Chapter 1: Summer Vacation

Jimmy

It was just another typical summer day in what was easily the best summer of my life. The southern California sun was shining brightly, the grass was green, and my girlfriends were having a water fight in the driveway. Yes, life was good.

I don't know exactly what started the fight. One minute we were all just washing my truck, the next there were sponges flying everywhere. My truck was a 1991 Chevy step-side. It was a deep burgundy color with a blackout package, fat alloy wheels and tires, and a killer stereo. My friend Rebecca had set me up at a federal auction selling off property seized in drug cases. Rebecca works for the FBI. She also dates my therapist.

I guess I should explain. My name is James Matthews, James to my parents, Jimmy to my close friends, Edward, my middle name, to most every one at school. It's a long story. I met Rebecca about nine months ago. Her sister introduced us ... sort of. I'm sixteen years old and in a couple weeks I'll be starting my second year of high school. Hopefully this year won't be quite as traumatic as last year. Hey, I can hope, can't I?

My freshman year had been a roller coaster ride from day one, literally. The day I registered for my classes had been a day of revelation like no other. That was the day I discovered my gift. I discovered it quite by accident, when I found myself dreaming about something that had happened on the way home after registration. My best friend's name was Mark, and I was hanging out at his house after his mother, Karen, had picked us up from registration and taken us out to lunch. Lunch of course came with a price, and we had been washing her car when Mark's little, well, younger sister, Shannon, had ridden up on her bike. Sibling rivalry quickly reared its head and in the aftermath I discovered two things. First, that Shannon was no longer a little girl and, later that night, that she had a crush on me. As shocking as that revelation was it was dwarfed to insignificance by the method of its discovery. You see, when I relived the events of that afternoon in a dream, they were different, very different. What had been a series of reasonably innocent events now became a teenage fantasy in which I had a starring roll. Only it wasn't my fantasy, it was hers. More specifically, it wasn't my dream, but hers!

That was the night I realized that I had the ability to move around in other peoples dreams. I call it sleepwalking. Apparently it's something I've been able to do all of my life, I just never realized it. Well, as soon as I realized that I must have somehow actually been in Shannon's dream, it made me wonder if I had ever been in anyone else's. The question answered itself immediately as years of memories made it clear that I had in fact been invading my own sister's dreams for years.

Allison is my sister, and from the moment she first came into my life there seemed to be a special bond and attachment between us. We lost count of the number of times our parents woke to find me asleep in the floor of her room. One night when I was sleeping over at Mark's house, Allison had a nightmare and woke our parents with a bloodcurdling scream. But by the time Mom got to her room, she was already calmed down. When Mom asked her what had happened Allison told said she had had a nightmare but that I had come and told her everything was alright. The really strange part was that I had dreamed that night of Allison having a nightmare and me going to comfort her and tell her it was okay.

You may have noticed that teenage girls talk a lot, and after the night I found myself in Shannon's dream, she just couldn't wait to tell her best friend all about this fantastic dream she'd had about finally getting me alone and what a wonderful time we'd had. Apparently Allison had realized what was really happening long before and immediately recognized that I had in fact bridged Shannon, that's what we call it when I sleepwalk into another person's dreams, 'bridging.' Allison realized that I had bridged into Shannon's fantasy and as soon as I got home from school that day she was all over me.

My first reaction was to deny it, after all, it does sound crazy. No good. She told me that she had in fact known about it for years, citing several examples that I couldn't possible ignore, including the nightmare I mentioned, and forcing me to confess what had happened. When I speculated about finding someone to talk to about it she told me point blank that under no circumstances should I tell anyone about it. At first I thought she was nuts but then she pointed out what the likely response to my ability would be with the population at large, and even worse, what could happen if the government should get wind of it. That was enough for me.

The revelation of Shannon's feelings for me came as a bit of a shock, but more shocking still was the realization that the feelings were mutual. This was almost immediately eclipsed by the discovery that she was not my first love and that there was already someone else in my life that I loved even more. When I eventually discussed it with my therapist he said that spending so much of my life in Allison's dreams had built a level of intimacy between us that was virtually unmatched. He was not the least bit surprised to discover that our feelings for each other went way beyond the normal sibling attachments.

