Night Terror (21 page)

34

THE DINER WAS DESERTED
late on Saturday morning, and Mac and Virgil had a booth near the windows. Virgil had politely made it clear to the waitress that they wouldn’t be needing anything more.

“Audrey Bock’s maiden name was Remont,” said Virgil. “Her mother’s name was Martha Remont. She filed charges against Tara for trespassing in California before Tara took Audrey from her.”

Mac’s coffee mug seemed too big for him and he gripped it in both hands. “Quite a family.”

“I have no information at all on Audrey’s father. I have a hunch he died before Audrey knew him, but it’s just a hunch.” Virgil read from a spiral notepad on the table. “I need more info on Martha.”

“You want me to look for the mother?”

Virgil shrugged. “If you can find her. Looks like she disappeared completely. Couldn’t find hide or hair of her after Audrey begins to show up on her aunt’s tax returns.”

“How did you get Tara’s tax returns?” said Mac, frowning.

Virgil grinned. “You’re not the only one with friends.”

“You’re going out on a limb, Virg. What are you trying to prove?”

“I want to know what’s going on with Audrey Bock.”

Mac shook his head. “What’s going on? Virg, the woman lost her only child.”

“I think she had a lot of problems before that. Her husband called me this morning. He thinks they have a Peeping Tom at their house, but Audrey’s convinced it’s their next-door neighbor and that her son is locked up in his basement.”

“Did you check it out?”

“Yeah. There’s a trail behind the house real enough. But I couldn’t find any tracks on it other than the husband’s, and Merle Coonts was out of town on a trucking run the night it happened.”

Standing in that notch in the hills, Virgil and Richard had stared at the back of Merle Coonts’s house in silence until Richard spoke.

“Why would he come over here and peek in our windows?” he said, never taking his eyes off of the farm.

Virgil frowned. “We don’t know that he did, Mister Bock.”

Richard shook his head. “You saw the trail. I wasn’t mistaken about the prints.”

“You said they were small. Audrey says it was a woman at the window. Merle Coonts lives alone and if you’d ever seen his feet, you’d know they aren’t small.”

Richard sighed loudly. “I know it doesn’t make any sense. But Audrey’s so sure.”

“I’ll talk to Merle Coonts again,” said Virgil, staring back down the trail, with Richard close behind. “Close your drapes tonight and lock your windows and doors.”

“You’ll let me know what you find out?”

“Of course.”

But Merle was just coming back from another crosscountry trip, and once again his logs held up. When Virgil mentioned the trail through the alders, he just shook his head and denied any knowledge of it.

Virgil stared at Mac now, hoping for a break. “What about you? Haven’t found out anything for me?”

Mac glanced out the window. “Sorry. I’ve been really busy on another case. Sounds like you’re finding out plenty all by your lonesome.” Mac turned back. “What have you got on the mother?”

“A kid in California ran her address through his computer and it gave me names and phone numbers up and
down the block. I called. But in California, everybody moves every couple of years. There’s no one left that lived there eighteen years ago. So that was a dead end.”

“Who else did you talk to?”

“I spoke to Motor Vehicles. Martha Remont hasn’t had a license there since Audrey split. I also called the county registrar. She sold the house that year too. It’s like she disappeared off the face of the earth. No tax returns. No license in another state.”

“Could have been a Jane Doe.”

“Maybe. Or maybe she just wanted to disappear.”

“That takes a little expertise. Do you think Martha Remont had it?”

“I have no way of knowing what she had. Don’t even know what she did for a living, if she worked.”

“Did you get any information on Tara’s background?”

Virgil shook his head. “She’s retired. Had a respectable career. Lives alone near Augusta.”

“That all?”

“She’s fifty-two. Wrote a couple of best-selling books on self-hypnosis.”

Mac made a face. “Hypnosis?”

“Yeah. Kinda do-it-yourself home therapy. Forget the bad things. Get on with your life.”

Virgil set his cup on the table and reached into his vest pocket for another crumpled sheet of paper. “Graduated top of her class from Columbia in the late sixties. Another degree from Stanford. Did independent research work under Timothy Leary, for God’s sake. She also worked with James Reins. Know the name?”

“Should I?”

“No. Unless you’re into ESP and such. Reins worked for the government for a while on a project to spy on the Soviets using something called long-distance viewing.”

“The U.S. government paid for that?”

