The Astral (15 page)

“Quite.”

“What about us?” Chang asked. “Do we hold hands and concentrate, like at a séance? Or what?”

He smiled tolerantly. “Just move your chairs back a bit, there, that's fine,” he said. “And try to remain quiet, please.”

At the Doctor's instructions, Catherine closed her eyes and began to breathe deeply. His voice was low and coaxing. She found herself going under easily, naturally, her tension fading.

“You will cloak yourself in the light,” his murmuring voice told her, “The light will protect you. And you will remain invisible to all eyes. You will be only a witness. You will see, and remain unseen, safe within the shielding light.”

She drew the light around herself as he instructed, felt its protective comfort invade her, relieving her anxieties. Her breathing deepened.

“In the future, you will do this yourself whenever you choose, easily, naturally...in the light....”

Help me, help me
...the cries came from a great distance; not just Becky's voice, an entire chorus of young voices calling to her:
Help me...help...help....

“...Cloak yourself in the light....”

She slipped effortlessly downward—and found herself standing in a playground. In the distance, two young boys tossed a baseball back and forth, but closer to where she stood, the small carousel, the teeter-totter, the swings, were all empty of children. There were only two men nearby, seated on a bench, watching the boys play, and...her heart skipped a beat. The two men were Paterson and The Bear. For a moment she hung back, her fear resurfacing and then she heard the Doctor's voice within her, and did as he instructed, reaching again for the light as if she had known all along how to do this, wrapping it once more about herself.

“Here he comes now,” The Bear said. They looked at her. No, she realized, through her, at someone approaching from behind. For a moment, though, she thought Paterson looked directly into her eyes.

She shrank away from him, and was back in the Doctor's cozy room, the fire crackling beside her, that moment of terror like a scent lingering in her senses.

The sudden opening of her eyes gave Gabronski a shock. He had been in control, fully expecting to bring her back in due time on his instructions. It was rare, almost unheard of for a subject to awaken on her own. That, more than anything else, told him how frightened this woman really was, far more frightened than she had admitted or shown. He ought to have realized that, he scolded himself.

“You are fine, you are safe,” he told her quickly, and reached to take one of her hands in his. It was ice cold.

“
Are
you okay?” Jack demanded, kneeling by her chair and turning her face toward him.

“Yes. I....” She hesitated, still disoriented, trying to collect her thoughts. “It was them: Paterson and The Bear. They were in a park, a children's playground, watching two little boys play, and waiting for someone. The Bear said, ‘here he comes,' and then I woke up back here.”

“Did they see you?” Gabronski asked, still distressed, and puzzled, by her sudden awakening.

“I...I don't know. I thought not, but, then, Paterson looked at me, as if he were looking into my eyes. It...it startled me. I'm sorry. I panicked. That's what brought me back.”

“That third person you said you sensed,” Chang said in an excited voice. “Did you see who he was?”

Catherine shook her head. “No. He was approaching from behind me. They looked toward him, looked through me I thought, only, as I said, Paterson might have glimpsed me, or maybe he only sensed me. He seems to do that.”

Chang jumped up from her chair, clenching her fists. “We need to know who they were meeting.”

“I'll go back,” Catherine said, but her voice was tremulous, without conviction.

“No. You can't,” Jack said firmly. He understood how Chang and Gabronski felt; but Catherine's safety was his first concern. When she looked as if she might argue, he appealed to the others. “Look at her, she's white as a ghost. I'm not going to let her go there again.”

Catherine started to reply, but Gabronski gave his head a vehement shake. “I think he may be right,” he said. “There's something else: I've been thinking about this, and I don't like it. You say that this person has only recently begun to, as you put it, to stalk you? And that he has quickly grown stronger at it, his presence more real with each occasion?”

“Yes. At first, it was only a vague feeling, but each time it gets worse. Even now, wrapped in the light as you instructed me, I had this sense that he knew I was there, that he could step right up to me, could take me in a stranglehold....” She gasped with the memory and buried her face in her hands. “It's horrible, I can't describe it.”

