Nightmares in Death

The nightmares and dreams listed are ones that the reader actually reads, ones Eve has just had, or ones about which she is thinking (they are paraphrased). For the most part, the nightmares listed are ones that relate to Eve Dallas’s past; some will include references to the current case on which she is working, some may have an appearance by Roarke, but the recurring figure in almost every dream is her father, Richard Troy. (This list is very incomplete but may contain spoilers.)

Due to the number of nightmares throughout the series, the information has been split into multiple pages; please also see Nightmares in Death (continued) and Nightmares in Death (Part 3).

Nightmares and Dreams

Eve’s Dreams

Naked in Death

• Naked in Death opens with Dallas waking after a nightmare of Mandy’s screams and blood.
  • She was alone in her apartment for this dream.

• She dreamed of the Chemi-head she had killed and of the little girl (Mandy) he had hacked to pieces with his knife. In her dream, despite firing on full, he had kept coming - and then she had been naked, kneeling in a pool of satin. The knife had become a gun, held by Roarke, and she had wanted him when he smiled at her. Her body had tingled with terror and sexual desperation even as he’d shot her. Head, heart, and loins. And somewhere through it all, the little girl, the poor little girl, had been screaming for help.
  • She was alone in her apartment for this dream.

• She dreamed first of the murders then segued into dreams of her own past where she tried to be a good little girl, didn’t have any friends, and tried not to cause trouble. If you caused trouble, the cops would come and get you and put you in a deep dark hole where there were bugs and spiders. Then she dreamed of her Daddy coming and thought she wouldn’t cry as, if she cried, she would be beaten and he did the “secret things” anyway; she knew, even at five, that the secret thing was somehow bad. He told her she was good when he did the secret thing but she knew she was bad and would be punished. Sometimes he tied her up. He came in the room asking for his “good little girl” as he reached under the sheet for her and, when she opened her mouth to scream, he covered her mouth; his fingers dug into her cheeks where bruises would form by morning. He was panting but she couldn’t hear his grunts for the screaming inside her head. No. Daddy. No, Daddy.
  • She was alone in her apartment for this dream.

Glory in Death

• When her ’link beeped at one, she was screaming her way out of a nightmare. Sweating, shaking, she tore off the covers that wrapped around her, fought off the hands that were groping over her body.
  • She was alone in her apartment for this dream.

Immortal in Death

• A nightmare from the previous night was mentioned. In Eve’s mind, it had been one of the worst so far and had squeezed her by the throat and battered her awake in a sweaty, whimpering mess.
  • Eve woke alone in bed after this dream; Roarke had been in the shower.

• The dirty red light was flashing SEX! LIVE! SEX! LIVE! She was only eight but she knew sex was ugly, painful, frightening, and inescapable. She hoped he (her father) didn’t come home and, if he did, that he would be too drunk, too buzzed to do more than sleep. She thought of escape and she thought of jumping and falling to her death. He had broken the temperature control and she was cold as she went to the kitchenette and took the last chocolate roll, bolting it like an animal. She got a knife to cut some cheese she could eat when her father came in and she dropped the knife in a panic. Because she ate without asking, he used that excuse to hit her twice, knocking her to the floor, before he was on her, beating her, tearing, poking, squeezing, invading. She screamed and clawed at him and, with a cry of rage he twisted her arm back and she heard the dry, hideous sound of her bone snapping. She woke up screaming and swinging.
  • She had fallen asleep in her sleep chair and Summerset ran in to help when he heard her screams.

Rapture in Death

• After Eve watched the specially doctored demo (of Mavis), given to her by Jess Barrow, her dreams took her back into the dark, into the dread. They were jumbled, then shockingly clear, then scattered again like leaves in the wind. It was terrifying. She dreamed of Roarke, and that was soothing; the sunset in Mexico and making love in the dark, bubbling water of a lagoon. Then it was her father, holding her down, and she was a child, helpless, hurting, frightened. The smell of him was there, candy over liquor; too sweet, too strong. She was gagging on it and weeping, and his hand was over her mouth to stifle her screams when he raped her. Our personalities are programmed at conception. Reeanna’s voice voice floated in, cool and sure. We are what we are made. Our choices are already set at birth. And she was a child, in a terrible room, a cold room that smelled of garbage and urine and death. And there was blood on her hands.
  • She was at home, in bed alone, though Roarke woke her from this dream.

