by Nora Roberts
SHE MUST HAVE DOZED OFF. When Clare dragged herself out of sleep, her heart was racing. The dry, sour taste of fear coated her mouth as she scrambled to sit up. For a moment, dream struggled against reality, and the hard table with the gauzy curtain surrounding it became a coffin, the image screaming through her brain.
Then she remembered Cam leading her back through the E.R., into the little cubicle, drawing the privacy curtain so that the light filtered weakly through. She could see shadows moving beyond it.
He had gotten his hands on a tape recorder and taken her briefly and thoroughly through the events that happened after she left his house.
She'd felt both sad and awkward answering his questions. He hadn't been wearing his badge, but she'd known it stood between them.
After he had put the recorder away, labeling and pocketing the tape, he had brought her a cup of tea and stayed with her until she drifted off.
She was relieved he wasn't there now, that she could take a moment to calm herself. The dream that had awakened her was still running through her mind like film on an endless loop.
Her old nightmare had mixed with a new one, one of herself running through the woods, crashing through brush and bursting out on the road. Behind her was the swell of chanting growing louder, louder. A smell of blood and smoke. It had been her white and terrified face caught in the hard glare of headlights. Behind the wheel of the car bearing down on her was the figure of a man with the head of a goat.
She had awakened on impact with the sickening thud echoing in her head.
Clare rubbed her hands over her face and could feel a wild pulsing in her fingertips. She was awake, she reminded herself, safe and unhurt. As her heartbeat quieted, she heard the beep of pages. Nearby she heard a hacking cough and someone moaning.
Nightmares fade, she thought. Reality doesn't. There was another woman lying in a bed somewhere upstairs. A woman she was responsible for.
Just as she started to swing her legs off the padded table, the curtain was parted.
“You're awake.” Cam came forward to take her hand and study her face.
“How long did I sleep? Is she out of surgery? I want to-” She broke off, seeing that Cam was not alone. “Dr. Crampton.”
He gave her a reassuring smile and patted her free hand. “Well, young lady, what have we got here?” he said as he took her pulse.
It was the same greeting he'd given her when he treated her for an ear infection fifteen years ago. It triggered the same reaction. “I'm fine. I don't need a shot or anything.”
He chuckled, pushing his wire-rim glasses back up his prominent nose. “It's mighty depressing when people always look at you as though you've got a hypodermic in your pocket. Any dizziness?”
“No. Cam, you had no business bringing Dr. Crampton all the way up here.”
“I figured you'd be more comfortable with Doc Crampton. Besides”-he grinned at her-“the intern on duty is too young and too good-looking.” He turned to the doctor. “No offense.”
“I don't need a doctor.” How could he joke? How could he? “Tell me how she is.”
“She's out of surgery.” Cam kept Clare's hand in his while Crampton shined a light in her eyes. “She hasn't come around yet, but she's going to be okay.” He couldn't bring himself to tell her that it was going to take at least one more operation to reconstruct the woman's knee.
“Thank God.” She was so relieved she didn't object when Crampton fit a blood pressure cuff over her arm. “Can I see her?”
“Not until morning.” He squeezed her hand before she could object. “Doctor's orders, Slim, not mine.”
“You're carrying around a lot of stress, young lady,” Dr. Crampton told her. “Entirely too much. You call the office and make an appointment for next week. No arguments, now.”
“No, sir.”
He smiled at her. “You're going to try to find a way to slip out of it.”
She smiled back. “You bet.”
“You always were one of my worst patients.” He tapped a finger on the tip of her nose. “I want you to relax. I'm going to give you something to help you sleep.” He caught the stubborn look in her eye and sent her one in return. “I'd do the same for my own girl.”
It made her sigh. This was the man who'd seen her through chicken pox and that first, horribly embarrassing pelvic exam. His patient voice hadn't changed, nor the gentleness of his hands. New and deeper lines were etched around his eyes since the last time Clare had been his patient. His hair was thinner, his waist thicker. But she remembered very clearly the way he had dispensed balloons from a china clown on his desk, for good girls and boys. “Don't I get a prize?”
He chuckled again and opened his bag. He pulled out a long red balloon to go with the sample of pills. “Nothing wrong with your memory.”
She took it, the symbol of hope and childhood, and balled it in her hand. “It was good of you to come all this way, Doctor. I'm sorry Cam got you out of bed.”
“It won't be the first time or the last.” He winked at her. “You had a nasty shock, Clare, but I think rest will put you right. But you make that appointment, or I'll take back that balloon.” He picked up his bag, then turned to Cam. “I can talk to the surgeon if you want, look in on the patient from time to time.”
“I'd appreciate it.”
