Mind Games (7 page)

She sighed and turned from the door, skipping through her living room. Teaching a yoga class with sexy thoughts of Derrick on her mind was not a good idea. She might blurt out something lingering in her subconscious and embarrass herself. She grabbed her car keys from the desk.

The fading damp spot on the floor threw her mind back into overdrive and where it needed to be. She reached down and touched the carpet, surprised when she found bits of seaweed embedded in the fibers. How could Derrick have missed this? She ran the dried bits of seaweed between her fingers. Proof. The dead girl from the ocean had been standing right here.

*               *               *

With the ocean breeze at his back, Derrick paused at his car and stared at Sparrow’s turquoise door and the seashell-encrusted wreath he hadn’t noticed when he’d burst through her front door after hearing her scream. On the other side of that door was one beautiful woman, making him feel young and reckless. Something he had missed out on after Kat had disappeared. Then, all he could focus on was finishing medical school, getting on with his residency, and scraping up enough money to buy the RV to convert it into the Mobile Health Clinic. He raked his hand through his hair again and then dragged it down the front of face.

Kat. Hadn’t she been the reason for the Mobile Health Clinic?

He’d never given up hope of finding her. Like so many teenage girls with stars in their eyes and delusions of grandeur, he’d figured she’d run back to Southern Cal. It was her home until their parents uprooted them to Colorado. Kat never made the adjustment. He’d heard her argue with their parents about leaving, but he never thought she’d do it.

Why hadn’t he taken her threat more seriously? He rubbed at his eyes, wiping the guilt from his mind. He couldn’t imagine what he’d do if he found her curled up in a vacant doorway like the young girl he’d found earlier this morning. He’d gone through painstaking measures to have computer-generated images of her made through the years. He hoped that when he found her, she’d resemble the grown woman he’d imagined.

He turned the key in the ignition and sped away from her place. Would Sparrow understand part of his mission wasn’t only to save kids but to find his sister? He wouldn’t be content until he had that closure.

Sparrow led the intermediate yoga class with confidence. “Remember to visualize yourself performing the pose perfectly, then, with focus and control, move into the postures. First, let’s start with some breathing. Remember, slow breathing can add years onto our lives.”

Sitting cross-legged on her mat, she took a deep breath in through her nose with her mouth closed, feeling the air expand her stomach, ribcage, and chest area. She exhaled.

“You want to feel the air fill your entire lungs. Make sure that your breathing is slow, rhythmic, and deep. Let’s take a few more deep breaths like this, and then I want you to practice alternate nostril breathing. Focus on your breath. Repeat this exercise ten times, and then move into ten neck rolls, shoulder rotations, and leg stretches.”

Her lithe body contorted into the basic postures. She maintained each position by keeping still while consciously breathing into the pose. Sandalwood lightly peppered the studio air. Mother Nature’s natural, delicate, calming, woodsy fragrance soothed her. She focused her attention on the rhythmic sound of her breathing, and occasionally her soft voice directed the students into the twisting, bending, and stretching movements that would increase the flexibility of their muscles and joints and improve circulation. At this level, the yogis didn’t need much coaching from her, and she preferred the class work in silence. A quiet, clear mind would bring them closer to their feelings and their inner selves.

The class ended. Sparrow’s heart rate gradually slowed. Her pulse a slight beat. She embraced the near-death experience, picturing the golden white light. The audible breathing of the other yogis grew faint, and the sound of her breath disappeared. She floated on a white cloud above the surface of the ocean. Vivid blue pulled her down and away from the white light, to the ocean waves below, crashing along the shore. Sparrow fought against the image. She didn’t want to go to the ocean. She concentrated on visualizing the golden white light. She didn’t want to picture the ocean or hear the ebb and flow of the tide. Her subconscious sabotaged the light and forced her mind to where she didn’t want to go. The ocean. Water splashed. She heard girls laughing, having fun.

The sky was dusky shades of orange, purple, and pink. Sparrow and another girl ran along the shore. They each carried a broken piece of driftwood, writing their names in the moist sand, laughing and watching the hungry water eat the letters away. They jogged together, shoving and pushing each other. The girl skipped ahead of her. Sparrow grabbed her by the arm, but she jerked away.

“Come on, we have to get back before he knows we’re gone.”

“I’m not going back, Spare. I can’t.”

