Bad Karma

by Theresa Weir

  It wasn’t long before he heard her steady breathing.

  He should go home, he would go home, but he couldn’t make himself leave. He opened the drawer under the phone, expecting to see the usual Gideon Bible. A brown pill bottle rolled to the front. He picked it up and read the label. Cleo Tyler. Take one four times daily for anxiety.

  The address was Seattle. He didn’t know she’d lived in Seattle. But then, he didn’t really know anything about Cleo Tyler except that she hated him. And had every right to.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Cleo came awake in stages, awareness gradually filtering in. The room was dark, but she sensed it was morning, possibly late morning. The air conditioner clanked away, blowing musty breath around the room. She remembered Daniel had been there before she’d fallen asleep, but he must have left sometime later.

  She checked the bedside clock. 9:30 a.m. She let her head drop back on the pillow. Had Daniel said something about Jo wanting her to come in for another reading? She couldn’t go through that again. And she didn’t want to see Daniel. Ever.

  She got up and showered, trying to keep her bare feet away from the shower drain. There was no telling what lurked there. Afterward, dressed in jeans and a black top, she didn’t feel a whole lot cleaner, the odor of the motel room having seeped into her pores. It was hard to say how long it would take to get the stink out of her system once she left, which would be soon.

  Someone knocked. Through a crack in the louvered windows, she peered out. Daniel stood in front of her door, a cardboard carryout tray in his hands. Behind him, the sky was dark and threatening.

  She pressed her back to the wall.

  He knocked again. “Open up, Cleo.”

  Why hadn’t she set the alarm so she could have gotten out of town before anyone was up? But she’d been so tired. She was so tired.

  She heard the sound of a key slipping into the lock.

  He had a key to her room! The bastard had a key to her room!

  She was poised to dive under the bed when she remembered the orange bedspread. All she could do was stand there, back to the wall as the door swung open, sending a rectangle of gray light onto the smashed shag carpet.

  He kicked the door shut behind him and put the tray down on the foot of the bed before he spotted Cleo standing in the corner.

  “I thought you might want something to eat before we go to the police station.” He settled himself on the bed, gently so as not to tip anything over. “I was going to get orange juice, but then I thought-” His words broke off. His gaze dropped to the floor where a corner of the orange bedspread stuck out from under the gray mattress. “I got coffee,” he went on. “Muffins. Didn’t have much to choose from at the Quick Stop.”

  “Milk?” she asked, moving out of the darkness, taking a couple of hesitant steps toward the bed. “Did you get any milk?” Something white would be nice. Something white and pure and clean.

  “As a matter of fact, I did.” He reached into the bag and pulled out a small carton of milk.

  He’d brought her milk.

  He held out the carton, his arm stretched as far as it could stretch. Without moving any closer, she reached, and with trembling fingers took the milk from him, the cruelty of the previous night almost obliterated by his gift.

  She struggled with the carton. It didn’t open smoothly, and now the place where she would have to put her mouth was a jagged, rough tear. She knew how it would feel against her bottom lip. Like stringy, soggy, saturated paper.

  “Here.”

  From somewhere, maybe the sack, he produced a fresh paper cup. He took the milk, poured, added a straw, and handed it back.

  She put the straw in her mouth and began to drink. She felt the liquid run down her throat to settle, cold and comforting, in her stomach. “I love milk,” she told him.

  “No kidding.”

  She tipped the cup and sucked hard on the straw, getting every last drop.

  “Want a muffin?’ he asked.

  She looked up to see him holding a muffin, the top a smooth golden brown.

  “What kind?” she asked suspiciously.

  “I don’t know. It was the only one left.” He peeled the paper from one side and broke it open. Plain. Plain and white.

  Before he could come up with a diagnosis, she grabbed it, broke off a piece, and popped it in her mouth. It melted on her tongue. “I love plain things.”

  “Coffee?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “You drink it.” The cup was white, which was good, but it was made of Styrofoam, which was bad. Small pieces of Styrofoam could break off and float on the oily surface of the coffee.

