Crazy in Chicago (10 page)

She frowned. “I . . . you're in a small room. It's windowless, cold. The walls are gray. So are the ceiling and floor. They look cold and hard, as if they're made out of stainless steel. I don't see a door of any kind. Or anyone.”

Her frown deepened. “You're not moving. I can't tell if you're breathing or not. Everything is very still.

“Oh, wait!” Madame Carabini strained forward, as if to see or hear better. “I think I can hear something. It's a noise, perhaps a voice.”

Unmoving, she listened. Tense and caught up in the picture the psychic painted, Cody didn't move. Neither did Roberta.

“I can't make out the words—if it is words I'm hearing. It's almost like a drone, a rhythmic drone. If it's a language, I don't recognize anything about it.”

The psychic's grip on Cody tightened to the point of pain. Cody grimaced but didn't remove his hands.

“Maybe . . . whatever it is, it seems to be the same thing, a phrase repeated over and over. Without emotion, without emphasis, just a murmur, over and over.”

Madame Carabini shook her head. “You . . . you don't respond. I don't feel anything—any vibration or emotion or thought coming from you. You're . . .”

Without warning, she released Cody's hands. They dropped to the table with a thud. She stared at him. Her eyes, clear and discerning only seconds earlier, blinked in confusion. For a second, Cody thought he saw a flicker of panic.

“They stopped. The impressions stopped. Just like that.”

Despite himself, Cody leaned towards her. “Did you see anything else? An impression of what was outside that room, or where it might have been?”

She shook her head. “I'm sorry. Just the room. And a strong sense of its cold stillness. Very odd.”

“What about another person? Was anyone outside?”

“No.” Sympathy clouded Madame Carabini's bright eyes. “What I saw and felt was similar to what I told that reporter who came here last year. Allie Stanislawski, wasn't it?”

“That's right.” Cody felt the hope he hadn't realized he'd harbored draining away. “You told her I was alive, somewhere in a cold, foreign place. But not quite alive, either.”

“I know.” She twisted her hands, her earlier serenity gone. “Everything I saw today is compatible with what I saw last year after you disappeared. It's clearer, but there are still huge gaps.”

Cody rubbed his forehead. Why had he let Roberta convince him to come here? Though he hadn't realized it, the proposal had raised his hopes. But the visit had changed nothing, except perhaps increasing the sense of uneasiness that haunted him. He glanced at Roberta. He was startled to see intense concentration on her face. He turned away, ready to get up and leave.

“Madame Carabini, why don't you try sitting in the car?” Roberta asked. She turned to Cody. “It was the Corvette you were driving the night you disappeared, wasn't it?”
 

“Yes.”

Madame Carabini nodded and stood up. They followed her outside.

Ten feet away from the Corvette, Madame Carabini halted. She frowned. Cody wondered if she felt the same sense of aversion he did every time he approached his car.

With slow, measured steps, she proceeded to the curb and around to the driver's door. Cody unlocked and opened it for her. She slid behind the wheel, and he showed her how to adjust the seat forward.

Cody stepped away. Madame Carabini placed one hand on the wheel, one on the gear shift, a foot on the gas pedal and the other on the clutch. Then she shut her eyes.

Cody glanced at Roberta. She stood a few feet away, her fists clenched and her lips pressed shut, as if she couldn't contain her excitement. Cody wondered what she expected Madame Carabini to see.

Cody returned to watching the psychic. She sat motionless, her position unchanged since entering the car.

Suddenly she started to twitch. She jerked and swayed, as if she were trying to escape the sting of an angry bee. Her eyes shot open. Surprise, shock, then fear registered on her face and in her bearing. With a squeal she scrambled out of the car, slammed the door and backed away.

“What happened?” Roberta asked.

Madame Carabini raised her hand to her mouth. “A blue light,” she whispered. “I saw this blinding blue light.”

The breath caught in Cody's throat. He hadn't told her about that. “Anything else?” he asked.

“No.” She paused. “Have you seen it too? The blue light?”

Cody nodded. “Not before. Just in the last couple of days.”

“And does it frighten you? Make you feel a sense of—of dread, I guess. Or the recognition of something fearful to come?”

“Yes. Dread is the right word. And aversion, too. I don't want to go near that car. I don't know why.”

Madame Carabini nodded. Some of her outward serenity began to return. “I felt it too. I've never felt anything quite like that before.”

They stood on the lawn, three adults staring at a white Corvette and puzzling over what the psychic had seen. Cody looked at the small plump woman with new respect. If someone else could see and feel what he saw and felt, maybe he wasn't going crazy after all. Maybe what the psychic said about his disappearance really was true.

His highly honed sense of skepticism kicked in. A blue light. A cold, grey room. What did it all mean? Madame Carabini had given him more information, but it wasn't enough to change anything. In a practical sense, he was no closer to knowing what had happened to him during the lost six weeks than he'd been an hour ago. So what if she could see a blue light, too?

He kicked at a tuft of crab grass. “Anything else?”

“I'm sorry. That's all.”

For a moment the woman's gaze held his. Cody could feel her sorrow, and her concern. He closed himself to it.

“Well, I guess that's it, then.” He shrugged. “Thank you for taking a shot at it.”

“You're welcome. Oh.” Madame Carabini stopped. “You left your ring and watch on the table. Let me get them for you.”

When Madame Carabini disappeared into the house, Roberta confronted Cody. “I hope you're not disappointed. She did provide some new information. And the fact she saw the blue light, too—well, there must be something to that.”

“Sure.” Too weary to argue, Cody agreed.