With deliberate steps, the girl walked backward into the ocean. Sparrow watched in shocked disbelief as the girl went deeper and deeper into the water. When the water reached the girl’s waist, Sparrow’s eyes locked with hers. She understood why the girl wanted to take her life and couldn’t stop her. The water line rose to the girl’s neck. She thrust her hand above the surface and waved goodbye. All Sparrow had been able to think as she looked into the girl’s soft blue eyes was: You Know-What You-Must Do.

The girl’s head went under the water, her hand protruding above the surface, until all Sparrow could see was her fingers before the tide took her completely under. Panic gripped Sparrow as she watched her friend take her life.

The frothy waves pulled the girl under. She stared at the killer ocean. From its mighty depths the girl’s body popped up, gasping for life, but death pulled her back under. Blue turned pitch as night. Total darkness consumed Sparrow.

Sparrow’s eyes flew open. She glanced around the yoga studio. The students were gone. Rolling up to a seated position, she stretched her arms and hands forward, reaching out to touch her toes. Breathing into the stretch, she exhaled the memory away. She couldn’t remember the girl’s name, but the thought she’d had earlier when Derrick asked her to help him find the injured runaway resonated loudly.

The last time I helped rescue a runaway, she ended up dead.

She shoved the jelly-rolled yoga mat onto the stack with the others. A strange chill cascaded over her. She rubbed her hands up and down her arms. The dead girl from the ocean filled the doorframe.

Sparrow screamed and ran for the emergency exit at the opposite end of the room, scooping up her overstuffed bag as she went.

Inside the safety of her Toyota Prius, she sat shivering. The cool leather seats seeped through the thin fabric of her yoga pants. She wrapped her arms around her shoulders, rubbing her hands along the sides of arms. She threw back her head against the seat, closed her eyes, and collected her thoughts.

Who was the girl running beside her on the beach that dreadful, dusky night? They had both waved broken pieces of driftwood in the air and carved their names in the sand. Sparrow concentrated on the girl’s jagged handwriting, trying to bring the image to life in her mind’s eye. First, the girl had carved the word SPARE in crooked letters. Sparrow’s heart rate hitched in anticipation, and she searched her mind for the elusive girl’s name, but the ocean rushed to the shore. The girl’s name disappeared in the rushing water. It was no use. In her meditative state she hadn’t captured the most important piece of information. It wouldn’t come to her now.

Why had the girl written SPARE in the sand? No one called her that. Dr. Von Langley and her mother frowned upon nicknames. According to her father, it posed a potential threat for borderline personality disorders, and none of her peers in Crystal Cove had been allowed to call each other by anything but their proper birth name. Dr. Von Langley had made certain that any child who “got out of line” took full responsibility for their actions. “You must realize your shortcomings,” he’d said. The more Sparrow thought about it, the more ridiculous she found it.

Since Derrick’s return she’d been thinking a lot more about those short summers he’d spent in Crystal Cove, helping his father and hanging out with the older boys in the neighborhood. Some of her memories emerged clearly. Others were fragments of things she couldn’t remember, like running on the beach with a girl she felt had been her friend. She searched the files in her mind for the name but came up short.

Street sounds obliterated her ability to think back to almost fourteen years ago. It was no use. She was wasting time. Derrick would be at her house soon; she needed to get home. She opened her eyes and started the car.

A sudden movement caught her peripheral vision. She snapped her head to the right. Sitting in the passenger seat was the dead girl from the ocean. The same girl she had witnessed drowning.

Sparrow blinked. The girl didn’t fade from her sight. Her transparent, sad eyes gazed directly into Sparrow’s. Sparrow swallowed down the fear and panic rising in her chest. If she and the girl had been friends, she wouldn’t hurt her. Would she?

Sparrow stared into the pitiful girl’s eyes and searched for answers. The girl twisted something from around her wrist and dangled it in front of Sparrow. She lurched back in her seat away from the girl’s outstretched arm and dangling shiny trinkets. It was a charm bracelet. A tear fell from the girl’s eye, and she faded into thin air.

*               *               *

Derrick arrived at Sparrow’s around seven o’clock that evening, surprised to see open boxes carelessly scattered across the floor, a high school yearbook open on top of the glass coffee table. A varsity jacket was thrown across one of the dining room chairs. A tight expression creased her eyes and wrinkled her nose. Whatever she was looking for must have been important.

“I know the place is a mess. I’m looking for…” Her voice trailed off. “Never mind. We should go.”

