Night Tides (11 page)

Save her
, the spirits had said. But how? Call the police? Warn the girl? Neither would believe her.

And there was another new feeling, something Rachel had never experienced from her prior visions. Somehow Rachel knew that this girl was important in the purest, most guileless way. She brought light and joy to those who knew her. She was a rarity, a
treasure
. Not like the other victims, who were just unfortunate.

But how could she know all this with such certainty? Had the lake spirits communicated with her on a new, deeper level? Or, more chillingly, had they begun to control her mind the way they did her body? If so, could she trust their beneficence?

Rachel moved toward shore, the water now impeding her steps. The waves pushed against her thighs, then her knees, and finally her shins. Their resistance mirrored her own. She hated the feeling of having no choice, of being something’s mere tool. If the lake spirits wanted the girl saved, why didn’t they do it themselves? They’d once saved Rachel, after all.

The vision stayed fresh in her mind even as she exited the lake. Something in it was familiar. The wall
behind
the girl reminded Rachel of somewhere she knew. Her brain was still fuzzy, but she knew it was something she should recognize.

The lake fully released her as she stepped onto dry land. She ran quickly into the bushes where she’d left her clothes. She pulled on her cutoffs and T-shirt and slipped her sockless feet into her old tennis shoes. The night was humid and warm, and the mosquitoes accosted her almost at once. Swatting at them, she climbed the hill into the park and turned toward home but stopped when she reached the sidewalk.

There had been no chance to help the girl pinned in the flashlight beam, who she now knew was Carrie Kimmell. She’d made certain that people knew about it and left it to the professionals after that. But there
was
time before this girl started screaming. Rachel had the opportunity, if not the responsibility, to do something.

She clenched her fists. She was physically exhausted and emotionally ragged, neither of which encouraged heroic busybodying. She smelled like the lake and wore only enough clothing to be legal. Wherever the girl had been—no, wherever she
was
—it was indoors, lit with soft lamps and sporting artwork on the walls. A damp and bedraggled Rachel certainly wouldn’t fit in. She wanted only to go home, bathe, and sleep.

But those eyes. And that scream. And the sense that only she, Rachel Matre, could save this sweet girl, this
treasure
.

She turned to the lake. It reflected the cloudy sky now and looked like some huge, dark bruise on the surface of the earth. “You sons of bitches,” she hissed. “I do enough for you. I don’t
deserve this.”
But, as always, there was no reply.

She ran a hand roughly through her wet, tangled curls as she searched her memory. Where
was
the girl now? A local art gallery? One wouldn’t be open this late. What would? A bar, a restaurant, a coffeehouse—

A
coffeehouse
.

Suddenly she knew where to find the girl. And with that knowledge came the certainty that she would
have
to. If she didn’t at least try, she’d never be able to live with herself.

She ran, not toward home but toward the crowded nighttime chaos of downtown Williams Street.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

F
ATHER
T
HYME’S
was a tiny coffeehouse, one of a half dozen within ten blocks on the isthmus. It occupied a freestanding brick building with big glass windows along the front. Early in its existence, the owners reached a truce with the graffiti artists who ransacked the neighborhood and initiated a creative, occasionally controversial solution: The flat, windowless side wall could be painted by anyone, at any time, as long as it was neither libelous nor obscene. The current mural depicted the President, seated on a throne made of human skulls, all of which had dollar signs in their eye sockets and vomited black oil from their grinning mouths. Fresh gang tags already obscured bits of it.

Inside, the walls also sported art, of the overpriced kind. The regular clientele spent most of its time reading, tapping on laptops, or murmuring along with iPods. The floor rose slightly in the corner by the front window, providing a small stage for solo musicians. No real amplification was needed, so it was a popular venue for performers just starting out, usually folkies from the college.

As Rachel reached her decision on the sidewalk by the lake, the girl from the vision sat onstage, fine-tuning her acoustic guitar. And the eyes that would soon see her scream watched with hungry determination.

