progress; an outward indication that my psyche was on the mend. I wished that I could agree with them, but I’d had a similar experience before, and the outcome had been less than pleasant.
To me, this period of supernormal silence was more frightening than anything that had occurred to date; very simply because I could feel the foreboding that they could not. Still, as I said, it was nothing horrific; nothing that was overtly driving me as had the events of recent past. This was merely an indefinable aggravation that would tickle and itch, doing all that it could to irritate me, asleep or awake. Each time I would think it had finally gone away, it would pop up in a different corner of my brain, tempting me with shaded emotions that hinted at a future it had no intention of actually revealing in advance.
The sense had been with me ever since Yule, bolstered in part by Ben’s cryptic attitude following his secretive phone call. Deep down inside I knew this was a harbinger of things to come and these fleeting days were merely the calm before the storm. What I feared the most, however, was that if this level of calm turned out to be directly proportionate to the intensity of the coming squall, then I could never be prepared for what I would have to face. I was truly afraid that in the grand scheme of things, everything up until now had been the metaphorical equivalent of nothing more than a spring shower.
For a time, I made an almost hourly ritual of mutely begging the Lord and Lady to reassure me that I was wrong. When it became obvious that my pleas were to be left unanswered, I gave up.
Truth be told, what I really needed to be doing right now was forgetting about it all and taking some time to relax. Whatever it was that was coming was still an unknown, and there was simply nothing I could do to stop it. Not at this stage of the game anyway. I was just going to have to ride it out. On top of that, a new calendar year was almost upon us, and the more mundane tasks in my life would soon multiply. January tended to be one of the busier months for my consulting business, for with a simple turn of the year, annual budgets magically refreshed and people started renewing support contracts and planning system changes. With that being only a week away, the lull in my day-to-day grind had already started to dissipate and would soon be coming to an end. Once that happened, if I was still dealing with a plague of ethereal horrors, I was going to be a complete wreck-as if I wasn’t one already.
For the moment, I had no place to be and nothing much to do. I really needed to take advantage of the situation. It would be a perfect day for some quiet meditation and grounding exercises, especially considering that I could have the whole house to myself with no distractions.
Today being Christmas Eve, Felicity-fully decked out as one of Santa’s helpers-was visiting a local children’s home with her nature photography club. And I do mean she was fully decked out. In fact, I was actually finding it hard not to think about how she’d looked when she left the house. To the kids I’m sure she simply appeared to be a rather perky elf, but to your average red-blooded adult male… Well, let’s just say her costume wasn’t “standard issue” for the North Pole, and she did it justice in ways Father Christmas hadn’t originally imagined, if you know what I mean.
The visit was something that her group did every year at this time-handing out donated toys, clothing, and coats. Every holiday season the event managed to garner more and more press, which in turn created more demand from various charitable organizations. Thankfully, the added press also brought more donations. So as word got around, what had originally started a few years back as a small party for some underprivileged kids had now grown into a huge affair, encompassing not only the children’s home but visits to local hospitals, retirement homes, and shelters as well. It was a great cause, and even though it was hard work, they loved every minute of it.
Considering the list I’d seen of this year’s scheduled visits, Felicity definitely wouldn’t be back for the rest of the day, so I had plenty of time to just vegetate. In the end, I think it was that volatile combination of idleness and nervous energy that had finally set me in motion. In short, she hadn’t even been gone for two hours before I went in search of trouble.
And now, here I was, parked in front of City Police Headquarters and staring out my windshield in a semi- catatonic stupor. Considering my original intentions though, this might very well be a good thing.
I had actually started out from the house with the plan of revisiting the wooded area on Route 367 where Debbie Schaeffer’s body had been found. Subconsciously, I suppose that like most, I found some comfort in the daylight. I really don’t know why because time of day really had no bearing on the unique curse of visionary abilities that had been terrorizing me for the past two years. Truth was, I had no idea what had any bearing on them because they certainly weren’t under my control. In any event, my automatic pilot had engaged almost as soon as I backed out of the driveway, and I was three quarters of the way here before it dawned on me that here wasn’t where I’d originally planned to go.
Sitting there, I felt a shiver run up my spine, and I forced back yet another soft-core image of my wife in her costume as my brain shuffled through the random thoughts it had kept waiting in the wings. Then I frowned at the provocative cogitation.
Felicity and I had a perfectly healthy and even fairly imaginative sex life. While the male of the species supposedly has sexual thoughts every two minutes, I was really starting to wonder about myself. This constant fantasizing about her, while perfectly enjoyable in most respects, was becoming troublesome-especially considering recent events. I made a mental note to mention this constant obsession when my next appointment with Helen rolled around. This, of course, triggered remembrance of other mental notes I’d made and then promptly forgotten- such as the whole fantasy episode surrounding Felicity’s hair when we were at the morgue. Then there was the episode in the elevator that I’d had when leaving the counseling office. In retrospect, I really should have called Helen about that one immediately. Of course, it had seemed driven by an outside force, though I wasn’t even certain about that. Truth is, it really didn’t make much sense at all. None of it did.
I suppose that if I was somehow becoming overly obsessed with sex, then the lurid thoughts could very well be my own. But even that didn’t seem correct to me. There really seemed to be an outside presence. I was almost certain that I could feel it. Moreover, it had something to do with Debbie Schaeffer and Paige Lawson.
Unfortunately, everything that happened at the morgue that night after I connected with Debbie Schaeffer was still an out of focus jumble. What little I’d been able to pick out here and there was completely nonsensical. Dolls in prom dresses, makeup, a smart-mouthed cheerleader, flashing lights… Then there was Paige Lawson. Where did she fit into all of this?
If the outside presence that was forcing all of the lurid thoughts into my head was the one responsible for either of their deaths, then maybe the crime-or crimes-were motivated by sex. But one was a kidnapping and the other appeared to be a robbery gone awry. Maybe Paige Lawson was just an anomaly-a piece of a totally different puzzle that I was trying too hard to make fit into a blurry and indistinct picture.
But then, every time I had one of these semi-pornographic fantasies, there was the thing with red hair. Both Debbie Schaeffer and Paige Lawson were blondes. So was the woman in the elevator. So that almost had to come directly from me. I mean I had to admit that I personally had a thing for red hair, so that could make it highly likely that it was just my own preference overlaying itself with the imagery.
Likely? Probably? Or just maybe?
It was starting to get very confusing again. I’d been mulling it all over so much that it was giving me a headache.
If Ben was correct, I was just chasing my tail anyway, and I needed to direct my energies toward something more productive. I finally gave up on my attempt at analysis and decided to leave it to Helen. After all, as she’d pointed out, she was the one with the degree in psychology. Since all of the incidents seemed linked by sex, and that was apparently a driving force for me these days, maybe I’d remember to mention all of this at the next appointment.
After a moment I let out a purposeful sigh and muttered to no one but myself, “Yeah, right.” Then before getting out of the truck, I made yet another mental note to start writing this stuff down so that I was no longer depending on my easily sidetracked brain.
I’d have to start doing that later though. Right now I just wanted to smoke another cigarette or two before going inside.
“Merry freakin’ ho-ho-ho,” Ben said as I dropped myself into one of the ancient molded-plastic seats next to his desk. “Wanna cuppa?”
“I don’t know…” I shook my head, mentally gagging on vivid recollections of the caustic liquid the homicide
