Chapter Two: Tuesday, October 16

1. The dream came again as soon as she drifted off to sleep. It was accompanied by the same sense of urgency and desperation that she had felt the night before. The fear and confusion were back, too. And the voices.

Krystiana had been sure that if she had the dream again, she would be able to get the answers to all of her questions. She had practiced interactive dreaming for years, and she knew just what to do. But when the dream came, she was helpless. In her mind, she was demanding that the voices identify themselves, but in her dream consciousness, the words would not come. The terror was too real.

"Bella," they repeated time and time again. "Don't be afraid. I would never hurt you, Bella." The sense of familiarity was stronger than before. She knew those voices. They were something from her past, something she did not want to remember.

You must see the dream through to its conclusion, she told herself. The answers must lie at the end, in the light.

She was on the ground, and she knew that when she raised her head, she would find herself in the middle of a field, and that a moment later, the light would come. She had to find its source.

This time, the panic did not subside as it had before. She had to force herself to look up when it would have been so much easier to hide. As she opened her eyes and in the fraction of a second before the light came, it seemed that there was something familiar about the field, that it was someplace she knew. Before she could take a second look, though, the light blinded her.

This was where she had been drawn out of the dream before, and although she tried desperately to cling to it, just for another moment, she was being drawn out again. This time it was the sound of a dog barking, loud and insistent.

It was Cerberus. He was standing with his front paws on the edge of the bed, wagging his tail and making as much noise as he could.

"What do you want," she asked him. He responded with another series of barks and jumped onto the bed. "Do you have any idea what time it is?"

Cerberus was off the bed and half way across the room in one leap. He sat wagging his tail impatiently as Krystiana got up and pulled on her robe.

2.

It was nearly one o'clock when Richard left his office. He had wanted to get all of the paper work on the accident done before heading home. He didn't like the courthouse at night. It was too quiet, and the sounds an old building makes were amplified in the empty hallways. All the same, he wanted to get everything down on paper while it was still fresh in his mind, before sleep clouded his memory of the events.

A rush of cold air hit him as he stepped out into the parking lot. He realized that he had left his jacket in the office, but he was too tired to go back for it.

The weather had changed early in the evening. A Canadian cold front had moved in and the temperature had dropped thirty degrees in four hours. There was some talk of the possibility of snow. That's Montana, Richard thought. Don't like the weather? Stick around ten minutes. It'll change.

He turned on the heater as soon as he got into his car. There was a thin coating of frost on the windows and he waited for the warm air to do its job.

He looked at the clock on the dashboard as he put the car into reverse. It was one fifteen.

He wanted... No, he needed to see Krystiana. It had been a long day and only her sweet voice and gentle words could soothe him. She would know just what to say to make him forget. Of course, she would be asleep now, just as everyone else in town, save himself, was.

Still, he decided to take a chance and drive by her house. It was only a block out of the way. If there was a light on, he would stop. After all, she would know just how badly he needed her at this moment, wouldn't she? Didn't she know everything he was feeling and thinking?

As he turned the corner onto Glacier Boulevard, he saw that he was not to be disappointed. The porch light was on, and Krystiana was sitting on the steps. Her long black hair hung in a mussed tangle over her shoulders. She was barefoot and wore only a flimsy green silk robe, but seemed oblivious to the cold.

Framed as she was in the glow of the porch light, she looked like an angel. Just seeing her, Richard's problems diminished in her mind and some of the tension flowed out of his body.

Richard got out of his car and started up the sidewalk, then stopped. He stood for a moment, watching her. Even after all these years, there were times when his love for her overwhelmed him. Richard had always believed that a person got out of life exactly what he deserved, and she was so much more than he deserved that, sometimes, the thought of loosing her terrified him.

"You need to talk about it." There was no hint of question in her words. She was staring up at the stars, her back turned to his approach. She pulled up her knees and hugged them to make room on the step.

"I suppose I do," Richard said. He didn't want to, but she was right. He needed to.

He sat down next to her and took her hand. In the yard, Cerberus ran in circles, wagging his tail and dragging the chain that connected him to the front porch.

"Who talked to the Laughtons," Krystiana asked, looking at Richard for the first time. There was genuine concern in her voice and in her face. He wondered if it was for him, or for the family, or for the victim. But that was nonsense, he thought. She would be concerned for everyone.

"Ahanu," he said. "What other choice is there? Bobby?"

"He's not as bad as you think. You really ought to give him a chance." Richard looked skeptical. "Ahanu is a philosopher," Krystiana continued. "He knows the right words to say because he has learned them, rehearsed them. They don't come to him naturally, Richard. He is, by nature, a loner. Bobby Prentice is an emotional man, and given the chance, the words will flow from that emotion. Sometimes, that's more important."

Despite her soft tone and careful words, this was a criticism, and Richard bristled. Their arguments were rare, but when they came, they were bitter and hurtful.

"Prentice is an idiot," he said. "A lovable one, but an idiot nonetheless." He was concentrating on not sounding too defensive.

"You didn't come here to talk about your deputies." She squeezed his hand.

