She cried out, twisted around, sputtered, spitting water.
He stood, pulling her up with him. She screamed and flailed out at him.
“Quiet. Quiet, Maggie, you’ll—”
She shrieked, the sound stabbing into his brain like needles.
“I won’t hurt you,” he said. “Don’t be afraid.”
“Let me go!” Then she screamed again. “Oh, God, let me go!”
Her shrieks were spoiling the sweet peacefulness of the pond. His pond. Echoes of her cries rushed up and down the mountain. His mountain. Desperation raced through his body like a flashfire. It consumed him. Angered him.
She was hysterical. Out of control.
He pushed her under to silence her. She broke free, her head cleared the water, and she screamed loud and long before he pushed her back under again. He leaned over her, his body weight pressing down. Why wouldn’t she stop? She was acting crazy. He pulled her out long enough for her to fill her lungs with air before pushing her back under.
The futile struggles of her submerged body beneath his hands confused him, yet he felt a strange elation. He lifted her up. She gasped, threw her arms around his neck, and clung to him tightly. She was through screaming. Everything was going to be okay. He tenderly brushed back the wet hair from her face.
“Shhh, shhh, Maggie.” His hand awkwardly patted her heaving shoulder. “I won’t let nothing hurt you.”
The brightness of the moon filled his eyes.
Robbi stared at the soft light. Her eyes focused and she realized she was staring at the bulb inside the refrigerator. In the dark kitchen she stood with the ice water container in one hand, the door handle in the other.
Pain in her head pounded like a hammer against an anvil.
What was happening? That was no dream, no nightmare, and certainly no hallucination. A vision of some kind. Not the premonitions that had been a part of her life in her early childhood—the portents of death—
Grandma Paxton, her best friend, Trudy, and just recently, Sam. And there was Ronnie. Just thinking about Ronnie made her heart ache and tears fill her eyes. With an effort she managed to push the memory back into a crevice of her mind.
In a dream, or what she thought to be a dream, she had seen a blond woman attacked in an alley by the large man. A chilling gut-feeling told Robbi that this man was the same one in the forest who had killed the woman in white.
In the dry summer air she shivered violently.
TWELVE
Sophie Bennett drove the dilapidated Chevy down Plumas Street. Over the loud roar of the muffler she hollered out. “What can it hurt? Robbi, she can tune in to you. Tell you if the guy’s for real or not.”
“Who’s going to tell me if she’s for real?” Robbi replied.
“Take my word for it.” Sophie pushed the tortoise- shell frames of her glasses up on her nose. “She’s a damn good psychic, little one. She told me to lose Leonard before he caused me major grief. Do I listen? Two months later Len borrows a grand and I never see him again.”
“What else did she tell you?”
“She said I was going to move. Which I did. That I’ll be moving again. Which I am.”
“Most people move.”
Sophie stopped at a red light and turned to stare at Robbi. “She also said a good friend of mine would have an accident and land in the hospital.”
Robbi felt a chill skip down her spine.
“What did you tell her about me?”
“Not a thing. Why would I—hey, little one,” she said quietly, “paranoia doesn’t become you.”
They rode in silence the rest of the way. Sophie pulled to the curb at a large modem apartment complex and shut off the engine. The car backfired, then died.
“Here?” Robbi asked, surprised.
“What did you expect? A tent? A sideshow wagon? A haunted house? Get going. It’s on the ground floor. Number nine.”
“Aren’t you coming too?”
“Can’t. Interference,” Sophie said, starting in on one of her endless crossword puzzles. “She might get our signals crossed.”
Robbi reluctantly left the car. Inside the complex she made her way down the row of red lacquered doors to the end unit. She knocked lightly. Her first encounter with a psychic had her jittery and feeling a bit foolish. Would her mind be an open book, every private thought exposed? Although Robbi was certain she had a degree of spiritual sensitivity—the premonitions— she’d always played it down, dreaded it actually, not wanting to develop the powers or even confirm them.
