Where was he? She was beginning to feel slightly wilted in her new dress, and her feet hurt.
About to move from the window, she spotted Mrs. Cameron, her employer, coming out from behind the cash register, purposefully threading her way through the small tables toward Katie. Katie groaned inwardly, then, resigned to her fate, she smiled as Mrs. Cameron approached her.
“You mustn’t frown so, Katie, dear, you’ll make wrinkles.” She patted the fat, white braids that encircled a broad, rather flat, Germanic face. “Don’t worry. I’m sure your young man will be along soon.” Shorter than Katie, Mrs. Cameron had to look up to speak to her, but that didn’t stop her from being a formidable presence.
“I wasn’t really worr…”
“Oh, of course you were,” she cut in, dismissing Katie’s denial with a wave of her plump hand. “It’s perfectly understandable. Courtesy doesn’t keep one waiting. Promptness, as we know, is the virtue of kings. And forgiveness the virtue of Christians. I expect it’s the storm that’s keeping him.”
Katie couldn’t help smiling. Mrs. Cameron had a seemingly endless supply of adages for every occasion, some of which Katie suspected she made up, and liked nothing better than the opportunity to quote them. Not that Katie didn’t appreciate—well, at least the more amusing of them. As she appreciated the woman herself. Mrs. Cameron was a no-nonsense person who, after the sudden death of her husband six years ago, had taken her life into her own hands and built a thriving little business in The Coffee Shop. Her chronically flushed complexion was the result of high-blood pressure, the reason she’d given over much of the daily running of the business to Katie. She was here every night, though, and Katie suspected she’d be lost without The Coffee Shop. It had become a second home to her. Too, Mrs. Cameron liked to keep an eye on things. As she was doing now. Her sharp, black eyes on Katie were reminiscent of a mother bird’s.
“My, aren’t you looking pretty tonight? That lovely green dress matches your eyes perfectly. Real silk, is it?”
Katie said it was, and felt a pang of guilt thinking of the price tag. But she’d wanted to look especially nice tonight.
“You know, Katie, you could be a model. One of those high-paid ones, too.”
“Thank you.”
“But what did you do to your hair, dear?” she questioned, beginning to circle Katie, frowning. “It looks—different.”
A few heads turned to look. Katie touched a self-conscious hand to her new hairdo. The hairdresser had assured her the feathery, textured style softened the strong angles of her face, and was becoming. Katie had liked it, too.
“Just a new cut,” she said.
“Yes, of course. Well, I suppose it’s not so bad. I’m glad you left the back long, though it’s not as long as it was, is it?” This last was said almost in an accusation. “Makes you look younger, Katie—like a schoolgirl.”
Katie thought she liked “model” better. She wasn’t sure that, at her age, she wanted to look like a schoolgirl. But she knew it had been meant as a compliment. At least she hoped so. With Mrs. Cameron, you could never be sure.
To Katie’s enormous relief, a woman approached the cash register, bill in hand, and Mrs. Cameron had no choice but to hurry off to attend to business.
Katie turned back to the window. Aside from the darkness and the rain, there was only her own ghostly reflection in the glass.
A half hour later Drake still had not arrived, and Katie began to worry that he might have had a serious accident. Surely if it had been something minor, like a flat tire, he would have tracked down a phone by now. There had to be an awfully good reason why he would miss a dinner party given in his honor.
Was it possible that Professor Walters, unaware that Drake had invited a female guest, had already arranged for a dinner partner for Drake, and Drake was too embarrassed to face her with it? No, she was being ridiculous.
Then why wasn’t he here? He’d seemed so pleased when she’d agreed to go with him. Katie shifted her feet in their two-inch heels and slipped a throbbing foot out of her shoe.
The rain, sounding like thunderous applause, was coming down harder than ever, though Katie hadn’t thought that was possible. Behind her, dishes clattered, the cash register rang. Across the room a woman laughed, and Katie darted a look behind her.
You’re being paranoid, she told herself, finding no one paying her the slightest attention. She’d been doing that a lot lately. Getting the creepy feeling that she was being watched, feeling eyes on the back of her neck, turning to look and finding herself quite alone.