“I guess they paid for a lot of goofy stuff during the Cold War. She worked at several institutions over the years on grants. I can’t find anyone who knows anymore detail than that, regarding what the grants were for or what she was trying to accomplish. In the early eighties her funding was pulled and evidently enough of her colleagues disagreed
with her methods strongly enough to have her license to practice revoked. I got the idea that even the government guys started to feel antsy about the way she was conducting her research. But by that time it didn’t matter, since she had two best-selling books and could retire in luxury to her secluded home.”

“Virgil,” said Mac, leaning across the table, “do you suspect Tara Beals?”

Virgil frowned. “No.”

“Ah… You suspect the kid’s mother.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You’ve already asked me to look into Audrey Bock’s past, and you’re only investigating women, Virg. How many other women have I mentioned? You don’t think the grandmother suddenly appeared out of nowhere and kidnapped her own grandson?”

“According to Audrey, her mother was crazy.”

“Do you have any evidence linking the old lady to the disappearance of her grandson?”

“No. Like I say, I’m not even sure she’s alive.”

“Just a gut feeling?”

“Not even that.”

“Then what?”

“I don’t have anything else!”

“Jesus, Virg. You need to take some time off.”

“That’s the last thing I need.”

“Well, I’m sorry I couldn’t be more help. I’ll see if I can dig up anything on Martha Remont as soon as I get a chance.”

Virgil shrugged, studying him. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” said Mac. “I’m okay. Why wouldn’t I be?”

“No reason. You just seem distracted lately.”

Mac sighed. “I’m thinking about getting out of here for a while.”

“Where you going?”

“I don’t care. I just need a break.”

“Then you ought to take one.” Virgil stared out the window for a moment and both men held on to the silence. When Virgil spoke again, he turned to face Mac. “I like bouncing stuff off you. If I told Birch or anyone else some of the stuff I’m thinking… you know.”

“They’d think you were obsessing again.”

“At the least,” said Virgil, smiling.

“Virg, have you ever considered the possibility that maybe you are?”

“There’s something strange going on in this county, and I’m going to find out what it is.”

“Something like
what?”
said Mac, frowning.

“For one thing, Tara Beals is covering something up about Audrey.”

“You spoke to Tara?”

Virgil nodded. “She wouldn’t tell me anything about Audrey’s past. That’s why all the digging.”

“Well, she wouldn’t, would she? I mean, she was the woman’s doctor.”

“That’s what she said.”

“Then maybe you ought to leave that end of it alone.”

“These aren’t dead cases. There’s something going on,” said Virgil. “I can feel it in my bones.”

“You’re starting to sound a little paranoid, Virg. Or are you psychic?”

Virgil shook his head. “No. But I’m starting to listen to one.”

Mac’s frown was worse than Virgil had expected.

35

RICHARD CHECKED THEM IN
at Doctor Cates’s front desk at two o’clock Monday afternoon. Right on time. Audrey sat on a love seat beneath a huge painting done all in shades of blue, wondering again if Cates would really be able to help her, and if she was prepared for the help he might offer.

Richard sat down beside her. “Are you sure you want to do this? You might not be able to separate the bad from the good.”

She nodded. “I know this is the right thing. I thought you wanted me to do this.”

He frowned. “I want you to be better.”

“You don’t think Doctor Cates can make me better?”

He tried a smile. “Sure. I’m just nervous, I guess.”

“Me too.”

Doctor Cates’s office door opened and a pretty brunette woman of about thirty emerged with Cates behind her. She was smiling with tears in her eyes. Audrey felt trepidation building, but when Cates noticed her and opened the door wider, she strode through it without glancing back at Richard.

“I don’t know where to start,” said Audrey, taking a seat.

Cates shrugged, cleaning his glasses with a monogrammed handkerchief. “Just begin anywhere you like, then.”

“I think I’m getting better,” she said.

“That’s good.”

“I’m not taking the pills.”

Cates frowned. “You stopped the Halcion? Why?”

“I didn’t like the way it made me feel. Like I was out of control. Out of touch…. And I believe now that you were right. I need to confront my past and deal with it.”

“I’m glad you’ve come to
that
decision. You have to face your past. I can only help you work through it.”

Audrey nodded. “Where should we start, then?”

Cates steepled his fingers in front of his face. “What can you tell me about your aunt and your therapy sessions with her?”

“I told you about the hypnotherapy.”

“Do you remember any of your past before that at all? Are any of the memories starting to work their way through to the surface?”

“Yes.”

“Good memories or bad?”

“They’re all mixed up.”

Cates nodded.

“Will you be hypnotizing me?” she asked.

“How do you feel about being hypnotized?”

She shifted in her chair. “All right… I guess.”

“Well, then, maybe we will try to open some doors that way.” Cates noticed Audrey’s shocked expression. “What?” he asked.

