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  Telling herself it meant nothing that Wyatt was meeting with her doctor, that she had to have a little faith, she hurried down the curved steps to the basement level, then paused at the door of the rambling Victorian home. Once owned by a timber baron, it had been cut into several apartments and was now owned by Cheryl Reynolds, a fiftyish woman who claimed to have a “gift” to not only be able to hypnotize her clients, but also, for a few extra dollars, predict their future.

  You’ve never been one to believe in hocus-pocus or parlor games or hypnosis, have you? Remember going to the state fair and seeing a hypnotist with volunteers from the audience, how they all appeared to sleep, then got up and stomped around, then flapped their arms as if they were chickens? Is that what you want? The first time, this didn’t work, right? But still you’re back here, hoping for what? Answers about your son? Repressed memories brought to the surface?

  Ava’s shoulders tightened. She felt a cool breath of wind tugging on her hair and remembered the dream, how real it had been, then yesterday seeing Noah on the dock.

  She pressed the buzzer.

  Two of Cheryl’s stray cats watched from their perches in the retaining wall as Ava waited, second-guessing herself.

  Half a minute later, the door opened.

  “Ava, so good to see you,” Cheryl said as she motioned Ava inside.

  Barely five feet, Cheryl hid her curves with a tie-dyed caftan, and her blond curls were banded away from her round face, which was creased with worry. No doubt the story of Ava’s latest crazy dive into the bay had reached her ears, too, through the coffee shops and tearooms of the town. “So, tell me,” she insisted as soft music whispered through the hallways and the scent of incense couldn’t quite mask the thin, sharp odors of mildew and cat urine. “How are you?”

  “I keep saying I’m fine, but of course . . .”

  “You’re not.”

  “It’s the dreams again. I know it sounds crazy, impossible, but I see him. I see my baby.” She fought to keep her voice from cracking when she thought of Noah.

  Cheryl patted her arm. “Come on in. Let’s see what we can do.” Waving for Ava to follow, Cheryl led her through a series of connecting rooms to her studio, a converted bedroom painted an icy gray that reminded Ava of the sea in winter. “You can have a seat in the recliner, or if you prefer, the couch.” She paused to light a candle.

  This was Ava’s second visit. The first stab at hypnosis hadn’t been all that effective; at least there had been no major breakthroughs, no startling revelations that had helped Ava understand her own troubled mind.

  Yet, she was back.

  Still restless. Still searching.

  She forced herself to settle into the oversized La-Z-Boy and raised the footrest. As she closed her eyes, she felt the warmth of a cozy blanket as Cheryl draped a quilt over her legs. Dear God, she was tired, and here she felt safe. At peace. A relief that was never present at the island.

  “So I want you to go deep today,” Cheryl said softly as she settled into a nearby chair. “Just relax and go deeper . . .”

  Ava was barely aware of the sound of her voice or the relaxing music as she slid beneath the veil. It was a weird sensation, as she wasn’t truly asleep, though she wasn’t sharply awake either, but hovering between the two states. Dreamlike . . .

  “Breathe deeply . . .” Cheryl’s voice was gentle, yet firm.

  Ava drew in a long breath and the tension seemed to drain from her muscles.

  “Now go deeper . . . to your private place . . .”

  The place of calm. That’s how she thought of it. In her mind’s eye, she saw herself in that sunny cove near the waterfall. She was wearing a yellow sundress, her hair pulled away from her face by a simple rubber band. White sand shimmered in the sunlight filtering through the trees and a gentle spray touched her cheeks. The water was clear and cool and . . .

  Noah was there, too, she realized. Playing in the sand, his chubby fingers digging through grains that glinted in the sun’s warm rays, he was only a few feet from her.

  “Baby,” she said aloud, and he grinned, showing off his tiny teeth.

  “Mommy! See what I find!” He held up a clam shell, golden and glistening, beautiful in its complexity but broken and chipped.

  “Careful, honey, that’s sharp.”

  She walked toward him, her shadow falling across his upturned face, and she saw a bit of challenge in his eyes. “That’s why it’s called a razor clam . . .”

  “It’s mine!”

  “I know, but let Mama see it. Just to make sure it’s okay.”

