by Lee Karr
His worried look made her take a deep breath and say reassuringly, “Everything seems back to normal. I don’t know what came over me. I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault, it’s mine. I never should have taken you up there.”
She turned inquiring eyes on him. “Why did you?”
His mouth tightened. “For all of the wrong reasons. Denial. Selfishness. Guilt.”
Guilt about what? She searched his face as if the answer were written in the haunted depths of his dark eyes. “Do you want to talk about it?”
With an angry intake of breath, he said, “Always the professional, aren’t you? Couldn’t you for once blow up, chew me out for putting you through something like this? Why treat me as if I’m some damn specimen you’ve stuck under a microscope? You nearly went off that cliff up there. Why don’t we talk about your behavior for a change?”
She hesitated and then nodded. “All right, that seems fair enough. But you have to promise to keep an open mind.”
He frowned. “What are you getting at?”
“I know you don’t believe in psychic experiences, but it’s very possible that I picked up some telepathic eneergy that could have originated with Lynette’s plunge off the cliff. Fear, panic and vertigo came over me with such force that I had no defense.”
He gave her a depreciating look. “Come on, Tyla. Admit it. You let your imagination run away with you. Your head was full of newspaper accounts, and you gave in to some suggestive power of your own thinking.”
She wasn’t surprised that he debunked the whole idea of telepathic phenomena, and arguing the validity of ESP wasn’t going to change his mind. “All right. I admit that I have an avid interest in the accident. Exactly what did happen to Lynette on that cliff?”
He looked at her sharply. “How in the hell would I know? I wasn’t there.” Then his eyes narrowed. “Is that what this is about? You’re bent on finding something that will connect me with her death? Good Lord, no wonder you went berserk up there.”
“I’m only trying to find out the truth.”
“You think I might have sent my wife off that cliff, don’t you?”
“No, of course not,” she assured him as a frisson of cold crept up her spine. “I just think that there are circumstances that haven’t come to light.”
“I see. And according to your expertise, I’m hiding something that would clear up the whole miserable business? Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you, Doctor. I don’t know why my wife left the party and drove her car off that ridge. Surely you can draw on your marvelous ESP powers to clear up the whole manner.”
“Lashing out at me isn’t going to help,” she answered in a reasonable tone, even though his mockery hurt. “You asked me what happened and I told you. Whether you choose to believe me is your problem. My main concern is trying to find out why Cassie is harboring destructive feelings about her mother’s accident. Her antagonism toward you is tied to something more than just a child grieving for her mother.”
“How do you know?”
She told him about the paintings. “Cassie said they were pictures of her mother’s car. Black smears slashed with red.”
“She could have seen a car going over a cliff on TV. Hell, there’s some car bursting into fire every time you turn on the damn tube.” He searched Tyla’s face. “Surely you don’t believe that Cassie ‘saw’ the accident?”
“I don’t know. But if she had a vision at the time it happened, the way she did about Jimmy’s fire, the trauma could have been enough to cause her to be emotionally disturbed.”
“But why connect it with me?”
Her mouth was suddenly dry. She didn’t look at him. He withdrew into a cell of silence, and they didn’t speak the rest of the way back to town.
He drove her to the library, where her car was parked. Before she could get out, he pulled her to him, cupped her chin with one hand and forced her to look into his intense eyes. “I’ve been a realist all my life, depending upon empirical proof before I make decisions. I can understand your need to verify every bit of data that affects your clients. But you’ve taken a wrong turn.”
“Have I?”
“You know damn well you have.” His mouth was suddenly on hers, shutting off her breath in a prolonged kiss that was both aggressive and submissive. When he drew away, he said softly, “You couldn’t kiss me like that if you truly believed I was responsible for Lynette’s death in any way.”
“What I believe and what I know are not the same,” she countered stubbornly.
He let out an impatient breath. “When are you going to cut out the professional jargon and validate your own judgment?”
“When I know the truth.” She opened the door and walked away from the car without looking back.
Chapter 16
Tyla drove back to the clinic instead of going home. She needed to marshal her thoughts, and her office was the best place to do that. She stopped at the cafeteria and bought a tuna-fish sandwich and coffee. Then she sat down at her desk.
Through habit she wrote everything down, including as many facts from the newspaper articles that she could remember. Clay had angrily crumpled up the one copy she’d made, and remembering his fury, she put down her pen for a moment. His wife’s name seemed to jump out of her notes. Lynette.
Tyla leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes. A deep sense of fatigue settled on her. Nothing else. If she’d hoped to capture any psychic impressions, the hope was folly. Not even a quiver of a telepathic impression touched her.
When the buzzer on the intercom sounded, her eyes flew open and her first thought was Clay. In spite of herself, her heartbeat raced faster. “Yes?”
“Rose Delgado would like to speak with you, Dr. Templeton.”
She’d forgotten about the young woman and the request to have her telephone her apartment. “Thanks for calling back, Rose. I got the message that you couldn’t come tonight. Just wanted to check with you. Make sure everything is all right.”
