Light of Tina

By Richard Stooker

Twenty-one years later, Paul Templeton still did not know whether in his old dream he rapes and murders his sister.

The rapist killer escapes. Nightmares torture Paul. If he didn't kill Tina, how can he witness it, dreaming he sees it happen in a mirror? Now a beautiful young woman moves into the neighbor, reminding Paul of Tina? Is the killer after her too?

Though Paul never touched Tina in an unbrotherly way, he loves her with an unbrotherly love. During her life, and for the twenty-one years since her grisly death.

Now a Thai businessman and his beautiful daughter Khamnah move into Paul's neighborhood.

Khamnah reminds Paul so much of Tina it hurts him. She too shines with the light of The World Behind. The transcendant spiritual universe where Tina lives on.

The gleaming light of Khamnah's personality and heart help Paul to ignore the skeptical gibes of the psychiatrist Jack Harrison.

But he can't forget the threat of the slasher rapist the police are looking for. Ten women in the past five months. M.O. similar to Tina's killer twenty-one years ago.

Paul fears for Khamnah's life. He dreads the possibility of history repeating itself.

That night he dreams again, but he does not see Tina's face in the mirror. Instead, Khamnah sits brushing her hair -- until the killer enters.

• Language: English
• Publisher: In Dreams Extreme Press
• Release date: Dec 22, 2018
• ISBN: 9781386397526

Book preview

Twenty-one years after, Paul Templeton still did not know whether he was the man who raped and murdered his sister. 

At his neighbor Carl’s cocktail party, Paul felt Tina as a shimmering, transcendent presence—not dead but there, shining through from The World Behind. In the back of his mind, Paul re-experienced the nightmare he dreamed first the night of Tina’s death, and many times thereafter. It never changed.

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Tina sits brushing her wavy golden hair in the bedroom in the house where she lived with her boyfriend, several blocks down the street from their family’s home, where Paul slept. She wears the long purple robe Paul gave her one Christmas and her silver crescent moon pendant.

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Paul nibbled on peanuts and chips as he listened to his neighbors brag about the bargains they found shopping, complain about their bosses’ and coworkers’ incompetence, joke about their spouses, and try to conceal their feelings of inadequacy with alcohol and determined good cheer. Paul worried about his blood pressure, but salt was the vice society allowed him to indulge publicly. His face wore its usual two-way mirror mask. He could look out. He let nobody see in.

Even as a child, Paul knew to hide the truth of his love for Tina.

Beaming genuine warmth and joviality and a need to earn approval by making people happy, Carl grabbed Paul’s arm. Come over here and meet our new neighbors.

A man standing in a straight, too-rigid posture said, Jack Harrison, as he shook hands with Paul. He wore a demeanor of professionalism that,