T
HE HEART OF
Williams Street, several blocks from both the diner and the lake, ran through the last true bohemian neighborhood on the isthmus, where gentrification like Ethan’s condo project met with resistance at every turn. Blocks of old houses divided into apartments ran from Williams down to the lakeshore, and the establishments serving such a community—bars, restaurants, coffeehouses, and the small shops catering to more-specialized clientele—made “Willie Street” a place where people hung out twenty-four hours a day. Students, hippies, and nonconformists of all stripes called the area their own. Unfortunately, at this time of night many of those people were close to that line dividing “colorful” from “dangerous.”

Because she ran regularly, Rachel made good time jogging from Hudson Park. She was already damp from her swim, and the fresh sweat actually felt good, although the combined odor was pretty overpowering. Her muscles, a bit shaky after her erotic encounter, quickly fell into their old patterns. She wished she’d worn something tighter or more supportive to keep her from bouncing so blatantly, but home was in the other direction and the urgency too overwhelming.

The clock on the Anchor Bank building told her it was 11:15. Time never seemed to run normally while she was with the lake. What seemed like a marathon love-making session could pass in only a few minutes. There was still traffic even at this hour, so she stopped at the corner in front of the bank and waited for the crossing signal. Hands on her hips, she paced in a tight circle, taking deep, regular breaths.

Astoundingly, another jogger emerged from the darkness across the street, dashed through the traffic, and stood bouncing in place beside her. “Hi,” he said. His voice trembled with his movement. “Don’t think I’ve seen you around here before.”

“I could say the same,” she said.

He smiled with shy, blatant interest. He looked barely twenty-five. His hair was dyed jet black with lighter tips. He had huge hoop modifiers in his earlobes, and the edges of an elaborate tattoo peeked from his collar and sleeves. “My name’s Ace. Well, that’s what they call me.”

“Better than Two of Clubs,” Rachel said.

Still bouncing, Ace laughed. “You’re funny.”

“And you’re cute,” she said gently. “But when I run, I only run.”

“We can run together, then. Bad neighborhood for a pretty girl to be out alone.”

“Are you trying to
scare
me into liking you?”

He looked confused. “No, that’s not what I meant, just—”

“Ace, really, I’m not up for socializing. Maybe some other night, okay?” The crossing light finally changed, and she took off again.

He bounced in place, watching her for a moment, then called out, “Sure thing!” before heading off in the opposite direction.

“Bar time,” when places serving alcohol closed their doors, was two-thirty, so the partyers were still indoors, leaving the street mostly deserted. Rachel ran past a few people, including two muscular young men who drunkenly insisted she belonged on her knees in front of them. Amazingly, she heard a third male voice defend her, saying, “Man, you guys are
assholes.”
That made her smile.

When she got within sight of Father Thyme’s, she stopped in front of a darkened store that sold hemp-related products. She leaned against the wall and stretched her hamstrings, looking over her destination. From within, light glowed through the front window, which was misted a little from the air-conditioning. Someone was onstage, seated on a stool with a guitar and facing away from the window. The patrons inside milled about; there were more than she’d expected, due no doubt to the performer.

Well, damn
, she thought. She could try peeking in the window, like a passerby intrigued by the commotion, but she couldn’t do it for long. No, it looked like there was no way to avoid it. She would have to go into this social lion’s den dressed like a homeless hippie vagabond.

As Rachel approached the entrance, three young women emerged. The sound of energetic acoustic guitar filled the air until the heavy door closed behind them. She could not make out their faces; two had curly hair that might be dark like her quarry’s. They walked away from her toward the lanes filled with student apartments and houses. The shadowy wells between streetlights continued to hide them.

Rachel stood on her toes indecisively, keeping her calf muscles loose. Would the spirits of the lake have arranged things so that Rachel arrived just as the potential victim walked out?
Could
they? The girl she sought might still be inside, but if she
was
one of these three, Rachel would certainly lose her if she went in first.

By now the girls had reached the corner. Rachel made her choice. She stayed a few steps back, trying not to be obvious, waiting for them to pass beneath a streetlight that wasn’t obscured by tree limbs. In this part of town, those were rare. The girls wore shorts or skirts, and one tottered uncertainly on three-inch cork-soled sandals. Another punched text messages into her phone. They had the air of oblivious privilege so many young women cultivated.

“… so I said, those shoes are hideous, just
hid-ee-us,”
one girl said.