"You know what I like about being a small town cop," Richard asked. Krystiana shook her head. "In all the time I spent in Boston and LA, I probably saw a hundred thousand victims. I saw their pain, the devastation to their lives. I took their statements, listened when there was no one else who would listen. Then I walked away, and in most cases, never saw them again. Here, the people I protect and serve are my friends and neighbors. I see them every day on the street. It's my job to follow their cases from beginning to end, to stay in touch, to do everything I can for them." Krystiana brushed a tear away from his cheek. He hadn't realized how deeply he was feeling these things. "You know what I hate most about it?"

"The same things," Krystiana asked, slipping her arm around his shoulder.

"The same things," he said.

Cerberus had reached the end of his chain and stood there staring at a tree, with his head cocked and his tail waving in a slow silent arc. He was on the trail of a squirrel. Krystiana could hear his low growl and called him off, then recommended that they move inside before the dog let loose a volley of barks befitting his name.

3.

Krystiana settled in next to Richard on the sofa and wrapped her arms around him. It had been a long time since the need for caution and niceties had be been replaced by a sense of belonging and comfort. No longer were there uncomfortable silences. Instead, there were long moments when no words were needed.

They sat for a long time in each other's arms. Krystiana banished all other thought from her mind, all of the extraneous thoughts and images from unknown and far away sources that assaulted her constantly, and concentrated only on Richard.

She had seen the accident that claimed the life of Jennifer Laughton as Richard had seen it. A part of her had been there with him, standing beside him, watching. But he would see things she could not, interpret the information differently.

So, now, as he relived the events of the afternoon through the pictures in his mind, Krystiana stepped in and watched, too. His thoughts came into her mind with perfect clarity, and she sent back questions. What does this mean? What were you feeling when this happened?

He answered the questions, and she wondered if he was actually receiving her thoughts, as she did his, or if this was simply a response to a subliminal stimulus. They had never discussed this sharing of their minds. In fact, they had gone out of their way to avoid it, repeating out loud word for word the silent conversations they had already had.

She had the feeling that her gifts made Richard uncomfortable, that, sometimes, he felt violated, and she was sorry for this. But he would have to accept her as she was. There was no way to turn these things off, just as a person cannot shut off his eyesight. The best he can do is shut his eyes for a while, but he has to open them again eventually.

Could she help it that Richard himself possessed very strong psychic energy, although he did not realize it, and that this made it very easy for them to communicate telepathically? She had not planned it. It was just something that had evolved as their relationship strengthened.

Still, she wondered how much of it he accepted, how much he even understood. He had spent most of his life thinking that psychic phenomenon was just so much hogwash until she had proved otherwise. Did a part of him still think that, try to explain these things away?

She could ask him, but she was not sure that she wanted to know the answer. If he said that, yes, a part of him still thought that it was rubbish, it would be as much as saying that he did not believe in her, that he could not accept who she was. And she didn't think that she could live with that response. No, perhaps it was best to leave things as they were.

In his mind, Richard saw Tommy Skolinski sitting cross legged on the side of the road, staring at the wreckage of the van. His hands were covered with blood, and he held them out in front of him as if they were poisonous snakes that might strike him at any moment. Tears welled in his dazed and unblinking eyes and rolled down his cheeks.

Near him, Johnny Milton lay in a broken heap, drifting in and out of consciousness. A crowd of onlookers gathered around the two boys, good Samaritans trying to tend to their needs and thrill seekers who did nothing more than get in the way.

None of them saw what was on the other side of the wreckage. Richard had made the discovery when he walked into the ditch to survey the damage. There, pinned halfway beneath the twisted and mangled van, was the body if Jen Laughton, blood covering her clothes, her face, her hair. Her eyes were staring up at the sky, frozen forever in an expression of fear. 'Are the eyes really a camera, Richard wondered. 'Do they really record the last instant before death?'

'Oh, yes,' Krystiana sent her response. 'That and much more.'

'Did she suffer? I need to know.'

'Yes, but not for long.'

Richard thought about that for a moment. It was not the answer he was hoping for, but it would have to be good enough. Then, as quickly as it had come, this picture disappeared and was replaced by another.

Charles Proffitt loomed before him now, a tempest of emotion brewing within him. He wrung his hands until his knuckles were white. Flitting from person to person, he demanded an explanation of the accident from everyone he encountered, even the late arrivals who had stopped to see what was happening and knew even less than Charles himself. He finally began to relax when he was allowed to see Tommy, who had already been loaded into the back of the ambulance.

Assured that his grandson would be all right, Charles had found Richard. That was when the trouble had really begun.

"When is someone going to tell me what the hell happened here," Charles bellowed. A little vein in his neck throbbed visibly. This was the second, and by far the worst tantrum the man had thrown in the course of a few hours, and the anger was beginning to take its toll. Dark circles beneath his puffy eyes were beginning to break through the mask of anger and he was more stooped over than usual.

Richard told him all that he knew about the accident. Unfortunately, he included the fact that several beer cans and a small amount of marijuana had been found in the van. At this, the vein throbbed harder, and Richard thought that the man was bound to drop dead of a heart attack on the spot.

Instead, after the initial shock and anger that had threatened to boil over had settled, Charles gathered all of his reserve and spoke calmly.

"I don't know what those other young people were doing, but I know my grandson," he said. "And Tommy would never get involved in such things." The rest of the speech was lost on Richard. All that he could really remember was that it had been delivered like a campaign speech and that it involved the suggestion that any evidence of wrongdoing on Tommy's part be forgotten, misplaced, or both.