He waved the thanks away, and they watched him go, tiredness slowing his steps.
“He hasn't changed,” Clare said.
Cam brought her hand up to his cheek and held it there. “You gave me a scare, Slim.”
“Sorry.”
“Still mad at me?”
She shifted restlessly. “Not really. It's a little weird being interrogated by someone I'm sleeping with.”
He let go of her hand, stepped back. “I can have Bud do the follow-up if you'd feel better about it.”
She was screwing it up, Clare thought. Right on schedule. “No, I'll handle it.” She tried a smile and almost made it. “So, what's the next step?”
“I can take you home so you can get some real sleep.” That's what he wanted to do.
“Or?”
“If you're up to it, you can take me back to the scene, go through it with me.” That's what he felt obliged to do.
She felt a skitter of panic inside her and ruthlessly squashed it. “Okay, we'll take door number two.”
“I'll drive. We'll have your car picked up later.” He wanted to examine it thoroughly, with more than a flashlight, for evidence of impact.
She slid off the table, then reached for his hand. “I think I left my keys in it.”
Other wounds had been treated that night. Other decisions had been made. The twelve remaining children of Satan had closed ranks. Their fears had been put to rest. On the night of the full moon, they would meet for the Esbat. To celebrate. To consecrate. To sacrifice.
The offering that had been sent to them had escaped. They had only to choose another.
“It was here.” Clare closed her eyes as Cam steered his car to the shoulder. “I was coming the other way, but this is where …” A squeal of brakes, her own scream. “This is where I hit her.”
“You want to stay in the car while I take a look?”
“No.” She wrenched open the door and pushed herself out.
The moon had set. The stars were fading. It was the darkest, coldest part of night. Was there an hour, she wondered, when man was more vulnerable than this, the time that belonged to creatures who slept or hid by day? There was a rustle in the brush-the cry of the hunter, the scream of the prey. She saw the shadow of an owl as it glided away with its kill caught, bleeding, in its talons. The crickets continued their tireless music.
Clare wrapped her arms tight around her body. Cam was already playing his light on the skid marks that started up the road, then veered dramatically to the left.
From the length of them, he gauged that Clare hadn't been doing more than forty. And from the angle, she'd obviously reacted quickly, wheeling her car away. Judg
ing by the evidence at his feet and Clare's statement, it appeared likely to him that the woman had run into Clare, rather than the other way around. But he kept his opinion to himself for the moment.
“She came out of the woods?” he prompted.
“Just there.” She pointed, her artist's imagination recreating the scene vividly. “She was running, sort of a quick, stumbling gait. For just a fraction of a second, I thought she was a deer-the way she just burst out of the trees and kept going. My first thought was, shit, I'm going to run over Bambi. And Bambi's going to wreck my car. I remember Blair hitting a buck the first month we had our drivers′ licenses, and totaling the Pinto.”
She unwrapped her arms, then stuck her hands in her pockets. Inside were a couple of spare coins her nervous fingers could toy with. “I hit the brakes hard and dragged at the wheel. She was out on the road so fast. Then I saw her in the headlights.”
“Tell me what you saw.”
“A woman, very slim, lots of blond hair. There was blood on her face, on her shirt, on her pants. As if I'd already mowed her down.” Her spit seemed to dry up in her mouth as she spoke. “Got a cigarette?”
He took two out, lit them both, and handed her one. “Then what?”
The resentment eased back into her, like the smoke she inhaled. “Cam, I've already told you.”
“Tell me here.”
“I hit her.” She snapped the words off and paced a few feet away. “There was this awful thud.”
He played his light on the road again, following the trail of blood that ended beside the skid mark Clare's right tire had made.
“She was conscious?”
She dragged on the cigarette again, struggling not to hate him. “Yes, she asked me to help her. She was scared, really scared. Whatever she'd been running from was worse for her than her injuries.”
“She had keys.”
“What?”
“She had keys in her pocket.” He pulled out a little plastic bag that contained them. “One's a car key.” He scanned the road. “Let's take a ride.”
As they drove, he was silent, thinking. She'd had no purse, no backpack, no I.D. Pretty blondes didn't go unnoticed in a small town like Emmitsboro, so he was betting she wasn't a local. When he spotted the Volvo parked on the shoulder a mile from the accident site, he wasn't surprised.
Clare said nothing as she watched him work. He took out a bandanna, using it to cover his fingers as he opened the glove box and sifted through its contents.
“Lisa MacDonald.” He read from the registration card before he glanced up at Clare. “Now we know her name.”
“Lisa MacDonald,” Clare repeated. It was a name she wouldn't forget.
