Nightmares in Death (continued)

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, please also see refer back to Nightmares in Death and forward to Nightmares in Death (Part 3).

Nightmares and Dreams

Eve’s Dreams

Creation in Death

• She dreamed it was dawn and stood over a ruined body on a white sheet. She wore a black peacoat and a black watch cap pulled low on her forehead. The body lay between her and a big black clock with a big white face with seconds ticking away on it. A younger Feeney stood beside her and said, “I trained you for this, so you could see what needs to be seen, and find what’s under it.” As she crouched beside the body it opened its eyes and explained that she was Corrine Dagby, who she was and what she did. Corrine asked Eve, “Didn’t you hear me screaming?”
• She stood in the morgue next to a shorter-haired Morris. He described her to Eve and said, “And in the end, we all come here.” In the corner, the big black clock ticked the time so every second echoed. Corrine opened her eyes again, saying that Eve hasn’t stopped the clock, and asks Eve if she sees. The faces and bodies changed, melded while the clock hammered the time. The faces flashed and merged while the seconds raced. So many voices, all the voices calling, coalescing into one, and the one cried out. Can’t you hear us screaming?
  • Eve was at home in bed alone, with Roarke in the shower, for this dream (Galahad was trying to wake her).

• She dreamed of the clock ticking and over that endless, echoing tick, she heard the sounds of a battle raging. She could smell the blood, the smoke, the burning flesh; carnage carried a sickly sweet aroma. As visions cleared, focused, she saw the battle was on a stage, and the stage was dressed to depict the city in a strange, stylized form... the players on stage were dressed in bright, elaborate costumes that flowed through bloody pools and swirled in dirty smoke as they murdered each other. The killer, sitting next to her in a gilded box seat, said, “The third act is nearly over,” as he took a huge stopwatch out of the pocket of his formal black. He said that murder is deliberate; it takes it out of the hands of fate and puts the power into the one who creates death. Who makes a gift of it. He gestured to the stage and said that it was about immortality, said time’s up, clicked the stopwatch, and the stage went black.
  • Eve was at home in bed with Roarke for this dream.

Strangers in Death

• She dreamed of a ball field, the players in uniforms black as death: Brigit Plowder as catcher; Sasha Bride-West at short; Edmond Luce at first; Linny Luce at second; Ben Forrest at third; Leopold Walsh in right field; Greta Horowitz in left; no one in center field; Ava Anders pitching; and Thomas Anders batting. Eve was umping. Ava threw three balls and a shadow joined her on the mound and merged with her. She threw a fastball, dead over the plate. Tommy lay in the dirt, the home plate, his headstone and his eyes staring. On the mound, Ava laughed.
  • Eve was at home in bed with Roarke for this dream.

Salvation in Death

• She dreamed that she walked onto the stage in the great arena of Madison Square Garden where an altar stood under a white wash of light. Both Lino, in his priest robes, and Jenkins, in his white suit, stood behind it. When Jenkins spoke of sinners, Eve said that murder was her religion. Lino toasted her with a silver chalice, drank, and offered it to Jenkins, who refused and lifted his water bottle. Lino offered her absolution and asked if any of them were who they pretended to be.
• The screen behind them flashed on and showed the dull red light blinking SEX! LIVE SEX! Eve said what she was watching didn’t apply; Lino said judge not... shoved up his sleeve as his tattoo began to bleed. Her father, on screen, hit her, fell on her, broke her arm as her raped her and she (still on screen) began to scream – on stage, she felt it all. She watched herself kill him; Lino ordered her to confess; Jenkins shouted for her to repent. Eve refused, they shoved the altar and, from the coffin beneath, her father rose and smiled saying that hell was waiting and that it was time for her to join him there. She drew her weapon, flipped it to full, and killed him again.
  • She was at home and in bed with Roarke for this dream.

• She dreamed of Quinto Turner, his face torn and ruined, the clear eyes dull and dead. She heard his mother weeping and, as she watched, Marlena—bloodied, battered, broken—walked up to the mangled body of the dead boy and said, “We were both so young. We’d barely begun to live. So young to be used as a tool. Used destroyed, discarded.” She held out a hand and Quinto took it, getting to his feet as blood poured over the floor of the church. Marlena said she’d take him as there’s a special place for the innocents; she would take him there.
• She gestured to the mother and asked, “What was she to do? Can you stop it? Can you stop it all? You couldn’t stop what happened to you.” Eve said murder isn’t an end, murder isn’t a solution. Marlena said that it was her (the mother’s) solution and asked Eve, “What of us? No one stood for me. No one but Roarke.” When Eve said Roarke still lived with it, Marlena said Eve lives with it, too. And now Eve will perpetuate that mother’s loss, her grief, for justice. Marlena walked away with Quinto and Eve watched the ripples [in the blood] spread.
  • She was at home and in bed with Roarke for this dream.

