The Skull Ring (26 page)

"Anything new on your Satanic murder theory?" she asked.

"Nope. Got an interview with Snead this morning. The editor's going to love me for this one."

If she loves you half as much as you love yourself, that would be a romance for the ages.
"Good luck. Well, I've got work to do. As usual."

"We've got days until deadline." He moved closer to her, looming. "What's your hurry?"

Julia nervously eyed the corners of her small office. Her heart was beating fast, the panic creeping in on a black tide.

"Hey, is something the matter?" Rick set his coffee on her desk, stepped back, and held his palms up, his expression as innocent as a teddy bear's.

Julia put her elbow on her desk and propped up her head with one hand. "Just tired, is all."

"Well, I was going to ask you if you wanted to go out tonight with some of my friends, but I guess not. He owns you."

Julia spun in her chair, tried to rise but her knees were weak. She gasped a couple of times, fought some air into her lungs, and whispered, "What did you say?"

"Jeez, what's wrong with you, Julia?" he said.

"You said 'He owns you.'"

His eyebrows lifted. "I didn't say anything of the kind."

Julia's pulse machine-gunned through her veins, her throat constricted.

"You ought to go home and get some rest," Rick said, taking a step back. "You don't look so hot."

Julia pulled a water bottle from her purse and took a couple of swallows. Her hands trembled so much that the water sloshed inside the plastic container. She was ashamed to have Rick see her this way. "I think I'm catching a little bit of the flu."

Rick edged closer to the door. "I'd go see a doctor if I were you."

"I am," she said. "Ten o'clock."

"Well, don't die or anything before then," Rick said, glancing at two graphic artists passing in the hall as if they might provide emergency medical assistance, or at least provide cover for his escape.

"I'll be fine," she said. "I just want to get a little work done before then."

"Yeah," Rick said, avoiding her eyes. "Well, I've got to get ready for my interview."

"Bye," she said, but he was already gone. Julia looked into her open purse. The box waited under her wallet, key chain, and tissues. Her fingers itched to touch it, though the memory of its strange electricity still haunted her.

She reached in, dug toward the bottom of the purse until she felt the wooden box. Her fingers explored the etched emblem. She thumbed the lid free and rooted in the cloth. She touched the cold metal and pulled the ring free of the purse.

Julia held the ring between the thumb and forefinger of her right hand. Again it seemed to guide itself toward her left hand as if possessing a gravity of its own. Then the ring was on her finger, its heat expanding through her in orange radiant waves. Words popped into her head, spoken in the guttural voice of a madman: "With this ring, I thee wed."

She wrestled the ring free and flung it into her purse. Her ears rang as the blood rushed from her head. She bent over, fighting a surge of nausea. The walls closed in, as sinister as the sides of a living coffin.

Breathe, Julia.

Count.

Just the way Dr. Forrest taught you.

She started, concentrating on each number, picturing the numerals as crystal clear shapes, and their edges softened as she mentally melted them. Ten was the tough one, because it fought and squirmed, wanted to slip away before she could pin it down. Nine came and went a little more slowly. By the count of eight, she thought she could breathe again. Seven, six, and she would survive.

Five, and she could open her eyes, focusing only on the deep cleansing breath and the exhalation that carried away the fear. Four, three, now more slowly, two, and she almost yawned. Then
one
, the end, relaxation, an effective enough self-hypnosis that she could clearly think about the things Dr. Forrest had advised.

Bring it out. Let the pain surface. Face the nightmares. Don't surrender.

But maybe surrender was better. She could crawl into the cellar of her head, put her hands over her eyes, and wait.

Wait for what?

For Daddy to come out of the shadows, in his hooded robe and wearing his skull ring, the knife cold and cruel in his hand?

She shuddered herself back to the present and found herself gazing at the blank screen of her computer. She flipped on the power and the screen burst into brightness. The computer ran through its loading commands and the screen saver came up, a field of deep red.

In the middle, in letters as white as corpses:

He owns you, Jooolia.

She jabbed the computer's power switch with her index finger, half expecting a tremendous bolt of electricity to leap from the machine. She grabbed her purse and hurried into the hall, nearly knocking down an advertising rep. The rep called after her, but she staggered from the building into the gray morning. The parking lot was like water, something to be waded through.

If only I can make it to Dr. Forrest's.

She struggled into the Subaru and drove to the therapist's office without running off the road, though several drivers honked at her. An Elkwood police patrol car was parked by the office door, gleaming even though the sun was veiled. The secretary ushered Julia through, telling her that the doctor was expecting her. Julia glanced at her watch and saw that it was only a few minutes after nine.

She knocked on Dr. Forrest's door.

"Come in, Julia," came the therapist's muffled voice.

Julia entered to see Dr. Forrest standing beside the window with a tall, thin man who smiled at her. In a tweed jacket and wearing no sidearm, he could have passed for an English professor. His face was creased from age, but his dark hair had only the slightest touch of gray. The cop's eyes were cold and dark.

Dr. Forrest said, "Julia, this is Chief T.L. Snead."

Snead.

Julia swayed as if the floor had been yanked from underneath her. She recognized him now, an aged version of the cop in the old newspaper photographs.

This was Snead, the man she had built into a monster in her own mind. Here she was, face to face with the man who she believed might have covered up Satanic murders, who had failed to solve her father's disappearance, who had tracked her from Memphis to this small Blue Ridge town.

Snead extended his hand in greeting, and she saw that the tip of his pinkie was missing, the stump healed to red scar tissue. She backed away.

