Vortex Page 4

  “You’ve been working together for, like, a few years now, right?” Crystal said.

  Karen nodded. “A few, yes.”

  Their cocktails came. Karen took a sip of her bloody Mary.

  Crystal said, “Why haven’t you told him how you feel about him?”

  Karen put her drink down and said, “I’m sorry?”

  “You’re very attracted to him. You have been for a long time.”

  “Is this a theory Martin shared with you?”

  Crystal sipped her white wine, then smiled as she shook her head. “I’m psychic, remember?”

  “Ah, yes. That’s right.” Karen suddenly felt a little uncomfortable. She didn’t put much stock in psychics in general and she certainly hadn’t expected anything authentic from Burgess’s “mystorian” girlfriend, but she proceeded with caution. “What would you, um, recommend that I do?”

  “I wouldn’t want to tell you what to do. But I would say that your policy of not becoming romantically involved with coworkers doesn’t really apply here because the only time you two work together is when Martin hires you. Isn’t that right?” Karen’s eyebrows rose. “How did you know I have a—” She closed her eyes a moment. “Nevermind.” She was beginning to worry that she might have to take Crystal seriously—a possibility she had not anticipated.

  “The funny thing is that he feels the same way about you,” Crystal said. “But I get the sense that he’s, like... afraid. He had some kind of bad relationship experience in the past.” She frowned down at her glass of wine, then looked at Karen. “Did he have a bad marriage, or something? I mean, like... really bad?”

  Karen hesitated. “He was married twice. The first time when he was young, and that didn’t last. The second time lasted longer, but it ended... disastrously. I don’t think he’s been involved with anyone since then.”

  “Well, he may be afraid to try again, but he feels the same way about you, and what’s even funnier is that, deep down inside, even though you haven’t really, like, admitted it to yourself, you know that. So, I’m not telling you what to do, but... you should consider doing something.”

  Karen chewed on the inside of her cheek for a moment, then took another drink of the bloody Mary. Finally, she said, “I’ll give that some thought, Crystal. Thank you.” Then she tried to turn the conversation away from herself.

  Standing at the small mirror in the restaurant’s cramped, poorly lit men’s room, Gavin straightened his tie and steeled himself before returning to the table. It was distracting to be with Karen and Crystal at the same time. He was already terribly attracted to Karen, but Crystal was beautiful, and the expanse of pale flesh and voluptuous cleavage revealed by her plunging neckline did not make it any easier for him to focus.

  He left the men’s room and went back to the table, where Crystal was saying, “I’ll take you for a walk through town after we eat. We can walk off all the pasta we’re going to have. I’ll take you over to my office.”

  “I suppose an after-dinner walk would be nice,” Gavin said as he sat down.

  “Believe me, we’ll need it,” Crystal said. “The food here is delicious, and the portions are, like, huge. The only problem is that they’re a little slow. It’s worth the wait, though.”

  They chatted as they waited for their food. After a while, Karen said it was her turn to excuse herself and left the table for the ladies’ room.

  “Do you mind if I ask you a personal question, Gavin?” Crystal said.

  He shrugged. “I won’t guarantee an answer, but sure, go ahead.”

  “Why haven’t you told Karen how you feel about her?”

  “How I-I... what’s that?”

  “You’ve known her all this time and you’ve never told her how attracted you are to her or how much you think about her when the two of you are apart.”

  Gavin opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out for a moment. Finally: “Were, uh, were you discussing this with Karen when I was in the bathroom?”

  “Remember, I’m psychic.”

  “Uh... yeah. That’s right. And you... sensed this?”

  “Very strongly. Intensely. Another personal question, if you don’t mind. You’ve had a very bad experience with a woman, haven’t you?”

  “Um...” He didn’t response.

  “I’m feeling that. Your wife, maybe? Karen mentioned that you were married a couple of times. The second time was, like, a bad experience, wasn’t it?”

  He nodded slowly. “It... wasn’t good, no.”

