Eye of Flame (8 page)

Jacqueline’s neck prickled. “But he couldn’t—”

“He’s in love with me; he told me so. I drove over to Louise’s to get this settled, but she wouldn’t let me in. I stopped at Patti’s on the way back.”

“It’s impossible,” Jacqueline said. “Listen, Tad hasn’t just been seeing you and Louise; he’s been seeing Patti, too. She told me so herself. She might even be with Tad now.”

“She must have been lying!” Dena’s hands clawed at the air; she shivered, then folded her arms. “He was with me only this morning; he’s been with me nearly every day. Maybe he made it with Louise, but not Patti. He wouldn’t have had the strength. He couldn’t have found the time.”

“Why would Patti lie?” Jacqueline took a painful breath. Tad must have nursed a grudge for years, and now he was having his revenge; she thought of the effort he must have put into preparing to hurt them. “Dena, listen to me. He’s playing some sort of sadistic game. Go back to your millionaire and forget him.”

Dena reached up and removed her hat. Jacqueline started, too shocked to speak. Dena’s hair was nearly completely white; her face had grown so wrinkled, she was barely recognizable. “Do you think Sadegh would have anything to do with me now? I haven’t worked for nearly a week; I don’t want anyone to see me like this.” She put on the hat and adjusted the veil. “But Tad doesn’t even seem to see it; he says it’s an illusion. And when I’m with him, I don’t feel achy and old—I feel the way I was. He’s like a drug—I don’t care about anything else when I’m with him. He says he wants to take me somewhere else, that he’ll never leave me, that—”

Jacqueline clutched at Dena’s hand. “You don’t know everything,” she said forcefully. “Tad’s been seeing me, too.” A harsh laugh escaped her. “Don’t ask me how he could do it; he’d hardly have time to sleep. He told me the same thing he told you—that he loves me.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Joe told me about Patti; he said she looked old and sick. Look at yourself; look at me. This didn’t start until after we—” Her throat locked for a moment. “He must have infected us somehow. I looked worse a few days ago. That’s when I told Tad I wouldn’t see him anymore. Maybe it wears off if you don’t—”

Dena pulled her hand away.

“You’ve got to listen,” Jacqueline continued. “I talked to Tad’s mother. She doesn’t even know he’s alive. He disappeared a while back, and she thinks he’s dead.” Her hands shook; she clasped them together. “I read a nutty article once about AIDS being some sort of conspiracy, a plot to infect the world or an experiment in germ warfare that went wrong. I thought it was ridiculous, but now I’m not so sure. Maybe Tad’s involved in something like that, and now he’s found the perfect subjects.”

“Never.”

“Is it any crazier than what you told me?” Jacqueline stretched out an arm. She no longer ached; the spots on the backs of her hands were gone. “It might not be permanent. We’ve got to warn Louise and find Patti, then look for help.”

Dena stood up slowly. “You’re pathetic. Why should I listen to you? Tad loves me, he wouldn’t do anything to hurt me, and I believe him. You just want to have him yourself. You’re just like you were, ready to take our castoffs, the guys that would settle for you if they couldn’t have one of us. You’d make up any story to get him away from me. He’s everything I ever wanted. I won’t give him up.” She stepped around Jacqueline and walked toward the door. “I have to get home; he’ll be waiting.”

“Dena!”

The other woman walked into the hall, then slammed the door.

She had Louise’s address and a map; her house was only ten miles away. Jacqueline drove up and down hills, squinting through the evening light at the houses she passed until she found Louise’s street.

Her Tudor house stood at the end of a cul-de-sac. An ambulance was parked in the driveway, under a tree; a few people had gathered in the street. On the small front lawn, three men in white were kneeling over a stretcher.

Jacqueline braked, then got out of the car as a young man walked toward her. “You a friend of Louise’s?” he asked. She nodded. “She isn’t home.” He gestured toward the stretcher. “A neighbor saw someone come out of the house and collapse on the lawn, so he went to check and then called the ambulance. Turns out this old woman was carrying a purse of Louise’s, with all her cards and ID. Senior citizen burglar, I guess.” The man shrugged. “Louise’ll sure be surprised.”

