The Unquiet

by J. D. Robb; Mary Blayney

  “Laughter’s good. They say it’s very healing.”

  He nodded, sobering. “I thought so, too. I did. And after that I hung around as much as I could. We moved out here permanently. He loved it here. We both did. We’d hang out. He went to AA meetings, stayed clean, and saw his therapist. He’d sit down there in the gazebo for hours writing in his journal, and every day I thought I could see him getting stronger and stronger. I thought he was getting better. I thought we were back on track . . . until he killed himself.”

  SEVEN

  No! No. Tell him!

  “I’m sorry.” She couldn’t bear the distance between them, so she stood and went to kneel beside his chair. “I’m so sorry.”

  He took the hand she placed on his knee, held it with gratitude and relief. “People told me there was nothing I could have done differently, that I did the best I could, that he was clearly determined, but . . .”

  “You feel like you missed something, like you could have done more.”

  He gave a slow nod as his gaze caressed her face.

  Please. Help me. Now! Tell him.

  His lips jerked into a crooked smile; their eyes met and his hand left hers to graze the back of his index finger down her cheek. “Would you like to hear something crazy?”

  “Sure.” It couldn’t be crazier than the voice in her head.

  “I dreamt about you.”

  That was crazy? “Not good dreams, I gather.”

  “Great dreams.”

  “Oh?” Even as heat rose to the top of her head, she was tempted to tell him that she’d trade his dreams for hers anytime.

  A soft laugh rumbled in his chest. “Not quite that great . . . at least not until after I met you. That dream’s a more recent development. And I don’t have to be asleep to have it.” They grinned, unabashed, at each other. He leaned forward, using his left hand to curl over hers; the other slipped into her hair and cradled her face. “For months now I’ve been sleeping in as late as I possibly could, racing through my days and blowing off evening commitments just so I could go back to bed and back to sleep and back to dreaming of you.”

  For months? Well yeah, okay, that was crazy. She hadn’t been here a whole month yet.

  “I knew who you were the minute you turned around and screamed at me. I told you that you scared the hell out of me, too? You did. But it wasn’t in the same way I startled you. I was really spooked. I couldn’t get away from you fast enough.” He chuckled. “First thing I did was go straight to bed for a nap. I never nap. Wanda and Gus were worried sick about me.”

  “But they’re not worried anymore?”

  “Because now you are?” He was amused but she was . . . Well, who was she to comment on his strange dreams?

  “Not really. Not if you aren’t, but . . .” She cocked her head. “Do you think they mean anything? I mean, do you think your dreams were trying to tell you something?”

  “Are trying to tell me something . . . They haven’t stopped. And yes, I do think they’re trying to tell me something because it’s always the same basic dream, over and over—more vivid now that I’ve met you, but they’re basically the same. You save me. Seriously. You pull me out of the water into your boat. I’m down a well, I look up, see your face, and I know I’m saved. I’m hanging off the top of a tall building, you reach down and grab my arm, and I’m saved. The worst one . . . I’m in a sewer or a cave or a dungeon or something; it’s dark and dank and it has rats. I hate rats, worse than snakes. They’re lurking and scrambling closer to me. I call out. I know you’re out there. I know you’re looking for me. I know you’ll save me. They’re squeaking. Their teeth are three inches long, for Christ’s sake. I yell . . .”

  Screams! Like a girl!

  “. . . and then I’m outside in the sun, with you. I’m saved.”

  Tell him. Tell him! TELL HIM!

  The voice grew so loud inside her head that she sucked in air at the sharp pain it caused behind her eyes. Automatically, she covered both ears in a futile attempt to muffle the sound.

  “What is it? Ivy? What’s wrong? What’s happening?”

  Testing, she lowered her hands and opened her eyes slowly. No voice, only Craig’s anxious face. Her smile was feeble.

  “Sorry. Aftershock, I guess. From the faint? It’s gone now.”

