Scent of Roses & Season of Strangers

by Kat Martin

  Julie was determined to try.

  * * *

  It started with a tangle in her hair. Not just a few knotted strands but a snarl of long blond hair at the back of her neck that Laura worked on for more than ten minutes trying to smooth out.

  Standing in front of the mirror in the bathroom of the condo Brian had rented for their romantic weekend at Lake Arrowhead, she cursed the snarl, wondering where it had come from. Last night she and Brian hadn’t even made love. They had been so tired after a day of hiking and boating, after a four-course dinner at a place called Casual Elegance, one of the best restaurants in town, they had curled up in front of the fire in each others’ arms and fallen immediately asleep.

  Brian had awakened before midnight and carried her into the bedroom. He had helped her undress. She’d crawled into bed, curled up in his arms, and quickly gone back to sleep. A deep sleep, she recalled. Undisturbed. Both of them enjoying the intimacy that had nothing to do with sex. She had slept in one of his old faded T-shirts, wound her heavy blond hair into a single thick curl and pinned it on top of her head.

  So where had the tangled knot come from?

  It bothered her for some reason, chewed on her mind all morning, distracted her through breakfast. She sat across from Brian in the kitchen, at a small Formica table in the corner of the sunny yellow room. They were eating the scrambled eggs and bacon he had surprised her by cooking, but her mind kept returning to the snarl she had found in her hair.

  A memory began to unravel, to free itself much like the knotted strands she had finally managed to untangle, a memory of her and Brian in bed. Of peaceful dreams that faltered, shattered by the faint, scraping, invasive sound of intruders.

  Laura swallowed a bite of her eggs, but this time they wouldn’t go down. She half rose out of her chair, her eyes no longer seeing Brian’s handsome, beardless face, but something else. Something that had happened last night, something she was only beginning to recall.

  “Laura?” Brian leaned toward her across the table. “Honey, are you all right?”

  She didn’t answer, just stood staring, seeing the inside of the spacecraft, hearing the echo of unfamiliar sounds, feeling the Visitors gathered around her.

  “You were sleeping,” she whispered. “We both were. Such a peaceful sleep. I don’t remember ever feeling more content.” She moistened her lips. They felt dry and rough. “That’s when the Visitors came.”

  Brian’s fork clattered loudly onto his plate. “Laura, my God. Don’t tell me you believe—”

  “I tried to wake you up, but I couldn’t,” she continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “I couldn’t wake you, no matter how hard I tried.” She turned her head from side to side, making her long blond hair swirl around her face. “I was so frightened. It was like you were dead but I knew that you weren’t.”

  Brian just sat there, too stunned to speak. Laura sat trembling in her chair. “They were here in the condo. I remember now. They came while we were sleeping.”

  Brian tried to pull himself together, to force the dumbstruck look from his face. “Laura, that’s absurd. I was here. I was lying right beside you.”

  She numbly shook her head. “I told you, you didn’t wake up. They must have done something to you, made it so you kept on sleeping.”

  “This is insane.”

  “I know. I know it’s insane, but that’s what happened. I remember them lifting me up, taking me into the ship. I remember that room, the rounded metallic walls, the eerie blue glow of the lights. I remember the sounds—the whir of machinery, the icy touch of metal against my skin.”

  Brian just sat there. He looked defeated as she had never seen him. Still, she went on, unable to stop the words from spilling past her lips.

  “It was the same as before, and yet it was different. I was afraid at first. I struggled, but it did no good. I remember my hair had come down and tangled itself around my neck. I was perspiring, the dampness seeping into the strands. One of them approached the table I was lying on. A female, I think. She didn’t speak out loud, yet I knew what she was trying to say. Don’t be afraid. We don’t want to hurt you. We just want to learn. The fear began to ease. My thundering heart began to slow. I knew where I was. I knew what was happening, what they wanted. I was angry. I felt invaded, violated. But I was no longer afraid.”

  Brian reached over and took her hand. His fingers felt icy cold, colder even than her own. “I wish I could believe you, Laura—God knows I do. But I can’t. As a psychiatrist, I can think of a dozen disorders that might explain these sorts of delusions. As your lover and a man who cares deeply about you, I simply want to help you in any way I can.”

  Laura’s eyes swung to his. “You can help me by opening your mind to the possibility that what I’m telling you might be the truth.”

  He only shook his head. “I wish I could, honey. I was there, remember? If you had been taken, I would have known.”

  “Or it might be that you were just not meant to know.”

  His grip on her fingers tightened. “I suppose I could grant you that.” He lifted her hand and pressed his mouth against her knuckles, which were so tight they looked pale. “We’ll go home this afternoon. After…last night…I don’t imagine you’re interested in spending another evening up here.”

  Laura simply nodded. She didn’t want to be there—no. But more than that, she wished she hadn’t told him. She was falling in love with Brian Heraldson, and she knew without doubt her continued belief that she had been abducted would destroy any love he might feel in return, cut it out as cleanly as if it had been surgically removed.

