DREAM GATE...GRABBING AIR

Where do we 'go' when we dream...Found inside the wall cavity of a century old building inherited by cousins Olivia and Phoebe Jamieson were the remains of a man along with four original oil paintings still listed as missing from WWII thefts.

From the moment of that discovery Olivia struggles with her growing attraction to the lead detective, the disruptive presence of an art investigator and confusion over a series of reoccurring dreams that seemed connected to the man and the art. Then just when Olivia begins to make sense of where she 'goes' in her sleep there's a new murder, her cousin and the art expert disappear and her dreams point the confounding investigation in another direction...



CHAPTER 1


“Is this just an optical illusion or is the distance on the guestroom side of this wall longer than the distance on the den side?” Olivia Jamieson stood in the hall. She tipped her head to the left then to the right.

Her cousin Phoebe looked up from measuring furniture in the sitting room and joined Olivia in the hall. Phoebe studied one room then the other. “It could be. Or, it’s the bookcase. Maybe it makes the den look smaller.”

“Or maybe…” Olivia covered one eye then the other. “Phoebe do you still have that measuring tape?”

“Yup, here.”

The girls measured the length of both walls. They measured them twice.

Olivia shook her head looking at her cousin. “I don’t get it. The den walls are clearly shorter. And if we’ve measured correctly they’re shorter by a full twelve inches, but that doesn’t make sense. Did Aunt Nora ever say anything to you about her den?” Olivia pulled out a few inches of measuring tape then let it roll back into its case, several times.

“No and stop that.” Phoebe took the metal measuring tape away from her cousin then studied the floor to ceiling, wall to wall built-in bookshelves.

After removing several books Phoebe knocked on the back of the emptied shelf with her knuckles then she used the measuring tape case. “It sounds hollow behind there.” 

Phoebe walked by Olivia in the hall and into the guestroom then knocked on that wall. “This sounds solid, but then the outside of this building is brick. Maybe Aunt Nora had a secret life,” Phoebe smiled with her typical impish rise of one eyebrow, “and hid stolen art behind a false wall.” 

Olivia made a face.

The Jamieson cousins, both recent Colorado State graduates, couldn’t have been more opposite even though their father’s were identical twins. Olivia’s long dark auburn hair and grey hazel eyes contrasted with Phoebe’s pale blue eyes and short curly hair the shade of corn-silk. In coloring they favored each of their mothers, but in physical features and stature they had taken after the paternal side of their family. With that, both girls resembled their late Aunt Nora’s cheekbones and chin. And they were both medium height, slim and athletic.  
  
Olivia shook her head. “Yeah, right, that might have been you, but not Aunt Nora.” 

Still in the hall Olivia scanned its length from the guestroom doorway, on her left all the way beyond the sitting room to the rear stair access.“Do you remember if there are any windows on the south side of this building? There’s a window in the front guest bedroom that faces east onto Linden Street,” Olivia extended her left arm.

“There’s another window, in Aunt Nora’s sitting room facing west that overlooks the back alley.” She extended her right arm.

Phoebe shrugged. “Obviously there was a lot that we didn’t pay attention to when Aunt Nora lived up here.” She followed her cousin toward the sitting room, out a rear door then down metal fire escape stairs.

On the ground outside, a narrow alley, that divided the center of a historic block of downtown shops, flanked the south side of the building. Access to the rear of each store from the alley was by rows of narrow parking spaces for main floor business owners and any second floor tenants. The late Nora Jamieson hadn’t been a tenant. She had owned and managed the main floor retail space, living above her business for convenience.

Olivia and Phoebe didn’t need to walk far to have their question answered.

“Oh my, gosh, there it is.” Olivia pointed toward the upper half of the vintage red brick building. “I never noticed that shuttered window before, not ever, not in all the years Aunt Nora owned her store.”

“The den bookcase is in front of that window.” Phoebe frowned crossing her arms. “The den actually has a window, but it was covered up, how odd.” 

The day had been a busy one. Olivia was drained and all she remembered feeling was the cushion of her pillow - then she was asleep…
………..
She walks toward a darkened arch through a fine, grey-green mist in shallow fluid.
Passing under the arch she moves up three wide, uneven stone steps.
From the top stone she finds herself across the street from a train station.
It’s raining and on the sign above an entrance door is printed; Westminster. As she steps to cross the street a brightly painted delivery van; ‘McDaniels Paint & Hardware’- rushes by splashing water…
………..
Olivia awoke with a start, relieved her experience was only a dream…

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