Free Video Kill by Joanne Fluke Page A

her hand on the telephone to call the groundskeeper before she reconsidered. He was an elderly man, and she didn’t have the heart to wake him. She’d watched the party people set everything up and there was no reason why she couldn’t shut it off.
    Dressing was more difficult than she’d thought it would be. Something had raised havoc with her coordination, and she found she had to sit down on the edge of the bed to pull on her slacks and sweater. Tammara slid her feet into the soft-soled moccasins she used as bedroom slippers and got up again with difficulty. It would be so easy to just crawl back under the covers and ignore the whole thing. She turned to give her bed a look filled with longing as she went out the door.
    Tammara walked down the circular stairway, wondering if she was dreaming. It seemed to take hours to get to the bottom, walk through the hallway, and let herself out the back door.
    The grass was wet with night dew, and Tammara felt the moisture seep into the soles of her moccasins as she made her way in what seemed like slow motion across the huge lawn.
    The night was quiet, still and peaceful. Not even a dog barked in the distance. The air smelled tantalizingly fresh, much different from the smog of the daytime, and best of all, there was a perceptible chill in the air. Tammara could almost believe that autumn, with its brilliantly colored leaves and cold north winds, was right around the corner.
    The water tumbled and roared in the distance, and Tammara walked slowly around the house to the east lawn. The stars wheeled crazily above her, but at last she was there.
    Tammara’s breath caught in her throat as she saw the Tunnel of Love. The brightly painted boats were circling endlessly, at evenly paced intervals. Red, blue, yellow, over and over again. There was something terribly sad about watching them, but her mind was too foggy to think of the reason.
    As she stood, wavering slightly at the edge of the water, she found herself longing to climb inside. She would lean back against the cushioned seat and trail her fingers in the cool, moon-drenched water until the tips of them tingled deliciously.
    The little boats stopped, as if they could read her mind, and a man dressed in black seemed to materialize beside her. Now she knew she was dreaming. He bent from the waist in a courtly, old-world bow and held out his hand.
    Tammara moved closer to take the man’s hand and he helped her into the boat. There was a video camera clamped to his side, and it jarred her briefly but she quickly dismissed it. Of course there was a camera in her dream. She was an actress. She turned to look directly into the lens and curved her lips in her most inviting smile.
    The man, her dream man, climbed in beside her, and the little boats started again. Tammara had the urge to ask who he was, but she didn’t want her voice to shatter the fragile shell of her illusion. Instead, she leaned toward her companion, peering intently into his shadowed eyes as the boat carried them steadily toward the tunnel. He was wearing some sort of hood. Only his eyes were visible through the slits. Was it the hood of a falcon? No, that wasn’t quite right. A hood like this had been paired with a costume on the racks at the studio. But what kind of a costume?
    The boat entered the tunnel, and Tammara found herself in total darkness. She huddled a little closer to the man as her dream began to take on ominous overtones. Now the pulsing hum of the machinery had turned into something frightening, something uncontrollable, like the heartbeat of some predatory, mechanical beast.
    There was a bright pinpoint of light, and Tammara’s eyes dilated as she stared into the flame of a silver lighter. At that exact instant her numbed mind dredged out the memory that had eluded her. The hood had been hanging with an executioner’s costume. This was not a good dream. She had to wake up.
    Tammara cried out sharply in terror as