Promises in Death

• Dallas dreamed she sat on a slab in the morgue with Amaryllis Coltraine sitting on her own. They faced each other while the mournful sounds of a saxophone played through the chilled air. Eve complained that Detective Coltraine was not “telling” her enough and Ammy said Eve had trouble seeing her as a woman. Coltraine said Eve was prepared to die for the badge but she [Coltraine] hadn’t been; she also asked how Eve can have a child herself until she fully understands, accepts, and forgives the child Eve had been. Eve said that Coltraine hadn’t been dirty or on the take. Eve said she didn’t believe there was peace without justice and promised Coltraine that she would find the truth/justice for her.
  • She was in bed with Roarke for this dream.

• In the dream, Coltraine circled Eve’s murder board. She told Eve that she used to think you had to be cold to be a murder cop but that there had to be controlled heat – otherwise, you wouldn’t give a damn. Justice is Eve’s faith and she has an intense, marrow-deep respect for the law. She said she didn’t think it was Coltraine, as a cop, who walked away from Alex Ricker; the cop came after and, in walking away, she was a better cop. Eve also said that she didn’t think Coltraine had a “chance in hell” that night.
  • She was in bed with Roarke for this dream.

• Coltraine sat at her desk while Eve stood by Grady’s. Coltraine said Grady was never a friend or partner; not to any of the squad. Ammy said Grady would have killed any one of the squad if Ricker ordered it. Eve said Grady, with Newman was in her top two suspects all along and that the rest of the squad just didn’t fit. Grady’s a loner and doesn’t live the job – she’s got something to hide. Feeney saw Eve, wanted her, was willing to invest in her.
  • Eve was in bed, alone, before Galahad jumped on her and woke her.

Kindred in Death

As of June 2060, Eve said the nightmares and flashbacks are not as severe; not as frequent or as intense.

• She dreamed of dark rooms, and of tracks dug into the hard streets of her city. Following the tracks, she dreamed of the young girl watching her with dead eyes. As she tracked, an animated billboard, stories high, sprang to life, filled with the image of the girl weeping, defenseless, bleeding. Her voice filled the dark with pain, with fear. The killer was there, breathing, waiting, watching, as the image changed to another girl - a girl in a room smeared with red light. He was there, while the girl Eve had been begged and bled and killed.
  • She was in bed, alone, for this dream.

Fantasy in Death

• She dreamed of blood and battle, castles and kings. Bleeding men covered the ground around her - some of them victims, whose lives she had studied to find the one who’d ended them; others wielded swords and axes (her father among them), and she’d helped lock them in a cage. She watched Bart fight a battle he’d never win; reached for her weapon as the Black Knight charged towards her. But she found only a small knife, stained already with blood. Even though she knew it was only a dream, she felt a terrible fear.
  • She was at home, in bed with Roarke for the dream.

Indulgence in Death

• She dreamed she was stalking through richly appointed rooms, with a bayonet sheathed at her side, and a crossbow in her hands. On the ornate desk she had seen in Moriarity’s office, two hooded men turned a screaming woman on the rack. Eve didn’t have time to save her – she wasn’t real, and she had to save the next victim, who had been picked already. She moved on, sweeping her weapon. In the black-and-white of the next room, a chauffeur’s cap floated in a puddle of bold red blood. She stepped through into her own office at Central, studied her murder board, then turned towards the bullpen. And instead, stepped into a room that belonged in an exclusive club. The two men sat there swirling brandy. When Eve accused them of the murders, one (Dudley) lifted an enormous silver gun at her. Eve jerked awake at the sound of gunfire.
  • She was at home, in bed with Roarke for the dream.

New York to Dallas

• Eve dreamed of the room in Dallas: the chill of the room and the gnawing hunger in her belly kept her awake. Her father had left the lights on and it was too bright, along with the red “LIVE SEX LIVE SEX LIVE SEX” sign flashing through the window. She tried to sneak cheese, he came home, he hit her, raped her, and broke her arm. All around them dozens of eyes were watching as he raped her, all of the little girls Isaac McQueen kidnapped and raped/tortured. Eve started slicing him with the knife, while the other girls chanted “Kill him.” He turned into McQueen, and then all the girls’ faces turned into his face, and she started killing them.
  • She was in Dallas, in bed with Roarke for the nightmare, and she beat him up when he tried to wake her; she said it was because he was trying to stop her from killing McQueen.

