Midnight Voices

  A few minutes later her shallow breath began to deepen.

  At last she slept, and he knew she would not dream.

  Laurie felt dizzy, and her eyes felt so heavy she couldn’t quite make them open, and at first she thought she must be dreaming. But if she were dreaming, she wouldn’t know it until she woke up, would she?

  Where was she? She felt disoriented, like she should know where she was, but couldn’t quite remember.

  Her room.

  She was in her room, and in her bed.

  But why did she feel so strange?

  She struggled to open her eyes, but it was no use. Then, even though she could see nothing, she sensed that she was not alone.

  She tried to speak, but it was as impossible to form words as it was to open her eyes, and all that came out was a low moan.

  “It’s all right. We’re not going to hurt you.”

  Though the voice was barely audible, there was something familiar about it. But she couldn’t quite recognize it, and instead of making her feel better, the words that had been whispered into her ear only made her more frightened.

  Now she struggled to sit up, but her whole body felt as heavy as her eyelids.

  The glow of light that filtered through her closed eyelids dimmed for a second, then brightened.

  A shadow?

  Someone passing between her and the source of the light?

  Once again she tried to force her eyes open; once again she failed.

  Another shadow, then another.

  Something touched her!

  She tried to pull away from the touch, tried to cry out, but once again the terrible heaviness that lay over her prevented her from doing anything more than uttering a nearly inaudible groan.

  More touches.

  Hands slipping beneath her.

  She felt herself being lifted off her bed and moved to the side. A moment later she was lowered down again.

  She was no longer in her bed—whatever she now lay on was much harder than her mattress, and the pillow beneath her head much thinner than her own.

  Another shadow fell over her face, and she felt herself begin to move.

  Something clicked in her mind, and she knew what was happening—she was on a gurney, like the ones she saw on hospital shows on television all the time!

  But she wasn’t in a hospital—she was in her bedroom!

  Wasn’t she?

  “Go to sleep,” the same familiar voice whispered, and though the words seemed to come from far, far away, she felt herself responding to the command, felt herself starting to give in to the strange force that held her in its grip. “That’s right,” the distant voice soothed. “You’re very tired. Just let yourself go to sleep.”

  So easy. It would be so easy just to let herself drift away from the shadows, and the voices and the touches.

  The light around her changed, dimming almost to blackness. Now her thoughts seemed to come from somewhere beyond herself, as if her mind were somehow disconnecting from her body.

  Dying?

  Was that what was happening?

  Had she gotten sick, and been taken to the hospital? Were the people around her doctors who were trying to save her life?

  But hospitals weren’t dim—they were always brightly lit with big fluorescent lamps that cast no shadows at all, and even though her eyes were still closed, she knew she was in almost total darkness now.

  She heard something.

  Not voices—something else.

  A soft rhythmic sound, almost like a ticking clock, but not quite.

  More like a clicking, but with a hitch to it.

  Cli-click.

  Cli-click.

  Cli-click.

  Like the voice that had whispered to her a moment ago, the sound lulled her nearly into unconsciousness, but once again she pulled herself away from the edge of sleep.

  What was the sound? If she was on a gurney—

  Wheels! Wheels clicking on a tiled floor.

  The clicking stopped.

  The gurney began to tip and sway, and she felt blood rushing into her head.

  The swaying stopped. The pressure in her head eased. But her mind seemed to have cleared slightly, and terrible heaviness in her eyelids eased.

  The light brightened, but only slightly, and took on a faintly yellowish hue.

  A smoky aroma filled her nostrils.

  She managed to lift her eyelids slightly.

  Silhouettes of people were all around her, their faces lost in darkness. Behind them she could make out candles flickering.

  Some kind of rack stood next to her, with bottles and tubes hanging from its arms.

  And next to her, on the same kind of gurney as the one upon which she lay, she saw Rebecca. All the color had drained out of her face, and she lay still.

  Perfectly still.

  As still as death.