She was about to turn away when the door opened. A tiny woman in her late sixties wearing a chartreuse caftan edged in purple velvet, purple pointed-toed sultan slippers, and a white turban, looked up at her through milky eyes. Robbi’s nervousness turned to embarrassment. Certainly she had expected some sort of mystic motif, but not a costume quite so obvious. A turban, for God’s sake. Sultan footwear. There was absolutely no way she would be able to take this woman seriously. And from now on Sophie’s ability to give advice was also seriously in question.
The medium smiled, showing small white teeth. “Roberta Paxton, right? Come in. Come in. I’m Wanda Zimmer. You’re early, or I’m late. Come and sit a minute while I finish.” After depositing her client on a firm brocaded love seat and handing her a dish of Hershey Kisses, she quickly disappeared.
Robbi took a Kiss, released it from the silver wrapping, and slipped it into her mouth. Letting it dissolve on her tongue, she glanced around the oblong living room. It was sparsely furnished with inexpensive modern pieces in green and beige, the walls stark white and bare. The personal touch in the Zimmer apartment was achieved through the jungle of potted and hanging plants and the riotous assortment of African violets and geraniums. She saw none of the new age paraphernalia—candles, incense, crystals—that one associated with fortune-tellers.
Within minutes Wanda Zimmer was back wearing khaki pants, a safari-print cotton blouse, and brown loafers. Her short, damp gray hair had been worked into waves on top and sides.
Roberta laughed to herself. The turban had only been a towel, the caftan a housecoat, and the pointed shoes a pair of slippers.
“There, that’s better,” Wanda said, taking a chair across the room from Robbi. “Tea? Coffee?”
Robbi smiled and shook her head.
“Then let’s begin.” The psychic closed her eyes.
Robbi shifted on the love seat. “What do I—?”
The woman put out a hand to silence her. Robbi closed her mouth, cleared her throat, and stared at the small figure who sat stiffly in her chair.
The milky eyes opened, stared fixedly at a spot on the wall just above Robbi’s head. Wanda began to speak rapidly, interrupting herself when something more important, more pressing, seemed to come to her. She spoke of challenges, of Roberta’s need to work with others in a helping, caring manner. Twenty minutes into the reading, she said, “You’ve had a terrible accident, but you’re mending well. You’re very strong. You will need your strength for the challenges ahead.”
Robbi’s heart palpitated.
“You are sensitive, extremely sensitive in a psychic way. Yet you are limited. Potent, oh, my goodness, yes, yet limited. This is not new to you, though you have no idea why the power is yours or how to use it. Right?”
“I’m not sure—yes,” Robbi whispered.
“Do you know him?”
Robbi came forward abruptly. “Who? Know who?”
“The man who is psychically linked with you.”
An icy claw clutched at her stomach. “No, no, I don’t know him. Can you tell me who he is?”
Wanda closed her eyes. She swayed slightly. After a few moments she said, “I don’t like him ... he’s bad. I’m unable to pick up much except that he is there— there with you somewhere on some other plane—and he’s no good.”
“Why is he there?”
“I can’t say.”
“Is he real, or a figment of my imagination?”
&n
bsp; “I can’t say that either. He’s real to you.”
“I have to know who he is, what he wants with me, why I see him. I have to know. Please, Mrs. Zimmer, help me. At least one woman has died.”
Wanda crossed the room, sat on the love seat, and reached out, touching Robbi’s hand. She closed her eyes again. “I sense these women—these victims. They are lost angels. I sense they were once a part of this planet. They are lost and crying out to be found ... to be free to go on with their journey.”
“They? I saw only one killed. Then it’s true? This man has killed more than once?”
“I don’t know. They could be souls from your own past lives. I have no way to tell.” She sighed deeply and repeated, “My dear, I have no way to tell. But I can say this, you must be very careful.”
“I’m in danger?”
“Yes,” she said quietly. “I don’t like to frighten people, but I feel you must be warned. You are in grave danger.”
