Night Visions (2 page)

THURSDAY

H
er eyes open suddenly in the darkness. At first there is only panicked breathing and the tympani of a pounding heart. She struggles to lift her arms and legs but can't move. Car tires screech on the street below, and she turns her head toward the window. Moisture beads on the inside of the pane. She tries again to move, straining until her body rises like an anchor from deep waters. One at a time, her feet touch the floor, and she begins to feel safe. Sweat bleeds through both sides of her T-shirt.

The bedside clock reads 3:20.

 

That night, she isn't focused on the match. Her opponent, a beginner, hopes to win by brute force, but fencing is about refinement, strategy, precision.
En garde.
Relying on strength slows him down, and his body telegraphs each move. Once again, he overcommits to the attack, lunging too hard with little sense of timing or distance. Her right arm feels heavy, slow. She
blinks twice, trying to ease the sting of her tired eyes. Foils clash around them, and she glances at a nearby duel. Each movement there seems choreographed, almost rhythmic.

Suddenly, she sees the metallic masks as cold and tortured. The fencers look like the faceless men who come for her in dreams. Coal-black eyes and bodies without shape. Her arm stiffens and her rhythm falters. A brute force punches through.

He scores a point.

“Gotcha, Sam.” He smiles arrogantly through the wire mesh.

The masks return to normal.

Other than giving her a few bruises, he hasn't accomplished much in the last five minutes. Now, with this point, he can feel less embarrassed about losing to a woman.
En garde.
It's time to finish the match and go home. She attacks on his preparation, lunges, and parries for a quick point. Match.

“Damn!” He yanks off his mask and glares.

“Maybe next time, Jim.” Samantha tries to sound encouraging but is too exhausted from her sleepless nights to really care.

“Yeah, yeah…” He hesitates, and Samantha wonders if he is going to ask her out for a drink. Again. She has used a string of unimaginative excuses to dodge his advances in the last few months, and she senses his growing resentment about her lack of interest.

They shake hands, and instead of speaking, he turns abruptly.

She can't be bothered with his bruised ego, she thinks. He's a poor fencer and a sore loser. She walks to the locker room with her head down.

Samantha undresses slowly. Her white cotton T-shirt is damp and heavy with sweat. Standing before a full-length mirror, she notices the way the light seems to reflect off the crescent-shaped scar on her abdomen. Its pallor disrupts the brown planes of her skin.

An image suddenly appears. A blade slicing through her yel
low shirt into the skin. Her attacker's hand steady, the motion even and smooth.

She blinks, moving her head quickly from side to side.

She pulls a loose gray sweatshirt over her head, then frees the back of her shoulder-length hair from the collar. She grabs the gym bag at her feet and looks again in the mirror. Her thin body seems frail in the reflection. Dark circles have formed underneath her deep brown eyes.

She leaves the club without saying good-bye to anyone.

 

A cold, steady wind pours honey-thick fog over the hills of San Francisco. Samantha wraps a thin coat around her body and hurries past the vacant shops and dark office buildings. Even in a city this large, the streets can feel empty. Shadows from trees and parking signs quiver under the yellow streetlights, and her footsteps ricochet against the brick and plaster walls. At times she changes the rhythm of her steps to hear the sounds shift. It makes her feel less alone.

Samantha parked near her favorite church in the city. It's a few blocks out of the way, but she likes listening to the choir that rehearses on Thursday evenings. In the vestibule, she picks up the program for Sunday Mass, then steps into the nave. Dozens of candles glow peacefully in front of an altar to the Blessed Virgin Mary. Some of her white toes have turned flesh-colored from the hands and lips of the faithful. Her outstretched arms point downward.

Samantha has often considered lighting candles in a gesture of prayer but can't bring herself to worship. Instead, she sits in one of the back pews. It smells like dry leather and incense.

