Dangerous Dreams: A Novel (116 page)

She wiggled the mouse, opened Allie’s email. “Kinda tacky to do this, but . . . hmm. Four from me, six from him. This is
really
tacky.” She clicked through Dressler’s emails, read them in the viewing pane. “Pretty innocuous . . . sounds genuinely concerned about her; but hell’s bells, he gave her the damn pills. She said he gave her a few for when she was self-conscious and couldn’t fall asleep, but
a few
wouldn’t make her like this.” She glanced at Allie’s bedside table, walked to it, picked up the two bottles, looked at the prescription details. “Lots of pills.” Way more than for occasional use, and Dressler’s name is on them. She put the sleeping pills on the table, looked at the Mestinon bottle, held it up to the desk lamp. What’s this stuff? “
Mestinon
. No clue. Ah! Let’s google it.” She glanced at the monitor. “Wow. Look at that! She’s got a file on it.” She opened the file, read the description. Hmm. Increases dreaming. Wow. Look at the side effects . . . exactly what she’s showing. Good grief! She must have
really
OD’d. “Damn it, Allie. Gonna kill yourself.” She glanced at Allie then closed the file, instinctively glanced around the computer desktop.

“Jeez Louise, look at all this stuff:
depression symptoms
,
dream theory
,
dream characteristic
s,
Lost Colony
,
Lakota
,
rape
. . .Oh no!
Rape symptoms
. . . my baby. Oh my God. What else? Oh shit!
Orgasm
.” Her eyes were the size of large ball bearings. “Oh my God!
Pregnancy
,
breast feeding
. Lord, my poor baby.” She again looked at Allie. “That bastard! He raped her, and now . . . now she’s pregnant, and . . . oh my God. This is horrible! What the hell are we gonna do?”

Two hours later, Allie awoke; she looked up into her mother’s eyes. “Mom. You’re here. Can’t see very well . . . blurry . . . hot . . . upset stomach . . . what day is it? How . . . how’s Mary Bakken?”

“It’s Wednesday noon; Mary’s having a tough time, so they’re delaying the funeral. They cremated John, so there’s no rush. She’s still pretty much a wreck . . . kind of like you when you woke up the first time.”

“Woke up? I woke up?” Don’t remember dreaming anything . . . but . . . but it was that same blackness as after the massacre. What did it mean? Emily bleeding badly . . . and . . . and unconscious . . . maybe dead. Gotta get back, gotta know. She closed her suddenly misty eyes, rolled away from her mother.

“Yes, you did. You’d barfed all over yourself and were unconscious on the floor. How cool is that?”

Allie sobbed. “I’m a mess, Mom, a worthless piece of . . . but I’ve got to dream . . . gotta know what happens to Emily . . . and Isna . . . and all of them . . . she’s dying . . . or already dead.”

Nancy stared silently at her for a moment. “Allie, I’m really worried about you.” She showed her the two pill bottles. “You OD’d on these, didn’t you?”

Allie didn’t respond.

“And while I was watching you sleep, I happened to look at your computer . . . saw a bunch of files that—”

“Well, that was a sneaky thing to do.”

She sighed. “You’re right, but I didn’t do it on purpose. The stuff was there in plain sight and—”

“Damn it, Mom, you have no right to go through my—oh! I’m gonna barf.”

“Allie. Did Dressler rape you? Are you pregnant?”

Allie rolled toward her mother, looked at her with groggy, blinking eyes. “Are you kidding, Mom? Steven? Rape me?” She laughed cynically. “First, you go through my private stuff, and then you start throwing accusations around like confetti. Ohhh. I really am gonna barf.”

“Allie, I’m worried about you. Parents have a right to do that, you know . . . even with their adult kids.” She paused for a moment. “So why is all that stuff on your computer?”

“You’re getting rid of my grogginess by pissing me off, Mom. It’s there because I researched things that happened to Emily in the dreams.
Like, she got raped by Tayler and got pregnant . . . had an orgasm during the rape, and I wanted to know if that could really happen . . . and it can. Bet you didn’t know that. And the breastfeeding stuff is about how someone who’s not a mother can nurse . . . which Emily did for Virginia Dare. Bet you didn’t know that could happen either, did you? And . . . and depression symptoms. Think she might be a little depressed after all that?” Like me . . . damn it. “I really am gonna barf, Mom.”

