The Astral Read online

  She seemed to be swimming in a cloud of light, oddly like that other light, drifting upward, upward, ever upward. The room faded, even Jack had become only a multitude of sensations permeating her being, lifting her higher, filling her with rapture until she thought she must burst and then....

  And then she did, bursting into the light that exploded within her.

  * * * *

  Jack found himself humming an aria from Tosca in the shower. He turned off the water and stepped out of the stall. Catherine’s damp towel hung neatly on the towel bar. Next time he’d suggest a shower à deux. He caught a glimpse of his grinning image in the bathroom mirror. All men happily in love must look like idiots, he thought, toweling himself briskly.

  In the bedroom, Catherine stretched lazily, enjoying the feeling of happy satiation so long absent in her life. Absent—what was the point of kidding herself—since the last time she had been with Jack. She had only known one other man in that sense, and what had happened between her and Walter, so long ago and even then so rarely, had been so disappointingly different as to be a another experience all together.

  She opened a closet door, looking for something more comfortable than her jeans and sweater, found a worn blue bathroom, and put it on.

  Jack came in naked from the bathroom. He took her in his arms again, holding her close and kissing her tenderly. “I have something to ask you.”

  “No one but Walter. And not for years with him,” she said.

  He laughed, but she could see he liked that answer. “That wasn’t the question, though. The question is, will you marry me?”

  It was her turn to be surprised. “Really, you are the old fashioned sort, aren’t you? You know, darling, today you don’t have to marry the girl just because you slept with her.”

  “But I do. I do have to marry you. I’ve wanted that since the first day I laid eyes on you and nothing has changed since then, except that I have wasted far too many years without you in my life. It’s what you were saying earlier: I don’t want to waste any more of them either.”

  She shook her head and his heart sank. “You can’t turn me down, Catherine. Say yes. You have to say yes.”

  “Yes,” she said, and brought the grin back to his face. “But I suppose you have heard of something called bigamy?”

  “As soon as you are free. The very moment the divorce is final. Although to tell the truth, I’d marry you today, tonight, and to hell with the consequences.”

  She hugged him tightly. “I don’t think we need be that extreme. But marriage license or no, from this day forward, I am yours, I am your wife.”

  The bathrobe formed a blue puddle on the floor and they fell across the bed. This time, they made love more gently, more slowly, savoring each second, the almost mystical merging of not just their bodies but their very beings as well.

  Later, wrapped in his warm embrace, she slept—and dreamed of evil, a blackness descending upon her like a cloud, enveloping her, taking the breath, the very life out of her.

  She woke with a cry, sitting bolt upright in the bed. Instantly Jack sat up too, taking her in his arms. She clung to him, sobbing against his broad chest, struggling to get her heart to beat at its normal rate. He held her tightly, felt her shuddering in his arms, and murmured wordless sounds against her hair.

  Finally, the sobs stopped, her breathing slowed. “Better?” he asked.

  She sighed deeply. “Thanks. I’m sorry I woke you.”

  “Any excuse to hold you in my arms.” He drew back slightly and looked down at her. “If that was a bad dream, it must have been a lulu.”

  She met his worried gaze and managed a tremulous smile. “There’s something I have to tell you,” she said.

  “Something bad?”

  She nodded. “It’s quite a story, I’m afraid.”

  It took her several minutes to marshal her thoughts. He waited patiently. Finally, she said, “This is going to sound so bizarre.”

  She started with the tunnel of light when she had been shot, told him of the incidents in which she had seemed to travel to other locations, and ended with her experience with little Debbie and her mother in the shopping mall. He listened without interruption, heard her through to the end.

  “Do you think I’m crazy?” she asked when she had finished her story. She tilted her head up to look into his face.

  “No,” he said firmly. “The story is crazy, I’ll admit that. But I have one good reason to believe you. No, make that two, the first one being that I know you are not given to making up stories. You’ve always been too honest for your own good, as I see it.”

