by Debra Webb
Headmaster Theodore Yeager waited at her classroom door. Uneasiness crept up her spine, slowing her step as she neared him. Why would he be waiting at her door? Had a parent complained about her work? That didn’t seem likely. She had a great relationship with all her parents. The children loved her. In the four years that she had worked here, she’d never had a single complaint.
“Good morning, Mr. Yeager. Is everything all right?” She studied his somber expression and even before he spoke, she knew the news was bad. Very bad.
“Ms. Shepard, let’s step into your room.”
She followed him inside, where he closed the door. Where were the children? Usually Anna or Tyler got to the room even before her. The sound of emptiness echoed around her, adding another layer of dread to her uneasiness.
“Your students are in Ms. Paige’s room. I wanted to speak with you privately before class begins. I called you at home but you’d already left.”
She had left a full thirty minutes early this morning. “What’s wrong?” She couldn’t bear not knowing any longer. A kind of mental darkness pressed against her mind…tried to show her something, but the medication was still working too well for it to get past.
“I’m so sorry to be the one to tell you this but little Anna Talbot went missing early this morning.”
Denial broadsided Darby. “No.” She shook her head. No. There had to be a mistake.
“I know how close you are to all your students, Ms. Shepard. They suspect the same person who has taken the other children. It’s horrible…just horrible.”
This couldn’t be. She refused to believe. Her body started to shake. She couldn’t control it. Tears flooded her eyes, making vision impossible. The next thing she knew, Mr. Yeager had guided her to the chair behind her desk.
“I’ll have Ms. Paige keep your class until you’ve composed yourself, Ms. Shepard. We don’t want to frighten the children. This is so utterly horrible. I can hardly believe it myself. I—”
“How do they know it was him?”
Mr. Yeager frowned, stared at her as if from some far away place. “They…oh…they found the flowers…the…” He threw his hands up, flustered. “Whatever kind of flowers this monster leaves.”
“Posies,” she murmured. That’s why at least one newspaper had dubbed him the Bouquet Killer. He always left a handful of crushed posies behind when he took the child. “They’re sure it happened this morning?” she asked, suddenly remembering that the other three had gone missing just before sunset.
Headmaster Yeager nodded. “She went outside to get her lunchbox from the car. She’d forgotten to bring it inside last evening. Her mother said she’d only been gone a minute, maybe two, when she went to the door to see what was keeping her.” He shook his head. “She just needed her lunchbox to prepare for school.”
Darby stood. Her legs were still shaky but she had to pull herself back together. The other children needed her. She had to be strong for them. Poor Anna. A sob ripped at her chest. Poor…poor Anna.
The morning dragged into noon with no word from the Talbot family or the police. Darby had no appetite but she forced down a few bites during her lunch break to stave off the dizziness. The teachers speculated that all the Bouquet kidnappings would end in death. Darby scarcely kept her pitiful excuse for lunch down. Finally she excused herself and went back to her room early.
When the children were down for their afternoon nap, she propped her arms on her desk and laid her head there. God, she was so tired…and she couldn’t get the image of sweet little Anna out of her mind. So smart. So pretty. Darby held back the tears, just barely. But a moment or two with her eyes closed would definitely be beneficial. Her eyes were red and tired from fighting tears all morning. She needed to rest them…just for a moment…
Ring a-round the roses.
Pocketful of posies.
Anna…Anna…I’ve got you, Anna.
He laughed long and loud, the sound pure evil. His jaw was hard, scarred…a long, thin scar down his right cheek.
One, two, I’m coming for you. Three, four, better lock your door.
Darby tried to wake herself up, but she couldn’t. She was trapped in the dream with…him. She could smell his sweat, could feel little Anna’s fear. God, help her! She didn’t want to see! No, please, she didn’t want to see!
They belong to me now.
Darby jerked upright. Her breath whooshed out in a rush. She blinked twice and fought for her bearings.
Her classroom. She blinked again. The children were still sleeping.
