by John Tigges
Recalling the previous evening, she remembered that Myles had not been on the late news. She had turned the set off when she realized she wouldn’t see him. In fact, when she thought about it for a few minutes, she even recalled what the substitute newsman was saying. Something about a murder. She remembered because his voice had withered and died as the set went off. Maybe her set needed attention. The switch might not be going off all the way and some vibration or something might be jostling the TV just enough to put it back on.
She couldn’t waste her time this morning worrying about something like that. Work had to take precedence today. She had enjoyed a great night’s sleep and would be able to leave for work a few minutes early. Relegating the troublesome TV set to the back of her mind, she thought about the stereo going on in the same manner before filing it in her memory bank next to the television problem.
When she reached the office, she found most of the secretaries talking about the peculiar murder that had taken place.
“What do you think happened?” Julie Lewis asked, turning to Nicole when she saw the public relations director enter.
“Think? Happened?” Nicole asked. “What are you talking about?”
“Didn’t you see the paper last night or watch the news?”
Nicole shook her head.
“A woman was murdered.”
“So?” Nicole asked, shrugging. “Murders happen all of the time.”
“But most of the time the news media are right there with all the sordid details. This time there weren’t any. Details, that is,” Julie said.
Nicole waited. There had to be more to what the girl was saying.
“You don’t believe me, do you?” Julie asked, turning to the other girls. “Am I lying?”
They all shook their heads.
“I … I don’t understand,” Nicole said when she saw the curious expressions on the girls’ faces.
“It said in the paper that the body was found by some reporter or something. Last night on the newscasts, they hardly referred to it other than to say that the woman was found by a reporter. No details. Nothing about how she died or the weapon or anything. We think it’s peculiar.”
“That’s all?” Nicole asked bluntly.
Julia nodded. “We think it’s out of the ordinary. We were …”
“All right! All right! All right!” Rose Tunic cried, bursting from her office. “What’s going on here?” Her nostrils flaring, the overweight woman’s eyes shrunk as her cheeks puffed out.
“Nothing, Miss Tunic,” Julie said, turning back to her typewriter.
The other secretaries fled the scene, making their way to their own desks. Nicole stood there for a moment.
“Don’t you have an office?” Rose demanded, blocking Nicole’s passage.
“You know I do, Miss Tunic,” Nicole said quietly, “but you’re standing in my way.”
For a moment, Rose stood her ground before stepping aside. Nicole had all she could do to keep from laughing. The woman thought of herself as the one and only force in the office. She might have the other girls fooled but Nicole would have none of the woman’s browbeating. Doctor Claypool was her immediate supervisor and main concern—the man to whom she reported and had to keep happy with her ideas and work. He had been more than helpful in getting her started in the right direction, and when her own ideas took over, he had seemed more than pleased. Rose Tunic could go jump in the lake as far as Nicole was concerned.
Friday, October 17, 1986 8:30 A.M.
Myles lay on his back, staring at the ceiling. He hadn’t slept since finding Eunice’s remains. Whenever he thought of that pool of pinkish jelly surrounding her severed head, he shuddered, fighting the awful urge to throw up. But since he hadn’t eaten, there was nothing in him to vomit. When had he found her? After concentrating, he concluded only that he had found her the morning before yesterday. After the police dismissed him, advising him to stay in close contact, he had returned to his apartment, shutting the awful world out. Then, today had to be Friday.
He wished somehow that he could cry. Maybe that would help. But his feelings for Eunice finally clarified, once he realized that the woman was dead. He had cared for her only physically—not in the way he had found himself feeling about Nicole. Perhaps that was what had scared him and forced him to run from Nicole. He had been frightened by the growing swell of emotion he felt within himself for her. Now he realized definitely that he had made a mistake, that he had given up something precious.
If only Nicole hadn’t gotten involved with someone else—if she still felt anything for him —if he could gather together the necessary emotional strength to face her again, he would do everything in his power to win her back.
He leaped off the bed, hurrying to the window. Why did he feel like this now? It was hypocritical of him, to say the least. There would be no funeral for Eunice, and for that he was thankful. He had learned from the police that her remains were to be shipped to her room in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. At first he had felt a moral obligation to offer to make the necessary arrangements. He couldn’t recall if Eunice had ever said anything other than in passing about a family or relatives someplace. She had never gone into much detail.
If Nicole and he got back together, he’d benefit. But what if he and Nicole weren’t meant for each other?
A piercing jab beneath his left ear brought a cry to his lips. What the hell was that awful pain? He rubbed his ear for a moment, easing the pain. Hopefully that would be the end of that.
Nicole. He had been thinking about Nicole. Nicole and he getting back together again. It would be more than nice if they did. If they didn’t, he’d survive somehow and so would she.
The pain struck again. Whatever it was, it left when he rubbed his afflicted ear again. Enough of that. He stormed into the bathroom and quickly swallowed three aspirin tablets. When he turned to leave, the shower passively beckoned to him. He hadn’t done much of anything the last forty-eight hours or so, and a hot shower would get him back on track. Slipping from his robe, Myles turned on the hot water and stepped in when clouds of steam billowed through the bathroom.
