“Dani!” she cried, her legs feeling like lead as she trudged up stairs that went up and up and up. She held on to the rail and it felt slick. When she looked at her hand, she saw it was bloody, that rivers of blood were pouring down the handrail, down the stairs, and still there was smoke and a baby crying.
Looking up, she gasped. At the top of the stairs she saw Oliver, hanging by his neck, smoke and flames surrounding him, a naked infant, her little girl, in his bloody hands.
“No!” Shannon cried, taking the steps two at a time and getting no closer. “Don’t! Oliver!”
His eyes flew open.
He stared down at her, his face melting and morphing hideously.
With a jolt, she realized he was Neville and he took the baby and threw her high into the air, above the flames, higher and higher into the smoke the crying infant flew.
Panic tore through her. She screamed as she lost sight of her baby. “Nooooo!”
Her eyes opened.
It was night.
Dark.
“Oh, dear God,” she whispered, shaken as she turned into Travis’s arms.
“Shh.” He pulled her tight and kissed her crown. She quivered against him, feeling the heat of his body, smelling the pure male scent of him over the thin aroma of smoke lingering from the nightmare.
A dream. A horrid, visceral, blood-chilling dream. That’s all it was. Nothing more.
And yet…she still smelled smoke. She felt Travis’s arms tighten around her. She opened her eyes and found that he was awake, an orange
glow reflected in his eyes.
It was dark…except for that sinister glow.
Her heart slammed in her chest.
Suddenly she smelled the smoke. Real smoke, no distant memory of burning cigars or bacon grease from her dream.
And she knew. Oh, God, she knew.
The Stealth Torcher was back.
A shriek sliced the air, the prolonged squeal of the smoke detector.
“No!”
Travis was already on his feet, jerking on his jeans.
Shannon rolled out of bed, her bare feet hitting the floor with a thud. Throwing on clothes, she raced down the stairs. “Call 9-1-1,” she yelled over her shoulder as she flew into the kitchen.
Khan whined and the puppy, too, was agitated. Why hadn’t she heard the dogs? Exhaustion? The champagne? The lovemaking? She couldn’t think about it as she threw open the back door and crammed her boots onto her feet. Khan, barking madly, shot out of the door.
“You stay,” she said to the pup and spied Travis, cell phone to his ear, shouting out orders to whoever was on the other end of the line.
“That’s right. Shannon Flannery’s house!”
She rattled off the address and he relayed it into the mouthpiece as he pulled on his boots, then hung up.
“I’ll let the dogs out,” Shannon said, grabbing a red fire extinguisher from the wall and slamming it into Travis’s hands. “Get the horses. I’ll get the hose.”
She started across the parking lot, sick inside. There wasn’t one fire, but two! One in the stable, the other in the kennel.