The Glimpsing (15 page)

“No, Jack,” she said softly, with Portia’s perfect diction.
 
“It’s not what I want.
 
It’s what you want.”
 
She slowly relaxed her legs, spread them, and brought her knees up along his sides.

He gazed at her stunned, his eyes wide, his mouth parted.
 
She was peering back at him, no longer with those black, listless eyes, but with two deep and terrible blue pools, with Portia’s eyes.
 
Everything about her face was identical: her lips, her nose, even the velvety taper of her chin.
 
The only remaining remnant of Rose was the black hair—but that seemed to matter little to Jack’s body.
 
Already he could feel the beautiful bloom of passion in his loins.
 
Already it was eager to join with her.
 
Already it was fully convinced that the woman beneath him really was Portia.

She slipped her wrists out of his grasp—a grasp that now held all the strength of putty—and let them roam up the length of his biceps, finally over his shoulders.
 
Looping them around his neck, she urged him toward her, clutching him tighter with her legs.

For a moment, he lost himself, almost giving in to the passion swelling within him.
 
But he closed his eyes, and through sheer force of will, began to push himself off of her.
 
Her legs clamped even more tightly, trying to prevent his departure, but he forced them down with his hands.
 
He slowly backed away from the bed, then turned and went to the wet bar, leaning against it and staring at the floor.
 
When he had looked back, Rose was sitting up in the bed, her face once again bearing its usual, although increasingly unfamiliar form.

“You see, Jack,” she said.
 
“I can give her to you.”

Jack remained silent for some time.
 
When he finally did speak, his voice reflected great contrition—and also a touch of wonder.
 
“I… I don’t understand.
 
I broke Portia’s heart.
 
Why would she give me someone like you?”

“Because for the last two months she’s done nothing but agonize over what went wrong between you two.
 
Now she understands.
 
Now she knows what she put you through.
 
And now she wants to make it up to you.”

Jack stared off absently, still dazed.
 
“But why send you?
 
Why not come herself?”

“She wishes she could be intimate with you, Jack, she really does.
 
But she is still bound by her convictions.
 
Her mother always told her it was best to wait, and she promised herself that she would never turn from anything her mother ever told her again.
 
She won’t compromise, not even for you, Jack.
 
But what she can’t do, I can.”

“Where... where do you come from?
 
What are you?”

“I exist by Portia’s hand.”

“You mean she painted you?”

“Yes.”

“And that… what, brought you to life?”

“No.”

“Then what?”

“That allowed me to pass.”

“From where?”

“From my world into this one.”

Jack blinked at her, and then something in the gallery caught his eye.
 
He squinted and realized that once more, the painting had changed.

He walked over and began to examine it.
 
The man on the left, the older one, was staring with a vicious scowl.
 
Jack found him amusing, because he distinctly got the impression that the man was actually trying to browbeat him.

“What’s wrong with him?” Jack asked.
 
Rose did not respond, and when she didn’t he turned to see why.
 
She was still in bed, but was now lying on her stomach, having assumed the posture she normally took in the painting.

“I don’t think he likes you,” she said matter-of-factly.

Jack returned his gaze to the man… and then everything went black.

Gabrielle arrived at the
Galeão
International Airport in Rio de Janeiro at 9:45pm on a Gulfstream G550, the larger and more luxurious of the two jets owned by Jack Parke.
 
The occasion was an eight-page spread for the premier edition of Clique magazine.
 
Three shoots were planned over the next four days: one at the prestigious
Merlona
Pavilion, another on a private beach in southern Rio, and the last in a secluded area deep within the city’s rainforest.

After landing, a small but eager entourage had greeted her, including Paul Alderman, one of the magazine’s co-founders, a publicist named Samantha Biel, and a small horde of less identifiable hosts and helpers.

She was escorted by limousine to the JW Marriot, a ritzy resort hotel located along the Botafogo beach line and known for the radiant crystal chandelier that beautified its extravagant entrance hall.
 
The hotel also featured an exclusive rooftop swimming pool, four-hundred individual rooms, most of which went for no less than five-hundred dollars a night, and three presidential suites, one of which had been reserved for Gabrielle herself.

A concierge had escorted her to the twelfth floor, where she was given a walking tour of the suite.
 
It was comprised of three spacious rooms (a bedroom, living room, and personal lounge), each of which was immaculately décored.
 
When he’d left, she spent the next fifteen minutes unpacking, then undressed and took a shower.

After toweling off, she dressed again, slipping into a yellow tank and green beach pants.
 
The concierge soon reappeared with a waiter, who rolled in a small platter of shrimp, herbs, rice and a bottle of red wine.
 
Ignoring the platter for the time being, she spent the next fifteen minutes on the bedroom balcony, peering out at the brilliantly illuminated crescent of Botafogo beach.
 
Even at night the view was like nothing she’d ever seen: crystalline green-blue ocean water, made visible by towered flood lights that ran all along the beach line; green-leaved palm trees; a white sand beach, which curved snake-like into the distance; and, out in the midst of the water, jutting high into a dark sky, the ominous half-melon-shaped spectacle of Sugar Loaf Mountain.

When she’d gone back inside, she approached the platter, pulled away the red wine—a bottle of Cabernet—and poured herself a glass.
 
She took it with her as she strolled through the suite, briefly testing the comfort of the sofa in the living quarter, exploring the polished
stylings
of the lounge, and peering into one of several large closets.
 
She then wandered back into the bedroom, sat the wineglass on the bed’s elegant headboard, shuffled through her purse for her cell phone, and dialed Jack’s number.
 