  “I have just one little piece of advice for you.”

  “Whats that?”

  “Karen’s not your wife. I know I just met you today, but I’m feeling, like, a lot of compatibility between you two. For what that’s worth.”

  Their food came then, and a couple of minutes later, Karen returned.

  From then on, Gavin’s attention was not as divided between the two women. It was focused on Karen.

  Over dinner, they discussed possible ways of figuring out the two unanswered questions: What were residents of Mt. Shasta doing in the middle of the night that they seemed to be unaware of? What were the people from Km Services doing in town and where were they staying?

  “I had one idea,” Crystal said. “Like I said, I walk every night. One of you could, like, come with me while the other waits in a car nearby. When we see something odd, somebody driving around town, we call the car on a cell and whoever’s in it follows the person.”

  “We could do that,” Gavin said, nodding. “Do you still have the license plate numbers from the Km Services vehicles?”

  “I’ve got them at home,” Crystal said.

  “We should know those numbers, along with makes and models. Show us where you’ve seen the vehicles. We’ll be spending time in town the next few days, just looking around and getting a feel for the place. We’ll look for them. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

  After dinner, Crystal took them on a walk through the town of Mt. Shasta. By then, it was mostly empty.

  The night was cold enough for exhaled breath to float through the air as a ghostly vapor. Mt. Shasta was a quaint little Mayberry-like town that Karen thought probably looked like a Christmas card during the holidays.

  “There’s hardly any crime,” Karen said. “People are friendly and kids are safe. It looks like a town where nothing could possibly go wrong, doesn’t it?”

  Karen and Gavin nodded in agreement.

  “Well... somethings wrong,” Crystal said quietly as she removed keys from her purse and stopped in front of a door next to a plate glass window. A small, discrete sign in the window read, “Psychic and Astrological Readings.” She unlocked the door and went inside.

  “This is my office,” she said, turning on the lights.

  It was small, and it was more of a store than an office. A glass case held a variety of crystals and geodes on one shelf, jewelry on another. Several shelves on the walls held books on crystal power, pyramid power, astrology, Lemuria, Atlantis and Native American lore about Mt. Shasta.

  “Actually, my office is in the back,” Crystal said. She pointed to an arched doorway in the rear and said, “That’s my reading room. I was skeptical when I first opened up, but I have quite a few regulars now and people, like, pop in and out every day for unscheduled readings or to browse and buy. I write between customers.” She smiled. “If you want me during the day, this is where I’ll be.”

  Gavin turned to Karen and said, “We should get back and get some sleep. I’d like to get up early tomorrow and get started.”

  The cottage had central heating and was pleasantly warm. As Gavin showered, Karen undressed and put on a pair of shorts and a tank top, then climbed into the big bed. It was unbelievably comfortable, maybe the most comfortable bed she’d ever encountered.

  She listened to the hiss of the shower in the bathroom and thought about what Crystal had said. If it was true that Gavin was interested in her, why hadn’t he said or done something about it by now? They’d known e
ach other for six years. In all that time, he hadn’t made a move.

  Could his bad marriage have done that much damage? Was Gavin really that vulnerable? He seemed emotionally sturdy and self-confident. Maybe that was a front. They’d talked very little about his marriage and Karen didn’t want to pry, so she hadn’t asked for more than he’d volunteered. He’d been married to his second wife, Jan, for twelve years, madly in love with her, devoted to her. Then he’d learned that during all those years, she’d been getting it on with many of his friends and a lot of strangers. Worse, Gavin had discovered that nearly all of his friends and most of his family had been aware of it the whole time but had decided not to tell him.

  “I was devastated,” he’d told her over a late dinner while they were together on a job for Burgess.

  That was all he’d said. Maybe that word hadn’t been strong enough. Maybe he’d never recovered from that devastation and was unable even to consider the possibility of beginning a new relationship with a woman, even a woman to whom he was very attracted.

  Or maybe he wasn’t attracted to her.