  He removed the lid and lifted the Styrofoam cup to his mouth. She couldn’t watch. She turned on the pretense of looking out the window, but nothing could be seen through the nearly opaque glass louvers. She finished the last bite of muffin, stuffed the wrapper in the paper cup, and dropped it in the trashcan beside the open condom packet.

  She stood staring down at the packet, wishing she hadn’t seen it, wishing the past night had never happened. And she’d been doing a pretty good job pretending it hadn’t happened until that moment.

  “We’ve got to get going,” Daniel said from behind her. She heard the bed shift and knew he’d gotten to his feet. “I told Jo I’d have you at the police station by ten.”

  Cleo’s heart began to beat faster. She couldn’t put herself through that again. “I have to brush my teeth.”

  She pushed past Daniel to shut herself in the pitch-black of the bathroom. She groped for the chain, found it, and pulled, the fluorescent light flickering, then finally stabilizing. Her eyes were huge, with blue shadows under them. Purple lips. Wild hair.

  This time there would be no trance, she told herself. She would fake it. Nobody would ever know. She would pretend. And this time she would describe in more detail everything she’d seen before.

  She’d forgotten to comb her hair, and it had begun to dry the way it had fallen after she’d removed the towel from her head. She pulled it back and held it in place with a large clip. After that, she brushed her teeth, turned off the light, and stepped out to join Daniel, who was waiting, one shoulder against the door.

  Daniel waited while she slipped her feet into her sandals, waited while she gathered her bag.

  When he’d unlocked the door and stepped into the stuffy room, she’d taken his breath away. She’d emerged from the darkness with her shiny, freshly scrubbed face devoid of makeup, her hair wet and coiling on each side of her face, and for a moment he’d forgotten how to breathe.

  He wished he’d kissed her last night. Kissed her deep and hard, the way he had that first time. Last night, he’d wanted her to see what it felt like to be treated with such insignificance, but Christ, he’d gone too far.

  On the way to the police station, he attempted to apologize. “Look,” he began. “About last night-”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “I’m sorry. That’s all.”

  She didn’t answer. And why should she? Why should she waste her breath on me?

  Daniel parked next to Burt the Flirt’s sport utility vehicle. Campbell was a good outlet for the frustration and anger Daniel felt toward himself. Didn’t the guy ever work? Didn’t he have teeth to drill?

  It looked as if it was going to be pretty much a repeat of the last performance, with the same cast members. The shades were drawn, the candle lit. They made a circle, everyone sitting in the same order except for Daniel and Dr. Campbell. Daniel traded places with the dentist so he could sit directly across from Cleo.

  Just as she had the day before, she spoke in a low, husky voice, a voice that was soothing and melodic, a voice that could almost put a guy in a trance.

  “Watch the flickering flame,” she whispered. “Watch the flame.”

  A minute later, she told them to close their eyes, to visualize the flame. Daniel closed his eyes and tipped back his head so he could watch Cleo through the haze of his
lashes.

  She looked from one person to the next, as if assuring herself that they were with the program and nobody was cheating. When she reached Daniel, he let his lids fall closed, an almost imperceptible movement. A short while later, he cracked them enough to see Cleo.

  “The key,” she said. “Everyone focus on the key.” A pause. Then, “You must now replace the flame with the key. Concentrate. Focus.”

  As he watched, a little secret smile hovered at the corner of her mouth, a look of satisfaction.

  He had to admit that for a moment in the bathroom yesterday he’d briefly wondered if she’d at least convinced herself that this nonsense was real, but right now there was no denying she was a fraud.

  She suddenly gasped and stiffened, the way he guessed one was supposed to do when being possessed by some spirit, some unknown force.

  Her chest was thrown out, her head back, her throat exposed to the light and shadow of the flickering flame. It took Daniel back to another time when she’d thrown back her head in just such a way and had let out just such a gasp.

