Never Alone (43 Light Street)

by Rebecca York

  Beth gave a mirthless laugh. “Since then, I haven’t been able to muster up more than a psychic twinge.”

  “That twinge means the power is coming back,” Kathryn said with assurance.

  She nodded, unsure whether the psychologist was trying to bolster her confidence or whether she really believed it. Silently she prayed that it was the latter, and that she could really control a process that had controlled her for so long.

  “The guys out there are desperate to know where Cal is being held. Do you mind if I have Hunter monitor what’s going on in here from out in the other room? He’ll use earphones, so it will be just him listening.”

  She might have been uncomfortable about one of the other men observing the session. But she’d sensed that Hunter was more sensitive than most guys, so she gave her permission.

  Kathryn flipped a switch on a box that sat on the desk and spoke rapidly into the receiver. “All set,” she said, turning back to Beth. “Let’s see if you can go where Cal is, see if he can tell you something.”

  “I want to,” Beth murmured.

  “You can do anything you want if you just stop worrying about your abilities. You know, from what you’ve told me, it sounds like they’re connected to people and animals you care about.”

  Beth had never thought in those specific terms. “Yes,” she breathed.

  “And you care deeply about Cal.”

  “Yes.”

  “So go out and find him. I’ll be here, helping you achieve your goal. But first, let me explain the hypnotic-induction process.”

  As Kathryn talked, Beth listened eagerly.

  “Hypnosis is really self-hypnosis,” the psychologist began. “I’m only here to help you relax.”

  “Now raise your eyes to the line where the ceiling meets the wall and relax. Relax…let yourself drift…”

  Kathryn took her into a light trance, then into a deeper state of hypnosis as she mentally descended a flight of stairs, counting her way down from fifteen to one.

  When she reached the bottom she felt deeply relaxed.

  “Can you hear me?” Kathryn asked.

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  “I want you to go find Cal. Send your mind away from here, the way he sent his mind away from his body when he was in a coma. Only this is a little different. You’re the one in control. You’re going where he is. You’re going there because you want to find him.”

  “I can’t,” Beth whispered, feeling a surge of panic.

  “Just relax. Let yourself float there. Don’t resist. You want to be with him. You want to be with him very badly.”

  “Yes.”

  “Then use your power. Go to him.”

  For an eternity she felt nothing besides a deep, surging panic. I can’t! I can’t do it. Despair was like a monster crouching on her chest, making it impossible to breathe.

  Just when she had given up all hope, she thought she heard Cal’s voice. She felt a surge of joy.

  “Cal?” she whispered.

  “Stay away!”

  “No. I’ve got to find you,” she answered.

  She felt the force of his will, trying to hold her away, hold her where she was. But at the same time there was a bond pulling her toward him.

  She felt a swirl of motion around her and made a small sound as she felt herself leaving the room, leaving her body. Suddenly she was standing in the darkened stillness in a field beside a house. And she knew what that house was.

  When she gasped, she heard Kathryn’s reassuring voice. “Beth, are you all right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where are you?”

  In amazement, she stammered, “I—I’m at the farm. My farm. But I’m not at my place. I’m at the little house Mom and Dad used to rent out until there were too many things wrong with it. I can see a light inside. It looks like it’s from some kind of big flashlight.”

  “Is Cal there?”

  “I don’t know. I have to get close enough to find out.” She started across the twenty yards separating her from the dilapidated dwelling, walking rapidly until she could see through the film of grime over the living-room window. Inside, a man was pacing back and forth. It wasn’t Cal. Not at all.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Beth made a low sound of distress.

  “Talk to me,” Kathryn said softly. “What are you seeing?”

  “Dave Garwill is there,” she breathed, suddenly remembering what was happening. She wasn’t at the farm—not really. She was at the Randolph estate, and she’d only sent her mind here. She had prayed that she would find Cal. Instead, she’d found the killer.

  He was pacing back and forth across the room. Suddenly he stopped and strained his eyes toward the window as if he knew she was there.

  But he couldn’t see her, could he?

