“It’s your fault, RJ,” she said with lips that didn’t move. “Yours!”

Bentz bucked, trying to break her hold as his eyes flew open.

He was in the bed at the motel.

Alone.

No Olivia. No Jennifer.

Just his guilt. His damned guilt.

Letting out a long breath, he realized he was saturated in cold sweat. The dream had been so real. So evocative and terrifying. He wanted to call Olivia but glanced at the clock. 12:47. Nearly 3 A.M. in Louisiana. He would wait.

Climbing out of bed, he walked to the window and opened the blinds to look at the night-washed parking lot.

It was empty aside from the usual vehicles.

Quiet.

Still unnerved, he went into the bathroom and threw water over his face. Telling himself he’d been through a lot worse in his life than bad dreams, he popped a couple of ibuprofen for the pain in his leg before returning to bed. He clicked on the television and searched for any inane show to occupy his mind. But he didn’t believe for an instant that some late-night talk show host would dispel the dream.

He figured nothing would.

He’d just have to live with it.

The next morning, after a fitful night, Bentz found a place where he could replace his cell phone on his current plan. He was the first customer to enter the strip mall for the day and he looked like hell. But he ended up with a new phone.

Two doors down there was a casual-wear store, so he picked up a new pair of khakis and a cheap sports jacket.

He’d have to wait on shoes.

He returned to the motel, showered, shaved, called and left a message for Olivia, then spent the next few hours spinning his wheels, thinking, and reentering numbers into the new cell. He pieced together the events of the last few days and wondered how the woman—“Jennifer”—had known where he would be. As far as he could tell, his room wasn’t bugged. He didn’t find any listening devices tucked into hidden niches. Not that it mattered. To his recollection he hadn’t mentioned his plans while talking on the phone here. He did a second peripheral check of the rental car and couldn’t find any tracking device in the undercarriage or wheel wells.

But somehow, “Jennifer” had known where he was going, where he had been.

How?

And why was she doing this?

In the motel room with the television tuned to an all-news channel, the blinds open so that he didn’t feel completely cut off from the world, he sipped his tepid coffee, his mind turning back to the night before. What the hell had happened on the pier? She’d been there. He’d seen her, but Hayes had said that the cops had questioned the people on the pier, the old man who’d been smoking a cigar and the kids who had been so into each other. When Hayes had asked about the runner, he hadn’t been found and no one remembered him.