Vengeance in Death

• Somewhere just before dawn, the dreams began... “Don’t, don’t, don’t.” There was a plea in her voice and the voice was thin and helpless, a child’s voice... (no details) She remembered, in the morning, that she had been back in that cold room with hunger clawing at her when her father stumbled in and hit her. He pinned her to the floor but it wasn’t her struggling, it was Marlena with her white dress ripped. She was suddenly the adult, Lieutenant Eve Dallas, and she reached for a blanket to cover her; only it was no longer Marlena but herself, in death, and she let the blanket fall over her own face.
  • She was in bed with Roarke when she had this dream; just out of the shower when she remembered the details.

Holiday in Death

• She dreamed of death; in the dirty red light Eve huddled in the corner – she stared at his bloody body as small feral sounds rumbled in her throat. In her hand was the bloody knife and she knew he was dead; the animal in her recognized it. Her arm screamed where he snapped it and it hurt between her legs but she knew he was dead and she was safe. His head turned, his dead mouth grinned and he said, “You’ll never be rid of me little girl... Now Daddy’s going to have to punish you.” He rose, dripping blood, and began shambling toward her through the flow of blood and she screamed. And screaming, woke.
  • She was alone in her home office sleep chair when she had this dream; Roarke was off-planet on business.

Midnight in Death

• Images of Mira trapped in a cage mixed and melded with memories of herself as a child, locked in a room. He would come - Palmer, her father - and would hurt her because he could. Until she killed him. But even then he came back and did it all again in her dreams.
  • She was with Roarke in her home office sleep chair when she had this dream.

Conspiracy in Death

• She dropped into sleep like a stone into a pond. And dreamed of Chicago... Just another room, another night. Chicago. I don’t know how I’m so sure it was Chicago. It was so cold in the room, and the window was cracked. I was hiding behind a chair, but when he came home, he found me. And he raped me again. It’s nothing I didn’t already know.
  • She was alone in her office sleep chair and awakened by Roarke just after he returned from New LA.

• She was in a narrow bed in the hospital ward; she was eight, or so they’d told her, and she was broken. She remembered what her father said would happen to her and she’d bite back the screams. The doctor with his grave eyes and rough hands was busy, spoke sharply to the nurses and there was a pin on his lapel of snakes, coiled up and facing each other. She dreamed within the dream that the snakes turned on her, hissing with fangs that dug into flesh and drew blood. They would ask her where her parents were and the cops would occasionally sneak her candy; one brought her a little stuffed dog for company but it was stolen the same day. They named her Eve Dallas and she became Eve Dallas through childhood until she earned her badge and, when she was handed that badge, she became someone. Then they’d taken that badge.
  • She was home in bed and Roarke was there with her.

• Dreams chased her, memory bumping into memory in a chaotic race. Her first bust; the kiss at fifteen; a drunken night with Mavis at the Blue Squirrel; the mutilated body of a child she’d been too late to save (Mandy); the weeping of those left behind and the screams of the dead; the first time she’d seen Roarke; then back to a cold room with a dirty red light pulsing against the window. The bloody knife in her hand, and pain shrieking so wild, so loud she could hear nothing else. Could be nothing else.
  • She woke alone in her bed at home though Roarke was nearby.

• She dreamed of coiled snakes slithering up a gold staff that dripped with blood. And the blood slipped and slid and beaded over paper flowers tucked into a brown glass bottle. Someone called for help in a voice thin with age. She ran through a landscape blinding white with snow and saw them, the doomed and the damned, frozen in the snow. Behind her, behind the white curtain, came the crack of ice breaking; of something breaking free like quiet laughter. The walls of white became the walls of a hospital corridor stretched out like an endless tunnel. She heard it behind her, turned, reached for her weapon, and found nothing. She smelled candy and whiskey and ran. She came to a split, ran right and plunged into silence and ran for the light. There was a table, and on the table her own body; the skin white, the eyes closed, and where her heart had been there was a bloody hole.
  • She woke alone on the couch in the library.

Loyalty in Death

• She dreamed she was wading through a river of blood. Children were crying, bodies littered the ground, and the ones that still had faces begged for help. There were too many to save, she thought as hands snatched at her ankles, some no more than bones. They tripped her and she fell into a deep, black crater piled with more bodies. She managed to crawl out and heard someone crying. She pulled a little girl into her arms and said they were getting out. She heard her father’s voice and a woman’s whom she didn’t recognize saying that she needed a fix. Through the smoke Eve saw figures, male and female, and the child named them monsters and said that monsters never die. Her father and the woman argued, he struck her, then he beat and raped her. Eve stood paralyzed and realized the child she held in her arms was herself; she began to scream.
  • She had fallen asleep in the chair with Roarke present for this dream.