Allison is and always will be the person I love most in this world. Shannon is a close second and, as it happens, we share the same feelings for Allison. Shannon cares a lot for me, but if it ever came down to a choice of Allison or me, I don't believe for a second that I'd come out on top. Allison swears she loves both Shannon and me the same, if that's possible, but I don't really care one way or the other; her feelings for Shannon don't interfere in the slightest with her love for me, and even if she did love Shannon more, it wouldn't make me love her any less. So at the tender age of fifteen I discovered that I suddenly had two girlfriends. Girlfriends that had in fact been waiting for me to realize the truth and couldn't wait to consummate our relationships, as a result of which my freshman year was filled with the kind of sex most people can only dream about. In fact, once we decided to tell Shannon the truth about what had happened and what I could do, we had it in our dreams as well, a lot.

I realize that most of the world would take a very different view towards our relationship. Personally, I don't presume to tell other people who they can or should love, so I really don't think they have any right to tell me, or us, either. All I can say is that if your personal morals or values have a problem with us all having sex, whether as individual couples, which we do because it's important to have that closeness, or all together because that's important as well, not to mention fun, then I feel sorry for you and I hope that someday your world view will grow enough for you to deal with it. I don't care if it ever does, but I do hope so for your sake.

The most immediate problem, though, was that we had no idea what to do now that my special ability had apparently grown to the point that I was now bridging other people. The problem solved itself when I asked my psychology teacher some basic questions about dreams and dreaming. Being a trained professional he realized that I was holding something back and that it was bothering me. Being a licensed therapist as well as a teacher, he eventually offered to take me on as patient so that anything I might discuss with him would be confidential to the point of being protected by law. Allison and I discussed the merits of the idea and agreed to take him up on it. It was an offer he came to regret almost immediately after learning the truth. His vision of the Nobel Peace Prize was immediately replaced by his fear of what could, and likely would happen if the wrong people ever got wind of what I could do. All things considered, he took it well and has done his best to help us understand and cope with the changes ever since. Much to his credit he even hung in there when things took a dark turn and I learned that my gift had a terrible price attached to it.

Through a series of very unusual dreams I was introduced to a woman named Rebecca Hampton. Rebecca is an FBI agent. Her sister Amy introduced us, which was scary in itself considering that she introduced us by moving me through a series of dreams. That was really scary because it meant that someone that we didn't know, knew about what I could do and could apparently move me around. It turned out that that's not really what was happening but we didn't know that at the time. If all that wasn't scary enough, we then found out why. It seems that Rebecca was to need my help in a case she didn't even know about; a case that if I didn't help her with, she would die trying to solve on her own. The obvious question was how Amy could know all this. The even more obvious answer was she couldn't. In fact she couldn't possibly know any of this; not that I was alive, or even that her own sister was an FBI agent. You see, Amy had been in a coma for twelve years. Yeah, that kind of shocked all of us too, but she was right about all of it. It seems that a very bad man had been kidnapping, torturing, raping and eventually killing teenage girls, one a year, for the last three years. The locations were so far apart that no one had put them together, they were just unsolved murders.

