“I know this one. Austin.” Vanessa tapped a photo. “Damien has been relying on him to get everything set up. He’s supposed to run the show because Damien doesn’t want to relocate here; he has a lot going on in Louisville. There’s no way I’ll be able to avoid your guy since I’m going to participate in interviewing the girls tomorrow. I’ll also be at the club every night.” She set the folder down and settled back into the chair.
“So, what happens if those cops get hurt while I’m around?”
“Not your problem. We need for your relationship with Damien to stay intact. No matter what.” Chaz held her stare for a long time before she nodded and looked away, but not before he saw a brief flash of anger that said a lot about her character. No good cop would be comfortable turning her back on another cop in trouble. He wanted to tell her that if she heard anything that might threaten the men, she could try to get the information to her handler, but he knew she’d do that without his prompting. He didn’t want her to think there was any situation in which he would ask her to jeopardize herself and her case for his. As he’d said, she was the more valuable asset.
“No direct contact under any circumstances?” she asked.
“Not unless your life is the one threatened. Then, get to Austin, tell him you know me, and ask for his help.”
“Codeword?”
“Little Bo Peep,” he said with a grin. “And, they think my last name is Bryson.”
Vanessa chuckled, stood, and said that she needed to get back to her errands. They shook hands before she left. Only the fact that she couldn’t be seen with him kept him from escorting her to her car.
Chaz looked at his watch. He had a couple of hours to kill before the FBI technician arrived to set up the surveillance equipment. He wanted to use that time to get acquainted with the streets within a five-mile radius of his hotel. He was going to need to know roads and exit strategies to make sure no one ever followed him to the “safe house.” Streets that wound into dead ends or looped back on themselves could get a person trapped. And trapped could mean life or death.
He’d already walked around the hotel and was comfortable that he knew the layout and exit routes in case he noticed someone suspicious. In addition to having a different rental car every couple of weeks, he planned to occasionally park away from his room and enter from a different direction. Every suite had a patio door that opened to the pool and picnic area in the center of the property. There were also breaks in the building after every fourth unit. Chaz knew where each one led.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
That night, Stephanie had a hard time getting to sleep. Her instincts told her that it wasn’t because Chaz was in any danger; he’d seemed fine when they’d video-chatted little more than an hour earlier. After that, she’d had a warm bath and a cup of tea. But, her mind wouldn’t let go of the uneasy feeling. She climbed out of bed and went to fill her hot pot with tea leaves so that she could meditate. Maybe that would calm her mind enough to sleep, or it would allow her to get in touch with whatever was bothering her.
Just as she settled into a relaxing position, her cell phone chimed with a text message. That was odd. Chaz wouldn’t be sending her a text unless something was wrong. She rushed into the bedroom to find out what was going on.
The text wasn’t from her husband, which puzzled her even more.
Karen: Hey. Are you still awake? I feel off.
Stephanie frowned. What was going on? Her best friend had been off kilter the last time Stephanie was trying to adjust to a shift in the way her gift has always worked. She immediately sent a reply.
Stephanie: I feel off too. Odd that you connected with me again.
Karen: You’re the one driving this, remember? Can’t sleep?
Stephanie: No. Not worried about Chaz. Getting ready to meditate.
Karen: OK. Chat with me in the morning. 6:30?
Stephanie: Deal
After a few minutes to consider it, she sent a text to her husband.
Stephanie: Are you awake? She didn’t have to wait long for an answer.
Chaz: What’s wrong?
Stephanie: Can’t sleep. Anything happen since we talked? The reply didn’t come as quickly this time.
Chaz: No dream? It wasn’t like him to be evasive.
Stephanie: Just feel weird. Did something happen?
Chaz: Small misunderstanding. What do you feel? It was Stephanie’s turn to hesitate.
Stephanie: Doubt. Maybe anger. Distrust. Chaz took so long to answer that she wondered whether she had interrupted something. Regardless, even with him on the other end of the phone, she didn’t feel any unease about his circumstances.
Chaz: Can’t tell details. Will make note that your feelings match my problem. Text every time this happens, okay? I’m going to keep a log.
Stephanie: Okay. Goodnight.
Chaz: Goodnight baby. Love you.
Stephanie: Love you too.
She set the phone on the nightstand and stared at it. This was the second time she’d had strong enough feelings about something happening with his cases that it interrupted her psyche. Karen said that Stephanie was driving this connection to everyone else. That couldn’t be totally true. Yes, Karen was reacting to Stephanie. But she was reacting to Chaz or the atmosphere around him. One thing was clear—she needed to keep her husband safe.
When she returned to the guest bedroom to meditate, she had a greater sense of purpose. Instead of seeking relaxation, she would try to focus her energy on accepting the changes in her gift even though she didn’t yet understand them. That could bring her peace.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Chaz shoved his phone into a pocket and turned his attention back to the technician who was monitoring the screens from the second floor above Damien Granger’s jazz club. Chris had installed them to capture everyone emerging from the elevator and all hallways. There wasn’t much activity earlier in the evening, but that had changed about twenty minutes ago.