Witness in Death

• She saw her father come into the nasty little room in Dallas; so cold, even with the temperature gauge stuck on high. She dropped the knife and the clatter of it was like thunder that echoed. It never did any good to beg. It would happen again and again and again. The pain of his hand smashing almost casually across her face. Hitting the floor so hard it rattled her bones. And then his weight on top of her.
  • She was at home and in bed with Roarke for this dream.

• She woke with the old nightmare screaming in her throat, her skin bathed with the sweat of it and a violent pounding in her head.
  • She was alone and asleep on the floor of her office for this one.

Judgment in Death

• Her father was drinking and he wasn’t alone - she could here words when voices rose, and they rose often. She was not eight yet but she knew, as she lay in bed, in the dark, to focus on her father’s voice because if he didn’t drink enough, and he was angry, he would hurt her. He was asking for more money, since he was the one taking risks. The other man, who he referred to as Ricker, warned him against trying to renegotiate the terms of their contract and directed him to deliver the rest of the merchandise by the next day for the rest of his fee. When Ricker left, Eve heard the sounds of glass smashing, roaring oaths, fists pounding on the walls, before her father burst into her room. He accused her of poking her nose in his business, threatened her with rats that would chew her fingers off, and cops who would leave her in dark holes with crawling bugs. He dragged her up by the hair, slapped her twice, then ordered her to pack as they were heading south. He had half of Ricker’s money and his drugs. As Eve stuffed her clothes into a bag, all she could think was that she was saved, for one night, thanks to a man named Max Ricker.
  • She was in a chair in her office at Central for this dream.

Betrayal in Death

• She was shivering from fear in the dark and he was coming. She wondered what it would be like to throw herself through the glass and fall down to the ground - freedom in death. Her father came in, and he hurt her, raped her, and transformed into Sylvester Yost. He slipped a silver wire around her throat and she was no longer a child but a woman, a cop, but she couldn’t stop him. No air, no breath, and the cold trickle of blood on her skin where the wire cut into flesh. She flailed out and fought to get free.
  • She was in her home office, alone in her sleep chair, for this dream (Roarke came in and woke her)

Interlude in Death

• She dreamed of Dallas, and the frigid, filthy room in Texas where her father kept her. She dreamed of cold and hunger and unspeakable fear. The red light from the sex club across the street flashed into the room, over her face. And over his face as he struck her. She dreamed of pain when she dreamed of her father. The tearing of her young flesh as he forced himself into her. The snapping of bone, her own high, thin scream when he broke her arm. She dreamed of blood. Like Roarke’s, her father had died by a knife. But the one that had killed him had been gripped in her own eight-year-old-hand.
  • She was in bed asleep in the suite on Olympus Resort with Roarke for this dream.

Seduction in Death

• She dreamed she was eight in the cold room, covered in blood, her body radiated with pain and her father was dead. She was alive, and he was not. She was alive, and he was not. His eyes opened and he smiled as he stared at her and told her she couldn’t get rid of him so easily. That she made a mess and he hurt her because she was stupid and because he could. He said he had a lot invested in her, time and money, and she was gonna start earning her keep. He told her he had to punish her and started walking forward.
  • She was home alone in bed for this nightmare.

• After seeing Moniqua Cline in the hospital, her memories and dream merge to take her back to just after she was found when she was eight. They were asking her question; terrible things happened to little girls. They thought she couldn’t hear them or couldn’t understand what they were saying (possibly mute). Beaten, raped. Long-term sexual and physical abuse. Suffering from malnutrition, dehydration, severe physical and emotional trauma. No identity records – Eve Dallas. She woke when the car stopped.
  • She was alone, had set her car for auto, and had dozed as it took her home.

Purity in Death

• She was walking through a white room, washed with blood that, even in her sleep, she could smell. Hannah Wade lay there face down, her arms stretched out as if she was reaching for something. Eve picked up a wet, blood-covered knife and when she looked back, a baby had taken Hannah’s place. Eve remembered her, Mandy; remembered that she had been too late to save her, too. The room changed, became the familiar, small, dirty, cold room, and she was a little girl again, still holding onto the knife. Her father walked into the room.
  • She was at home in bed with Roarke for this dream.

Portrait in Death

• The beeping of the bedside ’link shot her out of a nightmare.
  • Eve woke alone in bed after this dream.

