Chapter 1

The dream always started the same. Meredith was at a party, dressed in a calf-length golden gown that accented her figure and set off her dark hair. She sensed that a particular man was near. She looked around.

A blond man in a tan suede sports jacket leaned against the mantel. He was handsome, but not the man she was looking for.

Now the blond man leaned back and laughed. Another man, one who was telling jokes, stood across from him. That man could not be the stranger, either. He was probably fifty, but was vaguely athletic. Lines had settled around his eyes, and a pink bald spot glistened high on his forehead. The twist of his mouth suggested the cruelty of a naughty child. He leered over what must have been a filthy joke. No, he couldn’t be the one.

The stranger did not have to be handsome. He might be older; he might be anything. Meredith would know when she saw him. He had to be here, and she knew he was watching her.

She suddenly sensed that he was standing behind her, at her back, but coming closer. Meredith tried to turn and felt touched with faint terror, like the rise of a sudden autumn squall. The room was crowded with comfortable people who knew one another and who were not frightened. These people held cocktail parties and invited her. She could not remember why.

It was a nearly senseless dream, but somehow sensuous. Meredith tugged against what felt like invisible wires. Desire pressed her, but so did the remote terror. She felt as if she would stand in this spot forever, the wires holding her like a marionette. The blond man would laugh, the older man lift his drink in the glistening air. She would feel the warmth of desire rising, and her breath would become short. Forever, the air would glisten with the tinkle of ice and laughter. Darkness would dwell in the corners of the well-lit room, darkness that pulsed with desire, that pulsed with fear. The record player would play the liquid notes of modern jazz.

Then, at her elbow, a shadow would fall. The stranger would step out from behind her.

Meredith tried to turn her head, but the wires held. Then, from the corner of her eye, and with a surge of gladness, she saw him.

Meredith awoke. Sunlight streamed through the checkered curtains and spread a bright spot on the orange rug. From outside came the sharp cries of birds. The wind stirred the leaves of the tree beyond the bedroom window.

She was at home in her own bedroom, and against her thigh she felt Richard’s warmth. They had slept nested like spoons. Richard lay beside her and there was no stranger. It was only a dream, but the sensuous feelings remained—and the dark ones as well.

Meredith lifted herself on one elbow, fighting the dream’s pull. This time she had seen, or had almost seen, his face. In all the other dreams, the man hovered just out of view, a presence like a faint tune she could not quite place. The dream tugged, pulling her back. It was not like a memory. It felt more like a scary movie, the kind you watched on television until the middle of the night. Then you turned it off only to lie awake, hearing every creak and movement in the house. The dream felt like a ghost story so real it could live and make echoes.

Ghost stories did not happen on days like this. For that matter, they did not happen in houses like this. Ghosts stalked English castles or Victorian mansions. They did not clatter around fairly new houses in upper-middleclass neighborhoods. Dreams were not more real than this beautiful bedroom, and strange men could not call silently from across a crowd, using a wordless, dark inner pull to bring her to them.

Meredith shook her head. Such things did not happen. She glanced at the clock.

“Richard,” she whispered, pushing the sheet from his shoulder. “Richard.”

Richard stirred and muttered in his sleep.

“Wake up, kid. It’s almost seven.”

Her husband turned on the pillow and opened his eyes. He smiled slowly without parting his lips. She brushed her long hair from the side of her face and touched his lips with her fingers.

“I’m still dreaming,” he said, and reached for her.

Meredith tried to believe this was the face of the man she had seen in her dream. As Richard pulled her toward him, she closed her eyes and knew it was not.