Inhaling deeply, she thinks about the long-ago Sunday mornings with her family. While Father slept, Mother would get her and Rachel ready for church. Then after dressing in their nicest outfits—faces shiny with makeup and hair brushed back and
clipped—the sisters sprang into action. They pulled hair and tugged at clothes. They yelped and screeched while chasing each other through the house, dodging precariously close to end tables and floor lamps. Invariably someone fell. Invariably someone cried for Mother. A few scratches and quickly forgotten tears later, they were out the door at 8:40. Mother in the middle. One girl clinging to her right hand, the other to her left.

All of this while Father slept.

The brisk walk in the cool air never failed to restore peace. Mother smelled like orange blossoms and lilacs, and her long, soft dress moved in waves as she walked. Samantha remembers thinking she wanted to smell that way when she grew up. She wanted to take long strides and wink while smiling. A few minutes before Mass, they climbed up the wide marble stairs, dipped their fingers into a bowl of holy water, and slid into a hard wooden pew. They fidgeted and half-listened as the priest started muttering in Latin that couldn't drown out a chorus of crying babies. The mixture of colognes, perfumes, and sweat made her dizzy. The air felt like a skin-tight sweater. Hot. Uncomfortable. She leaned closer to Mother and inhaled.

Samantha can't fully recall Mother's smell or even the touch of her hand. Sometimes a stray scent—a waft of perfume or springtime flower—brings back a gesture or expression. But it's never quite right. That is the worst part—not forgetting but not being able to remember either.

She was twelve when her mother died in a car accident. Her father, who slept on Sundays and preferred silence to the clamor in church, was too devastated to comfort anyone else. It was the first time she realized that some wounds were too deep to heal.

She looks at the cross hanging above the altar. The hands of Christ crushed, pierced. Did he ever forgive his father for allowing such suffering? The bass soloist starts singing an aria from
Bach's cantata
Ich habe genug,
and she follows the English translation as he sings in German:

He holds the word
rest
until the violins and cellos take over. She closes her eyes, which burn from not sleeping for months, and she listens….

 

Outside, the final notes fade as the door closes behind her. It feels darker now, and she wishes her car were here instead of around the corner. She walks faster, and the city sounds play tricks with her imagination. Car horns, the murmur of television sets, voices, barking dogs. They seem near and far away at the same time.

Then she hears another set of footsteps growing louder, moving faster and faster against the pavement. She looks behind her but can't see anyone. Her name echoes off the walls.

“Sam—Samantha—”

Strong hands grab her shoulders suddenly. She runs into a rock-hard chest, turning too late to see who's in front of her. His coat whips around her with the wind, and she only has time for one thought.

I must act now, before he—before the darkness—

S
amantha twists to the left and thrusts her right palm into his chest, bracing herself as she steps back.

“Hey, hey! Easy there.”

“Frank?
Frank!
What the hell are you doing here?”

“It's good to see you too.”

She watches him touch the spot where she pushed him. The dim streetlight turns his emerald eyes and sandy-blond hair to gray. As his hands disappear into the deep pockets of his long coat, she notices the familiar way it hangs from his shoulders, bringing out the muscular lines of his nearly six-foot frame.

“So…how are you?” His words sound tentative, unsteady.

“
How am I?
What the hell are you doing here?”

“I just flew in and wanted to see you. It's been a while.”

“Most people call first. How did you know where—”

“You seem a little jumpy. Is everything all right?”

“I'm not jumpy,” Samantha snaps, feeling another flash of anger. This type of presumption has always been his most irritating quality. While dating in law school, they rarely fought, and
when they did, it was mostly about words. Frank needed words to explain what they had. Words to clarify and shape, define and solidify. Words to make her accountable. He wanted to be confident in their love, to know it was real, so he pushed too hard for assurances she couldn't give. And when she retreated further into silence, he talked as if he knew her better than she knew herself. Predicting when she would be late, angry, ecstatic, distant. As if he could fill in the words she refused to speak.

“So how did you know where to find me?” she continues.

“It's Thursday night. That means fencing practice, then choir. I assume you were fencing before this, right?” He points to her gym bag.

Samantha moves past him without answering and continues to her car. Her heart is still pounding loudly, and she hopes he can't hear it. She is relieved when he falls in step beside her.

