Lori, p.6
Lori, page 6
Molly-listen to me-
Her forefinger found the button but it wasn't black; it had turned red, fiery red. A burst of heat fanned outward as the entire door turned to flame.
A scream died choking in her throat as she staggered back, the metal box falling into the smoke coiling upward from the carpeted hall. Turning, she lurched toward the stairway.
Go back-pick up the box-
She took the stairs and the stairs took her and the voice rose, the flames rose, curling around her burning body. Somehow she reached the landing, the door, the street beyond. Gasping, she reeled out, then halted.
No smoke here, no flame, no voice. The night air was clean and cool, the street silent. Cautiously she drew her hand across the right side of her seared face, wincing in anticipation of its touch, but the skin was smooth.
And she was herself again. She was Nadia Hope. Nadia Hope, psychic sensitive-psychic enough, sensitive enough to confront the paranormal, and normal enough to have survived it.
Nadia started down the street, pace increasing as strength returned. The station wagon was parked where she'd left it, door unlocked, the key still dangling from the ignition. And the interior temperature was normal.
Sliding behind the wheel, she considered her options. If the car wouldn't start it wasn't the end of the world; she could walk a few blocks down to Wright Street, call the Auto Club from the pay phone in the corner parking lot. Then she'd call Lori, tell her what had been left at her door. No point going into the gory details; just say she found it after poking around in the ashes again. Tell her not to try forcing the lock tonight, make a date for the two of them to open the box together.
This time, Nadia promised herself, she'd be prepared. The voice had the power of suggestion, but whatever its source it was only capable of creating illusion, not total mind-set. Her recent experience proved that, so now there was no longer any reason to be afraid.
Confidence returned, and it was confidence which helped open the channels. Even before turning the key in the ignition she sensed that the car would start, and it did.
The car started and the rest was easy. Easy to drive, easy to decide on taking the scenic route down along the coast highway. As she turned onto it a welcome breeze fanned her forehead.
Curving between cliffs above at her left and the steep edges of the bluffs to her right, she looked down at the sea shimmering in moonlight, waves cresting against the rocks. There was no traffic here, nothing to distract her from watching the whirl of water.
Easy, so easy. Easy to relax after the night's ordeal. And it had been an ordeal, no doubt about that. The question was how much of it was real and how much merely imagination? When she didn't obey the commands of her inner voice it had used other ways to try controlling her.
Some of the phenomena-the extreme cold, intense heat, the frost and fire-were obviously just hallucinations. Lori's apartment building wasn't ablaze and her front door didn't actually burst into flame. By the same token this station wagon couldn't have turned into a four-wheeled refrigerator. Or could it?
To reassure herself, Nadia reached for the bottle and held it up to the dash light. The surface of the glass wasn't cold and the whiskey inside wasn't frozen. Which meant it never had been, because it wouldn't have thawed out again in such a short time without any exposure to a heat source.
So that too had been illusion. But what about the engine failure? It could have been flooded, but there was no reason for that to happen when all she'd done was drive slowly down the street. And the doors did lock.
Perhaps she was wrong about the voice's limitations.
Perhaps it did have the power to change certain aspects of reality-but how much power? Influencing minds through suggestion wasn't a supernatural manifestation; millions of otherwise ordinary people could demonstrate such ability whenever a volunteer stepped up onstage or to the front of a Psych I classroom. But controlling inanimate objects was something else, something downright scary when you really considered the possibilities. Maybe it was just an extreme form of telekinesis, though the term was merely a label, not an explanation.
The biggest puzzle, of course, was the voice itself. Not the first voice she'd heard, the one she identified to Lori and herself as a man's voice; this she could deal with even though she didn't know the source, because guidance and revelation seemed to come to her by way of such soundless verbalizations. But why did her own inner voice try to stop her-why was it afraid?
The answer, Nadia reminded herself, might be in the box. But now that she was thinking clearly, now that the channels were starting to open again, the answer might be right here in her own hand as well.
The contents of the bottle sloshed invitingly. She uncapped it with one hand as she slowed down. No point in hurrying now; just continue to take it easy. A drink would help her to relax, and the answer would come.
Steering cautiously with her left hand, Nadia raised the bottle and took a small sip. Satisfied there was nothing wrong with the whiskey's taste or temperature, she let the last inch of bourbon gurgle down her throat, warming on its way.
Then, suddenly, warmth turned to fire. A ball of flame burst deep inside her and she screamed, clawing at her throat. She never saw the curve looming ahead, never realized when the station wagon shattered the guardrail and hurtled over the rim of the clifftop beyond.
Too late. I tried to warn you-
The voice rose but Nadia didn't hear it, nor did she feel the impact as the wagon smashed and bounced against the rocks, then plummeted into the waiting waves.
Consumed by inner fire, her last conscious thought was one of gratitude because the water was cold.
Cold as death.
EIGHT
Lori was glad to be home. Of course it wasn't home, not really; she'd only been in the apartment a few days? Still it was a place where she could get out of her clothing, remove her makeup, and relax.
