Sweet Dreams (4 page)

David's island used to be an old base for war prisoners then most recently a bible camp for kids. They even had planned to put a nuclear power plant on the island but it never happened for one reason or another. Now it was a maximumsecurity prison for some of New York's finest and we are not talking the boys in blue. One long two-lane road found its way from New Rochelle to the seventy-eight acre island. All the buildings were only one story and outside of the guard towers, the old red maple trees cover most of the prisons from view, so the people of New Rochelle won't complain that an ugly prison is blocking their view of long island sound.

"Cindy," Tom's voice broke into Mark's thoughts. "Can you tell us what is going on out there?" The thump of a microphone and Cindy's sweet professional voice came back on after a brief pause.

"Tom, I just spoke to a guard who said it seems that there has been a mass food poisoning. He said that the Inmates were in the cafeteria eating their lunch when everyone became ill and immediately passed out. They seem to think that it was

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the food or maybe it's an outbreak of some kind! We don't know every detail yet, but we do know that the
center for dis-
ease control
is on there way."

"Cindy is this something that is confined to people who ate the tainted lunch, or have others gotten sick as well?"

"From what I've been told, it is only affecting the people who ate the food served here today."

"Thank you, Cindy," Tom said with a drone." We'll keep you informed of this breaking story as it develops. That was Cindy Waters, reporting live..."

Mark turned down the radio and gazed out over the sea of metal as it slowly crawled from the city. He had never heard of food poising working so quickly before. He had food poisoning a few times and at least for him it always took an hour or so to kick in.

Mark thought about the news story for about three seconds then his mind turned to his date with his beautiful girl. He would be home soon and he could almost see K and thought about the smile. He knew he would see it tonight and might even get her to flash it at him more then once. He reached to the passenger seat of his modest Honda Accord and felt the velvet box that had a bright red bow tied around it. He had bought it for K two week ago and now traced its delicate corners and wondered if she would like it. The moment he believed he had figured her out and what she might like or hate, the rules would change and he was left to try again. However, he didn't mind, it added to the mystery that was woman. After getting off the expressway, he drove through Mt Vernon, which was where he called home. It was only thirty or so miles from the office but took over an hour to navigate the distance. Turning down a side street, he cut across to Carwall Avenue and turned right. Tall old oak trees hung their branches over the road like great monsters of a day gone by. He smiled at a little red headed boy who was shooting hoops into a makeshift basketball hoop he had nailed to a tree. He looked his way with a half smile on his freckled face and went back to shooting.

The third house from the end, he saw Sam's tricycle in the front yard laying on its side with one peddle up in the air as if to surrender. He pulled the silver Honda into the driveway and hit something that made a small crunch sound. Mark got out and saw the cracked body of what used to be little Suzy. Samantha had used the doll for tea parties and after a few months, it was discarded for an upgrade. The white paint on the old house made it look bigger then it was and one window up in the top dormer looked like it was keeping watch over the front yard like a soldier. K had painted the trim blue, it was brown before, but that
"was no color for house trim
," she had said.

Mark could hear little Samantha running to the door to meet him. "Daddy, daddy, Look--
Look!
I drawed a horsey!"

she said as she shoved a tattered piece of paper at him. It looked like a red crayon had been used up on sheet of paper. Mark smiled at Samantha and noticed how her blond hair had started to curl up at the ends. He hoped that it would be curly just like K's one day.

"Wow, and what a beautiful horsey it is, Samantha!"

Picking her up and hugging her, he threw his arms around her waist and kissed her cheek. Sam's three-year-old arms wrapped around Mark's neck and she hugged him as tight as

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she could. "I want to fly!" She exclaimed. Mark laughed, threw her up in the air, and then caught her as she giggled uncontrollably.

"Okay. Let's go find Mommy." He knew if he got her going, she would want him to make her
fly
all night.

"Mommy!" she yelled.