“It’s the baby. He’s got a stuffy nose and is fussy. My mother wants me to stay home and take care of him. I’m sorry.”
“I understand,” Tyla said, hiding her relief. She felt like a mother hen worrying about one of her chicks. Thank heavens there had been no unpleasantness with Rubin. “Your baby needs you. We’ll miss you but we’ll see you next week.”
For the next two hours Tyla managed to keep her attention centered on the young mothers’ session and the myriad problems they shared, but when she locked her office door, her slender shoulders were slumped and she felt as if she’d aged ten years in one day.
Barry caught up with her as she was leaving the building. He eyed her with frank puzzlement. “Last time I saw you, I was nearly blinded by the glow in your eyes. Tonight you look as if you’ve been pulled through the proverbial knothole.”
“Thanks for the flattering words,” she said sourly. As they walked to her car, she looked around the parking lot, half expecting Clay to appear somewhere out of the shadows the way he had done before.
“Looking for someone?” Barry asked, following her searching look.
She shook her head.
“Want to talk about it?”
For a brief moment she was tempted, but coming to terms with how she felt about Clay was something she had to do on her own. Besides, Barry didn’t know enough about the whole situation to offer any curbside advice. This wasn’t the time or place to dump her emotions. “Thanks, Barry, but I’ll pass.”
“I don’t usually offer free advice,” he said with a wry smile. “But I’ll make an exception just for you. In time Cassie Archer will tell you what you want to know. And when she does, you’ll need a clear head on how to handle the situation. In the meantime keep a professional distance between you and Clay Archer.”
Good advice, she thought, but it was already too late.
When she got home, she quickly checked her answering machine. When there was no message from Clay, she realized how much she wanted t
o hear his voice.
As she looked at the phone, she suddenly realized that the impression of it ringing was forming in her mind again, but this time a faint image accompanied the telepathic phenomenon. A man’s face, slack mouth and hollow cheeks. Karl Millard!
The impression faded as quickly as it had come, but she knew that the impression wasn’t just her imagination. Why was Cassie’s grandfather trying to communicate with her? The energy of the telepathic contact was greater than any she’d experienced in the man’s presence. She had been positive that she felt strong vibrations when Lynette’s accident was mentioned, but maybe she missed the message he had been trying to give her when she visited him. Was there something besides the accident? Something he knew that he was desperate to communicate?
Tyla spent a restless night plagued by fitful dreams that had Clay, Rubin and Barry crashing cars and Cassie falling out of a capsizing sailboat. She awoke in the morning with the feeling that she would have been more rested if she’d stayed up all night watching low-budget movies.
When she reached the office a huge bouquet of roses waited for her at the reception desk. The office girls gave her knowing smiles. “Good morning, Dr. Templeton. Have a nice day.”
She laughed and waited until she was in the privacy of her office before she read the card. No signature, but his bold handwriting told her that Clay had sent the flowers himself. “Dinner?” the note read.
She was tempted to call his office and tease him about the bribed invitation, but before she could give in to the impulse, her first client arrived and she was swept into the day’s hectic schedule. She managed to put Clay Archer to the back of her mind until Cassie arrived for her afternoon appointment.
The session started in the usual way, with Cassie wandering around the playroom looking at the toys, pulling some of them from the shelf, but none of them held her attention for long. She seemed bored until she found a game of checkers.
“Just like school,” she said as if she’d found an old friend.
With a smile putting a dimple in her cheek, she brought the game over to Tyla’s table.
“Checkers,” she said as if Tyla might not know what game she had in her hands. She knew where the checkers went and, when the board was laid out, she said, “I take red.”
Tyla laughed. “All right. I’m black and Cassie is red.” She couldn’t believe that a four-year-old would be able to play a game that had such exact rules. She was surprised when Cassie knew how the checkers had to move. Childlike, she didn’t have any overall strategy but she happily moved and jumped as she saw a move. They played several games. Sometimes Tyla let her win and sometimes she beat her. The child didn’t seem to care one way or the other.
“Cassie likes to play checkers.”
“Papa showed me.” Cassie started putting the checkers back in the box.
“He taught you how to play checkers.” Tyla smiled. The picture of the two of them bent over a. checkerboard surprised and pleased her.
Then, when Tyla least expected it, Cassie asked, “Why did Papa let Mama’s car go off the cliff?”
A grenade exploding in the room couldn’t have had more impact on Tyla. She was stunned and it took every ounce of control to keep her breathing even. She put a few more checkers into the box before echoing, “Papa let Mama’s car go off the cliff?”
Cassie nodded. “I saw it.”
“Like you saw Jimmy playing with matches?”
Again Cassie nodded.
Take it slow. Don’t push.
Tyla’s heart was thumping so loudly she was certain that the child would hear it. She kept her eyes on the pile of checkers they were stacking in the box and she said evenly, “You saw a picture. You saw Mama’s car go off the cliff. And Papa was there.”
“In his black suit.”
Tuxedo. Tyla’s stomach took a sickening plunge. “Cassie saw Papa. With Mama. In the car.”
“He got out.”
Tyla had trouble getting air into her lungs. “He got out of the car.”
