Defender's Dream You Stepped Out of a Dream! by Andrea Lena DiMaggio   You Stepped out of a cloud, I want to take you away Away from the crowd,

Previously...from Lascia Ch'io Pinanga: The Key

Reilly took up the story. Donna looked around, and saw that Terry wasn’t in the room. He hadn’t visited at all, and she wondered if their partnership was finally over. Reilly began,

“Danvers kept talking to you about a key…that your mother had mentioned it just before he…just before she died. We wondered about that until Terry reminded me of what Bruschia had said at the jail. He said, “I’m not the one you’re looking for. I’m not the key.”

It dawned on Terry that it wasn’t a key to a lock or a closet or locker. Your mother’s last words were her way of telling him about the key to his life…She was telling him about God…with her final breath, she blessed the man who abused her and her son. She blessed her killer.” Reilly got choked up realizing the impact of what he’d just said. He and Terry talked about it the other day and only now did it have any meaning to him. He had just killed a man, to save a life, of course, but he was overwhelmed with guilt. Terry, never really religious, convinced him that there was forgiveness. If He could offer forgiveness through Inga Olerud, then surely there was enough to go around for him and Reilly.

Another morning and yet another motel...

Dani was lying in bed with the light on, trying to read the novel she'd brought on their flight; no amount of fiction, however well written by any author, could match the intrigue, suspense and downright scared-out-of-your-socks feeling their real life adventure evoked. Her cell phone beeped once, signalling a text message. The only one she knew of besides Donna who had her number was her cousin May, from whom she had borrowed the car. She looked at the number on the cell and didn't recognize it, but the message told her everything she needed to know.

"Donna, wake up," she said gently while nudging her partner, trying not to wake Jill at the same time. Donna rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and looked up at Dani. It was the first night in a month of Sundays that she hadn't had a nightmare, so a voluntary disturbance of sleep had better have a good reason. Dani pointed to the text on the phone. It simply read,

"Don't worry, I'm okay." Like Dani, Donna didn't recognize the number, but the message came through loud and clear.

"Indestructible!" She tried oh so hard not to start crying; the three of them were practically bordering on dehydration from all the crying they had done. Nevertheless she collapsed in Dani's arms and wept from relief.

"Me, too, honey...me too,” Dani said as she began to cry.

Two years before at The Plate Restaurant, Ardmore, Pennsylvania

"You can't be serious. I thought I was the only one getting gun-shy." Terry Manahan took a long gulp of his Bucklers before continuing.

"You love what you do."

Kevin Reilly sat across from Terry looking very nervous. He had reason to be. He had just informed the district manager over in Philly that he was taking a medical leave of absence from the Bureau, and had no idea what his next step would be career-wise. As to the rest of his future, he decided that he would leave that in God's hands. Killing a man can sometimes make a person cold and bitter or numb; Kevin was none of those things. He had moved into an entirely new realm of experience spiritually, and was dreading only somewhat the unknown risk he was taking.

"I'm going to take some time off; the EHA (Employee Health Associate) told me it's not uncommon after a fatal shooting, and between the medical leave and my unused sick time and vacation, I've got nearly six months. I'm going to visit my sister and her family in Maine, and then I've got some thinking to do.

"Well, I'm glad you know what you're doing. When I told my Captain I was resigning, he practically shit a brick. 'What the fuck are you going to do Manahan? You fucking love cop work!' was all he could say. I told him I didn't have a fucking clue, but after seeing Donna nearly die ...I couldn't do this. I sure hope you know what the fuck you're doin'!"

The two had bonded like brothers after the Olerud case was closed. Reilly was shaken to the core after killing Rick Danvers; it was the only time in ten years with the Bureau that he had fired his weapon at someone. He and Terry found themselves at a crossroads of sorts; both needing to do some serious spiritual business. They ended up joining a church in the Ardmore area that was to say the least, inclusive. No barriers for anyone, which at one time would have turned both of them off. Terry had been brought up very religious and while not a church goer, Kevin's family wasn't exactly warm and friendly when it came to gays and other assorted members of the 'other' community. So ending up in a church with people quite different than themselves was an eyeopener for them both.

"You gonna keep in touch?" Terry said and downed the remainder of his Bucklers, holding his hand up for the waitress to bring another.

"Yeah...I'll write some, I guess, and I'm going to keep in touch via e-mail with Pastor Melanie. Hey, it's not like we won't still be best buddies...just I've got to get away and get my head on straight, okay." Kevin shrugged and looked away.

It had already been four months since he had killed someone, but the gunshot woke him every night; that and the pain in his heart over the lost time and regrets of the past that accompanied the tears that tucked him in each night.