  She wanted to reach out, wanted to touch Rebecca, wanted to help her. But then one of the figures stepped between them, blocking her view. She felt a hand on her jaw, gently opening her mouth. She tried to resist, tried to turn away, but couldn’t find the strength. Then she felt something in her mouth, something long and rubbery, being pushed down her throat. Her throat constricted and she gagged, her whole body clutched by a wracking spasm.

  More hands touched her, pushing up her nightgown, spreading her legs apart. Again she tried to struggle, tried to twist away from the invading hands, but it was no use.

  “She’s not asleep,” a voice whispered. “She should be asleep.”

  An instant later she felt a sharp jab in her left arm, and then heard another voice.

  “It’s all right. Everything’s going to be all right.”

  Now the black abyss of sleep yawned before her once more, and she knew that this time she would not be able to turn away. But as she began to give herself up to the darkness, she felt the invasion of her body begin once more.

  This time it was through her nostrils and mouth and her ears and every other opening in her body into which something could be inserted.

  As the darkness of sleep closed around her, Laurie heard one last voice.

  “Good . . . so good.”

  Chloe’s body tensed, her ears twitched, and her eyes darted around the room as a low growl rose in her throat. If the dog had slept at all that night it had only been in brief fits, for ever since she’d curled up in the crook of Ryan’s elbow and felt him fall asleep, she’d been shifting uneasily, rising to her feet to stare into the darkness, only to settle down a moment later. But she never rested for long; time after time she slipped quietly off the bed, responding to a deep instinct that danger was nearby. Patrolling the room, sniffing along the walls, she searched for the source of the stimuli that were keeping her awake. After each circuit of her territory she returned to the bed, bounding silently back up to sniff anxiously at the sleeping boy who seemed utterly unaware of the danger she could sense all around them. Now, poised in the shadowy glow of the few beams of the streetlight outside that penetrated the curtains over the windows, her forefeet resting on Ryan’s belly, she searched once more for the source of the sounds her ears were catching. The ruff around her neck rising, she unconsciously lifted one paw, the other sinking deeper into the boy’s flesh. A single sharp bark escaped her throat, and Ryan’s entire body jerked reflexively in response.

  Torn from sleep, Ryan sat up, and Chloe, her balance thrown off, toppled over, squealing in surprise. A second later she scrambled back to her feet and pressed herself against his chest, a soft growl once more rumbling in her chest. Then, as Ryan’s soothing hands stroking her fur silenced Chloe’s growl, he heard something else.

  Voices—the same voices he’d heard before—whispering indistinctly in the darkness. His heart began to race, and as his hands unconsciously tightened on the little schnauzer, he felt her muscles stiffen.

  “What is it?” he whispered.

  In response, Chloe wriggled loose from his grasp and jumped off the bed, disappearing int
o the darkness. Groping in the dim light, Ryan found the light switch and a moment later his bedside lamp washed the darkness out of the room. Chloe was at the far wall, sniffing along the baseboard, her stubby cropped tail jutting straight out behind her.

  The sounds Ryan had heard only a second or two ago had vanished, and all he could hear now was Chloe’s anxious snuffle.

  “Chloe?” he whispered again. “What is it, girl?”

  When the dog didn’t respond to his voice, Ryan threw the covers back, swung his legs off the bed, and stood up. Instantly, a wave of dizziness came over him, and he sank back onto the bed. He sat still for a few seconds, then tried to stand up again.

  His whole body felt weak, and once again a wave of dizziness came over him.

  “Mom?” he called out as he sank back onto the bed once again. “Mom!”

  Chloe, finally distracted from her snuffling along the wall, turned to look at Ryan, cocking her head. Abandoning her search of the room’s perimeter, she ran back to the bed, leaped up onto it, and licked at Ryan’s face, whimpering uncertainly.

  Lying back against the headboard, Ryan pulled the dog closer, snuggling Chloe against his chest the way he had his teddy bear when he was younger. As he felt the dog’s heart beating and the comforting warmth of its body, the last of the dizziness faded away, and the fear he’d felt, first at the whispered voices, then at the dizziness itself, began to dissipate as well.