Richard had managed to walk away from this encounter without making any promises, but Charles had cornered him again. This time it was in a deserted corner of the hospital lobby. And this time, Richard had lost the battle. No one would ever know what Tommy had or had not done, not because Richard had caved in, but because Tommy's parents had refused to sign the consent forms allowing the blood tests. Richard could have gotten a court order, but by the time it came through, there would have been no point in it.

'Is there any justice in that,' Richard asked silently.

Krystiana absently stroked his hair. She could feel the tension in his taut muscles, and beyond that, radiating from him like poisonous glow of a nuclear reaction. She wanted to comfort him, to erase all of this from his mind, and had it been within her power, she would have without a second thought. But all that she could do was be there for him, and she had to let him know that she was. She needed him to know that she knew and understood all that he had silently told her.

In a way, she felt selfish for being concerned about her own feelings. But they shared everything else in their lives. Shouldn't they share this, talk about it? She decided that the time was right to break the silence, so this time, she answered out loud.

"No," she said, "there isn't."

"And what makes it worse," he said, "is that Charles Proffitt thinks he won."

Here we go again, Krystiana thought. She was careful, as she always was with private thoughts, to keep it in the back of her mind, to let nothing of it get to the front where it might be projected to someone else.

She knew that there was no love lost between Richard and Charles, and perhaps that was justified. She had not encountered Proffitt is his own arena. Maybe he was different there. She knew only what she had seen of the man, and while it was very clear where all of her loyalty was, she was fond of Charles, and felt torn when Richard made such comments. She decided, without giving too much thought to the matter, to let it pass. Sort of.

"So let him win this one," she said.

Richard frowned. There was something in her voice that sounded conspiratorial, and that was very much out of character. "What do you mean?"

"You're a good man, Richard. That's what makes you such a lousy politician. You have a marker on him, and sometime down the road, when you need a favor, you call it in. Then nobody wins and everybody is happy." She paused. "I know what you're thinking."

"Yes," he said tentatively. He wasn't quite sure of what he meant. It was perfectly clear that she did know, always knew what he was thinking.

"On a different level. I don't think you're prepared to admit it even to yourself. It's in everything you say and everything you do. It's in the pictures in your mind, and I'll bet you didn't even notice it."

"You're wrong there. I did, but I didn't think..."

"That I needed to be reminded? There's no use in either of us thinking about it. Let bygones be bygone."

"But..."

"No! No more talk about this. Not now, and maybe not ever."

Richard pulled her closer and she put her head on his shoulder. She felt a sudden wave of exhaustion sweep over her and she wanted nothing more than to crawl into bed and go to sleep in Richard's arms. There, she would feel safe from the fears and dangers of the living world. But at the same time, she knew that there was a whole different set of fears and dangers awaiting her in the dream world, and which was worse, she could not say.

"You're still in a lot of pain, aren't you," Richard asked.

She could only nod against his shoulder and cling to him tighter.

4.

The cigarette smoke mingled with the dust particles in lazy swirls in the narrow shaft of light that came into the room through the stained at tattered curtain that hung in the window. From where she sat on the bed, Allie could survey all of her world and all of her worldly possessions. There were few of these, and she had already looked at them as much as she could bear to, so instead, she sat, mesmerized by the patterns in the smoke.

Her world was a little one room apartment on the second floor of the old Bowan Feed and Grain Company building on Broad Street. It was near the down town, and that was perhaps its only asset, although everything in Proffitt Mines is relatively close to the down town. But there was a far more important feature, at least to Allie. It was cheap, and when you wander into any town, even a small town, with only fifty dollars in your pocket, cheap is just about the most important thing there is.

The building was old and in poor repair, but that did not matter. Allie did not plan to be there forever, after all. As soon as she found a job, and saved some money, and took care of some other business, she would move on. New York was where she wanted to be. As far from Rural Podunk, USA as she could get.

She was going to be a model. Never mind that most girls never get a break. She would, she was sure. Never mind that she was older than most of the girls trying to break into the business. Nineteen is old in the world of modeling, but not too old. Not really. And not if you're willing to do anything, absolutely anything, to make it.

She crushed the cigarette out on the top of a Diet Pepsi can and looked around. The shaft of light had moved slightly and no longer provided any entertainment, and no place in town opened until nine o'clock, so job hunting was out, and she had nothing better to do.

The room was dirty. There were footprints in the dust where she had walked and mouse droppings littered the corners. The furniture - there was only a bed, a chair and a dresser - was old and dilapidated. The mattress was stained and sagged in the middle. A spring poked through the back of the chair, rendering it useless unless the user perched precariously on the edge of the seat. Thick white cobwebs hung in the corners and covered the light fixture which hung from the ceiling.

If she had had any common sense, she would have gathered up the few things she had come with and gone home, but the words 'what am I doing here' never occurred to her. This was the next step on her journey to fame and fortune. The only thing that did occur to her was that when she achieved her objectives, this would certainly add some color to the movie that would be made about her life.

She got up and crossed the room, four paces to the dresser. She picked up the gold chain and pendant that she had laid there. She looked at it for a long moment before she hung it around her neck. It was the only thing of value that she owned, and although she could not remember where it had come from, it was something that she had always had, it seemed important to her, and she treasured it.