• She was trapped in the dark, whispers and whimpers all around her. Cold, so cold, and the bite of the shackles clamped on her wrists and ankles. Light oozed into the room, slipping dirty red through cracks and fissures to smear the dark like blood. They huddled all around her, all the girls, all those hopeless, empty eyes. All of them had her face as a child. She fought against the restraints, heard and felt her bone snap, each girl shrieked and clutched her arm. Mira was sitting in one of her blue scoop chairs telling her it’s as real as you make it. Eve said “You have to help.” and Mira asks her how being here makes her feel. Eve told her “Fuck feelings, we have to get out.” Mira said that she’s angry, then, but more - what’s under that anger, let’s dig it out. Mira keeps wanting to talk about it while Eve just wants to get out before he comes back, and then Mira told her that’s all the time they have for today. Her mother comes into the room with her throat gaping and wet with blood, told Eve she should never have been born, that it was all her fault she was killed. Eve asks how she (Stella) could hate her since she came out of her, and Stella told Eve all she does is whine. Peabody appears to tell her nobody lays on the guilt like a mom and asks how Eve’s doing. Eve told her to get these kids to safety and get her backup and a weapon, but Peabody just told her to take it easy, that they’re all working to help her, and Eve sees the bullpen with everybody working, and EDD, and Whitney above them watching. Roarke is behind a glass wall working a comp, two smart screens, a headset, and is fatigued and worried. Peabody told Eve she has to find the key before McQueen gets another girl, and not to let Stella make her stupid. Then McQueen walks in, telling her “Hello, little girl” in her father’s voice, and bleeding from a dozen wounds he comes for her.
  • She was in Dallas, in bed alone. Roarke was watching her on the monitor while he worked, and came in at the end. She said it has to stop, that she has to stop letting the nightmares interfere with their lives.

Chaos in Death

• Eve was chasing her killer while he danced down an empty street juggling an ear, an eye, and a tongue.
  • She was at home, in bed alone when her communicator woke her from the dream.

Celebrity in Death

• Stella was in the bedroom of her place in Dallas, but it’s like the bedroom from when Eve was a child. She’s sitting at a little table with all her lip dyes and creams and paints. Eve can smell her perfume - too sweet. It makes her stomach hurt. Stella’s back is to Eve but she’s looking at her in the mirror, with all that hate and contempt. Blood was pouring out of her throat, down the front of the pink dress that she was wearing when Eve busted her, when she wrecked the van. She’s so angry, telling Eve it’s her fault, that she ruined her dress, that Eve ruined everything. Then she sees McQueen in the mirror, behind her, or maybe her father. She reaches for her weapon but it’s not there. Stella smiles at Eve, in the mirror, and it’s horrible.
  • She was at home, in bed with Roarke, and he put his arms around her. She hated knowing he’d broken his habit of being up and dressed and having accomplished business before she stirred. She agrees to tell Roarke about the dreams if he stops altering his morning routine to stay in bed with her.

Delusion in Death

• Eve dreams of the scene at On the Rocks. Joe Cattery turns to her, telling her he will be dead in a few minutes, and since Eve is there, why doesn’t she stop it? She told him, sorry but it’s already done, she’s just trying to figure it out. He told her he just wanted a couple of drinks, that he wasn’t hurting anyone. Macie Snyder told Eve “We were just going to have dinner. I have a good boyfriend, and an okay job. I’m happy. Still, I’m nobody. I’m just not that important, you know?” Eve told her she’s important to her, and Macie replies, “But I had to die for that.” Stella, who’s suddenly sitting at the bar, a drink in her hand, blood dripping from the slice in her throat, said, “You don’t give a shit about anybody till they’re bleeding on the ground.” Eve told her, “I have a man I love. I have a partner and friends. I have a cat.” Stella told her she has nothing because there’s nothing inside her, that she’s broken, and Eve’s a killer. Eve told her, “I’m not. I’m a cop.” Stella told her the badge just gives her an excuse, that it’s her free fucking pass, and she killed Richie. Her father is now at the bar next to Stella, with blood pouring out of the holes in his body from where Eve stabbed him repeatedly. She told them they’re not her family, that he took care of her. All around them, people screamed, stabbed, clawed, and bit, falling, bleeding, crushed, beaten. Her father asks Stella if she wants to play, and Stella said they have twelve minutes, and told Eve it’s time for some payback. She stuns them again and again but they keep coming. Stella told her “Can’t kill what’s dead. You have to live with it.” She fought for her life, for her sanity, slipping on the bloody floor, kicking out, crying out when her arm breaks.
  • She was at home, in bed with Roarke. He told her it’s killing him, and she needs to talk to Mira, which she agrees to do the next day.

