Chasing Shadows

by Karen Harper

  “Damn!” Nick muttered.

  “That’s a lie!” Jasmine cried. “Sheriff, I admit I fired her sister, but this woman’s demented!”

  “You know, Mr. Gates,” the sheriff called to Bronco as the officers pulled him from the car with the shattered window and walked him to another of their vehicles, “this just isn’t your day. And,” he told his officers, “we’ll book Ms. Moran for assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill for starters. I swear, there’s just something about this place that doesn’t make it sound real sweet for a gubernatorial announcement, Dr. Jackson, but I thank you for the earlier offer.”

  “Bastard, and I don’t mean Bronco,” Nick told Claire, still talking under his breath.

  Despite her defiance, Cecilia looked like one of her own limp marionettes as she was handcuffed and put in another of the police vehicles. In spite of what Cecilia had done tonight, Claire’s heart went out to her. She completely grasped being so close to a sister that her cruel loss tilted the world.

  Bronco was put into another car. Nick hugged Claire, walked her to the door as if they’d been on a date and told her, “Take your meds and get some sleep. I’ll get you to St. A, then home to Lexi tomorrow, whatever else comes up—promise.”

  Pressing her lips tight together, with a sniff, she nodded. Tears she could not control started, and she tried to blink them back. With his thumb, Nick captured one and put it to his lips. He went over to say something to Jasmine, then Heck, and headed for his car.

  Though Jasmine was tugging at her arm, Claire stood watching the parade of cars, including the one with the shot-out window, as they made their way down the long drive toward the road. In their passing headlights, she saw the marionette was gone from the tree, so they must have taken it. When Neil turned the porch lights back on, the shattered glass under the hanging tree glittered in the rain.

  * * *

  Claire thought the walking dead must feel this way. She hated those zombie books and movies, but she felt she was the main character in one now. She was glad to see the small but pretty bedroom Jasmine had given her near the back of the hall.

  “It was once a housemaid’s room,” she’d told Claire, “but Mother fixed it up for a guest room, then had Lola stay there sometimes. So—servants’ quarters, but I’ll never think of you that way. You’ve been a big help to Nick and to me. If—if it turns out that Mother killed herself, so be it.”

  After Jasmine had gone to her own room, Claire plodded to the small bathroom near the back servants’ steps—ones that also went up to the attic—used the toilet, washed her face again and took a glass of water with her to mix with her dosage of Xyrem. Every PWN hated that prescription if they had any form of cataplexy. It was horribly expensive and ridiculous that the user had to take one dose of it at bedtime and one four hours later. Nothing like waking a narcoleptic up in the middle of the night to take more meds. More than once, like others with the disease, she’d slept through her second dose and suffered for it the next day.

  Trying to steady her hands, she used the syringe to draw the 2.25 gram dosage out of the orange bottle, then mixed it with the correct one-fourth cup of water. She could almost do it in her sleep—ha, that was funny, she told herself. She was losing control, all right, had to get in bed, fall asleep fast. She set her cell phone alarm app to wake her up for the second dose, then started laughing again when she remembered the long list of possible side effects with this. One of them was suicidal thoughts, so was that insane?

  For once, the dose didn’t taste as bitter as usual. Years ago, she used to feel she’d throw up from taking it, but she soon learned to gulp it down fast. Mind over matter, mind over matter. Talk about Sheriff Goodrich using clichés... She was going to use her mind to tell Nick that she was opting for Francine taking an overdose—possibly by mistake, but more likely intentionally. And it sounded like Jasmine would accept that. The thing was, then Nick still might have to prove it in court.

  She jumped when a knock sounded on her door.

  She stumbled across the hooked rug to the door but didn’t open it. There was a keyhole under the knob but no key.

  “Jasmine?”

  “It’s Heck, Claire. Just want you to know I got a sleeping bag and I’m bedding down out here in the hall to keep an eye on things. Too far away downstairs.”