Amy ... She's the biggest mystery I've encountered since this whole thing started. She's been in a coma since she was eight years old, and can't possibly know anything that's going on. Rebecca was in high school when Amy was hit by the car that put her in the coma, yet somehow Amy knows that she's with the Bureau, knows her future includes running into this killer, knows that without my help she'll die trying to stop him. And how does that work? Rebecca only knows about the case because Amy has me tell her about it, so it stands to reason that if Amy doesn't drag me into it that her sister would have been safe, so why do it? And how come she can move me around but she can't be in the same dream with her sister? The first time I met her I was in Rebecca's dream, studying her, when all of a sudden everything freezes and a little girl in a white dress and bobby socks appears in the chair next to me. Why does it hurt for her to move around on her own but if I'm there it's okay? Why can I bring her into a dream? Actually I'm not sure I do bring her in. I think about her and she comes, most of the time, but it feels like I'm somehow inviting her rather than just reaching out and dragging her in. For that matter I can't find her in dreams the way I seem to be able to with everyone else. Yet even if I bring her into my dream, she can't stay unless I stay there too. Everyone else I can leave behind and it's no different than if I'm there, but Amy is instantly wracked with pain if I leave. I've thought about trying to run two dreams that overlap with Rebecca in one and Amy in the other and then open a doorway between them but I'm almost afraid to for fear of what might happen. And then there is the apparent time limit on how long she can stay in a dream once she's there. It seems to run right at a subjective half-hour. I say subjective because dream time is variable, sometimes things seem to take no time at all, other times you feel like you barely started and suddenly you're waking up. With Amy, everyone seems to know when it's time for her to go, no one says anything, we all just seem to know that it's time. Oh, and I have almost no effect on her at all. The second time I met her was at a beach I created just for the purpose and I tried to change her into a bathing suit so her dress wouldn't get wet. In my mind I pictured a simple, red, one-piece suit that you'd expect to find on any eight year old in the world. The suit came out white with pink trim, just like her dress. Everyone else can change their own clothes in dreams, whether they are in their own or mine. Amy can't. She can move me around but she can't change her clothes - how weird is that? Anyway, like I said, she's a mystery.

Back to how this all started. In one night my youthful innocence was stripped away, shredded, burned, and scattered on the wind. All because I asked Amy if she could tell me more about the guy I need to help Rebecca stop. She said that she couldn't tell me anyting, but that maybe she could show me. (Thank God she actually didn't know any details.) I don't know how Amy does what she does, but at the end of the night I found myself in a small room, a small theater really, watching helplessly as this sick bastard stalked, kidnapped, tortured, raped, and eventually killed his first victim. Worse than that, I felt it. The price of my gift was that I had to see it all from the killer's perspective. I experienced his thrill during the hunt. I experienced his elation, rage, hatred, and lust as he tortured and raped her for weeks on end, and I had to experience his emptiness when he killed her and left her body in a hotel room. That may have actually been the worst.

That was the night I realized that the gift, or ability, or power, whatever you choose to call it, that I had been given had come with a terrible price and a huge responsibility. I dedicated myself that night to stopping this madman no matter what the cost. And that's how I came to meet and eventually work with the Special Agent Rebecca Hampton of the FBI.

Two months ago he kidnapped his latest victim. I don't know if Amy knew in advance or not, and I don't really want to know, but his victim this time was a close personal friend of mine. I spent weeks trying to find her, even enlisting the aid of a character I had stolen from a little boys nightmare.

I never actually met Bobby, but he came to my house trick-or-treating Halloween night and something was obviously wrong. Back then I frequently found myself spontaneously bridging new people I would meet. You'd be amazed what some people dream about. I'd watched a girl from my psychology class storm a mall with some friends and it had looked like Rambo Barbie invading a prisoner of war camp. Bobby's problem was a little more severe. He was having a recurring nightmare in which a beast resembling a werewolf was chasing him. I had stepped in and saved the day by making it all a game of tag; hey he was a little kid and he wanted to be safe, I told him the neighbors porch was base and had the monster chase him there then stop. I made up a name for the monster and as punishment for frightening Bobby, placed him as the boy's personal dream guardian for the next year.

As we were running out of time and options for finding Angela, Allison mentioned that bloodhounds couldn't pick up her trail and I got the wild idea of having Walter — that was the name I gave Bobby's new playmate — try to find her. It's kind of complicated the way it worked out. He actually did find her, but it didn't work out the way we had hoped so I'm not sure if you'd call it a success or not.

Eventually I was able to establish enough of a link with Angela to lead Rebecca to where she was imprisoned, in a house owned by someone named "Kenneth Riley". Of course we didn't find that out until later. Unfortunately, the killer had found out that Rebecca was looking for him and planned for the possibility of discovery. Officially, Angela had died when Riley blew up the house to cover his escape. In truth, we had gotten her out seconds before the explosion and she was now in hiding so that he couldn't find her and finish the job.