K came down the stairs from the bedroom where she was getting ready for their date. She had on a black dress that scooped in the front and came down to just above her knees. She was five foot eleven and had blond hair that looked like summer wheat when it was ripe and ready for harvest. Her long legs made the black dress look even more stunning and Mark's heart jumped in his chest the second he saw her.

"Oooh, so pretty!" Sam's eyes lit up when she saw her mom. She wiggled out of Mark's arms and ran to K's side. Reaching up, she tried to touch the fabric of the dress.

"Whoa, Nelly. You look fantastic, honey." Kissing her softly, he could smell her perfume as it whisked through his senses. K smiled with a look of glee, knowing she did look good and was going to use it for everything it was worth tonight.

"How was your day?" She asked with a sparkle in her eye. She turned and started back up the stairs after she gave him a soft kiss on the lips. Mark followed her and sat on the edge of the bed, watching her. He told her about the slow day and how he didn't get much of anything done. He left out the part about the snarling traffic and the news report. It all seemed like a distant memory now.

"Sam, where's my other earring, the silver and black one?"

Sam was milling around Mark's feet trying to take his shoes off and giggling when he would push her over. She would then get back up and try again in hopes that he would push her over again. She looked up at K and tried to seem innocent, her little hand hid behind her back clutching the earring like a pirate who just found the key to a hidden treasure. "Pretty earring," She said, not willing to give up her precious loot.

"Sam, Mommy needs it," She leaned over and tried to reason with Sam, her bright hazel eyes opened wide while trying to look sincere. Sam slowly put out her hand and opened it, revealing the missing earring. "Thank you, Sam," K said. Sam soon forgot about the loss, found a piece of string on the floor, and walked around the room announcing that it was a
necklace.

When the doorbell rang, Sam jumped up and ran down the stairs yelling, "Gramma, Granpa!" K's parents were great at babysitting, which was nice when they needed someone to look after Sam overnight.

Scooping up the bag of teddy bears and other overnight "necessities," Mark made his way down to say hello to his in-laws and to hug Sam goodnight.

Sam was jumping up and down, giggling. She loved to go over to her grandparents' house. Her blue eyes were wide as she grabbed her sippy cup and Grandpa's hand and pulled him out to the car.

"Samantha, come give me a hug and a kiss!" Mark said.

"She doesn't even care, she just wants to go," Mark laughed as Sam ran back, gave him and K a quick hug and a kiss, and then ran back toward the car snagging Grandpa's hand on the way. Mark watched as their dark blue Chrysler Mini van pulled out of the driveway and onto Carwell Avenue. Bill and Holly

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Bardwell live in the Westhampton, and had ever since K could remember. They had money but lived there before you had to be one of the wealthy to own a home there. K grew up in the same house that her father Bill had grown up in. She loved it out there and now the Bardwell's had a very exclusive bed and breakfast they ran in the summers. Bill was in real estate and had done very well for himself over the years. Holly was in love with art and that is where K got all her love for the arts, and her talent. They used to spend hours looking out at the sunsets from the back porch of their home painting what they saw, and sometimes not at all what they saw--but what they felt.

K went up to their bedroom to finish putting on her makeup, and Mark changed into a black pinstriped suit with a white shirt and a dark, blood-red tie. He ran some water through his short blond hair and made it spike up a little and K laughed at him. "Hey, some people don't just fall out of bed looking good, I have to try a little harder than you do." K tied a thin silk ribbon through part of her hair and it held part of it back as the rest fell on her shoulders. She glanced at him and smiled, it was
that
smile! And it was worth it. ________________________________________

KIRK WESTON SAT IN the third row of the briefing room and looked around the room with his dark grey eyes. There were twenty or so people in the room and everyone there wore suits as far as he could tell. The FBI had called his local police office in Detroit and requested that he fly to New York for a case. Kirk was on the bottom of the food chain back home in Detroit and was curious to see what all the fuss was about. He had a hard time believing that anyone would be requesting his presence let alone the feds.