It rang six times before going to voicemail.
 
She tried his number twice more in succession before becoming discouraged and hanging up.

Something wasn’t right.
 
It was just after 11:00pm in Rio, which meant that it was an hour earlier in New York City.
 
The possibility that Jack had already gone to bed seemed unlikely.
 
And even if he had, he was a notoriously light sleeper.
 
The ringing of his cell no doubt would have awakened him.

She waited another twenty minutes before trying him again.
 
Still no answer.
 
Perhaps he’d misplaced his phone?

She tried his landline.
 
No luck.
 
She became anxious.

Before placing her on his Gulfstream, Jack had specifically told her to call him after she had landed and got settled in.
 
That, in and of itself, was an unusual request.
 
She had traveled abroad on four separate occasions since signing with his agency: twice to Sydney, once to London, and once to Estonia, and never had he shown enough concern to ask her to call him after landing.
 
So for him to ask her to do so, only to make
himself
unavailable when she actually did, was odd.

She recalled the way he’d behaved just before placing her on the plane.
 
He’d kissed her with such fervor, such reckless passion, that she actually felt herself swoon in his arms.
 
And he had done so—perhaps foolishly—in full
view
everyone: flight attendants, pilots, baggers.
 
He was openly risking the possibility that some idiot from the paparazzi might take pictures and expose their affair.
 
She didn’t like that, but she did see the incident as yet another small sign, another glimmer of hope that Jack Parke was changing, that the world-famous playboy might actually be falling in love with her.
 
Now, however, she was viewing that wondrous moment in a different light.
 
Maybe he’d been feeling the same thing she was feeling, like something horrible was going to happen.
 
Maybe the reason he’d kissed her so passionately, was because he felt like he was never going to see her again.

As she redialed his number, she suddenly had a very unsettling thought: perhaps it wasn’t sleep or a misplaced cell that was keeping her from reaching him.
 
Maybe it was because he was having another episode, another instance of the strange sleepwalking that had so badly affected him the night before.
 
Maybe at this very moment, Jack was wandering around his bedroom, talking to and interacting with things that really weren’t there.
 
Perhaps he was seeing that woman again, the one in the red dress.
 
And maybe, guided by her, he was doing something that could put him in harm’s way.

She was probably overreacting, but she couldn’t help herself.
 
She’d read tales of sleepwalkers wandering out of their houses’ and into busy intersections; or straying too close to a window, accidentally tripping, and falling violently to their deaths.
 
Jack’s sleepwalking seemed severe enough for him to face that same kind of peril.
 
She could still recall the cold look he’d brandished before kicking her out.
 
It was as if something had taken possession of him, as if his soul had been momentarily bound and another force was at the wheel of his mind, controlling his actions.
 
Maybe it had returned.
 
Maybe it had control of him again.
 
Maybe it was steering him toward danger, whatever it was.

Seeking to calm her fraying nerves, she reached for the wineglass.
 
In doing so, she accidentally bumped its stem with her index finger, causing it to wobble in several wild, looping turns.
 
She tried to catch it, but it fell, banging off the headboard’s second tier and splattering its contents all over the bedspread.
 
She leaned forward to retrieve the glass, but stopped cold when she saw the pattern the wine had created on the bed.
 
It was identical, in every way, to the one she’d seen on the tablecloth at Magnolia’s.

She stood there frozen, surveying the stain in gawking disbelief.
 
She then leaned forward and let her fingers graze along its length, trying to convince herself that its existence was merely coincidental.
 
But just as she was pulling her hand away, as if evoked by the stain itself, she felt an eerie air settle on the room.

Impulsively, she peered up.
 
She saw nothing but the room’s vivid opulence, and yet nothing now looked the same.
 
A dark light seemed to radiate from everything.
 
She thought she could even detect the slow, dreary movement of a shadow, but each time she cut her eyes in its direction, it seemed to have already passed on.

She grimaced, realizing what it was: the dread, that same dark and foreboding feeling that had blackened the air while she waited for Jack at Magnolia’s.

She brought her gaze back to the bed… and felt a wave of ice-cold horror shriek through her body.
 
The wine splatter had now become shockingly red, so bright and so wet that it looked like the vulgar spray of a severed jugular.

Gabrielle shuddered horribly, so vexed that she unconsciously began backing away, trying to get as far away from the stain as possible.
 
As she did, the darkness seemed to thicken around her, filling the room like a black gas.
 
A thin sweat broke out on her skin.
 
She covered her belly with both hands, continuing her retreat, vainly attempting to suppress the cankerous fear growing there.
 
Something was coming.
 
She could feel it.
 
Something unthinkable.

She backed into a table lamp, knocking it over.
 
Its bulb popped brightly as it hit the floor, startling her badly.
 
Turning, she departed the bedroom.

With one hand still held to her stomach, which was now succumbing to nausea, the other using the wall to help her along, she made her way to the bathroom.
 
There she ran
a
sinkful
of water, cupped in both hands, and repeatedly splashed it to her face.
 
She placed both hands on the sink and took several deep breaths, trying to calm her nerves.

She couldn’t.

She raised her head and looked at herself in the mirror.
 
Tiny beads of water
freckled
her face.
 
“What’s happening to me?” she whispered aloud.

She pulled a towel, dried her face, and hastily departed the bathroom.
 
She exited the suite, waiting for the elevator, and descended to the first floor.
 
She rushed through the lobby,
then
exited out into the hot, saline air of the Rio de Janeiro night.