  And then the spirit must have left her. She went limp and melted on the floor.

  Everyone gathered around except for Daniel. He got to his feet and observed.

  The twins fanned her face, Harvey stared in fascination, Jo made clucking sounds, and Burt the Flirt told everybody to get back and give her some air.

  Finally the master thespian sighed and allowed herself to be pulled to a sitting position.

  “What did you see?” Jo asked. “Anything different this time?”

  Cleo stared blankly ahead, as if looking into a world nobody else in the room could see. “Yes,” she said, reaching blindly for Jo’s hand, finding it, hanging on tightly. “I saw the barn again.”

  “The barn?” Jo said, sounding a little disgusted.

  “Yes, but so much more. This time-” Cleo’s words broke off. She pulled her gaze back from the mysterious place she’d gone, focusing on Jo. “This time,” she whispered, “I went inside.”

  All three women let out a titillated gasp. “What did you see?” they asked in unison.

  “At first it was hard to see anything,” Cleo said. “It was so dark and creepy.”

  Creepy? You could have used a more descriptive word than that, Daniel thought. You’re getting sloppy, Cleo.

  Almost as if she’d read his mind, she shuddered for effect then said, “It smelled like rotten things. Rotten wood. Rotten hay. Rotten ground. There was a feeling of decay about it. It’s a bad place. I know it’s a bad place. But I made myself move.” She got that trancelike look on her face again. “I stepped forward, and I could see my feet in my sandals. And it was weird, because I was wearing a slip. A black slip. I could see the lace edge against my leg.” She kind of gave herself a shake, as if realizing she was getting sidetracked. “Someone handed me a shovel and told me to dig. So I started digging. I kept digging until-” Her words came to an abrupt halt.

  “Yes? Yes?” Everyone asked.

  “What was in the hole?” Jo asked. “What did you find?”

  Cleo ran her tongue across her lips then looked directly at Jo. “The key.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  After the séance, Cleo pleaded a headache and exhaustion. “This kind of thing always leaves me feeling like a limp rag,” she said, smiling weakly. From the corner of her eye, she saw Daniel staring at her, his expression unreadable.

  “Can I give you a lift back to your motel?” Dr. Campbell asked.

  Cleo jumped at the offer-anything to get out of riding with Daniel. She was pretty sure he’d been watching her throughout the reading and knew she’d faked the whole thing. The last thing she wanted was another interrogation.

  “That would be great,” Cleo said, gathering up the incense and candles.

  She’d briefly thought about trying to cut a deal with Jo, maybe settling for a thousand dollars if she let her go now, but Cleo no longer wanted anything from the town of Egypt except to leave it.

  Outside, Dr. Campbell opened the passenger door for her. Wow, Cleo thought, sliding into the plush, almost decadent seat. Sport utility vehicles were certainly getting luxurious. Campbell took his place behind the wheel. After a few deft maneuvers, they headed in the direction of The Palms.

  “You were amazing back there,” he said, keeping his hands in the ten-and-two-o’clock position.

  “I can’t take credit,” Cleo said. It was so much easier talking to Campbell than to Daniel. She could make small talk. Not very well, but she could do it. “It just comes to me.”

  “It doesn’t matter how it happens. It’s still amazing. I’d like to hear more about it,” he said, pulling up in front of her motel room. “Would you like to get something to eat tonight? So we can talk?”

  He didn’t want to talk about her gift. Why was it guys had to pretend? “I’d really like to,” she said, “but I have plans.” That should let him out of a tight spot without damaging his ego.

  To her relief, he didn’t argue. “Maybe another time.”

  “Yeah,” she said, knowing she would be long gone in a matter of hours. “Maybe another time.” She grabbed her bag and stepped from the vehicle. “Thanks for the ride.”

  He nodded and gave her a friendly smile.

  Inside the motel room, Cleo packed. In the process, she came across Premonition’s squeaky toys, worm medication, the special shampoo that kept his skin from getting itchy and flaky, and his vaccination papers. The harness she would keep. Maybe she’d get another dog someday.