“Here they are.” Madame Carabini handed him the watch and ring. “Can I ask you a question about Ms. Stanislawski?”

Cody looked up from re-fastening his watch. “Sure.”

“I haven't seen her column in the paper for a few weeks. Is she still working at
The Streeter
?”

“Oh, yes. But she's on maternity leave. She had a baby two weeks ago.”

“Oh?” The psychic's eyebrows rose. “I didn't know she'd married.”

“Oh, yeah.” Cody finished with his watch and slipped his ring on his finger. “Just a few weeks after I was found she married a photographer at the paper. You might have seen his byline—Erik Berenger.”

“Erik Berenger!” Madame Carabini's voice rose. “And they're both fine?”

Cody regarded her with mild curiosity. “Oh, yes. Very happy. The baby's a girl, healthy and beautiful. Why do you ask?”

The woman paused. “I met them both, you know. When Ms. Stanislawski came to see me about your disappearance, Mr. Berenger came to take pictures.”

“And?”

“I offered to look into Ms. Stanislawski's future. I did—and I saw that Erik Berenger would be part of her future.”

“You were right.” Roberta stepped closer to Cody. “Their marriage confirmed your prediction.”

Madame Carabini bit her lip. She looked from Cody to Roberta and back again. “But . . . but there was something else.”

“Yes?”

“It wasn't good. I sensed in Erik something strange. That he was from a faraway place, cold and unfriendly. That he would mean changes for Ms. Stanislawski—and not necessarily good ones.”

Cody nodded. “Erik can be a forbidding character. But everything seems to have worked out fine.”

“No. That's not it. It's not just him. It's the place. Don't you see? That cold, inhospitable place he comes from. I—well—the impressions are the same.”

She took a deep breath. “I think it might be the same place where I saw you.”

 

Chapter 5

 

Cody stared at Madame Carabini. “What?”

“I said the place where you were held, and the place Erik is from or connected to in some way, seem to be one and the same.”

Disbelief stood out all over Cody's face. Roberta couldn't help asking, “What place is that?”

Cody harrumphed. “Seattle. That's where Erik's from. He was working in Australia before he came here.”

Madame Carabini's unusual aquamarine eyes looked from Cody to Roberta. “I don't mean Seattle. Not Australia, either. I don't know where this place is. I just know it's cold and . . . and unusual or strange. I could be wrong, but in the absence of anything else, I think you should investigate.”

“Investigate what? Erik's background?” Sarcasm laced Cody's words.

“Yes.” Madame Carabini's composure returned. “That's what I told Miss Stanislawski last year, and now I'm telling you.”

“And did she investigate?” Roberta ignored Cody's scowl.

“She said she would. I don't know what she found out. She never told me.”

“It can't have been anything important,” Cody insisted. “She would have said so. And she wouldn't have married Erik.”

Unruffled, Madame Carabini continued to regard them. “Perhaps not. But for your state of mind, and health, I urge you to investigate further. You have nothing to lose.”

Cody grunted, tired of hearing those words. “Thank you for your time this evening.”

As he turned away, Roberta heard him muttering under his breath about wasting time.

She smiled apologetically to Madame Carabini. “Thank you for your efforts. We appreciate them.”

Madame Carabini glanced at Cody, then lowered her voice. “Please, try to get him to look into this further. Or do it yourself.”

She glanced once more at Cody, then back to Roberta. “Please. Whatever danger was there before for him, it seems to have returned. I don't know what it is, or why, I just know it's there. I'm afraid for him.”

Roberta's eyes widened. “What do you mean? You think he might be kidnapped again?”

Madame Carabini shook her head. “I don't know. I just know that the forces at work—whatever or whoever—last year, have entered the picture again. I sensed it. I don't know why.”

She grasped Roberta's arm. “Promise me you won't give up. You'll look into this. Please.”

Her urgency touched Roberta. She nodded. “I will.”

Her gaze held Madame Carabini's for a moment longer, and then she followed Cody to the car.

* * *

On the boulevard in the waning evening light, Joanne Carabini stood and watched until the Corvette turned the corner and disappeared. She stood there for several minutes more, heedless of the strange looks she received from people driving by. There was so much on her mind. So much she'd felt but didn't understand. So much she hadn't told Mr. Walker and his more supportive friend Miss Vandenburg.
 

 
Undecided and uneasy, Joanne stood there. Perhaps she should have told Cody Walker everything. At the time she'd been too startled, too frightened, to tell.

As she remembered, she shuddered. Shuddered at the strange feeling that someone was watching her, even as she watched Cody in that cold, gray room, in a place she couldn't identify. The feeling had disturbed her so much her concentration had faltered and the vision had crumbled.

Far worse, however, had been the voice in the car. With the flash of eerie blue light had come a sense of dread. As the dread grew, a disembodied voice had presented a direct warning, a warning that had sent her scrambling from the car: “Discontinue this probe. It does not concern you. Discontinue immediately.” The warning had been in plain English, impossible to ignore.

Madame Carabini put her hands in her pockets and started for the house. Nothing like this had ever happened to her before. She'd always seen or sensed impressions, snatches of people's lives, even of conversations. And yes, sometimes what she'd sensed had been unpleasant, disturbing, frightening.

But this was different. This voice had been talking to her. To her and to no one else.

She reached the door, then turned back to face the street.

Should she have told them? Indecision gnawed at her. It was always the same. Tell the truth and face ridicule and disbelief. Don't tell the truth and suffer guilt and worry over what might come.

It was clear Mr. Walker had believed little of what she'd said. His friend, however, seemed more open-minded. Perhaps . . . .