Chapter 75: Desperation Setting In

Rebecca was excited to hear that I'd reached Angela again. We didn't talk much on the phone but I did give her all the information on the sounds that Angela had remembered. The gun shots were the most promising for giving us a place to start.

"Three shots, closely spaced, means it was intentional," she said. "No one fires a gun accidentally three times; you don't target shoot in groups of three, or in a single group. Something, or more likely someone, died of those shots.

"I hope you can take me with you one of these times. If we had time I'd like to have her do one of those re-run things that you do. It would be ugly to watch but I'd like to see everything he's doing, more importantly, I'd like to hear him. Voice and speech patterns could be helpful in giving us some shot at a background on him. Visuals are nice but unless it's something that really stands out and might have shown up on a police report somewhere and be recognized then they don't help much."

"He has a tattoo."

"Really, that's something anyway. Just one?"

"As far as I know. I only saw the one. If he has others either Angela hasn't seen them or she didn't notice them. When we get together tonight, I'll show him to you?

"Great, how's she doing?"

"All things considered I'd say she's doing great. She knows the truth about her situation. We were right, by the way, about how he took her. She said there was something rigged to the passenger side seatbelt. After she called roadside assistance, someone called back and told her to belt herself in on that side. When she pulled the seatbelt out she heard a hiss and the next thing she knew she's tied up naked somewhere else. She knows how serious her situation is and what happens if she gives up. She's trying to stay positive. She asked me to bring her brother and 'her friend Jimmy' if I could. I told her my first priority was getting you in to see her but after that I'd see what I could do."

"You're not worried about her finding out about all the things you can do?"

"Of course I am, but considering the alternative is she dies, what would you do?"

"Just asking, glad to see you've got your priorities straight. So you're going to grace us with your presence tonight."

"My goal is to try and get back some of the sleep I've been missing. This weekend has been killing me."

"Great, then I'll see you tonight. You're doing a great job, Jimmy."

I brought Allison and the rest of the family up to date over dinner.

"I'm glad you finally reached her again," Mom said. "It would have been horrible to spend the whole weekend like that and have nothing to show for it. Do you think you'll be able to sleep tonight?"

"Trust me; I'm going to sleep just fine. I am so looking forward to tonight. All I need is someone to snuggle up next to and I'll be all set."

Allison volunteered; with my schedule over the weekend we hadn't really been able to spend that much time together, asleep or even just snuggling. Since I was tired already it was a matter of trying to stay awake rather than falling asleep. At most I'd wanted to sleep for a few minutes every hour just to see if Angela showed up. If she didn't then I wanted to wake up as soon as possible and stay awake until it was time to check on her again. Allison quickly got tired of my waking her up by fidgeting around the bed in between checks. She had quickly decided to spend the bulk of the weekend in her own room, just one more thing to add to the list of things that sucked about this weekend. Now that it was over I wanted nothing more than to sleep the whole night through. Well, that and wake up with Allison curled up next to me.

When we reached the office I replayed my time with Angela, everyone was impressed with my playing two roles in the same dream. Rebecca was happy with the results of my questioning Angela about her surroundings. She spent a lot of time studying Angela's image of her captor and getting the details locked into her mind. Unfortunately we couldn't really use it for much. Without the face it just wasn't much use, it was pretty unlikely that he wore the mask around town in public.

Bob seemed very quiet throughout the whole thing. As usual Allison picked up on it as well. She caught my eye at one point to be sure I had noticed.

When we were all up to speed on the latest developments I asked him, "What's wrong, Bob?"

"What do you mean?" he responded.

Allison gave one of her signature eye rolls and jumped all over him, "Oh please, you have hardly said two sentences since we started. You're just sitting there with this look that just screams, 'something's wrong, ' on your face."

We were still looking at Bob and waiting when Shannon answered instead, "It's Angela, isn't it?"

Now it was my turn, "Huh? What about Angela?"

"She's faking it." Out of the corner of my eye I saw Bob nod in agreement as Shannon continued. "She's been kidnapped by a total whack job and is being beaten and raped on a daily basis. No way is she that calm about it. Don't get me wrong, Angie's strong, she's a fighter and I don't think she'll quit easily but you don't shrug off this kind of abuse. Rape is still rape even if you've fucked a hundred guys. She's hiding it from you."

"Why would she hide it from me? She has no reason to. She knows it's a dream and she is safe there, she said so."

"Bob?" She said, looking at him as if for confirmation.

"She's right," he said, nodding in agreement, "it's an act. As far as why, I see two strong possibilities. The first is that she knows it's you and is shielding you from it; she's trusting you to help her but she doesn't want you to see what's really happening."

