Dream Lover

by Cassie Walder

  “Yes.”

  “Then you need to pick her up. When you go, take the bodyguards with you.”

  “No, that I will not do. The guards stay. I will not put you in danger. Leaving you without guards would be placing you in danger. It is not unknown that you have become important to me. I am not without enemies, Edwina,” he said.

  “Just give me some space, Klaus.”

  “Talk to me for a few minutes.”

  “What do you want to talk about?” she asked.

  “That hypothetical scientist,” he answered in rapid German.

  “That is not an interesting subject for conversation,” she replied in the same language.

  “On the contrary, it is a most interesting subject. This hypothetical scientist, suppose that she were to come against a problem in human genetics to which her work in plant genetics would apply?”

  “To augment some trait that is missing or insufficient?”

  “Hypothetically.”

  “Wouldn’t it be easier to supplement the diet of this person or to give injections of the missing substance?”

  “Perhaps. Suppose that failed.”

  “Gene therapy might be useful. But it would have to be handled with all possible safeguards.”

  “Would this hypothetical scientist be interested in taking on a project like that?”

  “Is that what you are working on now? Some gene therapy program?”

  “Perhaps. The hypothetical scientist might be interested in taking on this hypothetical project.”

  “Hypothetically, perhaps she might.”

  “How about in reality?”

  “We can talk about this later, sometime when I’m not so tired.”

  “Liebling, you are going to be tired quite a lot from now on. I intend to make love with you regularly. And it will not always be so brief.”

  She laughed. “Good. Now, good night, Klaus.”

  “What time will you be out to the house in the morning?”

  “My crew chief and I will be there sometime before nine.”

  “My staff will be anticipating your arrival. My man’s name is Kaufmann.”

  “You won’t be there?”

  “I’d planned on spending the day dealing with my youngest sister. But I’ve had business matters arise.”

  “That’s understandable.”

  “I should let you try to sleep,” he said quietly.

  “That might be for the best,” she said “Come. I need to shut off the fire.”

  “You’re taking this rather well.”

  “What’s not to take well? It was my decision to invite you up and to let things happen between us. And I warned you that it wouldn’t be safe for you ever to stay the night with me.”

  “I was a quite willing participant in case you didn’t notice.”

  She smiled at him. “I noticed. Believe me, I noticed.”

  “Did you now?”

  “You are an amazing man who will be late to pick up your sister if you don’t get out the door in two minutes.”

  “I can tell that you are going to be a harsh taskmaster of a wife.”

  “We’ll talk about that later. You need to go now.”

  “Yes, I do,” he told her as he kissed her once more hard.

  Edwina followed Klaus downstairs and handed him his overcoat.

  “Good night, my dear Edwina. May the angels guard your rest.”

  “Good night, Klaus.”

  A few moments later, back in her bedroom, she picked up her rosary and began to try to pray. The chill told her that Catherine had faded in once more.

  “Oh, he has a gene therapy program in progress. It’s nothing you want to become involved in, Edwina. He’s trying to mutate his own genes.”

  “Go away, Catherine. I’m trying to pray.”

  “You need to pray only slightly less than you simply need to run from that creature,” Catherine said sharply. “Tell him to go away and leave you alone.”

  “Leave me alone, Catherine.”

  “You just remember what I’ve told you about him, and be on your guard.”

  “Go away, Catherine.”

  A very sad expression passed over the face of the shade just before the figure faded away.

  Edwina went back to her beads. Before she had said even one more prayer, the cats began howling. She threw down her prayer beads and went to see what was bothering them. As near as she could tell after looking through the apartment, the cats had nothing to be excited about. Yet they would not calm down.

  Being too wired now to sleep, and not being able to pray with all the noise, she went into the library. She took the coffee tray into the kitchen, warmed the pot of coffee in the microwave, poured it into a thermal carafe, then went to her computer and pulled up her notes on her own research.

  After a couple of hours work, she uploaded the files to the remote computer. That was her back up in case anything happened to her main computer. The cats finally settled down about the time that she finished the work.

  She stretched out on her bed, picked up her rosary, but was immediately asleep.

  Chapter Eight

  The alarm clock rang off at the usual time, before dawn. Edwina looked at it in disbelief. It seemed as though she had just gone to sleep. It couldn’t be time to get up. But it was. It didn’t seem that she should be waking alone but she was.

  She forced herself out of bed and into the bathroom for a long hot shower. Wrapping her robe around her, she left the bathroom and stopped by the answering machine to pick up her messages. There were seven messages on the tape. She pressed the “play” key.

  The first six were more of the heavy breathing. The next call made her shake. It was clearly Jim Douglass’ voice. “Listen, Queen Bitch, I’ve had it. The poltergeists are destroying my business. I’ve told you and I’ve told you. If you won’t get rid of the spirits, I will! If the building no longer exists, they can’t haunt it. Fire or salt can purify. Fire’s easy and cheap. I hope you understand me. I’m not taking any more of this shit. I don’t care what I have to do to end it.”

