipede headed for her neck. Then the temperature returned to normal and Obi trotted out the bedroom door and raced for the deck. He wagged his tail looking down the long driveway in anticipation.
Later she’d ask Jamey. Maybe dream jumps robbed the room of heat. Tina knew nothing about it, but if she was going crazy on top of this new skill, then she seemed to be taking Jamey with her. Thank goodness for friends. Finally she had someone to accompany parts of her insanity.
* * *
Jamey didn’t want another confrontation with Noble. What was tedious a few days ago had now turned to something else. But as long as Tina coddled the friendship, Jamey had to tread carefully. Before he’d leapt to the garden below Tina’s window, he’d swabbed the drinking glass sediment with a tissue. He hoped to have it analyzed as quickly as possible. If there weren’t traces of a sleeping pill, or worse, Jamey would be surprised. He suspected Rufinol the date rape drug but it could be anything.
He phoned Katie. “What are your thoughts about this Noble situation?”
She sounded slightly panicked. “I don’t really know what to think. I’m not an expert.” was all she said.
As he drove towards The Ridge, Jamey Dunn’s mind was filled with questions and concerns. Tina had jumped Noble’s dream. She’d come back through Jamey’s portal. After a lifetime of dream jumping Jamey’s learning curve was taking a drastic climb.
Parking the jeep in the usual spot, he let himself into the condo and called his Sixth Force superior--the man he most trusted in Afghanistan – Sergeant Pete Milton.
Now wasn’t the time to reveal that he suspected his dream jumping days might be over. That bit of information was his secret for the time being. He’d never tell Milton about shaking Tina’s hand, her fainting and something passing between them. Never reveal that now she was taking him along on her dream jumps and that he suspected that he might’ve passed something off to her. Maybe his ability had been lying dormant since the last jump in Afghanistan, waiting to transfer to someone. And if so, why hadn’t Katie been the one when he hugged her, or his daughters, or Carrie, Pops? If he did, they’d want her. It took a few tries but he finally go through.
“I have reason to think a friend was drugged and I need to have something analyzed.”
Milton paused to think. “I’ll see if I can arrange for that. But Freud, you gotta avoid trouble, y’hear?” Jamey heard the man take a drag on his cigarette. “You’re supposed to be lying low.”
“It’s just my niece. She might’ve gotten ruffied,” he explained.
Next, Jamey called Pops to run everything by him. He’d always shared information with his father, believing that a second party shed fresh ideas on any situation.
“I tried automatic writing with a friend’s deceased husband and all I got was a little drawing that looked like the letters M.O.”
“Oh sheesh, I don’t know anything about automatic writing, Kid. Was it M as in Molokai or N as in Norwich?” Pops asked.
Jamey spilled the can of coke in front of him. “Molokai. Wait. I’ve been thinking it stood for Maui, trying to figure out what or who MO is and you might’ve just solved the mystery.”
Jamey mopped up the mess and phoned the dive shop to verify that Tina was ten miles down the road in Lahaina.
“She was here,” Katie said, “but left with her parents. They said something about the airport.” Katie whispered. “Her truck is here. Obi too. Tina’s mother was angry with her but with a really quiet voice. You know? One of those. And Tina seemed really tired and almost like she has the flu. Her Dad was trying to lead her around and she let him grab her elbow and take her out to the car like she was some sort of zombie. I felt bad for her. I think she’s sick.”
Yup, Jamey thought. Hung-over. Or worse. He’d dropped off the sediment for analysis at the police station and was told it would be a few days. He was hoping Tina had a few days. In the meantime, finding Hank’s body and keeping Tina away from Noble was top priority. “Katie, if someone lost a boogie board, say at HonoluaBay or Fleming, could it potentially drift all the way to Molokai? Or is the channel too wide between northern Maui and Molokai?
Katie had no idea but said she’d phone another dive shop.
Noble’s truck was parked in its usual spot at Tina’s house but Jamey didn’t feel Noble’s presence on the property. That was good. He flew up the stairs with the writing tablet clutched in his hand.
The main room of the house was in a state from the night before, littered with the sort of mess that is created from a party –bowls of half-eaten snacks, beer cans, plastic glasses on every flat surface and decorations doing the second day droop. He hadn’t noticed any of this when he’d rushed upstairs to find Noble in Tina’s bed, the night before.
“Hank.” He entered the bedroom expecting that Tina’s husband could hear him. “I think I understand. It’s Molokai isn’t it?” He sat in the bedroom chair and drew a ‘Yes’ and a ‘No’ on the page, all the while talking, ready to receive his answer about Molokai. “I need to talk to you. Hank, please, Tina and I need to help you.”
Jamey sensed someone in the house. It wasn’t the spirit of Hank. Or Noble. It was coming from outside the bedroom. Someone frightened. Moving down the hall. Towards him. He stood. Ready.
Tina’s mother peeked in the bedroom, fright fixed on her face.
“Mrs. Greene. It’s just me. Sorry if I scared you.” She’d heard him calling to Tina’s dead husband. Must’ve. “I can explain.”
Her facial expression changed to angry in a second. “You again. Back to get more watches?” She straightened. “Get out of here.”
Jamey’s mind searched through all possible explanations but there were no rational reasons for him to be in Tina’s bedroom calling out her dead husband’s name. “I’m sorry I frightened you.”
“Leave my daughter’s house, Mr…”
“Dunn. Jamey Dunn.” There was nothing more to say, no way to explain what she’d heard. Damn. What the hell was Tina’s mother doing in her house? “Were you looking for Tina or…?”
“That is none of your business.” She shot him a look to cut him down to size. “Don’t think I won’t be telling Tina you were in her bedroom calling out to her dead husband. You are as unbalanced as…” Elizabeth seemed to catch herself and closed her mouth. She took a quick look in the bedroom then faced Jamey, like the wall she was. He’d been cut down to size by this powerhouse of a woman. “Leave.” She arched her eyebrows as if to express her strength of character and waited for him to obey. Wow. Tina hadn’t had a chance with this mother.
Jamey planted his feet, a tactic he’d learned in army training--body language 101. “Elizabeth. Look. We both have Tina’s best interest at heart.” He covered his heart with his right hand. “You don’t have to like me but I am a former police officer, a decorated soldier, on leave from Afghanistan.”
“I think the operative words are ‘former’ and ‘on leave’ Mr. Dunn.” She pointed to the patio door. “Out, or I shall be forced to call the real policemen.”
He was done for now. Jamey pretty much knew that if it was possible for something to float all the way to Molokai, he would be on his way to the airport before sunset. And weren’t the Greenes supposed to be on a plane right now? Tina told him earlier that the only good thing about the day ahead was the fact that her parents were leaving for Seattle.
Jamey left the house. Although he didn’t look back, he felt Elizabeth Greene’s contempt behind him. Something else accompanied her dislike of him that he couldn’t place. Worry, of course, but a feeling more like subterfuge. Something was very wrong and Jamey was sure that Tina’s safety was not the only thing in jeopardy.
.