"But I have seen, we've seen, what's happening. The first time I found her she was huddled in that little cell all beat up and depressed."

"And I'm sure that was the truth," he said. "I doubt that she knew it was you when you first showed up. She was probably just as shocked to see you as she appeared, and just as relieved. She's probably telling the truth about how much of a benefit what you have done for her has been as well, but if she knows it's you, then there is a strong, very strong, possibility that she doesn't want you to see all that is going on. I was surprised that she accepted two of you in the dream. More surprised that she took for granted that you could really bring 'you' and Tim, into a dream to see her. It would explain why she took it so easily. She said she wanted to reassure you both because you were worried. All true, but I think she is already working to reassure you. You can't trust what you're seeing, even in your dream she has some control unless you take it away from her, and this is her own dream, so she has even more." He paused for moment, "Jimmy, whatever you do, don't take that control away from her."

"Why not? I know what he's doing. I've seen it before."

Shannon's turn again, "That doesn't mean you need to see it again. Part of it is vanity on her part. She just doesn't want to be seen like that. The other part," she glanced at Bob, "she's afraid you won't love her any more if you see what's being done to her."

"What? That's insane! I'm not going to care less for her because of something totally out of her control."

"She's right," Rebecca said. My neck was starting to get sore from turning all over the room trying to keep up. "It's a common dynamic in rape cases; quite often spouses, boyfriends, even close family members turn their backs on the victims. Even with no visible evidence they somehow see the victim as different, even tainted somehow. People who they've known for years suddenly won't stay in the same room with them. People that didn't know what happened suddenly start treating them differently when they find out. Don't take this personally but it is much worse with men. Suddenly you go from the pretty girl next door to the slut down the street. I've met a couple of real assholes over the years. One girl was raped a second time, this time by a long time acquaintance because she wouldn't sleep with him. He somehow got this ridiculous idea that sleeping with him; a long time friend certainly beat getting raped by a stranger, so why wouldn't she want to do it with him? When she still didn't want to he took it as a personal insult, like he was somehow unworthy. Next thing you know she's back in the hospital and he's Bubba's new playmate at the county lockup."

"Serve's him right," Allison said.

"Yeah, it did, and maybe more, but that didn't help her any. She tried to kill herself in the hospital. The crash team saved her and they put her under watch. She spent a year in women's shelter, with therapy three times a week. A month after they released her she hung herself from her apartment balcony. Bottom line is that if Angela thinks it's you, then what they are saying makes sense. Don't take that away from her. If you do take Tim, don't confront her, let her play it her way. If you take this away from her, she may decide that there is no point in keeping it up, no point in living through it if she is going to lose the people she loves. She may give up just to get it over with."

Bob was nodding again. Then he turned to Rebecca and changed the subject, "The real challenge is getting you in to see her. I have a radical suggestion I'd like to try. Do you think you would be willing to let me try and hypnotize you?"

"What good would that do?"

"Well, the problem is that you need to be asleep when he reaches Angela. I'd like to try and implant a sleep command in you that would allow Jimmy, or more likely Allison, or even perhaps myself, to call you up and put you out when the opportunity presents itself, allowing you access to her without delay."

"You mean like pick up the phone and tell me to go to sleep and I just keel over?"

"Nothing quite that drastic, it would have to include certain built in safeties. We wouldn't want you to pass out while driving or anything like that, but assuming you could put yourself in a safe environment quickly, yes, something like that. And it would only be necessary if you weren't asleep already, which of course is likely since Jimmy has only been able to reach her during the day."

She thought about it for a few moments before answering and I could see the conflicting emotions chasing each other around her eyes. Finally she answered, "If it was anyone else, or for any other reason, I'd say 'hell no, ' but we're running out of time and options here." She took a deep breath. "I'll do it, but you have to promise me you'll take it off when this is done."

"That's easy," Shannon said. "He can just set it up so you can turn it off whenever you want."

"Can you do that?" Allison asked, turning to Bob.

"I don't see why not. We're not looking for behavioral changes or forcing you to do something against your will. We just want you to be accessible to Jimmy on short notice."

During the course of the conversation, Bob had caught my eye several times and I knew he was not talking about him hypnotizing Rebecca, but rather for me to do it. After my successes with Tom and Angela, I had no doubts about my ability to do this. The tricky part was not letting Rebecca know that it was really me, or just how easy it would be to do it.

Shannon chose this moment to remind us all of why we keep her around. "You said there were two possibilities that came to mind. Was the other one that she suspects that this is all a weird mission impossible trip set up by the killer?"

