Shiver

  There had been staff as well, nurses in crisp uniforms and doctors with white lab coats flapping in the breeze, stethoscopes swinging from their necks, and impatience in their gazes until their eyes landed upon her or Zoey or her father. Then a calm and warmth had appeared, the icy resolve she’d witnessed fading with a wide smile and handshake and words of encouragement.

  “She’s doing fine…yes, well…one episode…responding well to the new medication…shouldn’t be too much longer…we have several different ways to go…new treatments every time we turn around…”

  In her mind’s eye, Abby saw herself as a child, walking up the broad front porch with its terra-cotta pots overflowing with pink and white petunias and yellow black-eyed Susans. Wasps and hornets had buzzed in the eaves, and conversation had whispered across the broad, manicured lawns.

  She recalled the huge door swinging open to a yawning darkness within. That’s where everything changed. Even as a young child as she’d stepped foot over the threshold, where the noises of the outside had been cordoned off, and the sunlight only filtered through windows with thick shades or the stained glass on the staircase landing, she’d felt fear. Anxiety. Sensed that something had been very wrong.

  The hushed words, the prayers intoned, the soft, but certain sounds of moaning and dismay had crept through long, narrow corridors with dark, walnut wainscoting and hunter green wallpaper. The smells of urine and vomit and human decay had been disguised by antiseptic, bleach, and pine-scented cleanser, but Abby had smelled the odors that had never disappeared, had only been masked.

  There had been a doctor who had treated her mother, but his name had been something else, not LaBelle. What was it? Holman? or Hellman? No, Heller! An unpleasant taste rose in the back of her mouth at the thought of him, but she couldn’t remember much. Heller had been just one of the members of the vast staff. She thought hard. LaBelle?

  Abby’s insides seemed to crush in on themselves as she remembered Dr. LaBelle hurrying down the stairs, his gaze drifting to Abby, then jetting quickly away. She had a vision of him signing papers on a clipboard, what she thought was a patient’s chart, then looking up from his paperwork to talk to her father. He’d appeared impatient, as if Jacques’s questions about his wife had been asinine, or mundane, or a complete waste of time. Dr. LaBelle had carried with him the air of superiority and the put-upon tone of someone who had tirelessly gone over the same questions time and time again. He’d given the impression that he was far too busy to spend much time with a patient’s family, that he’d had more important things to do. It had been as if Jacques and his two daughters were an imposition, one more chore he’d been forced to deal with.

  Now, she opened her eyes and felt a chill as cold as December settle in her stomach.

  “Yes…I remember him now,” she said, a bad taste filling her mouth. It was hard to think of LaBelle as a father, a man who was hurting at the loss of his child.

  “But you never met his daughter.”

  “No. I didn’t know anything about him. Once my mother died, I never went back to the hospital again, never talked to anyone who had worked there or been a patient.” She met Montoya’s steady gaze. “I tried to forget everything that ever happened there.” She was still grappling with the fact that Luke had been killed with a girl who was connected, even loosely, to Our Lady of Virtues. “Does Dr. LaBelle remember Mom?”

  “We’re checking into that.”

  Abby was blind-sided. All of this had to be a coincidence, that was all. The police were being thorough, checking every lead they could find. The connection to the hospital was thin, weak at best, and she was grateful when the interview was over and Montoya clicked the recorder off. “I think we’ve got all we need.” He offered her the hint of a smile. “We appreciate your time. If you think of anything else, just give me a call.” He pressed a card into her hand and she curled her fingers around it.

  “Of course.”

  She walked them both to the door and watched as Brinkman, the minute he was outside, shook a cigarette from his pack and lit up.

  Montoya had just stepped onto the porch when she grabbed his arm impulsively. “Detective.”

  He paused. Glanced down at the fingers surrounding his forearm, then looked up at her face. Dark eyes searched hers, and for a second, under such intense male scrutiny, her breath caught in her throat.