Gabronski nodded. He at least seemed to have quite accepted Catherine's stalker as real. After a moment, Jack asked, “If it is true, if he really is stalking her on some invisible level, what can we do about it?”

Gabronski's jolly demeanor of a little while before was gone entirely. He frowned while he considered the question, and was silent for so long that Jack was about to ask it again, when finally he spoke. “I have an idea that perhaps this individual, this Paterson, that perhaps he too has psychic abilities, abilities that may even have been heretofore untapped. He might have been totally unaware of them until recently, though probably he used them from time to time without thinking about it, or maybe he simply considered them hunches. Many people have these gifts, even use them, without being consciously aware of them.”

He looked directly into Catherine's face. “But there is some powerful link between the two of you, on the astral plane. I very much fear that your visits to him may have been what awakened whatever gifts he possesses, may even be feeding them.”

“You mean, every time I see him, I am making him stronger, leading him to me?”

“It would appear so. I think to visit this individual again may be to place yourself in grave danger.”

“But I can't stop, don't you see?” Catherine said in a plaintive voice. “If this is what I was sent back for, I have to see it through.”

“Catherine, you don't even know that you were ‘sent back' for any purpose,” Jack said angrily. “At best that's just a guess on your part. And for what purpose? You said these voices told you there was something only you could do? How could that mean catching these two monsters? That's what the police are for, isn't it, people like Chang, here? How can you imagine that you're the one, the only one, who could do that?”

“I don't know,” she admitted with a shrug. “I don't know what it is that only I can do. I only know I have no choice but to continue down this road.” Her voice dropped to a near-whisper. “This life that I was given back, it isn't really mine to own, is it? It was only lent to me, as I see it. And maybe that's the point: that I was killed, and the very worst that could happen to me is that I'll end up back where I was when Paterson shot me.”

Jack wanted to say, that's the very worst thing that could happen to me, too, but her eyes pleaded with him for understanding. Understanding that he did not have to give. He swallowed his frustration and said nothing.

“Anyway,” she said into his silence, “Whether I was given some heavenly mission or not, now that I know who and what he is, I could never rest until I see him brought to justice. I owe Becky that. I owe it to all those weeping children.”

Chang shot Gabronski a quick look, but he only shook his head sadly. “Yes, I can understand that,” he said softly. He folded his hands across his belly. “It's intriguing, isn't it? You speak of an angel, but really, doesn't it seem that you have two angels, the bright one, and a dark one? You are wed to both of them, I think, for reasons that we cannot yet perceive.”

“Is there no way to protect myself from that dark angel?” Catherine asked.

He sighed. “Only the light. It was the light, your bright angel, who sent you on this mission. We have to believe she will protect you. Of one thing I am certain. I know evil of this magnitude, I have experienced it before—and nothing on this mortal plane could protect you from it. There are no crosses, no silver bullets, no wooden stakes to kill such demons when they are within you.”

* * * *

They were quiet on the way back to Los Angeles. For once, Chang did not even turn on her rock and roll music. After a time, to relieve the somber mood, Jack said, “A charming man, that Gabronski.”

“Yes, he's a darling,” Catherine agreed with him, glad to be diverted from her morbid thoughts of Paterson. “Is he the chief of the hospital?”

“That's Ederle,” Chang said, “He's the chief. He runs Happy Acres.”

“In any case, the patients must adore Doctor Gabronski.”

Chang started to say something, but on her left, a huge semi tried to bully itself into a too-small opening in front of them. She put a hand down on the horn and her foot on the gas. They shot past his bumper with a hair's breadth to spare.

“Doctor Gabronski is a patient at Happy Acres,” Chang said. In the wake of their astonished silence, she negotiated her way past a slow moving Toyota.

“A patient?” Catherine finally managed to ask. “Not a Doctor?”

“He's a Doctor, yes, or at least he was.” She changed lanes with a blast of her horn and focused for a few seconds on the heavy freeway traffic.