“From this man?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Soon.”
“Well?” Sophie said. She had driven to Virginia Lake and parked in the lot facing the water. A steady stream of joggers passed by.
“Well what?” Robbi answered.
“Well, what did Wanda say?”
“She said I would meet a tall, dark, handsome man and we would run off to Shangri-la and have two point five children and live happily ever after. Isn’t that what they all say?”
She met Sophie’s peeved glare before turning away to look out the window. Robbi said in a disquieting tone, “That’s what I hoped she would say. Instead, she scared the shit out of me and then sent me away with instructions to not darken her door again.”
“Are you exaggerating?”
“Not by much.”
Roberta related the reading. “Someone’s going to die. It could be me.”
“You know what?” Sophie said, her voice tight. “I made a big mistake sending you to Wanda. The woman’s obviously losing it. Hey, we’ll go to another psychic. I hear there’s a good one in Virginia City, I—”
“No more psychics.”
For several long moments both were lost in their own thoughts, watching the ducks and geese bob for thrown bread pieces in the lake and on the lawn to their right.
Roberta sighed. “I made another mistake. My mother called this morning and I confided in her.”
“You told her about the vision?”
Robbi nodded. “She didn’t believe me when I was little, and she doesn’t believe me now. She wants me normal, like other people. She wants me to move in with them.”
“She’s afraid for you.”
“I guess.”
Jake Reynolds typed from a stack of notes at his elbow. Directly above, a stellar jay screeched angrily, and to confirm its displeasure, a bird dropping hit the keys of his typewriter with a wet plop. Jake cursed, threw an empty plastic glass at the limbs of the spruce where the jay sat. Another squawk, the glass hit the deck and bounced off into the bushes.
Jake went inside, grabbed a handful of paper towels, returned to the typewriter, and dabbed at the green mess. Damn jays. If anyone needed therapy, it was the jay. Always angry, always taking it out on the world below.
The cordless phone on the redwood table rang. His Reno calls were transferred to the lake house.
“Yes,” he said.
“Dr. Reynolds, there’s a Ms. Paxton on the line,” Carolee, the receptionist at the medical plaza, said. “Shall I put her through?”
Jake’s pulse quickened. More than once he’d found himself thinking about the intriguing woman from the hospital. He wondered how she was doing. “Roberta Paxton?”
“I don’t know. Shall I ask?”
“No. Put her through.” A series of clicks and a woman’s voice was on the line.
“Dr. Reynolds, my name is Lois. I’m Roberta’s mother.”
Jake stifled his disappointment. “Yes, Mrs. Paxton, what can I do for you?”
“My daughter mentioned that you had come to see her when she was in the hospital.”
“That’s right.”
“She seemed to like you. Doctor. There aren’t many doctors in your field that she likes or trusts.”
“I’m flattered, Mrs. Paxton.”
“I wondered, Doctor, if you’d consent to follow up on her, so to speak?”
“She hasn’t lost her sight again, has she?”
“What? Oh, no, nothing like that. Her vision is fine, her normal vision, that is. It’s the other vision that has me very concerned, Doctor.”
“Other vision? I’m afraid I don’t follow you.”
“My daughter seems to be seeing things. Hallucinations. She’s always been very inventive, especially as a young girl, her father was quite abrupt with her, insisting she not talk about—she’s not a liar, it’s just that. .. well, it’s my belief she’s under too much stress. The shooting, then the accident, all on top of a very heavy workload.”
“I see.”
“Can you see her?”
On hiatus from private practice, writing a book on the battered woman syndrome, he had initially consented to see Dr. Newton’s patient because of her involvement with the center, although they’d never gotten around to discussing their mutual interest.
“I’ll be happy to. Have her call my receptionist at the office and set up an appointment.”
“I’m afraid that could be a problem. I rather doubt Roberta will consent to see you on a doctor-patient basis. You see, she doesn’t have a very high opinion of psychiatrists.”