  “And the other reason?”

  “I saw you. In my office, that day when you, what did you call it, traveled to see me. Just for a second. I thought I was going crazy, but I came in and there you were, only I could look right through you, and I blinked and you were gone.” He paused thoughtfully. “And next thing I knew, I was sitting by you at a concert.” He grinned suddenly and snapped his fingers. “You little devil, that wasn’t a coincidence at all, was it?”

  She smiled sheepishly. “All’s fair in love and war, so they say.” She grew quickly serious again. “Jack, there’s something more. Just now, when I woke up so frightened—something like that happened to me in my office as well. I think that this man, Yellow Beard, is stalking me. I don’t mean physically, I mean, on an astral level.”

  “Catherine, Of course, you’re frightened,” he said patiently. “Why wouldn’t you be, after everything that’s happened? But the two of you, sharing the same unique gift, traveling back and forth to one another? That really does stretch the imagination. What just happened to you was a nightmare, plain and simple.”

  “Maybe you’re right,” she said after a moment. She had to admit that what he said made sense—and the idea of Yellow Beard stalking her on an astral level certainly didn’t. “But even so, that still leaves the big question: what am I to do? I can’t bear it. Sometimes at night, I hear them—Becky, those other children, crying. It frightens me, terrifies me, but I must find these men. I must stop them. Surely that was why I was given this gift. Surely I have been given a mission.”

  “Maybe you’ve just given that mission to yourself. Look, okay, I buy this business of your traveling—I have to, I’ve seen it for myself. But that doesn’t mean it’s now your job, to track these men down. That’s a job for professionals. And you aren’t, my darling, wonderful though you are.”

  She was disappointed that he did not believe her. At the same time, though, she could see the logic of his arguments. It was just that, she felt so sure inside herself that she was right. How could she expect anyone else to understand that, though? She didn’t understand it herself.

  “All right, setting that aside, and I’m not saying I agree with you, there’s still that, whatever you want to call it, that dream, that vision I had of Yellow Beard. You are willing to believe me, believe the astral travel business, anyway, and I am more grateful for that than you could imagine. But who else would? How could I go to Roby Chang and tell her about the changes in his appearance, without telling her I am seeing these men on an astral level?”

  He frowned. “That is the problem, isn’t it? How could she be expected to believe you?” He thought for a moment. “Maybe she wouldn’t have to hear that part of it.”

  “I don’t see how it could be avoided. If I say he’s changed his appearance, she’s going to ask me how I know that, isn’t she?”

  “She can’t if she doesn’t know who you are.”

  She gave him a puzzled look. “But how could I...?”

  “There is such a thing as an anonymous tip. And I am a newsman; meaning, my sources are protected.”

  She considered that for a moment, and nodded her head. “Yes. I think that might work.” She had been too close to the problem to see such an obvious solution. And what a relief, she was thinking, that she had decided to share the problem with him.

  “Tomorrow. I’ll call this Chang woman fi
rst thing.” Which would, he thought but did not say, neatly turn matters over to the professionals, where they belonged; and leave Catherine safely out of it. “For now, however, I have a far better idea.”

  One which, as it happened, she liked too.

  * * * *

  In a shabby cottage miles away, Lester Paterson sat up in bed, immediately awake, eyes staring into the darkness.

  He had seen them, two of them, going at it. The bitch, and a man with her. He knew the man, too, or thought he did. His face was familiar.

  Who were they? Was he a threat too, or just someone she’d gotten to bang her? Why did her face keep teasing him? Even now, he could see it just off at the edge of his mind.

  She had been crying when he had seen her before, that thought popped into his head. Someone he’d raped? There’d been a few of those over the years. If he wanted something, he took it, and to hell with what they did or didn’t want. And some criers among the ones that he hadn’t exactly raped, all that shit that women put on to make a man feel bad when he could tell they were loving it as much as he was. Hell, that was the whole point for a woman, wasn’t it, to make a man feel good?