He found a map as well, and neatly printed directions from Philadelphia to Williamsport, a town about fifteen miles from Emmitsboro. Still using the bandanna, he took the keys from the evidence bag and slid one into the ignition. The engine sputtered.
“Looks like she had a breakdown.”
“But why would she have gone into the woods?”
Maybe someone took her there, Cam thought, and pocketed the registration. “That's what I'll have to find out.” He closed the car door. The sun was beginning to rise above the mountains to the east. In its ghostly light, Clare looked pale and exhausted. “I'll take you home.”
“Cam, I want to help. I want to do something.”
“The best thing you can do now is take Doc's pills and get some sleep. They'll call me when she wakes up. I'll let you know.”
He had shifted completely into his cop mode, and she didn't like it. “What are you going to do now?”
“Make some phone calls. File a report. Come on.”
“I'll go with you,” she said as he pulled her back to his car. “I can help.”
“Clare, this is my job. I can't see you letting me hold your welding torch.”
“This is different. I'm involved.”
“The difference is this is official business.” He pulled open the car door and nudged her inside. “And you're a witness.”
“A witness to what?”
“I'll let you know.” He closed the door.
* * *
The news spread like wildfire. Doc Crampton told his wife when he finally climbed into bed. His wife told Alice during their morning phone call. Alice hunted down Bud before the breakfast shift was over. By noon, when Cam arranged for George Howard to use his tow truck to bring the Volvo into the back lot of Jerry's Auto Sales and Repairs, the story was spreading through town like a fast-mutating virus.
Min Atherton didn't waste any time hustling over to the Kimball house with her prizewinning orange-and-marshmallow Jell-O mold and a nose itching for gossip. When she was turned away by an immovable Angie, who told her Clare was resting and couldn't be disturbed, she clumped off to Betty's House of Beauty to complain about that uppity black woman.
By the second lunch shift at Emmitsboro High, the rumor being passed out like the Steak Nuggets and Tater Rounds was that a psycho was loose in Dopper's Woods.
Others said the woman had run into Junior Dopper's ghost, but most favored the psycho.
They speculated in the market, over the iceburg lettuce, about whether Sheriff Rafferty was covering up for Clare, seeing as they'd gotten so cozy. After all, he wasn't turning up much on Biff Stokey's murder either, though it was hard to blame him for that.
And wasn't it too bad about Jane Stokey selling her farm and getting ready to move down to Tennessee? The Rafferty place-it had been the Rafferty place for close to a hundred years and would always be the Rafferty place in local minds-would probably be sliced up for building lots. Just wait and see. Lord, look at the price on these tomatoes. Hothouse, too. Got no taste.
Wasn't it something about those calves of Matt Dopper's? Had to be drug addicts from down in the city. Same ones that killed old Biff. Sheriff ought to be able to figure it out.
The buzzing went on, over the counters, through the telephone wires crisscrossing town, beside the swings in the park, where toddlers raced in the bright May sunshine.
Cam fielded dozens of calls and sent Bud or Mick out to ease the spreading anxiety from in and around town. People were jumpy enough to lock their doors, to peer out of dark windows before they climbed into bed. He could almost see the shotguns and hunting rifles standing oiled and loaded beside doorways, and hoped to God he wouldn't have to deal with a rash of accidental shootings.
It was bad enough during deer season when the lawyers and dentists and other desk jockeys from the city crowded the woods, shooting at one another more often than they shot at a buck, and mostly missing. But the people of Emmitsboro knew one end of a twenty gauge from the other.
If the town panicked, he'd have to go to the mayor about signing on another deputy, at least temporarily, to help handle the nail biters who would see Charles Manson every time a tree branch rattled a window.
He pushed away from his desk and went into the broom-closet-sized bathroom in the back of the office. It smelled-no, reeked, Cam thought-of Lysol. That was Bud's work. The germ-fighting deputy.
Bending over the bowl, he splashed cold water on his face, trying to rinse the rust out of his mouth and eyes. He hadn't slept in thirty-six hours, and his mind was almost as sluggish as his body.
There had been a time when he and his partner had stayed up as long, trapped in a freezing or sweaty car during a stakeout. Taking turns catching naps, drinking atomic coffee, making up stupid word games just to relieve the impossible tedium.
He lifted his head, face dripping, and stared into the spotty mirror. He wondered if there would ever come a time when he wouldn't remember. Or at least when those memories would dull a bit around the edges and become more comfortable to live with.
Christ in heaven, he wanted a drink.
Instead, he rubbed his face dry and went back into the office for more coffee. He'd just scalded his tongue when Clare walked in. She took one look at his shadowed eyes, the stubble of beard, and shook her head.
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“You haven't been to bed at all.”
He drank again, burning his already raw mouth. “What are you doing here?”