Ninth Life

by Lauren Wright Douglas

  Sighing, I padded out into the kitchen and set a pan of milk heating for hot chocolate. While it warmed, I sat at the kitchen table and brooded.

  The Dark Lady was my psyche’s manifestation of the Llewelyn prescience. The females in our family—the Llewelyns—seem to be cursed with knowing more than they should. Or more than they want to. Some of them went wacko—certifiably round the bend. My mother’s two sisters had long ago stopped trying to make sense of their so-called gift, and now existed in fantasy worlds of their own. My Aunt Fiona had succumbed first to madness, and then death. Other Llewelyn women, however, had made an accommodation with their prescience. I was one of the latter.

  Reconciling myself to this essential difference between me and other people had not been an easy job. It had caused me a lot of problems as a teenager. But now that I had come to terms with this second sight, I found I could always count on two things. One was that, in times of extraordinary stress, my brain just seemed to kick into overdrive, to sizzle, and I “knew” the answers to crucial questions. I suddenly knew facts I ought not to know. Essential facts. Facts I could have no possible way of knowing.

  The other thing I could count on was a visit from the Dark Lady. I thought of it as a psychic burglar alarm. A sign from my psyche that I ought to operate in Code Blue. That I ought to be very, very careful. It had taken half a dozen dreams like the one I had just had before I made the connection, but now I recognized this psychic visitation for what it was—a warning. I, too, had somehow come to know more than I should, and the Dark Lady’s visit was my right brain trying to communicate this fact to my left brain.

  A warning. I stood up to make the hot chocolate, thinking this over. Okay. I would just have to be extra careful in my dealings with Living World. Presumably the Dark Lady would like it better if I earned my living making pots or selling real estate. Then I might not hear from her so often.

  And I decided one other thing, too. I was definitely not taking Lester into Living World’s labs with me. I’d make my midnight video myself.

  I took the cocoa back to my bedroom, turned off the light and lay there, my hands around its comfortable warmth, sipping it in the dark. Finally, I set the mug down on my bedside table and pulled the comforter up to my nose. As I drifted off into sleep, a memory as bright and ephemeral as a firefly flitted through my mind. It was something to do with another dark place I had dreamed about recently, a place in which I had looked out of eyes that were not my own. But the memory suddenly winked out, and I let it go, too tired to chase it. I’ll be careful, I promised. I’ll be careful.

  Chapter 12

  “Hey, Fur Face,” I said to Repo as we turned off the highway into Gray’s driveway. “You’re going to spend some time with Gray. You know—talk to her for a while. We’ll go on home after that.”

  Through the bars of his cage, I could see him washing one hip. He stopped briefly, favored me with a doubtful look, then resumed his ablutions. “Nraaff,” he murmured.

  “I know, I know,” I told him. “So I’m dumb. I admit it. But somehow it never crossed my mind that you might be lonely. After all, you had me.”

  “Yerff,” he said, sotto voce.

  “Right,” I agreed. “And a bigger yerf there isn’t. Well, let’s see what Gray has to say. If you do want a buddy, I’m game. We’ll even go the SPCA together. But there’s one important matter we’ll have to settle first.”

  “Yang?” he asked.

  “You got it—yang. Or will it be yin? You don’t have to decide now—just consider it. A lady companion might be, well, mind-expanding. I bet she’d have a whole different viewpoint on life.”

  The prospect must have rendered him speechless, because he was silent all the way to Gray’s door. She had evidently been waiting, for she answered the first knock.

  “Repo’s ready for his hour of analysis,” I told her. “Where’s your couch?”

  She looked at me reproachfully. “Hello, Repo,” she said formally, bending to release him from his cat carrier. “I’m happy to see you. Caitlin will take your traveling compartment into the back room, then I’ll give you some breakfast and we’ll talk.”

  Repo rubbed his jowls against the corner of his carrier, evidently delirious with happiness at seeing Gray again. “Ungow?” he asked repeatedly.

  “Ungow?” I asked Gray. “That cat has a bigger vocabulary than I do. How do you make sense of all these nrafs and yerfs and yangs and ungows?”

  She smiled inscrutably. “Sorry. Proprietary information.”