“You're both too young to remember, of course,” she said after a moment. “I don't personally remember it myself. It happened thirty or more years ago, but it's something of a Bureau legend. Gabronski murdered a string of children. Five, I think, before he turned himself in. Claimed he'd been possessed by a demon. They found him insane, naturally. He's lived at Happy Acres ever since. It's a mental hospital, a very discreet one. He's a model patient, they tell me.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Chang dropped them at Catherine's apartment. On an impulse, Jack suggested a drive to Laguna Beach. “You need to get away from everything,” he said. “Forget all this business for one evening, at least.”

The suggestion was a good one. The weather had turned warm, as it could do in the California winter and, off-season, Laguna was mostly empty of the tourists that in summer packed its sidewalks and restaurants. Except for an occasional roller skater, they had the Promenade that snaked along the beachfront to themselves. The turquoise water deepened to blue black where it stretched toward the hump of Santa Catalina Island just visible on the misty horizon.

Closer, the surf washed in rivulets over the sand and formed little tidal pools in the rocks that dotted the shore below the ragged bluffs. They scrambled over the rocks and examined the miniature aquariums with their brilliant anemones, purple urchins, huge sea slugs and skittish crabs.

The daylight faded and they abandoned the slippery rocks. They had dinner at Dizz's As Is, an intimate shingled house whose walls sported a photo gallery of the in crowd of Hollywood's glamour heyday. Judy Garland, Clark Gable, Lana Turner, and myriad others smiled their approval down on the vermouths they sipped and the rack of lamb that followed. As if by common agreement they spoke not at all of Gabronski or Chang or Trash Can Paterson. Jack was happy to see that by the time she was sipping an espresso, Catherine's face had lost that haunted look she had worn for the last several days.

It was late by the time they settled into the Porsche again and headed north on the San Diego Freeway, a lustrous pewter moon winking off and on through patches of cloud overhead. Catherine leaned against the soft leather upholstery, one hand in Jack's, and savored the feeling of deep relaxation. Somewhere between Los Angeles International Airport and Santa Monica Boulevard, relaxation became sleep.

Glancing over at her in the dashboard's pale luminance, Jack felt himself engulfed in a tide of emotions: love, concern, protectiveness. He could not bear the thought of what she was suffering, and the possibility that anything could happen to her, could take her away from him again, was unthinkable.

Her suggestion that life had only been lent to her this time around for one specific purpose and one purpose only would not bear his contemplating. He was sure that, if she really had been “sent back,” it was as much to share life with him as to ferret out a pair of admittedly evil child molesters.

He still thought that her belief that she had been given a mission might be nothing more than self-delusion, fed by her desire to avenge her daughter's death. One thing that he had come to realize: if Paterson was stalking her, as she believed, Catherine was stalking him, as well. In some bizarre psychic way, they were each of them feeding a need in the other.

Anyway, hadn't she told him that she had heard him call to her when she was hovering between life and death? That clinched it as far as he was concerned, and though she might think it treasonous, he was determined that their love for one another would take precedence over anything else, Paterson included.

So, as he backed the car into a parking place near Catherine's apartment, it was with no great happiness that he saw Chang's now familiar red Bronco parked just outside the front door.

She was waiting for them on the sidewalk as they walked up. “Chang,” he said before either of the women could speak, “I know how important this case is to you, but you've got to see that this is tearing Catherine apart.”

Chang gave him a measuring look, and a longer one at Catherine. “Yes, you're right,” she said with a sigh. “I know that you are, only....” She hesitated.

“Only?” Catherine prompted her, already sure what she was going to hear.

“There's been another one. A boy this time, snatched from a playground. I suspect the very playground where you saw them earlier today.”

Catherine fumbled in her purse for her keys. “Come up. I'll make coffee.”

* * * *

They sipped coffee in Catherine's living room while Chang gave them the details. They could faintly hear the hum and clang of Santa Monica's traffic even through the closed balcony door. A fire on the grate offered a welcome respite from the cool December air.

The discussion grew heated as well. For all the dread that it bred within her, Catherine felt more strongly than ever that she had to find Paterson and his companion, before they did more of their evil. Perhaps if she had after all gone back to that playground a second time when she was with Gabronski, she might have found some way to prevent this latest kidnapping. That was a suggestion, however, with which Jack disagreed heartily.