Monday, October 20, 1986 1:00 P.M.
Nicole could not have been more pleased with the manner in which the campaign initially had been received. The few people she had spoken with on Friday had been more than willing to cooperate, agreeing to do a story or grant her an interview.
But she had resisted going first to Myles’ station. Was she afraid? Afraid of what? A confrontation wherein she would learn that he had fallen in love with someone else? Perhaps he was living with someone. Had he given up his apartment? Worse still, might he be engaged to marry? Whenever those awful thoughts bombarded her, she choked back her urge to cry, to scream, to give vent to her frustrated emotions. He had to be waiting for her. He simply had to be!
Today, she could not give herself logical reasons why she should not call on KSLL-TV. She had three other offices to call on, all of which were in the same building. If she ran into Myles while at KSLL-TV, she’d merely tough it out.
To ward off the possible meeting, she called on her other contacts first and at three o’clock pushed open the glass doors of KSLL-TV.
2:55 P.M.
Myles stood behind his desk. Coming back to work had not been as traumatic as he had anticipated. He would be forever thankful that there had been no funeral for him to attend, but at least she would have mourners when her remains reached South Dakota.
Tonight, he would return to his job as anchorman and things would return to normal. Bending down, he jotted Nicole’s name on a list of people he wanted to contact within the next day or two. What would he say to her? He had no idea and would not make any overture until he had rehearsed something. What he would do beyond that initial call was equally mystifying, but he knew he had to speak to her —and that he would do so before the end of the week. He needed that much time to pull himself and his thoughts together. Glancing at his watch, he decided he’d get a cup of
coffee before the three-thirty meeting he had with the station manager. That would give him just half an hour. Picking up his coffee mug, he went to the office door and stepped into the hall.
3:00 P.M.
Nicole froze. No sooner had she entered the lobby of KSLL-TV than Myles stepped from his office into the hallway, walking directly toward her. When he looked up, their eyes met and locked. He looked terrible—as if he had had no sleep or certainly wasn’t getting an adequate amount. Dark circles below his eyes added to his overall appearance of exhaustion.
She watched him come toward her. Why hadn’t he stopped? Why hadn’t he turned around when he saw her, retreating to the sanctity of his private office? Why was he walking directly toward her? Surely he had seen her. She tried remembering if he had looked so haggard the last time she’d seen him on TV. Something must have happened while he was off from work. Perhaps he’d been ill.
“Nicole,” he said simply, his voice catching on the single word.
“Hello, Myles. How are you?” She felt surprise at the confidence in her voice.
“I could he and tell you fine but actually the last few days have been pretty awful.”
“Really? Why?” She hoped her voice didn’t sound as cold or as calculating as the two simple words could have implied.
He studied her for a moment, seemingly to drink in her features like a man dying of thirst would do to a glass of water before consuming it. Coughing to clear his throat, he forced a smile.
“You heard about it, didn’t you?”
“It? About what?”
“The murder of Eunice Brooks.”
“Who?”
“The murdered girl I found.”
“You found?” Her face flushed. Myles had been the reporter who had found the murdered woman? She had not read about the incident in the paper and didn’t know if his name had been mentioned. If it had, the people at the clinic could not have associated her with Myles because she had never mentioned him to anyone. And as far as TV news was concerned, she had turned off the set each time she saw Barth Galloway preparing to broadcast in Myles’ absence.
Myles gave her a sterile version of what he had found without going into all the gory details, relaxing visibly when she comforted him as much as she could in a public lobby. She could tell that he hadn’t told her everything and wished he would open up. If he had been involved with the dead woman, it would do him more good to talk it out of his system than keep it bottled up inside.
“Can we talk in your office for a moment, Myles?”
“Sure,” he said, taking her arm to guide her toward it.
When they were seated inside with the door closed, she said, “I know you well enough to realize that you weren’t telling me everything out there. Why don’t you dump on me? I can handle it.”
An ironic smile crossed his face. “I rather doubt that, Nicole. Really. It was awful. The reason the news media has not gone into much detail is that the scene was so awful, so hideous that it couldn’t be described in an acceptable way.”
“I don’t understand.”
“And I hope you never have to, Nicole.” He looked away, a haunted expression replacing the sad one on his face. He looked as if he were reliving the scene again.
“Myles, don’t,” she said, standing to cross the short distance to him. Reaching out she gently touched his hand, smiling when he looked up.
“I think that scene will stay with me as long as I live,” he whispered. “It was Eunice who drew me away from you, you know.”
She waited. Talking would do him good. What matter if what he said would hurt her? She wanted to know why he had left, what his reasoning had been. If she knew, she would be better able to fight the ghost of Eunice Brooks.
Little by little, Myles explained why he had left, how stupid his reasons seemed now.