  Nearby, Colley snored and farted, snored and farted. What a pig! Paterson got out of bed and padded naked into the kitchen to get a beer from the refrigerator.

  No, it hadn’t been sex with the woman, he was sure of that. A woman might slip his mind but his pecker never forgot.

  He thought briefly of the man. There’d been a few of them from time to time too. A hole was a hole as far as he was concerned. But, no he hadn’t fucked him either, he was sure of that too. He was familiar, though, he’d seen that face somewhere. Maybe a movie? He had one actor on the hook already, that little pansy O’Dell. Maybe a friend of his?

  He went into the living room and switched on the television, and a dark glow seemed to blossom from it and course through him as his hand touched the knob, like he had been sent a message. Only, he couldn’t read the message. It faded away from him as he tried to grab hold of it.

  What he needed was to track down that bitch, and find her he would. He didn’t know what was going on, but he knew she was bad for him, and what was bad for him had to be eliminated. He closed his eyes and called her image to mind. If he worked at it, he could almost be there wherever she was, like they were spirits together. If he could only figure out what was the bond between them.

  He had to kill her, of course. She was a threat to him, in some way he couldn’t define. There was something else, though, that nagged at him. He almost felt as if they were related, the two of them. They weren’t of course. He’d only had one sister, and she was dead. Still, it felt as if there were some thread—he didn’t know what other word to use—tying them to one another.

  Weird shit. Where had all this come from?

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Roby Chang took her files with her and walked down the corridor to the office of her superior, Special Agent in Charge, Harold King—The King, to his agents, though they did not call him that to his face.

  “He’s waiting for you,” The King’s secretary motioned her in. Chang went through into his office.

  King stood at the window with his back to her, surveying the traffic on the San Diego Freeway below. He heard the door and said, “Have a seat.”

  She took one of the hard wooden chairs facing his desk and waited while he took his own seat behind it and slipped a cigarette out of his pack. He put it between his lips but did not light it. The King had given up smoking a month ago. He had not yet given up the cigarettes, however. They had become a prop.

  “Fill me in. Any progress on the kiddie snatchings?” he asked, the cigarette bobbing in one corner of his mouth.

  She handed the files across to him. “Not much, sir. These seven appear to be the same perps. The descriptions we’ve gotten are vague, but they match pretty well with the Desmond case. The problem is, the kidnappings seem to be spontaneous events.”

  “Randoms,” he said resignedly.

  “Right. These appear to be crimes of opportunity—which means, unless a witness turns up, there’s almost nothing to go on. Probably they have the getaway vehicle strategically placed, near an exit. A pickup in the Desmond case, but a van works better. Once you’ve got the kid inside, he or she won’t be seen by any passers by. A van can become a prison on wheels.

  “Apparently, though, the vehicle is about all that’s set up in advance. As near as we can tell, they prowl around till they spot a kid momentarily separated from her parent, or maybe they create a distraction to separate them. It happens quickly. In a crowded mall, especially now, at Christmas time, when those places are pure bedlam, they can have a kid outside in a minute or two, and they’re gone practically before anyone even notices the kid’s missing.”

  “It’s gutsy, but the risk is greater too,” he said. “Dog jumps over the fence often enough, sooner or later he catches his balls on the barbed wire.”

  “Unfortunately, so far the barbed wire is clean,” she said. “The luck’s all been on their side. The closest was the Desmond thing, or we would know almost nothing, and that was only because they varied their m.o., snatched the kid out of the parking lot instead of in the mall.”

  “Any thoughts on that?” he asked.

  She screwed up her face. “I doubt it was significant.”

  “Don’t tell me any of your doubts, I’ve got enough doubts of my own. Tell me something you believe.”

  “I believe it was still a crime of opportunity, just the opportunity occurred in a different spot.”

  He gave a weary sigh. “And no leads since then?”