"Okay...but you better keep your word, or I'll get Pastor Mel to come after you!" He laughed, but he knew in his heart that this might be the last time he saw the only other person besides Donna that was close to him.

In the present, the motel room....

"Dani, come quick." Donna sat on the bed staring at Dani's cell phone; another text message.

"Don't know how long this is safe; buy disposible and call this number." Donna smiled in relief. They had thought about that and Dani had bought a disposible phone at WaWa the night before. She punched in the number and a voice croaked on the other end.

"Took you fucking long enough!" Terry's voice brought tears of relief to Donna.

"You bastard...don't you ever scare me like this again, or so help me..." Donna laughed through her tears. Dani came out of the bathroom, brushing her hair. She sat down on the bed next to Donna.

"Hey, Houdini, how's it going? Seriously, what the fuck are we up against here?"

"I don't know, but I'm going to find out. Lay low and I'll call you back in about an hour. I think I know someone who can help. And I know this is going to hurt big time, but that fancy I-Phone you've got.... it's probably got a GPS in it. They most likely don't know anything about you downtown, since you folks have kept your goings on private, but you can't take any chances. Ditch the phone somewhere...better yet, open it up and break it." Dani winced at the suggestion, but Terry was probably right.

"The way I see it, sis? Either the city is going to end up owing you a phone when this is all over, or all of us will be dead, and it won't matter one fucking iota, capice?"

Dani nodded and smiled. She had originally resisted Terry calling her 'sis,' but it felt great right then and there. She handed Donna the phone and went over to Jill to wake her.

"Terry," Donna said quietly, "I'm serious about this. I thought I'd...we'd lost you," she smiled at Dani and Jill and continued.

"You're my best friend, and the best brother a girl could ever have....please take care of yourself."

"Don't worry, partner...I've got someone looking out for me." Donna closed her eyes and pictured Terry pointing above his head.

"Okay, Terry. We'll wait for your call. Talk later, bye!" She clicked off the phone and lay on the bed and began to weep softly.

"She okay? She looks awfully sad," Jill asked. Dani rubbed the girl's shoulder and smiled.

"She's just fine, sweetie...just fine."

You
Stepped out of a dream,
You are too wonderful
To be what you seem.

Meanwhile in the Philadelphia area

As the head of Security for Gypsy Lane Technologies in Philly, Terry had gotten involved in an investigation into an E-Fraud case the year before. He had established a phony ID for himself along with accompanying bank accounts and credit cards and ID. The case took about three months to break, and he was rewarded with a bonus, but after the case closed, something inside him urged him to keep the fake identity around; 'just in case,' he had felt. And it had paid off.

After climbing out of the Schuykill River like a drowned rat, he made sure he wasn't seen or followed. He retrieved the Jesse Stone driver's license and cards out of his wallet and discarded it along with his real ID. The next morning he walked to the Wal-Mart and purchased a few bits of clothing along with a bag, and then took the next bus to Chester where he rented a car and got himself a motel room. He dialed the number for the FBI on the first of four disposible phones he had purchased.

"Hello, may I speak with Kevin Reilly, please?" He waited as a series of clicks indicated his connection. A woman answered with,

"Federal Bureau of Investigations, Special Agent Sherri Caruso speaking, how can I help you?" The voice was confident but friendly.

"I'm trying to get in touch with a friend of mine...Agent Kevin Reilly?" Terry was taking a long shot. He hadn't heard from Kevin in nearly two years, just like he expected. In fact, after Kevin and he parted that day, apparently no one in their church had heard from him. Terry had pictured Reilly sitting on top of a mountain in Nepal communing with a guru. His thoughts were interrupted.

"I'm sorry...Mr?"

"Stone, Jesse Stone." Terry nearly laughed; Robert Parker was his favorite author and Jesse Stone was his favorite character in any mystery series.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Stone, but Kevin Reilly...passed away. I'm really sorry to be the one to tell you." The voice was tinged with more than regret. Terry sensed a nervous edge to her tone.

"Sorry, I didn't quite get your name...Caruso?" Ironically enough, her voice, while feminine, was a bit on the low end of alto and almost into the tenor range.

"Yes, Sherri Caruso. I really can't discuss this further other than to express my condolences...You sound like you were good friends with him." Terry of course could not see the look on Agent Caruso's face, but her voice quivered, and a sound of familiarity crept into his memory.

"Pardon me for saying this, Agent Caruso, but you sound like you were very close to my friend. I'm surprised Kevin didn't say anything about you, since he and I were best friends...." He was interrupted by a gasp on the other end and the sound of the received falling to the desk. A moment later the woman came back on the phone.

