“I heard strange things have happened here lately. They interest me.”
“Strange things?” Sarah’s brow drew together in a quizzical expression.
He smiled at her. Katie wondered if his expression ever changed.
“Lights in the sky. Have you seen them?”
“No.”
“Do you know anyone who has?”
“Who are you?” Katie didn’t like the questioning, his incessant smile, or his odd manner of talking. She thought of Jerome’s theories about Big Brother and government conspiracies. This man would fit neatly into that puzzle.
His gaze swept back, his eyes pale blue, almost colorless. “A visitor.”
“From where?” she persisted.
“No place nearby.” He rested his hands on the reception counter.
His fingers were unnaturally long, the last digit of each slightly fatter than the rest. Bulbous. She’d seen fingers like that before. An ache bloomed against her temple as she dug through her memories.
Somewhere in the past. Somewhere long ago…a blond-haired man with black eyes. Someone who’d stepped into her world when tragedy struck.
The night the Silver Bridge collapsed.
“Have you been here before?” she blurted.
The man shuffled back a step, his face frozen with that same insincere smile. Shock ballooned behind the mask, evident in the way his whipcord body tensed, his rounded fingers tucking into his palms. “I have troubled you long enough. If you talk to others, perhaps it is best they forget the lights they have seen.”
“Who are you?” Anger knifed through Katie as buried memories spilled forth in a burst of chaotic images. Not just the collapse of the Silver Bridge, but memories she’d suppressed even deeper.
Lying curled on the back seat of her mother’s car as Doreen Sue drove home on a dark November night. A blinding flash of light…her mother hitting the brakes, the car screeching to a halt on the side of the road.
Like Jerome. Just like Jerome.
Dear God, why hadn’t she remembered before? Her mother had dragged her along to visit a woman in Ravenswood. Madam something-or-other, who professed to be a psychic. Katie had sat on the couch with the woman’s cat, a skinny, gray tabby, while Madam and her mother conversed in hushed whispers in the dining room. Another effort on her mom’s part to divine how her future would unfold and if she’d ever meet a decent man.
Katie had fallen asleep on the way home, but the violent screech of the car had woken her. She remembered the light, her mother staring through the windshield in a daze, almost as if she’d been hypnotized. And then…
Nothing.
Nothing but drawing.
“Katie, are you all right?”
Sarah’s voice jarred her back to the present.
For the span of several heartbeats, her breathing hung suspended. “I…” Her hands had grown clammy. The man in black had left. Sarah stared at her anxiously, her face creased with worry.
“Yes, I…” With a deliberate tug to her shirt, Katie tried to recover. “That man reminded me of someone.” She glanced around the lobby, noticed the Cadillac had left too. “Where did he go?”
“He didn’t say. Just repeated something about telling others not to talk about the lights. Personally, I think the guy needs help.” Sarah twirled her finger in a circle next to her ear. “He sounds like Jerome, chasing after UFOs.”
“Yeah.” Katie managed a shaky laugh, but her stomach clenched. Maybe Jerome’s theories weren’t so far off base.
Something wasn’t right.
Uncertain if she should push for information, Doreen Sue nursed a cup of coffee while Katie busied around the kitchen, cleaning up after dinner. It had been nice of Katie to invite her to stay for the meal. When she’d tried to help with the dishes, her daughter had mumbled she was fine doing them alone.
Point taken.
In the living room, Sam occupied himself by watching TV and drawing, the occasional jingle from a commercial drifting to where she sat.
If only Katie would open up and talk, but she’d never been one to share. Withdrawn and serious, she held problems close and kept others at a distance. Doreen Sue had never liked the void in their relationship, but knew she was partially to blame for Katie’s remoteness. She might never win Mother of the Year, but she’d loved both daughters unconditionally from the day they were born. Now she only had one left.
“Do you want to talk about it?” She spoke to Katie’s back while the theme song for Bewitched floated from the living room.
Katie paused in the process of setting a plate in the drain board—a fraction of a second before continuing the motion. “About what?” She reached into the sink of soapy water for another plate.
Doreen Sue sighed. Wendy would have spilled her guts long before now. Katie would require prying, and even then she might not open up. A woman with a failed marriage, multiple problematic relationships, and a less-than-desirable reputation was hardly a woman to go to for advice. But what Katie didn’t realize was that hard living had taught Doreen Sue a thing or two about life. She understood people and could read them every bit as well as a psychiatrist or doctor with a string of initials behind their name. Maybe she didn’t have a college degree. Maybe she hadn’t even graduated high school, dropping out when she was sixteen, but she was a hell of a lot smarter than people gave her credit for. And right now she was fairly certain of the calamity that had Katie out of sorts. It didn’t matter what kind of woman you were; it always came back to a man.
“It’s Lyle, isn’t it? You’re worried about Sam.”
“Lyle?” Katie half-turned, dripping hands held over the sink. “Mom, Lyle gave up his rights to Sam before Sam was born. If he comes around here—” She stopped abruptly, clamping her mouth shut. “I don’t want to talk about this with Sam in the next room.”