  “We know that they have used at least a couple of the kids to produce movies and photographs. We’ve identified them in those pictures there.” She indicated a small stack of photos.

  He picked them up and leafed through them, grimacing in disgust. “Damn, I want these guys roasting on a spit.” He tapped the pictures with one finger. “Okay, what about this end of it? The pigs feeding at the trough?”

  “We’ve put the heat on there too. We’ve picked up a few customers, got lucky at a newsstand in Hollywood. And we’ve got a couple of suppliers staked out. should get busts in a few days. But so far no one has led us to these guys. There is one thing though.” She waited for him to give her a go-ahead nod. “We got a tip one of the men has changed his appearance, rather drastically, we’re told. I had Philips work on the earlier drawings.”

  She passed a pair of drawings across the desk. “This is the original, and this is what Philips did with it, based on the tip we got. The mole is gone, the nose is changed, maybe the chin, too. Plastic surgery, sounds like. We’re checking around with clinics and hospitals. We may get something there, but more likely this was some fly-by-night operation. This guy wouldn’t go to Cedars of Lebanon for a lift.”

  King studied the drawings intently. “Makes a big difference.” He looked across at her again. “Let me guess: the tip was anonymous?”

  She nodded. King was known for pursuing tipsters with nearly the same fervor that he pursued the criminals themselves. “They’re almost always dipping out of the same pot. Find the tipster, you find the perp,” was a mantra of his.

  “How’d we get it?”

  “From a newsman. Jack McKenzie, he does pol-op on Channel Three. We’ve checked him out. He’s as clean as a whistle, not even a speeding ticket. Well-respected, impeccable credentials. I’d bet my retirement fund that he has nothing to do with the snatches.”

  King knew his agent, had worked with her on many cases and considered her the best of the best when it came to crimes against children. He watched her face intently and saw the smile that didn’t quite make it to her lips. He leaned forward on his elbows, cigarette bobbing energetically. “Go on,” he said. “You’ve got that look.”

  “That look, sir?”

  “Like you just swallowed a five-pound canary. There’s something you haven’t told me.”

  She allowed herself just
the hint of a smile. “It’s not much.”

  “The doctor said that about my dick when I was born, but he underestimated. Let’s have it.”

  “Well, a long time back, this McKenzie had a thing going with Catherine Desmond. Catherine Dodd, she was then.”

  He pursed his lips thoughtfully. “As in the little Desmond girl?”

  “The same.”

  He leaned back in his chair. It gave a creak, like a sigh of relief. His cigarette went still.

  “Of course, it could be coincidence,” she said

  He smiled wryly. “I want to know how he got this information. For all we know, he saw it in a dream. You’ll let me know when you find the link with Desmond.” He made it a statement and not a question.

  “Yes, sir.” She nodded. She agreed with him. There was a link to be found, she was sure of it, and she would find it. She had already placed Jack McKenzie under surveillance. If there were anything going on between him and Catherine Desmond, and she was willing to be money on it, she would know about it soon.

  * * * *

  Time had weighed so heavily on her since she came home from the hospital, and now it rushed past at breakneck speed.

  Each day seemed crowded, yet when Catherine looked back on them as she lay in the shelter of Jack’s embrace at night, she could not see any of those momentous events by which one normally marked the calendar of one’s life. Unless you counted her call to her attorney to begin the divorce proceedings, and one to Walter to tell him. If he felt any dismay, he kept it carefully under control.

  “Whatever he needs me to sign,” he said. “Have him give me a call.”

  She and Jack spent every spare moment with one another. They listened to Christmas carols while they trimmed her tree. They jogged together in Beverly Gardens, the long, narrow park that ran through Beverly Hills, an activity for which he had an evident and, to her, mysterious affection; and, more to her liking, strolled hand in hand on the beach at Santa Monica. They held hands in a rundown theater on the West side and marveled at Greta Garbo, never more beautiful, in Camille; and made love each night, often more than once a night.