"Terry? Terry? Is that you? I thought you were dead...The reports said your car went into the Schuykill...Oh god!" The voice was suprisingly relieved and glad for a perfect stranger. Terry took a chance...a very big chance.

"Yeah…this is Manahan...say, who the fuck are you, lady?" His language was abrupt, but the tone almost pled for the truth.

"Kevin sends his regards...and so does Inga Olerud." A smile of recognition spread across Terry's face. Only one person would know that Inga Olerud was the woman who even after her death had affected the lives of two friends.

"Kevin?" Terry said, almost in a whisper, but at the same time shouting with glee in his head. Agent Sherri Caruso paused for a moment and then in the sweetest voice you can imagine finally said,

"As ever was, dear friend, as ever was."

You
Stepped out of a cloud

Primavera Pizza, Ardmore, Pennsylvania

Terry sat in a booth facing the door, just like all the good mystery writers suggest. The chances that a ‘bad guy’ would walk into the restaurant were practically nil, but having been run off the road and nearly killed the day before, Terry wasn’t taking any chances. He strained his eyes each time someone entered the restaurant. A tall and not very attractive woman entered and walked in his direction. He went to get up to greet his friend but the woman glared at him and kept walking further back to join her sister and her three under-five nieces. He sat down and looked at the menu for the fourth time when an attractive red head sat down opposite him in the booth.

“You look like hell,” she said as she took off her sunglasses. The face was different, but the sad, world-weary eyes were exactly as he remembered his friend.

“You look….different.” Sherri smiled back at him before patting his wrist.

“I guess that’s what we might call the understatement of the year.” Sherri was somehow completely familiar to Terry even though her face and ‘shape’ had changed decidedly. The nose seemed a bit smaller and the lips only slightly fuller. Her chin seemed the same, but she had a soft chin to begin with. Her hair, shoulder length and red, was attractively done. She wore the standard dark suit of an agent at the Bureau, but she seemed to wear it well, owing to the cotton shell underneath and the jade cross around her neck.

“Fuck, Kevin, you…what the fuck?” Terry stared at her for a moment. He had gone through this once before when Donna had transitioned, but he had expected the change. This one was not only unanticpated, but remarkable. Don had always looked a bit androgynous, but Kevin always looked like your best buddy; the guy you shoot pool with; the one you’d elbow when a pretty girl walked by. But now, Terry was amazed because Kevin had become the pretty girl.

"Where did Caruso come from?" Terry laughed softly; his friend looked like she just flew in from Shannon Airport.

"My mother's maiden name. You can't believe the harassment I put up with when I got back."

"I thought this was the new FBI." Terry looked askance at her.

"Oh, yeah...not the trans thing..everybody was fine with that; they keep riding me because of the red hair and sunglasses; David Caruso is my second cousin." She put on her sunglasses briefly before taking them off again in her cousin's signature move. Terry nearly snarfed the glass of water he was sipping. He looked at her again, as if giving her the once over.

“Don’t get me wrong…” Terry felt the need to apologize to the man in his friend who no longer existed.

“You look pretty good, but geez, Louise…” Sherri nodded and shrugged.

“Living at home with my Mom and sis…I sorta had some money put away. Whattya think?” The voice was sweet and attractive in a sisterly way, Terry imagined, but still his best friend.

“Well spent!”

“Thanks." A complement from anyone would have meant something, of course, but this was a complement of sorts from her best friend. She blushed but quickly changed the subject.

“I suppose this is about Carter and the Spinetti murder, huh?” Terry nodded.

“We’re on top of this…we don’t know quite what to make of it, but the Bureau knows she didn’t kill her partner. The killer was clean and did a great job of hiding the fact, but the idiot who broke into her house and stole her gun? Hell, you know as well as I do that you don’t wipe your own fingerprints off your own gun safe, right?”

Terry put his hand to his face in an “I don’t fucking believe it” gesture.

“Plus the foster mom…Jimmy’s mom? She’s alive. She doesn’t remember much other than that she saw this man talking with the boy on the porch. She started walking toward the door when the boy took off. She called out and she heard a pop, and the next thing she knows two women are hovering over her, and then waking up in the hospital. She says the guy is older and tall, but other than that, she was too far away to identify him. We figure when the kid ran he got distracted, and your friends must have just pulled up when he took out after the boy.”

“I talked to them…they’re holed up at a motel in East Jabib.” He grinned at the turn of the phrase but Sherri wasn’t laughing.