“It's too dangerous for you,” he insisted.

Chang was torn. She cared about Catherine, cared about both of them. Jack was right, of course: it was dangerous. She understood how he felt. Probably, in his shoes, she would feel the same way.

The bottom line remained the same for her, however. She had some bad guys to catch, really bad guys. And so far, Catherine was her best shot—hell, her only shot—at catching them.

“But it doesn't have to be dangerous, does it?” she argued, wanting to convince herself as well as them. “Gabronski talked about wrapping yourself in the light, so they don't see you. It's that simple, isn't it? You hide yourself in the Heavenly glow, you find them, you go outside...you can go outside, can't you?”

“I don't know,” Catherine said thoughtfully. “I wouldn't be able to turn a door knob, that requires some physicality and I haven't mastered that yet. But, since I have no body, I suppose I could just pass through a door. I've never tried.”

“Well, then, that's what we need. If you can go outside, you can get me an address. A house number, a street name. Anything. That's all. Then you come home. You won't have to put yourself at any kind of risk.”

“Won't she?” Jack said. His stomach churned at the very idea. “Gabronski also told us he thought every time she visited Paterson she was making him stronger, bringing him closer to finding her.”

Catherine sighed. “Don't worry, darling, I will be careful. I'll do what Chang says, pop in just long enough to see them, and back out again. And I do think I can manage to remain unseen. Maybe if he doesn't see me, he won't know that I'm there.”

Jack remained unconvinced, but he already knew the futility of arguing. He swallowed his frustration. “Can you just do this now at will?” he asked instead.

She shrugged. “I can try. Gabronski gave me that suggestion when he put me under earlier, didn't he? It's as good a time to find out as any.”

She slipped off her shoes and stretched out on the sofa, plumping up a pillow for her head. Jack sat on the floor by the sofa. Chang got up to dim the lights. By the time she sat down again in her chair, Catherine's eyes were already closed, her breathing slow and deep.

* * * *

“It's a thousand bucks,” Paterson said, and when the man seated opposite him hesitated, he added quickly, “It's the best one yet, worth every penny, I promise you. This kid's cute as a bug. You can watch some of it if you want to.”

“No, that's okay, you're cool.” Danny O'Dell took out his wallet and peeled off ten one hundred dollar bills, laying them neatly on the filthy tabletop. The place was a pigpen, he thought. It even smelled like one. He wrinkled his fastidious nose. Well, what could he expect? When you lay down with dogs....

Paterson did not so much as glance at the money. “You hear that, Colley, we are coo-ol?” He made two syllables of it. “Cool, I like that. Have another line, bro.” He indicated the cracked mirror on the tabletop with its mound of cocaine. “Colley, get our friend a beer.”

“Thanks, but I have to go.” O'Dell slipped the DVD into an inside pocket of his jacket and jiggled his keys as if to leave, but he lingered for a moment.

“Do you...?” he started to ask, and paused hesitantly, before he screwed up his courage to ask the question that had puzzled him for some time. “Do you guys ever feel bad? You know, guilty about any of this?”

Paterson's look was at once amused and darkened underneath like clouds before a storm. “Guilty?” he echoed. “What are you talking about, guilty? You some kind of puritan, are you, thinks sex is evil? I notice you're quick enough to run here when I tell you I've got a new movie for you. Are
you
feeling guilty?”

The actor showed a trace of embarrassment. “No, you're probably right,” he said. He looked away from Paterson's ferocious glower.

“Course I am. Say, you want to try some for yourself? The real stuff, I mean, not just movies of it. We can set that up for you, too, you know.”

O'Dell swallowed. He didn't really like talking about this sort of thing. Watching it, yes, imagining it—but until Paterson, he had never actually confessed his special interests to anyone. How had Paterson wormed it out of him, anyway? He didn't actually remember. They had been doing drugs, drinking—somehow, they ended up watching a movie, one of the special ones. Paterson had reeled him in like a fish on a line.

