NINE
Rachel woke with a start, then leaned on her elbow to one side. She looked over at her husband, who apparently hadn’t been disturbed by her jolting awake. He was still softly snoring. Actually, the noise he was making sounded more like purring. She flopped back on the mattress, remembering her dream. Rachel was prone to having precognitive dreams ever since childhood, and she’d had another one.
The first scene she remembered was the handle of a knife wiggling, with the pointed end sticking in something underneath. The knife remained in motion until she became aware of a heartbeat. Thump-thump, thump-thump, was the steady rhythm. Then there was no sound, except the scream of sirens, and the knife no longer moved. In the dream, she had wanted to cover her ears from the gut-wrenching s
