The Third Eye (16 page)

She reached into the shower and turned on the water full volume, adjusting the temperature so that it ran as hot as she could stand it. Then she stepped into the steaming stall and stood beneath the torrent of water, rotating slowly so that the thin, fierce needles could stab at every pore of her skin.

The raw areas that the twine had scraped around her wrists and ankles felt as though they were being seared with
acid. Glancing down at her upper right arm, she could see four purple bruises forming an even line against the pale skin. Directly opposite, and already turning an ugly yellow around the edges, there was a fifth bruise, slightly larger and darker than the others.

Karen shuddered and twisted her arm so that it was positioned directly under the stream of pounding water. In her mind, she saw a blue van filled with babies. It wasn’t a vision; it was simply a mental picture, and she refused to look at it.

I will
not
obsess about the children,
she told herself.
It’s not as if I can do anything to help them. The police are out there searching. It’s
their
responsibility. They’re the ones with the authority and the manpower. They can radio out descriptions and set up roadblocks. Finding people is what they’ve been
trained
to do.

Finding people… the way they found Carla Sanchez?
No!
Karen screamed silently in response to the monstrous question that rose from the teeming shadows at the back of her brain.
Nothing terrible is going to happen to those children. People don’t kidnap babies in order to kill them. They’re alive and safe, and once a ransom has been paid, they’ll be returned to their parents.

Desperate for another subject to think about, she focused on the latest confrontation with her mother. It had been confusing. It was true that her mother had been under a great deal of stress that day. That alone, however, could not have accounted for the way she had reacted when Karen had questioned her about her attempted phone calls. Mrs. Connors was not
a person who did things on impulse. She had to have had a reason for calling both Karen’s cell phone and then the center, and Karen was sure that it had been triggered by whatever it was that had happened that morning in the laundry room. The expression of shock that she had seen on her mother’s face in the vision she had experienced at the apartment had not been imagined. It had been very real.

What does it mean?
Karen asked herself. What could her mother have witnessed alone there that had frightened her so much that it had caused her to drop the sheet she was folding and rush to the phone? And why wouldn’t she talk about it?

By this time, the water had been running so long that it was barely tepid, and Karen’s skin had begun to wrinkle. She was trying to decide whether or not to get out of the shower when the decision was made for her by a rap on the bathroom door and the muffled sound of her mother’s voice attempting to call something to her over the noise of the running water.

Karen twisted the faucet dial to the off position and opened the door of the shower stall.

“Yes? What is it?” she called back.

“You’d better dry off and get dressed,” her mother told her. “A police officer’s here, and he wants to talk with you.”

“I thought we were finished,” said Karen. “I told him everything I could think of.”

“This isn’t Sergeant Rice,” said her mother. “It’s that other one—what was his name?—Officer Wilson. It’s the man who
drove you out to the Valley to look for the Sanchez girl. He says there’s something he needs to discuss with you in private.”

“I can’t imagine what it could be,” Karen said. “I’ve already given all the information I have to Sergeant Rice.”

“I told him that,” said Mrs. Connors. “I also told him you were exhausted and not up to seeing anybody unless it was absolutely necessary. He won’t go away. He says this is important.”

Karen drew a deep breath.

“Okay,” she said reluctantly. “Tell him I’ll be down in a few minutes.”

The silence that followed was so prolonged that she was beginning to think that her mother had left to go back downstairs, but then Mrs. Connors spoke again.

“You probably do have to talk with him. He is a police officer. There’s no reason, though, that I can see why any police officer needs to speak with a young girl in private. I think it’s your right to have your parents with you.”

If the statement had been put in the form of a question—such as “Do you want Dad and me to be with you when you talk with him?”—Karen’s response would have been immediate and positive. She had no desire to see Rob Wilson again at all, much less to be alone with him.

As usual, however, her mother’s presumptive attitude aroused automatic obstinacy.

“I’ll see him alone, if that’s what he wants,” Karen told her.

“I don’t think he has the right—”

“I told you, Mom, it’s okay,” Karen said, interrupting the protest. “I’ll be down in a couple of minutes.”