The gold pendant was in the shape of a new moon, with a five pointed star set over it. The star was delicately carved with leaves and vines and there was a small stone set into each of its points; a ruby at the top, then an amethyst, a sapphire, an emerald, and a topaz. Allie's mother had taught her a poem that told what each of these stones meant, but she could not remember this, either.

Allie tucked the necklace under her tee shirt, left the apartment and walked out onto the street.

Broad Street ran along the southern edge of town. In the early days of Proffitt Mines, it had been a part of the booming down town, but those days were long since gone. Vacant lots where buildings had once stood were overgrown with weeds, and on this morning, looked almost pristine, the frost on them glittering in the sunlight.

Allie walked down Broad Street to Fourth and turned right, toward Main Street.

5.

Rhiannon was pouring a cup of coffee for a man seated at the bar when he noticed a young girl standing in the window, looking at the help wanted sign hanging there. He thought that he knew everyone in town, made a point of remembering every face. It was an old habit left over from his mercenary days, derived from a need to know who his friends were and to distinguish them from the enemy. But this girl he had never seen before, and he certainly would have remembered her.

She was no classic beauty. If anything, she was cute, in the way a bear cub or fox pup is cute. But there was something special about her. Maybe it was the confidence with which she carried herself or the determination and hunger in her face. These things, Rhiannon could identify with and respect.

He took his place by the cash register and continued to watch her. She seemed to be mulling over an important decision. Finally, she gave her blond hair a hearty shake and smiled. The decision was made.

Rhiannon was not the least bit surprised when the girl threw open the door and took the sign from the window. She walked up to Rhiannon, tossing her hair one more time.

"You in charge here," she asked. Her jaw was set in an expression of arrogance that almost made Rhiannon laugh. He returned her look with his usual half scowl.

"I'm Rhiannon."

"Allie Barloe," she said. She tore the sign in half and dropped it on the counter. "You won't be needing this anymore. When do I start?"

For what was perhaps the first time in his life, Rhiannon was caught off guard. He was, for just a moment, speechless. "Hold on there, little lady..."

"You need a waitress, right? And I need a job. There you have it. Fate brought us together." If he wasn't mistaken, which he seldom was, Rhiannon detected a note of sarcasm in her words. He felt that he was being mocked and this made him angry. But the anger was kept in check by something else. Behind her mask of superiority and arrogance, there was desperation in the girl's face. It was in her voice, too, when he really listened. Rhiannon felt sorry for her, something else that rarely happened.

"Fate, huh," he said. "You're not from around here, are you?"

"My parents had a farm not too far from here. They lost it a few years ago and we moved to Billings."

The story was all too familiar. The same thing had happened to a lot of people in the area. Drought one year, floods the next, combined with low market values meant disaster for many of the local farmers, and they were forced off the land that had been in their families for generations. It's no wonder she's desperate, Rhiannon thought. Then he added, God, I'm getting soft.

"What are you doing here?"

"Things got pretty bad at home," she said and took a pack of cigarettes out of her pocket. She lit one. This was not easy to talk about and she needed something to occupy her hands and mind. "When I was eighteen, I got the hell out of there. And I found out that it ain't so easy to make it on your own in the city, even one as small as Billings. I decided that if I was going to have to struggle anyway, I might as well do it in New York. Chase my dreams, ya know. But you can't get there on dreams. So, I thought, maybe someplace like this, I could..." She paused, searching for the words she wanted, but they would not come. She shrugged and tapped the ask off her cigarette into the ashtray on the counter.

The mask was gone, torn away by the apparent pain of reality. What was left was a look of fear and vulnerability. There had been a time in Rhiannon's life when he would have pounced on this, using that vulnerability to further destroy an already devastated life. But maybe he was getting soft. He wanted to help this child.

"You got a place to stay," he asked. He judged from her reaction that the words had sounded threatening to her. "If not, I know a lady who could put you up for a while," he added, to make his intentions clear.

In reality, he did not know anyone he would impose on like that, and he hoped that he would not have to think of anyone. But it had seemed like the right thing to say.

She told him that, yes, she did have a place to stay and thanked him for his concern. But what she really needed was the job, and could she have it? "Please?"

"You'll have to do something about those clothes," he told her. "I can't have you working here looking like some kind of Salvation Army reject."

Allie looked at what she was wearing. Her jeans were torn and dirty, and her tee shirt had seen better days. Until this moment, she had not been self conscious about these things, but suddenly her face went red and she wanted to find some little corner to crawl into. And die.

"You don't have anything else, do you?"

Allie shook her head. It was a small, embarrassed motion. "I had a bag, but..."

Rhiannon put a hand up to silence her. Every shred of dignity she had had when she walked through the door was gone now. She didn't need to lose every shred of self respect, too. He hit a button on the cash register and the drawer beneath it flew open. He took two bills from the compartment on the left hand side and handed them to her.

"This comes out of your first paycheck, Allie. There's a shop down the street. You should be able to find something there. And you'd better hurry, you start at eleven. If you're late, you can forget it."

Once more, her face was transformed. It wasn't quite gratitude that was showing there. It seemed more like a look of victory, but under the circumstances, Rhiannon could understand that.

Allie ran around to the back of the bar and hugged him. He was not sure how to react, so he just stood there and let her do it. After thanking him profusely, she ran out of the bar and headed down the street.