Jacqueline walked toward the lawn. Two of the orderlies lifted the stretcher and carried it toward the ambulance. She caught a glimpse of the woman’s white hair, then recognized the blue silk shirt; Louise had worn that shirt the night they had all spoken to Tad from the terrace. The third orderly stopped in front of her. “Do you know the woman who lives here?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“I put her purse back inside. The police’ll be here soon, but it doesn’t look like there’ll ever be a trial. The thief’s practically flat already.” He disappeared inside the ambulance; she stepped aside as it backed out of the driveway and sped down the street.

The young man came to her side. “If you want to wait for Louise—” he started to say.

She spun around and ran toward her car.

“I thought you’d want to know,” Joe said over the telephone. “We found Patti. Her car was outside a motel. She looked a lot worse; we took her to the hospital. She kept talking about some guy; said he’d come for her, that I couldn’t take her away from him.” His voice broke.

“I have to see her,” Jacqueline said.

“It’s no use. She had a stroke in the hospital. They’ve got her in intensive care. The doctors don’t think she’s going to make it; they can’t even tell how this happened.” She heard a sob.

“Is there anything I can do?” she whispered.

“I’ve got a couple of friends here in the hospital with me. You could call Dena and Louise. They might want to know.”

She squeezed her eyes shut.

“I called Patti’s mother,” he went on. “She said she’d tell your mother. She’s going to fly out as soon as she can.” A sigh rasped in her ear.

“Maybe I should leave,” she said quickly. That sounded heartless. “I mean, if there’s nothing I can do. My mother might want me to come home. Patti’s almost like another daughter to her instead of just a niece.”

“You can leave the keys there, I have a set. Same with the car keys. There’s no reason for you to stay unless Dena or Louise want you to. We may be taking Patti back East if she—” Joe groaned. “Oh God, she’s really dying. I’m already—”

“Joe,” she said helplessly.

“I’ve got to go.”

“If you need me for anything before I leave—”

“Yeah, I know.”

The receiver clicked. She could not stay; she knew what was waiting for her if she did. She walked toward the terrace and opened the sliding door.

The street below was quiet; she could hear the distant roar of the sea. Tad was waiting, his hands inside the pockets of his jacket; his hair shone in the morning light. He lifted his head as she leaned against the railing.

“Jackie.”

She closed her eyes so that she would not have to look at him. “I don’t know what you are,” she said. “I don’t know how you did what you did, but it’s not going to happen to me.”

“Jackie—”

She turned away and went back inside.

She dialed Jerome’s office. The telephone rang twice before he picked it up. “Hello.”

“Jerry, it’s Jackie. I tried to call before.”

“Well, you know how it is. That seminar, and all the department politics—”

“I’m coming home tomorrow,” she said. “My flight should be in around five o’clock your time. I’ll take a cab if you can’t pick me up.”

“Sounds as if California wasn’t what you expected.”

She swallowed, wondering how she could tell him what had happened. “Patti’s sick,” she said. “Joe’s worried about her, and there’s nothing I can do for her, and he thought—” She would have to try to explain it all when she was home. “The airline told me I couldn’t use my return ticket, the super-saver, so I’ll have to pay full fare, but—”

“Then maybe you should stay.”

“I can’t. I’ll explain it when I’m there. Don’t you miss me?” She heard the desperate whine in her voice as she spoke. “I need you now; you don’t know how much.”

“I didn’t want to tell you this yet,” he responded. “I thought I’d have more time to think it over, to work it out alone before you got back. I think—I need some space, Jackie. I’m thinking of moving out, at least for a while, until I can decide—”

She gripped the receiver. “There’s someone else, isn’t there?” He did not reply. “You wouldn’t be leaving if you didn’t have someone else lined up.”

