The Haunted (Sarah Roberts 12) (3 page)

During the drive, she had tried Aaron on his cell phone three times, but kept getting his machine. On the third call she left him a brief message explaining what she found outside the cabin. Whoever was tracking her might be following him as well. Before she hung up, she mentioned that Vivian had nothing to say on the matter and that as soon as she did, he would be the first she called.

She exited the car, already missing her motorcycle. She’d bought a Dodge Charger because she didn’t want to ride the bike during the previous winter. There was still a healthy financial nest egg from when her parents sold their house and moved to Santa Rosa, not to mention the money Oliver Payne offered her after his wife was killed behind Sarah’s parents’ house a while back.

The front of the doctor’s building offered manicured bushes, clean windows and little signage. The bottom floor housed a lawyer’s office with Dr. Williams’ office upstairs.

She entered the front doors and pushed the buzzer by Williams’ name. The inside doors buzzed open.

The stairs were off to the left beside an elevator. She chose the stairs, but before heading up, she took one more look behind her through the doors to the outside. Then she flipped her cell to vibrate, took a deep breath and started up the steps.

A Joe Girard quote flitted through her head:
The elevator to success is broken. You will have to take the stairs one step at a time
.

That was exactly what she was doing by meeting with a specialist that would hopefully help her cope with Vivian’s thoughts. This guy came recommended. Vivian herself had supplied his name and number. Said he was an expert in past-life regression and worked for years with bi-polar patients and schizoaffective disorders. He even helped out at the Amy Greg Psychiatric Hospital.

At first, Sarah had been put off.

“I’m not fucking crazy,” she had railed at her sister.

But what Vivian had explained was not so much Dr. Williams’ specialty, but that he was adept at dealing with two personalities in one mind. Since Sarah was completely sane, but now living with Vivian’s presence in her mind, he was the best doctor to help Sarah deal with it.

Her plan was to meet him, interview him, and then tell the doctor what was on her mind if she approved of him because he was bound to confidentiality. This process wouldn’t have much chance of success without the truth. Dr. Williams needed to know exactly what he was dealing with.

Nervousness crept in as she neared the second floor. Her insides fluttered. She stopped and placed a hand on her stomach.

What’s this all about?

She was rarely nervous. Was it because she couldn’t get a hold of Aaron? Could something have happened to him? Talking to a doctor couldn’t be it. If she didn’t like him, she’d walk out in a heartbeat.

Or could Vivian be nervous for her? That was something she hadn’t considered before. How far in had Vivian ensconced herself? If this was Vivian’s nervousness, what else was Sarah going to feel in the coming days, weeks, years? Could she handle the intrusion long term?

Without further delay, she opened the door on the second floor. The area had a new-construction smell to it. The baseboards had tape on them and the paint was still drying.

She opened Suite 201’s door and stepped into an empty waiting room. There were three chairs, a circular table with magazines on it—
Psychology Today
,
Scientific American Mind
, and
National Geographic
—and a water cooler.

Behind the small admittance window, a woman wrote something down.

Sarah cleared her throat. The woman looked up.

“Can I help you?” she asked.

“I have an appointment with Dr. Williams.”

The woman flipped through a few pages in a large book, smiled and nodded.

“Your name?” she asked.

“Sarah Roberts.”

“Right. He’ll see you now.” She pointed to Sarah’s right. “Enter through that door. It’ll take you into his office.”

“He knows I’m here? He’s expecting me right now?”

The woman frowned. “You have an appointment.”

“That’s not what I mean. You haven’t paged or called him. He has no idea I’m even in the building, yet I’m to walk right into his office.”

“You’re his only client today,” the woman said, hesitating with her words, like she was talking to a child. “After you, he’s on holidays for the rest of the week.”

Sarah started for the door. Something might be wrong here. New office on a recently built or renovated floor. Renowned doctor, but far from any major city. Odd secretary. A waiting room that appeared to be unused. Although that could be because the move to this building was so recent. Or this could all just be the last seven years of fighting for her life, being stabbed and shot and killing people along the way working itself up into a paranoia that she’s unfamiliar with during a break like the kind she recently had.

Something more for the doctor to deal with.

Inside the office was the proverbial couch with a comfortable armchair beside it. On the opposite wall sat two leather armchairs. Sarah took the one that looked out onto the parking lot below so she could keep an eye on her car.

She only had to wait a few minutes before Dr. Williams opened a door behind the large banker’s desk and entered the office. The quick glimpse Sarah got of the room beyond was of another unfinished room, no paint and no carpeting.

She got to her feet and extended her hand. “Dr. Williams?”

“Sarah?” He shook her proffered hand. “Or would you prefer I call you Miss Roberts?”

“Sarah’s fine.”

She retook her seat by the window, stealing a glance outside.

“Can you tell me a little about yourself and what brought you here today?” he asked.

Sarah cleared her throat. “Maybe this was a mistake.”

“How so?”

“I don’t have an issue or a mental problem.”

“Many of the people I see don’t either.”

That took her by surprise. She paused, leaned back in her chair and assessed him. Thick mustache that connected to an even thicker beard. Bushy eyebrows. The whites of his eyes were clean, lacking redness. His shirt was pressed, his pants tailored. He took his role seriously. There was intelligence in his eyes.

“Enjoying the new office?” Sarah asked.

He looked around, then back at her. “Yes. But the renovations aren’t what you came to talk to me about, are they?”

