Authors: Joan Hall Hovey
As he took a tentative step forward, steel glinted in the sparse light coming from the window, outlining her bed. Taking another step into the room, the scent of flowers wafted to him. Nearly tripping over the blanket puddled on the floor, his heart gave a small skip. He picked it up.
Something was wrong.
Approaching her bedside, his bewildered eyes took in the hair spilling from beneath the pillow that lay over her face – her smooth pale arm hanging limply by the side of the bed…
Though Tommy’s brain snapped frantic photos of the scene, it had not yet had time to process them. The unthinkable did not yet register. That would take a few more seconds.
“Heather?”
Officer Mel Willis was just returning with his second cup of coffee, which tasted only a tad better than he imagined the cleaning agent in Sam’s scrub bucket would taste. But at least it woke him up. And it was hot. He’d passed a minute or two (fifteen in real time) chatting with the old man on whether or not Tyson still had the fire in him. Sam was a die-hard fan of the bad-boy boxer.
Mel’s steps halted at the sight of the young man stumbling wild-eyed out of Heather Myer’s room. Dread and horror slammed through him, turning the coffee in his gut into acid. He’d heard it said that before you die, your life flashes in front of you. It was exactly like that for Mel, except that it was his career that flashed before his eyes.
The boy turned to look at him. As their eyes locked, Willis’ training went into gear. The coffee in his cup splattering its dark liquid against the wall, Mel went for his gun, simultaneously assuming the crouch position.
Twelve
At 2:51 a.m. Rachael woke to the wailing of sirens. She’d fallen asleep on the sofa listening to the storm rage outside her window. The wind had howled beneath the eaves, moaned down the chimney, and Rachael was strangely lulled by its mad symphony.
The room was still warm but the fire had waned. She rose and placed another piece of wood on the burning embers. She watched until it caught, then went out to the kitchen.
More sirens. They seemed close. She wondered what had happened. She looked out the small window over the sink, but could see only her own pale reflection in the rain-battered glass.
Lightning flashed silent and eerie in the window, casting the old elm tree in unearthly light. So stark were its tortured branches, it no longer resembled the tree she had climbed in and swung in as a child, but some evil apparition. Like a tree in one of those old Bela Lagosi flicks that had held her spellbound.
You saw too many of them. Feeling the headache returning, she washed down a couple more Tylenol to hopefully ward it off. She’d been living on the damn things lately.
The sirens had stopped. Silence now.
She went back to thinking about those old movies, about how the scary stuff always seemed to happen in the midst of a thunderstorm. As she stood there, a blinding flash of lightning turned night into day. Rachael’s heart lurched at the sight of someone standing out by the old elm tree. They were staring straight in at her.
Darkness fell again and the watcher was gone. A fleeting silhouette caught in the blue-white glow, like a negative of a photograph, instantly swallowed up by the night. She could see nothing now, only the blackness and the rain streaming down the glass, and her own reflection. But she sensed him out there. Her pulses were racing, her mouth dry. The fine hairs on her arms tingled as if brushed with electricity.
I saw someone. I know I did.
Moving closer to the window, Rachael waited for the next flash of lightning to confirm what her eyes had clearly seen. Iris Brandt’s words echoed in her mind: “You’re in danger here, Rachael. Terrible danger.” She shivered involuntarily.
The next flash came but revealed only the tree in its contorted shape. No one standing beside it. Her imagination? A trick of the lightning, maybe.
You’re losing it, Rachael.
Thunder cracked, reverberating through her body, giving her a sense of being caught in the eye of the storm. She moved away from the window.
A torrent of rain rattled the windows in their casings. Lightning stabbed the objects in the room in otherworldly light, making them appear to jerk about in a mad, convulsive dance, as if alive. Drained and exhausted, as if the storm, rather than infusing her with its energy, was stealing what little she had left.
I need to go back and lie down. I don’t feel well.
As she was about to go into the living room, the bulbs in their three tulip-shaped shades flickered threateningly. She stood perfectly still. “No, please,” she whispered.
She fixed the lights with her gaze, as if she might impose her will on them to remain bright and steady, but they flickered a second timeand againdimming lower and lower, finally abandoning her to the darkness.
Damn! What next?
She felt her way long the edge of the counter, closed a hand around the last drawer handle. Pulling it open she rummaged inside for the broken candles and the card of matches she’d seen there earlier.
Her fingers fumbled over curtain hooks, a corkscrew, an iron caster from a long discarded item of furniture, its owner apparently figuring it would come in handy at some point. At last her hand closed around a short, chunky candle. The smooth, waxy feel of it lent comfort. She came up with four candles in all, in varying lengths. She found the matches, lit one of the candles and set it on the kitchen table, dispelling a layer of the thick, inky darkness.
She placed two more candles at either end of the counter, bringing welcome light into room. The flames made wavering circles on the ceiling. The last candle, she took into the living room, letting the small flame guide her step. She was about to set it on the mantle, when someone knocked on the front door. She spun around, the movement creating a draft that blew out the flame. Now only the glow from the fireplace kept her from being in total darkness.
The silhouetted figure by the Elm tree leapt to the forefront of her mind.
Iris sat on the ashrose sofa, a double-shot of whiskey in hand, still shaken from her awful nightmare. Sensing her mistress’ distress, Cleo crept up next to her and licked her hand. Iris stroked the warm, silky body, more out of her own need for contact, but eliciting a grateful purr from Cleo just the same.
Iris had quit smoking three weeks before. Now she slipped her hand into the pocket of her robe, found the lone cigarette she kept there (and in other pockets) in case of emergency. This damn well qualifies, she thought.
