The Dream Wedding Page 9

  There were some who said that his nervous silent business partners had “fixed” Hamish’s car to keep him from squealing on them when he was busted. But the undercover cops who were investigating Hamish had figured his hauteur fit right in with driving out into the desert all alone and without water.

  His death was labeled an accident by arrogance and closed.

  Elena had heard Hamish had a son. She’d also heard he’d been quick to get rid of his father’s illegal sideline.

  And now here he was. Sitting across from her. Well, Sheldon Ayton might not have followed in his father’s footsteps, but there was an unmistakable arrogance about him that sure did.

  “I thought your family had moved away from this area after the death of your father?” Elena asked as she reclaimed her presence of mind.

  “We’re back,” Sheldon Ayton said coolly. “Now, about my missing wife…”

  “Did you and your wife have a disagreement of any kind before she turned up missing?”

  “No.”

  “When was the last time you saw your wife?”

  “At approximately seven o’clock on Christmas Eve.”

  “And where were you?”

  “At our home.”

  “You’ve checked with family members and friends?”

  “Yes.”

  “Hospitals?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did your wife have any enemies?”

  “No.”

  “What about you?”

  “None.”

  No enemies? Hamish Ayton’s son? A rich man who looked like this and was used to getting his own way? Right

  “Mr. Ayton. I assume you have received no ransom note or calls of extortion?”

  “None.”

  “Please describe for me everything you remember about the last time you saw your wife, including everything that you said to her and she said to you.”

  “We had just finished dancing. Nat said it was time for her to change out of her wedding dress.”

  “Wedding dress?” Elena repeated.

  “Yes.”

  “Wait a minute. Am I understanding you correctly? This was your wedding reception that your wife disappeared from?”

  “Yes.”

  “On Christmas Eve?”

  “Yes. She went upstairs to change out of her wedding dress. No one has seen her since.”

  A bride missing in her wedding dress on Christmas Eve. Elena was getting a bad feeling about this. A really bad feeling.

  “Do you have a recent picture of your wife?”

  His hand slid into his jacket pocket and came out with a three-by-five shot. He handed it to Elena.

  Natalie Newcastle Ayton was a picture, all right. Her hair was pure flame, her skin was snow, her features were perfection.

  Just as Elena remembered them.

  “Mr. Ayton, I believe I might be able to help you locate your missing bride,” Elena said carefully.

  He came forward in his chair, his large hand clasping the edge of her desk. “You know where she is?”

  “I believe I do. But I’m not sure finding her is your biggest problem at the moment.”

  MICHAEL WALKED into the kitchen and stopped in surprise when he saw Briana standing in front of the stove, expertly folding over a fluffy omelet chock-full of cheese and vegetables.

  He leaned his shoulder against the doorjamb and crossed his arms over his chest.

  “I thought you said you weren’t a cook.”

  She flashed him a glance over her shoulder. “This omelet just seemed to throw itself together.”

  Looked to Michael like it had had a lot of help.

  “I feel really hungry this morning,” she said. “Must have been the swimming yesterday. Have a seat. Breakfast is about to be served.”

  Michael pulled up a chair and dug in. The omelet melted in his mouth. The biscuits she had whipped up from scratch were warm, right out of the oven, and as light and tasty as any from a bakery. Dessert was grilled apple slices dripping with a rich cinnamon sauce and full of chopped nuts and raisins.

  He had left her for twenty minutes and she had come up with this. He didn’t know of any other woman who described herself as a noncook and then whipped up homemade biscuits and put together an imaginative breakfast from the spare assortment in his kitchen pantry and refrigerator.

  Less than forty-eight hours ago, he’d been bragging to Nate that no woman held any more surprises for him. And then he had awakened Briana Berry with a kiss and she’d presented him with one surprise after another. He wondered how many more she had in store for him.

  When they had finished eating and were sipping their coffee, he leaned back in his chair and broached the subject he knew was foremost in both of their minds.

  “Briana, how do you feel about your dreams last night?”

  Her hands were suddenly tense as they circled her coffee cup.

  “They made little sense, like most dreams I’ve had. Although I have to admit your waking me helped me to recall their details much better “

  “Why do you think you dreamed about being a bride in an elaborate wedding?”

  “When you found me asleep under your tree, I was in that elaborate bridal gown. I probably dreamed about being in a wedding in order to explain why you found me dressed that way.”

  “Then why were you having that same dream when I woke you the first time, before you knew how you were dressed?”

  She had the grace to laugh. “That’s a good question.”

  “Do you have an answer for it?”

  She rose, collected the dishes from the table. “You’re going to keep asking me questions until I come up with the answers, aren’t you?”

  “You’re the only one who can decipher your dreams, Briana.”

  Her hands kept stacking and restacking the dishes, as though she couldn’t get them in the right order for carrying. Michael watched her, wondering if she was aware of what she was doing.

  He suspected she was probably too busy trying to mentally stack and restack the elements in her dreams, as a way to understand—or maybe avoid understanding—their meanings.