She swiped at her wet cheeks. Anna. She closed her eyes and suppressed a sob. Dear, sweet little Anna.
Darby stilled. She’d heard his voice distinctly this time. Had even gotten a glimpse of his profile. A scar ran down the length of his cheek on the right side of his face. His nose was overlarge and his jaw flinty, hard.
For the first time in her life, she felt with a fair measure of certainty that this time she might see more. Her heart started to pound all over again. She surveyed the room. The few children whose parents hadn’t picked them up after hearing the news slept soundly.
She could try. She dragged in a hollow breath. She had to try.
Darby closed her eyes and focused on the image of the man she’d seen in her dream. She prayed he was the one…the Bouquet Killer. If he was and she could see him more clearly, could make out details of where he was, then maybe she could help Anna and the others.
Please, God, she prayed, let them still be alive.
She had never tried to bring on a dream before, had never discussed the dreams at all with anyone—not even her parents after that one time. A part of her had been too afraid of the men in the white coats finding out. Some part of her had known with certainty that if they found out, they would come for her. So she kept her secret. But she had read about self-induced hypnosis. So she started there.
Relaxing her muscles one by one, she lulled herself toward total relaxation. She pushed away all thought and opened her mind to the sensations around her. The smell of books and drying finger paint from the children’s artwork. The soft snoring of one of the children. The hard feel of the wooden desk beneath her arms. The texture of her own skin where her cheek pressed against her forearm.
Light slashed through her brain, blinding in its intensity. Her respiration picked up, each breath harder than the last to draw into her lungs.
She could smell the water…the river. Rotting foliage. The grass was deep. No, not grass…weeds…underbrush. The woods. She was in the woods along the river. It was dark. She was alone. The ambient sounds of night echoed so loudly in her ears she wanted to scream, but she couldn’t. If she screamed, he would know she was there.
A sound came from behind her. She stopped dead in her tracks. It came again. The brush of foliage against fabric. Someone was behind her…coming closer.
Darby turned around slowly, careful not to make a sound.
She sucked in a breath…sat straight up at her desk.
It was him.
She blinked.
Shook herself from the mist of sleep still clinging to her soul.
“Ms. Shepard!”
“Ms. Shepard, what’s the matter?”
Darby blinked again and the children’s faces came into focus. All six of those who remained in her class stood in front of her desk staring at her wide-eyed, fear dancing across their little faces.
“I’m fine,” she said thickly. “Sorry. I’m fine.”
Her fingers were clenched into fists. Her heart hammered in her chest.
“You kept jerking and wiggling,” little Matt Caruthers told her. “My dog does that sometimes when he sleeps. Were you having a nightmare, Ms. Shepard?”
She nodded and forced her fingers to relax. “I guess so, Matt. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten any of you.”
Darby stood, smoothed her hands over her skirt and moved around her desk. “Let’s read a story. Jenny, you choose this time.”
F
or the rest of the afternoon Darby went through the motions. She read to the children and they talked about the different stories that each of them loved. But no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t keep those deep, dark woods out of her mind. She’d seen him there. Somewhere near the river. Of course, in New Orleans that could be a lot of places. But it was something.
For the first time in her life, she felt certain she could reach out and touch him…see what he saw. That’s what she’d been doing in the dream. That’s why he’d been behind her. She’d been seeing through his eyes part of the time.
But how much time did she have before he hurt one or all of the children? Could she spare the time it might take to focus her mind fully on his location?
Time was her enemy.
The children might not have time.
WHEN HER LAST STUDENT had gone, Darby rushed from the school without exchanging the usual pleasantries with her friends and co-workers. She had to hurry. She pedaled as fast as she dared in the afternoon traffic. She had made up her mind that she needed help for this. The kind of help only a self-professed psychic could give.