  Edwina quickly ejected the full size cassette tape and labeled it. She put a fresh tape into the answering machine. Then she turned back on the ringer.

  She dialed her uncle’s home number.

  Uncle Lawrence answered it. “Lawrence Greene.”

  “Uncle? It’s Edwina.”

  “What’s the matter, Edwina? You sound upset.”

  “I’d been getting crank phone calls, so I shut off the ringer and left the answering machine to get it. My tenant was unwise enough to call and leave a threatening message on tape.”

  “You have the tape?”

  “I do. What do you want me to do with it?”

  “Call the police, Edwina. Report the threat. Tell them that it was left on your phone answering machine and that you have the tape. I’ll be by with the paperwork on the psychiatric complaint. You will sign it. We have to get this man off the street before he harms himself or someone else. Even making a threat of doing something like this shows him to be profoundly unstable.”

  She sighed. “Don’t tell Grandmother about this.”

  “Your grandmother has eyes in back of her head. Nothing passes under her radar.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “Will you sign the complaint and get this man some much needed help?”

  “Yes. But I’ve got an early appointment to walk off a landscape contract. I won’t be back at the shop until about ten thirty.”

  “Stop by my office on the way back to your shop, then. The papers will be at the front desk. Sign them. I’ll get them filed by noon. But call the police now, Edwina.”

  “Yes, Uncle.”

  Knowing there was a chance she might see Klaus, Edwina didn’t want to wear jeans. There was always a gleam in his eye when he saw her legs. But she’d be working. So she compromised between work clothes and nicer clothes, settling for the nicer of her work clothes. She put on a softly faded denim skirt,
a blue version of the black one she had worn the other night. With it, she pulled on a navy blue turtleneck sweater and her black leather western boots. Over everything, she decided that she would wear her black leather jacket. It wasn’t particularly pretty, but it was better than jeans and a cotton flannel shirt.

  The patrolmen came within a half-hour of Edwina’s call. She didn’t like doing this, calling the police had thrown off her entire morning schedule. She wouldn’t be able to make Mass. At this rate, she knew that she would be lucky to be able to get out to Klaus’ house in time to get the work done there and get back to the shop by the official opening time.

  Edwina told the officers everything about Jim, including his attack on her the day before. She showed them the bruise where Jim had taken hold of her.

  “Why didn’t you call us yesterday?” one officer demanded.

  “I thought I could handle this. Now I realize that the man is totally beyond reasoning with. He is dangerous, to himself and to everyone around him. And it’s way beyond anything I can handle. He’s not sane. Unless he gets help he’s going to hurt someone or himself. I no longer stand convinced that he was attacked early Sunday morning. I think he set that up.”

  One of the officers nodded. “Could we listen to this tape?”

  “Of course,” Edwina said as she popped the tape into a player she kept under the counter.

  Jim’s words came flooding over the speakers. Edwina shuddered hearing them again.

  At the end of the tape, she shut off the player and ejected the tape. Then she handed it to the officers. “You’ll need this as evidence. I want him stopped before he burns the building down. There’s already been one small fire.”

  “We’ll do our best,” one of the patrolmen said.

  “Will that be good enough?”

  The older of the two patrolmen sighed. “We can only try.”

  “Then I can hope that it will be enough,” she said as she looked at her watch. “Are we done here? I have a business appointment with a client.”

  “Yes. A detective will probably be in contact with you.”

  Edwina handed them her card. “This has my cell number on it. If I’m not here, I can be reached there.”

  She sighed as the police officers left. She hadn’t wanted to do this. But Jim had left her no choice.

  Her crew chief and partner in the nursery, Jennifer, came into the shop just after the police had left. “What were the cops here for, Ed?”

  With a shake of her head, Edwina said, “It doesn’t matter. They’ll handle it. I need about ten minutes to talk with people before we go out to Doctor von Bruner’s home. I’ll be right back. We have work to do there.”

  “I brought the nursery pick-up. It’s parked down the block. Come when you are done.”

  Edwina talked to each of her remaining tenants, briefly filling them in on the situation. She figured she owed them a warning about Jim.

  * * * * *

  Klaus lived in a gated community. Edwina gave her name to the security guard and they were let through with no problem.

  Edwina looked at the house and wanted to run as Jennifer parked the pick up in the driveway. She’d seen this house before, in her dreams, for the last fifteen years. It was a Norman style white stone house, with twin turrets flanking the entry foyer.She knew without seeing it, what the house would be like inside. She knew the layout, the colors, everything.

  “This is some house Ed,” Jennifer said quietly.

  Edwina sighed. “Yeah. But we’ve got work to do. Come on. The job is in the back yard.”

  “You don’t even want to see the inside?”

  “No. Let’s get to work.”

  “Whatever you say,” the other woman said quietly. “But, don’t you think that you’d better let the staff know that we are here just so that they don’t call the cops?”

  “I’m sure that the gate house has informed them that we were on our way.”

  Jennifer shook her head. “What’s bothering you Ed?”

  “Jennifer, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you. Now let’s get the job done. I’ve got a very long day ahead of me and a big party tonight for my grandmother.”