  “Oh, thanks. That makes me feel better. Don’t worry if you hear an alarm in about four hours when I take my second meds.”

  “Sure. Okay. I’m expecting Nick back by daylight. He said he’d call me if he needs me, so I got a phone out here, too, in case you hear it go off.”

  She padded back to the bed and fell into it. Those meds always hit her fast but gave her a great night’s sleep. Tomorrow she’d see Lexi. Tomorrow Nick was taking her home.

  She comforted herself with her favorite saying from years past: surely, nothing else could go wrong now.

  29

  Claire swam upward through thick, foggy water. Where was she? In the river? Trapped in a car that crashed?

  At first she couldn’t move. She kept her eyes tight shut. Had someone tied her up, that man who was a ghost? She tried to roll over to see if it was time for her second dose of medicine. But she couldn’t move.

  Oh, dear Lord in heaven, had her paralyzing cataplexy come back? Maybe she had spilled her medicine in the river. Her bedside clock wasn’t where it was supposed to be. Where was she?

  She fought to move her feet, a hand. Slowly, slowly. Don’t panic. She was sure she took her medicine. Yes, her first night dose. She’d take her second one now. She might have slept through her alarm.

  She felt so stiff but she finally moved her muscles. When she was first diagnosed, she was so young and so scared. Horrible nightmares.

  But where was she? Oh, yes, she knew now. At Shadowlawn where darkness was as thick as black water.

  Keep calm. Keep calm. Get that second dose of medicine down. Stop shaking. Steady hands.

  She clicked on the bedside light and saw the bottle and mixing cups. And a flashlight. She still heard the rain, scratching on the window like a creature wanting to get in. Despite the lamplight, the fog from the river was swirling around in this room and in her head.

  She measured out the dose and mixed it with water. See, she knew what she was doing. Claire, she told herself, don’t be afraid. But it was midnight, and she’d been asleep for three hours. That was good, wasn’t it? This second dose was early, but she had to go back to sleep. So exhausted. She downed the liquid in one gulp the way she’d learned to do because it tasted terrible.

  But like the earlier dose tonight, it wasn’t as sharp as usual. At least she was finally getting used to the stuff after all these years. Just when she had planned to wean herself off this drug and try some of the herbals. It still hurt her that Jace had accused her once of being so out of it that she might drop her baby. She would never drop her baby. What was her baby’s name, and why hadn’t she brought her along?

  Oh. Oh, because Darcy was keeping her for a few days. Darcy didn’t like to read to her son and baby girl during the day either, because that’s all Mother used to do. Even when they needed her. Sometimes when they were crying like Claire was crying now.

  She put her feet to the floor and her head in her hands. Why did she keep losing people? Her mother and father were dead. Someone had thrown herself off the balcony because she was in love with the wrong man or maybe just in love with Shadowlawn. But could she be in time to save that woman if she got up now, if she could stop her in time?

  Was she dressed? Yes, she wore a wrinkled blouse and long skirt she didn’t recognize. She lurched toward the door. When she opened it, she saw a dark hall, so she went back for the flashlight someone had left on her bedside table.

  Oh, good, she thought, when she reached for it. It looked like she must have taken her second dose of
medicine so she could go to sleep without bad dreams. The water in the glass was all gone.

  She opened the door into the pitch-black hall and clicked on the flashlight. Wasn’t there supposed to be some guard out here to look for ghosts? She couldn’t think of his name, but she knew who it was. Maybe his name was Nick, because she was pretty sure he’d taken care of her before, after someone was hanged from the tree.

  She padded down the wooden hallway trying to stay on the rug runner. Not this first bedroom, but the front one, she was pretty sure. Either her mother and dad slept there or someone named Francine. Francine had argued with her daughter, just the way Darcy had argued with their mother. But right now, she had to keep Francine from jumping out the window, from throwing herself onto the pavement stones.