• In the room in Dallas, she smelled her father’s death, and felt the pain in her arm. She saw her own face in the mirror and another face behind her. She thought it was Roarke (eyes, hair, and mouth) and she turned, now a woman to face him with her father’s body between them. She said she was glad he was there so he could take her home and he said, “...a father has to hurt the child now and again to teach them some respect.” He said he and her father were two of a kind. When she protested, he told her she had the wrong Roarke, that he was Patrick Roarke. Smiling, he picked up the knife, stepped toward her and said he thought it was time she learned a little respect for fatherhood.
  • She was alone in her sleep chair when she had this dream.

Imitation in Death

• She dreamed she was very young, alone in the house, and was glad for it. It was quiet when the mommy and the daddy were gone; nobody yelled, made scary noises, told her not to do things, or slapped or hit. She wasn’t supposed to go into their room where the mommy sometimes brought other daddies to play on the bed without their clothes. But there were so many things in there, like the long, golden wig. She ignored the pressure syringe, put on the wig, painted her face, and put her feet inside the high-heeled shoes – like a pretty little doll – and forgot to listen. The mommy cursed her and hit her and she fell and banged her elbow. The mommy grabbed her and hit her again before the daddy, Rick, intervened, warning the mommy of the lack of soundproofing. She had never wanted the brat in the first place, Stella told him, and he scooped the child up and, though she feared him, she feared the mommy more and curled herself into him. The daddy told Stella to have a hit and called the child an investment in the future. When he left the room with her, the last thing she saw was the mommy’s face; and brown eyes full of teeth and hate.
  • Eve was at home in bed with Roarke for this dream.

Remember When

• She saw herself in the freezing room with the blinking red light when her father walked in and slashed out at her; torn at her, torn into her. The broken arm and the knife were all she had when she hacked the blade into his flesh and the blood flooded over her hands. She could see herself smeared with blood, dripping with it like an animal at the kill and she knew the madness of that animal; the utter lack of humanity. The sounds she made were vile.
  • She was in bed with Roarke when she had this dream.

Divided in Death

• She was in the same freezing, dirty room that was washed in the red light from the sex club across the street. She was small, very thin, and very hungry; so hungry she would risk punishment for a bite of cheese. He walked in, Richie Troy – she knew him now, she knew his name. He hit her, hurt her, and broke her arm. She found the knife in her hand and she had to make him stop, he had to stop. Blood gushed warm over her hand as she plunged the knife into him again, and again, and again. She crawled into the corner and saw that there were rows and rows of countless others; observers with empty faces who watched as she wept, as she bled, and as her broken arm hung limply at her side. They did nothing, even as Richie Troy rose and began to shuffle toward her, they did nothing.
  • She was at home, alone in bed for this dream.

Visions in Death

• She was lost in a maze, sharp corners, dead ends, a hundred doors all closed and locked; it was dark, there were shadows and the smell of flowers going to rot in the clammy heat. She felt something horrible behind her, waiting to strike, and ran even as it laughed at her. Someone stepped out of the shadows; she stumbled and fell to her knees, bringing her weapon up before she saw that it was the little girl from Dóchas. The girl showed Eve her broken arm; more shadows appeared and took form; Eve saw that she’s in a room in Dóchas, surrounded by bruised and battered women and sad eyed children; they stared at her and their voices and complaints filled her head. Elisa Maplewood stepped out, blind and bloody, and asked for help, which Eve promised. But it’s too late; alarms rang, lights flashed, the women and children stepped back, as Eve’s father strolled in. He taunted her; she raised her weapon, even as her hands shook; he hit her, sent her sprawling back; and when she reached for her weapon this time, she found only a small knife in a child’s trembling hand. She tried to crawl away; he reached down and, casually, snapped her arm; she screamed, a child’s terrified and baffled scream; and he fell on her.
  • She was alone in bed at home when she had this dream. Roarke woke her up.

Survivor in Death

• She was a small, bloody child, packed into a blindingly white room with other small, bloody children. Fear and despair, pain and weariness were thick in the room; no one spoke, no one cried, only stood bruised shoulder to bruised shoulder as they waited for their fate. They were led away, passively, one by one, by stone-faced adults with dead eyes; no one came for her as she waited alone in the room. He walked in, smelling of candy and whiskey, the man she’d killed, the man who’d hurt her; he told her the ones who were taken, the good and pretty ones, were taken to the pit and the ones like her were left for him. He called her killer, murderer, and when he fell on her, she screamed.
  • She was home in bed with Roarke for this dream.

