Truth or Dare

by Jayne Ann Krentz

  Moving from the cell-like room, she drifted along the hall. It was as if she were a ghost separated from reality by a thin veil. Everything felt slightly unreal. She reminded herself that she still had the residue of some of McAlister’s drugs in her system.

  The lights had been turned down in the corridors as they always were at night, but they were never switched off. The halls of Xanadu were lit with an eerie fluorescent glow.

  She had to learn her way around this place. She wanted to create a map in her head so that when the time came, she would be able to move quickly and confidently.

  She passed a series of closed and locked doors and paused when she reached the corner. She had a blurry memory of turning left when the orderlies escorted her to Dr. McAlister’s office, so tonight she would turn right.

  This was uncharted territory.

  She floated through a series of hallways, turned another corner and found herself confronting a pair of swinging doors that blocked the entrance to another corridor of locked rooms. She read the black-and-white sign on the wall: H Ward.

  She moved through the swinging doors. This ward looked much the same as the one in which she was housed but there was a different psychic feel to this space.

  She sensed the faint, disturbing currents shifting around her but did not recognize them. These sensations were unlike the other strong emotions that saturated the hospital.

  Instinct warned her that if she got tangled up in these sticky strands she would be trapped forever.

  The spiderwebs of energy seemed to emanate from behind the door of one of the rooms. She went cautiously forward. The invisible strands grew darker, denser, more intense.

  She halted, unable to take another step closer to the door of the room.

  Fear shot through her. She had gone too far.

  The invisible stuff enveloped her, sticking to all of her senses: sight, touch, hearing, taste, even her sense of smell. But it clung most tenaciously to her sixth sense, the one that made her different.

  A cloudy darkness closed in around her. She realized that she was about to faint.

  She had to get out of there.

  She managed to take a step back. The dizziness made it difficult to keep her balance. She grabbed the rail on the wall.

  Wispy threads tugged at her, refusing to release her.

  Panic gave her strength. Using the rail for leverage, she hauled herself back another step. Some of the threads fell away. She retreated again and this time was able to pull free.

  She whirled and fled back to the limited safety of her room.

  She had been through a lot at Candle Lake Manor, but whatever it was that seethed behind that door in H Ward scared her more than anything else she had yet experienced.

  A last, trailing wisp of silky darkness touched the nape of her neck. She could feel the faint tremors in the gossamer threads that warned of the approach of the spider. . . .

  She awoke with the scream still locked in her throat.

  “Zoe.” Ethan leaned over her, anchoring her to the bed by her wrists, one bare leg trapping hers. “Wake up. You’re okay. Wake up.”

  The comforting reality of her bedroom, together with the reassuring heat and strength of Ethan’s body gradually replaced the fragments of the nightmare. A shudder of relief went through her.

  “Sorry about that.” Her voice was oddly hoarse in her own ears. “Didn’t mean to wake you.”

  “I was awake.”

  She looked up at him, fresh anxiety replacing the fear left behind by her dream. “Another bout of insomnia?”

  “I was doing some thinking,” he said.

  Yeah, right. He was lying, she knew. He had been unable to sleep. Again.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “Yes.” She tried to breathe deeply. “I haven’t had any of the really bad dreams for a while. I was beginning to think that I was free of them. Should have known better.”

  Ethan sat up against the pillows, wrapped one arm around her and hauled her tightly against him. He stroked her shoulder and arm gently, soothing her the way he would have soothed any startled creature.

  “Look on the bright side,” he said. “The fact that you’re going for longer periods of time between nightmares is probably a good sign.”

  “Probably.” She tried to force herself to relax against him but her heart was still beating too fast and the sticky strands of the dark dream clung to her. “Give me a minute. I’ll be fine.”

  “I know. You can deal with it. You always do.” He continued to move his big hand up and down her arm, holding her snugly against him. “Bad one this time?”

  “Yes.”

  “Want to talk about it?”

  A fresh wave of panic shot through her. Tell him about this dream? Try to explain exactly why it frightened her so badly? No. Not a good idea. Definitely not.

  She had told Ethan about many of the frightening things she had encountered at Candle Lake Manor; about how the corrupt head of the sanatorium, Dr. Ian Harper, had conspired with her in-laws to drug her and commit her against her will.

  She had told him about Venetia McAlister, the doctor who operated a lucrative side business consulting at crime scenes. McAlister had been obsessed with the possibility that Zoe really was psychic and had tried to force her to report her paranormal responses at grisly crime scenes where murder and worse had been done.

  She had told Ethan about the ordeal of the escape from Xanadu.

  She had told him more of her secrets than she had told anyone else, including Arcadia, but she dared not confide her deepest, bleakest fear, the one she had discovered that night when she wandered the halls of Candle Lake Manor and blundered into a psychic spiderweb.

  “The dream was about something that happened one night when I managed to get out of my room and have a look around,” she said, choosing her words carefully. “My head was not completely clear of the drugs, but I could finally string a couple of coherent thoughts together. One of the orderlies accidentally left the door of my room unlocked.”

  “What happened?” Ethan asked quietly.