  Claire knew she had to hurry, but her feet, like her thoughts, were not moving well. There was a key in the lock of the door. She turned it and the brass knob. The door swung inward at a little push. She could hear the wind outside and some light rain throwing itself against the windows.

  But where was Francine? She had to hurry now to stop her from killing herself if her daughter didn’t kill her first.

  Her beam of light skittered across the room and skimmed the tall picture of the woman. “Don’t jump,” she told her, but she might just be thinking the words. “My medicine has the side effect of thoughts of suicide, but don’t jump. I can prove someone else killed you if you don’t kill yourself!”

  Claire’s legs gave way. She tried to reach for the corner of a dressing table but she went to her knees on the floor. It was as if she were worshipping before the shrine of Shadowlawn. Shadows. Shadows everywhere here.

  Claire got to her feet and stumbled to the long glass doors that went to the gallery outside. Had Francine gone out already? Claire had to be sure she didn’t jump.

  She twisted the lock on the doors until one opened. It swung inward with a moan the rain almost drowned out. Drowned—a better way to die than this, jumping to the pavement below. And taking her unborn child with her? Jace never should have said Claire would drop her baby. Alexandra called Lexi, that was her name. And she wasn’t a baby anymore, was she?

  Suddenly Claire was too scared to go out onto the gallery and look for the body on the wet pavement below. What if her knees gave way again and she fell? If she got soaked outside, could that be like drowning in a car? She had to get back to Lexi, to her doctor.

  Where was her doctor? He’d promised if she took her night meds without fail, her legs would not fail and no more nightmares. But now the room was spinning, and the storm outside was inside her head again. She had to find the doctor!

  She wasn’t sure where his office was, but she staggered back out and down the hall, looking for him. Why weren’t her meds working, that’s what she’d ask him. She’d tell him that Francine’s didn’t either because that’s why she’d killed herself, just like the woman in the picture.

  At the very back of the hall, she saw a narrow staircase that went up and down. Hadn’t there been an elevator here before to go up to the doctor’s office? She heard the hum of it, didn’t she, voices in the wall, maybe old dance music like they played in elevators?

  She started up the narrow stairs, pulling herself along by the wooden banister. Hadn’t someone told her there was a guard on the sofa on the first floor, that handsome man she maybe loved?

  Oh, a body here on the stairs! A man! Blood on his head. He was probably looking for the doctor, too, but didn’t make it. She knew this man, didn’t she?

  Though she almost lost her balance, she grabbed the banister and leaned toward him. She tried to say, Are you all right? but nothing came out. She must be dreaming this! Her meds made her have crazy dreams if she missed them or took them wrong.

  Had she done something wrong? Had she let someone down? The man she loved? But was that Jace or Nick? At least she was better now, remembering names, but not this man’s on the stairs.

  She knelt on a step and put a hand to the side of his neck. He was alive. Then she must be, too. Dreaming. Just dreaming, but not a nightmare yet, thank heavens.

  She flashed her light beam up and down the stairs. Only this slumped man. If she went up to the doctor’s office, she could send someone down to help him. Oh, heck—that was his name. Heck, but she couldn’t remember where she’d met him.

  She began to climb, but her legs weren’t working right any more than her head was. At the top of the stairs, she could have cried when she saw only a big, dark attic and no doctor’s office.

  She needed help. She needed help right now and so did that man whose name she could not remember. But she did know one thing about him. Someone had told her that man had lost his grandfather’s big house and wanted it back. So this place must be it! At least that would make him happy when he woke up. She’d just go to tell him that she’d found it.

  More than once, she nearly fell on the way down. He wasn’t there anymore, which proved she was dreaming. But she knew where she had to look next. She’d promised someone she’d look for masks, and she knew now where they were hidden.

  Everyone had a mask, especially murderers. She looked behind masks—that was her job. That was what Clear Path was for. Nick had South Shores but she had Clear Path. Stumbling, she unlocked the back door of the house and went out into the mist and light rain down the path toward where everyone kept their masks.