  “No! Mine!” he repeated, his little chin jutted defiantly, the shell clenched in his fist.

  “Of course it is.” She knelt beside him, her arm outstretched. “I just want to make sure it won’t hurt you.”

  But he wasn’t listening. Instead he was backing up, away from her, holding tight to the shell, blood beginning to show between his chubby fingers.

  “Noah, please—”

  “No!”

  More blood.

  She lunged for him, but on short little legs, he turned and sped off toward the water.

  “Noah!” she screamed, frantic. “Stop!”

  In that mind-numbing instant, she saw her mistake. She took off after him at a dead run, her bare feet pounding the sand.

  “Noah!” Her voice caught in the wind as the ocean darkened from aquamarine to slate gray, shifted from a tranquil lagoon to the dark and roiling sea. “Stop! Oh, please! Baby!” Horrified, she watched him step into the water, the waves lapping, foam crashing around him.

  She was breathing hard, chasing him, but just as she lunged forward, grasping at him, he turned, eyes round with fear; then his little feet slid off an underwater shelf and he disappeared into the deep water. “Noah!” she cried, desperately. “Baby—”

  “And you’re waking up,” a voice said from a distance.

  Sobs erupted from her throat.

  “Breathe deeply. And you’re opening your eyes—”

  Ava’s eyes flew open and she found herself half lying in the recliner in Cheryl’s studio. Her heart was pounding frantically, her fingers clenched into the chair’s leather arms, her mind filled with dark images that brought a soft cry from her lips.

  “And you’re calm now . . .” Cheryl sounded certain.

  Ava slowly let out her breath, the tension draining from her body again as she felt the relief that her horrid dream was passing. She unclenched her fingers, let her shoulders slump. “Oh, God,” she whispered, glancing up at Cheryl and feeling tears fill her eyes. Damn she didn’t want to cry.

  “You relived it.”

  “No.” Shaking her head, she sniffed and slapped her tears away. “That’s just it; I don’t think I ever lived it the first time. There’s no reliving it.”

  “That you’re aware of.”

  “Damn it all.”

  “You okay?”

  “Do I look okay?” she asked, then nearly laughed at the absurdity of it all.

  Cheryl leaned closer as the candle burned. “It’s your fears coming to the surface,” Cheryl said, “but what concerns me is that they permeate your quiet place. Before you can completely relax, before we can go deeper, the visions return.”

  “I know.” This was only her second session, and in the first, she’d had a similar experience, yet Ava was convinced that if she could ever get past the mental barrier she’d created for herself, she would remember so much more, find the truth.

  “Here.” Cheryl offered her a cup of steaming herbal tea that smelled like ginger. “Want to try again?”

  Sipping the tea, she shook her head. “Another time.” Another swallow. “You have any other clients who have this same problem?”

  Cheryl smiled as the door to her room slid open and a skinny tortoiseshell cat slithered inside. “There was a guy a few years ago who had a major mental block, but we got through it. I think we can with you, too . . . You get right to the edge and pull back.”

&n
bsp; “How is that possible? I thought with hypnosis”—she shivered inside—“that, you know, you could delve past everything.”

  “Everyone’s different, Ava. Even the most willing participants sometimes are difficult to reach. We’ll try again, if that’s what you want.”

  “Okay.” She sipped her tea, then, pulling herself together, paid Cheryl and made an appointment for the next week.

  Even though she half suspected the whole hypnosis thing wasn’t working, she couldn’t give up. At least not yet. As she made her way back to the dock, she wondered if anything could help or if she would forever be trapped in this state of unknowing, a hellish purgatory that had no end.

  Her recent hospital stay hadn’t done more than calm her, and her regular therapy sessions with Dr. McPherson hadn’t provided any major breakthroughs. Hypnosis had been a last grasp on her part, a desperate measure, and it, too, hadn’t succeeded in opening repressed memories or shrouded truths.

  Maybe there are none. Maybe the answers you’re searching for will never be found.

  That thought was chilling, and it chased her through the narrow streets and down the barnacled steps to the dock where she found Butch, seated at the helm of the Holy Terror as he flipped through the pages of a worn paperback and smoked a cigarette.