Above all she wanted to forget about tonight. As she took off her blouse and skirt the odor of smoke clinging to the garments reminded her all too vividly of where she'd been, what she'd been doing.
And just what had she been doing? Going off on a wild-goose chase with a stranger, a drunken woman who claimed to be a psychic and heard voices-it didn't make sense.
Lori tried to put the thought out of her mind as she sat before the vanity, immersing herself in the nightly ritual of makeup removal. But when Q-tips and cotton pads erased cosmetics, the sight of her face in the mirror reminded her that making sense is an illusion. We make sense only by covering up the reality beneath.
Minus makeup, her high cheekbones framed features still youthful and unlined; yet without the touches of color, the accent of eye shadow, and the mask of mascara, her face revealed a vulnerability which cosmetics had concealed.
It made sense to appear attractive and sophisticated, but that was meant to deceive others. The truth, Lori told herself, is that we're all vulnerable because we're afraid of a world we don't understand. Why are we born into it, why do we live, why do we die? And then the final question, the final fear-what happens after death? Science, religion, or philosophy can't solve the mysteries, so we turn to others for solutions: wizards and witches in the past, mediums and psychics today. But they couldn't offer proof, and many of them were outright fakes.
Was Nadia a fake?
She seemed sincere; she really believed that dreams and premonitions had led her to Lori, that voices guided her in tonight's search. But the city streets are filled with bag ladies who hear voices and believe in dreams. And when you came right down to it she'd found nothing-
The clatter and thump brought Lori out of her chair.
Startled, her first thought was that the noise came from somewhere here in the apartment. She tiptoed to the bedroom door and stood listening for a moment, but now all was silent.
.Slowly she edged along the hall to the kitchen doorway and switched on the light. The room was empty; nothing had fallen from the sink or cupboard, and the window was locked.
Lori moved back along the hall. The bathroom was secure, its contents undisturbed, the heavy mesh window screen still in place.
A few steps brought her to the living room; once more she halted, straining to hear a sound, peering through lamplight to seek its source. All she heard was her own breathing, and there was no sign of a presence lurking in the shadows. Glancing over to the front door, she noted that its chain was still fastened as she'd left it.
The commotion must have come from the hall outside-one of the neighbors, probably, homeward bound after a late-night session at some bar.
Lori frowned. A drunken fall might account for the noise, but she'd heard no footsteps afterward. Maybe someone had passed out there in the hall. Suppose it wasn't a drunk? Somebody might be ill, or had a heart attack.
Taking a deep breath, she crossed to the door and unhooked the chain, then released the lock. Cautiously she opened the door-just a few inches would do.
And they did. Just a few inches brought the base in contact with an object resting before it.
Gazing down, Lori saw a metal box. She peered along the hall; it was empty now. Whoever delivered the box to her doorstep had come and gone.
Delivered?
Lori's frown deepened. What reason did she have to think this was meant for her? And yet she couldn't dispel the conviction that it was true. Again she recalled Nadia Hope's words. "We're all born with ESP, it comes with the territory."
Nadia Hope-had she brought the box? And if so, why hadn't she rung or knocked?
No answers came; there was nothing there but the box itself. Lori stooped and picked it up, noting that its contents seemed light and made no sound.
Locking the door and fastening the chain, she carried her find to the kitchen and set it down on the tabletop under the light.
She tried to raise the lid, but it didn't budge. The metal plaque beneath it was a silvery face encircling the keyhole's empty eye.
The eye followed her as Lori left the kitchen. Back in the bedroom she opened her purse and found Nadia's card. After carrying it to the living room she looked at the phone number and dialed.
No answer.
She waited until the tenth ring, then hung up. Try again later. And meanwhile-
Meanwhile, back in the kitchen, the box was waiting. And that keyhole kept staring at her. Maybe she could get the box open without a key.
Lori took a table knife from the drawer beside the sink and tried to insert its blade under the lip of the lid, but the knife edge slipped off. And the mocking eye stared.
She repeated her efforts without success; the lid was too tight a fit. Never mind; better try Nadia's number again.
Once more she went into the living room and dialed; once more she heard the empty echo of ringing.
Where was the woman? Even the bars closed down at this hour, and almost everyone was home in bed-that's where Nadia should be, and that's where Lori wanted to be. But she couldn't sleep, not with that box sitting there in the kitchen, giving her the evil eye.
Evil eye. Things that go bump in the night and land on your doorstep-
On impulse she dialed once more and this time her call was answered.
Russ's voice was sleep-slurred. "Lori? Where are you?"
"Home. There's something here I must show you."
"At two o'clock in the morning? What is it?"
"I can't explain, you'd have to see it. Russ, please-"
"Half an hour."
Lori hung up, relieved. She tried Nadia's number once more, but there was no response. No point in worrying about it now, because Russ would be coming. She'd called on impulse, just to hear a familiar voice, and it would help to see a familiar face.
The questions remained. How much could she trust him, how much could she tell him? Suppose he didn't believe her?
She needed something to clear her head; perhaps coffee would help.
