"After their deaths I was ... distraught. Seriously depressed." A breath shuddered out of her. "I tried to commit suicide."
"I don't think that's something you want to brag about."
"It was a stupid, self-destructive thing to do." Her gaze skittered away. ''I'm not proud of what I did. I nearly died that night. I lost half my blood volume. They put me on life support, gave me transfusions, but I had already gone into hypovolemic shock. I suffered a stroke and lapsed into a coma."
Nick had already known most of what she'd just told him, but to look into her pretty eyes as she relayed such a horrific ordeal shocked him all over again.
"I was in a coma for two and a half years," she said.
He hadn't known that, and he was speechless.
"When I finally came out of it, I was a mess," she said. "Even though I'd had physical therapy. I was incredibly weak. The stroke was relatively minor, so I didn't have much paralysis, but I had some memory loss. I was still grieving," She lifted a shoulder, let it fall. "You see, I had no idea how much time had elapsed, and it came as a huge shock to learn that I'd lost two and a half years of my life.
"My doctor started me on an aggressive physical rehabilitation program. My muscles had atrophied, so it was tough at first. By the end of the first week. I could stand. By the second week I could walk with the help of a walker. That was when the sleepwalking began."
"Sleepwalking?"
She nodded. "At least that's what I thought it was, at first. It happened twice that second week. I'd never experienced anything like it in my life, and it was incredibly frightening. I mean, to wake up in a strange place was bad enough. But to see things written in my son's handwriting on the wall or the side of a box or tabletop ... "
He motioned toward the black lettering on the dining room wall. "Notes like that one?"
"I was convinced I was having some sort of emotional breakdown."
"What did the doctors say?"
"My doctor brought in a neurologist from New Orleans. They did a battery of tests, including several electroencephalograms. He also ordered video monitoring for several days. They captured one of the so-called seizures on videotape, and at that point I was diagnosed with psychogenic epilepsy." She gave him a wry smile. "In case you're not up on your medical terminology, psychogenic epilepsy is psychological in origin as opposed to physical, which is the case with other forms of epilepsy."
"He thought it was all in your head?"
She nodded. "Don't get me wrong. Psychogenic epilepsy is a very real disorder that afflicts thousands and can be quite debilitating. But I knew he was wrong. I did not have epilepsy, and I knew the episodes were not a result of some emotional or physical trauma. Nor was it a manifestation of the grief that had been trapped inside me during the coma." Her eyes intensified. "It took me a while, but I finally realized my little boy was trying to communicate with me."
Nick raked his hand through his hair. "Jesus."
"The episodes were extremely frightening at first. Slowly, I began to recognize that afterward I had a very powerful sense of Kyle. I know it sounds crazy, but I could actually smell him. Once, when I was in the hospital library, I came upon a book about mediumship and trance writing. It was a stunning moment when I realized that's what had been happening. That Kyle had, indeed, been communicating with me. Once I accepted the possibility, the seizures weren't quite so terrifying. I stopped looking at the notes as the ranting of a crazy, grief-stricken woman. Instead, I opened my mind and saw them for what they were. Notes from a little boy who'd died a violent death long before his time."
Because Nick still wasn't ready to accept that, he side-stepped the statement. "Do you have the notes? Can I take a look at them?"
"Of course."
He watched her walk to the island in the kitchen where she dug into a thin leather briefcase, removed a tattered manila folder, and set it on the table in front of him. ''They're in order by date."
He opened the folder and found himself looking down at a single, disturbing word scrawled in blue colored pencil.
Mommy.
"Keep going," she said.
He turned the page.
Bad man came in ar house n hurted me an daddy.
When he didn't turn the pages fast enough, Nat leaned down and flipped through them, barely giving him time to read:
kill Branden to.
gona hurt more kidz
Make him stop.
hell hurt you to
monster in the woods
bad man take ricky. kill again. hurry.
Nick scrubbed his hand over his face, not sure what to make of any of what she'd told him. His logical mind was telling him communicating with the dead was not possible and that this woman was dealing with some serious emotional issues. But in some small comer of his mind, he wondered if something extraordinary was happening.
"Did you see a shrink?" he asked.
"Three, actually, But Dr. Pettigrew was convinced the notes were a manifestation of my grief over losing my son. I mean, that makes sense when you take into consideration everything that happened. I'd lost my husband and son. I was in an unexplained coma for over two years. The grief was trapped inside me that entire time with no outlet. He thought the notes were my mind's way of releasing the grief.”
Nick didn't know what to say. He definitely couldn't tell her he believed her, because there was a very big part of him that did not. But he couldn't deny that the case she'd just laid out was compelling.
As if reading his mind, she went back to her briefcase, pulled out a second manila folder and slapped it down on the table. "Okay. Then how do you explain this?"
Nick stared down at the childlike drawings. Most had been done in crayon. The Louisiana countryside with hills and trees and a single fat cow beneath a big yellow sun. The words "To Mommy" had been scrawled in the upper left-hand corner.
"Kyle gave that to me for my for my birthday." She flipped to the next drawing. "Look at the handwriting, Nick. Compare it to the handwriting of the notes."