  Hands clenched at her sides, she moved forward, one step at a time, slowly then more quickly.

  “Is Garwill alone?” Kathryn asked.

  “It sounds like he’s talking to someone.” She felt a shiver go through her as the utter strangeness of this whole situation overtook her. It was hard to shake the sense that Garwill could see her. But this wasn’t real, she reminded herself as she walked up to the front porch and peered through the window into the small living room. It was empty of furniture except for a card table and a folding chair.

  When she tried to open the door, there was no feeling of connection with the handle. So she moved to the window and knelt to peer inside.

  Garwill was alone. As she stared through the window, he spun around and for a terrible moment he seemed to be staring right at her through the grimy glass. She went stock-still, frozen in place. Then he shook his head.

  “You’re getting jumpy, Damien,” he said, and she realized he was talking to himself, had been talking to himself all along. “It’s that damn cop in the root cellar or whatever they call it. The bastard is still asleep. Screwing everything up.”

  It was obvious the man was angry. What had he done to Cal? What was he planning to do?

  Beth made a small, whimpering sound.

  “What is it? What’s wrong?” a voice asked. Kathryn’s voice. She had forgotten all about Kathryn.

  “He says Cal won’t wake up. He sounds angry. So angry.”

  Kathryn’s voice turned urgent. “Beth, tell me exactly where you are. You’re at a house that your parents used to rent out. But how do we get to it?”

  Trying to stay calm, she said, “You go up Underwood Road about a quarter of a mile past Old Bridge. You turn in there and go up a separate driveway. You’ll get to it. He says Cal’s in the root cellar. He must mean the dirt cellar under the house.”

  Garwill was walking outside, crossing the porch. Beth followed him down the stairs and around the side of the house, her blood roaring in her ears so loudly that she felt like she was in the middle of a hurricane.

  He stopped, looked down at a man lying unmoving on the ground near the back of the house, and Beth’s heart stopped.

  “Oh God,” she moaned.

  “What?”

  “It’s…” She bent so she could get a look at the man’s face. She had thought for a moment it was Cal. But it was someone else. Someone she didn’t recognize.

  “There’s a man lying on the ground here,” she whispered. “It’s not Cal. I don’t know who he is.”

  “Is he alive?”

  “I don’t know.” She reached out her hand to feel his skin, but again there was no sense of touch. “His head is bleeding. Or it was bleeding. I don’t know if he’s still alive. But I do know Garwill isn’t surprised to find him here. I guess he assaulted him. But I can’t help him.”

  “Of course you can’t. Only your mind is at the farm.”

  “I have to go to Cal.”

  Quickly she hurried to catch up with Garwill, who had stepped with casual unconcern around the body. Turning the corner, he stopped in front of a set of slanted, almost horizontal doors that led to the cellar. Tucking his gun into the waistba
nd of his slacks, he inserted a key in a padlock, twisted the hasp, then lifted the doors. They flopped to the side, the boards shuddering. Garwill’s gun was back in his hand as he clumped down the steps into the cellar. Like a shadow, Beth followed.

  It was dark and damp in the cellar. In one corner, Cal was lying curled on his side on a blanket tossed on the dirt floor. He was breathing deeply, his arms pulled behind his back. As she hurried toward him, she could see that his hands were tied with thick rope.

  Garwill went over and kicked his thigh. Cal made a sound, but he didn’t wake up.

  “Don’t!” Beth screamed, rushing toward the killer and trying to seize him by the shoulder. But the effort was as futile as all her other attempts to manipulate the physical environment.

  For a frozen moment he stopped and raised his head, and Beth stood there barely breathing. Shaking his head and making an angry sound, Garwill turned back to Cal and gave him another vicious kick. Still he didn’t respond.

  Her former classmate cursed loudly. “Wake up so you can get your wife on the horn,” he growled. “I want the bitch here.”

  There was no reply from Cal.