“Well, all her shoes are,” another responded.

“What about her hair?” the third added. “Whoever told her those bangs worked should be shot.”

“Maybe that stupid slut with the guitar could sing a song about it,” the second girl said. “God, I
hate
those emo dykes. Wear some lipstick, why don’t you?”

“It was your idea to come here,” the third girl pointed out.

“Oh, fudge!” the first girl said. “I forgot, I have an Ethics in Medicine exam tomorrow.”

Rachel still hadn’t gotten a good look at them, and they were leading her farther away from Father Thyme’s. She thought about running around the block and approaching them from the front, but that would take time, during which anything might happen.

Then she had an idea. She pulled a crumpled dollar bill from her pocket. “Excuse me?” she called.

The girls stopped and turned. They regarded her with the same disdain all beautiful young girls had for someone older, especially one so sloppily dressed and bedraggled. They probably thought she was one of the downtown homeless people, strayed from her normal haunts.

Rachel held up the dollar. “Did one of you drop this?”

The girl with the ethics exam said immediately, “I did.”

Rachel kept the irony to herself. None of these girls was the one from her vision. “Well. Here you go,” she said, and handed over the dollar. Before they reached the next corner she heard them giggling in minor triumph.

She clenched her fists in annoyance. What did these girls know about the value of anything, let alone someone else’s money? They’d been pampered and privileged all their young lives and now assumed they were simply due anything they wanted, even a single dollar that they knew belonged to someone else. A whole generation of young adults, all content to mock any sincerity and with no appreciation of anything’s intrinsic worth. Rachel wanted to dash after them, smash their cell phones and iPods, make them know some hint of the pain a real human being could feel. “Suntans and brassieres,” she muttered bitterly to herself.

Her fury was cut short as a pickup truck drove slowly by, its headlights out. In the dark its color was hard to discern, but it certainly
could have
been red. She stepped back into the shadows beneath a tree, her heart suddenly thundering. As it passed, she saw the word FORD across the tailgate and the license-plate number beneath it. She repeated it in her head, trying to ensure she’d remember it.

The truck crept along the curb behind the girls. They were deep in animated conversation, arms and hands slicing the air for emphasis, and either hadn’t noticed the truck or didn’t care. They turned the corner, and the truck followed.

Rachel felt her chest constrict and wondered for an instant if this was what a cardiac arrest felt like. It was simple fear, though, the terror of realizing the man who’d attacked three women recently might be mere yards away preparing to snag his fourth.
So what?
her bitter self demanded.
None of them is the girl you’re looking for
.

But that wasn’t enough reason to send anyone into the terror she had glimpsed. She took a deep breath, recalling Lady Macbeth’s admonishment:
Screw your courage to the sticking place
. Well, if hers tightened any further, she’d snap like an overwound watch. She rushed to the corner and peered down the street.

The truck still rolled silently behind the three oblivious girls. Rachel started forward, when suddenly the truck’s high beams blazed to life, pinning the girls in illumination.

The girls screamed in surprise, then the one who took Rachel’s money slammed her palm flat against the front fender. “Goddammit, Andy, you scared the piss out of me!”

A dark-haired boy leaned out the driver’s window and said mockingly, “I don’t see any puddles.”

“I’ll show you puddles, you dickhead,” she shouted, and slapped at him through the window. The other girls laughed.

From one of the nearby houses a voice shouted, “Keep it down, will you?”

“Get it up, why don’t you?” one of the girls shouted back. The boy in the truck revved his engine for emphasis. They all cackled.

Rachel almost fell to her knees in relief. These girls were in no danger at all. She pushed sweaty hair from her face, furious and embarrassed. She’d come within moments of humiliating herself before these shallow, useless
bitches
. She wanted a shower, a drink, and a few hours’ sleep.

But as she turned away, two more people emerged from Father Thyme’s. The man and woman walked toward her, holding hands, and she nodded as they passed. The coffeehouse door opened again, this time for three scruffy college boys. The slash of light cut across the sidewalk and then disappeared as the door closed.

One look around inside, she decided. Enough to satisfy her conscience. That wouldn’t take long, and then she could go home. The spirits in the lake could do their own damn good deeds.