  “I don’t think they’ll come for me again,” Laura said, her eyes not quite meeting his. She got up from the table, her half eaten plate of eggs cold now, congealed in an ugly yellow lump on her plate. “They’ve learned what they needed to know. From now on they’re going to leave me alone.”

  It was a lie. She had no idea what the Visitors meant to do, but whatever it was, she wouldn’t tell Brian about it.

  Not if she didn’t want to lose him.

  He gently caught her shoulders. “Do you really believe that, Laura?”

  “I felt it when I was with them. I felt that my part in this was over.”

  The darkness in his features eased. Brian’s mouth curved up, as if hope for them had just been resurrected. “That’s good, honey. That’s wonderful.” He pulled her into his arms, held her tightly against him.

  Laura said nothing, wishing the lie were true. As far as Brian was concerned it was true. No matter what happened, no matter what they did, she would never speak to Brian of the Visitors again.

  * * *

  Worry made Julie irritable that Tuesday. For the past three days, she had been thinking of Patrick and his involvement with Sandini and McPherson. She hadn’t told him what Owen had discovered. Patrick had been trying to protect her, to keep her from worrying, the way she was right now.

  Besides, what good would it do? It wouldn’t change what he had decided to do. The right thing, the honest thing. They simply had to find a way to protect him from his two unscrupulous business associates.

  To that end, she was now in the study of his penthouse apartment, having gone to dinner with him last night and stayed over, as she did as often as she could. Patrick had left for work early. He had a meeting with Fred Thompkins about the listing Fred had taken on the old Flynn estate. He’d made love to her before he left, kissed her, and left her snuggled in the middle of the bed, taking advantage of a morning free of her usual myriad appointments.

  Then the notion had struck: Perhaps there was something of importance in his study, something Patrick had overlooked that in some way might help them. She didn’t think he would mind her intrusion. As far as she knew, there were very few secrets between them.

  Still dressed in her robe, she rummaged through t
he low, sleek black teakwood secretary behind the desk in his home office, then through the two tall file cabinets over in the corner. Nothing exciting. She felt a little guilty going through the personal items in his desk drawers, but she rationalized that it was for his own good and if she didn’t find anything that would help, he would never know the difference.

  The middle drawer was locked.

  She tugged on it a couple of times just to be sure, then knelt down and studied the lock, saw that it was a simple device she could probably open with the fingernail file in her purse.

  She chewed her bottom lip, guilt trickling through her for real this time. Breaking into Patrick’s private locked files was definitely going over the line, but if she were going to help him she needed to know every minor detail of what he was involved in. So far she had seen only the documents he kept at the office, which made no mention at all of the money Patrick owed or the names Sandini or McPherson.

  She went for her purse, dug out the nail file and used the sharp, pointed end to turn the lock on his desk drawer. The drawer rolled open. Inside she found the file she’d been looking for, a manila folder marked simply BROOKHAVEN. Julie smiled triumphantly and flipped it open.

  Scanning the contents, she carefully read the details of Patrick’s loan—eleven million three hundred thousand dollars. Not exactly small change. Then again, the old Patrick had never thought about money in anything but very large terms.

  Julie read on, saw that the debt was payable at an astounding twenty percent interest, as well as a percentage of ownership of the project, which increased in proportion to the length of time the loan remained unrepaid. There was a copy of the deed given in lieu of foreclosure Patrick had signed over to the Westwind Corporation just before his heart attack, copies of notes, agreements, everything that wasn’t in the file at the office.

  Julie read through the contents again, searching carefully for something that might help, blew out a frustrated breath, and closed the file. She knew it all now, every gruesome detail, knew that Patrick had sold his soul to the devil to build Brookhaven and try to make the project work.

  And nothing she read gave her the slightest clue as to how she might be able to help him—since she didn’t, at present, have eleven million dollars conveniently on hand.

  Julie sighed as she leaned forward, intent on shoving the file back into the drawer, but something blocked the way. Reaching down, she pulled out a leather-bound volume, a five-by-seven inch notebook, smooth red leather, bordered with a thin line of gold.

  It was a journal, she saw as she cracked it open, the lines on each page penned neatly in what appeared to be Patrick’s own hand.

  She meant to put it back, she really did. She didn’t intend to snoop through Patrick’s personal ramblings, but her name, appearing as it did on the page that had fallen open, drew her eye unerringly, gripping her and refusing to let go.

  The words didn’t make sense. None of it made any sense. Not at first. Not until she turned to the first page and began to read from the beginning. Even then she couldn’t seem to grasp the meaning of what was written with such precision on the lined white pages.

  She sank down in the chair behind Patrick’s desk, studying the entries, one for each day, beginning the day Patrick had returned home from the hospital. She had to start over several times, unable to absorb what was written, unable to fit the words together to make any kind of sense. Refusing to accept it when she did.

  It was insane. Impossible. Some sort of sick delusion, the same kind of alien fantasy her sister was experiencing.

  But that thought only added to her confusion, for in the journal Patrick spoke at length of Laura’s abduction, and the date at the top of the page was prior to the first time Laura had mentioned it. How could he possibly have known?