Cassie’s face crumpled, and she threw herself against Tyla. “Papa came home. Why didn’t he bring Mama home?”
Tyla bit back the words that tore into her throat like nettles.
Because he killed her.
Chapter 17
After Cassie left with Marie, Tyla paced her office. What should she do? The logical answer was to tell someone. But who? Who’d believe that Cassie had a psychic impression of her father in the car with her mother before it had gone off the cliff? Certainly not the police. They would openly scoff at any suggestion that the child was clairvoyant. No, she couldn’t go to the authorities without concrete evidence.
And what if Clay found out that his daughter had implicated him in his wife’s death? A shudder passed over her. She remembered how furious he’d been when he caught her reading about Lynette’s accident. There was no telling how he would react if she told him what Cassie had revealed to her. She couldn’t risk confronting him with the child’s words. Her first concern was to protect Cassie. But how?
The buzz of the intercom startled her, and she drew in a short breath to steady her voice. “Yes, Penny?”
“A call from Mr. Archer.” There was a smile in the receptionist’s tone as if Penny had guessed who had sent the roses.
“Tell him I’m out of my office. You don’t know when I’ll be back,” Tyla ordered crisply.
“Yes, Doctor. Should I hold your other calls?”
Tyla reined in her irritation. “No, Penny, put them through.”
Fuel for office gossip, she thought as she leaned back in her chair and pressed her fingers against her temples where a headache was beginning to throb. She couldn’t talk to Clay now. He’d know in a minute that something was wrong. She wasn’t up to pretending that the shattering revelation his daughter had brought to light was of little concern. Tyla never doubted for a minute the validity of Cassie’s vision.
She went into her bathroom and took two aspirin. She’d never known what the term heartsick meant until that moment. Her emotions were on such a roller coaster that she couldn’t think. She needed time. And she needed advice.
Barry was with a patient when she walked down the hall to his office, but she waited a few minutes until he was free. When he saw her, he was visibly surprised. She’d never sought him out at his office before.
“Sit down. Is this a social visit?”
She shook her head. “Do you have a few minutes…for a consultation?”
“Sure.” He motioned to a couple of chairs and a low table grouped like the furniture in her office. “The Archer case?”
She moistened her dry lips. “Yes.”
“How can I help?” Barry settled into a relaxed, receptive posture. The only thing he lacked was a notepad in his hand as he waited for her to continue.
Tyla hesitated. She really didn’t know how to begin. Even though she’d talked generally about the case to Barry, she had kept most of the details to herself. Even the little information she’d shared with him earlier had not defined the real issues of the case, and she certainly had tried to hide her intimate involvement with Clay.
She lifted her chin and met his steady eyes. “Your prediction came true. You told me that in time Cassie would tell me what I wanted to know and that I’d need a clear head to handle the situation. You were right on both accounts.” Tyla clasped her hands tightly in her lap. Her voice sounded distant, as if someone else were speaking. “Clay was in the car with Lynette that night. He got out before it went off the cliff.”
“Wait a minute.” Barry abandoned his passive posture and leaned forward. “Back up a little. Cassie was home in bed when the accident took place. Right? Then how-”
“She saw it.”
“Saw it?”
“Remember I told you about Jimmy Myers and the fire? There was no way that Cassie could have known he was playing with matches unless she was clairvoyant. And she couldn’t have known what was happening on that mountain cliff the nigh
t her mother died unless she had the same kind of vision.”
“Tyla, you really don’t believe the child can see things that are happening someplace else.”
“Yes, I do.” Her eyes flashed with sudden heat. “There’s plenty of evidence that clairvoyance exists.”
He gave a dismissing wave of his hand. “There’s more evidence that there’s a rational explanation for so-called visions,” he countered. “It’s more likely that Cassie’s subconscious supplied her with a nightmare about her mother’s death.”
“I’ve never known a child to go into deep despondency from a single nightmare, have you? Anyway, I’m not here to argue the validity of Cassie’s paranormal powers. I want to know what I should do about protecting her.”
“Protecting her?”
She bit her lower lip. “Clay must have left the party with Lynette and somehow convinced her to drive up to the mountain lookout. He told me that it was a favorite drive of hers. Maybe they went there to talk or…” Make love, she added silently. “And then something happened.”
“Do you know what you’re saying? If Archer sent his wife over that cliff, he murdered her.”
The panic, terror and fear she’d experienced on that mountain ledge was enough to convince her that Lynette had fought for her life…and lost. She knew that Barry would dismiss the experience as self-induced hysterics, so she said nothing about Clay having taken her to the exact spot where Lynette had plunged to her death.
“If it happened the way you say,” Barry prodded softly, “how did Archer get back to the party?”
“He must have followed Lynette up the mountain in his car, and then returned to the party to wait for someone to tell him about the accident.”
“I’m sure the police checked out his alibi,” Barry reasoned. “The authorities must have been convinced that he never left the hotel.”
“He could have paid someone to say he was in the bar all of the time. Money would be no object.” A piece of her died with every word. “Clay would pay whatever it took to protect himself.”
