‘They’ll come after me. And you. And Ashley and Bron.’
A muscle ticks in his cheek, highlighting his scar. ‘I used to think,’ he says softly, ‘that the best thing I could do would be to leave everyone to it. Let the Mayor and the Department and everyone else get on with whatever they were doing. As long as they didn’t bother me, it didn’t matter.’
‘What changed?’
‘You.’ He laughs awkwardly. ‘You’ve never once been weak or selfish. You took on the Mayor when no one else dared. You can bring down the Department too.’
‘Are they really that bad?’ I ask in a small voice.
‘They’d be an awful lot worse if they could change dreams as well as watch them.’ He smiles. ‘Only you can do that.’
There’s a lump in my throat. ‘It’s what the Mayor wanted. He wanted me to go into people’s heads and manipulate their dreams so he could manipulate them.’
‘Well,’ Dante says, ‘it’s a good thing that won’t happen then.’
I look away. ‘But I’ve already done that. I got someone arrested because of what I saw in his dream. And I made this kid ask for a raise. And I tried to persuade a woman to leave her cheating fiancé and–’
‘Did the person you got arrested deserve it?’ he interrupts.
‘Probably.’
‘Was the fiancé really cheating?’
‘Yes, but–’
‘Then you’ve not done anything wrong.’
‘It’s snooping!’ I burst out. ‘It’s only a whisker away from what the Mayor wanted to do!’
‘Zoe, he wanted to do those things to achieve power and wealth for himself. You didn’t. You were trying to help people.’
‘Maybe they didn’t want my help.’
‘Maybe not. But you had good intentions. And you did help them.’
I’m not convinced. I stare at my shoes. ‘Ashley hates me.’
‘She’ll come around.’
I sigh. ‘Why did you leave? You were there one minute and then you vanished without saying anything.’
His face is guarded. ‘You seemed busy. Bron was looking after you.’
It’s on the tip of my tongue to tell him nothing’s going on between Bron and me but I don’t get the chance. Dante smiles and says, ‘I’ll say one thing. Life is never boring when you’re around.’
I try to smile back. ‘May you live in interesting times,’ I whisper.
Turn the page to read the first chapter of Dire Straits, the first book in the Bo Blackman series.
Chapter One: Of Blood and Bonds
I sit in the driver’s seat, sipping at my overly sweet – and now very cold – tea. It’s been forty-seven minutes since Devlin O’Shea entered the house and I’m starting to get itchy. A few cars have driven up to the crossroads behind me before turning either left or right, but none so much as slowed down. Considering the neighbourhood, I’m not surprised at that. In fact, I know that if there were anyone around, they’d be startled to see a lone woman sitting here. This isn’t the kind of street where anyone should spend time lingering, let alone someone on their own. I don’t feel I have much choice, however.
I take my eyes off the peeling green paint on the door frame and scan ahead. There must be at least forty more houses in front of me before the road finishes in what I already know to be a dead end. If any of the buildings are occupied, their inhabitants are staying well out of sight. There’s not even the barest twitch from any of the dirty curtains hiding the houses’ interiors from sight. In front of each dwelling, there’s a small patch of garden where the grass – if it can be called that – is either hopelessly overgrown to the point where you’d need a machete to cut a way through to reach the doors, or blackened and dying. There appears to be no pattern to whether the grass at each house is healthy or diseased, although the fact that the one O’Shea has disappeared into is fronted by deadened blades rather than a glory of jungle green seems to make sense. My attention drifts back to his building. There’s nothing. No sign of life.
I sigh. I am tempted to fiddle with radio dial, if only to hear the buzz of static filling the empty space. O’Shea isn’t a pure-bred triber. His hearing won’t pick it up. But I have no way of knowing who – or what – else is inside that house with him and I dislike taking unnecessary risks. It’s unlikely there’s anyone else there ... but still. I take another sip. Twelve more minutes to go.