• The world exploded, with fire plumes of murderous reds, virulent orange, greasy black lighting the night sky to the east as blasts shake the ground and punch like fists through the smoke-stung air. She heard the boom of explosives, the crack of gunfire. New York thundered with the sounds of war - the Urbans. She was aware of it being a dream, but she made her way carefully, weapon drawn, down the deserted street, so she could learn what happened. She sees a boy with his throat slices, missing his shoes and jacket, and sees that rather than her stunner, she has a .38 automatic. She passes windows and doors, dark and boarded, burned out husks of cars. There are broken streetlights, and traffic lights flashing red that reminded her of the room in Dallas. She runs toward the location of the first crime scene, and hears gunfire and screams, and sees a military armored truck and the man at the machine gun on the roof. She realizes they’d come for the children, so she aims at the head of the man on the roof, knowing he’d be wearing body armor. She then shoots two of the people dragging the children out, running after another one who is carrying a baby, who turns out to be Stella, with her gaping, bloody throat. She asks Eve “How many times do you have to kill me before you’re happy?” Mira is there, telling them she lived through it and Stella made her choices, just as she did. “Nothing made [Eve]. She made herself.” Mira asks Eve why she lets Stella control her, telling her to make it stop. Eve told Stella that she can live with killing her father, and the baby turns into Bella. Eve puts her gun to Stella’s forehead, threatening to shoot her if she doesn’t put Bella down. Mira takes Bella, and Eve told Stella she doesn’t have to kill her because she’s already dead. She then punches her in the face, which she said she’s needed to do for a long time. She told Stella, “You can come back. I’ll just kick your ass again” and Mira told her, “Well done” and everybody is safe. “You just needed to put a face on the innocent. It’s easier for you to stand for them than it is for yourself. Tonight you did both. I’m proud of you.”
  • She was at home, in bed with Roarke, but she dreamt quiet and didn’t wake him.

Calculated in Death

• Eve dreams about being at the Dickensons’ penthouse. Dr. Yung said “Family meant everything. She’d have done, given, said anything to protect them.” Eve said, ”That’s what mothers do” and then sees Stella sneering at her from the doorway, who told her “She’d have thought about herself, like everybody. She hated being stuck in this place with a sniveling kid. Just like me. She’s no better than me.” Eve told her to fuck off, saying she doesn’t have time for Stella. Eve knows Marta thought of her kids and Denzel, and she gave the killers whatever they wanted, but she still knew whatever it was – somewhere the numbers won’t add up. Eve wonders how she will find the right ones, the wrong ones, and Roarke steps beside her, stroking a hand down her hair, asking, “Do you really have to ask?” Eve said, “Oh yeah, I’ve got you” and opens her eyes to see him there in bed with her.
  • She was at home, in bed with Roarke for the dream, and they make love when she wakes up.

• Eve dreamed about flying babies, and the ones she didn’t catch were like piñatas, with little weird toys and shiny candy coming out of them. Meanwhile Marta was there with an adding machine telling her “two and two makes four” over and over.
  • She was at home, in bed with Roarke for the dream, and she relates it to him before breakfast, when she wakes up.

Thankless in Death

• Dallas has a dream in which she talks to Lori Nuccio, and they work out some of Jerry’s motivation and future moves.
  • She’s in bed with Roarke, at The Manor, where they took a room to review the security discs and catch some sleep.

Taken in Death

• “The room in Dallas that lived in her nightmares had windows [the one where Henry and Gala MacDermit were being held didn’t]. She could see out if she wanted, to the dirty red light that flashed on, off, on, off. It was a cold and hungry place, a place of fear and pain. The children with their bright red hair and pale faces sat at a table full of cookies and cakes and bubbling drinks. And they watched her with frightened eyes. ‘Don’t eat any of that,’ she told them. ‘She makes us. She’ll make you eat, too, before she eats you.’ [Eve:] ‘We’re going to get out. I’m going to get you out.’ ‘The door’s locked.’ [Eve] tried to break it down, but she was just a child herself, only eight, and cold, hungry, scared. ‘We have to have a tea party,’ the little girl told her. ‘She said. And if we don’t eat it all she’ll make us sorry. She made Darcia sorry. She made her dead. See?’ The nanny lay on the floor, soaked in her own blood. [Darcia:] ‘She’s not paying any attention to me.’ Darcia sighed and bled. ‘I’m not important enough.’ [Eve:] ‘That’s not true. But I can’t help you until I help them.’ [Darcia:] ‘I’m too dead to help. We’ll all be dead soon if you don’t do something.’ [Eve:] ‘I’m trying. I don’t know where they are. Pigeons must’ve eaten the bread crumbs.’ [Darcia:] ‘You only have to look in the right place.’ And Darcia turned her head and sightless eyes away. ‘The good witch is supposed to fight the bad witch and win. We’re supposed to go home to Mommy and Daddy and live happily ever after. You’re supposed to protect us.’ [Eve:] ‘I will. I’m going to. I’m trying.’ Something banged on the door. Something huge. ‘She’s coming.’ Tears running free, both children stuffed their mouths with cakes and cookies. ‘You have to eat or she’ll hurt us.’ Monster at the door, Eve thought. But which monster? Hers or theirs? And did it matter. Either brought death. But she stepped forward, shivering in the cold, to shield the other children and make her stand.” (Roarke wakes her up at this point; she’s shivering, saying “It’s cold in the room. I can never get warm.”)
  • She was at home, in bed with Roarke for the dream.