  “I thought I told you I’d catch a ride with Wyatt,” she said as he glanced up to peer at her over the tops of his sunglasses.

  “You did.” He set the book down and started the engine.

  “So?”

  “You’re a liar, Ava. We both know it.” He flashed her a smile that made him look ten years younger, then waved her into the boat. “Climb aboard.”

  “You didn’t have to come back for me.”

  “I didn’t.”

  “Now who’s the liar?”

  He snorted, adjusting the brim of his hat. “Wasn’t doin’ anything anyway. Fishin’s lousy.”

  “So bad that you had to hang around here and wait for me.”

  “Nothin’ better goin’ on.”

  She didn’t believe him for a second, but she took the ride.

  As she settled into her seat, Butch tossed the ropes holding the boat to its mooring inside the hull, then stood behind the helm. Threading the Holy Terror through the other docked fishing and pleasure vessels, he didn’t notice as she sank deeper into the plastic cushions and told herself the vision she’d had during hypnosis was nothing, just her active imagination. Again.

  She heard the engine begin to race as Butch let out the throttle, and when she opened her eyes again, the marina and Anchorville were behind them and the gray expanse of water between the island and mainland was narrowing.

  She told herself she wasn’t going back to prison, that she was a free woman, but as the Holy Terror bucked a little as the prow hit the wake of a speed boat cruising the opposite direction, she knew she was lying to herself.

  Ava wrapped her arms around her middle and felt a cold spreading through her body as Neptune’s Gate came clearly into view. It had once been the one place in the world she’d felt safe and secure. She’d worked hard to own all of it . . . well, almost all of it. There still was Jewel-Anne’s portion. Jewel-Anne was the only holdout, the one cousin who hadn’t been swayed by money.

  “Why would I sell it? I love it here, Ava,” she’d said, looking up at her with her pretty, little girl face and seemingly innocent eyes. They’d been in the back hallway, near the elevator shaft, Jewel, for once, without one of her dolls. “It’s more important than any amount of money.”

  “You could live with friends, be in the city—Seattle or San Francisco, even L.A.—instead of being cooped up here on the island.” Ava had already offered her cousin nearly twice what Jewel’s share of the estate was worth.

  Jewel’s perfect little mouth had twisted into a wry smile and her eyes had seemed to shine with superiority. “I said I love it here.” She’d flipped her hair over her shoulder, turned her wheelchair around, and waited for the descending elevator car. As it clunked to a stop and the doors whispered open, she’d cast one last glance at Ava and vowed, “I’ll never leave. This is my home.”

  Home, Ava thought sourly now as she focused on Jewel-Anne’s corner room, the one tucked inside the middle floor of the windowed turret. From inside, one could view the gardens, bay, mainland, and open sea, and it was Jewel-Anne’s favorite spot, one where she’d said often enough, “I can see where it happened, you know . . . the place where Kelvin drowned. . . .” Her smile would always turn wistful, then sad, and there was always an unspoken accusation in her eyes.

  She’d had to voice it only once. “You killed him, Ava,” she’d whispered while staring out the window and clutching the black-haired doll with porcelain skin and one eye that never quite opened. Jewel-Anne’s voice had been filled with a quiet, repressed hatred. “He loved you and . . . and you killed him.” At that moment she’d looked up, her upper lip curling slightly, her fingers twisting a lock of the doll’s straight hair. “You’re a hypocrite, Ava. A liar, a murderer, and God only knows what else. You act at being a wife, pretend to be a loving mother.”

  Ava had been stronger then and nearly slapped her martyred cousin. “And you’re a bitch, Jewel-Anne. I don’t care if you are wheelchair bound—you’re a straight-up bitch.”

  “Perfect,” her cousin had said. “Because you’re stuck with me. I will never sell my share of this house to you. Never!” Her fingers had stopped moving and hatred seemed to emanate from her small, broken body. She raised a knowing eyebrow and said in a succinct whisper, “The truth is, Ava, I’d rather die first.”

  CHAPTER 7

  While on the mainland, Dern had bought a fifth of Jack Daniel’s, a value-sized bag of Doritos, and twenty pounds of dog food. Not exactly nutrition central, and it did suggest a commitment to the mutt, but so what?