  “Yeah, sure.” I was skeptical. “Listen, Gray, I’ll give you a call later on this afternoon. Should I plan to come and get him tonight?”

  “I’m not sure,” she said. “Why don’t I tell you when you call me?”

  “Okay.

  For his part, Repo was busy exploring Gray’s office. When he came to the cage that contained Jeoffrey, he sat down for a moment, studying the little sleeping cat. Jeoffrey was curled in a tight ball on the seat of the old armchair in his cage. Repo cocked his head to one side, clearly assessing the situation. Then, as if coming to a decision, he stood on his back legs and stretched up the mesh as far as he could reach. Amazed, I saw that he was reaching for the sliding lock to Jeoffrey’s cage.

  “Hey, Repo, no boy,” I told him, going over and patting him. “The little fellow’s sick. He needs to be alone.”

  Repo ignored me. He stretched up the mesh again, uttering a melodious trill. “Frrrittt?” he said softly. “Frrrittt?”

  Jeoffrey awakened. He moved his head in the direction of the sound, and I exclaimed when I saw his eyes. The infection seemed to have cleared up—they were only a little runny. But it was their color that was so arresting. They were a pure, brilliant gold, a gold the color of newly minted Canadian Maple Leafs. But it was clear something was wrong because those beautiful gold eyes did not focus on Repo.

  “Gray,” I said quietly. “Jeoffrey . . is he . . can he see?”

  “No,” she answered.

  “Frrritt?” Repo invited again.

  “Mmmmm,” Jeoffrey replied, stretching out a tentative paw to guide himself down from the chair.

  With a sigh, Repo lay down outside Jeoffrey’s cage, in much the same way Gray’s dogs had laid themselves down the night I had brought the cat to Gray. Arranging himself in tea-cozy position, arms and legs tucked under his body, Repo began a rumbling purr, punctuated with the occasional “Frrrittt.”

  For his part, Jeoffrey had made his uncertain way over to the door of the cage where Repo lay. He raised his little blind face to Repo’s, and through the bars, Repo began to wash him.

  “Caitlin, I must go to work now,” Gray said, taking a yellow legal pad from her desk and coming over to sit on the floor beside Repo. “I won’t see you out. I trust you’ll understand.”

  “I do,” I told her, and tiptoed to the door. There were things going on here that I would never understand, and with only a slight frisson of superstitious awe, I left them to it.

  I drove into the parking lot of British Fish ’N Chips at exactly ten o’clock. Lester’s red Jeep was already there, so I parked and went inside. He was sitting in a booth by the windows and waved at me.

  “Nifty,” I exclaimed, pointing to his khaki photographer’s vest. Its dozen or so pockets were stuffed with pens, pencils, rolls of film, light meters—all the accoutrements of a photographer.

  “I thought you might want some stills, too,” he explained sheepishly. “So I needed to bring all my gear.”

  “Very resourceful of you,” I told him. “Are you eating? Or are you starving that flu of yours?”

  “No, I knew I’d be joining you so I had breakfast at home. Orange juice, eggs and bacon, toast and tea. You know—normal food.”

  “Why, Lester,” I said, perusing the menu. “Could it be that I detect a note of criticism regarding my eating habits? What’s wrong with fish for breakfast, anyhow? Think of all that Omega-Three fish oil—it’s good for your heart.” A cheerful young thing
in a blue uniform appeared at my elbow. “I believe I’ll have the Rock Cod Special,” I told her. “With a double order of cole slaw. And coffee. Black.”

  Lester shuddered and shook his head. “Maybe just a cup of tea. I have the flu,” he explained to the waitress.

  “Normal food, eh?” I teased him. “Lester, how old-fashioned of you. I thought youths of today were more adventuresome. Daring, even.”

  He peered at me over the tops of his aviator glasses, blue eyes serious. “I can never tell when you’re pulling my leg, Caitlin. I hope you’re not—”

  I patted his hand. “Consider it pulled.”

  He relaxed visibly. Sensitive soul that he was, how on earth would he ever make it as a journalist? I couldn’t picture him in the thick of some hairy situation, asking unpopular questions. He worried far too much about what people thought.