“How about I fix you up with the next one?” Paterson said, so offhanded, he might have been discussing a deal on a used car. “Cost you, say, five thousand.”

For a moment O'Dell actually considered the offer. The money didn't deter him. He could afford that. It was the idea that frightened him, though. It even sickened him a little when, as now, he considered it.

He knew himself well enough, though, to know that he would feel no such shame when he arrived home and immediately put the new DVD into his player, locked his bedroom door, and watched it through to its end. Then, he would be filled with fantasies of the very thing Paterson was offering to arrange for him, and would berate himself as a fool for not taking up the offer.

Now, though, with these two watching like a pair of vipers getting ready to strike, he hadn't the courage to say yes. “I'd better not,” he said with a roll of his eyes that would have been entirely familiar to his television audience. “Too risky. What if I was recognized?”

“We can put a mask on you. I don't guess anyone would recognize your pecker, would they. That's not famous, is it?”

Paterson laughed again, but suddenly his eyes narrowed and he shot a look around the room as if someone had entered it, peering into every corner.

“What is it, Trash?” Colley glanced around too, puzzled and concerned at the same time.

Paterson's sudden look of alarm spooked O'Dell. “Did you hear something?” he asked, genuinely frightened. Just being found here, with the drugs and the movies, would ruin his career. Nobody was going to sponsor a children's television show hosted by an actor arrested for drugs and kiddie porn.

I must be crazy, coming here, he thought. In the future, he would make arrangements to meet somewhere. Or maybe there oughtn't to be a future. He had half a dozen movies, surely he didn't need more. What more was there to see?

Except—a new face, a different body. A new fantasy. That was what it was, yes. He lived in a world of fantasies, they were his stock in trade, that was what excited him, not the reality. He would never really do what Paterson suggested. That was sick. He only wanted to watch, not even in the flesh, but at a remove, on his television screen. That was the difference between him and them.

Paterson shook his head and looked calmer, but there was an underlying anxiety that didn't quite leave his eyes. “Nah. I just like keeping an ear tuned, is all.”

“I'd better go.” This time O'Dell did get up, a little too quickly. He patted the pocket with the DVD in it, slipped his hat on his head and the dark glasses over his eyes. “I'll let myself out.”

When the door had closed behind him, Paterson strode quickly across to lock it “I'll let myself out,” he mimicked in a falsetto voice. “Pansy.”

Colley took a long sip of his beer. “You know, Trash,” he said speaking slowly, “There was one of those kids at least didn't have any fun.”

Paterson wheeled on him. “What are you talking about? You bringing that up again?” He grabbed an ashtray off a table and flung it at Colley, ashes and cigarette butts leaving a trail across the dirty carpet. The glass ashtray caught Colley on the shoulder.

“Ouch, damn it, Trash, that hurt.”

“Don't you be throwing that business up to me,” Paterson railed at him, “You know damn well it wasn't my fault what happened.”

Colley wilted in the face of his harangue. “You're right, Trash.” He rubbed his bruised arm meekly.

“Listen, you don't like what we're doing, you just take your butt out that door, you go on and quit right this minute. Maybe prissy little TV host will give you a job.”

“I didn't say I wanted to quit, Trash.” Colley's voice had become a whine.

“Cause there's plenty of guys would like to be getting what you're getting and get paid for it too,” Paterson said, pacing back and forth in long, quick strides.

“Shit, I know that, I wasn't complaining.”

“Well, don't you be, and don't you be talking about her, it wasn't my fault. Damn, that makes me sore.”

“I'm sorry, Trash, I didn't mean nothing, I was just running my mouth, you know what I'm like. I'm not as smart as you.”

“You got that right,” Paterson said more calmly, mollified. “And don't you forget it either.”

Colley clamped his lips tightly together and turned on the TV news. Paterson was about to tell him to turn the damned thing off when he remembered something: a man on the television screen, not this man, another one, working his yap about something: the Mid East maybe, blah, blah, blah.

TV. Shit, that was it. That was where he had seen the bitch's boyfriend, the man he had seen in the sack with her. He was some kind of news reporter.