“Take your hand off me,” she said. It was gratifying to discover she was no longer slurring her words. Her voice sounded stronger, too. She was gaining control over the waking nightmare.
Oxlade tightened his grip. His eyes glittered. “You can’t leave. Don’t you understand? Everything depends on you.”
She tried to pull free and lunge for the door.
Oxlade yanked her back. “You can’t walk out on me, you silly woman. I need you.”
She swept out her free hand and grabbed the nearest heavy object, a glass ashtray. She swung it awkwardly at Oxlade’s head. He yelped, released her arm, and scrambled backward, barely escaping the blow.
“You must calm down, Miss Smith,” Oxlade gasped. “You are suffering a fit of hysteria.”
She started toward the door again, but halfway across the room she remembered her handbag. She could not leave it behind. Not only was there a little money inside, but there was some identification in her real name.
She changed course and swiped the bag off the console. When she realized Oxlade had not made another grab for her arm, she glanced back over her shoulder. She was just in time to see him reach into a desk tray and seize a syringe. He rushed toward her.
“You leave me no choice,” he said. “I must sedate you. Don’t worry; I will make sure you get the help you need.”
The chilling words came straight from the heart of some of her worst nightmares, the ones that harkened back to her time at Sweet Creek Manor. Another wave of panic washed over her. It would take her a few precious seconds to get the door open. She did not have those few seconds.
Oxlade closed the space between them. He held the syringe as though it were a stiletto.
“I’m sorry to have to do this, Miss Smith, but it’s for your own good.”
More words from a nightmare.
She dropped the handbag and picked up the large ceramic vase sitting on the console. Filled with water and an impressive bouquet, it was almost too heavy to lift, but desperation gave her strength. She used both hands to heave it at Oxlade.
He tried to dodge, but it was too late. The vase struck him in the middle of the chest. He grunted, dropped the syringe, and staggered backward. Water and flowers cascaded over him, soaking his elegantly tailored suit, shirt, and tie.
The back of his knee came up against the edge of the couch. He collapsed onto the cushions.
“You are hysterical,” he gasped. “You don’t know what you are doing, what we could achieve together. I forbid you to leave this room.”
She seized the strap of her purse, got the door open, and stumbled into the small waiting area.
The flinty-eyed receptionist was on her feet, transfixed with shock. A middle-aged woman sat, frozen, in the waiting room, a copy of Reader’s Digest clutched in her gloved hands.
Maggie heard the door of the inner office slam shut behind her. Afraid Oxlade was pursuing her, she spun around—and nearly lost her balance.
Relief flooded through her when she saw that Oxlade had sealed himself inside his office. There was an audible click when he locked the door.
She took a deep breath, slung the strap of the handbag over one shoulder, and opened the door of the small waiting room. She was about to rush out into the hall, but she paused long enough to look back at the stunned woman holding the magazine.
“Take my advice,” Maggie said. “Find another dream therapist.”
She did not wait for a response. She escaped into the hall, slamming the door behind her. Bracing one palm against the wall to steady herself, she made her way cautiously toward the stairs.
She wondered if the frozen woman would take her advice. Doubtful. People rarely took good advice. She was an excellent example of that particular character flaw. She had lost count of the number of times she had told herself to give up on the search for a dream analyst who could help her learn how to gain better control, yet here she was, fleeing another disastrous encounter.
Emerson Oxlade could have stepped straight out of a horror film—Doctor X, perhaps, or Mad Love with Peter Lorre.
Fortunately, he didn’t know her real name.
Chapter 2
Adelina Beach
Five months later . . .
Maggie did her best to ignore the coatrack, but that proved impossible. It loomed in the corner of the office of Sage Investigations, casting an invisible shadow over the cramped, sparsely furnished room. A fedora dangled on one brass hook. A well-worn trench coat was draped over another.
Neither the hat nor the coat was the source of the bad energy in the room. No question about it—the coatrack was the problem. It did not belong in the office. It was wrong.
She told herself the coatrack was none of her business and tried to focus on the reason she was sitting in the office of a private investigator—the third one that day—at ten thirty in the morning.
“Someone is attempting to blackmail my employer,” she said. “I want you to find the individual and put a stop to the extortion threat.”
Sam Sage leaned forward and folded his arms on the desk. He was not what she had expected. He certainly looked the part. He had the resolute and rather intimidating features and the cold, nothing-can-surprise-me eyes of a man who has shed whatever illusions he might once have had about the world, but there was more to Sam Sage. She was not sure how much more, but the realization that there were hidden depths was vaguely reassuring. She needed a detective who could be counted on to keep secrets.
In spite of his stony, seen-it-all aura, she got the impression she had caught him off guard. It was as if he had expected someone else to walk into his office but she had appeared instead. Now he was trying to decide what to do with her.
Then again, maybe he was simply surprised to have a client. The expensive fedora and the hand-tailored suit, white shirt, and striped tie suggested he had once been successful, but the shabby office made it obvious he was no longer prospering. Sage Investigations was on the second floor of a modest two-story business building. A café and a newsstand were on the street level. On the way down the hall she had passed the doors of a secretarial firm and a small-time bookkeeping business.
The used furnishings reflected the man. Somewhere along the line all the cushioning and decorative elements had been stripped away, leaving just the essentials—a scarred wooden desk, the squeaky chair behind the desk, a couple of client chairs, and a dented metal file cabinet.
There was a telephone, a brass desk lamp with a green glass shade, a calendar from the Adelina Beach Garage & Service Station, and a tray for pens and paper clips. Everything seemed to fit into the room—everything except the coatrack. It shouldn’t be in the office, but a man had to have a place to hang his hat and coat, so she supposed it qualified as an essential item of office furniture.
Sage had been reading the morning edition of the Adelina Beach Courier, the heels of his leather shoes stacked on the corner of the desk, when she opened the door a short time ago. He had immediately risen to his feet and shrugged into the suit coat. The paper was now neatly folded on one side of the desk.
“How much is the blackmailer demanding, Miss Lodge?” he asked.
“One thousand dollars.”
Sam’s brows rose. “The extortionist is not a small-time operator.”
“The note claims it will be the one and only demand, but I’m sure you’re aware that once an extortion demand is met there is always another and another.”
“I’ve heard that.”
She ignored the wry sarcasm. She had read enough Dashiell Hammett to know that private investigators were supposed to talk that way. It went with the cynical, world-weary air.
“Every advice columnist gets crank letters, but this one is different,” she continued.
“You’re an advice columnist?”
“I work for one.”
She pulled the envelope out of her handbag and put it on the desk in front of him.
He studied it briefly. “It’s addressed to Aunt Cornelia, in care of the Adelina Beach Courier.”