"So you're Julia," Snead said, with no hint of emotion. "I always wondered what kind of woman you would grow into."

"What are you doing here?"

"I decided to take over this case myself," Snead said. "Invasion of privacy is such a terrible offense, as I'm sure you know firsthand. I want to make sure the right person is convicted."

Julia's anger momentarily overwhelmed her fear and confusion. "What do you mean, the right person? They arrested that guy last night. You have statements from both Walter Triplett and me."

"The suspect tells a different story. He says Mr. Triplett was the one who was inside your house."

"And you
believe
him?" Julia looked to Dr. Forrest for help, but the therapist crossed her arms and said nothing. “That Creep said he was hired to steal my engagement ring and harass me.”

"Allegedly. But Mr. Triplett has some—shall we say,
suspicions
—surrounding him. We need to investigate the matter more thoroughly."

"Then why didn't anyone from your department dust for fingerprints?"

Snead gave a smile. His lips looked like a reptile's that had just swallowed a satisfying bug might. "How do you know we didn't? Your house is a busy place."

"Somebody was at my window again last night. Right after I talked to you on the phone, Dr. Forrest."

The doctor frowned. "Julia, you probably imagined it. You know that paranoia is one of the side effects of non-specific panic disorder."

"No. It happened. He said, 'He owns you.'"

Snead and Dr. Forrest glanced at each other. Then Snead said, "Do you have any evidence?"

"Maybe you could go check for footprints or something. I don't know. It's not like I had a video camera running."

"Why are you so afraid, Julia?" Snead said.

She stared at the beige swirls in the carpet. She remembered something James Whitmore had told her in Memphis, how cops never forgot the cases they hadn't solved. "How come you followed me from Memphis?"

"I didn't follow you," Snead said. "I was here already."

Before her? Then he must have kept track of her whereabouts. Did Elkwood have some connection to her father's disappearance? Even though Dr. Forrest had convinced Julia that her father was a terrible and abusive man, she would love to have that riddle of the past resolved. But Snead's interest in her was a more enigmatic riddle.

"I'm a friend of Dr. Forrest," Snead continued. "We grew up together. And I've had several conversations with both her and your therapist in Memphis, Dr. Danner. I thought getting some insight about you might help me solve your father's disappearance. Plus, I was curious about how the tragedy affected you."

"I thought doctor-patient information was confidential." She looked accusingly at Dr. Forrest. The older woman touched her abdomen as if to remind Julia of the pentagram that had been carved into her flesh.

"A doctor can share a diagnosis, Julia," said Dr. Forrest. "What we can't do is give transcriptions or relate specific incidents or confessions that emerge from therapy."

That didn't sound like anything Julia had ever heard, though most of her legal knowledge came from reruns of
Law & Order
.

"Why don't you make yourself comfortable?" said the doctor. She crossed behind Julia and closed the office door. Snead waited by the window at parade rest. Julia took her usual chair, her purse in her lap.

Dr. Forrest returned and sat in her own session chair. "Now, Julia, what brings you here this morning?"

Julia gripped the arms of the chair. "You
told
me to come in."

The therapist's face saddened, and the wrinkles around her mouth deepened. "Julia, Julia. That's not the way to healing. You can lie to me all you want, and that doesn't matter. What matters is that you're lying to yourself."

"You called me in the middle of the night," Julia said. "Remember?"

"You imagined it, just as you imagined the person at your window."

Julia squeezed her purse, the leather moistened by her sweaty palms. Even sitting, she was as dizzy as if riding on a mad magic carpet.

"Okay, let's assume you're not making it up," Dr. Forrest said. "What did you think this person at the window said?"

"'He owns you,'" Julia managed to whisper.

"'He owns you.' And what do you think this means, Julia?" The doctor tented her fingers, her legs crossed. Snead looked on as if Julia were a white rat ready for another run at a familiar maze. Why didn't Dr. Forrest make him leave?

"I don't know what it means."

"I'll tell you, then. That was your subconscious mind telling you that you're still letting the sins of your father control your life. You're still a slave to the past. But the fact that you're ready to hear the message is a good sign, whether it came in a dream or not."

"I don't want to hear any message," Julia said. "And I don't want to talk about this in front of
him
." Julia avoided Snead's eyes.

"You trust me, don't you?" said Dr. Forrest.

"Well, yes."

"Then you know I'm doing what's best for you."

Julia pressed back in her chair. "I . . . I'm not sure about anything anymore."

Dr. Forrest leaned forward and touched Julia on the knee. She rubbed it lightly. "The memory's in the meat, Julia. Cellular memory. Just let it escape. Breathe."

No. Dr. Forrest wouldn't try to hypnotize her here, not in front of Snead. Julia didn't want to go back to that dark, bad place anymore. She was tired of the pain, anger, and the sick feeling in her belly, that emptiness that only grew with each visit to the past.

She wasn't getting better. She wasn't moving forward. If anything, she was getting closer to becoming the helpless four-year-old again. She closed her eyes and tried to ignore Dr. Forrest's soft, lulling voice. She sought a connection with something larger, a Higher Power she’d always denied. But the woman was too much a part of Julia, had opened the doors to the house of her head, stood always in the halls, calling.

"You know who did it, don't you? You know who the bad man really is. What did he do, Julia? Tell us what he did."

Julia shook her head and moaned, trying to shove away the memories that threatened to surface. Her eyes were pressed so tightly closed that small tears seeped from the corners.

"Julia, you can trust us. We understand, more than anybody in the world. We know what it's like, how hard it is to accept the truth. How hard it is to accept the master."