“AAAHHH!” The gunshot still ringing in her head, Sydney screamed herself awake.
Body rigid, right fingers clutched in a painful fist, she looked down at her stomach which was pulsating with pain and frantically patted the front of her white nightgown. But for the clinging dampness caused by her sweat, the garment was clean – free of the brilliant red she had seen so clearly. She took a choked breath and opened her clenched fingers. Though the flesh felt penetrated, her palm was empty.
“A dream,” she choked out.
But the fear and the noise and the pain had all been so real.
Sydney quickly looked around the room to make sure she was still safe. Nothing out of line. The light on the chest shone. The door was closed. The windows were locked. Yet she was shaking as if the earth had quaked beneath her. This dream had been even more violent than any previous.
Heart palpitating in an unnatural rhythm, Sydney tried to calm herself and replay the nightmare in her mind as best she could, now, while it was still possible to remember.
She was running... no, a man... no, she.
Which?
Think harder.
A dark haired man, she decided, closing her eyes. She grasped the image and refused to let go. A dark haired man was running from someone. Terrified. Determined. But who? She couldn’t make out his features. Too murky. Even so, his fear became her own. Terror welled within her anew, cradled her in its ugly grasp, threatened to swallow her whole.
And then the foreboding receded and dissipated altogether.
She squeezed her eyelids shut tighter. “No, not yet.”
Unable to retain the vision any longer, Sydney opened her eyes and gasped in frustration.
How should she interpret what she had seen? Was someone in danger? Who? A dark haired man?
Kenneth had dark hair, but he was already dead, wasn’t he?
Her thoughts turned to the only other dark-haired man in her life. Benno DeMartino. But Benno was definitely alive. At least for now, a nasty little voice whispered.
She sprang out of the chair for the telephone next to the bed. Probably sounding like a madwoman, she demanded the number of Benno’s Place from the operator. Then, with shaky fingers, she punched out his number. Four rings.
“Benno’s Place,” came a woman’s voice over the volume of the jukebox and noisy customers in the background.
“Poppy? It’s Sydney. Can I speak to Benno?”
“He’s not here.”
“Not there?” Anxiety made Sydney’s pulse pound. She hadn’t considered she wouldn’t be able to warn him. What if he were in danger at this very moment? “Where is he?”
“I haven’t the faintest idea. He left a half hour or so ago and told me he’d be back in a while...” Poppy’s voice trailed off as someone shouted to her. Then she said, “Listen, I’m the only one here and the natives are getting restless. I’ve got to go. Should I give Benno a message?”
“Tell him to call me.”
Sydney set the receiver in its cradle and checked the bedside clock. Twelve-twenty-six. Where could Benno be so late? Surely nothing had happened to him yet.
Suddenly, she realized she was sitting on the bed. Kenneth’s bed. And she was feeling nothing but concern for a man other than her late husband. Unable to conjure even a little guilt, she propped up the pillows behind her and waited. With the passing of each minute, her anxiety lessened and her doubts about the dream increased.
The clock read twelve-thirty-nine before the telephone rang. Sydney snatched the receiver before Martha could.
“Is something wrong?” came Benno’s concerned query.
She let out a shaky breath. “I don’t know... I mean, no, not with me, not now.”
“What? Did someone try to break into the place?”
She was confused until she remembered the incident with the lights when he’d brought her back to the house. “No. It was one of those awful dreams I told you about.”
Silence was followed by his offering, “You want me to come up there?”
“I don’t need you to hold my hand,” she told him. Though she might not mind his doing so, she thought with shock and a sense of disloyalty to Kenneth. “I wanted you to know.”
Now she was feeling a little foolish.
“Know what?”
“Be careful. Someone may be planning to hurt–”
”Wait a minute, would you?”
Despite her growing reservations, Sydney would have explained further if Benno hadn’t interrupted. She heard his interchange with a couple of customers, one of whom sounded as if he were getting out of line.
And she heard the downstairs door open and close and the clack of heels tap against the wooden floor. Martha. She must just be coming in now. Sydney held her breath as her sister-in-law ascended the stairs then passed her door.
Then Benno was talking to her again. “Listen, I have a nasty situation here.” His tone was terse. “Can I call you back?”
Now Sydney was really feeling impulsive. She had no concrete reason to believe Benno was in danger. And, if he were, the situation wasn’t necessarily imminent. The explanation could definitely be put off, she decided, if not forgotten.
“No, don’t call me back,” she finally said. “This discussion can wait.”
“Why don’t I pick you up for a late lunch tomorrow afternoon,” Benno suggested. “Say one-thirty? You can tell me all about your dream then, before we go back to Stone Beach Photos.”
The warmth of relief shot through her. Sydney had thought she’d be performing that task alone. But Benno wasn’t planning to abandon her in the middle of the crisis.
“All right,” she agreed. “One-thirty.”
Sydney hung up and leaned back against the pillows. Most of her anxiety had subsided though she was by no means at ease with the dream and its implications. She’d gone through too many years of this type of thing not to recognize it for what it was – a warning.
Whether or not she wanted to be in tune with her most basic self, she didn’t seem to have a choice. Therefore, she had to act on what she knew. With knowing came responsibility. Her whole world seemed determined to turn upside down, and it was up to her to right it again.
Pushed to the Limit (Quid Pro Quo 1) Page 16