  “Look,” she said, but didn’t let go. “Off the record, despite any amount of money I might inherit from Luke, he was a jerk, okay? I wasn’t in love with him any longer and I did want to get away from here, from him.” Her fingers tightened a bit. “But I didn’t kill him and I’m sorry he’s dead.” She held his gaze and inched her chin up a fraction. “And your link to the victims, through the hospital, that’s pretty damned thin.”

  “Maybe the link isn’t the hospital,” he said in a low voice that caused her heart to knock.

  “But—”

  “Maybe it’s you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He wasn’t smiling, his thin lips compressed. “Be careful, Abby,” he suggested. “Lock your doors. Set your alarm, if you’ve got one. If you don’t, then call a security company and have one installed ASAP.” His eyebrows pulled into a single dark line. “Watch your back.”

  She felt herself pale.

  “You think I’m the link? Me? No.” She shook her head. “That’s crazy, Detective.”

  “Just be aware.” He touched her shoulder and the gesture, as the first drops of rain began to fall, seemed somehow intimate. “I’ll call,” he promised and ridiculously she felt her heart surge.

  Then he was gone, hunching his shoulders against the rain, climbing behind the wheel of the cruiser and driving off, taillights disappearing at the end of the drive.

  Abby shut the door and leaned against it, Montoya’s warning echoing through her mind.

  She stood there, frozen, a long time.

  The numbers on the door of the room looked funny and uneven, but Abby knew this was her mother’s room: 307. That was it. Mama was always in the room. Abby tried the door, expected it to be locked, but it opened easily and she stepped inside.

  “Mom?” she called and saw Faith Chastain at the window. She smiled, beatifically as always.

  “Baby.” Her grin widened. “You came.”

  But then Faith’s gaze shifted, moving past Abby to the door hanging open and the dark hallway beyond.

  There was something in her mother’s gaze. Fear? Then a slight tightening of her neck muscles.

  “Mom? Is something wrong?” Abby asked, dread mounting as she stepped inside. “Mom?”

  Suddenly her mother’s face changed. Faith’s smile fell away. Panic distorted her features. She started walking backward, her eyes fixed on the open door, her steps taking her closer and closer to the window. “No,” she whispered. “Sweet Jesus, no.”

  “Mom?” Abby called again. Dear God, what was happening?

  “Mom, be careful!”

  But apparently her mother couldn’t hear her.

  A deep male voice seemed to rain from heaven above. “What are you doing here? Get out!”

  Who was this guy? Another visitor? A patient? A doctor? One of the guards?

  “Leave, now!”

  Heart pounding, nerves stretched to the breaking point, Abby turned to face the man but he wasn’t behind her. The door to the hallway seemed to sag. She glanced into all of the shadowy corners. Was he concealing himself in the darkness? Or in the closet, where the door was open just a crack? Or in the cedar chest at the foot of her mother’s bed…the bed! Was he hiding under it, secreting himself in the darkness beneath the thin mattress? Were those eyes peering out…hideous, damning eyes staring at her?

  Her throat closed as she tried to see the image, but it came and went, a wraith with stark, cold features, the very face of the devil?

  Her blood froze.

  She had to get out of here now. With her mother. This room was evil, the very den of death.

&nb
sp; She made the sign of the cross over her chest and looked up to the crucifix hanging at an angle over the bed. The painted blood on Christ’s ceramic hands, feet, side, and face began to ooze, running down the peeling wallpaper.

  “Mama?” Abby whispered, using her little-girl voice and spying her mother’s reflection in the mirror hanging over the mantel. Tall, thin, ravaged, her clothes torn, bruises on her face, blood flowing from her wrists, Faith seemed to wither before her eyes.

  The mirror suddenly shattered, distorting her mother’s image into thousands of tiny reflective shards that showered into the room.

  Abby flung herself backward, away from the splintering glass, stumbling as she tried to get away from the tiny biting slivers.

  “It’s not your fault,” her mother whispered into her ear.

  “What?” Abby spun around, searching. But her mother was shriveling, disappearing. “Mama, what’s not my fault? Mama?” she cried desperately.

  An earsplitting crack cut through the room.

