for that, other than her own emotional instability.
She sighed. âOkay, we can get back to business. What do you want to know?â
âYou told me that youâd have dreams about bad thingshappening to people you knew, and theyâd turn out to be true.â
âYes.â
âAre you saying that you knew Lynn Vaughn?â
The question had edged into territory she didnât want to explore with him. âWhy do we have to keep talking about this?â
âBecause Iâm going to have to call the police if we donât.â
Chapter Four
The threat had the effect Mack must have been striving for. âI didnât say it, but I did know her. She and I went to high school together.â
âWhy didnât you tell me that?â
âIt wasnât relevant.â
He looked at her, then turned back to the road. âIt could be. Any detail could be.â
When she said nothing, he asked, âWere you close?â
She sighed. âWe werenât best buddies, but we knew each other. I know that when she graduated, she went to the University of Maryland in Baltimore. She became an emergency room nurse.â
âDid you keep in touch with her?â
âNo. I kind of avoided Gaptown. I think you can figure out why.â
âYeah. But why do you think Lynn reached out to you? Did she know about your dreams?â
âI didnât advertise it. Nobody knew. Except Mom.â
âWould she tell anyone?â
âShe kept it between us, because she didnât want people to know there was something weird about her daughter.â
Â
A FEW MILES AWAY, Fred Hyde was touring the funhouse making sure everything was ready for the eveningâsentertainment. Heâd had a very satisfying time selecting the exhibits. Heâd used some of the same ones as for his last guest. Others were new, and heâd taken down the funhouse mirrors. Those were too much of a cliché. Now he was trying to decide if he was going to use a witchâs face or a demon for the pop-up display on the first floor.
The witch had worked very well. But it might be amusing to give the green-and-purple-faced demon a try.
Still pondering the choice, he went back through his music selections, most of which heâd pulled from the soundtracks of slasher movies, although he also liked that spooky âNight on Bald Mountain.â Heâd mixed and matched the tracks, and he hummed along as he listened to some of the cuts, then decided on the disc that started with the Night of the Living Dead and continued on to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre .
After heâd satisfied himself with the preparations, he went downstairs to look at the woman who was sleeping in the cell heâd constructed in the basement. Heâd built the walls of cinder block, and the door was reinforced, so there was no chance of escape.
The woman on the narrow bunk inside was lying on her back, her blond hair fallen across her cheek. As he stood over her, he suppressed the urge to brush it back.
Better not touch her until he was wearing his gloves and his Locard suit. Well, it wasnât anything official. Thatâs what he called it. Locard was the French forensic scientist whoâd first pointed out that when two objects touched, each would leave traces of themselves on the other. But that wasnât going to happen with his suit made out of neoprene.
He took a step back, still staring at the sleeping woman. Heâd drugged her, and she wasnât going to wake up for several hours. Plenty of time for him to go out to dinner,then put on his outfit. Heâd be wearing it when he let her out of the cell, and then the games would begin. Of course, there might be fibers from the cape. But that didnât matter. Heâd bought it at a vintage clothing store in Boston, so nobody was going to connect it with murders in western Maryland.
After making sure the door to the cell and also all the