Rebecca York - Solid as Steele

If she could have clawed her way out, she would have fled the dream. But it continued to hold her fast.

The door opened to reveal a man dressed all in black, and in place of a face, he had a death mask.

“You,” he whispered. “How did you get here?”

Her only answer was a scream. She would have run, but her feet were rooted to the floor. And the figure was coming toward her.

Far away, she heard someone calling her name. It was Mack.

“Jamie, wake up. Come back to me.”

She wanted to. She wanted to get out of this awful place. She wanted to come back to him.

She felt his hand clamp around hers. Sensed his desperation. She could hear him. Touch him. But she couldn’t see him. All she could see was the man in black advancing on her step by step. And she knew one thing: there was no escape. He would kill her, just the way he’d killed the rest of his victims.

RUTH GLICK WRITING AS REBECCA YORK

USA TODAY BESTSELLING AUTHOR

Award-winning, bestselling novelist Ruth Glick, who writes as Rebecca York, is the author of more than one hundred books, including her popular 43 Light Street series for Harlequin Intrigue. Ruth says she has the best job in the world. Not only does she get paid for telling stories, she’s also the author of twelve cookbooks. Ruth and her husband, Norman, travel frequently, researching locales for her novels and searching out new dishes for her cookbooks.

Jamie Shepherd—She’d had nightmares for years, but she’d thought they were over.

Craig Shepherd—He’d been the love of Jamie’s life; but after he died, could she put her life back together?

Mack Steele—Would the detective keep his objectivity when Jamie dragged him into a murder investigation?

Gloria Wheeler—Did Jamie’s mother wish her daughter well or ill?

Lynn Vaughn—Was she reaching out to Jamie?

Fred Hyde—Why was he punishing the residents of Gaptown?

Clark Landon—How far would Gloria’s boyfriend go to get Jamie to leave town?

Tim Conrad—Did his murder fit into Jamie and Mack’s fun-house investigation?

Jeanette Baker—She was another piece of the fun-house puzzle.

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Jamie Shepherd struggled to claw her way back to consciousness, but the nightmare held her fast. She was in a dark, spooky funhouse, trying to find the exit to freedom.

Music from a slasher movie blared from hidden speakers. Eerie green light shimmered around her. And the air was thick with a horrible graveyard smell.

Coughing, pressing her hand over her mouth, she fought to escape, even when she knew on some instinctive level that it wasn’t her dream. She clung to that secret knowledge as she ran down an endless hallway, her breath coming in great gasps, her terror increasing with every step.

Ahead of her was a blank wall. Oh Lord!

She was trapped.

Or maybe not. Struggling to control her fear, she began to slide her hands over the flat surface, searching for a seam or a latch, something that would let her escape from the monster that she knew was behind her.

Finally, her fingers found a small indentation. When she pressed into it, a door sprang outward so fast that she lost her footing and tumbled through.

As she scrambled to right herself, she found she was on a slide that carried her down into the darkness, then dumped her onto a cold cement floor.

She lay there panting, her shoulder throbbing where it had struck the floor. From far away she heard a train whistle blow. Then, much closer, a sound behind her froze the blood in her veins.

He was coming! She had to get away.

After dragging herself up, she stood in the darkness, trying not to let her breathing give her away.

From a speaker in the wall, a grating voice boomed, “You can’t stay there.”

“No more. Please. Let me go,” she cried out.

“Not yet.”

“What have I done to you?”

“You know.”

“I don’t! Please just let me out of here. I don’t even know who you are.”

“Of course you know.”

“No!”

“I’ll let you out if you can find the door. Go back upstairs.”

As he spoke, a spotlight switched on, and she saw steps leading upward.

She clambered up, grasping the railing. At the top, she found herself in another corridor, this one lined with mirrors that distorted her image as they reflected her face and body.

Someone had spattered red paint on the floor. Or was it blood?

She looked behind her and saw a shadowed figure climbing the steps, his pace slow and deliberate, like he had all the time in the world.

A cry rose in her throat when she saw how he was dressed. He wore a black robe, and his face was a skull mask with glowing red eyes. She had seen him before. First just a glimpse. Then a fuller look. And some deep, primal instinct told her she was dead if he caught up with her.

“No! Please.”

She couldn’t let him get her. That thought filled every corner of her mind as she came to a place where the corridor divided.

Which way? Oh God, which way?

As he bore relentlessly down on her, she whimpered and chose the left-hand hallway. Only a few steps later, a bright light flashed in her eyes, almost blinding her, but she kept running because that was her only option.

Then out of the brightness, a black shape loomed in front of her.

It was him. Somehow he had circled around. He must have used a hidden passage, because now he was blocking her path. In his hand, she saw the glint of metal—the blade of a long, cruel knife.

She screamed and raised her arm, trying to defend herself. But the knife slashed into her flesh. As he pulled back and swung down for another blow, pain jolted through her.

Then mercifully, everything went black.

On a sob, Jamie woke, her fingers clawing at the sheet as she tried to drag herself out of the nightmare house and back to her own reality. To her own bed.

It had been a dream. Only a dream. But not about her. It was another woman desperately trying to escape from a madman and just as desperately reaching out to Jamie.

Now the contact had snapped off, vanished as if it had never existed. She wanted to deny that it had been real. Yet in the secret part of her mind, she couldn’t convince herself that it was only a nightmare.

“No,” she whispered, wrapping her arms around her shoulders and rocking back and forth as she willed it not to be true, but denial was not an option. She had been in that other woman’s mind. Felt the terror coming off of her in waves. And Jamie was pretty sure that the scene of horror had taken place in Gaptown, Maryland, the small city in the state’s western mountains where she had grown up.

She’d made what she considered her escape, and she’d vowed never to return to a place where she’d hated her life. Yet a woman from home had reached out to her and pulled her back.

That the contact was in her mind didn’t make it any less real or any less terrifying, and it didn’t absolve her of responsibility to do something.

She lay in bed shivering, her heart pounding like a drum inside her chest as she watched the headlights of cars travel across the ceiling and wondered whether one of the vehicles was coming for her.