Origin in Death

• She dreamed of a blazing white room with dozens and dozens of glass coffins. In each coffin was the child she had been, bloody and bruised from the last beating, weeping and pleading as she tried to fight her way out. Her father was there, grinning, and said with a laugh, “Made to order. One doesn’t work right, you just throw it away and try the next. Never going to be done with you, little girl. Never going to be finished.” She woke.
  • She was alone in a privacy room (waiting for Nadine Furst) at the Down and Dirty Club when she had this dream.

Memory in Death

• She was standing in a room, brilliantly lit, drinking champagne with other women who had also been fostered by Trudy Lombard as children; they were all wearing their party dresses. Part of the room was sectioned off, and there the children they’d been sat, watching the party. Hand-me-down clothes, hungry faces, hopeless eyes – all closed off from the lights, the music, the laughter by a sheer glass wall. Inside it, Bobby served the children sandwiches, and they ate ravenously. Eve walked to the blood stained body in the middle of the floor and Maxie told her to lighten up; that they were a family. Eve disagreed though she wasn’t so sure. Maxie smashed a champagne bottle against Trudy’s already shattered head and, despite Eve trying to prevent it, the other women joined in as the children behind the glass cheered. Behind them, she saw the shadow, the shape that was her father. Told you, didn’t I, little girl? Told you they’d toss you into the pit with the spiders.
  • She was at home and asleep at her desk for this nightmare. Roarke woke her.

• She thought she woke in the brilliantly lit room with the glass wall. There was a towering pine in the corner hung with corpses for ornaments; hundreds of bodies hung, covered with blood red as Christmas. Maxie asked Dallas how many of them were hers and Eve answered “all of them.” She couldn’t hang Trudy on the tree, yet, because she wasn’t finished. She was behind the glass wall and saw her child-self, who had no presents. She offered her child-self her badge, saying that she’d need it. Her child-self held up hands covered with blood and asked if Eve would take her away (for punishment); Eve said, no, that it was different for the girl. The girl said she couldn’t get out and Eve told her that one day she would. When they looked back to the room, Eve said she thought there had been more presents a minute ago. Her child-self hooked the bloodied badge on her shirt and said that people steal; that people are just no damn good.
  • She was alone in bed at home when she had this dream.

Born in Death

• Eve dreamed that she was in a white box, surrounded by screaming women and crying babies, even though she couldn’t see them. Her hands were bloody, her weapon replaced by the gorey, small knife she’d used to kill her father. She began to walk along the wall and into a tunnel, where she saw Mavis lying on the floor. She rushed to her, but Mavis smiled and told her to go on and help the others; they were counting on her. She continued on and came upon Natalie Copperfield, tied to a desk, bleeding and strangled by a blue belt, sobbing because the numbers weren’t adding up for her. Further ahead, Eve sees a bleeding Tandy Willowby strapped to a delivery chair. As she ran ahead, the floor opened under her, and she found herself in the dark room, washed with a dirty, red light. Her father was lying in a pool of his own blood and, as she watched, he turned his head, smiled at her, and said, “It always comes back to the beginning, little girl.”
  • She was at home and in bed with Roarke for this dream.

Innocent in Death

• Eve dreamed of the room in Dallas, icy cold, with the dirty red light from the sex club across the street blinking. She was holding the knife and her hands were covered in blood. She turned to the bedroom door (grown now) and saw two figures moving fluidly, somehow beautifully on the bed; she saw it was Roarke with a gilded hair woman (likely Magdelana) and her father spoke behind her that Eve didn’t come close to the other woman and did she really expect him to stay with her (Eve)? Eve was a little girl again and her father told her to, “Go ahead, pay them back. You know how.” She looked down, the knife was in her hand, its blade wet and red.
  • She was alone in her office for this dream.

• She dreamed and saw herself as a little girl in Rayleen Straffo’s pink-and-white room. She looked and the bed and thought nothing bad would happen in a bed like that; she reached out to touch it then jerked back her hand, afraid of a beating. Someone gave her permission to touch it or even lie down on it and, when she turned, she saw a little girl, the princess (Rayleen). Rayleen said if she gave permission, Eve could touch anything but, if she didn’t give permission, Eve could be thrown in the dungeon. Eve drank hot chocolate and asked for more but when it was poured, blood poured from the pot, causing Eve to bite back a scream and drop the cup. For punishment for making a mess, Rayleen clapped her hands and Eve’s father came in, saying he had been looking for her; then struck her and fell on her. Rayleen stood and watched, sipping from her own cup and encouraged Eve to kill him. Finding the knife in her hand, she did.
  • She was at home and in bed with Roarke for this dream.

Please also see Nightmares in Death (continued) and Nightmares in Death (Part 3).