  He’d had plenty of time, and more than enough opportunities, to try to start something with her or at least let her know how he felt. In fact, he’d had so many opportunities that Karen could not avoid the conclusion that he hadn’t made a move simply because he didn’t want to. Maybe Crystal didn’t know what the hell she was talking about. Then Karen frowned and wondered why shed ever considered the possibility that Crystal did know what she was talking about. Like all professional psychics, she got by on a combination of lucky guesses and an innate ability to read people.

  What was I thinking? Karen wondered as she turned onto her side and got comfortable in the heavenly bed with its feather pillows and down comforter. Within minutes, she was asleep.

  In the bathroom, Gavin scrubbed himself dry with the thick cotton towel that had been waiting for him. He knew Karen would be in bed when he got out there. Theyd slept together before while on the job for Burgess, and he’d had to remind himself that their relationship was professional. If he tried to make it anything more than that, Karen might be willing, but where would that lead? He didn’t like to think about that. No matter how appealing the idea was at first glance, thoughts of taking it any deeper immediately stirred up memories of Jan, memories that reminded him that any relationship would require trust, and that trust created extreme vulnerability. He didn’t think he ever wanted to be that vulnerable again.

  He finished drying off, put on a T-shirt and shorts and went into the bedroom. He left the bathroom light on, though. After the things they’d experienced while working for Burgess, neither Gavin nor Karen slept without a light on anymore.

  He set his alarm clock then got into bed carefully, hoping not to wake Karen. She lay on her right side, facing him. As he was pulling the covers up over him, she stirred and opened her eyes, then smiled.

  “Can I take this bed home with me?” she said sleepily.

  He returned her smile and said, “I’ve set the alarm for six. Goodnight.”

  “Mm,” she said, barely above a whisper, before settling back into sleep.

  Gavin watched her for a while in the dim glow from the bathroom. Then he rolled over with a sigh and tried to sleep.

  Chapter Five

  Another sleepless night.

  Gertie lay in bed for a while wondering if, as usual, she simply couldn’t sleep, or if she were being kept awake by her curiosity about what was going on in the shed outside. She considered reading, but couldn’t decide what to read. She was in the middle of a book about Thomas Jefferson that was interesting, but kind of dry. That might help her get sleepy. But she really wanted to get back to the new Dean Koontz thriller she was reading, which would only keep her awake. She was between crocheting projects and didn’t feel like starting a new one, and she was getting bored with jigsaw puzzles.

  She heard a vehicle drive up outside. The engine was turned off and a moment later, a door opened, then another.

  She got out of bed in her flannel nightgown and walked through the dark to the desk and sat down. There were blue curtains over the window and she pulled the cord to open them slightly so she could see outside.

  A light rain gave the night a misty quality and the lights around the shed cast long black shadows as a tall figure led a small child into the building. Gertie felt herself getting tense. It happened every time she saw a child being brought to the shed. She’d tried to ignore her growing alarm, but it was becoming increasingly difficult. What possible reason could there be for children to be involved in what Mr. Ryker had called “intensive research.”

  “We are a team of privately funded paranormal researchers,” he’d said to them the first time he’d come to the house. “What you’ve found is very significant and we have the resources to give it the attention it deserves. We can set up a lab right here on your property with all the equipment we need to examine and study this creature. No harm will be brought to him—we would be absolutely opposed to that. But this could be the very thing we need for this field of study to be taken seriously. We would be more than happy to compensate you for the use of your property and we would not intrude on your lives in any way. But we think it’s important to do the research right here because we feel the creature’s proximity to the mountain may be important. We believe he is the first solid evidence we have that the lore about this mountain is authentic and we don’t want to take him away from it. All we would ask is that you be discrete and keep our presence and our work here to yourselves. We don’t want to draw attention to ourselves until we have information we can use.” Gertie’s father had been very enthusiastic, of course, and was eager to go along with Ryker if it meant learning more about the childlike creature she had discovered eating one of their goats. As far as he was concerned, it was his destiny to deliver the secret of the mountain to the world.