“Okay, okay. But what about OD’ing on the pills?” She looked at the bottles, pointed at the Mestinon. “The file on your computer says this one induces dreaming and has some ugly side effects . . . which, by the way, I’m looking at right now.”

Allie looked away for a second then back at her mother. “Yes. I OD’d . . . because I needed to dream more. I’d actually like to dream all the time. Don’t you get it? I can’t be away from Emily, and I’m going to dream as much as I can until I know what happens to her.”

“Oh! And then you’re going to just quit, and that’ll be the end of it, right?”

“Right.”

“Bullshit, Allie O’Shay. You may find out what happens to Emily, but you’ll become a druggie in the process. Is that what you want?”

“I don’t care. I’ve got to dream.”

“You’d
better
care, or you’re going to end up just like Ian, and—”

“I need to sleep, Mom. Give me the pills.”

“No. I won’t. Dressler got these for you, didn’t he?”

Allie sat up. “No! I got them myself. Now damn it, Mom! Give me the f’ing pills. I need to dream.”

Nancy slid the bottles into her jeans pocket. “No, Allie. I won’t help you ruin yourself; and I don’t believe for half a second that Dressler didn’t give you the pills . . . or that he didn’t rape you, for that matter. What the hell’s happened to my wonderful little girl?”

Allie raised her voice. “Your little girl’s a fricking addict, Mom— addicted to her dreams, and now drugs. So give me the damn pills!” Allie slid her legs over the side of the bed, stood, walked assertively toward Nancy, who had backed toward the door to the living room.

“Allie, calm down . . . control yourself . . . you can’t—” Someone knocked on the front door. Nancy glanced at it then back at Allie. “Want me to answer it?”

Another knock.

“No. I will . . . no, you do it. I’m sick.” Allie rushed into the bedroom, slammed the door behind her.

Wow, this ought to be good. “Who is it?”

“It’s Steve. Are you alright, Allie? I’ve been trying to get ahold of you for two days . . . getting a bit worried.”

Nancy opened the door. “Hi, Dr. Dressler, I’m Allie’s mom, Nancy O’Shay.”

Dressler’s jaw dropped. “I . . . I . . . Mrs. O’Shay . . . sorry . . . you surprised me.”

“Please come in. Allie’s told me a lot about you.”

“I’ve heard a lot about you and your husband, as well.” He stepped inside, glanced around the room. “Allie thinks the utmost of both of you; and if I may say so, you did an exceptional job raising her. She’s quite a young lady . . . aside from her extraordinary capability. Is she . . . is she okay?”

She gave him a neutral look. “No . . . I’m afraid she’s
not
okay.”

“What’s wrong?”

“She OD’d on
these
.” She pulled the two pill bottles from her pocket, handed them to him, felt her hackles rising, a pulse of anger in her veins. “They have your name on them . . . like you wrote the scripts. Did you want her to dream more . . . get more data . . . so you could win a Nobel Prize?” She waited for a reply; none came. “Did you even think about the risk to Allie?”

Dressler stared at her with expressionless eyes then looked at the pill bottles. “My name and number, but I didn’t write them.”

Nancy’s eyes filled with doubt.

He glanced at the bottles again. “Whoever
did
write them was smart enough to write reasonable dosages.” He paused. “But with all sincerity, Mrs. O’Shay, I would
never
do anything to jeopardize Allie’s safety. In fact, I’ve cautioned her several times about the risks of abusing meds like these.”

“Well then, how did she get them, and why do they have your name on them? She didn’t just walk into the pharmacy and demand them . . . and they’re made out to her, so we know she didn’t steal them.”

“I share your concerns and questions. Why don’t we ask Allie? Is she here?”

Nancy ruminated his words, studied him suspiciously. “She’s in the bedroom . . . but she’s rather a wreck right now and probably incapable of a straight answer.” She sighed. “Never thought I’d say that about Allie.”

“I’m a little confused. I thought she was at the ranch all weekend.”

“No. She was here. Didn’t she tell you?”

His eyebrows raised in surprise. “Tell me what?”