The crowd had thinned to a few stragglers, but she knew that in an hour from now the place would be jammed with university students from B.U. The Coffee Shop, with its knotty pine walls and high-beamed ceiling, was a favorite Saturday night haunt. They came, bringing with them their ideals, their poetry. Much of it was dark and angry, a running commentary on man’s inhumanity to man, also focusing on acid rain, oil spills and the nuclear arms race. They were young men and women on the threshold of uncertain futures. And they were frightened.
Katie thought they had good reason to be. She knew something about war. And thoughts of it brought, as always, memories of Todd Raynes, her young and perfect love, and a long ago letter telling her he was missing in action—lost somewhere in the steamy jungles of Vietnam.
“Missing”—a terrible word. Was he a prisoner in some war camp enduring atrocities she didn’t even dare let herself think about? Was he lying wounded in some far off makeshift hospital? Did he cry out for her in dreams of a different life? Or maybe he was the victim of amnesia. And on and on it went. Never knowing for sure—that was the worst. She came to long as much for proof of Todd’s death as she did for his return, which, even after all this time, filled her with a terrible guilt.
“Two BLTs with fries,” Francine called out in her shrill, nasal voice, pulling Katie up from her painful reverie. She again checked the time, then began buttoning her beige all-weather coat. Drake wasn’t coming.
She’d suggested they meet here because she figured it would be easier for him than having to drive all the way out to Black Lake. Had he misunderstood? Was he perhaps at her front door now wondering why she didn’t answer his knock? Well, not a whole lot she could do about it now, was there? She drew the hood carelessly up over her new hairdo, imagining the pitying glances of the waitresses and Mrs. Cameron. Maybe even Joey and Frank. Poor Katie, she ’ s been stood up. Katie told herself “to hell with it” and pushed open the plate glass door.
A gust of wind caught The Coffee Shop’s door with force, nearly whipping it from Katie’s grasp. Head bent against the driving rain, she raced to the parking lot, her shoes slapping on the wet pavement as she made her way to the sanctuary of her car.
Chapter 3
She slid the key in the lock, but the door was unlocked. Not like me to leave it unlocked. Katie practically flung herself inside, then groaned aloud to find the seat wet beneath her. Damn! The window on her side had been left open a crack. Strange. She quickly rolled it shut.
She turned the key in the ignition, said a silent “thank you” when the engine fired at first try. Often, when the wires got wet, the eight year old Ford sputtered and whined as if in pain, and refused to start.
Katie put the car into drive and eased out of the parking lot, stopping at the edge of the driveway. She looked both ways, having to briefly roll down the fogged side window again to see. She wiped the condensation off her windshield, then pulled out onto University Avenue and turned left toward the highway.
Rain lashed the windshield and drummed on the metal roof above her head. Katie turned the wipers up full, but it made no appreciable difference. She had to strain hard to see the white line on the road through the wavering wall of water.
There were few cars on the road. A couple of taxis passed. An occasional tractor-trailer swished by going in the opposite direction. A blast of air buffeted the car as if it were merely a toy, the sway causing Katie’s stomach to lu
rch and her hands to tighten on the wheel.
She considered pulling off to the side of the road and waiting out the storm, but there was no guarantee it wouldn’t continue for hours.
The trees along the avenue bent low to the wind. A branch had broken off one of them and lay in the road. Katie maneuvered carefully around it, consoling herself with thoughts of a long, hot soak in the tub. Her wet clothes were bone-chillingly cold, going right to the marrow. Katie shuddered at the thought of coming winter.
She switched on the radio for company and began to relax as soft guitar music floated into the small space with her, blending with the monotonous hiss of wheels on wet pavement. Music never failed to make the twelve mile drive home seem shorter, and tonight, for some reason, a little less lonely.
The strain of a day pacifying distraught customers and refereeing squabbles, which erupted all too frequently between the waitresses and the hot-headed cook, had been all but forgotten in thoughts of a pleasant night out celebrating Drake’s good fortune. But now tiredness seeped into Katie’s bones, overshadowing her initial disappointment and mild humiliation at being stood up.
