The Dream Thief by Kerry Schafer

Chapter One
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    I n all of my years of indentured service as a dream runner, the Will Alderson assignment topped the charts as my worst job ever.
    I owed him. He'd suffered a lot in the last ten years, much of it at my hands, and the last thing in the world I wanted to do was cause him more pain. There was no way Will could know how dangerous a designer dream could be, or what it was likely to cost him. Bad enough that he'd ordered one at all, but the fact that I'd been tasked with delivering his poison was wrong on every possible level.
    The Merchant owned my soul and sooner or later she'd force me to comply, but I had a small, irrational hope that Will would come to his senses if I could buy us both some time. So instead of following orders I fled the scene, knowing that the price for my disobedience would be steep.
    The pain hit before my motorcycle rounded the first curve. Just a warning at first, nothing more than a headache with attitude. If past experience meant anything, I figured I could hold out for an hour, two if I was lucky. In the meantime, I might as well double the misery and find out exactly what my mother's lawyer wanted with me.
    Fallstone and Noland, Attorneys at Law, was located just off Main and 4 th Ave. It was a single-story stand alone business, sided with cedar. When I opened the door a wind chime announced my arrival.
    The waiting area was all set up with comfy chairs and reading material, even a Keurig and a selection of coffee choices, but I had no intention of waiting. Getting past the receptionist would be challenge number one, but I figured I could take her, easy. She looked like the spokesperson for the Hire a Summer Student program, much more interested in her smart phone than running interference for her boss.
    "I need to see Jenny Noland," I said, clomping right up to the desk in my motorcycle boots and leathers, helmet swinging from one hand. I kept my sunglasses on. "Now would be good."
    "Oh, is she expecting you?" And then the blue eyes widened and her mouth fell open over perfect little white teeth. "Wait—you're Jesse Davison, aren't you?"
    Now that threw me way off balance. I wanted to ask how she knew, but instead I just shrugged, keeping my face noncommittal. "Maybe. Can I see Ms. Noland?"
    "Absolutely. She's been expecting you. Follow me."
    All senses on high alert, head pounding with every step, I followed the child down a wood paneled hallway. When she opened a door at the end and gestured me in, I hesitated, looking things over.
    Jenny Noland was all about living large. I estimated her weight at 300 pounds, which was likely conservative, and she carried it with pride. Her flowing dress was a garden of giant red and yellow flowers, and she paired it with earrings that dangled to her shoulders and a necklace made of raw unpolished chunks of some sort of green stone—jade, maybe. No squeezing into too-small chairs for Jenny; her office chair was custom designed to accommodate her with ease behind a bastion of a desk.
    "Jesse, at last we meet." Her voice was a throaty contralto that thrummed inside my head like a plucked string on a cello. "Well, are you going to come in?"
    I did, leaving the door cracked behind me and turning a chair around so I could keep the back of it between us. Jenny clasped her hands loosely on the desk in front of her, the expanse of which held nothing but a vase of red roses, and looked me over with the sort of scrutiny a police officer might give a suspect.
    "You look like her," she said at last.
    "I look like my dad."
    "Your features may be his, but your expressions are your mother's and they shape you."
    Three petals had fallen onto the gleaming surface of that desk, crimson as drops of blood. Rose perfume invaded my olfactory system, triggering memories I wanted nothing to do with.
    "That I wouldn't know. I haven't seen her since I was ten. Listen, Jenny—this is not a social call for me. I didn't know my mother so I'm not grieving