  “You know something about my last dream, don’t you?” she finally asked.

  “I have a suspicion, yes.”

  “What suspicion, Michael?”

  He finished his coffee and rose. “I’ll help you load the dishwasher, and then we’ll talk about it.”

  When the dishwasher began its cycle, Michael led the way out of the kitchen to the outside porch.

  The air was cool and sweet, the sun warm. It was another perfect day. Michael rested his hip against the porch’s high wrought-iron railing as he turned to face Briana.

  “I suspect the same thing you suspect, Briana. The dreams you had last night were important. And parts of them fit into the waking facts as we know them.”

  “You think some of the events in those dreams might be…real events,” she said, not looking relieved to have put into words what he knew she had been thinking all along.

  “It’s the logical conclusion,” he offered gently. “You were the bride at a wedding ceremony in these last two dreams. You were dressed as a bride when I found you. When I awakened you, you thought you were kissing your new husband.”

  Briana seemed to be having difficulty swallowing as she grasped the railing and her eyes roamed restlessly over the fat plum mountains rising around her.

  “But if these were more than dreams—if these were memories—then I was getting married.”

  “It’s hard to come up with any other logical explanation to fit the facts and the events in your dreams.”

  “Who did I marry?”

  “You saw him in your dream.”

  “I didn’t know that man in my dream, Michael.”

  “Just as you don’t know your own face, Briana?”

  He watched as the reminder once again clouded the lovely crystal clarity of her eyes. She frowned and let out a small sigh of frustration.

  “I can�
��t just take the events in these dreams at face value. They are so far removed from the life and people I remember.”

  “There may be a way to get proof, one way or another.”

  “How?”

  “You were still in your wedding gown when you turned up under my Christmas tree. If some of the images in your dreams are actual waking memories, then it stands to reason that the ceremony took place somewhere in southern Nevada. Do you remember what time of day it was when you walked toward that altar to exchange those dream vows?”

  She closed her eyes for a moment, as though trying to recreate the scene in her mind.

  “The shadows were long from the trees,” she said after a moment. “The sun was low in the sky.” She opened her eyes. “I believe the sun was just about to set.”

  “Sunset is right around four-forty at this time of year. Let’s assume the ceremony concluded then. All the outside pictures would have been quickly taken by the photographer or photographers before the light faded.”

  “Photographers? Plural?”

  “You described an elaborate ceremony replete with a full orchestra playing the wedding march. I hardly think the family would have relied on a single photographer to capture the event”

  “Michael, it was all so lavish, so elegant. I can’t believe it was real. What would I have been doing at such an elaborate, expensive ceremony?”

  “What were you doing in such an elaborate, expensive wedding gown when I found you?”

  She laughed, and he realized that she was doing her best to cling to her lifeline of humor. “What, indeed? But that mansion, Michael. Surely that had to have been a figment of my dreaming mind?”

  “You tell me, Briana.”

  “I can’t imagine anyone building such an impractical place in this day and age, and certainly not in the desert.”

  “We should be able to find out.”

  “How?”

  “Assume for the moment that the elements in the final segment of the dream were accurately depicted. Did the reception take place at the home where you had the wedding?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What do you think or feel about it? Your first impression, Briana. Did the reception take place at the home where the wedding was?”

  “The ballroom had a Gothic feel to it. Yes. I think the reception was there.”

  “All right. If the outdoor pictures were concluded by four-forty, next would come the indoor ones with the wedding party and the family. That would have taken at least another hour.”

  “You sound as though you’ve been to a lot of weddings.”

  “You’re looking at a seasoned best man. There would be the ceremony surrounding the cake-cutting. The opening of presents The toasts. A formal sit-down dinner. Dancing. I would estimate you left that house no sooner than seven o’clock on Christmas Eve.”

  “And you found me at the institute at ten. So you’re thinking I must have been no further than three hours away?”

  “That’s exactly what I’m thinking, Briana. Let’s look at a map of the area.”

  Michael led the way to his office. Once there, he retrieved a large aerial map from a drawer and spread it out on his desk. He did some mental calculations and then drew a circle around the institute representing a three-hour drive in all directions.

  “This circles encompasses a big chunk of Arizona and Utah, as well as Nevada,” he said. “Still, it shouldn’t take too long to fly over it and check it out.”

  “Fly?” Briana said beside him.

  “The helicopter is outside, fueled up, ready to go. We can do a sweep of the area I’ve outlined on the map. Ever been up in a helicopter before?”

  “No. At least not before the last three weeks. Who knows what I’ve been doing during them?”

  BRIANA FOUND the flight exhilarating. The sudden lift that shifted her stomach to her soles. The forward thrust that pushed an invisible hand against her chest. Michael flew as he drove, flat out, full throttle, and in full control. The earth whizzed by beneath them.

  “I’m familiar with the area that is within the immediate vicinity of the institute,” his voice said through the headphones in her ears. “I also know what lies west toward Las Vegas and beyond. I’ll concentrate on the other areas.”