Rebecca had me call in a couple of anonymous tips during the course of her investigation in order to justify her involvement in the case. Let's face it; even an FBI agent can't just pull leads out of thin air. The truth was I had been working quietly behind the scenes, in and out of the killer's dreams for the better part of a year, trying to help her establish a reliable profile of his target group in hopes that if we could figure out who his likely next victim might be, we would have a chance to catch him. As an added bonus, it also made me eligible for any reward money that may be available. Even though Angela, my friend and his latest victim, had died, officially anyway, the anonymous tipster had still earned part of the money. Twenty-five thousand dollars to start with; there was more available if, no, when we eventually found this asshole and either convicted him or, my personal preference, killed him trying to arrest him. That may sound a little bloodthirsty but I had no doubts at all about his guilt and I just didn't trust the system to do the job. Short of catching him in the act there was nowhere near enough evidence to get a conviction. He was too slick, his first three kills had been completely devoid of any physical evidence; CSI teams at all three sites had come up empty, and since he had blown up his last one there wasn't much to go on.

I know what you're thinking, but when Kenneth Riley's driver's license photo was shown to his parents back east, they didn't recognize him. Years of family photographs confirmed that it wasn't the same man. So now we had another mystery, and most likely, another murder to lay at the feet of our killer. When we catch him, I have to keep reminding myself that it's 'when', not 'if, ' I hope for the family's sake they can at least get him to tell us what he did with Riley's body.

Part of the reward money for finding Angela had gone to pay for my truck; the rest was sitting in my savings account. Okay, technically it was all sitting in savings but there were two accounts. You see, I couldn't afford to attract any undue attention and since I'd never had a job it would be really hard to explain how I got the truck. So my dad took a loan out to buy it, and then set it up so that each month the loan payment came directly out of one of my accounts. It meant that I would pay a little more than I had to due to the interest charges, but at least the lower insurance balanced it out. Full coverage insurance on a truck like mine is really expensive for a teenager, so it's insured in his name, with me listed as an authorized driver. The savings balanced what I was paying in interest so I didn't actually end up paying any extra. There is an even bigger reward waiting when we actually catch him. Several actually, although the one for Angela's killer is much bigger than for the other victims. Angela's parents were members of the 'Player's Club' at one of the casinos. The casino had sponsored a slots tournament to raise money. There was almost three hundred thousand dollars sitting in an escrow account for tips and/or the reward for catching whoever had killed her. One of the other girls had just over a hundred thousand, the other two totaled about sixty, so all in all, just under half a million 'when' we finally nail the bastard.

So where was I? Oh yeah, the water fight. One minute everything was fine, Shannon was just rinsing the last of the soap off of the truck, the next thing you know a sponge the size of a small football hits her smack in the chest, spattering suds everywhere. My eyes tracked the incoming trajectory backwards and found Allison laughing at the shocked expression on her girlfriend's face as the thick suds began dripping down her tanned and toned stomach.

"Why you little bitch!" Shannon whispered.

I suddenly realized I was between them and beat a hasty retreat back onto the grass as Shannon dropped the hose and went after Allison, who of course did her best to keep the truck between them as she ran away, laughing all the while.

Allison is a perfect five-foot-five, with long blonde hair, grayish-blue eyes, and a smile that could light Times Square on New Years Eve. Shannon is about eight months older, four inches taller and proportionally larger in pretty much every category. She has dark hair, brown eyes, a flawless tan, and a kill shot that will take your head off if you're on the wrong side of a volleyball net and not paying attention.

She's also sneaky. She appeared to be crouching low in order to try and sneak up on Allison, but instead she was actually getting the second sponge out of the bucket. She then moved along the edge of the truck until she was once more on the side with the hose. Ducking down, she forced Allison to stand on her toes to try and keep track of her. As soon as Allison went up on her toes, Shannon bounced back up and pitched a perfect strike with the sponge, catching Allison right in the throat. Before her young friend could react she snatched up the hose and hit the trigger, soaking both Allison and the almost dry truck all over again. Both dissolved into laughter.

