“Because it’s not your memory,” explained Deanna. “It’s David Dexter’s. I always thought that he was in that facility and witnessed what was going on, so they killed him.”
“So what happened to you?” Max asked.
“After they’d finished,” Deanna continued, “they injected me with something and dumped me in Castlegate Park, not far from where I lived back then.
Eventually I recalled many of the details, despite their efforts to make me forget everything, but I was too traumatized to go back to university. I never finished my degree. I worked in a number of odd jobs all over the country and never settled. I later returned here and established myself as a psychic medium, but kept a very low profile. At that time, I’d heard of the David Dexter case, of course. With his father being a prominent politician, it was quite famous. One morning, I unexpectedly sensed the location of David’s body and informed the police. They were very skeptical at first, but at least they followed up on the information I gave them. As you know, they found David’s remains.”
“Did you ever meet David’s parents?” asked Max.
“I met Jonathan Dexter briefly at the police station,” Deanna replied, “and he thanked me for my help. Yet there was much more that I wanted to tell him, so I phoned him that evening. I told him that I’d not only known where David had been buried. I’d also had a strong feeling that he was murdered and that it was somehow linked to the secret government project. Dexter confided to me that they shut the project down after David disappeared. Yet once David’s body had come to light, Dexter had his own reasons for being suspicious. He wanted to meet with me, but said that first he had to see a private detective, a man who’d always expressed an interest in his son’s case.”
“Carrington,” said Max.
“I assumed so,” Deanna nodded. “However, the next day Dexter was dead, and I was terrified that he’d been silenced. I kept quiet and hoped that no one suspected that I’d ever been in contact with him. Then a few weeks ago, John Carrington contacted me. I was reluctant to talk to him at first, but then I figured it was safe enough after all these years. I arranged to meet him for coffee, but as we both know, he never made it.”
“Did he mention what he was working on?” said Max.
“Not specifically,” replied Deanna, “but from what you’ve told me about his office and that mailbox, Carrington was investigating links between those suspicious deaths and the experiments I was subjected to as a young girl, plus all the unsolved missing persons cases. It looks like the project never really stopped. The military might finally have developed a weapon from their work with psychics. I think the project simply went further underground after that and Kovac was still working on it, right up until his recent retirement. Someone called Kane was part of it all back then too. The guy you met at the police station has to be the same man.”
“He seemed to know so much about me,” said Max.
“Did you experience any strange sensations when Kane was interviewing you?” Deanna asked.
“I had a headache,” Max confessed, “and I even blacked out.”
“Blacked out?” Deanna repeated. “For how long?”
“I’m not sure, to be honest,” replied Max. “Is it important?”
“What did Kane say to the other guys, when he’d finished with you?” Deanna inquired.
“I think he said I was pretty mixed up, or something like that,” Max replied. “I don’t exactly remember. I just wanted to get out of there as fast as I could.”
“Hmm, it sounds like he was probing your mind,” said Deanna. “That’s why you passed out.”
“Probing my mind?” said Max. “What are you talking about?”
“Kane is like me, Max,” Deanna explained, “but his psychic abilities have always been much more developed. However, it sounds like he couldn’t make sense of these images you’ve been seeing, the ones that he would have been able to access. Your connection to Carrington and Vanessa Dexter, no matter how innocent it might turn out to be, means they’ll be watching you, for a while at least.”
“So where do I fit into all this?” Max asked.
“Have you ever seen or even dreamt about David before?” Deanna asked. “Or perhaps about someone you didn’t recognize at the time, but who you now realize was him?”
Max shivered even though the room wasn’t especially cold.
“My imaginary friend,” he replied. “When I was four years old, it seemed as though he’d been around for as long as I could remember. I didn’t see him all the time, only when I was alone in my room, either playing or just before I fell asleep. Then on my fifth birthday, I was playing with my new toys in my room after the party guests had left. My imaginary friend was there, but this time it was different.”
Max swallowed hard as he struggled to continue.
“Go on,” urged Deanna.
“It was as if he was fading in and out,” Max continued. “It’s hard to describe. He was kind of shimmering. One second he was there and then the next he wasn’t. And he was trying to speak to me, which he’d never done before, although I don’t remember any words clearly. But I do remember that he reached out and touched me. I’ll never forget that icy cold feeling on my hand. I screamed and my dad came to see what was going on, but my imaginary friend had vanished. I never saw him again.”
“Until now,” added Deanna.
Max nodded.
“I realize now that my imaginary friend was David Dexter, trying to contact me,” he confessed. “I’ve never told anyone about that incident before. It’s something I’ve been desperate to forget ever since it happened. It’s always been too painful to remember.”
“And that’s when your nightmares started?” said Deanna.
“Yes,” Max confirmed, “but I never knew the cause. My dad was concerned, so I saw doctors for years and finally ended up at a specialist, but he wasn’t really much help. The nightmares started to go away after my seventh birthday. Not long after that, my dad decided I didn’t have to see Dr. Hammond anymore.”
“But you’re always worried he might suggest it again, aren’t you,” said Deanna.
“I guess so,” Max conceded. “That’s one of the reasons I’d never tell him about all this. He really would think I’d gone crazy.”
“Do you think you’re crazy, Max?” Deanna asked him.
“No,” said Max emphatically, “I honestly don’t. I know I saw David and spoke to him.”
“These visions definitely aren’t from your life, are they?” Deanna asked.
“No,” said Max. “After all that’s happened, I’m convinced that they’re part of David’s experiences.”
“But they don’t last long enough for you to make any sense of them, do they? Maybe it’s time to dig a little deeper?” Deanna suggested.