  “Stress makes you crabby, you know that Ed?”

  “You have no idea Jennifer,” she replied dryly. “Come on. Daylight’s wasting.”

  Klaus looked at the image on the security monitor as he spoke on the telephone. Edwina was here. He had expected her. But she didn’t look happy.

  Finishing his business call, he dialed his sister, Karen’s, bedroom extension. “Go outside and spend some of that excessive energy of yours on your horse.”

  Karen laughed sleepily. “Klaus, this is just further evidence that big brothers should be drowned at birth. Or in your case, smothered in garlic,” she teased.

  “Karen, please do as you are asked.”

  Then, in her first serious tone of the day, she asked, “Why do you want me to go out riding at this hour of the morning? Who’s outside that I’m supposed to see?”

  “Your future sister-in-law, Edwina Johnson.”

  “The botanist/geneticist?”

  “The same.”

  “Does she know about your marital plans for her, brother dear?”

  “Yes and she’s running scared.”

  “If she is running scared, why is she here?”

  “I’ve employed her to redesign the back garden.”

  “That’s interesting. Is this work she does regularly?”

  “Ever since she walked away from her last employer she’s been trying to launch a business venture of her own. I suspect it is a cover story for her to use to hide behind while her research continues. The job gives me an excuse to see her.”

  “Since when do you need an excuse for pursuing a woman?”

  “Just go outside Brat and be your charming self. Let her know that I have redeeming features.”

  “Do you have redeeming features?” Karen teased unmercifully. “I’ve never noticed any.”

  “Karen, how many favors do I beg of you?”

  “Very few, Klaus,” she admitted.

  “I am begging you now. Quickly throw on your riding habit and boots, and go down to the stables. On your way, introduce yourself to her. She speaks very good German. Be that charming self that you show all of your friends, and not the wicked-tongued brat that you are to family. I want her charmed, not frightened off.”

  “This woman is important—that important—to you?”

  “She will be my wife, Karen. And she has the best chance of anyone of coming up with a cure for this cursed condition of mine. You’ve seen her research. I would say that makes her doubly important to me.”

  Klaus’ sister sighed. “Very well, my dear brother. It will take me a few moments to get presentable. After all, you did pick me up at the airport quite late last night or early this morning, rather.”

  “Don’t waste any time.”

  “Klaus, there are times that your disability is quite wearying.”

  “You don’t have to live inside it. I do.”

  “I know, my dear,” she said compassionately. “Does she know?”

  Klaus sighed. “No, not yet. Not completely. She’s deduced part of it. But, I haven’t had the courage to tell her all of it.”

  “Don’t you think that you had better tell her? Especially, as you are obviously planning for her to help you solve it.”

  “Her assistance is hers to give or to withhold. I wouldn’t dream of coercing her one way or another. I love her, Karen. I can live—reasonably well—this way for the rest of my life. But I don’t think I could live well at all without her in my life from now on. I do not want to scare her away from me.”

  “You should be totally honest with her, then, Klaus. She has a right to know what she is getting into as she becomes involved with you.”

  “She’s laying out the new garden. I expect that she will be here another twenty five to thirty minutes, Karen.”

  “Okay. I’m goi
ng.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Shall I bring her in to you?”

  “No. I told her I was to be occupied with business matters today.”

  She sighed. “You will have to tell her, Klaus. Sooner or later.”

  “I would rather it be later than sooner.”

  His sister sighed once more. “It is your life, Brother. However, you are making a mistake of the first order. She’s bound to feel a degree of betrayal that you haven’t trusted her.”

  “Just go on out and talk with her, please,” he said before he hung up the phone and sat back in his dimly lit office, looking at the monitors from the outside cameras. There were times that he really hated the restrictions of his condition.

  Seven minutes later, he saw Karen, dressed in her riding habit, walk out into the back lawn.

  Edwina and the other woman were taking measurements.

  Klaus wished that he could hear what they were saying. But there were only cameras not microphones on the security system.

  Karen walked up to Edwina. “Guten morgen.”

  Edwina looked at her. “Guten morgen,” she replied cautiously.

  “My brother told me that you would be here this morning. I am Karen von Bruner,” Karen said in rapid German.

  Edwina answered in German, “You are Klaus’ youngest sister.”

  “Ah, then, he’s told you about me.”

  “Should he not have?”

  Karen laughed softly. “What did he tell you about me?”

  “Just that you were spending your birthday with friends in Geneva, instead of at the Opera with him. How was Geneva?”

  “Much as it always is.”

  “And the young man whom you went to see?”

  The younger woman blushed slightly. “Also much as he always is.”

  “Is your brother here?”

  “Ja. He’s in his office. He’s busy with his phone conferences. Seems that he spends most of every day tied up with business. He’s driven. What he needs is someone like you to give him something besides business to think about. He needs a woman who will challenge him. Having read your dissertations it’s clear that you can keep up with him.”

  Edwina felt her face grow warm. “Right now, I need to finish this work so that I can get back to my own business.”