"You know Sha', you're getting downright sneaky. I never even saw you pick up the sponge," Allison said as she came around the truck, wiping suds off as she came. "You better rinse me before I spot," she said, turning her back and holding her hands over her head.

Shannon obligingly held the hose and sprayed her gently as she turned. I was enjoying the show while at the same time mentally shaking my head. Shannon may be getting sneaky, but Allison was a grand master at it and I had a pretty good idea what was coming. Sure enough Allison finished and offered to return the favor, and of course Shannon fell for it, handing over the hose. Allison moved in close and using the smallest stream possible began rinsing the suds off of the taller girl, brushing gently with her free hand as she went. Once the front was clear Shannon turned around and, just as I expected, Allison ran her hand gently down the other girls back until she came to the strap on her bathing suit, which she deftly unsnapped. Okay, that part I hadn't expected, Shannon shrieked and pulled her arms down quickly to keep from completely exposing herself. Now came the part I had expected, Allison triggered the nozzle to full, locked it and stuck it down the back of Shannon's bikini bottoms. There's not a lot of extra room in there, if you know what I mean, so the nozzle was pretty firmly held as it released its torrent of, by now, very cold water. Shannon, having her hands full trying to keep her top in place, was at a severe disadvantage as she danced around and tried to dislodge the hose without losing the other half of her suit.

I had been witnessing variations of this all summer from these two. It was usually Allison who started it, not always, but usually; it was their idea of foreplay. Since Shannon was at serious risk of flashing the neighborhood any second, I moved in, grabbed her around the waist to hold her still and tried to extract the nozzle from her suit. It was a little trickier than I anticipated as the mechanism had snagged on the waistband. I had to use both hands, one to pull the bottom of her suit away from her body and the other to try and release the trigger lock so the nozzle would hold still long enough to get it loose from the material. The up side to all this was I got to stare at one of the most perfect asses I had ever seen. It was one of my favorite sights. In addition to the visuals there was the smell. Sun-baked teenager liberally basted in coconut oil and sweat, with just a hint of strawberry shampoo, an olfactory delight to say the least.

Now that I was handling the problems below the waist, Shannon was free to handle the ones above. She carefully repositioned her top and secured the strap just as I finally got the nozzle released from her briefs.

"Thank you, Jimmy. Was it really stuck or were you just enjoying the view?"

I smiled sweetly and replied, "Both actually. It wasn't the best angle so I really couldn't get the full effect, but what I could see was spectacular. I didn't see any damage, but as I said, it wasn't a good angle. Maybe you should have it looked at."

"What a wonderful idea. Do you have time?"

"I always have time for you, but when Allison tries that hard to get attention it usually means she's feeling neglected. Why don't you two go kiss and make up? I'll dry the truck off and then maybe pull it into the garage and wax it. That should kill an hour or so."

Shannon leaned in and kissed my cheek. We're very careful with PDAs. No one knows how deeply we are really involved and we want to keep it that way. Actually my parents know about me and Allison; I suspect that my mom knows about all of it but she is carefully playing 'don't ask-don't tell' with the whole thing. Publicly Allison and Shannon are just best friends and I am just the best friend's brother.

"You're too sweet. I'm a little worried we might be rewarding bad behavior though." She turned to Allison. "She's been a bit of brat lately."

Allison did her best 'little girl in trouble' routine, hands behind her back, head down, biting her lip before saying, "Please? I promise I'll be good." A wicked gleam lit her eyes and a smile just as bad curled her mouth. "I'll be really, really, good."

Shannon rolled her eyes. "Okay, come on."

Allison jumped up and down and then bounced over to kiss my other cheek. "Thanks. Maybe you should just dry it off and then come join us while it cools off. You know you can't wax it when it's hot."

Yeah, it was turning out to be really great summer. I smacked her lightly on the butt and said, "Okay, you two better get going, I need to get that water off before it spots."