  Done packing, she lay down and waited for dark. She would need to get some rest if she was going to spend the night hitchhiking. Minutes later, she fell asleep and immediately began to dream.

  Laughter. Somebody was laughing. It came from somewhere deep inside the wall behind her head.

  She forced herself to wake up and found the motel room cast in shadow, the way it had been that morning, so dark it could have been night.

  Laughter.

  Coming from the next room.

  She sat up, her bare feet rubbing against the clammy shag rug. The orange shag rug.

  The laughter was still there, just behind the wall. Shrill laughter. A woman’s drunken laughter. Between the bursts of laughter, Cleo heard the rumble of a man’s deep voice.

  She stood and moved closer, thinking to press her ear to the wall. She put out her hand and it disappeared into the wall as if dipped in murky water.

  I’m not awake, she realized. This is still the dream.

  She should have known, because it had the creepy, slanted mood of the old dream, the pumpkin dream. There was a feeling of expectation, of knowing something bad was going to happen.

  She stuck her arm deeper into the wall, all the way to her shoulder. Even though she wanted to wake up, even though she didn’t want to do what she was doing, she followed her arm through the wall…until she stood in a mirror-image room of the one she’d just left. In this room, the orange bedspread was still on the bed. The orange curtains still covered the window.

  She thought she was alone, but gradually realized she wasn’t. A man stood in the center of the room. His back was to her. He was bent, concentrating on a task. As she watched, he gathered the corners of the orange bedspread and began wrapping something, rolling something.

  What is he doing?

  Finished, he picked up the bundle. It must have been heavy, because he almost collapsed. He let out a grunt and tried to shift his weight. The bundle slipped from his fingers and slumped to the floor. He mumbled and cursed, stepping over the bedspread, grabbing it by one end. Walking backward, he dragged it toward the door, leaving a dark stain on the rug.

  Cleo followed the stain, followed the man out the door to where an open car trunk waited. He looked up at Cleo.

  And now she could see it was Harvey.

  “Aren’t you going to help me hide the key?” he asked with no surprise or alarm. “Grab that end.”

  She didn’t want to touch the orange fabr
ic, but she reached down, gripping it tightly with her fingers.

  They lifted. The bundle hardly weighed anything. Why had he needed her help?

  “Get in,” he said, motioning for her to get inside the trunk along with the bundle.

  She shook her head.

  “Go on. I’ll give you a ride.”

  She did need a ride. That was right. “Out of town?” she asked.

  “Anywhere.”

  “You have the key, don’t you?”

  “I am the key.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You’re not supposed to. This is a dream.”

  She looked at him more closely and realized it wasn’t Harvey standing there, but Dr. Campbell. It had been Campbell all along.

  “I hope you’re flossing,” he told her.

  “I am.”

  “Don’t lie to me,” he said in a calm voice. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know you could read my mind.”

  “Get in the trunk.”

  “I can’t.”

  “You have to get in.”

  She turned and tried to run, but her feet were mired in something thick and deep. The rug. The orange shag rug. She couldn’t make any progress. She knew he was right behind her, right behind her, right behind her-

  She felt a hand on her arm.

  She screamed and turned.

  Cleo came awake, her heart racing, her clothes damp with sweat.

  She sat up, the creepy sensation of the dream still heavy in her.

  That it was dark, truly dark, was the first thing she noticed as she waited for her heart to stop pounding. She groped for the bedside lamp, found it, and clicked it on. Almost 9:00 p.m. Her body had that heavy, gritty feeling that came with a long sleep that had taken place at the wrong time of day. On the foot of the bed were Premonition’s things. It was still too early to leave town, but she had to get out of the motel for a few hours.

  She cleaned up, put on a dry top-unfortunately, one she’d worn before-grabbed the stuff from the end of the bed, and headed out into the night.

  Chapter Eighteen