If only logical arguments could drive away the dreams that plagued him. The scenes that came to him when he was sleeping, of the bodies he had found floating. Of the children.
He’d been a police diver, and that meant you found bad things in the water. And he had found plenty. But nothing like the children. The van had been seen going into the water, and the dive team had been assembled fast. But the St. Mary’s River was brown, mucky and deep, and the van had plunged into the deepest part. He’d been the first to reach the van and had gotten the cargo door open, only to find the cargo was children, foster children in the care of a couple whose only interest was in the payments they received each month, and each child was strapped into the car. Not seat-belted, strapped. Six of them, ranging from two years to ten, five of them staring sightlessly into the void that had stolen their lives. And then there had been Billy.
Billy had been alive. Jeremy had used his knife to cut the cord that bound the boy to his seat, and Billy had seen him, had tried to smile. Had reached for him. When he’d gotten Billy to dry land, he’d performed CPR until the paramedics arrived. He’d driven with Billy to the hospital. And then, despite the desperate efforts put in by truly caring medical personnel, Billy had died.
Jeremy could still see Billy’s eyes. In his sleep, he could feel the boy’s hand, grasping for his, as he drew him from the van.
That was the worst of the nightmares that plagued him. It was the nightmare that had made him decide to leave the force and join his brothers in an investigation agency. He was sane; he’d seen the police shrink. He knew that nightmares were nightmares. They were repeats of what was unbearable by day, of what the mind couldn’t endure, not the visitations of restless spirits.
He lived with them.
He didn’t attempt to put them into any cosmic perspective.
He dreamed of Billy alive, looking at him with his huge brown eyes, and sometimes he dreamed of standing on a hilltop with Billy holding his hand. Maybe Billy represented the child he’d never had—and perhaps never would. Maybe he represented what infuriated Jeremy about of the failure of the overburdened social welfare system. He didn’t know and he didn’t care. He only cared about making things better for the children who were left.
Anyway, even the shrink said he was doing the right thing, using his time to create facilities to help other needy children. It seemed to be working. And maybe, someday, the nightmares would stop, not just for days at a time, but for weeks. Months. Years. Maybe even forever.
But that future was unknown and would remain so until he got there. He didn’t look for signs in tea leaves. He didn’t believe that a line on his hand indicated the direction his life would take.
He reminded himself that it wasn’t as if Rowenna ever said flat-out that there were ghosts in the world, much less claimed that she sat down to chat with them. She simply pointed out strange things that happened, phenomena for which there was no clear explanation.
He and Rowenna were professional combatants, nothing more. They could have been friends, if he’d been willing, because it was clear that she was open to the idea. They had been the guests of honor at several fund-raising lunches, even headlined a few cocktail parties and dinners. She had been a big draw at all those events. She was charming, articulate and approachable. They had a shared indignation at injustice, and a passion for the rights of others. But something in him wouldn’t let her get close.
“Jeremy?” She repeated his name, a frown forming between her delicate, perfectly arched brows. “Sorry. Are we on?”
She nodded, as the producer spoke to them from the booth and started his countdown.
They introduced themselves, falling easily into the give-and-take they were there to provide, given how many shows they’d already done. She had an easy manner on the air, making her point but never breaking in or turning rude or abrasive. He had a feeling it was her calm approach that made her so believable. She didn’t have to be fanatical. She spoke just as she wrote—she didn’t tell ghost stories, she reported on events and let the listener decide. She presented things well, too. He found himself nearly hypnotized, almost believing her at times.
He was making a pitch for the real, the definable, the touchable, the things that could be seen. She stared at him, those gold eyes of hers sparkling teasingly. “Explain a remote control.”
“Like a radio, there are frequencies.”
“I can’t see a frequency, but I believe it exists,” Rowenna said.
“So you’re telling me ghosts absolutely exist, even if we can’t see them?”
“I’m not saying anything is absolute, but take the case of the MacDonald twins….” She went on to describe a brother, injured in the Middle East, who somehow not only told his identical twin he’d been injured but also raised a welt on his brother’s stomach in the same place where he’d been hit by shrapnel.