“Doors. Why did you say doors?”

Cates seemed confused. “I don’t know. It seemed like a fitting analogy. Why?”

“Tara called it closing doors.”

“Interesting way of putting it. As though she thought of the past as compartmentalized. Rooms to be shut away where they couldn’t be seen.”

Suddenly a large lump formed in Audrey’s throat, and a vision flashed before her eyes. A young girl screaming as a woman’s hand slipped a heavy, eyeless mask over her head. Audrey could barely breathe. The room around her grew dim and she felt dizzy and cold. Just as her mind started to drift back to that long ago night, Cates started speaking again.

“Audrey, what can you remember of your sessions with your aunt? Anything at all?”

She shook her head, struggling to drag herself back into the room. “I can’t remember much of anything. That was the point. To forget.”

“To forget your terrible past.”

“Yes.”

“But doesn’t it seem strange to you that you would forget the sessions too?”

“I never thought about it.”

“Do you recall anything? Anything at all? Images?”

Audrey shook her head, staring at her hands, searching. “Tara saved me. If it wasn’t for her, I’d be dead, like my sister and brother.”

“Did Tara ever treat your sister or brother?”

She shook her head. “I don’t remember them. Tara saved me.”

“Yes, so you said. But we weren’t discussing that. We were discussing the treatments. What do you remember?”

“I… Light. I remember bright lights. Tara saved me.”

Cates stared at her until she looked into his eyes. “You keep saying that. But each time you repeat it, you seem less certain.”

“Do I?” That thought shook her. Why would she be unsure? Tara’s coming to save her from the terrors in her past was the very foundation of her existence. The one memory she clung to, however faint.

Cates nodded. “All right,” he said, unsteepling his fingers. “Leave that for now. Tell me about the things you’re starting to remember.”

Audrey began to rock back and forth in her chair like a child. “I remember a twin sister and an older brother.”

“Yes. What happened to them?”

Audrey stared at the floor between her legs. “I don’t know. I think my mother did something terrible to them.”

“Terrible? Like what?”

Audrey took a moment answering. “I think she killed them. But she did other things first.”

“What other things?”

“I see my mother, then my brother goes away with her and never comes back. The same thing happens to my sister. But that time I remember being in a dark room. I think it was in our basement and my mother was putting this horrible
mask on my sister and my sister was screaming bloody murder and then I never saw her again and then Tara came for me. Tara saved me.”

“Audrey, the way you say that I sense that you
want
to believe it more than you actually do. It’s almost like a programmed response.”

Audrey glanced quickly around the room. “I do believe it.”

“When you talk I hear you say one thing, but your eyes and expression seem unsure. Your body language tells me you’re unclear on Tara’s position in your past.”

Audrey’s frown spread. “Tara never hurt me. Tara never would hurt me.”

“But she buried your past.”

“To protect me from the bad memories. Why are we talking about Tara?”

“Tara seems to be central to this. She’s the one who buried your memories to begin with.”

“She had to. They were terrible. I couldn’t live with them.”

“But could
all
of them have been so terrible that they needed to be hidden?”

“I don’t know.” But she
did
know. Cates was touching on the same thoughts that had been gnawing at her for days. What good things had she lost when Tara erased her past like a giant hand swooping across a blackboard?

“Do you want to?” asked Cates. “Are you ready to try to find out?”

She nodded slowly. “What do you want me to do?”

“I think I’ll let you tell me what
you
want to do first.”

Audrey took a long, deep breath. The doors had been closed for so long and she’d gotten by. Tara had said her past was unimaginably horrible, but she sensed that somewhere in there Zach, or the truth about Zach, was hiding, and she’d face any horror imaginable if it meant even the slimmest chance of finding him. Even if it only meant finding out what had happened to him so she could put him to rest at last. She had to
know.

“I’d like you to hypnotize me. I want to know what’s behind
my
doors.”

“All right. But have you
really
considered this? You of all people should know that regression has risks.”

“Everything has risks. I want you to hypnotize me.”

Cates steepled his fingers again. “All right, then. Lean back and try to relax. I want you to take slow, deep breaths and imagine yourself in the most peaceful place in the world.”

She did as she was told, half-closing her eyes. Imagining herself in a beautiful garden. Not her own garden. She still wasn’t quite ready to go back there after all. No, this was the garden of her dreams. Ever so slowly Cates began to speak and she felt the well-remembered sense of losing herself. She was surprised at how fast she started to go under. Cates’s voice was full and throaty in the big office, then more distant, finally echoing down a long corridor. And then she was back in the recesses of her mind again. She didn’t hear the voice commands now. It was as though
she
was directing this memory walk.

