Heart Of Darkness

by Maggie Shayne

  Until he came. His Jeep pulled to a stop alongside the road, and she knew him the minute she saw him. David Nichols. Older than the boy in the yearbook. Exactly like the man in her dreams. He sat there, staring at the house for a long moment, and she stood there, staring at him, with something happening inside of her that she had never felt before. God, she was so confused, so overwhelmed. She didn’t even believe in reincarnation.

  “He was your soul mate, Sierra.”

  She turned, expecting to see the old woman—but there was utterly no one there. And it shook her. The one thing she hadn’t considered during all of this was that she might be losing her mind.

  Now, though, hearing voices, seeing faces in windows when no one was there—now she had to consider it.

  She dashed up the sidewalk to where she’d left her car, got in and drove as fast as she could back to the house, and then she shut herself inside, and paced, and wept, and racked her brain to think of an explanation. Any explanation. At length, she phoned Nikki, and without preamble said, “Phone your mom, right now. Ask her the name of the person who lives in the yellow house on Maple Street, a block up from Sierra House, near the trailer park.”

  “You don’t sound right. Are you okay, Sara?”

  “I’ll tell you when you call me back with the answer. Please hurry.”

  “Okay. Sit tight. I should be able to reach her cell. I’ll call you right back, either way.”

  Sara hung up the phone, and paced, and waited, and wondered if she needed to get herself into a hospital, or something. Her heart was racing. Her head was…it was just a mess. Jumbled, mixed-up notions and ideas. And an endless and ever-growing ache in her heart—a longing, yearning ache for a man she’d never even met.

  The phone rang. Three minutes had passed, according to Sara’s watch, but it felt more like thirty. She answered immediately. “Well?”

  “Sammy and Lois Sheppard live there with their three dogs. No one else. He’s a road crew guy for the county, and she works at the post office.”

  “You’re sure it’s the right house?” she asked.

  “It’s the only yellow house on Maple,” Nikki said.

  “And there are no elderly relatives living with them?”

  “No. And if there were, they wouldn’t be Indian women, Sara. That is why you’re asking, isn’t it? This woman you saw, this Pakita, she’s messing with you for some reason.”

  Sara shook her head. “I don’t think so. I think—I think she’s not even real.”

  There was a long, long silence. Then, her voice taking on a new kind of tone, the kind she probably used for the most agitated patients in the E.R., Nikki said, “You know what? You shouldn’t be out there alone. I really think maybe you need to just rest now, Sara. Just rest. I’m gonna come out there, okay?”

  Sara wiped tears from her eyes, and shook her head as if Nikki could see her. “God, don’t be so dramatic. I don’t mean I think I’m imagining her,” she lied. “I mean, I think she’s not really some aunt of Sierra’s. She’s not really who she says she is, and she doesn’t live where she says she lives. That’s all. Not that she…you know, doesn’t exist.”

  “Oh.” She wasn’t sure if Nikki was buying into her fabrication. But she wasn’t ready to have her roommate cart her off to a mental ward for evaluation. She wished she’d never blurted her suspicion in the first place. But damn, she’d been stunned. Pakita was a figment of her imagination.

  Or was she?

  “I’m going to go out to Randy Madison’s parents’ house,” she said. “I think my best bet is to talk to Dav—to talk to the four other men.”

  “Okay,” Nikki said. “But just…be careful, okay?”

  “Yeah. I will, I promise.”

  SARA DROVE OUT PAST TOWN, toward the ocean, angling her Bug up the hilly, narrow, snake track of a road that led into The Heights—the cliffs high above the Atlantic, where the wealthiest Port Lucindites lived.

  The cottage where the men were staying was just as Nikki had described. Far more modern than Sierra House, and yet clearly mature, and solid. She didn’t turn in to the driveway. She was afraid—so afraid. What would they say to her? Did they blame her for their friend’s horrible accident? Would they think she was insane? Was she?

  She pulled the car over along the side of the road, needing to work up her courage before she could face them—face him. David.

  God, her heart beat faster at the thought of seeing him. Her blood heated and her skin warmed.

  Getting out of the car, she followed a footpath that wound up a hill, through quiet pines part of the way and then covering a more barren, rocky terrain right up to the edge of the cliffs.

  She stood there for a moment, staring out over the ocean. The wind blew inward, whipping her hair around her head. The air tasted like the sea. Below, the waves exploded in bursts of white foam as they crashed against the rocky shore. It was good here, she decided. Right here, right now, this was good. She would be okay if she could just spend a few more moments here, with the sea wind in her face.

  Eventually, though, she felt eyes on her, and turned her head to the left. It startled her how close the winding path had taken her to the cottage occupied by David and the others. Far too close. She hadn’t realized.

  And, oh, God, there was someone looking right out the window at her, right now! Not David. One of the others, one who’d changed so much she couldn’t tell which one he might be. He was pale, balding and overweight. And then he was staggering backward with his mouth gaping.

  Sara frowned, straining her eyes, moving her body left and right to try to see what had happened to him. And moments later, she saw David’s face in the window, staring out at her. And she saw raw anger in his eyes.