They headed off through the garage and I spent a few seconds admiring the view before returning to the task at hand. I would have liked to take more time but I really did need to get the water dried off. In fact, I decided the best idea was to spray the whole thing down again so I had more time to dry it before any one area got too hot. All in all I managed to kill about twenty minutes before I got it into the garage.

Rebecca

I was sitting in my glass walled office trying to figure out exactly what my next move should be. It wasn't a pleasant task. I'd gone over every scrap of data I had and kept coming back to the same conclusion. Finally I got up and walked the short distance to my boss's office.

Samuel Rodriguez, Director of Operations for the Los Angeles office of the Bureau saw me crossing the office and waved me in before I had a chance to knock. We had known each other for years; Rod had been Michael's best man at our wedding. He had been a rock I could cling to six months later when Michael was killed rescuing a kidnap victim. I had been Michael's partner and backing him up at the time. As I sped toward the scene, I heard over the radio as the kidnapper shot my husband, who had stumbled over a trip wire breaking in the door, and left him for dead. After firing two shots into Michael he had calmly turned away, picked up the knife he had dropped and turned back to the bound and terrified girl Michael had come to save. I was still listening as Michael uttered his last words, not a message of love or regret to the wife he knew he would never see again, but a simple "No," as he raised his weapon and shot his own killer in the act of stabbing the girl.

In addition to killing him, the two shots were enough to throw the killer off and the blow meant to pierce the girl's heart had gone just wide enough to miss and puncture a lung instead. The knife was still sticking out of her when I arrived, thirty seconds too late. Thirty seconds that would haunt me for the rest of her life.

Despite our close friendship, Rod and I work well together. By the way, my name is Rebecca Hampton; Special Agent Rebecca Hampton, United States Federal Bureau of Investigation, currently assigned to the Los Angeles Office. Try fitting all that on a standard business card. I specialize in sex crimes. Rod specializes in getting the best efforts out of all of his agents and staff.

Settling into one of the comfortable chairs facing his desk, I started to swing my feet up onto his desk, halting the motion at the glare that was immediately directed my way. Rod was downright anal about his desk. In the entire time I'd worked for him, I'd never seen more than a single sheet of paper, or a single case file on his desk at one time. It was a game I played with him often, if I ever managed to get my feet onto the surface it will most likely mean I need to call for paramedics and begin CPR.

The greeting ritual now complete, I settled comfortably into the chair and waited for him to finish his phone call. I wasn't worried about hearing anything I shouldn't; if that was a possibility he would have had me wait outside. Finally he hung up the phone, leaned back in his chair, and turned to me.

"We found Angela's car," I said. Always start a meeting with your boss on a positive note.

'Angela, ' was Angela Osborne, a five foot-ten inch brunette from San Bernardino. Two year California State Champion in girl's cross country, scheduled to try out for the US Track and Field team this summer before starting her freshman year at Arizona State University in Phoenix in the fall on a full ride sports scholarship in track and field. Okay, technically it was in Tempe but that's like saying Los Angeles when you mean Monterey Park. Look at any map of Southern California and you'll know what I mean. It didn't really matter since she had been kidnapped two months earlier and had died several weeks later as I moved in on the house she was imprisoned in.

That was the official story. In truth, I had carried her unconscious body out seconds before the explosion. Angela's Olympic dreams had actually died some weeks before the explosion, when her kidnapper had damaged her knee to the point that without immediate surgery it would never heal correctly. The required surgery came weeks too late, and even if the damage had been repairable at that point, the two toes they had been forced to amputate to prevent the gangrene from spreading up her leg would have ruined her stride anyway. It would take a few more months of therapy before she could walk without a limp. Months she would spend in a special facility where she would also receive counseling to help her deal with the weeks of rape and torture she had endured before 'dying.' She would also spend many hours learning about her new life. Angela Osborne had died in the explosion. Amber Olsen, on the other hand, had damaged her knee and lost two toes in an automobile accident, and, after several months of recovery, would begin the spring semester in an all-girl's college in Indiana.