That long-ago day in her childhood began to replay for her, slowly at first. Her sister and brother were romping in the yard. Gidown bounced off the end of his chain. Her mother, her hair gleaming in the sun, called from the back porch. And then her brother disappeared and once more that door in Audrey’s mind swung closed. She didn’t need to remain here. She’d opened this door on her own. She knew where it led. With only the slightest hesitation, she turned to the next door. When it opened, she was faced with a terrible darkness, but as she entered—had she really
wanted
to enter?—the gloom was splashed with milky moonlight.

A child cried in the distance, and Audrey shook with fear. It was the same cry she had heard that day in the kitchen. She glanced at her hands and saw that they were the hands of an adolescent, unlined and free of the gardening calluses her fingers now sported. Across the floor, an arrangement of sofa and chairs faced a large bookshelf. She slipped behind an open door to get out of the moonlight. A dog barked wildly outside.

Was that Gidown?

She tried to remember the sound of Gidown’s bark. But she wasn’t sure. In any case, this wasn’t the mournful howl of a pet left out of the game. The barking sounded more like a hunting animal, angered at not being able to reach its
prey. The sound pressed Audrey farther back into the wedge of wood between the door and the wall, but there was another sound as well. Coming from the other side of the room. The sound of laughter.

Laughter that sounded like darkness.

That was a thought directly from her childhood, blurted into the present. She could no more help herself in this recreation of her past than she could control events in that forgotten year. This was not a dream she might manipulate. It was a memory, cast in stone. She either had to exit into the white corridor in her mind or ride the recollection to whatever terrible end it revealed. She crept around the sofa and found herself staring down a long dark hallway, but she needed no light. The laughter was guide enough. She followed it through endless corridors of darkness. Then there was the strangest sense of dropping through space and she was in another corridor.

The smell of mildew and damp concrete hung in the air. Overhead, bare bulbs lit cold white concrete. The cellar seemed devoid of life. Still the insane laughter rattled Audrey’s ears. She followed it along the winding brick-lined tunnel until she found herself in front of a heavy metal door.

Just like the ones in my mind. Only this one is real. This had to be our house. But how could it? The tunnels seemed endless. No one owned a house like that. There was something
wrong
with the picture. Something skewed, as though two memories were trying to assert themselves at the same time. Still she knew the place. And she knew the laughter as well. Because she had heard it often enough in her childhood that it was burned into her brain, and now she was recalling it as though it had been there all along. Only it didn’t always sound like that. Not dark, and sad, and crazy.

It had to be her mother’s laughter.

She reached out with a childish hand and turned the knob. It wasn’t locked and the door swung open as easily and silently as only a well-hung, well-oiled door can. The small room was better lit than the dusky basement, and it was lined from floor to ceiling with some gray metallic-looking sheeting supported by evenly spaced broad-headed nails. They were sheets of lead.

She rounded a corner and froze, staring at her mother’s back. Mother was on her knees, struggling with Audrey’s sister. The girl’s feet kicked frantically between her mother’s legs and she was screaming. But her screams were muffled. Sweat streaked her mother’s raven hair and the lights glinted on the gray that had begun to appear in it. When Audrey gasped, her mother glanced over her shoulder and Audrey saw the glint of madness there.

And terror.

“I have to, Audrey,” she said, in a breathless but gentle tone. “I have to do this. Please try to understand.”

As Audrey backed away into the basement, biting the back of her hand, her mother rose to her feet and then Audrey could see her sister, clawing madly at the hideous eyeless monstrosity that was locked onto her head. There was a small hole at the mouth, but the rest of the heavy metal device covered the head like a helmet, strapped tightly beneath the chin and belted around the throat. A small brass lock clinked behind Paula’s neck. Audrey could just see her blond braids beneath the horrid object as the girl rolled over and over across the cold, lead-lined floor.

“No!” Audrey whispered. “No!” Until the words became a scream echoing around her. “It’s my fault! She did it because of me!”

Finally she could hear Cates’s excited voice. “Come back, Audrey. Come back, now! Can you hear me? Come back, now! It’s not your fault!”

His hands were tight on her wrists, pressing them down against the armrests of the chair, and his eyes were so close to hers that at first she had trouble focusing on his face. Her entire body was bathed in cold sweat, and the trembling that she had sensed before was barely subsiding.

Cates let out a loud sigh. “Are you all right?” he asked, his voice easing a bit as he relaxed back into his own chair, releasing her arms.