An unkept date, after all, was hardly a major tragedy. And she was sure Drake had a perfectly legitimate reason for not showing up. She hoped Drake hadn’t had an accident or his father had not taken a bad turn. Drake had had more than his share of suffering.
She liked Drake Devlin—liked him a lot. Given time, maybe…if only Drake wouldn’t push so hard.
The rain had stopped, just a light drizzle now. She slowed the wipers and, minutes later, turned to the right off University Avenue onto the main highway. She saw car lights in her rearview mirror turn in the same direction, but gave them no thought.
Am I ready for a new relationship? Do I even want one? There’d been a couple of men in her life in the years since Todd, but nothing serious, at least on her part. They’d wanted more of her than she could give. It was as if, with Todd’s dying, something vital in Katie had died as well.
With the ugly crumbling of her last affair, Katie had thrown herself into her work with renewed commitment. And painting had saved her sanity. Work demanded of you. But it gave back, too. Work didn’t abandon you.
Abandon? Todd didn’t abandon you, a small voice said. Todd died. He was killed in the war.
Was he? Was he really?
Todd Raynes’ face—until the dream, or rather the nightmare from which she’d woken last night, bathed in perspiration, heart pounding— had grown hazy in her memory over the years, a face remembered mostly from a photograph on the dresser. She saw clearly now the shy grin, the warm brown eyes with their sweet blend of mischief and sensitivity. In the dream, however, Todd had not been smiling. What was the expression on his face? Rage? Fear? Try as she might, Katie could not recall, as she could not recall one detail of the dream. She could only feel the uneasy sensations it had left her with.
After she’d received the telegram telling her that Todd was missing in action, she’d been consumed with her loss and had sworn to be true to his memory always. Their love was meant to last, even after death, into all eternity. For her, there would be no other. And she supposed that in any way that really mattered, there hadn’t been.
But it was, of course, a vow made not by a woman, but by a grief-stricken child, destined to be broken. Let go, she told herself now. Maybe that’s what’s wrong inside of you, why you can’t sustain an intimate relationship, maybe even the reason for the nightmare. You’ve never let go.
“Goodbye, Todd,” she whispered in the small confines of the car.
Metallic rock music blatted out suddenly from the radio, seeming to mock her silly attempt at exorcism, and Katie reached angrily to switch it off. With the slight movement of her head, she found herself looking directly into the rearview mirror. Her eyes locked there. Screams bubbled up from the depths of her, wedged mutely in her throat. As sightless, unblinking eyes stared into hers.
Brakes shrieked as the car swerved wildly out of control, as if other hands were at the wheel, gripping it, wrenching it away from her. A great, dark wall rushed at Katie, and deep down in some functioning part of her brain where terror did not reach, she understood that the moment when she might have done something to prevent what was about to happen was gone. Glass exploded just before the swirling blackness swept her up into the crushing center of itself and Katie knew a terrible sadness.
And then she knew nothing.
Nothing at all.
***
A truck pulled slowly up behind the wrecked blue Comet. The man got out and strode to the driver’s door, which had been flung open on impact. The front end was crumpled like tinfoil. The hood was up and clouds of steam hissed from the radiator. One surviving headlight lit a pale yellow path along the black, shiny pavement.
She lay unmoving, head lolling to one side, blood streaming down her face. For a moment he was only incredulous. Gradually, rage replaced the initial surprise, and he felt himself trembling. Letting out an animal cry, he drew back and struck her across the face with the back of his hand. The sound echoed in the stillness. Her head lolled to the other side. But no sound issued from her. No complaint. No! He would not be denied. He would not! Again, he struck her, harder this time, and again, tears of black fury welling in his eyes. Wake up! Wake up, bitch! Goddamn bitch cheated him. The sound of a car approaching forced him to get control of himself. He barely had time to take care of business, make it back to the truck and back a safe distance away before they came in droves. Cars stopped. Doors closed. A crowd gathered, seeming to come out of nowhere. Scavengers to the kill, he thought.