  But Gertie’s initial suspicion had become concern as soon as she’d seen the adolescent girl brought to the shed. It had become fear when she saw the small children. It stirred up too many memories, none of them good.

  Gertie pushed her chair away from the desk and stood, then began to pace the length of her bedroom, casting her gaze at the gap in the curtains now and then.

  As a girl, Gertie had found school difficult. Her teacher claimed she was withdrawn and refused to participate, implying that she was antisocial. Her parents were confused by her behavior. Gertie never told them the reason she froze up at school. She was fat and ugly and the other students never let her forget it. She was the object of ridicule and bullying on the playground. She had never felt close enough to her parents to tell them about it. She knew they had great expectations for her and she was afraid if she told them how she was treated at school, they would be disappointed. Rather than let them down, she blamed herself and said she simply couldn’t concentrate. Convinced she could benefit from the focused attention of a teacher at home, her parents had taken her out of school and hired a tutor.

  Mr. Fielding had been a plump and pleasant middle-aged man from nearby Weed, rosy-cheeked, with a contagious laugh, always smiling, very attentive and encouraging. At first, Gertie’s lessons had gone well. She began to do better on tests and actually enjoyed learning. She came to trust Mr. Fielding and look forward to her lessons with him. That was when Mr. Fielding began taking her on long walks into the woods at the edge of the Mahler property. He called them biology field trips, but for Gertie they were nightmarish ordeals. His smile never went away as his hands moved over her, as he removed her clothes, as he sucked and slobbered on her and forced himself inside her. He even kept smiling when he told her repeatedly that if she shared their secret with anyone, he would butcher her parents like pigs and make her watch.

  It went on for more than two years. Gertie began to have trouble sleeping and her health was affected. She became depressed, although she didn’t recognize it as depression at the time. Neither did her parents. She gained more weight. Her parents accuse
d her of being lazy and gave her more chores around the ranch because they said she needed exercise. She tried to tell Mama the truth about Mr. Fielding once but didn’t know how to articulate it. When she tried, she stuttered and stammered and Mama thought she was complaining about having to do schoolwork. “You mustn’t be weak when it comes to your studies, Gertrude,” Mama said, putting her hands on Gertie’s round, fleshy shoulders. “You must work hard so you can achieve later in life. Hard work builds character. Mr. Fielding is your friend and you must do as he says!”

  Gertie endured the abuse for another year, becoming more withdrawn, sleeping less, eating more. Then one day, Mr. Fielding did not arrive to begin her lessons. After an hour passed, Mama called his home. Mr. Fielding lived with and cared for his elderly mother, who said he had left that morning to go to the Mahler’s house. Two more hours passed and Mr. Fielding still did not arrive, so Papa got in the pickup truck and went looking for him. Mr. Fielding had been killed in a head-on collision with an 18-wheeler that had a blowout.

  Mama and Papa had insisted on attending the funeral. Mama had cooked a few dishes for Mrs. Fielding and delivered them to her house. Mama hugged the old woman and told her what a good man her son had been, what a great friend he had been to their troubled daughter. As Gertie stood there and listened to Mama, her fingernails pierced the flesh of her palms as she clenched her hands into angry fists. Then Mama had told her to hug Mrs. Fielding and tell her how grateful she was to have known Mr. Fielding.

  Gertie said something, although she wasn’t sure what—she wasn’t sure then and still wasn’t. A new tutor was hired. A woman named Miss Branczeck. But every morning, Gertie woke with the dread of having to face Mr. Fielding again. She thought that would pass after a while, but it never did. She still woke with that feeling now at the age of 53.

  Every time she looked out her bedroom window at night and saw an adult leading a child into that white building, Gertie felt a sickening wave of fear. There was no visible sign that children were being abused in any way, but still—it didn’t look right and it made Gertie tense and queasy.