  That wasn’t the big deal, Dern thought as he set the bottle in one of the near-empty cupboards. Groceries weren’t the true reason he’d headed to the mainland. The annoying thing was that he’d learned little on his quick trip.

  He’d frequented a grocery store, the liquor outlet, a coffee shop, a sandwich place, and a bar, striking up conversations about Church Island and its inhabitants, and no one seemed to know much other than the same old local gossip he was already wading through.

  Yeah, the original owner, a sea captain, had bought up most of the land. Yeah, the place was worth a lot these days, and it was owned almost in its entirety by Ava Church Garrison. All agreed she was “beautiful, and let me tell you, she can be a hard-nosed bitch of a businesswoman when she wants to be. Went completely around the bend when her kid disappeared, ended up in a mental hospital because she tried to slit her wrists or some damned thing. As nuts as the rest of the family.” Local consensus had it she was married to a lawyer from the city, and there was more than a good chance he married her for her money and oh, yeah, the Church family? A bunch of loonies; couldn’t be trusted. Even that one in the wheelchair, Jewel-Something-or-Other, odd duck, that one. But she at least had a few brains; Jewel was the one relative who hadn’t sold her share of Neptune’s Gate to her cousin, the only holdout. Funny thing, that.

  At a dive of a bar named the Salty Dog, Dern had brought up Sea Cliff Hospital and had suffered a few long looks of reproof. The consensus seemed to be that losing the hospital wasn’t a bad thing. In fact, the three men nursing drinks at the Dog seemed to share a sense of relief.

  “Sea Cliff?” Gil, an older guy with long white hair and a voice that was gravelly from years of smoking cigarettes, repeated when Dern had asked about the abandoned asylum. “After that nutcase Lester Reece escaped and disappeared, everyone in Anchorville was mighty glad Sea Cliff closed its gates.” He’d taken a long sip from his whiskey as some country single had played. Shaking his head, Gil added, “No good ever came from that looney bin. Let me tell you. That place was more of a prison than it ever was a hospital.”

  The wide-girthed, silent man who had been seated on the bar stoo
l next to Gil had nodded his agreement before burying his nose into a half-full beer glass.

  “Fuckin’ nut jobs in there. Wouldn’t have gone there if I was dyin’!” a third man interjected, a scrawny guy with gapped teeth in a worn flannel shirt and baggy jeans who slid his glass toward the bartender. “Hey, Hal, I’ll have another.”

  Just then the phone rang and the barkeep said, “In a sec, Corky,” then swept the receiver to his ear and propped it there with one shoulder as he drew another Budweiser from the tap.

  “I heard the local shrink Dr. McPhee—I think that’s her name—used to work out there.” Dern nodded toward the plate-glass window with its glowing neon sign filling half the space that overlooked the bay and, farther out, the island.

  “McPherson.” Gil shook his head of white hair. “Maybe. Don’t know.”

  The scrawny guy cackled. “Yeah, McPherson, uh-huh, that’s right. My aunt went to see her there a while back. They had clinics for the public, outside the gates of that damned place.”

  “On the island?”

  “Yep. But they closed, too. Anyway, Aunt Audrey, she didn’t like anything about Sea Cliff. It bothered her being so close to the hospital. Quit after three sessions.”

  “So where’d McPherson go?”

  Corky lifted a shoulder. “Got an office somewhere around here.”

  “In Anchorville?” Dern asked.

  “Near Third Street. But she still ferries herself out to the island.” He was nodding, agreeing with himself. “The woman who owns most of it, she’s a real head case. Went off the rails when her kid drowned.”

  The muscles in the back of Dern’s neck tightened a bit.

  “Went missing,” Gil corrected. “No body was ever found.”

  Corky snorted. “If the kid was alive, he’d have shown up by now.” He snagged the beer that Hal scooted across the scarred bar. “Thanks. Y’know, some folks think Lester Reece came back after he escaped and was behind the kid’s disappearance.”

  “The prisoner at Sea Cliff?” Dern asked, trying not to show too much interest, though anything about the island caught his attention.