“She’s still a suspect in a murder investigation, and what we know hasn’t been shared with Philly or the State Troopers, since we don’t know who’s involved. We do know it has to be big, since they knew where to find the kids and the bodies have been piling up. Oh…by the way, Mr. Stone….Until we get this thing wrapped up, Terry Manahan is officially deader than Disco.”

“I told them I’d call. You’re not going to follow me, are you?” Terry shook his head and looked toward the entrance.

“Officially, I’m required to keep the office posted regarding the case. Unofficially, they think I’m at the dentist’s and I haven’t heard from anyone; they don’t know you’re still alive either, bro. Just me. Let’s just sit here and you can call your friends. Chicken Parm and a diet rootbeer, right?”

“You sure about this?” Terry sat back down.

“As ever was, mo chroi, as ever was.” Terry looked at her and shrugged his shoulders; his Gaelige had always been weak.

‘Mo chroi? What the fuck…gotta Google that when I get a chance.’ he thought as the waitress set the sandwich and drink in front of him.

Could there be eyes like yours?
Could there be lips like yours?
Could there be smiles like yours,
Honest and truly?

The ladies motel room....

Dani plugged the flash drive into her laptop and opened the file. It contained a Word document with a list of names and phone numbers. She could only think that it must be the group of perverts that hurt these kids. Were there any other children they didn’t know about? Did they stop when the investigation started?

“I bet that when the DA declined to press charges they probably went to the matresses, but being that it’s four years later and still no arrests? They’re probably up and running.” Donna said angrily. She pointed to the folder marked, “Evidence - Yuck!” Someone had taken the trouble to put this together, and it wasn’t anyone friendly to the offenders. Dani looked at Donna and then over at Jill. She lay on her stomach, doing a crossword puzzle from a magazine.

“Jill, honey…we have to look at a file here, please don’t come over at all until we tell you it’s okay?” Dani shook her head. Jill looked up from her puzzle.

“That’s okay…I’ve probably seen ‘em all anyway. Daddy used to make us look at it after he was finished.” The girl said it with such aplomb that you would have thought she was talking about photos of kittens or puppies instead of the abuse she and her siblings underwent. Donna gasped. Jill got up from the bed and walked over.

“Maybe I can remember someone, okay?” She put her hand on Dani’s shoulder.

“Okay, honey, but step away if it gets to be too much.” She was half-hoping that the girl would be able to handle it, since they had no other way of knowing unless it was someone they recognized. Dani double clicked the folder and the screen filled with nearly fifty jpg files. She clicked on the first one and the scene was so repulsive that she turned her head away.

“That’s my cousin Billy and me.” Jill said, almost as if she were describing an afternoon of football or frisbie. Dani clicked on the next one.

“That’s me…no…that’s Jimmy and my uncle Dave. I don’t think he was my real uncle though. You see how much Jimmy hates dresses?” The boy was dressed in a ballerina outfit, but the look of terror on his face was identical to the expression Jill had shown when she had flashbacks.

“That’s Stacy and Billy.”

“That’s Daddy and me.”

“Oh, I forgot about this…can I have a copy?” The girl was asking for a copy of a picture of utter horror. Donna almost shouted,

“NO! No you can’t have a copy. Jill!” She would have continued but the girl’s face twisted into a mask of disappointment and tears and Dani’s hand shot over and grabbed her wrist while her other hand pointed to the picture. It wasn’t a picture of Jill or her brother or sister. But the girl did look familiar.

“I don’t have a picture of her. Can’t I have a picture of her…Why can’t I have a picture?” The girl sobbed and pointed to the computer.

“Jill, this isn’t you or Jimmy or Stacy. Who is this?” Dani pointed to the picture on the screen.

“Are you fucking stupid.” No apologies; she’d apologize later for her language, but at the moment she was too worked up.

“I’m sorry, Jill, we’ll let you have a picture,” Donna said in a conciliatory fashion. She needed information, and only the girl could provide it.

“We didn’t get the whole file, honey; we don’t know who this is.” She shrugged her shoulders.

“Can’t you tell…who does she look like? Huh?” The girl used her eyes to look herself over in answer to her own question.

“That’s my sister Kim!”

Dani looked at Donna and shook her shoulders as if to say, "What else do we not know?" Jill picked up on their expressions and added...

"At least that's what he'd like to be."

You
Stepped out of a cloud,
I want to take you away
Away from the crowd,
And have you all to myself,
Alone and apart.
Out of a dream,
Safe into my heart...
Wa-dee-la-la
Out of a dream!

Next: All I Have to Do is Dream!

You Stepped Out of a Dream
words and music by
Gus Kahn and Nacio Brown
as performed by
Sergio Mendes and Brasil '66
featuring Gracinha Leporace
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4N3I31MNFKQ