"Something like that, yes," Bob answered.

"Just checking. You said there were two and I was wondering if it was that or if you thought she might be thinking that the killer was somehow able to get to her even in her dreams."

"The thought occurred to me, but if he could do that he certainly wouldn't need to torture the girls physically. He could have a whole lot more fun and the girls would last a lot longer if he just invaded their dreams. If he wanted his playmates to last longer that would certainly help."

Allison's turn to be brilliant, "Unless the kill is just as important to him as all the rest."

"That's a scary thought," Shannon said.

"Yes, but it wouldn't surprise me at all," Bob said. "He puts too much effort into planning all of this. He enjoys the game too much. It all means something to him."

"What do you think would happen if we interrupted the pattern?" I asked.

"It's hard to say. I think he would likely just start over, but I don't know if he would start the whole cycle over or just grab someone else that's already on his list and pick up where he left off. Personally I would rather catch his ass than just interrupt his cycle and see what happens."

"Well, I don't see it as very likely that we're going to be able to find Angela and not find him at the same time," Shannon said.

"I don't either, but he's too damn careful for me to take it for granted that finding him means catching him, and finding one of them is not really an option. We find one, we find both," Rebecca added.

"So you're up for the hypnotism?" Bob asked.

"Like I said, if it was anyone else asking... let's get this over with."

"Have you ever been hypnotized before?" he asked.

"It's part of our training, mostly on how to resist. The whole idea makes me nervous. But I trust you, and at this point I'm willing to try almost anything if it will give us a better chance of saving Angela."

"Okay then, Jimmy, would you mind moving us to my office? I think it will be easier for her to relax if she doesn't have so many people sitting around watching her."

His words said one thing but I was pretty sure he had something else in mind. "Sure, no problem. Give me a call if you think of anything I need to know, like maybe the trigger phrase we're using."

I sent them off and turned to kiss both of the girls. "I'm sure you both know who he really wants to do this. I'll be back in a little while. Would you rather to stay here or go somewhere else?"

Allison looked at Shannon and asked, "Dolphins?" Shannon shrugged and nodded and I sent them on their way as I disappeared. This took almost no time and as far as Bob and Rebecca were concerned there was no lapse at all. They had barely moved by the time I got there, invisibly of course. I planned to set up so that Bob could see and hear me but Rebecca couldn't. It must have worked because suddenly she stood up and reached for Bob. "Hug me."

"Nervous?"

"A little. The whole damn thing has been getting to me. I hate feeling so damn helpless while he's doing whatever the hell he wants. If this will help then I'll do it. You're not going to take advantage of this and make me like Brussels Sprouts or anything sick like that are you?"

"I wouldn't dream of it."

"No kinky little plans you're not telling me about?"

"I can't think of a single thing that I would want to do with you that would require more than asking. Besides, if I did something like that and you ever found out... no thanks."

I made myself visible to Bob and said, "You know I am still here, and as fascinating as this is, it's nothing I really need to know, so can you maybe change the subject or move it along before you cause permanent damage to my young psyche?"

He grinned at me over her shoulder. "Okay then, why don't you get comfortable and we'll get started."

"Oh, I get to get comfortable. I think I'm going to like this." She started to pull her shirt over her head and he grabbed her arms.

"Now, sweetheart, you really don't want me distracted for this, do you? Maybe we should wait until I'm done for that. You know, I just had a thought. Maybe you should stay at my place for a while. If something does break I'd hate for you to miss an opportunity because you got stuck in traffic."

"That's actually a pretty good idea. Is that the only reason you want me there?"

"Are you suggesting ulterior motives on my part?"

"Suggesting? No. Hoping maybe, but not suggesting."

"Okay, that's different. Now, would you be more comfortable sitting up or lying down?"

She settled herself in the chair and I moved invisibly behind her. Bob pulled a chair in front of her and started running through a simple relaxation exercise to put her in the right frame of mind.

With her eyes closed she said, "You know I've been trained to resist this sort of thing right?"

I placed my hand on her shoulder and she slumped down, unconscious, in the chair. I faded into full view and said, "So what now."

"Hey, you're the dream doctor, not me. You need an innocuous phrase of some sort, and you need to include safeguards so she won't just keel over when you call and drive into a semi or something stupid like that. That's about it. Just work your magic and wake her back up."