“No, they aren’t.”

She stared at him a moment longer, contemplating the next question, how to word it. She wanted to interview him, see that he was a good fit for her, but she was afraid she wouldn’t be able to get past her trust issues. For years she had learned that the only one she could trust and rely on was herself and sometimes Parkman. What made her think she could meet this total stranger and by virtue of his position, tell him what’s going on with Vivian inside her head? The haunted nights, the dark dreams, her own thoughts shaken by the turbulence of Vivian’s thoughts.

“Then let me start with a few innocuous questions,” Williams said. “Would you be willing to answer them? They are the kind that break the ice. Once that’s done, you could decide to continue or cancel this meeting. If you cancel in ten minutes when I’m through with my questions, there’ll be no fee. Would that suffice?”

Sarah nodded. “Sounds fair. Shoot.”

“I want you to imagine a vast desert, sand blowing here and there. In this desert sits a cube. In your mind, what does this cube look like? What’s it made of? How strong is it? Or how weak? Tell me everything you can about the cube.”

Chapter 4

“Parkman, I know what you’re saying, and I do trust her, but something doesn’t feel right about this.”

“Aaron, there’s one thing you have to learn about Sarah. She’s a survivor. And she’s got Vivian. Nothing’s going to happen to her.”

“I know she’s a survivor, Parkman.”

“That means that whatever is going on she either already knows about it, will know about it soon, or nothing is going on.”

“She’s been researching that ex-babysitter of hers. A man named Cole Lincoln.”

“I’m aware of that.”

“Did you find anything on him?”

“She didn’t ask me to look. I don’t pry when it comes to Sarah. If she needs me, I’m there. Otherwise, she’ll handle this herself. You have to remember, Aaron, I love her, too. Just in a different way.”

“Yeah, okay, but I feel something’s wrong.”

“You want my advice?” Parkman asked.

Aaron waited a heartbeat before answering. He basically knew what the advice was going to be and didn’t want to hear it.

“Sure,” he said, dejected. “Go ahead.”

“Leave her alone in that cabin for the two months. Go back to Toronto as you planned. Let her work out whatever it is she needs to work out with Vivian. Tend to your dojo. Read a book. Watch a movie. Stay busy. Sarah always has a process. This is it. Try anything other than that and it’ll hurt you.”

“Got it.”

“I’m serious.”

“I know.”

They hung up, but Aaron felt more unsettled than before the call. How could he have thought Parkman would agree with him?

After grabbing his overnight bag, he exited the motel and headed for the front desk to return the key. He’d be back, but next week he’d stay at the cabin with Sarah for the night. That was her promise to him. Until her first meeting with Dr. Williams, she wanted solitude, minus yesterday’s cemetery visit.

Parkman could love her any way he wanted, but Aaron didn’t have to leave her alone in a cabin suffering from the dreams, the mental hauntings, as Sarah put it.

Something has to be done.

But what? How far was he willing to go? And how much would that push Sarah away?

He dropped the key off to the clerk, told her his room number and that he was checking out, and headed for the car. On the way across the parking lot, he decided that maybe it would be best to leave Sarah alone. Parkman was right. To have Sarah in your life was to leave her alone.

The car was warm for an April morning, the sun heating it through the windshield. Once inside, the car started, the air on, he grabbed his cell phone to check email.

“Missed call …” he muttered to himself.

Sarah
.

He dialed her number immediately without listening to the message.

No answer.

He hit the button to listen to the message.

Sarah told him about the visitors she had at the cabin last night.

“Dammit! I knew trouble was brewing.”

He squealed out of the parking lot, heading back toward the cabin, a half-hour drive on clear roads.

Then he dialed Parkman back.

“Parkman here.”

“It’s Aaron.”

“I know. Saw the number. What’s up?”

“Sarah’s in trouble.”

Chapter 5

“A cube?” Sarah asked. “In the desert?”

Dr. Williams nodded, tapping a pen to his lips. “Explain what you see in your mind’s eye.”

Sarah looked out into the parking lot. The roughly forty parking spaces were pretty empty when she pulled in, but now the lot was barren. Her Charger was parked by the front entrance, only the spoiler on the trunk visible to her.

“I see a decent sized cube.” She met the doctor’s eyes. He glanced at his pad of paper and wrote something on it. “It’s made of impenetrable steel, but it’s relatively light. Strong but light. Like titanium. There are small windows, the kind NASA would use on a spaceship that can withstand immense pressure. Though these windows are hard to see through, so the inside the cube remains a mystery. Their only design is to be able look out from inside the cube. It has stood for a long time without tarnish. The sand does nothing to its exterior. Ultimately, it’s immovable.”

The doctor held no expression on his face. “Very good. Now tell me, there’s a ladder somewhere near the cube. Is the ladder beside it, on it, lying down, or on top of the cube? Where is this ladder and what’s the ladder made of?”

Inside her pocket, her iPhone vibrated.

Probably Aaron.

She would call him back after her appointment.

“The ladder is old. Broken. Can’t be used anymore. Not one rung can be trusted. I see the cube in the desert by itself. The ladder is quite a distance away.” She paused, steepled her fingers, then said, “This is all very interesting, but what does it have to do with why I’m here?”

He wrote furiously on his notepad. “We’ll get to that. I only have a few more questions. When we’re done with the questions, I’ll share their importance.” He returned her gaze. “I won’t keep a single detail from you.”