  “I’ll give you another half hour. Maybe that tranquilizer dart was too strong, but that’s your problem, not mine. Asleep, you’re no good to me. So I’m gonna put a bullet in your soggy brain. Then I’ll tell Mrs. Rollins you’re too groggy to talk, and she’ll come running out here.”

  Beth felt the words like a needle of ice piercing her heart.

  Unable to move, she watched the killer spin around and march up the stairs, slam the doors back into place, and snap the lock closed.

  HUNTER KELLEY SPOKE urgently to Alex Shane. “You’ve got to send a Howard County SWAT team out to the former rental property on Beth’s farm. Garwill is getting ready to kill Cal.”

  The detective gave him a doubtful look. “You’re sure it’s Garwill? How do you know? How do you know what he’s doing?”

  “My wife has hypnotized Beth Rollins. She’s, uh, she’s sent her mind to the site where Cal is being held. She knows what’s happening.”

  The detective stared at him. “You expect me to get a warrant and send in a SWAT team on the basis of that kind of information?”

  “Yes,” Hunter answered simply.

  The detective regarded him with narrowed eyes. “If you’re wrong, my job is on the line.”

  “If you’re wrong, Cal Rollins is a dead man.”

  Alex ran a hand through his hair. “You’re sure of your information?”

  “Yes. And the longer you wait, the more likely it is that Cal dies. What do you want? For us to send in an unofficial team to get him?”

  “I wouldn’t recommend it.”

  “Then what do you suggest?”

  Alex was silent for a moment, then he began to speak, picking his words carefully as if he was thinking through the technicalities. “Okay, I can get a warrant based on corroborated information from a known and trusted confidential informant. That’s you. We’ll worry about how you got the information later.”

  “I don’t care what you call it,” Hunter snapped. “Just do it.”

  IT WAS DARK in the cellar now, except for some shafts of light filtering in through cracks in the door frame and at the top of the wall. Quietly, Beth knelt beside the blanket. When her eyes had adjusted to the dark, she saw that Cal wasn’t asleep at all. Now that Garwill was gone, he was lying with his teeth clenched, working the rope that secured his hands, sawing the fibers against a rusty knife that he’d wedged into the dirt floor. Angling her head, she could see what Garwill hadn’t figured out: Cal had cut about halfway through the rope.

  “Cal! You’re awake,” she breathed.

  His head shot up, and his gaze frantically probed the dark corners of the cellar. “Beth. Oh God, Beth, did he get you to come here? I tried like hell in my mind to warn you away,” he added, his voice filled with horror and defeat.

  “I know. I know,” she murmured. “I heard you. I think that’s how I got here. I heard you.”

  “Where are you? I can’t see you. What the hell has he done with you?”

  “It’s all right. I’m not here. Not really,” she whispered. “It’s like the dream. Sort of.”

  She watched his face as he tried to assimilate that. “More likely I’m hallucinating,” he said with a raw laugh.

  Dimly Beth thought she heard somebody calling her name. A woman. But the voice was too far away for her to pay any attention, and of no real importance now that she was with Cal. She longed to wrap her arms around him and hold him. But when she tried to touch him, the frustration of not being able to feel anything physical tore at her.

  Perhaps he did feel the ghost of her arms around him, though. “Beth, are you really here? Oh, sweetheart.”

  She made a small, frustrated sound. “I’m here. But not here. This is like the dream, only it’s different, because you’re not sleeping.” Then the implications sank in. “But you were pretending to be asleep. Oh, Cal, he’s going to come back and shoot you.”

  “Not if I can help it.” As he spoke he began sawing at the ropes again.

  “Why did you want him to think you were asleep?” she asked.

  “To keep you the hell away from him. If I’m out cold from his damn tranquilizer gun, I can’t call you on the phone, can I? I can’t lure you here.”

  She swallowed convulsively as she realized what he was saying. He was putting his life in danger to protect her.

  “The Randolph people are guarding me pretty tightly,” she whispered, afraid her voice would crack.

  “Good.” He laughed again. “I thought the dream was strange. This is…beyond weird. I can’t see you. But I can hear you. And—” He stopped and swallowed hard. “Maybe I can feel you. Just a little.”

