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 into 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
