Twenty minutes later we were driving home.
“Breakfast talk?” Rachel pounded the dashboard. “What the hell is he doing giving a breakfast talk? I thought it was a big lecture. At a university. Or a conference. Not a Waffle House.”
“At least he didn’t fire you,” I said, my eyes on the road.
Stenholtz had actually listened to the whole story. He’d heard about the murders—one of them, anyway. He didn’t quite believe the dreams could have anything to do with the real world, but he was intrigued. “Cruelty to animals and a history of violence fits a few markers,” he agreed. “Assuming he’s not still in prison. Or dead.”
“That’s what we need to check out next,” I said.
He looked between the two of us. “All right. Go home, both of you, and check this out. But Ms. Dunne, when you come back on Monday, I expect a full report on top of all your paperwork being finished. And I expect a new attitude about following procedures and protocols for bringing outsiders into this facility.”
“Yes, sir.” I’d never seen Rachel so subservient. It was uncomfortable.
“Yeah, he listened to you. A man.” She punched my shoulder. “But, yeah, at least I still have my job. And a ton of paperwork to do.” She put her sunglasses on. “I’m just going to rest my eyes for a bit. Try not to crash into anything.”
“Got it.”
At home Rachel headed to the bedroom for a shower. I started looking up whatever I could find on Mitch Haining.
I found a few brief newspaper stories about Haining going to prison for assault, along with a few other glimpses of his earlier life—a brief mention of him scoring the winning touchdown in a high school football game, an obituary for his mother, a minor arrest for marijuana, and then the girlfriend stabbing. Fortunately the girl had lived. Was he still locked up? I couldn’t find out. No social media presence. And there was nothing about the dog.
I showed it all to Rachel when she came in. “I guess you have to call Anita,” she said when she was done skimming.
“Yeah.” I saved everything to my hard drive, “I just hope it does some good.”
She patted my shoulder, then turned to her desk. I watched her walk, and then I called Sharpe.
“Okay,” she grunted when I told her what we’d learned. “Send me what you got. I’ll see if it checks out.” Then she hung up.
After that I talked to some clients, lined up more appointments for the sexual harassment case, and did one interview via Zoom in the afternoon. Rachel sat with noise canceling headphones at her desk, ignoring me as well as she could.
At 5:30 I checked the refrigerator. Then I went into the office. “I’m going down to the grocery store for dinner stuff. Is rice curry okay with you?”
Rachel groaned. “You’ve made dinner every night this week. I’ll do it.” She stood up and stretched. “I need the walk. What are you gawking at?”
“I like watching you stretch.” I grinned. “I’ll come with you. I could use a walk with you too.”
She rolled her eyes. “Don’t get any ideas.”
“Me? You jest.”
The late afternoon was warm, the sky a little overcast, the sidewalks busy as people got on and off buses or came down from the el on their way home, or maybe on their way to work. I saw people walking their dogs and kept an eye out for anyone who seemed to be stalking them.
“I want to go to the park.” Rachel took my hand. “Just for a few minutes?”
“Fine.” I followed. “You okay?”
“I just need some fresh air, and nobody calling me.” She squeezed my hand. “All right?”
The park was only a few blocks away. We made our way down a path and found an empty bench under a tree. Rachel sank down and closed her eyes with a sigh.
I sat with her, not saying anything, just watching her and listening to the birds and the breeze.
“I’m so close,” she murmured. “Just a few more months. I can do this.”
“You’re doing great,” I told her. “I always knew you could.”
“It’s just . . . some days.” She sighed. “I hope Henry’s getting some sleep. He said he was going to—”
“Rachel? Tom?”
I turned. It was Sara Metz, a neighbor from our building. She’s middle-aged and friendly, a real estate agent with two grown kids in New York. She waved, pulling on a leash. “Yes, Neelix, behave. They’re friends.”
Neelix was her pug, a small dog named after a Star Trek character. Our landlord technically didn’t allow pets, but somehow Neelix was an exception. “Hi, Sara,” I said, and Rachel nodded.
“Nice day, isn’t it?” She took a swallow from a water bottle clipped to her belt as Neelix sniffed Rachel’s feet.
“Yes, hi, Neelix.” Rachel scratched his ears, then stood up. “Come on, Tom, we’ve got groceries to buy and beer to drink somewhere.”
“Yes, milady.” I stood. “Have a nice walk, Sara. Neelix—”
The small pug barked once. Then he stiffened with a growl and barked again. Not friendly this time.