  With Chloe’s whimpering finally dying into silence, he strained his ears, searching for any sign of the voices he’d heard before.

  But except for the faint sound of a truck rolling down the street outside his window, there was nothing.

  And now that the dizziness had passed, he didn’t feel sick, either.

  Just tired, as if he hadn’t had enough sleep.

  Maybe he’d just tried to get up too quickly—maybe that was why he’d gotten dizzy.

  Chloe was breathing evenly now, and as his fingers scratched at her ear she wriggled happily, stretched all four of her legs out to their full length, then snuggled closer to him.

  He listened again, but now even the noise of the truck had faded away, and the quiet of the night filled his room.

  He pulled the covers back up, covering himself and Chloe as well. He looked around the big room, searching for any sign that something might be wrong. All was peaceful, and with Chloe beside him, the room didn’t seem quite so big and empty. But still, he didn’t feel like turning off the light.

  And he wouldn’t sleep anymore, either.

  He lay still, his eyes open, his fingers gently stroking Chloe’s fur, but as the minutes crept by his eyelids began to droop.

  Three times he caught himself drifting into sleep, and three times brought himself back to wakefulness. But on the fourth time, the quiet of the night won out, and sleep settled over Ryan.

  Under the covers, Chloe, exhausted from her hours of watchfulness, slept as well.

  And once again, the whispers from beyond the wall drifted into the room, but this time they weren’t loud enough to disturb either the boy or the dog, and neither of them awoke again until long after the sun had risen above the buildings east of the park, silencing the voices of the night.

  CHAPTER 24

  Caroline knew instinctively that she’d overslept—the only question was by how much. But even knowing she should have been up long before whatever time it was now, she still resisted rolling over to look at the clock, let alone leaving the safe harbor of her bed. She felt as if she hadn’t slept at all, or, if indeed she had slept, she’d exhausted herself trying to escape some terrible nightmare. Except that she could remember no dreams at all, and there was no escape from the nightmare she’d been plunged into last night when she’d seen Andrea Costanza’s body being borne out of the building on West 76th.

  Andrea.

  Who would want to kill Andrea? Of all the people Caroline knew, Andrea was the one who was least likely to have any enemies at all. Except that in this city, it wasn’t usually your enemies who killed you—it was some total stranger, someone who not only didn’t care about you, but didn’t even know you; someone who only wanted the things you had, and only then to sell them. But what had Andrea had? Nothing.

  Nothing worth stealing anyway. Her watch was a Timex that couldn’t have cost more than thirty dollars, and the most expensive piece of jewelry she owned was a string of amber beads that had belonged to her great-grandmother, and which she never even wore. Nor had there been anything in her apartment worth stealing: her television was the same fifteen-inch Sharp she’d had in college, and her hi-fi system was one of those fake ‘stacks’ you could buy in any discount store for less than a hundred dollars.

  Nor were there any jilted boyfriends who might have been jealous; there hadn’t even been a boyfriend in the last five years.

  Yet Andrea was dead.

  It wasn’t a dream.

  It wasn’t a nightmare.

  It was real.

  Sitting up, Caroline swung her feet off the bed, finally glancing at the clock. After ten! It couldn’t be after ten! She hadn’t slept that late since Laurie was born.

  The kids! If she’d overslept, what about them? Laurie might have gotten herself up, but Ryan hadn’t left his bed on a school morning without at least fifteen minutes of nagging in the last two years. Pulling on her bathrobe, she left the bedroom and hurried down the hall to Ryan’s room. The door was closed, and when she rapped on it there was no answer. “Ryan?” she called as she twisted the knob and pushed the door open. The curtains were open, and the bed was made.

  Ryan’s book bag, which had been on his chest of drawers last night, was gone.