  “Let’s talk a little business before breakfast comes,” I said. “I don’t want the rock cod to spoil your concentration.”

  “Okay.

  “The place we’re going is basically a laboratory for a cosmetics company called Living World. They’re supposed to be ethically responsible—that means they don’t test their products on animals. So they say. But according to my client, Living World is fibbing.” My breakfast arrived, and I decided to let Lester mull this over while I tackled the cod. It was flaky, moist, white, and delicious.

  “So you want to find out where they’re hiding the test animals, right?” Lester said after a few minutes.

  “Right. And they won’t be about to show us.”

  “What should we be looking for?”

  “Locked doors, I guess. We’ll encourage them to show us everything. Let’s see what they leave out. We’ll get shots of as much of the interior as we can—the exterior, too. Then when we’re done, we’re going to replay the tape and make a map. The animal lab will be somewhere inside that building. I’m hoping you’ll help me figure out where.”

  “Sure,” Lester said. “Then what?”

  “Then what?” I wiped my fingers carefully with my napkin and took a swallow of coffee. “Then I get you to show me how to operate that video camera so I can go back there and get the evidence.”

  “You’re going to break in,” he said, his voice worried.

  “Looks like I’ll have to.”

  “Gee, Caitlin, er, I mean—” His eyes were eager.

  “Whoa, boy,” I told him. “The answer is no. Definitely and absolutely no.” He seemed so crestfallen that I thought I ought to be more appreciative. “Don’t think I’m not grateful for the moral support. Of course I am. But it’s too dangerous, Lester. If we’re caught, and they call the cops, you could kiss your career goodbye. But I have nothing to lose.”

  I didn’t tell him the real reason, of course. I didn’t believe for a minute that Living World would call the cops if they found me prowling the halls. Why should they, when they could whack me over the head and dump me and my car into the sea. Just as they’d done with Mary. Another traffic fatality. I was prepared to accept that risk for myself, but there was no way I was exposing Lester to it. I was ashamed of myself for even having considered taking him with me. “You’ll have more than done your part today.”

  “Okay,” he said reluctantly. “But remember, the offer’s still open.”

  “I’ll remember,” I said, patting his arm. “Now let’s go do that interview.”

  Living World was located in a clearing in the pines, down a narrow road off the Saanich Highway. We almost missed the sign bearing the distinctive Living World logo—two cupped hands cradling the cloudy blue globe of the earth—as it was partly obscured by a healthy growth of wild rhododendrons. We pulled into the parking lot at ten minutes to eleven, and Lester began unloading equipment from the Jeep. I got out, brushed some lint off my camel wool pants, and looked around.

  From what I could tell, Living World seemed to be housed in an H-shaped one-story red brick building. The front of the building was one of the long sides of the H, and there was a small parking lot for visitors.

  I noted with interest a sign that said EMPLOYEES and another that said DELIVERIES/PICKUP with arrows directing vehicles down an asphalt lane along the right of the building. I walked through the little parking lot until I could see down the lane. Just as I had thought, there was a guard in a hut, and a barricade operated by one of those electronic gizmos into which you slide a magnetic card. The hut sat on a little island in the middle of the asphalt, presumably so the guard could control traffic coming and going. There was certainly a lot of security for just an employees’ parking lot, I thought. Yes, indeedy.

  I walked back to the jeep and got my clipboard out of the back. On it I had actually written down some questions I wanted to ask.

  Lester shouldered the videopack and the portable lights, and we walked up to the big glass doors and went in. He whistled. The lobby was about as big as a basketball court and paneled in rough-cut cedar, the ceiling at least twenty feet high. In the roof, half a dozen skylights directed the light onto a massive posterboard that was every bit of ten feet by six, hanging just opposite the entry, where no one could possibly miss it. It depicted a wonderfully tanned, young blue-eyed blonde with long lustrous hair, white shirt open to the third button, smiling and holding out a big straw basket. In the basket were several unidentifiable green leafy plants, a paler green spiky leafed thing, a coconut, and a hunk of bark. I guessed these were supposed to be the ingredients of Living World’s famous natural shampoo.

  “Impressive,” I said to Lester. “Can you shoot the poster?”