I started to turn. What the—
I’m in a park.
She’s there, with her boyfriend. And there’s a woman with a dog. A dog.
No one can see me. But I don’t care. I’m going to do it. Right now. I’m going to—
Tom is standing up. He shouts a name. Rachel is staring at me. Not scared. Why isn’t she scared?
The dog is barking. Some woman is holding its leash, yelling at it.
I have the knife. Rachel is right there. Tom is running at me.
I can’t move.
The knife is in my hand, but I can’t move my arm.
Rachel grabs Tom’s arm before he can hit me. I can’t hear what she’s saying. The dog is barking. I can’t hear it barking. The woman holding it looks scared. She’s got her phone out.
I can’t move.
Rachel’s in front of me, keeping away, and Tom is pulling on my hand, trying to get the knife away. I can’t move. Rachel is staring at me. She’s trying to talk to me. Her lips are moving. I can’t hear her. I stare back at her. What is she saying? What’s she trying to say? I can’t move.
Finally I hear her—
“Henry? Henry!”
Then I wake up.
We were in Dr. Stenholtz’s office on Monday. Henry was there.
“I just fell asleep in the rec center.” He seemed more relaxed than I’d seen him before. “I wasn’t going to take a nap, I just dozed off. And then—I was there. I saw you.” He blinked, his eyes darting over to me. “B-both of you. And I had to—I couldn’t let him do it. I just couldn’t. So I—I stopped.”
The cops had shown up in minutes after Sara’s 911 call. Mitch Haining just stood there, seemingly paralyzed, and when he could move again he just fell over, gasping and cursing. I’d taken the knife. Neelix kept his distance.
Dr. Stenholtz was still skeptical, but right now he seemed able to keep an open mind. “How are you feeling today, Henry?”
“Fine.” He smiled. “Better than in a long time. I can sleep good again.”
Rachel cleared her throat. “It seems like Haining became aware of me through Henry’s dreams, when I spent the night here.” She’d come clean about that, but Henry had insisted that he’d given his full consent. “And he decided, since we had a connection, to come after me. And Tom,” she added quickly.
“Mostly you,” I said. “I get it.”
“And the dog?” Stenholtz asked.
“He hates dogs,” Rachel said. “Having Neelix there just drove his rage, but he didn’t need it that time. He wanted to punish Henry for turning him in when they were kids. He couldn’t get at him in here directly, but somehow he had the ability to get inside people’s dreams. So he decided to torture Henry by making him watch the killings.”
I’d called Sharpe right after two cops arrived at the park to take Haining into custody. Detectives confirmed his identity, and the old man, Francis Monks, identified him in a lineup. Sharpe had told me this morning that Haining had made a rambling statement about hating dogs and loving nightmares. “I’m betting his lawyers go for an insanity defense,” she told me.
Stenholtz looked at us across the table, his arms folded. “And you have some experience in things like, I don’t know, invading people’s dreams? Psychic phenomena? The supernatural?”
Rachel swallowed and nodded. “Yes. That’s correct.”
“A lot of that is my fault,” I said. “I seem to attract the crazies.”
Rachel kicked me in the ankle.
Stenholtz scowled. “Thank you, Henry. You may go.”
Henry stood up, nervously looking at Rachel and me, and then left.
Stenholtz tapped a key on his laptop. “I’m going to have to add a note to your file about observing Henry during sleep without prior authorization. And also about bringing your boyfriend in on different occasions for inappropriate purposes. Not—” He raised a hand before Rachel could object. “Not those kind of inappropriate purposes. Just outside the realm of your prescribed duties.”
He tapped some more keys, then looked up. “However, Henry does seem to have improved under your care. And you have shown a commitment to your patient’s well-being that’s commendable. But this all sounds like an X-Files episode, and I don’t like the X-Files. So for the next few weeks, try to limit yourself to standard protocols and approved guidelines of care.” He sighed. “That’s all. Go back to work.”
We left his office before he could change his mind. Out in the hallway, Rachel sighed with relief. “He didn’t fire me.”
“Of course not.” I looked around, but there were too many people watching for me to give her a kiss. “See you at home?”
She smiled. “Yeah. Thanks.”
“No problem. It’s what boyfriends do.”
Rachel punched me. Lightly. “Don’t forget it.”
I rubbed my arm. “Never.”
# # #
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