Austin had stepped from the elevator with a giggling and frisky dark-haired woman. The couple disappeared into the second door to the left of the elevator and emerged less than half-an-hour later. Camera coverage of the police officer picked up again when he exited the elevator and went a separate direction from the woman. Almost immediately, the technician assigned to the 9:00 pm. twelve-hour shift started making jokes about Austin sampling the merchandise. Chaz didn’t correct him. After all, Austin knew there were cameras and where each one was. Maybe he was deliberately trying to indicate something about the woman. Still, Chaz needed to consider all possibilities, no matter how angry he was over the derogatory comments.
Later, when he was upstairs in the privacy of the bedroom, he would get a notepad and start documenting his wife’s dreams and impressions. Doubt. Anger. Distrust. He only needed a moment to mull those over and decide they all applied to the vibes between him and this technician.
The younger man, Brian Pleasant, hadn’t worked on the case while Chaz had been analyzing it in Cincinnati. In fact, not much video surveillance had been done on this case—mainly photographs, the accounts from Confidential Informants, and the observations of the two undercover police officers were the basics of the file. If it weren’t for the fact that the FBI had a greater interest in Damien Granger than simple illegal prostitution, Chaz doubted that the Bureau would have taken on this case. But, they had and here he was—stuck with an opinionated and somewhat immature computer wiz that he, for some reason, didn’t trust. He’d have to give that more thought in the morning.
Right then, he needed to add to the notes he’d jotted down about the meetings earlier in the day with Vanessa and Austin. For him, it was always best to write the clinical details of his report soon after the event. But he’d also figured out that he functioned more clearly when he gave himself time to digest the personality indicators and come up with an assessment of the person’s state of mind or character.
Just as he was turning away from the bank of monitors to head upstairs, somethin
g caught his attention. He blocked out the irritating humming of the other man in the room and focused his eyes on a video feed of people entering the jazz club portion of the building. His blood froze.
Paul Watkins. What was he doing there? Yes, his name had come up before when Chaz was reading reports and when he’d spoken with Steve about this case, but no one anticipated that Watkins would venture this far from his home base in Chicago. Chaz watched every step, facial expression, gesture, and shift in body position. Watkins was quietly aggressive, as he had been when meeting with Chaz on the undercover case in Erie.
This was a development he would need to report to Roy right away. It was critical that someone be assigned to watch Watkins’ activities. Multiple FBI offices were building what would become a monster case against the man.
“Do you know that guy?” Brian asked.
Chaz chose not to answer. He didn’t know this tech. If he wasn’t trustworthy, the last thing Chaz needed was for someone to slip and mention his name in any way that could get back to Watkins. Chaz wasn’t even sure whether he’d tell Austin to listen for any information on the man—it wasn’t his assignment. Chaz had been a major player in keeping Watkins from taking over an illegal gambling room. They’d only met once, but it was enough for Chaz to eternally be on his guard regarding the criminal. He was totally confident that Watkins wouldn’t hesitate to kill him should their paths cross again.
Stephanie’s impressions made sense in light of this discovery. Of course she would be unusually connected to a case with a man who frightened her. Doubt. Anger. Distrust. Yes, she would sense all of those things if she was aware of Watkins’ presence.
Knowing that he had similarly applied those same words to his reaction to Brian instantly bothered Chaz. Were the two men somehow involved with each other? He’d have to watch closely.
And he’d have to tell Stephanie enough information for her to figure out how her gift was transforming without revealing any classified information. Maybe he should get some input from Steve McDaniels. Yes, the man was on indefinite medical leave, but he was the only person who knew about Stephanie—and he’d been interested in having her help with this case.
Chaz pulled out a chair and settled into it to watch the monitors. Since the club wasn’t open yet, this was no social visit. He was very interested in knowing why Damien Granger was dealing with Paul Watkins.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Stephanie stood in front of the bathroom mirror studying her changing body. A smile spread across her face as her hands smoothed over the roundness that was the first indication of the baby bump. Of course, it wasn’t yet large enough for her to start wearing maternity clothes, and probably no one other than Chaz would notice it, but this was exciting. She could visualize her husband standing behind her, kissing the back of her shoulder, watching them both as his hands joined with hers in caressing her belly. Soon. Her smile got brighter.
A few minutes later, she was sitting crossed-legged on the bed waiting for Karen’s face to appear on the computer screen. Instead, her dark-haired husband appeared with a worried expression on his face.
“Good morning, Steph. What’s wrong? Karen is worried sick about you.”
“I am not!” came a disembodied voice from somewhere in the room.
“Well … maybe that’s a slight exaggeration,” Victor admitted, but his scowling face didn’t change. “You know she usually sleeps like a rock; last night she tossed and kept waking up. So, what’s going on?”
“Good morning to you, too.” Stephanie grinned at her best friend’s husband, who was also a very close friend. “This is why I miss you guys so much.” A deep sigh left her.
“Really, sweetie, talk quick before your godson wakes and starts crying to be fed.” Karen’s face appeared beside Victor’s.