  She was barely outside when a person—someone she knew but couldn’t place—came out of the darkness. He—or was it a woman?—wore a baseball cap with hair slicked back and pulled up under it. A slicker raincoat, wet too, the collar pulled up high as if it was cold out here. The wall of wet night hid the face, and she was so dizzy she felt almost blind.

  “I was about to come get you,” the person said in a whisper. “Where are you going?”

  Though her mouth seemed numb, she tried to say the words carefully. “To see the masks. I have to write d-down about the masks.”

  “I’ll take you there.”

  The person steadied her elbow and moved her farther into the darkness of memory, taking her flashlight and clicking it off, but that was probably all right because he or she seemed to know the way. Oh, yes, this was a dream for sure.

  “How are you feeling after taking your night meds?” Claire was asked so politely, but why did this person keep whispering? She should ask who it was, but she wanted to be polite. That was the best way to get people to trust her—be positive and polite.

  “Not so good,” she said. “I th-think I’m dreaming, but I don’t want it to be a n-nightmare. That hurt man disappeared, you know.”

  “Yes, I know. People disappear, one way or the other, sometimes for a good reason. He’ll be back there later. In the morning, people will think you hit him over the head.”

  “But I didn’t—did I? He disappeared like the g-ghosts here,” she said, hoping her guide didn’t think she was sick or crazy, even if she was. “Like Francine,” she added, “but she’s up in her room. Just like her d-daughter, I didn’t want to believe she killed herself on purpose.”

  “And so, here we go again, powerful chemicals, another strange death, so maybe this place is cursed and haunted. But first, let’s get one of those masks you’re looking for, then go down by the river.”

  “But why? Is the b-boat still there, the airboat that goes in the air?”

  “Just step in here a moment.” The person produced a key that, even in the dark, fit the lock. She knew who this was now. It had to be that man that owned the monster.

  Dizzy, almost floating, Claire went in. She collapsed on a bench in the dark room, lit only by the single flashlight—her flashlight the person had taken. Claire tried to keep her eyes open to watch. Her guide lifted a cushion from another bench like the one she sat on. Claire slumped against the wall, half asleep, but sat up straight when, from that chest, a very terr
ible mask leaped out, one that looked like it was screaming.

  Which is what she wanted to do, because she was thinking this person was someone she didn’t trust. But it wasn’t Sol Sorrento. No, he’d pretended to be dead, but she’d helped to prove that he wasn’t and then her client was killed and she was shot. She had to do everything she could to keep that from happening to her and Nick.

  She gripped her left arm with her right hand. Yes, she was remembering true things now, that she had been shot and her arm still hurt.

  “I don’t like that mask,” she said, still trying to remember his name. Or could this be Jasmine with that whispery, husky voice?

  “Let’s take it outside with us anyway. I’ll let you throw it in the river, drown it.”

  She didn’t like the sound of that. She didn’t want to be near the river, on the river, in the river. She forced herself to her feet and tried to flee, but the person grabbed her arm and pulled her back. Off balance, she fell to her knees against the finned feet of something tall. And looked up at a finned face and clawed hands.

  The monster reared up over her, no, two of them. The slick skin of the creature looked like the raincoat on the person. Claire started to scream, but the mask was pressed over her mouth.

  She couldn’t breathe, and ghosts grabbed her to hold her down. No, she was being tied with her hands behind her back. Tied with something soft like strips of cloth. And something was put in her mouth to gag her.

  “Don’t fight and don’t be afraid,” the whispery voice said. “Those ties won’t leave any marks. I think I hear someone. I’ll be back in a few minutes. You just rest until I get back, but I’m going to have to lock you in to keep you safe.”

  When the door closed and the lock clicked, Claire huddled against the wall as far away from the creature as she could get. She curled up in a ball. It was time to wake up now, time to end all this, end it once and for all.