She’d heard the other teachers talk about Madam Talia. Some even admitted to having had their futures told by the woman. Madam Talia had a reputation for being the best in New Orleans. One of those magazine talk shows had even done a special program on her. Darby wasn’t exactly sure she believed in that sort of thing, but she didn’t have anything to lose. If the woman knew anything at all about clairvoyance, she was way ahead of Darby. That was all that mattered at the moment.
Madam Talia’s shop boasted a landmark location on the corner of Bourbon Street. Well, Darby deduced as she parked her bike on the sidewalk and locked it securely, at the very least the lady was making a living. She had to be doing something right. Surely Darby would sense if the woman was a fake.
There was only one way to find out.
An older woman dressed much like any typical receptionist met Darby in the small lobby. Surprisingly, the waiting room was decorated in an elegant and conservative manner. It was nothing like she’d expected.
“My name is Darby Shepard,” she told the receptionist. “I’d like to see Madam Talia. It’s very important.”
The lady, who was dressed in just as quietly elegant a fashion as the office was decorated, smiled patiently. “I’m very sorry, Ms. Shepard, but you’ll need to make an appointment. Madam Talia is booked weeks in advance. She doesn’t take walk-ins.”
Darby’s hopes fell. But she had to see her today. Desperation surged. “I’ll only take a minute,” she countered. “It’s extremely important. I really need to see her today.”
The woman looked sympathetic but said, “I sympathize with your urgency, but there’s simply nothing I can do. Madam Talia is with a client as we speak and she expects her next appointment to arrive shortly.”
Darby heaved a sigh. Oh well. The whole idea had been foolish anyway, she supposed. She’d just have to go home and see what she could do on her own.
“Thanks anyway,” she offered, then turned to leave. Worry gnawed at her insides. She had to help those children. She should have tried before now, shouldn’t have been such a coward. If something happened to them, it would be partly her fault for not trying to help sooner.
“Ms. Shepard.”
Darby wheeled around at the sound of the new voice that called her name. Though she had never met Madam Talia, she knew instinctively that the refined lady who had addressed her was, indeed, the woman she wanted to see.
“Come this way, Ms. Shepard.”
Unable to find her voice, Darby followed. The receptionist said nothing more as she resumed her seat behind her well-polished desk.
Madam Talia led Darby down a long narrow corridor and then into a small room that resembled the parlor in her mother’s home. The upholstered furnishings were New Orleans red, the wood detailing a rich mahogany.
“Please make yourself comfortable,” her hostess suggested with a wave of her arm.
Darby sat in one of the chairs flanking a small table. Madam Talia settled in the one adjacent to her.
“I’ve been wondering when I would meet you,” she said to Darby.
Startled, Darby smiled. “I…I don’t understand.”
“I’ve always known you were here, Ms. Shepard,” Madam Talia said. “I just didn’t know why, but I think that’s about to change.”
Emotion surged into Darby’s throat. She resisted the impulse to pinch herself to make sure she wasn’t dreaming. “I need your help,” she said tightly.
“You seek the children, do you not?”
Darby nodded. Tears stung her eyes. How could she know? She started to ask but changed her mind. It didn’t matter. All that mattered was that she could help. Darby didn’t have to wonder, she knew the answer, felt it to the very core of her being. This woman was the real thing.
“I’ve seen him,” Darby whispered. “I just don’t know how to focus. I don’t know where he is.” She shrugged. “The woods…water. I don’t know.”
“I’ve searched for him myself,” Madam Talia admitted. “But he eludes me. But then you understand that, don’t you?”
Darby shook her head. “I don’t understand any of it.”
The older woman took her hand. A rush of energy shot up to Darby’s shoulder. She trembled at the intensity of it.
“We see what we’re destined to see. At least most of us do. I’m not so sure about you. You’ve spent too much time blocking…suppressing your gift. You may have a much larger gift than the rest of us.”
Darby tried hard to restrain the shaking that had started in her limbs, but she wasn’t entirely successful. “I dream sometimes. See things that don’t always make sense. That’s all.”