  Her mother’s bony arms were suddenly around her, holding her close, crushing her.

  More glass shattered and the floor gave way. Together, they hurtled through the night, tumbling and falling.

  “It’s not your fault,” Faith whispered again and again as they fell into the darkness, straight, Abby was certain, into the yawning gates of hell. “It’s not your fault…”

  Abby’s eyes flew open.

  She sat bolt upright.

  She was in bed. Her bed. Hershey beside her burrowing into the covers. Sweat soaked her body despite the paddle fan whirring softly overhead. Heart pounding, head thundering, she gasped as she tried to catch her breath.

  The dog lifted her head and yawned as Abby slapped on the bedside lamp. Her small bedroom was suddenly awash with soft illumination, headboard gleaming, shutters closed, her robe tossed carelessly over the foot of her bed where Ansel, curled into a ball of feline comfort, opened one eye.

  “Oh, God,” she whispered, sinking back into the pillows. It had been a dream. A nightmare.

  Always the same.

  Whenever she was stressed, she dreamed about her mother and the hospital. Sometimes it was an out-of-body experience and she was actually looking down upon her younger self climbing the old staircase of the hospital, lingering at the stained-glass window at the landing, walking through the darkened hallway on the third floor, then opening the door to find her mother at the window. Other times, like tonight, she was actually a part of the drama, walking through the corridors herself, though always, she was young again. Fifteen.

  Involuntarily, as she always did when she was startled awake by the dream, she made the sign of the cross over her chest and gathered in several deep breaths. Her heart rate began to slow thankfully as the nightmare slowly faded, shrinking back into her subconscious, but lurking, ready to strike again.

  This was all that damned Montoya’s fault, she thought churlishly. If he hadn’t brought up the hospital and her mother…if he hadn’t been so damned sexy and disturbing…

  Wrong-o, Abby. You can’t blame the man for doing his job, or for being appealing. Nuh-uh.

  “Damn!” She tossed off the covers.

  She glanced at the clock. Four-sixteen. Almost too early to get up.

  Montoya’s warning echoed through her brain. Lock your doors. Set your alarm, if you’ve got one. If you don’t, then call a security company and have one installed ASAP.

  “Well, I don’t have one,” she muttered under her breath.

  Still agitated, she rolled out of bed and padded barefoot through the house, testing the doors and making certain each window was securely locked. Hershey followed after her, toenails clicking on the hardwood.

  Maybe Montoya had a point. As it was, her security depended upon a friendly Lab who wouldn’t harm a damned flea, a revolver she’d never fired, and her own wits. “You’re doomed, Abby,” she chided herself. She also had stickers glued to the inside of the windows claiming that the house was protected by an alarm system connected to the sheriff’s department, but that was a lie, one perpetrated by the previous owner. If anyone broke into her house, she was on her own.

  “Get a grip,” she told herself and walked to the kitchen, where she grabbed a glass from the cupboard and turned on the faucet. She stared through the window as she first held the glass to her forehead to cool off, then drank half the water. As she swallowed, she saw her pale reflection in the window over the sink, beyond which the thick darkness of the forest shrouded any and all who might be lurking outside and watching her.

  And who would that be, Abby?

  Are you getting paranoid now?

  Like her?

  Like Faith?

  Remember, your mother’s disease started as simple distrust and moved quickly into general suspicion and thoughts of persecution. Is that what’s happening to you, too?

  “No!” Angrily, she tossed the last swallow of water into the sink.

  Like mother, like daughter.

  “Oh, shut up!”

  Talking to yourself, Abby? Isn’t that what she used to do? Didn’t you see her in the kitchen, mumbling to herself, having conversations with herself? Isn’t that what customers at the antique shop used to accuse her of?

  Leaving the empty glass on the counter, Abby refused to listen to the voice in her head. She was not like her mother.

  Still wound up, she knew she couldn’t sleep, so she decided to go to the darkroom and check the prints she’d developed.