“So, other than stalking me, what are you doing back in San Francisco? I can't believe your new firm is already giving you vacation time.”

“Well, it's not exactly a firm. It's more like a corporation with a legal and investigative department.” He pauses momentarily, looking down at the pavement as they walk. “That's why I'm here. I'm investigating a case.”

“Wow, a real live crime fighter! Did they give you a cape and a utility belt?” Her smile takes the edge off the words.

“Funny. Actually, it involves a missing woman. I'd like to get your take on a few things, if you don't mind.”

She doesn't respond. Only the sound of their syncopated footsteps and her thudding heart fill the silence between them.

“Well, here we are,” she says. Standing in front of her once-red, now faded-orange Volvo, she searches through her bag for keys.

“Look, can we get coffee or something? I'd really appreciate—”

“I haven't heard from you in six months, Frank. What am I
supposed to do, drop everything just because you're back in town for a few days? If I'm so damn predictable, you should know better than—”

“I'm talking about a woman's life, Sam. I just want an hour of your time. Then, if you don't want to have anything to do with me, fine.”

She looks at him, surprised by his words. She doesn't want him out of her life. She just doesn't know where he fits in anymore.

“Well, in that case, you're treating.”

F
rank insists on driving his car because the radio in Sam's doesn't work. It hasn't worked in almost three years, another point of contention between them. As far back as he can remember, Frank has surrounded himself with sound. Most of the time, it doesn't matter what—talk radio, television shows, music. He needs something to fill the silence. For Frank, background noise makes the stillness in his apartment less lonely and pauses in conversation less sad.

He thinks he must have inherited this need for sound from his father, who lifted heavy boxes for a freight forwarding company. It was hard, loud work. Every day Mr. Bennett heard the din of forklifts, truck engines, and power tools while loading and unloading large aluminum containers. His thick, twisted knuckles looked like those of an arthritic puppeteer, and Frank can still see them clasped in front of his face at dinner. Elbows on the table, his fingers poised over a plate of colorless chicken and peas, dangling invisible strings. But after a glass of wine, when Frank and his sister went to their rooms, Mr. Bennett became an
inventor. In the middle of their cluttered garage floor, his workbench rested precariously on two cracked cement slabs, and a naked bulb glowed from the ceiling overhead. The bench's black-brown wood looked as if it came from the deck of a nineteenth-century whaling ship. And there, in that dimly lit place, where the bench would rock under the work of his hard hands, Frank's father must have felt like a sailor traveling to new lands.

He kept a radio next to the bench and listened to jazz or classical music. He especially loved the sound of wind instruments—trumpets, saxophones, clarinets. He liked to feel musical rhythms while working. Frank always thought that this must have been his father's favorite time of day, because he could control the sounds around him. Whatever noises he made with hammers and saws were accompanied by Cole Porter, George Gershwin, Aaron Copland. These were
his
sounds.

On most nights, Frank could peer out his bedroom window and see the garage. This was the way he liked to remember his father. Watching him work as the hum of a hacksaw and the folk tunes of Copland gradually lulled Frank to sleep.

 

He glances at Samantha, who has been changing radio stations absentmindedly. Her raven hair cascades over the side of her face until she instinctively hooks it behind her ear. He studies the gentle slope of her nose, her slightly parted lips, and remembers tracing them with his fingertip many months ago. Even though they are the same age, she seems much older than twenty-seven now. There is a weariness to her face that worries him.

She turns and asks about his new job. As Frank talks, he can faintly hear a woman's voice on the radio and the pulse of a song. He notices Sam fidgeting in the seat as if it is too small for her body. Her gym bag crowds the floor at her feet, and she leans forward to move it. Or is she straining to hear the music?
He can't tell. Her smell fills the car, and Frank inhales quietly. Being near her like this feels comforting, safe.

He talks about his job with unnecessary evasiveness. The Palici Corporation mostly specializes in investigative work for high-profile clients. The kind of people who can afford to pay for silence and minimal exposure. It is staffed by people who have worked in the legal system, law enforcement, criminology, psychology, technological sciences, and scientific research.