  “You should lie down again.” He stood and helped her to stand. “Come on, I’ll take you upstairs. You can lie down, get some sleep. You’ll feel better tomorrow. Or the hospital . . . let me take you to the hospital.”

  “No. I’m fine. Really.”

  “You’re not. You’re pale and—”

  “Oh no.” The words came as a soft whimper as she stood numbly staring at the wall opposite the fireplace, behind the couch, above a console table, at a portrait of a man and woman. “It’s Ginger Cookie and . . .” She turned in Craig’s loose embrace to face him. “She’s your mother? Ginger Cookie? And the man’s your father?”

  He nodded, unmistakably baffled but without the distrust and resentment he’d had before. Now the confusion was mixed with deep concern. “Sophia. That’s her name. How do you know he called her that?”

  “I saw them. In the gazebo. In a dream. That’s how I know that he wants me to set him free . . . except I think I’m going insane.” Tears welled and slipped one at a time down her cheeks. “My mother’s aunt, Betsy Marie, heard voices. And she talked back to them. She used to sit in corners and have long conversations with herself.”

  “Shhh. Here, let’s sit.”

  “I haven’t slept well in months . . . then when I did, in the gazebo, I finished an entire storyboard. In my sleep, Craig. In my sleep! And did I tell you I know things? Things I have no way of knowing?”

  “Oh God, here we go again. Take deep breaths. Slow, in and out. I’ll get Wanda—”

  “No.” She reached out and held his face with her hands. She sniffed and closed her eyes, squeezed the remaining tears out, and released him long enough to brush them away before making contact again—on either side of his neck below his ears. The scruff of his beard was natural and grounding. “I’m fine. I promise. Physically, I’m fine. Mentally . . .” She took a moment to search his eyes with hers. They were patient, not scattered ; curious, not critical; caring—and that’s what she needed. “I don’t know. I see it. I see that there’s every outward indication that I’m certifiable, but I don’t feel it. Inside, I don’t feel it. Confused? Yes. Terrified? Yes. Delusional? Probably, but when I hear or see or know something I have no way of knowing, I’m as certain about it as I am of being here with you now.” She paused. “That sounds like a textbook definition of delusional . . . and the cliff path is still a puzzle to me because I walked it, I did, half a dozen times or more, but it doesn’t exist.” She lowered her hands reluctantly from his neck to her lap and bowed her head. “I guess I am insane.”

  “No. We’ll figure—”

  Help me. Tell him.

  “Oh, for crying out loud, tell him what?” she cried out to the ceiling, hands pleading. “I’ve told him everything I can think of.” She glanced at Craig and assessed the shock in his face. It was amazingly mild. With a defeated sigh, she decided: in for a penny . . . “I also hear voices. Inside my head.”

  He didn’t break eye contact with her. “Tell me about them. What do they say to you?”

  “Not them. Him. He says, ‘Help me, tell him, free me.’ Sometimes he gets a little . . . snide with sarcastic remarks.”

  Who, me?

  “He wants you to tell me something?”

  “I guess. Or Gus. You’re the only two ‘hims’ I’ve seen since he started talking.”

  “And this has all started since you got here? The seeing things and the voice?”

  Tell him. Tell him about the dream.

  “What is it?” he asked, noting the expression on her face—it begged forgiveness for what she was about to say.

  “I told you about the dream of your parents, in the gazebo?” He nodded. “There was a l
ittle boy there with them—blond, freckles across his nose—it’s him. The voice is his.”

  “Oliver.” The name came on a whispered breath. She nodded, though she would have given anything to save him the pain.

  “I’m so sorry.”

  He leaned back into the couch beside her and laced his fingers in his lap, pondering the possibilities. He wasn’t yelling at her to leave or glowering with fury—she let hope take root.

  After a few minutes, he said, “What are you supposed to tell me?”

  “About the dream, I guess. That’s all he’s told−”

  The other dream. The other dream.

  “The falling one?”

  “What?”

  “I think he wants me to tell you about a different dream. I’ve been having it for months. Long before I got here.”