  Michael set a heading for the northwest and pointed out various landmarks as they flew by. Lake Mead was a glistening blue jewel beneath them. A little farther along was an area Michael called the Valley of Fire. It flashed by in impossible shades all the way from claret to cinnabar.

  They flew over the Moapa River Indian Reservation, a national wildlife range where wild horses ran the golden hills, a small town named Alamo, a large valley called Meadow.

  And it was all lovely.

  Briana had always thought of desert terrain as sand and sagebrush. Now she knew it was quite varied and quite beautiful. And, when seen from the vantage point of a helicopter, quite spectacular.

  She was so engrossed in the passing scenery that she forgot why they were on this ride.

  Until suddenly, out in the middle of nowhere, sitting on a mountain top, there it was: crenellated roofline, central square tower, the Tudor-Gothic horror house of her dreams. Briana could not believe her eyes.

  “That’s it!” she said, pointing.

  “I see it,” Michael said, heading the helicopter toward the fortress. He dipped down, hovering over it. Briana could clearly make out the elaborate English garden in its center. It was just as she had remembered it A chill shot up her spine.

  She could feel Michael’s eyes shifting to her face. “Shall we land and knock at the door?” he asked.

  “No, no!” It wasn’t until after the words were out of her mouth that Briana realized she had shouted them.

  An unreasoning dread had overcome her. The last thing in the world she wanted to do was get closer to that place.

  Michael took the chopper up quickly and headed away from the mountain fortress. Briana no longer noticed the changing terrain beneath her She was too caught up with the waves of unfocused dread washing through her.

  She hadn’t really believed it until now. Not any of it. But it was rather too real to discount anymore.

  “Briana, are you all right?” Michael’s voice asked through the headphones.

  She laughed, because she was afraid that if she didn’t, she might just start screaming.

  “Oh, I’m great, Michael. I’ve just found out that the only thing that’s real in my life is a crazy dream.”

  Chapter Five

  “The house belongs to a Mrs. Gytha Ayton,” Michael told Briana. “She and her husband, Hamish, bought the desert mountain and had the house built on its top about ten years ago. Money, apparently, was no object. It’s loosely fashioned after the Dalmeny House, the famous family estate of Lord and Lady Rosebery of Scotland. Only this desert rendition has the English garden in its central courtyard.”

  “How did you find out all this?” Briana asked.

  “I called a friend who works over in the county assessor’s office. He looked it up in the public record.”

  “So you couldn’t find me in any public records, but you can find that monstrosity from my dream.” She paused to laugh. “Damn, don’t you just hate it when that happens?”

  Michael was aware of the fact that Briana’s humor had begun to sound a bit frayed around the edges. And no wonder. That she could maintain any humor at all in this situation continued to both amaze and impress him.

  “Does Gytha Ayton’s name sound familiar, Briana?”

  “No.”

  “How did you feel when you saw the house?”

  “That the architect should be in a padded cell. It’s crazy to put that fortress on the top of a desert mountain. The water they have to be using just to keep the English garden so green is probably sufficient to serve a small city.”

  She leaned back in her chair with a forced laugh.

  “Here I’m holding on to a life and face that don’t exist, and I have the nerv
e to call someone else crazy!”

  Michael didn’t miss the unhappiness clouding her eyes. He would have liked to hold her, comfort her. But, as her doctor, he could not. Besides, he was afraid that if she was ever back in his arms, comfort wouldn’t be all he’d offer.

  “Briana, do you realize you were most likely marked in that English garden?”

  “Then why don’t I remember any of it, Michael?”

  “Your dreams last night remembered. All shared similar people or events. I believe your unconscious did that deliberately, to let you know that the dreams were linked. They are, in essence, different aspects of the same dream.”

  “And you believe this dream was made up of real events and real people I’ve been with in the last three weeks.”

  “You’ve seen the house, Briana. What do you think?”

  She leaned her elbows on the desktop and rubbed her temples with the tips of her fingers.

  “You said before that I went through some kind of emotional trauma that made me forget the last three weeks. How do I find out what it was?”

  “By studying your dreams.”

  “But this all seems so damn bizarre.”

  “Look, Briana, I know you probably feel so lost now that you’re afraid to make a move in any direction—even the direction that may lead you to the truth.”

  “The truth is in Washington State, Michael. It’s not in a Tudor-Gothic mansion in the desert. And it’s my homely face. It’s not this fabulous one.”

  “I do understand, Briana.”

  She laughed. “I don’t see how you could, since I sure don’t.”

  “There’s a story one of my professors told in graduate school. It takes place in ancient times. Five strangers from different parts of the country and different walks of life all traveled to see this great wise man. None of the men knew one another. They were each granted a private audience with the wise man. Each told the wise man of his terrible trouble, a trouble so bad that it had made his life intolerable.”

  “What were these troubles?” Briana asked.

  “Only each man and the wise man knew. After listening to all their troubles, the wise man called the men together into one room. He told them that he sympathized with their woes, but that it was within his power to help only one of them. Each man begged the wise man to remove his trouble. Each swore his had to be the worst, and he could not go on living with it.”