  “Lord, Cal, I wish I could help you with those ropes,” she breathed, clenching her hands in frustration.

  “Just your being here helps. Just my knowing you’re okay,” he added.

  As he spoke, he kept working at his bonds, his movements steady, but she could see the strain on his face as he stopped and pulled at his hands, twisting the binding. His wrists were raw, and she clamped her teeth together to keep from screaming.

  He sawed without pausing, then tested the ropes again. This time, when he gave a tremendous pull, the fibers parted and his hands broke free.

  “Thank God,” she cried.

  He lay there panting, his forehead beaded with perspiration. Then he pushed himself to a sitting position, his back against the wall. When he gingerly touched his wrists, he winced, and she felt her stomach knot.

  “Cal,” she whispered, aching to hold him.

  As she watched helplessly, he climbed to his feet, swaying unsteadily until he pressed his shoulders against the wall.

  “I feel like crap,” he said. “Maybe there’s something I can use as a weapon.”

  “Cal, you can’t fight him. You have to get out. There’s a coal chute in the wall in back of you. You can climb through there, if you stand on one of those boxes over by the furnace.”

  “Maybe.” He staggered across the floor toward the boxes just as she heard the lock rattle on the cellar door.

  “God, no!” she cried. “He’s coming back.”

  Cal’s head jerked up. Then like a movie when the film has snapped, the scene vanished from view, and she screamed in terror and frustration.

  “BETH.”

  Her eyes blinked open and she stared into Kathryn Kelley’s face, struggling to orient herself.

  “Oh, God,” she moaned. “Garwill’s coming down there to shoot Cal.”

  “The SWAT team is on their way. They’re following your directions.”

  “It’ll be too late.”

  “No. They’ll get to him in time.”

  “Please, you’ve got to take me there.”

  Kathryn nodded. “Come on.”

  They dashed through the house, the command post strangely empty now that the rescue team knew Cal’s
location. As they burst through the front door, into the driveway, Beth expected to find a car waiting to speed her to the farm. Instead, she heard the whoosh of helicopter blades. She stared in wonder at the machine.

  Kathryn motioned, ducking her head low as she headed toward the open door.

  Beth followed. Scrambling inside the chopper, she watched the other woman fasten her seat belt, then did the same. As soon as they were belted in, the helicopter lifted off the ground, swinging away in the direction of the farm.

  AS HE HEARD the familiar rasp of the lock snapping open, Cal braced his shoulders against the wall near the stairway, a five-foot length of two-by-four clasped in his hands like a baseball bat.

  The bastard was coming down again, and this time he was going to even the score. Cal heard the doors flop open, saw gray morning light seeping down the stairs. Then Garwill started down the stairs, his footsteps confident.

  Cal waited, his breath shallow, his gaze focused on the man’s legs. His heart was thumping inside his chest, but he held himself still, waiting, waiting until the right moment. As Garwill reached the fourth step from the bottom, Cal slammed the piece of wood into the killer’s knees, his adrenaline surging as he felt the thwack of wood against flesh and bone.

  Garwill screamed and tumbled down the rest of the stairs. Cal was on him, kicking the gun from his hand as he hit the floor near the blanket where Cal had been lying for hours in the dark.

  He had raised his club to deliver another blow, but the killer grabbed the blanket, whipping it up and throwing Cal off balance as it hit him in the face.

  Cal backed up. Blinded, he might have torn at the fabric. Instead, he swung the stick again, aiming at the shout issuing from Garwill’s lips as the killer leaped toward him. He felt the stick connect solidly with muscle and bone, changing the shout to a groan.

  The killer fell back and slammed into the wall, giving Cal enough time to sling the blanket aside, then swing his weapon again.

  Somehow, Garwill managed to bring his arm up and deflect the blow as he grabbed for the piece of wood.

  Cal danced back, but he could feel his body slowing. Then, with strength that came from some hidden reserve, he swung the piece of wood again, brought it down in another savage blow. And then another, hitting the killer on the head and shoulders.