Rhiannon stood at the cash register for a while longer. There were customers to be waited on, but he needed to sort out what had just happened. Two thoughts alternated in his mind. That he had done a good deed and that he had been taken advantage of in a big way. And both thoughts left a bitter aftertaste.

6.

The room had become a prison with memories for bars. Tommy was confined there 'until further notice' by his father. The door was latched from the outside with a deadbolt lock for which his father held the only key and Tommy knew from experience that it would be hours, if not days, before the key was used again.

The lock had been installed on the bedroom door when Tommy was just seven years old. The event which led to this extreme measure was minor, but in Scully's mind, it was positive proof that there was evil in his child, and that it had to be dealt with harshly.

Scully had been called away from work, this alone being enough to warrant punishment for anyone who crossed his path. But this time, he had been called away to Tommy's school. Tommy had gotten in trouble for peeking up the skirt of a little girl who was climbing on the jungle gym. It was harmless, really, Scully had been told, but these things do need to be dealt with early so that behavioral problems do not develop later.

To Scully, it was not harmless and it was already a behavioral problem, so he had installed the lock. After that, Tommy spent most of his time in that room, gazing out the window at the park where his friends were playing. It did not take him long to realize that the window was his escape route, and that if he was careful, he could sneak out and join his friends and be back before his father realized that he was gone.

He could escape the room, but there were other things. Things he could not escape. The guilt. Yes, the guilt was the worst thing. Far worse than any punishment his father could invent. It gnawed at him, at his mind. It seemed to speak to him. You killed her, it said. You loved her and you killed her.

And the reminders. They were everywhere. There was the photograph of Jen taped to the mirror and another of Jen, Johnny and himself in a frame on the dresser. Next to that was the little stuffed deer with the words 'Deer do it for a Buck' printed across its stomach that Jen had given him for his birthday last year. Her sweater lay across the chair in the corner where she had left it. He had meant to return it, but had never gotten around to it.

There was the Vice Squad poster on the wall. Jen had been with him when he bought it at the Mr. Music store at the mall in Parris. And the basketball trophy on the shelf over the bed. The night it had been awarded to him was the first night they had made love. And that was not all.

There was the teddy bear she had won for him at the Proffitt County fair. The scrapbook filled with movie ticket stubs and notes they had passed to each other in classes at school. He would never have thought to save these things, but Jen did. She had put the book together and given it to him for safe keeping. Tommy never thought that these things would mean anything to him, but now, they meant everything.

They were memories. They were painful, but they were all that he had left. Memories and guilt, getting more painful by the minute. Tommy felt as though these things would consume him, that he would cease to be and all that would be left would be the guilt and the memories.

But would that really be so bad? He should have been the one to die in the accident, not Jen. He could not bring her back, but he could correct at least part of the mistake.

"That's crazy," he yelled in the silence of his locked room. "This is driving me crazy." He picked up the pillow off the bed and threw it against the locked door. It made a muffled thud as it hit, then fell to the ground without another sound. It was not enough. He wanted to break something, to destroy something. That would...

But you have, said the voice of guilt. You have already destroyed a life. Cancel that. Two lives! You heard what the doctors said about Johnny, didn't you?

"Shut up! I don't want to think about this!"

Johnny will never walk again. That is, if he even lives. What can you do to top that one, huh? Set off a fucking nuclear bomb in the town square? Or how about just blowing yourself away, Tommy? That would solve everything, wouldn't it?

"Stop! Please, stop," Tommy screamed, no longer feeling as though he was talking to himself. He was closer to crying than he had been in a long time.

Just throw it all away, Tommy. If that's what you want to do. Is that what you want to do, Tommy?

"No! No, that's not what I want to do! I want all of this to go away!" Tommy collapsed on his bed and pulled the blankets over his head to block this intrusive voice.

Then do something about it. Kill yourself and get it over with. I don't care what you do, but sitting here and feeling sorry for yourself isn't helping anyone.

"I don't know what to do. I just don't know!"

The voice made a disgusted grunt. Don't you have a brain anymore. Talk to someone.

Talk to someone. That was what he needed to do. But he had always talked to Jen when things were at their worst. Who else did he have to talk to? His father? His mother? Then it came to him. The guidance counselor at school.

Tommy opened his window and slipped out, grabbing the limb of a tree that grew close to the house. As he lowered himself to the ground, he could see in the livingroom window. His mother was there, sitting in the big wing back chair by the fireplace, still staring straight ahead, just as she had been the night before.

The last time I climbed out this window, Tommy thought, I was sneaking out to meet Jen. That was the night we went to the drive-in in Hooper. What movie did we see?

He couldn't remember, and decided that it wasn't important, because they hadn't really gone there to watch the movie, anyway, and if he really wanted to know, the ticket stub would be in the scrapbook, with the name of the movie and the date printed next to it in Jen's pretty, but only half legible handwriting.

Tommy ran through back yards, hoping that none of his neighbors saw him, at least, not the ones who would report him to Scully. When he reached the end of the street, where the park began, he slowed to a walk.