She stepped out of the shower stall and instantly started shivering. It was as though all the warmth in her body had been drained away in the course of the short conversation.

She dried herself hurriedly, toweling the water from her hair, but not taking the time to use the dryer. The lank strands still hung damp upon her shoulders as she went into the bedroom and hastily dressed in a T-shirt and a pair of jeans. When she went downstairs to the living room, Rob Wilson was waiting for her. Her parents were nowhere to be seen. One look at the young officer’s face brought fear sweeping over her.

“What happened?” Karen asked in panic. “Did you find the children? Are they all right?”

“No, they haven’t been found, so I don’t know if they’re all right or not.” The pain in his eyes belied the crispness of the statement. “How are you feeling? Did they hurt you?”

“Not really,” Karen said. “I have a few bruises and a headache.”

“The report that came into the station said a young woman was missing as well as the children. I didn’t know at first that it was you. Then somebody mentioned the name ‘Connors’ and I remembered that you’d mentioned working at a day care center.” He paused, and then said accusingly, “You never returned my phone calls.”

“I didn’t want to talk about Carla Sanchez,” Karen told him. “I wanted to be able to forget her.”

“I can understand how you’d feel that way,” Rob said. “The thing is, it’s not going to be that easy. You can’t get away from an experience like that one. It’s bound to follow you. Today, those kids—”

“I didn’t make this happen!” Karen broke in defensively. “The kidnapping wasn’t planned around me personally. Those people had it all set up. They would have gone through with it anyway, no matter who was in charge of the Baby Room.”

“That’s probably true,” Rob acknowledged. “Whether it was a coincidence or not, though, the fact is that you
were
the one in charge, and you
were
the one who was taken. You got to see the couple, the man as well as the woman. You’ve had personal contact with the kids. You were able to locate Carla when you didn’t even know her…”

“No!” Karen exploded. “I’m not going to try that again. You don’t know what that experience was like for me. If you did, you’d never even suggest it.”

“Will you do me one favor?” Rob asked her. “Will you give me one hour and come with me to talk with somebody?”

“Not if it’s one of the parents,” Karen said. “I can’t take that. It would be like reliving that morning at the Sanchezes’.”

“This isn’t one of the parents. It’s Anne Summers.”

“The psychic you told me about?” Karen regarded him with surprise. “I thought she was supposed to be in Dallas.”

“She was,” Rob said. “She’s back now.”

“Then why don’t you get
her
to track down the children?”
Karen demanded. “That’s what she does, isn’t it? That’s her profession.”

“That’s not her profession,” Rob said shortly. “Anne donates her services, without charge, because she feels it’s her duty. She’d be helping us this time if she could, but she’s in the hospital. Two nights ago, somebody shot her.”

A uniformed police officer occupied the chair
outside the door to Anne Summers’s hospital room. He and Rob seemed to know each other, and they exchanged greetings.

“How’s she doing?” Rob asked.

“Okay, I guess,” the other officer told him. “The doctor was in and out a while ago. He says this is one tough lady.”

“We knew that already.”

“Yeah, but, tough or not, it’s no fun stopping a bullet. It’s damned lucky she was holding that bag in front of her.”

Rob nodded in agreement. “Is there anybody in there with her?”

“Not at the moment,” the other man said. “Her husband left right after you did to get some dinner. Their son was here
for most of the afternoon, and he’s coming back later. The doc’s cracking down on visitors. He says that just because she’s out of intensive care doesn’t mean she can handle a lot of talking.”

“This is Karen Connors,” Rob told him. “Mrs. Summers asked specifically to see her.”

“Have you checked with the doc about it?” the man asked doubtfully. “I don’t want to be caught in the middle on this one. You’re not even on duty now, are you?”

“There won’t be a problem,” Rob assured him. “We’re only going to be here a couple of minutes.”

Before the other cop could argue any further, he rapped on the door, hastily shoved it open, and stepped inside, motioning to Karen to follow him.