Concealed in Death

• Eve dreamed about the concealed girls, recognizing Linh Carol Penbroke, Lupa Dison, and Shelby Ann Stubacker. The others all wore masks of Eve’s face, with one of them telling her, “We’re all the same anyway under it.” Eve said she will find their names, their faces, who they were, and who killed them. Linh said she “just wanted to have some fun. My parents are so strict. I needed to show them they couldn’t treat me like a kid anymore. This wasn’t supposed to happen. It’s not fair.” Shelby said “Fair’s a bunch of shit. Life sucks. Dead just sucks louder. You can’t trust anybody. That’s the deal.” Lupa said, “You have to trust people. Bad things happen even when you’re good. Most people are good.” Shelby said, “Most people are assholes, and just out for themselves,” adding that if she’d just had a knife like Eve she wouldn’t be there. Eve got lucky but Shelby never had a chance, and nobody gave a shit about her. She told Eve, “You’re just like us. Not even as much as us. They didn’t even give you a name. The one you have’s just made up.” Eve told her “Not anymore. It’s who I am now. I made myself who I am now.”
  • She was at home, in bed with Roarke for the dream.

• Eve dreams about all of the girls in a circle, but this time more of them have their own faces - young and sad in contrast to their bright clothes and hair. Eve told them she’s getting close, that she only needs two more IDs and there’s no point in being pissy about it. Linh told her, “They don’t like being dead. None of us do. It’s not fair.” Eve said, “Life’s not fair. Neither’s death.” Merry Wolcovich told her, “Easy for you to say. Your life’s totally mag. You’re sleeping in a big warm bed with the frostiest guy on or off planet.” Lupe told Merry, “Her father beat and raped her when she was just a little girl. Younger than us.” Shelby said, “She lived through it, didn’t she? And landed in the prime. Now she’s blaming me for everything.” Eve told her she’s not blaming her for anything but Shelby insists Eve is saying it’s Shelby’s fault because she wanted her own place with her own friends, and that’s why everybody got killed. “So what if I sucked off a few fuckheads? So the fuck what! I got what I wanted, didn’t I? And shit for my buds, too. If you don’t take what you want, somebody takes it first. No way I was going to be stuck in that ‘holy higher power meditate your brains out’ shit until some jerkwad who didn’t know jack about me decided I could get the hell out. I decide for myself. Nobody was going to push me around again, ever, ever, ever.” Eve told her she was a bitchy little whiner, but didn’t deserve to die for it, that maybe she’d have grown out of it. Mikki Wendall told Eve she can’t talk to Shelby like that and Iris Kirkwood said she hates when people fight. She wakes up yelling at Shelby to shut up so she can think.
  • She was at home, in bed with Roarke for the dream.

Festive in Death

• Eve dreams about Trey Ziegler - he’s at a gym, standing atop a kind of dais that slowly revolved to give him a 360 degree perspective of the space, wearing snug black to show off his body. He told Eve “They have to do what I tell them. I’m the trainer.” She told him, “At least one of them didn’t,” gesturing at the knife hilt protruding from his chest and the note. He insists, “I’m the trainer. I’m the best. I have trophies to prove it. Why shouldn’t they pay more, plenty more, for the best?” He told Eve they wouldn’t look like that or be in shape if it wasn’t for him. His clients have good bodies because of him. Eve calls him a rapist, but he insists it was all natural product “just to help them relax, ease those inhibitions. Some women, they tell themselves they don’t want it, but they do. I just gave them a little help relaxing. And every one of them got off.” He then justifies the blackmail and said they keep coming back because he’s the best and it’s ok if they hate him because he’s not in it for the love. Then he asks Eve what she’s going to do about his murder, and is she going to try to stop him like she stopped her old man. She told him he’s worse than nothing but he’s hers so she’ll do her best by him.
  • She was at home, in bed with Roarke for the dream.

Obsession in Death

• Eve dreams about the events in Rapture in Death, when Jess Barrow had planted the subluminal command to have sex with Roarke, and Roarke raped her in the closet, driven by that seed. She thinks of all the others Barrow harmed/killed, and that Leanore Bastwick defended him, although actually Dr. Reeanna Ott was the one who engineered the murders. She dreams that Bastwick is in a packed courtroom, telling Eve “I do my job, you do yours, correct, Lieutenant?” She has on a power suit, and is grilling Eve in the witness chair. Behind Eve is a huge statue of Lady Justice, with a smirk on her face. She said she’s doing her job, and Bastwick asks her, “Are you? Or are you just looking for yet another way to seek revenge on my client, Jess Barrow?” She sees Barrow sitting at a control center, turning knobs, adjusting levers. He grins and winks at Eve, but she told him he’s not in this, that she’s looking for Bastwick’s killer. Bastwick asks why she’s wasting her time with Jess, saying that he’s in prison because she coerced a confession out of him, after she and Roarke physically assaulted him. Eve told Bastwick the courts ruled on Barrow and she lost that one, so she should just deal with it. She told Bastwick that just because she knows she’s a stone-cold bitch doesn’t mean she hates her and doesn’t mean she won’t find her killer. Bastwick told the court that Eve killed her. The jury is made up of the people she helped put away - Ott, Waverly, the Icoves, Julianna Dunne, others. She thinks stacking the jury against Eve was a bad move because it just reminds her of why she does what she does. Eve told Bastwick that once the Barrow trial was over, she never gave her another thought. Bastwick said that when her killer comes after Eve, she will protect herself as she didn’t protect her, that she only has a job when somebody’s dead. Without the killer, she’s nothing. The killer is her only friend, and she rests her case.
  • She was at home, in bed with Roarke for the dream, and awoke shaken. He comforts her and they have sex.