He stopped for a moment by the fence around the swimming pool, remembering the lazy summer days he had spent there with Jen. The pool had closed on Labor Day, and was empty, but as Tommy gazed at it, he could see it filled with water and everyone he knew splashing and laughing. He could see Jen laying by the pool in her favorite bikini, soaking up some rays. He could see himself sneaking up behind her with a bucket of water. He could see the little boy he had borrowed the bucket from laughing as he dumped the water on Jen and ran. She had chased him until they both fell in the pool.

Tommy smiled at the memory and walked away feeling even worse than he had before. He passed the baseball diamond on the right. He remembered the many hours he had spent watching Jen's softball team play. On the left was the playground where they had played as children.

Each of these places held more painful memories, but his luck held in one thing. He had seen no one on his walk through the park, but to get to the school, he had to walk a block and a half along Main Street. He knew that if he saw anyone, there would be questions and he was not sure that he knew how to answer them. He was not sure that he could.

And to get to Main Street, there was another obstacle he had to face. He had not thought of it because he had never paid any attention to it before. There had never been any reason to. As he left the park, he had to pass through an alley. On the right was the home of Anders Lindstrom, the president of the bank, and that was alright. Mr. Lindstrom was at work and his wife was out of town. But on the left hand side of the alley was the one place Tommy wanted to avoid at all costs, at least on this day.

Behrens Mortuary loomed before him. From Main Street, the place looked warm and friendly, sitting in the middle of a rolling, unnaturally green lawn, just as it should, but from the alley, it was a frightening brick monstrosity. Mrs. Behrens vicious little Pomeranian mutt was sitting at the end of the driveway which led to a rickety wooden overhang that served as a garage to three beat up old junkers. A dozen or so lifeless plants hung from the roof of the porch like dried up brown skeletons blowing in the breeze. The back yard, surrounded by an unpainted wooden fence that was missing half of its pales, was littered with discarded, decomposing toys and rusted bicycles.

Inside that building, Jen Laughton's body was being prepared for burial. Inside that building, her father was choosing a coffin and discussing a ceremony with Father John McAnich while her mother sat weeping in the tiny viewing room that had been set aside for her youngest child. Her sisters, too, were gathered here, weeping and trying to comfort their young children who understood only that something very sad had happened.

Tommy had to pass by two sides of this building, by a total of fourteen windows. And with each of those windows came the risk that one of those grieving for the girl he had killed might peer out and see him, plunging them deeper into their grief. So, too, came the risk that he might turn his head to look at the building and see one of those people looking at him, plunging him deeper into his own grief.

7.

Rachel Clancy had been setting aside this day for three weeks. It was marked with a big red X on the wall calendar that hung in her bedroom and the calendar that sat on her desk. This was the day when she was actually going to get something done. All of that filing that had been piling up for the last month, for one thing. For another, there were about two hundred college applications she had to review. She hadn't made any appointments for the day and she had left word with the school secretary that she would accept none.

Of course, it hadn't worked out that way. She considered that she was lucky to even get a lunch break on a day like this. This was the reason she had studied educational psychology in the first place, but that didn't make her job any more pleasant. She spent the first half of the morning dealing with the raw grief of the entire student body of Proffitt County High School and the rest of the day, dealing with it in a one to one basis.

It was exhausting, physically and emotionally. Many of the students who had come into her office had walked in crying and had walked out the same way. Rachel shared their pain, but for their sake and for her own, she had to maintain a clinical facade, and that was not easy. More than once, she had had to bite her lip to hold back her own sobs when one of Jen's friends related the tale of some event, whether humorous or sad, that he or she had shared with Jen Laughton.

Rachel knew well how difficult it was for a teenager when someone close to their own age, someone they called a friend, dies. She had experienced it herself when she was in high school and maybe that was the real reason she did what she did for a living. But she had only a few minutes to spend with each of the kids who came to her, because there were so many, and each of them needed much more than that. Understanding might come in time, although even that was doubtful, but acceptance took much longer. All of these kids needed her, and there just wasn't enough of her to go around.

Now, in the early afternoon, the flow of grieving students had slowed to a trickle and she found herself, in the free time she had, regretting that she had not spent more time with the ones who had come earlier. Little did she know that her greatest challenge lay ahead, that what remained of the school day would be taken up with the one person who needed her time and concern more than any other.

8.

"Do you have to tell anyone," Tommy asked as the last bell of the day rang. Outside the office, he could hear the ruckus of students running out of their classrooms and gathering books from their lockers, but it was not the usual happy sound. There was no laughing and little talking in the hallways of Proffitt County High on this day.

Tommy had been talking to Rachel Clancy for almost three hours. He had told her everything, and not just about Jen. It seemed that once he opened the flood gate, he had no control over what came out. He had talked about his mother and his father. He had told her things that he had not even remembered before they flowed out of his mouth, and, if asked, he probably wouldn't remember them again.

"I think I should, don't you?" Rachel held him in her soft and caring gaze. She had heard things that she would never have imagined could happen in this quiet little town.

Tommy thought about it, then slowly shook his head. "You know who my father is. I don't think it would do any good."

"Then why did you come here, Tommy. If you don't want help, why did you come here and tell me these things?"

He stood up, went to the window and gazed out at the afternoon sunlight playing in the trees. "I guess I needed to talk about it."

"That's understandable. But..."

"No good could come of it," Tommy said in a matter of fact tone that gave Rachel a chill. "You would lose your job, I would be in more trouble that I've ever been in, and that would be it. I've done enough. I don't want to be responsible for that."