The room that they entered was decorated in standard hospital style, with stainless steel furniture, pale green walls, and white, double-layered draperies sheathing the window. A single bed on rollers jutted out from one wall, and there was a curtain drawn partway around it. A shelf along the top of the opposite wall held a potted plant and two vases of multicolored flowers. An inactive television set was positioned on a shelf directly across from the bed. Rob pushed the door gently closed behind them. The click of the latch falling into place seemed startlingly loud.

There was a moment of silence.

Then Rob said softly, “Anne? Are you awake?”

“Is that you, Robbie?” The voice that responded was
low-pitched and hoarse, as though it had not been used for a while. “I’m awake, but not for long, I’m afraid. They fed me some pills. Were you able to bring the girl?”

“She’s right here,” Rob said.

“Well, get her over here where I can see her. It’s Karen, isn’t it?”

“That’s right,” Rob said. “Karen Connors.” He put his hand on Karen’s arm and drew her over to the opening in the curtain.

The woman who lay in the bed was singularly unremarkable in appearance. She had a round, pleasant face, wide-spaced hazel eyes that seemed to be struggling to focus, and a mouth that was a bit too large to synchronize with her other features. The hair that lay across the pillow was chestnut colored and lightly frosted with gray.

“Well, here she is,” Rob said. “This is Karen. Karen, meet Anne Summers, my tenth-grade English teacher.”

“Your teacher!” exclaimed Karen. “You never told me that!”

“I told you I’d known her since high school.”

“Yes, but I thought, I mean, I took it for granted that what you meant was that you were friends. Teachers aren’t—they aren’t supposed to be—”

“They aren’t supposed to be psychics?” Anne Summers’s gravelly voice completed the statement. “Is that a rule you’ve learned somewhere? If so, please, tell me about it.”

“I’m sorry,” Karen said in embarrassment. “I didn’t mean to sound so stupid. I was just surprised, I guess. You aren’t what I expected.”

“I knew what you meant,” the woman told her. “I was giving you a hard time, that’s all. I’m good at that, aren’t I, Robbie? I gave Rob a hard time nonstop for the two semesters I had him in my class. He was a difficult student, always wanting to spell things his own way. I wouldn’t let him get away with it.”

“Enough of that,” Rob said lightly. “I didn’t bring Karen here so you could ruin my reputation.”

“No, of course, you didn’t,” Anne Summers said. “You brought her so I could get a look at her. Can you help me find my glasses? I can’t imagine where that nurse could have put them.”

“Are these them?” Rob picked up a pair of wire-rimmed bifocals that lay in plain sight on the bedside table.

“These are
they
,” the woman corrected him. “It’s humiliating to have such poor eyesight that you can’t see well enough to find your glasses unless you’re wearing them.” She reached up to take them from him, and Karen saw that her hand was shaking.

“I don’t know why I’m so much weaker tonight,” Anne said apologetically as she fumbled the glasses into place on the rim of her nose. “It’s probably too much bed rest. I’m not used to that. Step nearer, Karen, so I can get a real look at you. Rob was right; you certainly are pretty. How old are you?”

“Eighteen,” Karen told her, flushing at the unexpected compliment.

“That’s the age I was when I took on
my
first case.”

“I’m not taking on a case,” Karen said quickly. “I don’t know what Rob’s told you, but I’m not a real psychic the way you are. There was a mix-up about what went into the paper.”

“Rob’s told me all about that,” Anne Summers said. “The mix-up was in the fact that the article got into the paper at all, not in the story itself. You did find the child who was missing, didn’t you?”

“She was dead,” Karen said. “She’d drowned in the river. My finding her was not a kindness to anybody. It would have been better if she
hadn’t
been found.”

“That’s not true,” Anne said. “Not knowing—that’s the ultimate nightmare. Can you imagine what life must be like for parents who wait month after month, year after year, for children who never return? The poor child’s mother had to be permitted to let go of hope. Still, it’s painful, always so painful, when a search ends in tragedy. You will never fully get used to that, Karen. With time, though, you will grow strong enough to bear it.”

“I don’t
want
to be that strong!” Karen exclaimed. “I don’t
want
to be a psychic!”