“It isn’t just that.” He was admitting that her guess had been right. “We’ve been in a rut; you know that. It’s as if we’ve just been going through the motions. I kept feeling that my life was over. I thought maybe you felt the same way, that it was why you needed to get away for a while.”

“I see,” she said bitterly. “Who is she? That grad student you’ve been advising, or that Milton specialist the department hired so you’d all have a babe to ogle between classes?” She thought of Tad and the accusations Jerome could hurl at her. “You don’t know … Patti’s really sick; she may—”

“Jackie, this isn’t the time. I’ve got a class in a few minutes. We can talk it all over when you get back. I don’t want to be unfair to you, but it’s not as though we made a final commitment or anything. It isn’t fair to you to let you hang on just because I couldn’t bring myself to make the break.”

“I know,” she muttered. “No strings. I’ll take a cab. I trust you’ll have the grace to get her out of the apartment before I get back.” She slammed down the receiver.

Her life would never be more than it was, than it had been; that thought stabbed into her brain with the sharpness of a weapon. She could struggle to transcend the impermanence of this world only to lose that battle in the end. She seemed to sense the world dissolving around her, leaving only a mind impaled on despair.

The shuttle bus was to pick her up in front of the building. Jacqueline glanced at her watch as she waited on the sidewalk. The bright sunlight hurt her eyes; she squinted as she glanced toward the Strand.

She had escaped Tad; he had lost his power over her. It might have been easier to leave had there been someone to return to, but she had lived alone before; she wondered if, after Tad, she could ever be satisfied with another man. It didn’t matter. She still had her work; she could lose herself in it, become the scholar she had pretended to be. She had learned for herself how fleeting physical pleasures were without having to consult Plato’s writings; the fate of her cousin and friends had demonstrated that all too vividly.

She had called her mother, had promised to drive down to see her; she had left a message on Joe’s machine. Her eyelids felt gritty; she had not slept well. Her old nightmare had returned the night before, the one in which she was alone, abandoned, her body aged and riddled with illness.

A jogger was running along the Strand, racing in the futile battle to preserve his youth. She thought of Tad and how alive she had felt with him. A shadow suddenly appeared near her feet; she had not heard anyone approach. She looked up.

“Jackie.” Tad touched her arm gently. “You can’t leave me now.”

She wanted to run. The street was silent; no one was near. If she called for help, nobody would hear her.

“You’ve had your revenge,” she said. “You’ve more than evened the score with the others, but you’re not going to get me.

“Is that what you think? I’m past that. What I told you is true—I want you with me forever.”

She turned toward him. For a moment his features were blurred; she seemed to see the boy she had known. He smiled, showing his even white teeth. “I have Louise,” he said. “Patti and Dena will be with me soon. You’re the only one left, the one who means the most to me. I can’t let you go.”

“What are you?” she whispered.

“You know. I was in that realm of eternal truth, of forms, of mathematical possibilities. I passed through the barrier, apprehended that world fully at last. Other souls are trapped there for a time and forget that world when they’re reborn into this one again, but I was able to become what I am now. I was able to step through the barrier again and keep the knowledge of the truth I saw there. Time and space no longer exist for me. I can step from here to another time and place as easily as you would step from this curb. I’ve run you on fast forward, to age you past death. I’ve demonstrated the reality that lies out here, the change, decay, and death that await all physical things.”

“No,” she said.

“You drew me here, Jackie. You glimpsed that other world, however dimly, but this one still held you. Part of your soul called to me, and I reached out.”

“No.”

“What do you have now? This is all an illusion, nothing but shadows inside a cave. You can come with me now, or you can live out this illusion, but I’ll still be waiting for you when it’s past. Give it up. You’ll never have to return to it again. I’ll always be with you.”

She was still, unable to move. He picked up her bags, carried them into the lobby, then closed the door as he came outside.

He held out his hand as he moved closer to her. “Come with me,” he said. Love and gentleness were in his eyes, but his voice was hard, promising an eternity bound by his will. “This body’s already weaker—you have to cast it off. Come.”