He was right. In a dream state, actively touching my target, this was a piece of cake. All I had to do was to explain the steps to her and have her confirm that she understood them. I gave it a built in time limit of thirty days or when the case was solved. There was also a nonsense phrase that either she or Bob could use to turn it off completely. Best of all, she never knew it was me, as far as she was concerned Bob had done the whole thing. When it was all done and 'Bob' brought her back around she never even knew she was out.

"Come on, we haven't got all night here," she said.

"Actually we do," Bob replied. "And it's already done."

"What? When? You never even moved. You're kidding me right?"

"No, I'm serious. It's all over and ready to go. Why don't we test it and see how it works. You wake up, and call me, I'll use the trigger and Jimmy will be waiting for you to confirm the results."

Perfection. In less than two minutes Rebecca was back in the dream with me. Now we were back to waiting for opportunity to knock. Unfortunately I only had Rebecca back and not Bob. I had wanted to talk to him more about the situation with Angela and how to handle it. Before he could make it back morning came and it was too late. I wasn't too worried, if things continued the way they had been going I would have plenty of time to talk to him before I bridged her again. Sure enough, Monday came and went with no opportunity. I wasn't trying so hard to stay up any more. I stayed up later, got up early and took a nap in the middle of the day just in case. Shannon was spending the day with us so I had no trouble finding someone to help snuggle me to sleep. That night I met with Bob and we decided that the best way to find out the truth was for me to just disappear instead of actually leaving next time we met and see what happened.

Independence Day came and went in a shower of glowing sparks and thundering explosions. Karen brought Tom and the kids over. My dad sacrificed some kind of ribs on the barbeque, and we all generally had a good time. Tom looked a thousand percent better but he was still very weak. The 'rent's played cards, the kids swam, did video wars in my room, and generally everyone had a pleasant afternoon. We walked down to the park and watched the fireworks from the stadium. We have a minor league baseball team in town and they put on a descent show every year. The walk to the park and back was almost too much for Tom but we took our time and waited for the crowd to thin out before heading back. Still, he was leaning on Karen pretty hard by the time we got home. The latest news from the doctors was all good and we were looking forward to the last of his treatments. There was no sign of Angela all weekend. I tried not to think about what the killer might be doing to take advantage of the holiday weekend and waited for a chance to get Rebecca in to see her.

Wednesday afternoon we got our chance. Allison and I were taking a nap and swimming with the dolphins when suddenly I felt Angela. And I do mean swimming. Allison makes a very fetching mermaid. Not surprising, even with fins she still has a really nice tail. The fiction of the sea shell bikini top was dispelled almost immediately. For one thing they don't stay on when swimming. And they tend to chafe. So she went topless, which I think is more realistic anyway. We were playing tag with the whole pod when I suddenly stopped and the dolphins started jumping and chattering very excitedly as if they knew something was up. One look at my face and Allison knew what it was. She faded almost immediately and I dove under the blue water, re-surfacing in the pool in my back yard in my guise as Angela's new guardian angel. I was suddenly struck by the thought that from the very beginning she had accepted me looking like her beloved brother without question.

She was stretched out asleep on a lounger, naked and bruised as usual but she didn't look quite as bad as last time. That in itself suggested that Bob may be right and she was hiding things. I stepped out of the pool and moved to stand over her. I put a bathing suit on her and waited for Rebecca to call. It didn't take long and my phone vibrated in my pocket. I guess I really was worried about waking her. I'd never worried about the phone making noise before.

I opened the phone and Rebecca's voice said, "I'm here, give me a door and I'll be there in just a second." As she spoke the back door opened and she stepped out while still putting her phone away. As she came toward us I reached down and shook Angela gently awake.

She cringed away from my touch at first but then she realized where she was, relaxed, and rolled over to look up at me. "Oh, it feels so good to truly rest. I'm glad you're here this time."

"This time?"

"Yeah, I've been here a couple times but you weren't here. They were just short naps though. He must have taken off work or something because he's been around a lot lately." I didn't tell her that she'd missed the Fourth of July. The fact that she hadn't heard any fireworks confirmed that she was being held some distance from the main heart of the city. That fit well with what Rebecca had discerned regarding her possible location. She was facing away from the door so she hadn't noticed Rebecca yet.

"Angela," I said, reaching for her hand to pull her up, "I'd like you to meet a friend of mine, Special Agent Rebecca Hampton of the FBI." I stretched my free hand toward the porch area and she turned to see Rebecca waiting a few feet away.

"Hello, Angela," Rebecca said, extending her hand. "It's nice to meet you. Forgive me, but I don't want to waste any time. Especially since we don't know how long you have, I'd like to get right to work. Have you heard anything unusual since last time? Anything at all that might stand out and help us pin down where you are being held?"