“I honestly can’t explain why you were so bothered. Apparently, you picked up on my troubled spirit at the same time I did. But, something is going on with Chaz’s case. He’s not in danger, but I’m somehow attached to it.”
“And I’m attached to you.”
“How is this possible?” Victor was highly intuitive, so for him to be baffled surprised Stephanie.
“I meditated last night. All I can come up with is that you are sensing my aura, even from so many miles away, and I am sensing the auras around Chaz.” Stephanie shrugged. “We knew my gift was changing when my dreams started being about more than just him, but I don’t remember much about my recent ones.”
Everyone thought about that for a moment.
“Could you be suppressing the dreams but sensing the residual impact?” Karen nodded as she spoke. “That could account for why you have the feelings but vague details.”
“It’s possible, maybe. But, why would I suppress the dreams?” Some of them had been scary over the years, but Stephanie had never been afraid of having them.
“Because the details aren’t about Chaz.” Victor was confident in his conclusion. “The intensity is about him, but not the details. Remember—that was the first indication that your dreams had changed. It’s the same thing that started happening in December when he had to testify. You had a strong impression about his supervisor, right?”
Both women nodded.
“What about déjà vu?” Karen asked. Stephanie sat up straighter and stared wide-eyed into the camera.
“I’m not having much of that. So, maybe those two gifts are overlapping or blending or working together. Maybe I really am suppressing my dreams and the ‘already seen’ nature of déjà vu is showing up when I sense Chaz’s stress as it’s happening. I’m feeling what I must have experienced in my dreams as an echo of details I can’t remember.” Everyone was silent again. “How can that be?”
“I don’t know.” Karen looked at her husband. “We can’t go down there every time she gets off-kilter.”
“No, but it’s still your job to rebalance her. It always has been.”
“That’s it!” Stephanie nearly shouted. Both of her friends turned back to the screen. “I am supposed to help Chaz keep his team out of trouble and you’re supposed to keep me centered so that I can do it! Everything has been building to this from the day I met him. Remember how you use to ground me after my dreams in Erie? That’s always been your role in my life. And, Victor, remember how you pushed me in the right direction when I couldn’t see it or was afraid to embrace it? All of our paths have been heading towards this destiny.”
“Then, I’m the alarm ringer?” Karen asked hesitantly.
“What?”
“I felt you last night when you didn’t even know you were sensing Chaz.”
“True.”
“I might be able to make you aware, but I can’t always balance you from here. I won’t be able to read your auras or know what teas to send in time for it to help Chaz.”
“Phailin!” They all said her name at the same time. The Thai woman, who was initially a friend of Chaz, was intimately familiar with these Eastern concepts. She’d known things about people’s auras so well that she was sometimes able to anticipate how they would respond in specific situations. She knew how to balance Stephanie and she lived nearby.
And they all trusted her.
“I’ll call her this morning and see when she can meet with me.”
Calmness settled over the three of them.
“That’s it, then.” Victor’s certainty always amazed Stephanie. “I’m going to work. Take care of yourself, Steph. You know I love you.”
“I will, and I love you, too.”
As if on cue, their baby’s cries punctuated that the conversation was over.
“Call me after you talk to Phailin,” Karen urged, “but I know we’re right.”
“I think so, too. Thanks for everything.”
“No problem, sweetie.” Karen blew her friend a kiss and ended the call.
Stephanie sat on the bed for a while after speaking with the Matthews and tried to digest everything that was said and what it meant for her and Chaz. She h
ad no doubt that everyone else was a supporting cast to the partnership they were building.
They were a team: Chaz, Stephanie, Victor, Karen, and Phailin. Somehow, Stephanie suspected that Steve McDaniels was also a part of this team—she had intense feelings about his reliability and goodness towards Chaz.
Team.
She and Chaz had used that word a lot recently without knowing what it really meant.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
“Tell her as much as you can without giving classified information.” Steve’s voice was strong and clear on the other end of Chaz’s phone. “There’s nothing wrong with revealing that your case deals with prostitution, or that some dangerous people are involved, or that you will use a variety of techniques to obtain information. She would appreciate knowing you need her input about a certain meeting or relationship. She saw how we operated in Erie, so some of this will be easy for her to figure out with only a few hints from you. If she had agreed to help, I was intending to ask whether she was having dreams about our target or picking up on vibes about specific people by describing their personal appearances without providing any names. I was hoping that might direct her dreams in some way.” Chaz could hear the other man shifting around in his seat and wondered whether he was at home in Erie or at his new place in Cincinnati. “Stretch the rules as far as you can without breaking them, Chaz. It’s what might need to be done, especially if Paul Watkins is wrapped up in this in any way.”
Chaz nodded even though his mentor, who was becoming a friend, couldn’t see him. They were on the same wavelength.
Eventually, he said, “With our suspicions about the Kentucky State Police, there’s no other way to get insight into what Watkins wants. Stephanie and the surveillance videos are our only possibilities.” He took a big gulp of Pepsi and stared out his car window. He’d left the safe house in order to make two calls—one to Steve, the other to Stephanie—and was parked toward the rear of a fast food restaurant.
Loving Night: Dream Catcher Series ~ Book 2 Page 5