“One of our neighbors passed away Friday afternoon, and we helped the family all weekend. Allie never came to the ranch.”

He frowned. “No. I didn’t know that. Maybe this is starting to focus a bit.”

“
You
may think so, but I don’t . . . because there’s also a bunch of stuff on her computer about rape, pregnancy, breastfeeding, orgasms, and more; and if you want to read between the lines, feel free.”

He assumed his psychologist’s expression, pondered for a moment. “I haven’t seen the files, but everything you just mentioned has to do with the girl in Allie’s dreams and her plight.”

“I know who Emily is, and Allie’s religiously told me everything she’s dreamed about her, but she’s never mentioned
any
of these things.” She suddenly recalled Allie’s claim that the files were about Emily, felt a sprout of embarrassment germinating in her mind. “But she
did
say the same thing you just said, when I confronted her about the computer files.” She pressed her lips together for a moment, wondered if she’d been hasty. “Perhaps I’m presuming too much here, Dr. Dressler. I’m . . . I’m just damn pissed about what’s happened to my daughter and frustrated because I don’t know what to do about it. She’s always been a perfect kid, and now she’s headed down the pathway to destruction, and . . . and you seemed like the logical one to blame . . . so I came out with my guns blazing. Sorry.” Her eyes filled with tears. “I’m really scared for her.”

His face saddened; he spoke compassionately. “So am I, Mrs. O’Shay . . . and I’d react exactly the same if I were in your shoes.”

She sniffled, wiped her eyes. “Call me
Nancy
.”

He smiled. “Thanks for the reprieve, Nancy. Call me
Steve
. Doctors
are
people, you know.”

She broached a smile. “Okay . . . Steve.”

“So . . . Nancy . . . I want you to know that I think the utmost of Allie as a person; but that aside, she’s, without doubt, the greatest opportunity in our lifetime—perhaps several lifetimes—to unlock the secrets of why, how, and what we humans dream—not just for us but for the whole world. The vividness, recall, continuity, and much more, of her dreams defy known science and offer us a chance to begin to understand things we know next to nothing about. And if I seem excited, it’s because I am, and—”

The bedroom door opened. Allie stood in the doorway, wearing a t-shirt and shorts, hands clasped behind her back, head slightly bowed, tangled hair framing a humble, contrite look that complemented her natural beauty, gave her a helpless, innocent appearance that invited anyone with a heart to hold her close, comfort her. She stared at her mother and Dressler as her eyes slowly filled with tears and her lower lip curled into a little-girl pout; she spoke slowly, chokingly. “Mom . . . Steven had nothing to do with any of this. The computer stuff
was
all about Emily . . . except for the
depression
file . . . which was about Emily
and
me. And the sleeping pills and Mestinon were
all
about me . . . satisfying my addiction for the dreams and Emily . . . because nothing else matters to me now . . . and . . . and I’ve sure made a mess of things.” She moaned, stepped hastily to her mother’s comforting arms, blubbered on her shoulder, “I’m so sorry, Mom . . . so sorry.”

When she’d settled, she sniffled, rubbed her eyes, looked at Dressler. “Steve, I stole the script sheets from your desk and forged your signature, lied to the pharmacist. I’ve lost all respect for myself. I’m not the girl I was when this started. I’m a mess . . . and I let you both down . . . and I’m sorry . . . I hate myself this way.”

Nancy pulled her into a tight hug. “Hang in there, kiddo. We’ll get you through this. Not going to be easy, but we’ll get ’er done.”

Nancy emerged from the bedroom. “Find any food? Cupboard’s probably a little bare right now.”

Dressler stood. “Enough . . . a little fruit and veggies.” They sat down at the kitchen table. “I looked at her data CD from the first couple days . . . really long. She must have taken a
lot
of pills, and the Mestinon appears to have given her exactly what she wanted . . . more-frequent and longer REM dreaming periods. But she didn’t do her verbal reports; hopefully she can work those up later today or tomorrow for correlation with the data. She also didn’t wire up after that first sleep . . . probably too out of it to deal with it, but she should be able to provide a good
verbal
report.” He shook his head. “The functions we were monitoring aren’t that important now anyway because we’ve already corroborated her dream events with electronic data and will be moving on to . . . oh. How’s she doing?”