But Nick had already made the comparison. He was no handwriting expert, but the two writings looked the same.
"It's similar."
"No," she said adamantly. "Not similar. The handwriting is exact."
Nick had always thought of himself as having an open mind. But to believe this woman could somehow communicate with the dead was simply too far-fetched.
"My son is communicating with me," she said. "This has been going on for six months. I'm just now getting to the point where I can go into a trance without losing it afterward. The connection between Kyle and me is getting stronger every single time it happens."
The room fell silent. The window above the sink in the kitchen was open, and he could hear the night sounds of the forest creeping in. The opus of crickets and bullfrogs. The distant cry of a nutria as an alligator chomped down on its leg and dragged it into the black water to devour.
Nick looked at the drawing. He looked at the words on the dining room wall. As badly as he wanted to, he could not deny that the handwriting was the same.
Remembering the missing child, he shifted his gaze to Nat, felt a chill at the base of his spine. "Is Ricky Arnaud dead?"
"I don't know." Nat closed her eyes. "What I do know is that the killer has him. That he's in terrible danger. And that if we don't do something to help him, he's going to die."
Nick stared hard at her, wondering how she could possibly expect him to believe something so utterly unbelievable. "Jesus Christ."
"Someone is killing our children," she said in a shaking voice. "We have to stop him before he kills again."
Because he couldn't look at her and think about that, he studied the disturbing words on the wall.
Monster has Ricky. wood house.
She picked up one of the notes. "I don't know what gatea is."
"If you sound it out, it could be Gautier Mud Flats," he said.
She shot him a startled look. "I've heard of it. The quick-sand p
its." Her eyes widened. "Do you think that's where he took Ricky?"
Nick sighed. "There's only one way to find out."
"We go to Gautier Mud Flats to see if we can find him," she said hollowly.
"Yeah," he said: "And hope like hell you're nuts and not right."
Chapter 12
There was no place on earth as dark and forbidding as the south Louisiana woods at night. Twenty years ago Nick had known every fishing hole, every bog and quicksand pit within a five-mile radius of the farm. He'd been able to knock a crow out of the sky with his slingshot and a ball bearing. He'd once caught a twenty-two-pound catfish in Dove Creek using a bamboo pole and a homemade hook. He'd swum the creek on a dare when it had been swollen with rain.
Tonight, he felt like an outsider in a hostile foreign land.
After a quick stop at the farm to check on Dutch and pick up a battery-powered searchlight and some mosquito repellent, he and Nat rode in silence to the Dove Creek Bridge.
Two miles to the south, through swamp and grassy marsh and cypress forest, lay the Gautier Mud Flats. The place was named after the leader of a survey team that had disappeared while mapping the area in 1918. Legend had it that Paul Willis Gautier and his four-man team became lost and suffered horrific deaths in the quicksand pits that abounded in the area. Nick wasn't sure how much of the story was legend and how much was truth, but it had been enough to keep him very alert as a boy.
Putting thoughts of the ill-fated survey team out of his mind, he turned the truck onto a dirt road and parked. Mist and insects swirled in the beams of the headlights. For a moment, he just sat there, staring into the utter blackness of the woods, his mind roiling with everything Nat had told him.
She'd made a convincing argument. The evidence was compelling. But it was going to take more to convince him she could communicate with the dead. Nick needed tangible proof before committing himself. He figured if she could lead them to Ricky Arnaud, he'd be well on his way to becoming a believer.
"Do you know the way?"
In the dim light coming off a pale three-quarter moon, he could make out the shape of her face. Her large, dark eyes. An impression of her mouth. Under different circumstances he might have liked the idea of being alone with a pretty woman on a dark night with the pulse of the bayou all around. But in truth, Nick didn't want to be here. He didn't want that little boy to be out wandering lost in the swamp--or God forbid, lying dead somewhere. The situation brought back too many memories, and his demons had come knocking with a vengeance.
"It's not an easy hike." He let his gaze skim down her body.
She was wearing jeans and sneakers. Not exactly the kind of getup you wanted to wear in the swamp. Even in the darkness, he could see the alluring curve of her hip, the glint of gold off the tiny cross that hung between her breasts.
"I can do it," she said. "I'm in good shape."
The last thing he wanted to think about was her shape, so he looked away. "Yeah, and we're a couple of damn fools for coming out here without waders and a bass boat."
"All I care about is finding that boy."
"And convincing me you're psychic."
He felt her gaze on him, even through the thick blanket of darkness. "I can't do this alone," she said.
"Don't pin your hopes on me, chere. The only reason I'm here is to prove you wrong."
"For Ricky Arnaud's sake, I pray to God you can." She got out of the truck and slammed the door.
Sighing, Nick reached into the duffel behind his seat, withdrew mosquito repellent and the spotlight, and slid out of the truck. He spent another minute applying the repellent, then handed it to Nat. When she'd finished, he turned on the spotlight and started down a path, which was little more than a narrow slash in grass as high as his waist. They entered the tree line, and within minutes the darkness swallowed them.