He didn’t argue with her rush to get him out of her house. He was anxious to find the girl who had nearly taken away his chances at fatherhood. The girl didn’t mean to hurt him. She was an addict, who probably would have done anything for a quick fix, but now she was hurt. That fall she’d taken from the back of the Mobile Health Clinic RV had him concerned. He felt responsible for what had happened to her after he’d slammed on the brakes.

“Do you want some help finding whatever it is you’ve lost?” he asked, admiring her backside. She bent over and reached into a large box.

“No, no. Just give me a sec.”

The jeans she wore hugged her rear, jolting his libido. He looked away. His groin didn’t need any further aggravation. He remembered the steamy kiss they’d shared earlier. Her body had molded against his in all the right places. He wanted to pick her up and pin her against the wall and kiss her again.

She pulled her hands from the box and walked over to him, giving him a quick kiss on the cheek. “I’m sorry. Let me wash my hands and we’ll go.”

“No problem. You’re helping me.”

He smiled and followed her toward the kitchen. She’d scattered photos across the dining room table. There were several pictures of her and Dana. The smiling couple sent a twinge of jealousy through him.

“Are you planning to do something with these?” he asked, noticing the question sounded more like,
I hope you’ll be getting rid of them.
It wasn’t like him to get insecure about another man, especially a dead man. Dana wasn’t a threat to him. But he didn’t know if she’d been in love with him, and that bothered Derrick.

“I’m trying to find a photo of me and an old friend. She’s been on my mind lately and, well, this is going to sound really strange, but I can’t remember her name.”

“So you’re thinking about someone you don’t remember? You’re right, that is”—he paused, thinking about the last couple of traumas she’d suffered—“odd.”

She tossed the dishtowel she’d been drying her hands with onto the counter. “I know. It’s weird. I was teaching yoga, and I had this vision. I was running on the beach with this girl. We were laughing and writing our names in the sand with broken tree limbs. The shore swept up and washed our names away. I could see mine, but I never caught a glimpse of hers.”

“Something in your memory will shake loose. Do you think it could be some sort of daydream induced by the deep relaxation brought on by the yoga, or does it feel like part of your past?”

“Parts of it are very real to me, yet I don’t know who she is. We had to have been friends, because we looked like we were having fun. I can’t figure out why I’d be daydreaming about myself when I was young.”

“Sounds like a suppressed memory to me. Did something happen when you were at the beach with her?”

He noticed her face paled. She pulled her lips together and then pushed them into a pucker, wringing her hands. He didn’t think he was going to like what she was about to say.

“She drowned.”

“Oh, baby.” He went to her and pulled her close. Her clasped hands unfolded, rising up his chest. She flattened her palms against him. “When did this happen?”

“That’s just it, I don’t know. Derrick, I’m scared. I didn’t want to tell you this, but I saw her. It’s the girl that was in my house. The same girl that I saw in the ocean.”

He hugged her closer to him. “No, baby, you didn’t see her. You’re just trying too hard to remember something from your past. Why didn’t you tell me about this sooner?”

“Because I just figured it out, and it doesn’t make sense. I told her we had to get back, and she wouldn’t come with me and I-I watched her…” Her hands dashed off his chest and flew around her mouth.

“What? What is it?” He stroked her hair from her face and pulled her hands away from her mouth.

“I watched her walk backward into the ocean, and I let her die. I helped her die. Oh. My. God. Derrick, what have I done?”

He looked directly into her eyes. “It’s okay, baby. You haven’t done anything.”

“Why can’t I remember? Something awful happened to that girl. I just know it. When I watched her taking her life, I couldn’t stop her. Why?” Agony creased the corners of her eyes, and worry sprouted fine lines between her slender brows. She rocked back and forth on her heels. He squeezed her hands in his and steadied her.

Sparrow had a firm grasp on reality. The story sounded crazy, but Derrick believed her past was trying to tell her something. Perhaps she’d witnessed the suicide on the beach and hadn’t known the girl at all? There were so many possibilities. He didn’t want to suggest anything to her, as implanting unnecessary information could make things worse, and she might never sort out the memory.

“Whatever happened will eventually come to you. But it might not be a bad idea to see a hypnotherapist.”

“No, Derrick. Please, telling you has been hard enough.”

He placed his hands on the tops of her shoulders. “Okay, but promise me you’ll talk to me as you figure things out.” She nodded in agreement.

“Let’s go find that girl. At least I might be able to help her.”