Jessica continued down the hallway, wondering how far a cute chin would take her in life. She opened the door to her office and turned on the lights, then hesitated, almost afraid to shut herself in the place where she’d first had the dream. When nothing out of the ordinary happened, she stepped inside and closed the door.
A dark stain shadowed the carpet near the bank of file cabinets. Blood. Her blood. She shuddered. A couple of steps farther, she saw her umbrella sticking out from beneath the desk where it had rolled after she’d tripped. She picked it up and put it safely on top of the cabinets where it belonged.
When she sat down behind her desk and turned on the computer, a feeling of well-being settled upon her. The familiarity of her desk, her computer, her things, eased the tension she’d been feeling. Now maybe everything would return to normal.
Before the program came up on the screen, she caught a glimpse of herself in the reflection and grimaced. Everything else might be normal, but her hair was not. Although it still made her look like a waif, there was an unplanned benefit to the shaggy style. The wild fall of bangs across her forehead hid the lump of white bandage quite nicely. Then the program came up and her reflection disappeared and she forgot about everything except payroll checks.
Less than an hour later, she picked up the house phone. Her part of the job was finished. Now all she needed was Jeff Dolby’s signature on the checks and she, along with the other employees of Squaw Creek Lodge, would get paid.
It should have been a simple call. Punch in the three numbers that dialed the manager’s office, then tell Sheila that the checks were ready to be signed.
She punched the numbers, and as she’d expected, Sheila answered the phone. But Jessica didn’t tell her the checks were ready. Between dialing and waiting for her call to be answered, something else started to happen. When she heard Sheila’s voice, she started to shake. And when Sheila raised her voice to repeat her hello, Jessica heard herself shouting.
“Your house is on fire!”
Sheila’s gasp was audible. “Who is this? If this is a joke, it’s not funny.”
Sweat beaded on Jessica’s upper lip as she stared down at her desk. The checks were right before her, but she didn’t see them. All she could see were tiny orange-red tongues of flame eating their way up a kitchen wall. Her voice deepened, and she spoke in a vocal shorthand, trying to impart the urgency of what she was seeing.
“In the kitchen! Up the wall. Fire! Smoke! Hurry! Hurry!”
The line disconnected, and Jessica dropped the phone and laid her head on the desk, fighting an overwhelming urge to cry.
Some time later, she made herself get up. Her hands were still shaking as she walked down the hall toward the manager’s office. When she went inside, she made herself look. Just as she’d expected, Sheila’s desk was empty.
What have I done?
But there were no answers, only questions. Taking a deep breath, she knocked on Dolby’s door. When he called out for her to enter, she did.
Trying to focus on something besides the vision she’d just had, she laid the checks on the manager’s desk.
“I thought you might want to sign these now, since we’re a couple of days late getting them out.”
He looked pleased. “Good job! I wasn’t sure you’d show up. I take it you’re not suffering any ugly aftereffects of your fall?”
“Hardly any at all.” Except for losing my mind.
“Wonderful! Wonderful! This was smart going with paper checks since direct deposit could have been screwed up during the storm and take days to fix.” He picked up a pen. “Have a seat, will you? Give me a couple of minutes and they’ll be ready to go out.”
As she sat down, she realized that Jeff Dolby was sporting a new hairpiece. For once, she was thankful she had something besides her own problems on which to concentrate. It was all she could do not to stare. This month’s hairpiece was dark and wavy, which was a unique contrast to the one he’d worn before. This one rode his bald dome like a loose saddle on the back of a swayback horse. It was there, but it just didn’t fit.
Jessica sighed and closed her eyes. She knew about not fitting in. It had been the story of her life. Now, with this thing that kept happening to her, she felt like more of an outcast than ever. Tears burned at the back of her throat as she struggled with her composure.
Dolby’s pen scratched across the surface of the checks as he wrote his name in small and contained flourishes. When he got to the last one, he looked up.
“If you don’t mind, Miss Hanson, I would appreciate it if you would distribute these. Normally that’s Sheila’s job, but she got an emergency phone call and had to leave, and since these are already late—”
He shoved them toward her, expecting her instant acquiescence.
Jessica stared at the checks, but couldn’t bring herself to move. She tensed, then cleared her throat.
“She did?”
He nodded, unaware that his hairpiece went one way as his head went another. In spite of the oddity of Jeff Dolby’s hair, it was what he’d said that gave her pause. She licked her lips, wanting to ask, but afraid of what he might say. Moments passed, and finally, she could stand the suspense no longer.
“I hope it wasn’t serious.”
“Well, yes, I believe that it was,” Dolby said. “She called me just before you came in.” He paused, and then continued. “You know, it was the strangest thing. She got an anonymous phone call here at the office. Someone said her house was on fire.”
“Oh, my,” Jessica said, and felt the skin on her neck starting to crawl.
“As it turns out, the call was on the up and up. If it hadn’t come, her house would have burned down. She said most of the damage was confined to the kitchen.”
And then Dolby gasped and suddenly bolted from his chair. His hairpiece slid forward over his left eye as he made a grab for Jessica. But he was a couple of seconds too late.
She slid out of her chair in a faint.
* * *
Smelling salts stunk. Enough so that wherever Jessica had gone when she fainted, she came back in a rush.
“Easy now,” someone said.
She looked up, noting that Mr. Dolby had more natural hair up his nose than he had on his head.
“Don’t move just yet. Take a couple of deep breaths and relax. When you feel able, we’ll help you up.”
One of the maids was cradling Jessica’s head in her lap while another mopped at her face with a very wet cloth that smelled of disinfectant.
At least I will be clean when I die. “What happened?”
“You fainted.”
She covered her face with her hands.
“Bat barf.”
Dolby patted her arm. “Now, now, you’re going to be fine. I appreciate the fact that you came in this morning to finish payroll, but I think you came back too soon. We’ve called for an ambulance. They’re going to take you—”
She pushed them aside and sat up with a jerk, then clutched her head with both hands, reeling as the room began to spin. Someone pushed her head between her knees and she found herself looking at a dried raisin that was stuck in the carpet. It was a fitting analogy to the way she felt.
“I’m not going back to the hospital,” she said. “I don’t need a hospital.” All I need is a new brain. Mine broke.
The sound of sirens could be heard coming up the road leading to the lodge.
Jessica groaned. “Send