Page 56 of In Her Dreams
Anthony surprised himself with a sudden surge of defiance.“No.I won’t do it.”
Laughter filtered through the phone, soft and utterly chilling.“Oh, Anthony.You’ll do exactly as I say.You don’t have a choice—you never did.”Her voice lowered to a silken murmur.“Unless, of course, you’d prefer to join Richard, Anita, and Samuel.Is that what you want?”
“You can’t control me,” he said, but even to his own ears, the words sounded hollow.
“Can’t I?Look at your dreamcatcher, Anthony.Really look at it.”
His eyes were drawn unwillingly to the object on his wall.The web seemed to shift and writhe, though he knew it remained perfectly still.
“You’ll find me three new subjects,” she continued.“Special ones.People with fears so deep-rooted they’ve shaped their entire lives.And you’ll do it soon.”
“And if I refuse?”The question escaped before he could stop it.
There was a pause, just long enough to make his skin crawl.
“Where are you?”she asked.“Right now?”
More than anything he could remember wanting in his life, Anthony wanted not to tell her.He managed to tear his gaze away from the dreamcatcher and look through the double doors to his sixth-story balcony that now stood open, displaying a view of Trentville.But he couldn’t lie.
“I’m at home,” he stammered.“In my apartment.”
Without another word, the line went dead.
Anthony stared at the phone, ice spreading through his veins.He wanted to run, to flee the apartment, the city, to get as far from Olivia Summers as humanly possible.
Instead, he found himself rooted to the spot, unable to even leave his bedroom.The invisible tether pulled taut, holding him in place as surely as physical restraints would have.
The dreamcatcher seemed to pulse with malevolent energy from its place on the wall.Anthony tore his gaze away, focusing instead on the small digital recorder he kept on his nightstand for patient notes.
With trembling fingers, he pressed the record button.
“You are listening to my voice,” he began, the words coming automatically from years of guiding patients through hypnosis.“My voice will help you relax, help you find the strength within yourself.”
His own voice sounded strange to his ears—desperate, thin, unconvincing.But he pressed on.
“With each breath, you feel the tension leaving your body.With each breath, you become more in control.”
The lies flowed from his lips as the shadows in his bedroom lengthened.Outside, the afternoon sun began its long descent toward the horizon, painting his walls with orange-gold light that did nothing to dispel the darkness gathering inside him.
“You are free,” he whispered, knowing it wasn’t true.“You are strong.You can break this hold.”
But even as he spoke the words, the dreamcatcher watched from the wall, its web of threads glistening like a silent promise of things to come.
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
Olivia steered her car carefully out of Pinecrest onto an open highway.An essential resource was slipping away from her control.And that wouldn’t do.
She’d canceled her afternoon class with a hastily composed email about a family emergency, something vague enough that no one would question it.Now, the road stretched before her like a gray ribbon, leading straight to the man she was intent on setting straight.If not, she was prepared to end their relationship in the most definitive and final way possible.
Their phone conversation replayed in her mind—his hesitation, the tremor in his voice when she’d told him to look at the dreamcatcher she’d given him.Olivia adjusted her rearview mirror without looking directly into it—a practiced motion perfected over decades of avoiding her own reflection.
Her call to Dr.Anthony Walsh had left her with a sense of unraveling.For months, he had been safely contained by the posthypnotic suggestions she’d planted during his Chantico Rite.But something had changed.She’d heard it in his voice—in his futile attempts at defiance, the raw, seething resistance that crackled beneath his skin as he balked at his assigned task of sourcing more subjects for her important work.
“Getting squeamish, Anthony?”she murmured to herself.“Wondering how to break free?No, that won’t do at all.”
If Walsh broke free of her influence completely, how long before he took what he knew to some confidant, perhaps even the authorities?Of course, that could incriminate him too, if they believed him.But he could probably lie his way around that if he crafted his story carefully.
It would sound absurd, of course.A respected psychiatrist claiming that an ethnology professor had conducted secret shamanic rituals that somehow led to fatal phobic reactions?Most likely, he’d be dismissed, perhaps even questioned about his own mental health.