Kirk Weston was a middle-aged man whose hair was thinning, so he kept it shaved smooth. He had a look of disdain plastered across his face most of the time, and many people would say he was a grump, jerk, or any other word for not a pleasant person you could come up with. However, this
job
could do that to a person.

Now not to be fooled Kirk Weston was not a bad cop, quite the contrary he was a good cop, if not a great one. You don't make detective by hanging in the donut shops and showing up late for work. He just didn't like people, not that people were all that bad, he just couldn't find any he liked more then a splinter that was infected in the bottom of your foot. Then there was the outright disregard for authority, or anyone who was in a position to tell him what to do. Not exactly a fine quality for making friends and all that mumbo jumbo. Kirk was a little more then annoyed that they had pulled him off his other case, but it seemed, from the looks of the room, that everyone else was in the same boat. Not that his other case was all that important anyway. Just a rapist who had a bad habit of picking targets under the age of sixteen, no biggie, let some other slob go after the guy. "Stupid feds," he muttered just loud enough for the two gentleman in front of him to hear.

He could see badges from New York, Boston, and even Washington. Everyone but Kirk was in uniform.
No matter.
He felt more comfortable in jeans and a white T-shirt, and no one was going to tell him what to wear anyway. A well-built man with thick black hair that stood on top of

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his head like a tiny army of soldiers, made his way up to the front of the room. He adjusted his green tie that had no business next to his salmon shirt unless you were in a sad Christmas play. He looked up through thick glasses and cleared his throat.

"Ladies and Gentleman, my name is Mathews, Special Agent in charge," Special agent Mathews pulled up a PowerPoint as he looked around the room with a somber look on his face. "As most of you know, a few days ago there was an incident at the David's Island Correctional Facility. If you will look on the screen behind me, you can see from the pictures that it appears that the inmates in this photo have passed out," The picture showed thousands of men in orange jumpsuits laying facedown on the floor and some still sitting in their seats with their faces smothered in their food. There were fifty or so paramedics and firemen working on the victims. Kirk thought to himself, S
o what! So they ate bad shrimp.
The photo looked like it was taken in the main mess hall or cafeteria. Metal tables that looked like picnic tables were in neat rows and in the top part of the picture was a long counter with glass behind it. That was what it looked like where the cooks prepared the food.

"As reported on the news stations, the poisoning affected every inmate in the building. Not one guard was affected in any way. Now for the real story..." He paused to get everyone's attention. The director took off his glasses and switched to the next photo. A slow muttering rippled through the room.

"They were not unconscious. Every inmate you see here is dead!"

Whispers and gasps were heard as everyone began to see what was really going on.

Kirk shifted in his seat with a half smirk on his face. He was somewhat glad and didn't have any feelings of horror or loss like the rest of the
normal
people in the room. The prison housed some of the vilest criminals known to man, and now they were all dead.
Justice is served,
he said to himself. He thought he might be getting too hardened from fifteen years on the force, but he was always one to see it in his own way.

"Quiet down! I will now turn it over to Captain Jacobson. He has been with the FBI for over twenty-five years and has been at the scene of the crime from the moment we found out about the report." A tall lanky-looking man with bottle cap glasses stepped up and the moment he spoke Kirk thought that his voice didn't match his appearance. It was strong and commanding.

"Here's what we know, first, every inmate died within seconds of being around the food, but not all of them ate it, next, not one guard has died or even become ill, even though some of the guards ate the same food. And last but not least, we found no trace of poison or anything abnormal in any of the bodies." The Captain finished and showed them some more slides.

Kirk looked with new interest not because a bunch of slime bags died but because he loved a good mystery. He wanted to know how it was done, to see if he could crack the case and look into the eyes of a mastermind. The yard on the side of the prison was littered with body bags, and the slide was filled from top to bottom. There were people milling about in hazmat suits with the letters CDC stamped in their backs like a bold black warning. They looked like they were