• Eve dreamed about Ledo playing pool with a broken cue, with the other half stuck in his chest, reminding Eve that she broke the cue in the first place and he helped her on the dead sleeper, Snooks. And Bastwick pounding at Eve on the witness stand. And the killer, who looked like Eve - a reflection, smudged. They were sitting there drinking wine together, or she was drinking it, and there was a big, bubbly pizza on the table between them, like they were sharing a friendly moment. She’s making her case just how many murderers, rapists, pedophiles, spouse beaters would Bastwick have gotten off had she lived. How many people would mug or steal or kill to get the scratch to buy what Ledo sold. Couldn’t Eve see the greater good here? Wasn’t it about protect and serve and justice and respect for the law and the people who enforce it? Eve told her killing, taking a life, wasn’t respecting or enforcing the law. She leaned over and it was all blood - the wine, the pie - and she told Eve that she did the same by killing her father. Eve felt panic that the killer knew about that, and told she shouldn’t know that. The killer smiled at Eve and told her she knows everything about her. “You killed Richard Troy because he needed killing.” She also asked Eve if she wanted to pick the next one.
  • Eve related the dream to Roarke over breakfast, and Roarke told her, “You don’t believe what she said in his dream, but you think she does - or would if she knew.” Eve agrees that the killer thinks they’re alike, and that would cement it. The killer sees it as a partnership, while Eve thinks that if a cop isn’t hurt or offended every other day, he’s not doing the job.

Devoted in Death

• Eve dreamed about Dorian Kuper playing a requiem on the cello, wearing black and teasing mournful notes out of the instrument. Eve saw the faces of the dead, sitting quietly in the audience of an opera house, with each of the dead spotlighted in icy-blue light telling her to see them and stand for them. There were empty seats for the victims yet to be identified or killed. Her father walked in with a conductor’s baton, saying “Let’s liven it up! Time for a happy tune. Killing pumps you up and puts a spring in your step. You should know that, little girl.”
  • She remembered the dream while she was taking a shower at home.

• Eve dreamed, harsh and bloody, about Jayla Campbell opening dead eyes to accuse her of not helping her, asking where she is, telling Eve she wants to live. Her mother told her she might as well have tossed her out the window for all the good she does. All the known dead from Darryl Roy James and Ella-Loo Parsens lay on slabs crowded into her office, asking her how she can sleep.
  • She was at home, in bed with Roarke for the dream, and he tried to tell her it’s she who asks how she can sleep, not the victims.

Wonderment in Death

• Eve dreamed about being in Interview A with Marcus and Darlene Fitzwilliams on the other side of the table. Darlene said that she loves her brother and could never hurt him. Marcus told Darlene it was all right, and Eve told her she had secrets, and some people kill to protect them. Eve told her mostly killers look like everybody else, that Darlene jammed scissors in her brother’s heart. Darlene said, “I couldn’t” and grabs the handle of the shears buried in Marcus’s chest, pulling them out, saying, “I’d kill myself first.” Eve points out that she killed herself second, saying “Grief can mess you up.” Darlene asks her how she knows, telling her she’s never lost anyone, she doesn’t know her grief or sorrow. Darlene told her her parents were angels, and Eve’s were monsters, that Eve is surrounded by evil. “How can you see through it to what’s good?” Eve told her “you just have to look hard enough.” Darlene told her “Then look! I just wanted answers.” Eve wakes up knowing that Darlene wanted love and connection and continuity.
  • She was at home, in bed with Roarke for the dream, and they make love when she wakes up.

Brotherhood in Death

• Eve dreamed about the heavy elephant statue that was used to whack Dennis Mira with the previous day at his grandfather’s house on Spring Street coming to life and starting a rampage through the brownstone. She stunned it before it got out and tore up the neighborhood, but that rolled into another dream where she had the elephant in interview. She told him, “You’re looking at attempted murder, Mr. Phant, but if you cooperate I can see about dealing that down to simple assault.”
  • She was home and related her dream to Roarke over breakfast. He told her, “There are times I envy the creativity of your dream life.”