  More to prove that she wasn’t afraid of living in this house than anything else, she threw on a pair of jeans and a long-sleeved Hard Rock Cafe T-shirt, then grabbed her keys. Whistling to the dog, she walked through the kitchen and outside, where the bullfrogs croaked and crickets chirped, and she caught a glimpse of a cloud-shrouded moon. She locked the door behind her, leaving Hershey to guard the house. In ten short steps she was across the walkway and into the little studio.

  The darkroom was little more than a closet with water piped to it. Shelves stored paper, bottles, tongs, chemicals, and trays marked for the various stages in the process.

  These days she didn’t develop many of her own pictures because she had use of the lab next door to her shop off Jackson Square. For commercial work she primarily she used her digital camera and computer. But for her personal black-and-white photos she liked to develop her own film.

  It was soothing. Calming. And lately she needed all the soothing and calming she could get.

  Several days earlier she’d processed the negatives from the roll of film she’d found in her old 35mm camera, which she’d replaced some time after her divorce from Luke. Curious about what was on the film, she’d clicked off the remainder of the roll the other day, filming Ansel on the verandah with the late autumn light fading through the trees. Later, she’d developed the negatives and created a contact print of the small pictures. She’d left that print clothes-pinned to a cord strung across the darkroom.

  Intending to get back to the contact print after it had dried, she’d been derailed by Detective Montoya’s initial visit telling her about Luke’s murder. The news had knocked thoughts of the print from her head. Only now, in the wee hours of the morning, after that horrendous, recurring nightmare, had she remembered. Deep down she suspected that it was more than a need to see what was on the print, that she’d really been looking for an excuse to get out of bed and stay up, that the thought of falling into another fitful sleep might bring back the terrifying nightmare.

  “Chicken,” she muttered under her breath, bending to her work.

  She removed the contact print from the cord and carried it out of the darkroom to her desk in the main part of the studio. Adjusting a tension lamp for the best viewing, she found her favorite magnifying glass in a desk drawer and began carefully viewing each shot, smiling when she caught images of Ansel sleeping, or hunting, or hiding under the sofa. Slowly she checked each image to see that the subject was clear, the light right.

  On the third
strip, she gasped. “Oh, God.” She nearly dropped her magnifying glass.

  Her dead ex-husband’s face looked up at her.

  Smiling easily, showing just a bit of teeth, a hint of a dimple and a sexy twist of his lips, he stared up at her in bold black and white.

  “Damn.” How had she missed it when eyeing the negatives?

  She took a step back, as if she expected the image to suddenly morph into the man.

  She’d forgotten she’d taken the shot, having snapped it before deciding to use her digital camera. Luke had wanted new head shots and she’d agreed to photograph him.

  Shortly after that session she’d found out about Connie Hastings. She’d called her lawyer that afternoon, told Luke to move out, erased the images in her digital camera, and started the legal proceedings to end her marriage. She’d forgotten this one final shot.

  How long had it been since she’d taken those pictures? Eighteen months ago? Two years? It didn’t matter.

  “Time flies when you’re having fun,” she muttered to herself and noted that the picture was good. It captured Luke’s fun-loving, devil-may-care spirit, brought out the boyishness that she’d fallen in love with so many years ago.

  And now it was useless.

  Unless she wanted to give it to his parents.

  Or did she even want to open that can of worms? His mother had never believed her son to be a womanizer, had hinted that a strong woman could hold on to “her man.”

  “Forget it,” she said and made an X through the shot. There were other pictures, taken of Hershey, Ansel, and some of the wildlife she’d caught around her house. She would enlarge those later. She’d had enough fun for the night.

  She locked the studio behind her and walked the few steps to the house. It was still dark outside, the frogs and insects making noise, dawn not yet streaking the sky.

  Hershey was waiting at the door, resting on the mat, her paws supporting her big brown head. “You are a good girl,” Abby whispered, scratching the dog behind her ears and then saying, “I shouldn’t do this, so don’t tell anyone, okay?” Reaching into the pantry, she found a box of dog biscuits and tossed one to the Lab. Hershey caught it on the fly, then carried it into the living room, where she crunched the bone to bits.