Rain pattered insistently against the window, sounding like the tapping of fingers of someone wanting to be let inside. In the far corner of the room, the grandfather clock ticked away, as it had through three generations. Tick tock…tick tock…like a time-bomb. Time running out. Crazy. Why was she thinking like this? The nightmare, that was why.
But it wasn’t the only reason. Her gaze wandered to the Emily Warren landscape hanging above the fireplace. Looking upon it usually had a calming effect on Iris, but not tonight.
It was not an ordinary landscape, but one that took you in after you’d kept company with it awhile, that let you feel the salt-sea air on your skin, know the heave and sway of the ship beneath your feet, hear the wind filling the massive sails. She wasn’t the only person to experience its effect.
Looking at it now though, she heard the faintest whisper of accusation.
You have to help her.
Is it my fault your granddaughter won’t listen? That she thinks I’m just a dotty old woman. I tried to warn her.
Iris took a swig of the whiskey, choked and sputtered on its fire. Great! Obviously, she was getting too old to take her booze straight up. Reaching for the silver lighter on the end table, she lit her cigarette. For a few seconds, she stared at its glowing tip with distaste, as much for her own weakness as for the cigarette. Then she proceeded to smoke it down to its filter, as if the cigarette might contain the precious oxygen her lungs couldn’t seem to get enough of since she woke from her nightmare, gasping for air. Never mind that the thing tasted like scorched socks, and made her feel light-headed.
Iris’ hand jerked as the cat let out an ungodly howl. Sparks flew from her cigarette, one landing on the back of her hand; it burned like the devil. Uttering a mild curse, Iris leapt to her feet, brushing frantically at it. Mashing the cigarette out in the ashtray, she said, “Cleo, what the…?”
In answer, Cleo sprang up behind her to the back of the sofa, hackles raised, teeth bared in a deep, steady growl as she stared at a spot above the fireplace. Goosebumps raised on Iris’ arms as her own gaze followed her companion’s.
Another nightmare, she told herself, as in disbelief she watched the clouds in the painting. They were moving.
It can’t be.
Black clouds, sun-yellowed at their edges, boiling into one another. Iris blinked, shook her head, as if to dispel what had to be a hallucination. She had to be losing her mind, didn’t she? Because this could not be happening.
But it was. As the clouds raced across the painting, entering into some mysterious dimension beyond the frame, new angrier clouds took their place. And beneath them, the ship rode the giant swells, sails billowing in the wind.
“Impossible,” Iris whispered, unable to look away. At last she squeezed her eyes shut. Maybe it’s the whiskey, she thought, grasping for some reasonable, sane explanation. After a moment, she took a deep breath, forced her eyes upon the painting once more. A shudder of breath escaped her lips as relief replaced her dread. The clouds were still now, mere images painted on a flat, canvas surface.
Some sort of hallucination, she thought again. That was all. But Cleo had seen it too. She reached for her glass. As she tipped it to her lips, some of the liquid trickled from the corner of her mouth. She wiped it away with a tissue, was visited with a vision of herself sitting with a covey of other old women, staring with glazed eyes at a flickering television screen in some nursing home, while an impatient hand wiped spittle from her palsied chin.
The phone rang and for the second time in a few minutes, Iris near jumped out of her skin, almost knocking her drink over. Cleo bounded from the sofa in fright, tried to scramble from the room but her feet were travelling so fast she was running in place, nails clicking madly on the hardwood floor. She looked so hilarious, so like a cat in a cartoon that Iris laughed with weak release.
She picked up the receiver. Who could be calling at such an hour?
“Aunt Iris,” her distraught nephew said. “Something horrible has happened. I’m sorry if I woke you. I just didn’t want you to hear it on the news…”
Thirteen
The knocking grew more insistent. Whoever was out there wasn’t planning on going away.
I have no phone. I can’t even call for help.
Thunder rumbled and cracked around her. She thought about the sirens, now silent. Perhaps someone other than herself was in need of help. The storm was a bad one; maybe there’d been an accident. She took a single, tentative step forward. “Who’s there?” she called out, keeping her voice calm, even.
“Rach, it’s me. For God’s sake, let me in before I drown out here.”
With a mixture of relief and astonishment, Rachael quickly opened the door to her soggy, yet still glamorous friend standing in her doorway, the hood of her raincoat drawn up over her head.
The lights came back on as Betty was apologizing for showing up in the middle of the night, explaining that she’d gotten lost trying to find her way here. “I drove miles out of my way,” she said.
“I got lost myself on the way here,” Rachael said. “Easy to do. It’s great to see you, Betty. Please stop apologizing and come in.”
Ten minutes later they were sitting in Rachael’s kitchen over coffee and Betty was relating the events of her summer sale. “They ripped every last scrap of clothing from the hangers,” she said in mock complaint. “How women do love a sale.”
Rachael laughed dutifully, knowing that Betty was doing her best to cheer her up. No surprise to her that the lights had come on the second Rachael opened the door to her. How attractive she looked in her bronze silk shirt, the brown suede skirt ending at mid-calf. Her lips and nails were painted in the same shade of bronze, her short red hair worn sleek and saucy, freckles expertly hidden beneath makeup. Her spicy perfume scented the air. Betty was the epitome of the successful career woman.
When they were kids, Betty once said that Rachael was like black and white TV while she was like color TV. Not a bad analogy, now that she thought of it. Betty had exhibited more than the usual teenage interest in makeup and fashion. And she was smart. Not so surprising that she would end up owning her own dress boutique. They were an unlikely pair.
“This road must be the darkest, scariest one I’ve ever driven on,” Betty said, changing the subject. “I kept expecting some hideous thing to come shambling out of the bay, dripping in seaweed.”
“You have an overactive imagination,” Rachel said.
“Yeah, maybe. But it didn’t help hearing about that poor girl being murdered in her hospital bed.”