  Julie’s hand trembled so badly she dropped the notebook. She picked it up and set it down on the desk, closed it for several long, mind-dead seconds. Then she opened it again and forced herself to continue to read.

  Humans experience their world in a different way than we do. They are governed by feelings, not logic. They are not objective in the same manner we are. It went on to talk about violence among humans and individual rights, a strange and frightening treatise, made even more terrifying by the story unfolding on the pages.

  Entries that claimed Patrick wasn’t Patrick at all. That he was part of some terrible conspiracy that revolved around the horrifying experiences Laura claimed to have suffered. And in the journal, those experiences included Julie—just as her sister had said.

  Oh, my God.

  She turned off her cell phone and spent the next two hours reading and rereading the journal. She tried to tell herself it wasn’t real, that Patrick and Laura had both contracted some sort of mental disorder. Then she thought of the way Patrick had changed, become a different man since his heart attack.

  The journal explained it all, even his odd behavior: his nocturnal sleeplessness, his bizarre tastes in food, his sexual inexperience. She thought of the strange terminology he sometimes used. Even his features looked different, sterner somehow, more manly than he had looked before.

  It couldn’t be real, yet what if it was?

  Suddenly she had to know the truth.

  She was almost ready to go. She had showered and applied her makeup before going into Patrick’s study. Now she tossed off her robe and hurriedly put on her clothes, barely able to fasten the hooks on her bra with her hands shaking so badly. She tried to step into the skirt of the crisp white linen suit she had brought to wear to the office, but her knees were trembling so badly she had to sit down to put it on.

  She finished dressing then paused in front of the mirror, her face looking even paler against the white of her linen suit. Adding an extra dash of blush never occurred to her. She just wanted to see Patrick—or Valenden—or whatever his name really was. She had to know if what the journal said could possibly be true.

  Stuffing the notebook beneath her arm, she headed out the door, her hands so unsteady she dropped the car keys twice on the way to his parking garage. She nearly flooded the engine before she got the damned car started. She threw the Mercedes into reverse, shot backward out of the space, then slammed the brakes on too hard and jerked herself forward against the seat belt, knocking the air out of her lungs.

  “Calm down, Julie,” she said out loud. “You’ve got to get there in one piece if you want to get this whole thing straightened out.” As if that could actually happen.

  She dragged in two deep breaths and slowly, purposely released them. Her hands calmed a little. She put the car in drive, drove through the garage at a moderate speed and out onto the street.

  It didn’t take long to reach the office. She parked in her usual spot at the rear of the building and turned off the engine, but couldn’t find the courage to open the door and get out. Patrick’s Porsche was parked in the lot not far away. He was in there. A Patrick she didn’t really know.

  Or a man from another world.

  It couldn’t be true. Her logical, functioning mind knew that, yet the pieces fit so neatly together, everything Laura had said—confirmed. And explained in detail in Patrick’s journal.

  Her head tipped forward till it rested on the steering wheel. “God, please help me get through this.” Whatever she discovered, it wasn’t going to be good. Not unless Patrick knew nothing at all about the journal, and recognizing his writing as she had, even that would be hard to believe.

  She got out of the car and crossed the parking lot, entering the back door as quietly as she could and making her way directly to his office, grateful no one had seen her come in. She could only imagine the look on her face—terror, sheer, stark terror. And a pain that ran soul-deep.

  What if all of it were true?

  It was impossible. Surely. There had to be some other explanation.

&nbs
p; Patrick glanced up as she walked in without knocking and quietly closed the door.

  He smiled. “Julie…” Then he saw her face. “My God, what’s wrong?” He was out of his chair in a heartbeat, worried about her, ready to help, strong, purposeful, determined.

  Everything he never was before.

  Julie’s gaze met his and her whole body went rigid. “Stay where you are. Don’t…don’t come near me, Patrick.”

  He frowned darkly, digging deep lines across his forehead. Then he saw the journal she still clutched under her arm.

  “Julie…”

  She held it up with a trembling hand. “Explain it, Patrick. Tell me this is some sick joke of yours. Tell me none of this is real. That you made it all up.”

  Patrick said nothing.

  “Are you crazy, Patrick? Are you insane?”

  He stiffened, tension making his broad shoulders look even wider. He took a deep breath and slowly released it, his eyes still fixed on her face. Resignation settled over his features. “No.”

  Julie’s throat went tight, a hard lump rising, part of it anger, some of it fear. “If you aren’t crazy, then I must be. This can’t be real. Laura was never abducted. There is no such place as Toril.”

  He said nothing. The silence was so deep, the air between them filled with such clarity she knew in that moment the journal was real.

  “Oh, my God.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said gently. “In life, there are always things that are bigger than we want to believe. Frightening things. Things we don’t understand. I hoped you would never know the truth. I hoped you would never find out.”

  “It—it can’t be the truth. It isn’t possible.”

  “I’m afraid, love, that it is.”

  She moved her head from side to side, trying to deny it when his eyes said clearly that the things in the notebook were true. There was pain there, too, she saw, and regret and something else she could not name.