"You haven't done anything, Tommy. Nothing that happened was your fault. Do you understand that?" Tommy nodded. He understood, Rachel thought, but he was not ready to accept. "We are creatures of free will. You came here of your own free will, Tommy, and I did not make you tell me any of this. But you did, and I have a responsibility to do something about it, unless you tell me otherwise. If I do, then I would be doing it of my own free will, and you would have no responsibility in the matter."

"Maybe not," Tommy mumbled, "but I would have to live with the consequences."

"No, not if..."

"You think there's any justice in this world?" Tommy began pacing the floor. There was a lot of anger in his voice. "Well, there's not. Not if you're trying to fight the system. And my father and my grandfather are part of the system."

Rachel clasped Tommy's shoulders, stopping his back and forth trek across the office. "You're wrong, Tommy. You can fight. You can!"

For a moment, Tommy seemed almost to believe her, then he shook his head again. His body trembled with a sob he could barely suppress. "No," he said, his voice breaking. "No, I can't fight."

"Yes, you can. And I'll fight with you. I'll be right here."

"No. It's not worth it." He backed away from her and went to the door. He stopped with his hand on the door knob and looked back at her. There were tears in his eyes. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry I got you into this."

"Don't be."

"Don't tell anyone. Please." Tommy paused, choosing his next words carefully. "If you did, I couldn't live with it." He opened the door.

"If you change your mind..."

"Yeah," he said and left the office, closing the door silently behind him.

Rachel stood for a long time in the middle of her office, staring at nothing and thinking about everything. She knew what she had to do, but the price for doing it might be too high. Tommy was right. He was the one who would have to live with the consequences, and he said that he could not. And could she live with that? No, probably not.

And yet, her responsibility in the matter was clear. The kind of abuse Tommy had described at the hands of his father was criminal. The man should be in prison. Yes, the man was powerful, and there was no question of what he could do to Rachel's career, but there was justice in the world, wasn't there? Rachel believed that there was.

But Tommy had asked that she not do anything about it, and she could not, in good conscious, go against his wishes.

In a few days, maybe Tommy would change his mind. If not, then maybe time would put everything into perspective and make her decision easier.

9.

When Tommy left the school, he was planning on going straight home. If Scully arrived home from work and found Tommy gone, there would he hell to pay. He did head toward his house, taking the longer route to avoid passing Behrens Mortuary. The walk normally took fifteen minutes, but Tommy went slowly. The streets he chose were quiet ones and this gave him more time to think.

He was only half way home when he decided to turn around. He did not know where he was going, but anyplace was better than his original destination.

He walked back the same way he had come, passing the school on his way down town. Rachel Clancy was just getting into her car, but her mind was occupied with other things and she did not see him. That was good. He didn't want to talk to her again. Not yet, anyway.

He passed the site of the old Conoco station. The windows were boarded up and the gas pumps were gone. Weeds grew up through the cracks in the cement. The old place looked about like he felt. Desolate, alone, forgotten.

Across Main Street from the Conoco station was the Carol Lindstrom Memorial Library. It was one of the few places in town not named for a Proffitt. There was no connection there to Tommy's family.

Tommy went into the library and was pleased to see Mrs. Hilliard on duty. She was very old and very near sighted, so she probably would not be able to see who he was and would not ask him any questions. Her greatest trait was that she left people alone. She never really spoke to anyone who came into the library unless she had to tell them to be quiet or that it was time to leave.

Yes, this was the perfect place to spend some quiet time. Tommy settled into a chair at a table behind the seldom used County Records stack and put his head down. There was no sound except for the quiet, hypnotic hum of the central air unit and the occasional turning of pages drifting back from the desk.

In a few minutes, Tommy fell into a deep sleep.

10.

The office was as strangely quiet in the early afternoon as it had been in the early hours of the morning. Bobby Prentice had called in sick, citing the stomach flu as the reason. If this was the truth, and Bobby rarely lied, it would explain his reaction to the accident scene yesterday. Richard had been content to chalk it up to a weak stomach, but maybe Krystiana was right. Maybe he should give the deputy more credit.

Jeffrey Ahanu was out patrolling the streets. Or, more likely, seeing as it was twelve thirty on a Tuesday afternoon, and his lady friend was off work, he was at her house out on the reservation. He would roll back into the office around three, looking a little too happy, and report that there was nothing unusual going on in good old Proffitt County.

Richard knew that he should do something about these weekly romps on county time, but he didn't. This was part of what Krystiana called The Way. Things that would be deemed completely unacceptable anywhere else would be accepted in a small town, as they would be accepted within a family. Ahanu fooled around every Tuesday afternoon and got paid for it. It was wrong, but it was just his Way. Scully Skolinski beat up his wife for the sheer thrill of it. It was wrong, and no one exactly approved, but Katherine never complained, and besides, it was just his Way. Richard and Krystiana had been seeing each other, practically living together, for a long time. Rumor had it since before they even came to Proffitt Mines. And yet they never married. It was odd, even scandalous, but it was just their Way.

If The Way was a religion, then Gossip was its gospel. If something was worth seeing or doing, then it was worth talking about. With anyone, anytime, anywhere, and as much as possible. Richard had already learned from Trista, who had gotten it from, at last count, seven reliable witnesses that Baruch Rhiannon had hired a new waitress, and that, gasp, she was Outsider.