Madam Talia laughed softly. “You have no idea what you’re capable of, my dear. You’ve come to me for guidance, for focus and yet you possess a gift far more powerful than my own.” She reached for Darby’s other hand. “Let us meditate a moment.”
Madam Talia closed her eyes. Darby moistened her lips and tried to calm her racing heart, but that wasn’t happening this side of the grave. Still uncertain of herself, she closed her eyes as well and tried to relax, tried to open her mind to the sensations she knew were out there…waiting.
Energy whirled around her…around them. She could feel its power; it was like standing too close to an electrical plant’s substation and feeling the tiny hairs stand up on your skin.
The images came in clipped flashes, too fast to interpret. Fast and furious. Children, the woods, the water, the flowers growing in pots. Lots and lots of posies growing in pots on the porch of a dilapidated old shack. Near the water.
Her breath stalled in her lungs when she looked directly into clear gray eyes. The scar stood out in stark relief on his cheek. The stubble of two days’ beard growth darkened his jaw. He taunted the children, laughed at their cries.
Ring a-round the roses. Pocketful of posies.
Sensation after sensation slammed into Darby. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move, couldn’t speak.
She was there.
The children.
Anna…the boy…and another girl.
But Darby had to hurry.
The hum of energy died as abruptly as it had started. Her eyes opened and Madam Talia stared directly at her.
“What did you see?” she asked, her voice weak, frail. She looked weary.
Had joining hands with Darby done that to her?
Suddenly the vision came back to her in one rapid whoosh. The cabin, the flower pots, the children.
“I know where they are.”
The words were scarcely a whisper, a thought spoken.
Darby was on her feet before the command left her brain. She had to find them.
“No,” Madam Talia said, her voice firm now, her expression hard. “You go to the police. Let them find the children. Do not go into the woods, Darby Shepard. Go home.” Her eyes widened and she looked suddenly afraid. “Bette
r lock your door.”
FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER, Darby walked into the precinct office at Jackson Square. She remembered the detective who’d questioned her last evening. Still had his card.
Her movements awkward as if she no longer held dominion over her muscles, she walked up to the duty desk and said, “I need to see Detective Willis.”
The uniformed sergeant didn’t look up from the papers he was busily shuffling. “Detective Willis is a busy man. How can I help you?”
Darby moistened her lips and summoned her courage. The shaking wouldn’t subside. She just couldn’t stop it. “Please, sir, it’s urgent that I speak with Detective Willis.”
He looked up at her then. “Like I said, lady, it’s me or nothing. Now, how can I help you?”
She took a breath, nodded stiffly. “All right…I…just…” Her gaze locked with his. “I think I know where the children are.”
Chapter Three
Center
Ghost Mountain
Colorado
Governor Kyle Remington shook his head at the collection of newspapers on the conference table before him. Center and its advanced work were the most tightly kept secrets in the nation. How could this happen? “Tell us how this happened, Director O’Riley.”
His gaze shifted from the dozen or so papers and settled solemnly onto Richard O’Riley. The other members of the Collective seated around the long conference table turned their attention in his direction as well. O’Riley was the man whose primary responsibility was to protect the nation’s top scientific research facility.
“There is no easy explanation,” O’Riley stalled. He had gotten the first ripples of intelligence on this matter at dawn this morning. Dupree, Center’s senior intelligence analyst, had picked it up on the Net. Not the Net as in the Internet, but Center’s Net, a specialized surveillance system that monitored all sources of mass communication—the World Wide Web, telephones, satellites and the like. Certain key words triggered the Net and the source of the key words was then recorded and analyzed for relevant data.
More than a dozen Louisiana newspapers had rushed to change copy at the crack of dawn to include a break in a big case involving missing children in New Orleans. By 7:00 a.m., every single one of those front pages had recounted a story right off the pages of a science fiction novel. Psychic Teacher Leads Police To Child Killer…Teacher Uses Special Gift To Find Missing Student…etcetera, etcetera.