A woman’s shocked voice, “Oh, my god, is she dead?” Frightened, urgent whispers, craning necks. Now a man’s voice—urgent—a voice accustomed to giving orders, having them obeyed. The man in the truck hated him at once, a quick, seething, familiar hatred. “Someone call an ambulance. Who has a phone in their car?”
“I do,” said another, and he heard the sound of running footsteps.
Slumped down behind the wheel, headlights off, the man watched in dull rage and frustration. He hadn’t meant to kill her, goddamn it! Not like this. Only to shake her up a little, have some fun, get things moving. He’d waited so long, so patiently, given such close attention to each detail of his plan, going over it and over it in his mind. And now she was dead. Depriving him. Depriving him of his just revenge, damn her! He brought his fist down full force on the steering wheel, almost enjoying the leap of pain from his hand to his arm. Then a voice spoke to him, a soothing voice, wiser than his own. Maybe she isn’t dead after all, it said. Maybe she only looked dead. You couldn’t really be sure. There was so much blood. He felt the stickiness of it now on the back of his hand. Maybe she was just unconscious.
Sirens screamed in the distance, rising in volume as the ambulance raced nearer. Get the hell out of here! the voice commanded, and at once he slipped the car into gear, ready to obey.
At the last second he changed his mind. He had to know for sure. Switching on the lights, he edged closer to the scene. No one paid any attention, as, for the second time in ten minutes, he climbed out of the truck. Fixing his face with an expression of solemn concern, the man in the khaki slicker joined the throng of onlookers.
The siren wailed louder.
Chapter 4
Monday morning dawned cold and gray, which seemed to Dr. Jonathan Shea fitting as he sat wearily behind his recently cleared desk. Drawn and unshaven, shirtsleeves rolled to his elbows, he dictated a letter of resignation to Jeannie Craig, his secretary of five years.
He stared past her as he talked. When he finished, he laced his hands behind his head, tilted back in the swivel chair and contemplated the square white ceiling tiles. With a bitter note of satisfaction he sighed heavily, and said, “Well, that’s it.”
The blond young woman peered at him with moist hazel eyes through round granny glasses. When she spoke, her voice shook, sending vibrations to the yellow pencil in her hand.
“Are you really not going to be working here anymore, Dr. Shea?”
“I’m really not, Jeannie.”
“Well—what will I—I mean who will I be working for? Or will I—?”
Hearing the anxiousness in her voice, his hands came from behind his head and he straightened in the chair. Her face was merely questioning, but he saw the tension in her thin shoulders—tension he hadn’t seen for a long time. Of course she would be worried. Why hadn’t that occurred to him? She was a single mother with a five-year-old son to support. Damn! Why was it everything he did (or didn’t do, a small voice taunted) seemed to effect someone else?
He raked his thick, straight black hair and tried for a reassuring smile. “Don’t worry about your job, Jeannie. I’ll recommend you. There’ll be no problem.” Surely he was not without a little influence.
Jeannie had come to him as a patient five years ago following the birth of her child. She’d been raised in an unloving foster home by strict, fanatically religious people, and had run away at seventeen. Hardly surprising that she would be easy prey to the first man who offered her a kind word and a little affection. He remembered how she would suddenly burst into tears, wring her hands, often quoting self-damning scripture—fire and brimstone stuff. They’d done a good job on her. Her self-esteem was practically nil. After six months in analysis, he’d known she had basic secretarial skills acquired in high school, and on impulse, since his own secretary was leaving to get married, he’d hired Jeannie. He’d never been sorry.
“What will you do?” she asked, breaking into his thoughts. She sounded stronger. The tension had left her shoulders. Jeannie would be okay. She’d come a long way.
He gave her a wry grin. “Maybe I’ll just be typical and write a book.”
“That sounds exciting,” she said, smiling at him. “What will it be about?”
“I don’t know. Maybe you can come up with some ideas for me.”
Listen to the Shadows Page 2
