Too Near the Edge by Lynn Osterkamp Page B

decide to leave me
and Nathan without even saying goodbye. Now no one will do any more
investigating. I can’t afford a private detective. But I have to
find out.”
    “I think the Contact Project sounds like a
good possibility for you. But I have to tell you that you may not
reach him. Or you may reach someone else.”
    “In a way I feel like I already made
contact,” Sharon said, leaning forward in my direction. “I had this
really vivid dream about Adam just before I woke up this morning.
He seemed so real and he was trying to tell me something—but then
he faded away and I woke up. But it felt like he was still in the
room somehow.”
    “What happened in the dream?”
    “I was lost in a maze of long halls,” Sharon
said, “and I was feeling really scared because I had no idea how to
get out or to get where I wanted to be. I ran around trying
different paths. Some of the halls were dead ends, others led
further into the maze. There were people around—sort of gliding
by–but they ignored me. Every time I thought I was almost at the
end of a hall, I came to a bend where it stretched out farther in
front of me. Then I saw Adam at the end of a hall. He was on a sort
of spinning platform with two other people.
    I ran toward him as fast as I could, but the
air felt thick and it took me a long time to get close.”
    Caught up in the telling of the dream, Sharon
got up from her chair and walked around my office.
    “I reached out to try to get his attention,”
she continued, extending her arm, as if reliving the dream. “The
floor where he stood was spinning very fast. He stopped and got
off. He was very real and alive to me, and I felt like it had all
been some sort of mistake, that he wasn’t really dead.”
    Sharon stopped pacing right in front of me,
but looked past me into the distance. “So I said ‘Adam—they told me
you were dead. Where have you been for the last three months?’ And
then he started to get blurry and fade away, like the Cheshire cat.
I yelled out at him, ‘Adam! Don’t go!’
    She sobbed as she resumed her walking and
continued relating the dream. “And then he looked straight at me
and said, ‘There’s danger for you and Nathan. Don’t trust….’ And
then his voice faded away with the rest of him. I ran toward the
spot where he had been and jumped and reached out to grab him, but
I felt myself falling forward into a foggy hall in front of me. And
then my alarm rang and woke me up.”
    She blew her nose and went on. “I’m so ready
to try to reach Adam. Especially because of that dream. Adam seemed
so real talking to me and then he faded away before he told me who
not to trust. I know it was a dream, but it feels like more than
that. I feel like I need to find out what he was saying.” She came
back over and sat in her chair.
    I sat silently, not wanting to interrupt her
mood. She shook her head, as if to banish the dream, then looked at
me. “His presence was so strong in my mind all day that I kept
looking over my shoulder for him and listening for his voice. Now I
feel like I’d try just about anything to be able to talk to him
again. You said I might be able to do it at no charge? I don’t have
much money right now.”
    “Yes, I have funding available, and you‘re a
good candidate.” I thought about Tyler and his message for Sharon,
but decided it was too soon to bring that up. Maybe after she
contacted Adam. I wondered how easy that would be for her. Some
people have more success with the process than others do. It seemed
like a good time to find out.
    “The contact process takes a good part of a
day,” I said. “I keep Fridays free for that and the person I had
scheduled for next Friday cancelled yesterday. Could you get the
day off?”
    “I have some comp time I need to use this
month. Friday will work,” Sharon said.
    “OK. We’ll need to start at your house so we
can look at photos of Adam, and mementos, like a favorite shirt or
jacket of his, tools, stuff