  “He’s talking to you now? This moment?”

  She gestured yes.

  “Can he hear what we’re saying?”

  “I guess. He sounds annoyed that I’m not telling you what he wants you to know.” She didn’t hesitate to add, “It wouldn’t kill him to be more specific.”

  She heard laughter and turned to Craig . . . who wasn’t laughing, and in a sudden moment of pure horror realized what she’d said. “Oh God. I didn’t mean kill him, kill him. I meant . . . I’m . . . Stop it. It isn’t funny.”

  “He’s laughing?”

  “Jerk,” she muttered.

  Craig turned more completely toward her, eager to try something. “That last week while I was away he took my pristine, fully restored 1970 Chevelle LS6 454 big-block V8 hardtop Coupe out for a joyride. Where’d he put the damn keys?”

  Backseat ashtray. Rider’s side.

  “He says they’re in the ashtray in the backseat on the rider’s side.”

  “Wait here.” He hurried from the room and returned the same way—stood in the doorway panting and held up a set of two shiny keys. “I told you what would happen if you took it again.”

  “He says you’re too late.”

  His body sagged with the weight of the truth. His steps were heavy as he crossed the room and stood looking down at her. He looked deep into her eyes, half-dreading what he might see in them. He smiled, seeing only Ivy.

  “I’d forgotten how clever he was.” He sat back down beside her and took her hand. “He was good at worming himself into people’s heads. And if anyone could figure out how to do it from his grave, it would be him.”

  “You believe me?”

  He held up the keys. “You’re not crazy, Ivy. You’re possessed.”

  “What? No.”

  The look on her face must have been something—he laughed, but not in an unkind way. “It’s okay.”

  “No. I don’t think it is. Last I heard it was not okay to be possessed. In fact, I think I’m leaving.” She started to get up, but he held tight to her hand.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Home. If I’m turning into Linda Blair, I want my mother to be there.” Standing, she muttered an afterthought. “I hope there’s a tea for this.”

  “Please, Ivy, stay. We can talk about it. End it maybe, right here, right now.”

  She studied the conviction in his face and had nothing better to refute it with. Looking up at the man and his Ginger Cookie in the portrait and down again at the keys in Craig’s hand, dream and reality swirled together as if her hard drive were frying. She felt herself begin to shut down, one system at a time—she needed to reboot. She was exhausted, physically and emotionally, beyond confused mentally, and if what he was saying was true, her spirit was not entirely her own.

  “We can talk. But does it have to be now? I’m . . . I don’t know how much more of this I can take. I need time to think this through. So much has happened. My head aches.”

  No. Free me. Tell him.

  “And I’m so . . . loud inside.” She spread her fingers and shook her hands, desperate and frustrated. “I need quiet. Peace. Real sleep. I need my head back . . . to be me again so I can sort this out.” She used her last ounce of energy on a deep sigh. “Look, I’m sorry. I want to help him—”

  “No.” He stood quickly. “Don’t apologize. I can’t even imagine . . . You’re amazing. I’m sorry I didn’t see the toll this was taking on you. You can stay in the guest room. Sleep, whatever. Take all the time you need. We . . . What is it?”

  “I’m going home. To the Rossinis’. I need to be alone. But more to the point, you’re more distracting than Oliver.”

  He wanted to argue, to take care of her, to protect her, but he acquiesced with good nature. “That’s pretty great, right? For me? To be more distracting than a ghost.”

  She smiled and used the hand he still held to squeeze his. “Actually, it’s pretty great for me, too.” On an impulse that was all her own, she went up on the balls of her feet to settle a quick good-bye kiss on his lips. “I’ll call you tomor—um!”

  His mouth took hers with an urgent passion that was so hot and wild it sent waves of shock and excitement and . . . well, more and more excitement like ever-increasing volts of electricity shooting down through her body to her toes and back up, then down to her toes again and back.

  Aw, gawd!

  Ivy snorted a giggle and pulled away, but he didn’t let her get far. “What?”