“You know,” he said, after pausing for a while, “you were on my mind a lot of the time. In fact, I was considering leaving Eunice and coming back to you, begging for another chance. She wasn’t the brightest person around, and …”
“Myles,” Nicole said, breaking in, “I’m still here. Waiting. I did nothing while you were gone. Somehow I knew we’d wind up together again. You know …”
“No,” Myles said, pulling away from her and standing. “It’s all over. The memory of Eunice would always be there between us. There’s no way I could ever consider being with you again after the way I treated you. I was such a fool. Fools should not be given a second chance.”
“I don’t believe that, Myles,” she said quietly. “I don’t think you do either. Time will heal …”
“Time will not heal anything. There’s only one thing I can do. Leave … leave the area and …”
Before he could continue, he grabbed his left ear, sucking in his breath as the pain hammered at him.
“What is it, Myles?” Nicole moved toward him. Something was drastically wrong. His face contorted painfully as he rubbed his ear.
“It … it’s nothing,” he mumbled. “It … it’ll pass. It always does.”
“How long has that been going on?”
“It’s happened only once or twice. If it continues, I’ll go see a doctor.”
“Promise?”
“I promise.”
“I have to go, Myles. I have a meeting with the station manager at three thirty and it’s a minute past that now. Will you call me?”
“I’ve got a meeting with him, too. Come on. I’ll escort you,” he said, taking her arm once more.
“Are you all right?” she asked, her concern for his apparent earache more evident than his.
“All right? Oh, you mean the ear. Yeah. The pain is gone now. Come on or we’ll be late. I don’t want him to think I waylaid you on purpose.”
Allowing him to guide her by her arm as they walked down the hallway, she watched him out of the corner of her eye. She fervently hoped that he would change his mind about leaving. The way he had said it seemed to be almost spontaneous. Now that she had seen him again up close, she knew more than before that she wanted him. She felt she truly loved Myles. She’d do whatever it took to get him to stay.
7
Monday, October 20, 1986 11:12 P.M.
Nicole watched Myles that night while he gave the late news. Marveling at his composure on camera, she compared the cool, articulate news reporter with the disturbed, upset and almost distraught man she had encountered earlier that day. Myles’ horror over Eunice Brooks’ death had shown her a whole new aspect to his personality—one that seemed to complete him as a person. She always had known him to be a serious, concerned person who was completely aware of all the troubles and ills of the world. That was something he had gained from his chosen field of work. There also had been the happy-go-lucky side of him, the humor, the devil-may-care attitude of his light moments. She had liked all of that. His tenderness when it came to making love had been the mortar that had held the bricks of his personality together for Nicole. Now this new facet completed the man and she wanted him even more than she had in the past.
When the news program finished, she hurried to bed, and once beneath the covers, almost immediately fell asleep. After several hours had passed, the turntable in the other room began spinning slowly until it gained its proper speed, and the arm moved obediently from its resting place, stopping when it reached what should have been the edge of a record. Then the arm dropped, and although there was no disc on the turntable, the soft strains of a Strauss waltz began filtering through the apartment. The volume grew, infiltrating the bedroom, and Nichole’s lips curved into a sinister smile.
She bowed her head, holding out her arms to her dream-companion. Accepting his invitation to dance, she joined him and they spun about the floor, their feet barely touching the cold, black marble beneath them. The hands of the huge clock in the ballroom moved inexorably toward twelve, then one, then two, and as they hovered at right angles between twelve and three, the music changed into an abandoned dervish-like melody—wild
and fast tempoed. The couple spun faster and faster until the room blurred into a haze of colors and streaks.
In the living room of Nicole’s apartment, the small chiming clock wiggled as if being jostled by unseen hands until it slid to the edge of the shelf on which it rested. Floating in midair, it circled the room three times before sailing through the doorway, down the short hall toward the open bedroom. After three circuits of that room it slowed, hovering over Nicole’s head. The three soft notes sounding the hour brought rapid eye movement to Nicole’s undulating lids. The small clock circled the bed before retracing its route to the living room shelf.
“Shall we unmask?” her partner asked, reaching for his goat’s mask.
“Yes,” she said, removing her non-existent face covering.
When she saw he still had a mask identical to the one he had removed still covering his face, she felt her face redden.
“Shall we unmask?” he asked again, removing the mask only to reveal another.
“Yes.” Her voice rose to an irritated level.
“Shall we unmask?” he asked her the third time, pulling the goat’s face away again. He stared at her, his yellow eyes drilling into hers, ripping away any shield of secrecy that covered her soul, tearing down any resistance she might have mustered.
“Yes! Yes! Yes!” she screamed, sitting up in bed.
Breathing heavily as though she had been running for hours, Nicole stared into the darkness. What was wrong? Had she been dreaming? What? What had she been dreaming? Dancing? She had been dancing.
Frowning, she concentrated but could not catch the main theme of the nightmare. It had to be a nightmare if she awoke terrified, sweating and breathing rapidly. What had she dreamt? Why couldn’t she remember? Usually she could recall her dreams in great detail. Now, she could not recall anything other than the fact that she had been dancing. But with whom? Where? Why? How? The questions banged at her until her head finally thumped with a dull ache.