“How?” said Max, shaking his head.
“Through something called post-hypnotic regression,” Deanna continued. “I can put you under hypnosis and allow you to access memories from another life.”
“Is it safe?” said Max, nervously.
“Don’t worry,” Deanna assured him. “I’ve done this lots of times. Occasionally there can be something specific that causes distress, but I simply wake the person right away.”
“Well, if you’re sure,” said Max, still feeling a little uneasy.
“Come to the couch,” said Deanna, standing up, “and make yourself comfortable.”
Max walked over to the couch and lay down.
“Now what?” he said.
“Just relax,” Deanna instructed softly. “Now close your eyes and breathe deeply.”
Max did as she asked.
“Okay,” Deanna went on, “now keep breathing deeply. I’m going to take you
back. Just relax, deep breaths.”
Max felt as if he were steadily drifting away from the sound of Deanna’s voice, which grew increasingly faint, until it was completely gone.
“Are the restraints tight enough?”
“Yes, of course they are. I told you, I know what I’m doing.”
“Now keep still, David, this won’t hurt a bit.”
Max struggled in vain against the sturdy bonds that secured him to the table. Aleksander Kovac’s hand moved steadily closer. The hypodermic needle was now only inches from Max’s eye. Kane grinned in cruel satisfaction as Max screamed when the point of the needle made contact with his eyeball.
“Max! Max! Are you okay?”
Max was back on the couch.
“Are you okay?” Deanna repeated, looking extremely concerned. “I had to bring you out of it, you were having convulsions. What the hell was going on?”
“I was in David’s memories again,” gasped Max, sitting up. “Right when he was killed.”
“It was a traumatic memory, that’s all,” Deanna assured him. “Don’t worry, it’s quite normal.”
“But it was so real,” said Max. “I could feel the table underneath me and the restraints holding me down. They were as real as this couch, as real as you are!”
He grabbed Deanna’s hand tightly.
“It was nothing like a dream or a vision, nothing like them at all!” Max added, starting to panic. “I really felt the needle going in!”
“Are you certain?” Deanna asked, looking alarmed. “That’s really unusual.”
“You have to send me back again.”
“I don’t know, Max,” Deanna protested. “You really freaked me out just now. I’ve never experienced anything like that before.”
“I need to get further back into David’s memories,” insisted Max, “before the shock of his death. Can you do that?”
“Of course I can,” Deanna confirmed, before adding hesitantly, “but are you sure?”
“It’s the only way,” replied Max. “David’s murder is obviously too much of a barrier. You have to try and deliver me to an earlier point in his life.”
“Okay, Max, if you say so,” Deanna agreed, “but I’m definitely waking you up at the first sign of trouble. Agreed?”
Max nodded and settled down on the couch, before Deanna repeated her instructions. Once again, Max drifted into semi-consciousness, but he didn’t appear further back in David’s memories. Instead, Max was walking along a dark tunnel, at the end of which was a brilliant white light. Max could see eerie, shifting shapes in the brightness, but couldn’t quite bring them into focus. Then he heard someone speak to him.
“It isn’t your time. You must go back.”
Max didn’t recognize the soothing voice. Yet at the same time he sensed an odd connection to the speaker that he couldn’t explain.
“What is this place?” said Max. “Where am I?”
The voice simply repeated the words.
“It isn’t your time. You must go back, but to the beginning. You must put things right.”
Then suddenly the light vanished and Max was back, but not to where he’d expected to be.
MAX WAS STANDING
in a beautiful sitting room, containing luxurious sofas and elegant furniture, some of which looked antique. A polished black grand piano stood in front of a large window, outside of which lay a wide gravel driveway framed by rows of tall cedars. On the wall to his right a shelf was filled with framed photographs. One showed David Dexter and his classmates wearing their school uniforms with the school building behind them. A polished trophy stood next to the picture. Max crept over to the shelf. It was a rather nondescript metal cup, but on the plinth underneath was written “First Place - Piano Competition”, along with something in Latin that Max couldn’t understand.
This was unbelievable. Had Deanna really sent him back into the past? Max heard a noise from upstairs. David’s parents! On the shelf, there were several pictures of Mr. and Mrs. Dexter and at one end of the shelf were two photographs of David. In the first one, he was on a boat standing beside a suntanned middle-aged man who was holding an enormous fish. The palm trees in the background indicated a tropical location. Max recognized the boat and the accompanying scenery from his visions. In the second photograph, David was at a ski resort standing next to a girl with shoulder-length blonde hair. Then in the glass of the frame, Max saw his own reflection.
He started to hyperventilate and felt like he was going to throw up. Across from the bottom of the staircase, the door to the bathroom was slightly ajar. He darted over, closed the bathroom door and locked it. He leaned against the door, his mind still reeling, although his breathing was returning to normal.
An ornately framed mirror hung on the wall over the sink and Max was astonished at what he saw. Staring back at him was the face of David Dexter, the thick mop of black hair almost completely obscuring his blue eyes. Max ran his fingers up and down his face, cautiously pinching his cheeks to determine if he was dreaming. On Max’s wrist was the Rolex watch David had talked about on the bus and he was dressed in a black tuxedo. It was incredible. Deanna’s hypnosis had actually worked. Max had traveled back in time and into another life. Max felt like his head was going to explode, but he knew he certainly couldn’t hide in the bathroom all evening. He swallowed hard and opened the bathroom door.
“David? Are you ready to go?”
Max spun around to see Vanessa Dexter coming down the winding staircase, looking considerably younger than when he’d last seen her at Belvedere Mansions. She had sparkling blue eyes and her hair was a deep chestnut brown, cascading over her shoulders.