about fifteen minutes to print. As the paper folded loosely back and forth on the floor, Cree rewound the audiotape and reviewed the notes on her pad. She drew an approximate floor plan of the whole building from memory, then traced the route the three of them had taken through the rooms, blocking out the places where Lila had seen the shoes, the smoke snake, the wolf, the pig-headed man. It was a good enough schematic to make some sense out of Lila's data, but as soon as possible it would be essential to locate accurate architectural plans for the house.
When the scroll finished printing, Cree ripped the paper free, creased the rounded bends, and set the haphazard zigzag stack on the right side of the desk. She unfolded the first three feet. Along the bottom of the paper, the time was printed out in five-second intervals, showing that she had pushed the start button at 11:04:32.
At first the scroll seemed to verify Cree's earlier expectations of general, increasing agitation across all indicators, with the lines breaking into earthquakelike jagged spikes when Lila told of the really harrowing stuff, or when they'd entered the rooms where she'd had those experiences. But she quickly got a surprise: Lila had experienced some kind of crisis of subconscious unease barely three minutes into their tour of the house.
11:07:20. Cree turned on the audio recorder and listened to the first few minutes, matching the recorder's digital clock readout with the times on the polygraph scroll. From the speaker came the rustling of Cree's clothes as she adjusted the fanny pack, the echoey sound of their footsteps in the front hall. Lila: 'I'm not sure where to start.' Cree reassuring her. More noise of movements. Then Jack's voice, explaining about the chandeliers.
Lila's first period of acute agitation occurred as they stood in the front parlor. The episode lasted only a couple of seconds, and then Lila's signs had stabilized again as she reminisced about her childhood.
What had caused it? Cree puzzled over it briefly, then listened to that section of the tape again. No great inspiration came to her, but still she felt a growing buzz of excitement: These anomalous readings were often the most revealing. The problem was to figure out what caused them. Sometimes, yes, the witness's signs responded to what someone was saying, but the stimulus could as easily be the part of the house they were in, or something in the room that their eyes happened to fall upon. Or even the subliminal perception of some other presence.
Cree jotted a note on the scroll, underlining the moment for future reference, and then jumped as the phone rang. She paused the audio playback and answered.
'This is Cree.'
'Ms. Black,' a man's voice began, 'I'm Paul Fitzpatrick, the psychiatrist who's working with Lila Warren – perhaps she mentioned me? Do you have a moment?'
'Of course.' Somehow, Cree wasn't at all surprised. She knew what was coming.
'I'll get right to the point. Jack Warren just called me, very upset. He tells me you are some kind of spiritualist or medium who – '
'No. I'm a psychologist who does parapsychological research.'
'Fine. In any case, he says that Lila is having a crisis and that you're going to meet with them later today?'
'That's correct.'
'The Warrens requested that I be there. Frankly, Jack thinks your involvement is damaging to Lila. And I'm inclined to agree with him.'Despite the potentially hostile content of what he was saying, Dr. Fitzpatrick kept an even, moderate, professional tone. He had a nice voice, Cree decided, warmed with only a hint of a Southern accent.
'And what does Lila think?'
A pause. 'That's a fair question,' Fitzpatrick admitted. 'At this point, I'm not sure. But I intend to help her sort it out. I wanted to talk to you now to enlist your cooperation, as, I hope, a person of conscience. To assure that there is not any kind of an upsetting… scene… if we decide – '
'If who decides to get rid of me?'
Another pause. 'You've made your point, Ms. Black – '
'Excellent,' Cree said. 'Then I'll see you at four. I look forward to meeting you. And thank you for calling.' She hung up.
Maybe it was some lingering high from the yoga session, but Cree didn't feel particularly pissed off at Jack or Dr. Fitzpatrick. You couldn't blame people for being dubious; Cree herself had been a lifelong skeptic until that day with Mike nine years ago. And when the change had come it was a painful, wrenching epiphany, neither expected nor welcome, that she wouldn't wish on anybody. Fitzpatrick was simply doing his job: Lila's problems could very well be purely psychological, and the intrusion of a supernatural theory could derail a therapeutic process big time. And Fitzpatrick really hadn't come across as too much of an asshole.
In any case, Cree reminded herself, you had to develop a thick skin for skepticism, or parapsychology wasn't the field for you.
She put it out of her mind and focused on Lila's tapes, unfolding sections of scroll and listening to the audio, sometimes rewinding and listening again, jotting notes as they occurred to her. It took over an hour, but when she was done she felt she'd identified several features worthy of further attention.
The first was the high level of agitation in the front parlor, when Lila had outwardly seemed relatively calm. The kitchen itself stood out because neither Lila's verbal narrative nor vitals showed any particular escalation of tension – the readings suggested that whatever Lila subconsciously knew or felt or perceived, it wasn't obviously connected with the Chase tragedy. Of course, conclusions were premature at this point.
Cree picked up another anomalous peak that had come when they were in the former slave quarters, though Lila had not recounted anything important there. Why would Lila react to this space – what did she remember or sense about it? Or were her signs unconnected to the place and simply responses to something she was thinking about?
In the hallways and rooms where she claimed to have seen things, Lila's readings showed classic features of fear, anxiety, panic, confusion. By the time they'd gotten to the master bedroom and she was telling about the pig- headed man and the awful changelings, her signs had become chaotic, wild and ragged to a degree that would frighten a cardiologist, let alone a psychologist – extreme but appropriate responses to remembered trauma.
Given what this data was telling her, Lila had shown amazing determination and strength to do as well as she had. The woman did indeed have a core of great resilience and self-control. How to get her to trust it, take assurance from it?
Cree checked her watch and realized it was time to head over to the Warrens'. She refolded the scroll and put her notes away for further review. One thing she knew for certain, though: Whatever else the scroll might reveal, it had already proved that Lila Beauforte Warren really had experienced something deeply, profoundly disturbing. Now it was up to Cree to determine just what that was.
10
Cree arrived at the house a few minutes before four to find a black Jaguar parked carelessly and nearly blocking the end of the Warrens' driveway. She was just parking on the street when another car approached and also paused in front of the house, an older BMW with a vanity plate that read SHRINK. It didn't take much to deduce that the driver was Dr. Fitzpatrick. They both parked, got out, and approached each other warily.
Fitzpatrick was a long-limbed man around Cree's age, with thick brown hair and a congenial face that reminded her faintly of Alan Alda. He wore white linen pants, a white shirt with its sleeves turned back on his forearms, and an unruly blue tie.
They met at the end of the driveway and stopped to look each other over.
'Dr. Fitzpatrick, I presume,' Cree said.
'Hello, Doctor Black.' He smiled at her surprise and explained 'After we talked on the phone, I took the liberty of doing a bit of on-line detective work on you. I'm very impressed with your credentials. And relieved.'
He extended a hand, and Cree shook it, thinking that his doing research in advance was better than their getting inside, going territorial, and having to lay out their resumes side by side to see who had the longer list of honors and degrees.
'Relieved?'