“In that case, I don’t see how I can help her.”
“As I said earlier, she seems to like you, Doctor. Perhaps you can see her in a nonmedical setting. Socially, so to speak. Naturally, the matter of your fee will be taken care of by me.”
“Mrs. Paxton, I can’t—”
“She claims to have witnessed a killing in the woods moments after her accident.”
“A killing?”
“A woman. She swears she saw a barefooted woman running around in the woods. A man was after her . .. killed her. It was all so wild. But to hear Roberta talk, you’d almost have to believe her. She was so descriptive. The woman—the one murdered—was wearing a long white dress and, supposedly, an anklet.”
“An anklet?” Jake’s heart skipped a beat. “You mean an ankle bracelet?”
“Yes, I guess. But none of that matters because she didn’t really see anything like that. I’m sure she imagined all of it. The blow on the head, the—Dr. Reynolds, she needs help.”
“Mrs. Paxton, I. ..”
“Think about it, won’t you, Doctor?” And then she was gone.
The jay screeched again. Deep in thought, Jake was oblivious of the racket. How many women wore an ankle bracelet? Jake had known only one.
THIRTEEN
At Radcliff s deli, Robbi moved gingerly in the long line, absently staring at the assortment of food through the window of the cold case.
“Miss Paxton?”
She turned, and directly behind her stood a smiling, clean-cut man. He wore blue slacks, a yellow shirt open at the collar, and a grayish blue sport coat. She smelled the same mild aftershave he’d worn at the hospital. The handsome psychiatrist with the nice knees.
“Dr. Reynolds, hello.”
“Good to see you up and about.”
“Thanks. Ankle’s still a little tender ...” She raised the cane. “But I’m not complaining.”
“Back to work already?”
She nodded. “Takes my mind off—“ she coughed, looked away— “off the aches and pains. Hope you’re not in a hurry.” She indicated the slow-moving line. “They’re always shorthanded here.”
“I’m not in a hurry. I try to make any waiting time productive time.”
“Oh, how so?”
“I watch people. I write speeches...” He shrugged. “I talk to pretty ladies in front of me.”
Robbi smiled, moved forward. How
pretty could she look? She was too pale from the weeks in the hospital. She hadn’t slept well in ages, and the July heat soon drained what little energy she had each day. Today she was wearing her favorite skirt and blouse, but both were wrinkled, damp in places. And her hair, pulled up in back, was rapidly coming loose, strand by crimpy stand. The doctor, however, looked cool and crisp. Air-conditioned office—oh, to have such luxury.
“More important, I was raised with four sisters. In my case patience became mandatory for sanity and survival,” he said. “So how’s everything with you? No more headaches?”
“No,” she said too quickly.
“How about the nightmares?”
“All gone.” She awkwardly stepped forward, bumped the man in front of her.
An attractive woman Roberta’s age stopped to talk with the doctor. Robbi turned forward, focused on the food in the cold case. She could hear the conversation between the two, something about a dinner honoring a best-selling author, a regatta at the lake, and a score of names frequently heard in the local media—the state’s movers and shakers.
Robbi felt the doctor’s gaze on her as she inched along, trying her damnedest not to eavesdrop on their conversation but losing the battle. A party invitation was extended to him. She surmised the doctor was unmarried.
When her turn at the counter came, she paid for her order, gathered a bag in each arm, turned to the doctor and, without interrupting the woman who had been talking nonstop, smiled, then mouthed the word “bye.”
She had gotten only a few steps outside the deli when Dr. Reynolds caught up with her.
“You look like you could use some help,” he said, relieving her of the larger bag. “Can I give you a ride back to work?”
“As much as I’d love to get off my feet and out of this heat, I’m supposed to be getting some exercise. It’s just a few doors down.”
“Then I’ll walk with you.”
She noticed he was empty-handed. “No lunch?”
“Nothing appealed to me.”
She held the small bag in her left hand and the cane in her right as they walked north to the main office of SSWC.
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