  “I . . . walked around the halls for a while, trying to get a feel for the layout of the building.”

  “Mapping an escape route?”

  “Yes.”

  He moved his hand rhythmically along her arm, offering silent comfort. “Okay, I can see why that memory would have provoked an anxiety dream.”

  “That night the place seemed to be a maze. Probably because my brain was still half mush. I was afraid that I would never be able to find my way when the time came.”

  “But you and Arcadia did find your way out.”

  “Yes.”

  “And now you’re free.” He kissed the top of her head. “Just keep reminding yourself of that fact.”

  “Okay.”

  “I know.” His mouth curved in humorless understanding. “Some things are easier said than done, right?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  His leg moved under the covers, brushing her thigh. She flinched. His hand stilled on her arm. “This must have been a really bad one. You’re so tense you feel like you might snap in my hands.”

  She closed her eyes briefly, unable to tell him what a poor choice of words “you might snap” actually was under the circumstances.

  “Want to do the warm milk thing?” he asked. “That seems to work for you.”

  “It works.” She grimaced. “But I really don’t like warm milk.”

  “In that case, perhaps we should try some exotic massage techniques.” He closed his hand around the curve of her hip and squeezed suggestively.

  She knew that he was teasing her a little, trying to lighten the mood with hints of playful sex. She knew he was right. She desperately needed the distraction of his lovemaking right now, this very minute. She could not recall ever needing anything so much in her entire life.

  “You actually know some exotic massage techniques?” she asked, trying for the same lighthearted, suggestive tone.
>
  “As it happens, I have made an in-depth study of the subject, so to speak.” His hand moved under the edge of her thigh-length nightgown. “Would you care for a hands-on demonstration?”

  She turned a little in his arms and found one of his bare feet with her toes. “Depends what you intend to put your hands on.”

  “I thought I’d start here.”

  He slid his palm between her thighs and moved his thumb very deliberately across the sensitive place he found there.

  The searing rush of her own response startled her. Maybe it was the adrenaline left behind by the dream. Whatever the reason, she was suddenly wet.

  “I take it that particular technique works for you?” Ethan asked against her mouth.

  She drew a deep breath, shivering with the intensity of her need. “Yes. Yes, it definitely works for me. Got any others you’d like to demonstrate?”

  “There’s this one.”

  He eased his way down her body, hands gliding warmly along her waist and hips. She realized that he was already fully aroused.

  He raised her knees and did something quite incredible with his tongue.

  “Ethan.”

  Without taking his lips away from her aching, swollen core, he probed her with his fingers, finding the special place just inside the entrance.

  Her body reacted as if he had pulled a trigger.

  She locked her fists in his hair as her climax rolled through her. She convulsed so tightly and with such force that she could not catch her breath. The sweeping rush of sexual satisfaction swamped all else, including the tendrils of the nightmare.

  He was inside her before the small contractions had stopped, filling and stretching her over-sensitized body until she wondered that she did not shatter.

  When his climax pounded through both of them she held him with all the strength she possessed, needing the hard, sure feel of him to keep her tethered to the earth.

  When it was over they lay in a damp, tangled heap.

  “For what it’s worth,” Ethan mumbled into the pillow, “I believe that we have just proved unequivocally that the exotic massage technique beats the hell out of warm milk.”

  She smiled. “You mean for dealing with nightmares?”

  “Hell, I think it will handle just about anything.”

  She turned on her side. “Will you be able to get to sleep now?”

  “Don’t know about sleep,” he muttered, in a heavy, drowsy voice. “But if you will excuse me, I believe that I will pass out for a while.”

  She held him while he fell asleep, listening to his even breathing, thankful for the passion that flared so easily between them. It provided a temporary release for both of them.

  But she knew that the source of the anxiety that had animated the nightmare was probably not going to be banished for long now that it had been resurrected. She had faced most of her fears of Candle Lake Manor head-on, but there was one that she could not confront directly. She had tried to bury it in a deep, forgotten corner of her mind. Tonight it had risen from the grave.

  She had to find a way to slay the psychic spider or it would stalk her for the rest of her life.

  She could talk to Ethan about almost anything but she dared not talk to him about this. He did not even believe that she possessed a sixth sense. How could she possibly explain to him that her greatest fear was that the psychic aspect of her nature might ultimately destroy her sanity?

  She could not bring herself to tell him that her in-laws and everyone at Candle Lake Manor who had claimed that she was crazy might someday be proved right.

  15

  She came awake the next morning with the realization that she needed to concoct a strategy for dealing with the psychic spiderwebs that she had encountered in the library at the Designers’ Dream Home. Today she would make plans. The decision to take action energized her and renewed her spirits. Ethan noticed her improved mood at breakfast.

  “Feeling better, I take it?” he said, pouring coffee for himself.

  “Much better.”

  “No hangover from the nightmare?”

  “Your incredible exotic massage techniques made a new woman of me,” she assured him.

  “And here I was just getting used to the other woman.”

  “Variety is the spice of life.”

  “I like variety in my work but I’m not so keen on it in other areas of my life,” he said, oddly serious.

