‘Er, thanks?’
He carried me upstairs to my bedroom, held me easily with one arm while he pulled back the bedclothes and laid me down. Then he removed my shoes, covered me with the blankets and gazed into my eyes. The last thing I remember was that wonderful voice saying, ‘Sleep.’
CHAPTER 6
The ground slips from beneath me and I’m falling, tumbling into surreal unconsciousness where there’s no air, no life, and I can’t breathe. My entire body contracts in terror as I plummet down into something I’m certain will be beyond my ability to withstand. The void pulls me into a darkness so complete there’s no comprehension of it. Still falling and falling, with no sense of speed or location, just the continuous, ever-building dread. I’m enclosed, spiralling down some long tube, dense with stifling-hot, thick air. Then, without notice, I’m expelled out into an empty, cold, desolate nothing. My very essence fragmenting in all directions as death whispers to me. The descent lasts for ever as a distant voice shrieks horrible-sounding words I can’t understand, echoing in oblivion. The voice crawls over me and through me, penetrating my skin like hundreds of carnivorous insects, and I scream in the darkness, flailing my arms and legs. Is there something even worse than death? Then the shock of crashing down into warm liquid. Blood—sticky, thick, coppery-scented and old – very old. The intensity of the harsh landing keeps me afloat for only seconds before I discover there’s nothing underneath me. No foundation, nothing to hold me, no one. I go under, still screaming, gasping and swallowing blood. I’m drowning in the blood and the overwhelming hopelessness . . . terror larger than I can hold, and someone is laughing.
‘No!’ I screamed. A shrill ringing startled me and my eyes flew open. I bolted up, heart beating fast and hard. Shaking, I leaned back against the headboard and noticed all the blankets and pillows from my bed were on the floor. Fragments of the dream swam back into my awareness, and the feeling of terror intensified. I knew I was safe in my bed, but the memory of spiralling down into that darkness pressed against my chest and I struggled to slow my breathing. Rivers of sweat snaked down my face and pooled between my breasts. I distantly observed that I was still wearing the clothes I’d worn yesterday.
The annoying sound continued to intrude, louder now. A headache that had started as a dull throb over my left eye now infiltrated my entire brain and beat a strong cadence of its own, rivalling what I finally worked out was the telephone ringing. I took some deep breaths, pushed the wet hair back from my face, and cleared my throat. Rolling over towards the nightstand, I fumbled for the phone.
‘Yes?’ I croaked.
‘Dr Knight? This is Special Agent Stevens. We met at the hospital yesterday. I’m sorry, did I wake you?’
‘Who?’ My brain stubbornly refused to connect the dots, and the inside of my upper lip had become hermetically sealed to my teeth.
‘The FBI guy from the emergency room. Special Agent Stevens.’
I ran my tongue over my teeth in a vain attempt at hydration and wound up making dry, smacking noises with my lips. ‘Special Agent Stevens? Uh, yes. Okay, I remember. I recognise your voice.’
Idiot. You let the phone ring a thousand times. Of course you woke me. And you’ll never know how grateful I am that you did.
Groggy, I squinted over at the clock to see if it really was as ungodly an hour as I imagined it to be, and it was.
I sucked in another deep breath, held on to the solid reality of the phone and forced myself to calm down. I cleared my throat again. ‘Why are you calling me at 5 a.m., Special Agent Stevens? And how did you get my home phone number? It’s unlisted.’
‘I work for the FBI – enough said?’
‘So why are you calling?’ I reached for my blanket on the floor and spread it across my legs.
‘I want to find out if you’ve heard from your client, Emerald Addison, the one you brought to the hospital?’
‘What do you mean? She’s still in intensive care, isn’t she?’
‘Well, that answers my question. No. She isn’t still in intensive care. Sometime between 1 a.m. and 4 a.m. she went missing.’
‘What are you talking about?’ I barked, the pain in my head slam-dancing in heavy shoes. I pressed the palm of my hand against my forehead as if that would keep my skull from exploding. ‘The last time I saw Emerald, she was in no condition to do anything. There’s just no way she could have got up and walked out of the hospital. What are you doing about it?’
His voice held the verbal equivalent of a smirk. ‘It sounds like we’re a little cranky when we don’t get our beauty sleep, Doc. Even though you’re being testy, I’ll answer your question anyway. This case is being treated as an abduction or a missing person. Each of those categories has its own protocol, and the local cops are in charge. Since your client was attacked in the same manner as the other cases I’m investigating, I’m being included in the information loop. So far we have zip. I’m hoping you can tell me something that’ll give us a lead.’
Okay. He gets points for pulling me out of that nightmare, but cute cop or not, there’s no way I’m sharing client information. Even if I knew anything.
I took a deep breath, pushed ‘play’ on the ‘I’m a Professional’ tape in my mental repertoire, and began speaking in my therapist voice. ‘As I mentioned yesterday, I’m not at liberty to tell you anything about anyone. If there’s something general I can help you with, as a psychologist, I’d be willing to do that.’
‘Great. I’ll be right there. Put on some coffee, okay?’
‘What?’ I sat up. The pushy bastard. I didn’t expect him to take me up on it – and certainly not immediately. ‘Wait a minute! I need to shower and get dressed. You can’t come over now!’
‘How much time do you need?’
There was that cocky tone again, the tone that said he assumed I’d be spending hours primping in front of the mirror.
‘Give me half an hour.’
‘Half an hour. Will do.’
‘Hey, hold on – don’t you need me to give you directions to my house?’
He chuckled. ‘FBI, remember? We’ve got all those handy little records. See you in thirty.’
I hung up the phone and rolled out of my comfortable bed, still on automatic pilot. Then I stumbled around and turned on the light. I managed to remove all the damp sheets, threw them into the laundry hamper and headed to the shower. It took ten minutes of standing like a statue under the hot spray before the sensation of something crawling on my skin receded, and I felt somewhat normal again.
I stood with my arms braced against the tile walls enclosing the bathtub, willing the hot water to wash away the fearful residue from the nightmare. The sound of the hideous laughter still echoed through my inner world, reverberating like a ghostly memory.
I picked up a bar of soap and revelled in the sensation of it gliding over my skin and began to feel renewed – to come back to myself. I slid the bar over one side of my neck, kneading gently, and when I lathered the other side I was startled by a sharp jolt of pain. Instinctively, I dropped the soap, which hit the bottom of the tub with a loud thud as I explored the tender skin with my fingers.
‘Shit!’ I stepped away from the water and gingerly slid my finger over the painful area, mentally shaking off another layer of drowsiness.
Touching the wound on my neck brought the horrible events of the previous evening back to me in living colour: some demented maniac had broken into my office and punctured my neck with his teeth.