  Leaving Ryan’s door standing open, she glanced at Laurie’s room, the door of which was also closed. She almost turned back toward the stairs, but then heard a muffled bark, followed by a scratching sound, and a faint whimpering.

  Chloe? But what would the dog be doing in Laurie’s room? Last night it had seemed as if the dog was already adopting Ryan, and certainly Ryan had been the one most insistent on keeping it, taking Chloe into his room to sleep on his bed. How had Chloe gotten into Laurie’s room? Not that it mattered, unless neither of the kids had taken her out this morning. Turning away from the stairs, Caroline hurried down the hall and opened Laurie’s door, expecting the dog to burst through as soon as the crack was wide enough. But instead of darting through the doorway to greet Caroline, her stubby tail madly wagging, Chloe only barked once, then turned and scuttled further into the dimness of the room. But Laurie had never left her curtains closed—ever since she was a little girl, she’d always jumped out of bed right away to see what kind of morning it was.

  Her fingers finding the switch, Caroline turned on the chandelier.

  Laurie lay in bed, propped up against a bank of pillows, her eyes closed. “Laurie?” Caroline moved closer to the bed, and Chloe jumped up onto the mattress, licking at Laurie’s face.

  Laurie opened her eyes, squinting in the bright glare of the chandelier. “Mom?”

  “Honey? Are you all—” Caroline didn’t have to finish the question to know the answer, for aside from the tremble she’d heard in the single word Laurie had spoken, she could see in the light of the chandelier that her daughter was not all right. Her face seemed to have lost its color and there were dark circles under her eyes, as if she hadn’t slept in days. “Sweetheart, what’s wrong?” she asked, dropping onto the edge of the bed and taking Laurie’s hands in her own.

  The child’s fingers were ice cold.

  Laurie shrugged. “I don’t know. I just don’t feel very good.”

  “Why didn’t you call me?” Caroline asked. “Or come and get me?”

  “I’m not that sick, Mom,” Laurie began. “I just feel really tired and—”

  Before she could finish, Chloe suddenly growled, then stood up and barked. A moment later Tony appeared at Laurie’s door, carrying a bed tray on which were a glass of orange juice, a cup and saucer, a steaming teapo
t, and a plate covered with the kind of aluminum top that restaurants use. “Both my girls are awake,” he said, brushing Caroline’s cheek with his lips as he carefully set the tray over Laurie’s legs, displacing Chloe who promptly jumped off the bed and scurried out of the room. “Need another pillow?” Tony asked as he lifted the cover off the plate. The smell of bacon and eggs filled the room.

  Laurie shook her head, gazing at the plate her stepfather had just uncovered. Beside the bacon and eggs was the kind of scone Virginia Estherbrook had brought the morning after they’d come back from their honeymoon, and half a grapefruit, with a maraschino cherry decorating its center.

  “Tony, she’s sick,” Caroline protested. “All she should have is some orange juice, and a little tea.”

  “Hey, don’t blame me,” Tony said, raising his hands defensively. “I only take the orders and do the cooking around here.”

  “It’s not like I have the flu or anything,” Laurie said. “I just had a bunch of bad dreams that kept me awake and—”

  “But you look terrible,” Caroline broke in. “And your hands are freezing cold. I’m going to call Dr. Hunicutt.”

  “I already called Dr. Humphries,” Tony said.

  “Dr. Humphries?” Caroline echoed, suddenly confused. “Why did you call him? Dr. Hunicutt’s been taking care of Laurie and Ryan since they were—”

  “I tried calling him,” Tony broke in. “He was with a patient, and the receptionist said he was already late getting to the hospital, and it just seemed to me like I should give Ted Humphries a call. At least he’s a friend, and he still makes house calls.”

  The doorbell rang almost as if on cue, and Tony went to answer it. A couple of minutes later he was back, followed by Dr. Humphries, who was carrying the kind of small black medical bag that Caroline had until now assumed only existed in old movies. Dr. Humphries bag, though, looked to be fairly new, if well used.