“We either get results faster than local law enforcement—and more discreetly—or we succeed where others have failed,” he continues. “It's really amazing, Sam. I've been training with investigators at Quantico—”

“What are you doing with these people, Frank? Helping the wealthy get around the law because they can afford it?” She feels dizzy and slightly nauseated. Her voice doesn't disguise her disappointment. “You were one of the best law students to come out of Stanford—a shoe-in for assistant district attorney in San Francisco. A job where you could do something important.”

“Something important? I'm searching for a missing woman.” In truth, the corporation gave him the assignment because no one else wanted it. The director had called it an exercise in futility. “No one rents her own car before disappearing,” he'd said. “She'll probably return home any day now.”

That was over two weeks ago, and she was still missing.

Frank had researched the case and come up with more questions than answers. Following several leads, he took a 747 to San Francisco. To Sam.

“Oh, come on. Who's looking for her? A psycho boyfriend? Rich parents?”

He is annoyed that she guessed right. “The fact that her family has money doesn't make this case less important, less noble than the ones you deal with. You actually
were
Stanford's best,
and now you're essentially a social worker for the Oakland Legal Clinic, helping ‘the disadvantaged' get away scot-free.” He pauses only to catch his breath, not to quell his anger. “Sure, some of them deserve it. Some of them need it. But how many really are criminals? How many do you defend under the banners of discrimination and social injustice? They take advantage of the system, Sam. You know it as well as I do.”

“At least I don't check their bank accounts first. The system doesn't give a shit about the poor because it's easier to let them slip through the cracks. They can't protect themselves from wrongful evictions, discrimination on the job, police brutality. They can't afford it, and no one else cares—”

Frank brakes suddenly for a red light, and Sam presses hard against the dashboard.

“Sorry,” he mutters unconvincingly. “Her parents may be rich, but they're also terrified.” This is Frank's way of changing the subject. He doesn't want to fight, and he senses that she doesn't either.

“Sorry.”

“Don't be.”

The light turns green.

 

The Starbucks is crowded with lone college students, couples holding hands as they sip coffee, and single men pretending to read while checking out women at nearby tables. Frank and Sam find a corner booth that is somewhat private.

“Get me something decaffeinated,” she says.

“In a coffee shop?”

He smiles and puts his satchel on the table before heading to the counter. He takes long, confident strides and says something that makes the cashier giggle. Samantha watches with a mixture of desire and envy. She has always admired his self-assurance and ease around strangers, but it makes her uncomfortable.
Communication should be earned. It shouldn't happen in line at fast-food restaurants and coffee shops. It should take time. It should take something more than words and a smile. Frank pays for the order, and the cashier giggles again.

Samantha wonders how Frank and the other men in the room see her. A tired woman with baggy sweatpants and a frayed sweatshirt? Or is there something enticing about a body masked with shapeless clothes? As Frank walks back to the table, she suddenly feels self-conscious about her empty hands. She reaches up and touches her hair, still damp and sticky with sweat.
I must look terrible,
she thinks as he places the coffee in front of her.

She doesn't want to think about her body or his exchange with the cashier, so she quickly turns to the case.

“What about this missing woman?”

Her abruptness makes Frank noticeably uncomfortable, uncertain about seeing her after so much time. Pulling out a file, he hands her two pictures and begins talking about Catherine Anne Weber. His tone is serious, more professional now.

“Until a month ago, Catherine was a victim's advocate for the Durham Police Department. She had that job for over two years, handling mostly domestic violence and child abuse cases. Apparently she was very good at it. She has lots of friends in the area, and her parents live in Raleigh.”

Samantha looks at the first photograph while Frank talks. It was taken with a group of friends at an upscale bar. They are celebrating something—happy to be there, to be together. Catherine stands in the middle, smiling radiantly. Arms hidden, wrapped behind the girls beside her. She has a tall, slender body.