  He put his gear on the floor, fiddled with the camera bag, and hefted the video camera up to his shoulder. “I’m not sure,” he said. “The light isn’t quite right, but I’ll give it a try.”

  As the video camera clicked and whirred, I noted belatedly that far across the sea of dark green tweedy carpeted floor there was a small glass window in the wall. “I guess we hike over there to report in,” I told Lester. “If I’d known, I’d have packed a lunch.”

  He put the video camera away, and shouldered his equipment again. “Ready.”

  As we crossed the carpet, I had the feeling that I was in some quiet forest glade. I felt calm and relaxed. Peaceful. Contemplative. You sap, I told myself as I realized what was happening. That’s exactly what the interior decorator wants you to feel. Snap out of it. I decided to check out my impressions with Lester. “What does all this remind you of?”

  He sighed. “Walking in the woods,” he said dreamily. “I can even smell the cedar.”

  I sniffed. He was right. I eyed the cedar planks that lined the walls, willing to bet that some Living World lackey sanded them every couple of days to keep the cedar smell fresh. What a place.

  We reached the glass window and I peered inside. A nicely groomed young man with expensively cut dark hair and a five-hundred-dollar navy blue suit sat at an oak desk, peering thoughtfully at the amber monitor of a computer. I knocked on the glass. He looked over, smiled brightly, and reached up to open the window.

  “Can I help you? I’m Derek Angus, Public Relations.”

  I smiled brightly back. “I’m Caitlin Reece. My cameraman is Lester Baines. We’re from Channel Twenty-two. I believe we have an appointment with Mr. Maleck.”

  “Dr. Maleck,” he corrected me.

  Dr. Maleck, my eye. If the guy was a doctor, it was probably thanks to a purchased Ph.D. that had come in the mail from Fly-By-Night Tech.

  “Reece, Reece,” Angus said doubtfully, fingers busily clacking on the keyboard. “Oh yes,” he said, “here we are. Oh dear—you mean they didn’t tell you? And I called the studio myself.” He looked at me speculatively. “You know, the young lady who answered the phone said that they’d never heard of you, but I told them they must be mistaken. After all, here you are.” He gave me a tight little smile that let me know this game was up. Bright boy. He had called the station to double-check. And by some stroke of enormous bad luck, Lorraine Shaver must have bee
n away from her desk at the time. Of course no one knew who I was.

  I decided to bluff. “We’re freelancers,” I said coldly. “We don’t work for Channel Twenty-two. We work for ourselves. What did you want the studio to tell us?”

  “I’m really terribly sorry,” he said, shaking his perfectly coiffed head in commiseration. “But it seems you’ve come all this way for nothing.”

  “Oh? Why, pray tell?”

  “Dr. Maleck won’t be available today for the interview. He was called away suddenly out of the province. A personal emergency,” he confided.

  A personal emergency? Hmmm. I wondered. Was Francis’ electronic meddling setting up shock waves? Had Maleck left a pile of evidence somewhere that he was even now scurrying to bury? Very interesting indeed. Of course, he could have been speeding to the bedside of his ailing mother, but somehow I doubted it.

  “Well, I’m terribly sorry, too,” I said, adding an extra note of testiness to my voice. I really had wanted to get inside Living World once, legitimately. It would save me a whole lot of time if I could look around. But if I couldn’t, I couldn’t. “We’ve wasted a great deal of time coming out here,” I informed Angus archly. “And time is money.”

  He said nothing, but showed us his dental work in a professional PR smile. Twerp.

  “C’mon, Lester,” I said. “Let’s beat it.”

  “Now what?” Lester said as he let me out in my driveway.

  “I guess I play it by ear,” I told him. “I doubt we would have learned much, anyhow. So I’ll just go in the back door and start there.”

  He swallowed, evidently unimpressed by my displayed sangfroid.

  “Listen, kiddo, I’ve done this kind of thing a dozen times,” I told him airily. “There’s nothing to it. In fact, the most dangerous part of this whole operation may be the equipment.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Lester, I’m an electronic idiot. With my talent, I’ll probably stick my finger someplace it doesn’t belong and electrocute myself.”

  “No, you won’t,” he laughed. “It’s really not hard at all. I’ll show you everything you need to know.”