  “I think we grossed out Oliver.”

  “Tough.” He tipped her chin up and kissed her again, soft and slow. “I’ve wanted to do that since that first dream, the first time you saved me.”

  “Since I wasn’t there, I’m glad you waited.”

  “And aren’t you glad we aren’t being recorded right now? Anyone listening would have to wonder what we’ve been smoking.”

  They both had a nervous laugh for the strangeness of the reality they were living. They both knew there was no one else in the world they could share this particular experience with, and they both knew it as a good thing—a very good thing.

  “At least let me drive you . . . or Gus can. For my sake. I want to make sure you get there in one piece.” In jest, he shook a finger at her. “No more taking the cliff path, understand?”

  She blinked at him twice, was aware he was teasing—as aware as she was that she’d taken the cliff path, that didn’t exist, too often to simply brush it off as part of a dream.

  “No. You’re right. It’s not funny yet.” He gathered her in his arms and she leaned into him for comfort. “But it will be. I promise. Someday we’ll look back at all this and we’ll laugh. People will ask how we met and we’ll say, ‘In a dream.’ Then we’ll look at each other and we’ll laugh. Trust me.”

  “Oh, see now, that’s the drawback to the valerian root,” her mother said a short while later. It was early evening, the sun was down, and darkness pressed against the many windows. “It works but there’s such a letdown once you stop taking it. Actually, since it helps you calm down and relax, it’s probably a letup when you stop taking it . . . but either way it’s not this quick, generally. Although as we agreed this morning, everyone reacts differently, don’t we?”

  That was just this morning? It felt like a year ago to Ivy.

  “No, I think it’s still working, Mom. I can hardly keep my eyes open, I’m so sleepy.”

  “You’re not taking too much, now, are you? Only take what I prescribed . . . just the way I told you to take it or—”

  “No, Mom. I’m not. Everything’s working. Just like you said it would.”

  Jeez. Harp much, Mom?

  “Butt out.”

  “What did you say?” Her mother’s voice had that prespanking tone of yore.

  “I said . . . it’s a shutout. You know, like in baseball when the pitcher is having a really good day, everything’s working for him, he pitches a perfect game, and no one on the other team makes a run? Well, that’s me. Everything is working great—me, my book, everything.”

  “Oh. I’m so glad, honey. I’ve been worried.”

  “I know. I’m sorry.”

  Nice save.


  “Don’t be sorry, sweetie, just be well. That’s all I want.”

  “I know. And I am. I’m much better. Coming up here was exactly what I needed.”

  My idea.

  “I’m so glad. It came to me out of the blue, and I just knew you’d love it up there.”

  “I do. And now I’m going to bed. I have something to take care of first, but I wanted to check in before it got too late.”

  “It’s ten after eight.”

  “I know. I’m beat. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

  “Sleep well, honey.”

  “Leave my mother alone. Stay out of her head,” she told the air as she disconnected. “I’ll do my best to help you, but leave her alone.”

  Free me.

  “Tomorrow . . . if you let me sleep tonight.”

  EIGHT

  So, technically, she should have asked for a sleep without dreams—but who thinks of technicalities when they’re dead on their feet?

  Still, even in sleep she balked at the cliff path, turning away, running, running, searching for the path through the woods, fully aware the cliff path no longer existed . . . never existed . . . and that the overhang was far more dangerous than she’d realized.

  The sounds of their laughter and low-pitched voices filtered through the trees and beckoned her like the scent of hot chocolate on a snowy afternoon. She emerged, not from the trees but from the house behind the gazebo. Mumford Manor, Gus had called it, a gorgeous Victorian Stick house—Craig’s family’s summer home. Then, abruptly, she was heading for the gazebo . . . from the cliff side as she always had before.

  They were as before: Lit with life in a black-and-white picture—the rugged-looking, handsome man stood to one side of the woman’s chair, the boy at her feet.

  She could smell the wisteria as she got closer, which she did slowly, a sense of foreboding heavy in her chest.