“As part of a short vacation, she went to visit a college girlfriend in Memphis, Tennessee, but she missed her return flight five days later. Her friend drove Catherine to the airport, even walked her to the security checkpoint. Ten minutes later, Cather
ine made two calls with a calling card—the first to her answering machine, the second to another friend in Boulder, Colorado. Then she rented a car and drove to Kansas City, where she stayed at a Lucky 8 motel. Late the following evening, she arrived in Boulder. According to this friend, Catherine only told her that she was coming the day before.”

In the second photograph, Catherine sits by a lake, looking wistfully at the water. It's a quiet, solitary moment, and she must have been unaware of the camera. She has a striking face with small, perfectly proportioned features. Her short black hair brings out the delicate quality of her white skin. Any man could fall in love with this face, Samantha thinks, and she wonders if Frank has.

“She left Boulder exactly three weeks ago, and a series of credit-card charges leads to California: a motel the following night in Salt Lake City, including several drinks and dinner for two at Lucci's; then a motel in Reno; lunch in Davis, California; and dinner later that night at the Silver Dragon in San Francisco.”

“She certainly was in a hurry.” Samantha looks up. “Who'd she have dinner with in Salt Lake?”

“I don't know. Catherine never mentioned anyone from Salt Lake to her friends or family.” He takes a sip of his caffè mocha. “She may have been picked up or something.”

“Then she wouldn't have paid for dinner.”

“Don't be sexist.” He smiles at his own joke and continues. “In any case, the motel manager in Reno remembers her clearly because she complained about a leaky faucet in the bathroom. She demanded a room change at two in the morning, claiming that she couldn't sleep with all the noise.”

“Was she alone?”

“She rented a single. The manager didn't mention anyone else. Why?”

“I'm just wondering about the dinner. She could have met someone who traveled with her or followed her to Reno.”

“Possible.” He pauses to consider this, looking away from her and the table for a moment. “In any case, she just disappears after that. The rental car hasn't been returned. No credit or calling card activity since then. Nothing.”

“And you spoke with the restaurant here?”

“Yeah, but no one recognized her picture. It's a busy place with lots of solo customers.”

Samantha lays the pictures on the table between them. “So what's the deal with her parents? They must be wealthy or you wouldn't be involved, right?”

“Yes,” he answers, ignoring the jab.

“Let me guess, tobacco?”

“Actually they own the largest surgical equipment company in the United States, Precision Medical Supplies. They sell EKG monitors, fiberoptic tools for cardiac procedures, ultrasonic cutting systems, polymer ligation clips, surgical lighting.”

“Do you even know what any of that stuff is?”

“I have a pretty good idea about the lights, but other than that, no.”

They both laugh, then become silent.

“So what do you think happened?”

“I'm not sure. She was alone. She has no friends here that we know of.”

Samantha recognizes the evasiveness. “And?”

His face falls to the left, avoiding her eyes. “I think she's dead—that her body and the car will turn up somewhere in the city.”

“Wait a minute.” Samantha doesn't want to accept this—not with Catherine's face staring up at her from the table. “What if she's running away? What if she wants to be missing?”

“Why leave such a clear trail? She could have paid for the dinners and hotels with cash. Why keep the rental car?”

“Maybe at first she wasn't sure if she wanted to disappear. Maybe she didn't have the courage until she got here.”

“According to her friends and family, she has no reason to run.”

“Unless she's running from them.”

“Well, that still leaves the million-dollar question. Why come to San Francisco?” Frank notices Samantha's long fingers wrapping around the cup in front of her. “And that's where I need your help.”

“How so?”

“If she did come here to start over, my guess is that she would try finding a job in social services. She was very committed to her work in North Carolina, and even though she doesn't need the money, she might be volunteering or working with some victims' advocacy group. Could you find out if any organization you work with has recently hired someone or received an application?”

“I thought you said she was probably dead.”

“I did.” He looks at the pictures lying in front of her. “But I know you'd rather prove me wrong about this.” He smiles faintly. “I want to be sure, Sam. What do you say?”

“Of course.” Catherine's smile seems sad and somewhat artificial to her now. The kind of smile that looks cracked from being used too often to make people think everything is all right. The kind of smile that flight attendants wear, strained and weary.

“Of course I will.”