The deep woods of south Louisiana was not a quiet place at night. The mosquitoes buzzed incessantly, blending with the symphony of crickets and frogs. Somewhere nearby a barred owl screeched. In the distance, a gator bellowed a warning.
The grass thinned as they penetrated the forest. Silver light from the moon filtered through the canopy to glitter on wet leaves, revealing a narrow path set into the soggy forest floor. They walked in silence for several minutes. the only sound coming from the mud sucking at their shoes and the breaking of reeds as Nick pushed forward down the trail.
After a while the path widened, and she came up beside him. Not close enough to touch, but he could smell the sweetness of her scent. "Tell me about these episodes of yours," he said.
“The fugue state I go into, combined with the writing, is referred to as trance writing or automatic writing. It's a form of channeling or mediumship."
"Communicating with the dead."
"In essence, yes."
"What happens to you when you go into a trance?"
"Right before an epileptic seizure, some patients report feeling what's known as an aura. In my case, that aura is more auditory. I hear buzzing. My vision is affected in strange ways. I lose my sense of depth perception, colors begin to bleed. I feel out of control. There is a sensation of paralysis. Sometimes I have nausea. I usually lose consciousness to a degree. Most of the time I come to on the floor, or slumped in a chair. If I'm sleepwalking, I wake up right where I'm standing." Her gaze met his. "But every time this has happened, I write something. On the wall. On a piece of paper. A magazine. Whatever's handy."
"I can't imagine living like that."
"It was extremely frightening at first. I thought I was either epileptic or crazy."
"Why is it happening?"
"I don't know," She shrugged. "I have some theories."
"Like what?"
"I've done quite a bit of research on psychic phenomena. I've studied Edgar Cayce's philosophies. I educated myself on telepathy, precognition, clairvoyance, psychokinesis, and mediumship," She sighed. "I think something happened to me when I was in that coma. Something opened a channel that had been closed before. Combine that with the way Kyle died. Before his time. Violently. There's a lot of injustice in that."
"You think he's trying to make things right?"
"I think he's trying to help me solve his murder."
When he didn't say anything, she looked at him. "I was skeptical, too. Most people are skeptics, and should be. Throughout history, there have been people who've claimed to be psychic but were not. Con artists who preyed on the bereaved. Charlatans who would do anything for fifteen minutes of fame. But while there have been plenty of fakes over the years, there have also been documented cases of psychic phenomena."
He smiled. "John Edward?"
She smiled back, but it was small and wry. "Let's take the police, for example. They don't like to publicize it, but there have been times when law enforcement agencies have turned to psychics for help with difficult cases. In 1971 a man by the name of John List murdered his wife and three kids in Union County, New Jersey. It was a brutal crime that went unsolved for several years. Eventually, the police turned to Elizabeth Lerner, a woman who claimed to be psychic. While she didn't actually solve the case for them, after List was arrested, the detective noted that a lot of the information Lerner had given them was correct."
"Coincidence?" he asked.
"Who knows?" she said, and continued. "In 1982 three teenagers were murdered in what was dubbed the Lake Waco murders. Two women reported .'visions' to the police the same night. But they were disregarded because their claims sounded so crazy. Later, desperate for a break in the case, the police brought in John Catchings, a psychic. Even though the police had been skeptical about the two women's so-called visions, it is documented that a lot of the details the women gave the police were correct. Details right down to the kind of tattoo the killer had."
"It could have been a coincidence," Nick said.
"What most people don't understand is that psychic phenomena are not an exact science." She sighed. ''That's one of the things that's making this s
o difficult."
Nick thought about that for a moment. "Have you considered taking this to the police?"
"Of course I have. But, like I told you, I have a history with the police in this town. Alcee Martin might be a good cop, but there's no way he's going to believe me."
Nick saw her point. He still couldn't quite get his brain around the idea of her being psychic. "Did it ever occur to you that you could be wrong?"
''That possibility never leaves my mind. But when I think of the alternative ... " She shrugged. "With or without your help, I'm going to find this guy. I'm going to stop him."
"All by yourself?"
"If I have to."
Her voice and stance were fierce, but he could see that she had begun to shake. A small warrior ready to take on an army single-handedly if she had to. And even though he wasn't one
hundred percent sure he was buying into the psychic connection theory, he found himself respecting her strength, her willingness to go the distance.
Turning away from her abruptly, be started down the path. Neither of them spoke as they descended a slope and entered a grassy marsh. The ground was muddy, and she was beginning to lag behind. But he didn't slow down.
"The mud flats aren't much farther," he said.
"I'm not tired."
He looked at her and frowned. Several strands of hair had come loose from her ponytail, the wisps framing her face. Considering that she'd spent the better part of the last three years in a hospital bed, she was in good physical condition. They'd covered over two miles of difficult terrain, and she hadn't voiced a single complaint. But he could see the sheen of sweat on her forehead, the strain on her face.
"You push yourself too hard, and you're not going to be any good to anyone, including yourself," he said.
"I know my limits."
"Yeah, well, I don't feel like carrying you all the way back to the truck."
Because he didn't want to think about what she might feel like in his arms, Nick raised the flashlight and illuminated the swamp ahead. "It's going to be a wet hike from here on out."