  Turning away, she ran down the path, and she knew he was coming after her. She knew it.

  But she ran. She ran, and the rocks were slippery and she had to take care not to fall. She ran, and the tree limbs tried to smack her, so she weaved and bobbed and avoided them with the skill of a boxer in the ring. She ran, and the road was nearly in sight, just around the next bend in the trail. She ran, and then she heard a siren.

  And she stopped running.

  Oh, God, what had she done? She’d thought the man in the window had glimpsed her and reacted in shock, alerting the others and sending David out to hunt her down. But now, she thought back on his pale skin, gaping mouth, staggering backward steps, and she wondered if she’d caused even more harm.

  Please, she thought, no. Don’t let me have hurt another one.

  Swallowing hard, she pushed aside a low-hanging limb and stepped around it, expecting to see only her little Bug sitting on the other side awaiting her.

  Instead, she saw him.

  David.

  Just as handsome as she had imagined he would be. Just as beautiful to her as he had ever been. As he had, it seemed in that moment, always been. Even though she’d never met the man before. Everything in her yearned to rush into his arms and whisper, “finally.”

  Again, she heard the heavily accented voice of the Indian woman, Pakita.

  Your soul mate.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  DAVID STARED AT HER as emotions he hadn’t even known he could feel roiled inside him. Powerful as the waves crashing to the shore below the cliffs, they rocked him, and he couldn’t even identify most of them.

  He didn’t know what to say to her. He just stood there, staring at her beautiful face and searching for words.

  But she spoke before he could. She said, “I’m sorry.”

  He felt the shock rip through him anew, maybe because her speaking to him meant she was real. She was real.

  “How…?” He lifted a hand with the unfinished question, and it was trembling when he moved it closer, the backs of his slightly bent fingers brushing over her cheek, making her eyes fall closed. “God, you’re really here,” he whispered.

  “No,” she said. “Not…not the way you think.” She swung her head sideways, her dark eyes wid
ening as she looked toward the house. “What happened?” she asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Yes, you do.” She met David’s eyes again, and he felt her willing him to be honest with her. “I saw him in the window—one of your friends. I couldn’t tell which one. But I know he saw me, and something happened. Was it his heart?”

  “It was Brad, and yes, I think so.”

  The paramedics loaded him into the back of the ambulance and it trundled away. Sara lowered her head, shaking it slowly. “I never meant to hurt any of them. I only wanted to talk to Mark Potter—he was the only one of you still in town, and I had so many questions—” She lowered her head as tears filled her eyes, and a sob choked off whatever remained of her words.

  “I have questions, too,” David said. “I don’t—understand. Was it someone else who died in that fire, Sierra?”

  “Oh, no, that’s not—”

  “And if it was, why did you wait so long to say anything? Why let us—especially me—go on believing—”

  “It wasn’t—”

  “Do you know what that did to me? And God, why haven’t you aged in all this time? I mean, you’d have to be—”

  “I’m not Sierra.”

  He finally stopped speaking, and just stared at her, blinking in disbelief.

  “My name is Sara Jensen. I’m twenty-two. I’m an art teacher from New Hampshire. I am not Sierra Terrence. I just…”

  “If you’re not her, what are you doing here?”

  The ambulance pulled away, and he turned to watch it go, wondering how Brad was doing and feeling guilty for not being with him.

  “This is a conversation that’s going to take a while,” she said. “And one we need to have—I mean, I need to have it. Sierra seems to be…all wrapped up in my life right now. And I don’t think she’s going away until I find out why. But…” Her eyes moved over his face, again and again, almost like a caress. She looked at him as if she were having trouble not touching him. And he got that, because he felt the same.

  “Let’s not do this standing on the side of the road,” she said.

  He nodded, and realized he was looking at her just as longingly as she was looking at him. “We’ll go to the house.” He reached for her as if to take her hand, as if it was the most natural thing in the world to do, but then he stopped himself, frowning.

  She noticed, and for some reason, she closed the gap between his hand, hovering in the air, and her own. She slid her palm against his, and he felt a shower of sparks shooting outward from his chest into every other part of his body as he closed his hand around hers.

  “I just don’t want to…cause any more harm,” she said. “When the others see me—”

  “I’m pretty sure they all went to the hospital. They took the rental car.”

  “I don’t want to be here when they get back,” she said.

  He nodded as they walked up the road, into the driveway and toward the front door. Once inside, he waved her toward the sofa and opened the fridge. “I can offer you hot coffee, cold beer or tap water.”

  “Nothing, thanks.” She sat on the sofa, watching him. He didn’t take anything either, and came to sit beside her.

  “Do you want to call and check on him?”

  “It’s too soon,” he said. “Besides, the guys will call me the minute they have anything to report. Why don’t we get to you? Is there some reason you’re avoiding the subject of what you’re doing here?”

  She nodded, to his surprise. “Because it’s going to sound like I’m crazy.” She lowered her eyes. “Maybe I am.”

  “Why don’t you just start at the beginning?”

  She tried to relax, he thought. At least she unclenched her fists and leaned back on the sofa. “Okay. Okay. I’m an artist. I paint when I’m not teaching. I’ve been painting several pieces where the focal point is a house. Always the same house.”