• Eve dreamed she was in the study at the Spring Street brownstone. Edward Mira sat in the desk chair dressed in one of his senatorial suits, his glossy black hair swept back from his stony face. He told Eve he was dead, and she replied, “I’m aware.” He then questioned why she was making his murderers his victims. She asked him if he raped them and he told her her responsibility was to him, but she’d smear his reputation, destroy his legacy, and that wasn’t how she should stand for the dead. She told him she would do her job, do her best to identify and apprehend the murderers even if it meant smearing his rep. He told her her best was to paint him as a monster so those who took his life were coddled and stroked. She told him her best was to uncover the truth, whatever that meant. He banged the desk with a gavel, saying he knew the truth and what she was, what she did, that she was just like them. They were suddenly in the room in Dallas with the ugly red light flashing. She told him she didn’t come there anymore, that it was finished for her. He said it was never finished and banged his gavel again. Now he was wearing his black robes and called her a murderer. He banged his gavel again and she became the terrified girl she’d been, struggling and pleading with her father as he raped her. She felt her father breaking her arm and gripped the little knife. He called out “Guilty!” when she plunged the knife into her father. Her father told Mira to kill her, and when the gavel struck again she was back at the crime scene, the noose around her neck. She dragged at the rope with her blood-smeared hands, but it only tightened as the mechanism hummed the chandelier higher. Mira then told her “Now justice is served.”
  • She was at home, in bed with Roarke for the nightmare, and he woke her by yelling to wake up and fucking breathe. They both had soothers, with hers being chocolate.

Apprentice in Death

• Eve dreamed of being on the skating rink with its spreading pools of blood. The wind cut like razors, the blood looked black against the white of the rink, and the bodies it flowed from were a pale and sickly gray. She faced Willow Mackie and felt pity, which she pushed aside. Willow told her she was better than Eve, and Eve agreed that she was better at killing unarmed civilians. Willow said she knew what she was, but Eve pretended to be what she wasn’t. Eve said she was a cop, and Willow said Eve was a killer, just like her. Eve told Willow that she killed for sport, for jollies, and she killed the defenseless and the innocent because she could - until Eve stopped her. Willow said she had more kills racked up and that was what counted, not the reasons. Eve told her she was hiding, and Willow replied that Eve was the one who was hiding, showing her the red light room and her dead father. Eve told her she killed him because he was a monster, and her father was a selfish, twisted son of a bitch. Willow told Eve that hers was too, but at least her father loved her. Eve pointed to Ellissa Wyman, asking how she hurt her father, and Willow told Eve that she didn’t like her, that she was showing off, thinking she was better than her, and when she was done, she would come back for Eve, who told Willow that when she was done, she would live in a concrete cage, along with her old man. Willow said before she was done she would check off every name on her list and then kill Eve last. She raised her assault rifle, Eve drew her weapon, and they fired together.
  • She was at home, in bed with Roarke and woke with a start. Roarke told her Willow said they were the same but really Willow was as sick as her father, opposite of Eve, and they made love. Afterward, she cried, which Roarke told her was because she was worn out and they got the call about the sniper attack on Madison Square Garden.

Echoes in Death

• Eve dreamed of being a child, lost and frightened, bloody and broken, weeping with pain, burning where her father raped her, and face throbbing from where he’d struck her. She was floating and afraid of the dark, since terrible things hid in the dark and waited there, watching. She was afraid her father would find her and hurt her again, maybe even kill her, and even though she was hiding (in the alley), they found her. She was unable to fight and ended up in a room with too bright lights burning her eyes and too loud voices banging in her head. Someone told her she was going to be alright and she was safe, but she knew they were lying. Someone asked her for her name, but she had none to give. There were hands on her, everywhere, and the smell of her own blood, and she screamed again, waking herself up.
  • She was at home, with Roarke, in their fancy new bed for the dream, and they talked about Daphne Strazza and how she was going through what Eve went through, and how long it will take her to remember it. They then made love for the first time in their new bed.

• Eve dreamed of The Avengers and “that jerk Loki and his weird-ass army,” and she was trying to help them but then saw a devil grab a bystander and drag her off. The woman was screaming and crying instead of trying to kick his ass and get away, so Eve had to leave the aliens and gods and whatever to the Avengers and pursue the devil. She was chasing him and buildings were toppling and debris was falling like an avalanche. New York was “a frigging mess with more idiot bystanders running around screaming and waiting to get pancaked.” The devil jumped into a pit and Eve stopped because it burped out some fire and she was trying to decide if she should go in after him to try to save the woman and catch the killer or try to keep New York from becoming a big pile of rubble. She then woke up.
  • She was at home, woke with a start and saw Roarke up already with his coffee and stock reports.

