THE FIRST shock of landing in frigid water took Joanna’s breath away. For a moment, she was too stunned to move. When she tried, her hands and knees slipped and slid on the oozy, slime-covered bottom. Finally, though, she managed to pull her self out of the evil-smelling water and back up onto the bern.
Grabbing Holly’s arm, she dragged her out as well and up onto the bank where they both lay gasping and spent. As soon as her head cleared she realized her gun was gone. Her brand-new First Edition Colt 2000 was lost somewhere in the whitish slime at the bottom of the coppery colored pool.
If Joanna had paused long enough to think about how cold the water was or how filled with God-knows-what kinds of chemicals, she never would have plunged back into the pond. But the semi-automatic was essential. Without a backup coming, she had to have a weapon.
Holding her breath against the assault of cold Joanna plowed back into the icy water, splashing through the mud in her numbed bare feet, using them to dredge through the thick sludge on the murky bottom. The harsh leaching chemicals burned fiercely in the lacerations on the bottoms of her bleeding feet, but she was grateful for the burning sensation. At least she could feel her feet again, and she used them to good advantage dragging them through the water.
Although it seemed much longer, it was only a matter of seconds before she smashed the end of her big toe on the grip of the missing weapon, and once she had it in her hand, it was all she could do to hold on to the slippery, slime-covered metal.
With fingers stiff and awkward with cold, she pulled the relatively clean tail of her blouse free of her skirt and used that to wipe off the muck from the Colt.
Her hands were shaking violently with the cold.
How long before hypothermia sets in? she wondered.
“Where are you, Holly?” Amy Baxter’s voice came again, calling from much closer now, from somewhere on the other side of the bern.
At the sound of her voice, Holly moaned like someone in desperate pain. She dropped to the ground and didn’t move.
“Come here,” Amy continued. “I only want to talk to you.”
“What’s going on?” Joanna demanded, falling down on the bern beside Holly, urging the woman to lower her head so it would be out of sight. “Why was she keeping you locked up? Why doesn’t she want you to get away?”
But Holly didn’t answer. She huddled next to Joanna, quaking with cold and saying nothing.
“Holly,” Joanna snapped. “Answer the damn question!”
“This has to be where it was,” Holly muttered through chattering teeth. “Right here. below where we are right now.”
“What was here?” Joanna asked, raising her head an inch or so, trying to peer over the top of the bern without being seen herself.
“His house,” Holly answered. “Not a house really. Just a Cuonset hut with a bare concrete floor. I remember that now. I remember seeing the green trees of Cosa Viejo from there, the trees and the terraces.”
“Holly,” Amy’s disembodied voice called.
“Where are you? Come out so I can see you, so we can talk.” She spoke her words slowly, putting a peculiar weight behind each and every syllable.
“Come here.”
At once Holly’s eyes began to glaze, and she started to rise to her feet. With a grunt of effort, Joanna jerked her back down.
“I’ve got to go,” Holly said. “Amy wants me.
“Why?” Joanna demanded. “Just tell me why.”
“I don’t know.” Holly began sobbing. “She sounds mad at me. I must have done something wrong.”
It was becoming more and more clear to Joanna that the sound of Amy’s voice exerted some kind of hypnotic mental hold on Holly, and the only way to counter it was to keep her too occupied to fall under Amy’s spell. Joanna moved closer to the weeping woman, until their faces were mere inches apart.
“You haven’t done anything wrong, Holly. They had you locked in your room. Getting away from people like that isn’t bad, believe me. Why didn’t they want you to come up here?”
“They were afraid I’d remember.”
“Remember what?”
“His face,” Holly whispered. “I saw it for a while. I think I saw it on a piece of paper, but it went away again, and now I can’t remember.”
“Holly,” Amy Baxter said. “Where are you? We have to talk.”
“Whose face?” Joanna asked. “I don’t under stand.”
“The man’s face… the man who…” Holly’s voice faded into nothing.
“The man who what?” Joanna demanded.
“The man who hurt me. A long time ago.”
Joanna remembered Isabel talking about Holly looking at the paper, the Bisbee. She had seen a copy of the paper that morning herself. There had been two pictures on the front page: Harold Lamm Patterson’s and Thornton Kimball’s.
“You saw the man’s face in the newspaper?”
“Yes.”
“Your father?”
“No, not him. The other one.”
“It was, too, your father,” Amy Baxter said, appearing over the ridge of the bern. “You’re confused, Holly. You’re making things up.”
There was no sign of a weapon on Amy’s person, but with that voice of hers, she was none the less armed. Joanna held up the Colt. “Stay where you are, Amy. Don’t come any closer. This is loaded. I’ll use it if I have to.”
“Don’t threaten me. You can see I’m not armed.
I came to get Holly and take her back to bed before she freezes to death. You had no business bringing an invalid out into weather like this.
You’re soaked, Holly. Come along.”
“She’s staying with me until I get to the bottom of all this,” Joanna countered. “Why did you have her locked in her room?”
“Isn’t that obvious?” Amy asked. “Twice, now, so far today, she’s taken off on her own and run to this dump. She could fall and hurt herself. Or worse.”
“What’s here on the dump?” Joanna demanded. “Or else under it. She said something about a house, a Quonset hut.”
“There’s nothing here.”
“Yes, there was.” Holly insisted suddenly, “Don’t you remember, Amy? My father told us all about it. About where Uncle Thorny and Aunt Bonnie were staying when it happened. When it happened the first time.”
“Be quiet, Holly,” Amy ordered sharply “You’re confused and making things up. He didn’t say any such thing.”
Slowly, the picture was beginning to shift into focus. Of course. Uncle Thorny. Thornton Kimball, The other picture in the paper along with Harold Patterson’s.
“Is Uncle Thorny the one who hurt you when you were little?”
Holly didn’t answer. Instead she collapsed face down on the bern, weeping.
“Look what you’ve done,” Amy Baxter said, taking a step toward them.
“I said don’t move, and I meant it!” Joanna ordered through chattering teeth. She was so cold now, she wasn’t sure she could pull the trigger if she had to, but Amy Baxter took her at her word and stayed where she was.
“That’s it, isn’t it?” Joanna said. “You fingered the wrong man.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Amy returned.
“Yes, you do. I know about you and your forgotten-memory program. I read the article in People. You correctly identified Holly as someone who had been molested as a child, but when you went through the forgotten-memory process, you dredged up the wrong man, didn’t you?”
Amy Baxter’s face grew stony. “Come on, Holly. It’s time to go. We’ll go back down to the house and put you to bed.”
“Why?” Joanna taunted. “So you can make her remember what you want her to remember and forget what you want her to forget?”
“Holly, come!”
But the cord had frayed too much. The choke chain of Amy’s voice didn’t work as it must have in the past. Holly Patterson didn’t move.
“She’s not a dog, Amy,” Joanna said. “She doesn’t have to obey you just because you issue an order. What else have you made her forget?”