This was the local term for anyone who moved to Proffitt Mines from anywhere else. Outsiders were really what The Way was built on, because, one, they were always good for at least a year or two worth of Gossip, and, two, their Ways were usually even stranger than the Ways of the locals, see rule number one.

Richard did not consider himself an avid follower of The Way, but even after only four years in Proffitt Mines, this local pseudo-religion had rubbed off on him. It was for this reason that, as soon as he learned about the new waitress at Rhiannon's, he called Krystiana.

"You'll never guess what I just heard," he said, knowing very well that if she put her mind to it, she could. But this was a little game they played, and he also knew that she wouldn't guess.

"What?" She sighed. Richard had almost never heard her do that and the warning flags went up immediately. He said nothing, though. She would tell him what was bothering her in her own time and in her own way. Instead, he just told her the news.

"Really," she said. "What's she like?"

"Don't know. The general consensus is that she's blonde, cute and young. There's some discrepancy on eye color, dark brown or blue, but you know what the lighting's like in Rhiannon's."

"What's her name?"

"I don't know."

"I think it's Alice or something like that," Trista called from her desk in the dispatch area.

"Trista thinks it Alice or something," Richard said, laughing. "So, you want to join me for lunch and check out the situation?"

There was a long pause on the line. When Krystiana spoke, her words were measured and tentative. "I don't think I'd be very good company today, Richard."

"What's wrong?"

"Is Trista still on the line?"

Richard peered through his open office door. Trista was sitting at her desk, reading another of those insipid romance novels, just like she always was, but this time, her face was red and she was holding the book upside down. "No. The line's clear."

"I don't really feel like going out. I'm just going to go to bed and try to get some rest. I hope you don't mind."

"Not at all. Aren't you feeling well?"

"It's just a... a cold or something."

She's lying. The words flashed through Richard's mind like the pulse of a neon sign. Why did she hesitate? Why was she so worried about Trista overhearing?

"You want me to stop by later with some homemade chicken soup?"

"You know how to make chicken soup? Now, that's a side of you I've never seen before."

"Well, I know how to open a can. Would that do?" To Richard's relief, Krystiana laughed. She might be lying, but it couldn't be anything too serious.

"I have a better idea. Why don't I come over to your house tonight. You can tuck me in and worry over me all you want."

That had more or less been the end of the conversation. They said their I love yous and hung up.

Richard was left with a dull ache in his gut, reminding him of the lie. It was small, but it had been enough to occupy his mind ever since the call.

"Sheriff Dolan?"

He had not heard Jeffrey Ahanu come in. The deputy was standing in the doorway, an hour early and looking a little dazed and confused. Must be something in the air, Richard thought.

"What can I do for you, Ahanu?"

"I was just wondering if everything was alright. I just saw Krystiana going into Doc Murphey's office."

11.

It was just after four o'clock when Krystiana left the doctor's office. Richard, who was leaning on the side of his squad car just outside the door, was pleased to see that she was smiling, but he was still troubled. The lie had not been and innocent, or even a small, one. For Krystiana to visit a doctor, she had to think that something was very wrong, and she had deliberately kept it from him.

Never mind that she probably did it so that he would not worry. If she knew everything about him, then it was only right that he know everything about her.

The temperature had continued to drop and giant black storm clouds had been threatening to let loose winter's first storm for hours. As Krystiana pulled her red wool cape around her shoulders, the first raindrops began to fall.

She was not surprised to see Richard there. She had expected him since she saw Jeffrey Ahanu passing by as she went into the office and she had felt his arrival. But when she saw the look on his face, and when she tried to sense his thoughts and found that he'd blocked them, she did not know what to say.

Her first impulse was to blurt everything out and get it over with, but there was too much explaining to be done to do it on a public street in near freezing weather. Her second was to tell him nothing at all, to pretend there was nothing going on.

But there was. She had thought that she knew exactly what it was, and that had frightened her, but she found out that she did not, and that frightened her even more. Real fear was not something that she had experienced often in her life. She did not like it, and she certainly did not want to admit it, but if there was one person in the world she could talk to about it, that person was Richard.

"Can we get in the car? It's too cold to talk out here."

Richard opened the door for her and then got in himself. He turned on the motor and the heat began pouring out of the vents.

"What's going on?"

"I'm not really sure. For one thing," Krystiana said, deciding to go with her first plan, "I'm not pregnant."

"I see," he said, feeling at little foolish for having been so worried. "That's what this is all about?"

"I didn't want to say anything on the phone. You never know. Trista may have some new weapon in her arsenal. I have no doubt that it would have been all over town in a matter of minutes."

"Why didn't you say something before?"

Krystiana gazed out the window. The rain was falling harder now, running down the windshield, making the street look like an impressionist painting.

"There's something else on your mind, isn't there," Richard asked.

"Yes. I don't want to talk about it here. Take me home. Please."

Richard reached out and stroked her hair, still damp from the rain. "Okay," he said softly. "Your home or mine?"

Krystiana looked into his eyes for a long moment before she answered. His thoughts were still beyond her grasp, and she wanted to plead with him to open his mind to her. But asking him to do that might confirm the worst of her fears.

"Yours," she whispered.



Back to index
Prologue Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four
Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten