Christmas at Timberwoods - Fern Michaels [81]
She stamped her feet and rubbed her numb hands together as she tried to keep warm. What was she doing here, anyway? People were avoiding her as if she had the plague. The few people she had managed to talk to laughed at her. One of them had called her a cokehead. Well, what had she expected? You couldn’t just go up to people and tell them not to go into the mall without giving them a reason why. Obviously they all thought she was crazy. All she could do was tell them that something was going to happen. Secretly she was surprised that the police hadn’t come for her. She knew the security guard had reported her after one of the customers had pointed her out to him.
There was a lull in pedestrian traffic, and Angela huddled up against the cold. She didn’t know which was worse—the freezing temperatures or the cold she had felt inside ever since that afternoon when Dr. Noel Dayton had hypnotized her. He had played the tape of her own voice back to her.
It sounded as if she had become someone else, someone she didn’t know. The thought was terrifying.
If she was ever going to do anything, she had to do it now! Believing wasn’t enough. Somebody had to do something! Starting with herself. She shivered violently. And if that wasn’t bad enough, now she had Charlie to worry about.
“Angela, honey, what are you doing out here in the cold? Do you know it’s only eighteen degrees?” Murray Steinhart put his arm around his daughter’s shoulders.
Angela stiffened at the physical contact and tried to draw away from him. Run, her mind screamed, run!
“Daddy, what are you doing here? Look, I have to go now,” she said, jerking her arm away from him.
“Angela, please, I’m not here to make you come with me. I just want to talk to you. Let’s get some coffee. My word on it, no one is going to make you do anything you don’t want to do. All I want is to talk to you. I know it’s a little late . . . it’s a lot late . . . but I’m here now to help you any way I can.”
“Oh, Daddy, I’m so glad,” Angela cried, wrapping her arms around her father, tears streaming down her thin cheeks. “I’m so glad!”
“Me too, Angel,” Murray said huskily. “Let’s go get that coffee before we both freeze to death.”
Angela, the coffee mug cupped in her cold hands, stared at her father. “I don’t know what to do. I did everything I could think of. I even let Dr. Dayton hypnotize me. He said it helped, but I don’t know how. They won’t close the mall, Daddy. I keep coming back here, hoping I’ll think of some way to stop it. But . . .”
“I know,” Murray said wearily, rubbing his eyes, “I understand. I’ll stay here with you. Your mother went—”
“Don’t, Daddy. I understand, I really do. I don’t want to talk about Mother. I’m so glad you’re here. Boy, you don’t know how glad.” She smiled.
“You know something, Angel—I’m glad, too.” Murray sounded surprised, even to himself. “Real glad,” he repeated softly. “Whatever happens, you can’t blame yourself. You know that, don’t you?”
“I know.”
“What you said a moment ago, about coming back here—is it the mall itself that draws you or someone in the mall?”
Angela replaced the coffee mug on the table. “What did you just say, Daddy?” Her pinched, narrow face looked stunned.
“I said,” he repeated quietly, “is it the mall or someone in the mall that keeps bringing you back here?”
She stared at him, thinking. “That’s it,” she said suddenly. “It isn’t the mall.” She slapped her forehead. “God, how could I have been so stupid? Of course. It’s someone I know here that’s responsible. That’s why it can’t be stopped and why the vision is going to come true. It’s a person.”
Murray felt real fear for the first time in his life, gut fear. Somehow he had always believed in his daughter’s visions, even though he had never let the belief surface until now. “Okay,” he said, more calmly than he felt. “We’ve established that it’s a person. Let’s run down your list. Who do you know that you feel is capable of blowing up a mall and killing thousands of innocent people?”