  “The Muller House?” he asked, knowing it without needing any confirmation.

  She met his eyes and nodded. “Yes, although I’d never seen it before. Not until I came here the other day.”

  “Then how could you paint it?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve been having nightmares where I’m trapped inside that very house as it burns. I painted that scene, too, and there were five shadows on the snow outside, as if five people were standing there.”

  He said nothing for a long moment. And then, finally, his guilt burning in his belly, he said, “We did it. The five of us, Mark, Brad, Kevin, Randy and I. We set the fire that killed you. But I guess you already knew that, or you wouldn’t be stalking us.”

  “Her.”

  “What?” He lifted his gaze to meet her eyes.

  “You set the fire that killed her. I’m not Sierra, remember?”

  He nodded slowly, but he couldn’t take his eyes off her. “God, you look like her.”

  “I know. I saw her yearbook photo and thought I was going to pass out. But I’m telling you, I’m not her. I didn’t even know that what I was painting was a real house—what I was dreaming about, a real event—until my new roommate, Nikki, moved in. She saw the paintings, and she’s from here. She told me the story and I didn’t really believe her. Not until I came here. Not until I saw that house, and…and you.”

  “Me?”

  “The yearbook photo. It was so…I don’t know. It shook me and touched me and jolted me all at once. The photos of the others didn’t…it wasn’t the same.”

  He nodded slowly. “That would make sense, I guess, if you were her. But you’re not.”

  She slid a little closer to him on the sofa, and he noticed, reacted, deep down on a gut level, but held it inside.

  “I’ve been having…other dreams, too. Dreams…Tell me, were you and Sierra…?”

  “No.” He said it too fast, still shaken by what she’d said. She’d been having other dreams. And then asking about sex. Hell, had she been dreaming the things he had? He cleared his throat, tried again. “I mean—hell, I don’t know. We never dated. I wanted to and I think she did, too. We were friends, though. And I was working up the nerve to tell her I wanted more when she disappeared.”

  “Oh.” She drew a breath. “I was out there, at the house.”

  “I thought I saw you there,” he said.

  She nodded. “I saw you, too. And then someone else. Only, I’m beginning to think I imagined her.” She lowered her head into her hands. “God, I’ve cost two men their lives, and now I think my sanity is slipping, as well. I can’t sleep for the dreams. Or barely function for the longing they leave behind. I can’t—”

  “Easy.” He put his hands on her shoulders, amazed yet again that she was real. She lifted her head to blink into his eyes, and he saw that hers were brimming with tears and swirling with emotion. “You didn’t cost anyone their life, at least not that we know of. In fact, we’re the ones guilty of that.”

  “Then why were you the ones I wanted to cry out to for help?”

  He blinked and stared harder at her, but this close, it was difficult to rein in the incredible urge to pull her closer, and to kiss her. “What do you mean?” he asked.

  “In the dream—in the dream, I was trying to call out to you for help. The last time, I did. I screamed your name, David, even though I didn’t know who you were at the time.”

  He shook his head. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “The Indian woman said you were my soul mate.” She met his eyes, but then it seemed she had to look away. “But she thought I was Sierra. She said I had come back, because there was something that had to be made right. That I wouldn’t know peace until I learned what it was, and fixed it.”

  “What Indian woman?” he asked.

  “The one who seems to be a figment of my imagination.”

  “Come on, tell me about her.”

  She sighed, shaking her head. “She said she lived in the only yellow house on Maple Street. She told me my father was still alive, and in the trailer park further up. Only sh
e was talking about Sierra’s father, I think. She said her name was Pakita.”

  David sat there, gaping more with every word she spoke, and when she looked at him again she had to see it. But before he could speak, his phone started ringing. He yanked it out, barely able to tear his eyes from hers long enough to glance down at the screen. But then his attention was caught. “It’s Randy.”

  “Go ahead, please. I’m as eager as you are.” She lowered her head, whispering what sounded like a prayer as he answered.

  “How is he?” he asked without preamble.

  “Had a heart attack, but he’s stable now. They say they won’t know how much damage was done until all the tests are back, but he’s probably going to need a catheterization. His arteries are plugged full of plaque.”

  “That’s no surprise.”

  “So did you find the girl?” Randy asked.

  “She’s sitting here with me now, as a matter of fact.”

  “You…you’re kidding, right?”

  “No, and she’s not a ghost. She’s just an ordinary young woman who bears a striking resemblance to Sierra, and who wanted to know more about her. She never meant to hurt anyone. And we can hardly blame her for Mark freaking out and running into the path of a truck at the first glimpse of her, or Brad’s poor, long-abused heart failing because she startled him. Hell, the way he was drinking, he might have collapsed before morning anyway.”

  “Oh, I’m with you there. Still…there’s more to this than you’re telling me, isn’t there?”

  David sighed. “We really haven’t figured it out yet, Randy. But we’re working on it.”

  “Good enough. Look, we’re going to stay with Brad for a while. Then we’ll head home. I’ll fill Kevin in so he doesn’t stroke out when he sees the Sierra look-alike, in case you guys are still there when we get back.”