  She did not comment that three previous marriages argued otherwise. That would not have been fair. Bonnie had told her that none of Ethan’s three divorces had been his idea. When Ethan makes a promise, Bonnie explained, he keeps it. The problem was that none of the other three women he had married had kept the promises they had made to him.

  “Okay, maybe I’m not a totally new woman,” she admitted. “Just a refreshed and rejuvenated woman.”

  “Sounds good to me.” He smiled, got to his feet and pulled her up out of the chair to kiss her. “Glad I could be of assistance.”

  “I am, of course, deeply grateful,” she said when she could speak again.

  “Gratitude is good.” He flashed her his most wicked grin, the one that never failed to send little shots of lightning through her. “I want you to know that I stand ready to give you my special massage therapy anytime you need it.”

  “Your generosity leaves me speechless.”

  “Yeah? Well, turns out generosity also has its own rewards.” His mouth curved wryly as he headed for the front door. “I got some sleep myself last night.”

  She trailed after him, pleased. “I’m glad.”

  “We’ve got one of our stimulating little design meetings scheduled today, don’t we?”

  “Now, Ethan, you know we have to make some decisions about Nightwinds.”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “You said yourself you don’t want to live with all that pink around you.”

  “I’m all for getting rid of the pink. But I’m still not convinced that yellow is an improvement.”

  “I’m not suggesting taxicab yellow, for heaven’s sake. I’m thinking of a warm, faded, ocher-gold sort of color. The shade you see on old Mediterranean palazzi.”

  “I’ve never seen an old Mediterranean palazzo. And what’s ocher, anyway?”

  “Never mind. I’ll show you some paint chips today when we go out to Nightwinds.”

  “Okay. So long as we get to eat first. I can’t handle a design meeting unless I’ve had lunch.” He paused at the tiny hall table and looked curiously at the objects lying next to his keys. “What the hell are these doing here?”

  She cleared her throat. “They’re uh, emergency flares.”

  “I know what they are.” He picked up his new key chain and the flares. “Just wondered why they happen to be sitting here.”

  “I thought you might like to keep them in your car.” She knew she was turning red. “In case of an emergency or something.”

  She was pretty sure she saw the corner of his mouth twitch, but he merely nodded agreeably.

  “Good idea,” he said. “You never know when you might need emergency flares.”

  To her surprise, he actually whistled on his way out the door.

  She was definitely not whistling when she left for work a short time later. Outside in the parking lot, she walked briskly to her newly assigned parking space, her mind on her slowly evolving anti-spiderweb plan.

  So focused was she on how to approach the matter of the psychic cobwebs, she did not notice Hooper from apartment 1B until he collided with her. The stack of large cardboard cartons he had been carrying in his arms tumbled to the pavement.

  “Oops, sorry, Zoe,” he muttered. “Didn’t see you.”

  Hooper was short and wide. Male pattern baldness had struck him early in life. He favored polyester pants that had been designed for the full-figured male and a rumpled, short-sleeved sport shirt that looked as if it had been pulled out of the dirty laundry hamper.

  Hooper was addicted to high-tech gadgets.
His belt was festooned with what had to be at least ten pounds of hardware. Zoe recognized a phone and a small computer, but the rest of the objects that dangled around his waist mystified her.

  “No harm done.” She glanced at the big boxes and recognized a familiar brand name. “New computer?”

  “Yep.” Hooper bent down to retrieve one of the oversized cartons. “Arrived yesterday. This baby’s loaded. I unpacked it last night and was cruising the ’net by ten. Thought I’d get these cartons out of the way this morning.” He straightened. “Hey, you’re planning to move soon, aren’t you? Need a nice, sturdy box?”

  “No, thanks.”

  Hooper shrugged and surveyed the large metal garbage bin that sat against the wall of the apartment building. The container was filled nearly to the brim with trash, newspapers and bulging plastic sacks.

  There was a new, large, neatly lettered sign tacked on the wall above the bin. FLATTEN ALL BOXES.

  Hooper’s eyes narrowed. “Well, well, well. Looks like Sergeant Duncan has been brewing up some more rules for us. Flatten all boxes, huh? You know something? I’ve had it with Ms. Anal-Retentive. If she wants these boxes flattened, she can damn well do it herself.”

  One by one he hurled the empty computer cartons up onto the top of the garbage heap, where they effectively concealed the new sign.

  When he was finished with his show of defiance, he raised both arms high over his head, fists clenched in victory.

  “Screw you, Sergeant,” he chortled.

  Zoe was not unsympathetic. Nevertheless, she could not help but notice that with the large boxes sitting atop the garbage bin there was no more room for trash. The bin was not due to be emptied by the garbage pickup company until tomorrow.

  Reminding herself that she had other problems, she got into her car, started the engine and drove out of the parking lot.

  A short time later she opened the offices of Enhanced Interiors and went straight to the bookshelf. Singleton was helping her locate and acquire books in the field of interior design philosophy. Thanks to him, her collection was growing rapidly.

  The concept of designing living spaces so that they promoted harmony and increased the flow of positive energy was not a product of contemporary New Age thinking. Rather, it was thousands of years old.