The Unquiet - J. D. Robb [137]
“I rang the doorbell. When no one answered . . . well, I saw your car so I assumed you were here somewhere and took a chance you’d be swimming or reading or something back here. I shouldn’t have intruded. I’m sorry.”
She shook her head—that no longer mattered. “But you didn’t knock?”
“I rang the bell.” He was defensive. “Twice, in case you didn’t hear it the first time. When you didn’t answer, I decided to take a chance—”
“I understand.” She gave the card a little wave. “And I appreciate your neighborly . . . um . . . ness. I’m so sorry I screamed at you.”
He relaxed and smiled. “Well, if it’s any consolation, you scared the hell out of me, too.”
She couldn’t stop the chuckle. “Sorry.”
“We’ll call it even. Fair enough?”
“Fair enough.”
“Good.” He turned again to leave, then shouted back over his shoulder. “Call if you need anything.”
“I will. Thank you.”
He waved without a backward glance. She watched him stride across the lawn and around the pool. Taking one last, long baffled look at her, he disappeared along the side of the house—and she abruptly, out of the blue, was fighting an urge to run after him, through the house, to stop him in the driveway.
She felt very alone all of a sudden. Not alone-alone like she usually was, but very alone . . . like desert-island alone, with no mother or brother or friends on the other end of her cell phone, no neighbors or police to come to her rescue. And it wasn’t the being alone that bothered her—often she needed to be alone just to think. It was the desert-island part that was getting to her, she realized. She glanced back at the cliff. There was something very unsettling about this place. She was beginning to wish she’d stayed home.
She woke up falling. Again. Panic replaced the oxygen in her blood, it made her heart race as she gasped for air. Skin clammy, muscles quaking, she thrashed in the sheets until she could sit up and hang her legs over the side of the bed. She was desperate to feel the floor under her feet. She wanted to cry but her gratitude, just to be awake, wouldn’t allow it.
So now she knew for sure. She couldn’t outrun the dream. It had followed her to Lake Lackey clearer and more detailed than ever before. Now she wasn’t simply walking on a sidewalk or down a street or along a garden path and then suddenly falling, falling, falling until she fought and clawed her way back to consciousness. Tonight she’d been walking along the cliffs . . . in the rain. The wind blew droplets of water against her face—it stung and made it hard to see where she was going. She stopped. Peering over the edge at the waves crashing and pounding against the craggy rock made her woozy. She turned away, intent on walking back to safety. Lightning struck, twice, in rapid progression along the slope of land still several yards away but directly in front of her. Jerking back in surprise, she felt her foot slip in the soggy grass-mud-gravel mix at the rim of the overhang, felt her arms flailing to keep her balance, the instant awareness that nothing could save her . . . and falling . . . falling . . . falling.
She buried her face in her hands until her breath came easy and her heart returned to her chest from her throat. She fell back on the bed and let her arms fall wide. Staring at a new ceiling, she went over the same old questions. Why was she having the same sort of dreams over and over? Did they mean something? If so, what? And how could she make them go away?
TWO
She discovered it by accident on her fourth day at the lake—having spent the three preceding days bored to death but safe in the sanctuary of the Rossinis’ summer home.
The dreams aside, there had been no more sudden, unaccountable attacks of fear or panic, no more puzzling noises or illusive light tricks. Eventually she came to the conclusion that she’d been overtired that first day and it was foolish, not to mention a giant waste of gorgeous scenery . . . and warm summer sunshine . . . and clean fresh air, to hide and cower from her own imagination.
She controlled her state of mind,