By the time Russ arrived she'd brewed a pot. But when she led him into the kitchen he wasn't interested in coffee. "That box-where'd it come from?"
"I don't know."
"Don't know?"
"Please, sit down. I've got a lot to tell you."
Russ listened as she spoke, listened quietly without interruption, with no indication of his reaction. It wasn't until she told him about finding the box that he frowned and shifted uneasily in his chair. She didn't want to ask the question but now she knew that she had to.
"Don't you believe me?"
"I believe you." He nodded, still frowning. "Trouble is, it doesn't make sense. Why do you think that Nadia Hope brought the box?"
Lori's voice faltered. "I told you-it's not something I think-I just have this feeling. I mean, who else could it have been?"
"Then why didn't she wait to tell you about it?"
"I don't know-"
"Do you have any feeling about that?"
"Don't make fun of me. I'm telling you the truth."
"The truth isn't going to help unless we can get a handle on it. There's got to be a reason." Russ moved to the phone. "What's this woman's number?"
Lori read it to him as he dialed, then sat listening to the repeated ringing. As he replaced the receiver she shook her head. "Now I'm really worried. Do you think we should call the police?"
"And tell them what?" Russ reached across the table to capture her hand. "Look, Lori, I know you're leveling with me. But if you tell that story to the cops-"
"Then what can we do?"
"Open the box."
"I've already tried, with a knife. It didn't work."
"You got any tools around here? A hammer or a chisel?"
"I don't think so." Lori slid her hand out from Russ's grasp. "Wait a minute. There's a carton under the sink- washers, nails, stuff the other tenants left behind. Maybe we can find something to use."
Russ dumped the contents of the cardboard container on the tabletop, probing amid a welter of curtain hooks, old flash batteries, fuses, and strands of wire. The only tools were a small screwdriver and a pair of pliers.
"Worth a try," he said.
Inserting the head of the screwdriver in the keyhole and twisting the handle, he jerked it upward. There was a sound of grating metal as the shaft of the screwdriver snapped off, leaving the head embedded in the keyhole.
"Damn!" Russ grimaced, then reached for the pliers. Once gripped, he closed its jaws around the stump of the shaft protruding from the keyhole, yanking from side to side. With a sharp twang the lid of the metal box flew upward, and the screwdriver's broken tip bounced down onto the tabletop.
The two of them ignored it as they stared silently at the opened box. Then Lori reached down and lifted out its contents.
Russ peered over her shoulder. "A book. Is that all?"
"I guess so." The slim volume was bound in brown imitation leather stamped with faded gold lettering, and she read the title aloud. "Bryant College Yearbook."
"Never heard of the place," Russ said.
"Neither have I." Lori seated herself at the table and opened the book, then frowned. "No title page."
Russ peered over her shoulder. "See that sliver of paper here at the bottom of the spine? Somebody tore the page out."
"Why?"
"Maybe there was a signature on it or a bookplate. Some secondhand book buyers like to get rid of the original owner's name."
"Also whatever else might have been listed there, like the school's address," Lori said. "Plus any copyright or printing information on the other side."
"I'd think we can assume the school's either local, or somewhere in this area," Russ said. "But never mind that now. Let's see what we have left."
Lori started to flip pages, her fingers halting as they reached a section loosened from the binding. Apparently the book had been opened to this point many times before.
The left-hand page bore only a single line of boldface type-Class of '68. But the page at the right was filled with rows of portrait photos, individual head-and-shoulders shots of girl students smiling out at the camera in their mortarboard caps and graduation gowns. The names beneath the photographs were listed in alphabetical order.
One name in the middle of the bottom line had been circled in red crayon.
Russ, standing beside her, had noticed it too.
"Mean anything to you?" He paused, waiting for a reply.
Lori's mouth worked convulsively, but in spasm, not speech. Russ followed her gaze to the name encircled in red, then realized she was staring at the portrait above it.
At first glance the student in the photo seemed no different from any other member of the class of '68. It wasn't until he took a second look that he found the answer to his question.
The name beneath the photograph read "Priscilla Fairmount."
But the girl in the picture was Lori.
NINE
"This isn't me. It can't be!"
"Right." Russ speared a forefinger toward the photo. "Take another look and you'll see. For one thing, this girl's eyebrows are a lot thinner, her hairstyle's different-"
Lori frowned. "I could thin my eyebrows. And that's how they wore their hair back then."
"But you didn't. Not unless you've been lying to me about your age."
"Please. This isn't a joke."
"Of course not. It's a coincidence."
"No." Lori shook her head. "There's got to be a better explanation than that."
"Maybe so, but you won't find it staring at that damned picture." Russ reached out and closed the book. "You're not going to find anything at this time of night. What you need right now is some rest. Where are those sleeping pills Dr. Justin gave you?"
"I don't want any pills. Not yet, anyway. Give me a chance to think."
"You'll think better tomorrow." Russ put the book back in the metal box and lowered the lid, then glanced up as Lori rose. "Where are you going?"
"To call Nadia. Maybe she has an answer."