Secrets in Death

• Eve dreamed about her father, Patrick Roarke, and Wylee Stamford’s tormenter, Rod C. Keith, all dead – three monsters disguised as men. It was in an alley, but not in Dallas - it was anywhere, it was nowhere, it was everywhere. Eve knew their secrets and who killed them, and her badge weighed heavy on her. Larinda Mars strolled up to ask what about her, what Eve was doing to catch her murderer. Eve said she was doing her job and asked Mars what her job was. Mars said it was to get the dish, to dig it out, cook it up, and serve it to millions on a silver platter, and nobody did it better. Eve told her that was because nobody else stooped to blackmail and extortion. Mars said her killer wasn’t there in the alley, so what was Eve doing there? Eve said sometimes old business crawled up over the new, and Mars told Eve that was bullshit, that she would kill Troy again to save herself – she wouldn’t go to the police any more than any of Mars’s marks did – they all made their choice to pay her. Mars told Eve she was protecting Summerset for murder, and protecting Keith’s murderer, that she felt for the man who bashed his head in and broke his bones. Eve told her even though Mars was a stone bitch, she was still working her ass off to find her killer, just the way she’d have put her away for screwing with people’s lives.
  • She was at home, in bed with Roarke for the dream.

Dark in Death

• Eve walked through the pages of a book until the words blurred under her feet and became the cheap, scarred floor of the flop where Rosie Kent died. She saw two bodies, two beds, two white sashes tied into bows, on facing sides of a book. Eve recognized Deann Dark, with her dark hair drawn back into a short tail to leave her pretty face unframed, pointing at Pryor Carridine’s body (from Dark Falls), saying it was hers. Then the pages turned to a theater, one side for Chanel Rylan and the other for Amelia Benson (Dark Days). Eve pointed out the changes “Strongbow” had to make for her murders, saying it was cheating. Eve told Dark she wasn’t in the books and Dark replied that she doesn’t exist until she’s on the page.
  • She was at home, in bed, for the dream, and woke to Roarke sitting on the couch in the sitting room.

• Eve dreamt that Loxie Flash was bitching about being dead: everybody’s fault but hers, until you wanted to punch her in her whiny face. But since she was dead, what was the point?
  • She was at home, in bed, for the dream, and woke Roarke up by muttering in her sleep.

Leverage in Death

• Eve dreamed about Roarke wearing a black suit with an R on it like Spider-Man, swinging all over the city and climbing up buildings, and there was a big gust of wind, which scared her.
  • She was home and told Roarke the dream over breakfast in the morning.

• Eve dreamed about the bombing aftermath, smelling the smoke, blood, and burnt flesh and seeing the charred remains and blackened severed limbs where skin had bubbled off the bone, and blood, black as tar, splashed over the walls like a vicious painting. One wall, blinding white, held all the names of the dead beneath the spatter - eighteen and room for more. Two men stood in the room, dressed in black with white masks, speaking in whispers. Eve reached for her weapon, but it wasn’t there. She charged at them anyway, unarmed, but hit an impenetrable wall. She searched unsuccessfully for a door, an opening, and then tried again from a full out run. The wall repelled her like a hand swatting at a fly, and she tried again and again with kicks and punches until her fists left smears of blood. One of the men laughed at her, and asked the other how long he thought she’d keep up. The accent was Irish, but stronger than Roarke’s, and the other man said, “That one? Always was a stubborn little bitch.” The masks came off and it was Richard Troy and Patrick Roarke. Patrick said, “That boy always was a fuckup, but still he’s got my looks, so you’d think he could do better that that one. And a cop for all of that as well.” Troy said, “She’s a killer. I’m dead proof of it.” Eve told them they are correct - they are both dead and Troy reminded her there are so many more like them, and they just keep coming. They drink whiskey to that, and she sees they’re in a room with a bed, and on the bed a figure is struggling, but she can’t see through the shadows, and the screams are muffled by a gag. The wall clears and she sees it’s Peabody, Mavis, Bella, Feeney, Nadine, Baxter, Leonardo, McNab, Summerset, Whitney, Trueheart, Charles, Louise, Crack, her whole squad, Reo, Mira and Dennis Mira. Every time she blinks more people appear in the room, and no matter how hard she beat on the wall nobody heard or saw her. She sees everyone who matters to her except Roarke, so she yells, “Where’s Roarke?” She rushes back to the figure on the bed and sees Paddy and Richie sitting at a table counting money, saying you can never have too much of it, and the getting more’s the fun of it. Then she no longer sees Roarke but she’s bound to the bed, struggling and terrified, and the red light is blinking on and off. Troy said look who’s joining the party, and Roarke steps in with a suicide vest locked around him. She screams and launches herself against the wall, feeling and hearing her arm break, yelling at Roarke not to do it, it’s a lie.
  • She was at home, in bed, for the nightmare, and Roarke heard her yelling from the bathroom, where he was showering. He woke her by yelling to stop it now, that she needs to wake up. She makes him promise not to and they split a soother. They agree that neither of them would push the button, they’d find another way.

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