Another hour? So soon? As if to amplify the mounting tension I was feeling, the rain began falling harder and the car was buffeted by the accompanying winds. The quick, steady rhythm of the windshield wipers seemed to mirror my rapid heartbeat. What had I gotten myself into?
My silence, and no doubt my rigid posture, clued Greg in to my anxious mood. Without thinking, he reached out and patted my knee in what I knew was meant to be a calming gesture. Still, I couldn’t suppress my automatic response.
My sharp cry of alarm at his touch nearly cost Greg control of the car. He managed, after a few panicky moments, to pull over. There was a truck stop up ahead on the highway. He drove into the parking lot. Both of us were shaken up at this point.
“I’m sorry.” We both said the same words at the same time. Greg laughed. I managed a weak smile.
“We can go inside, get a cup of coffee and wait the storm out,” he offered.
I shook my head, chiding myself for overreacting. I had to somehow get it into my head that every touch wasn’t a threat. Even though all memory of the assault was absent from my mind, I was paranoid. The storm and this trip only heightened it.
I took in a deep breath, exhaling slowly as Dr. Royce had taught me. I could feel some of the color return to my face. “I’m all right now. Please, let’s go.” I felt foolish and self-conscious and was greatly relieved when Greg started for the exit ramp without a word.
To my amazement and I’m sure Greg’s relief, by the time we neared Sinclair a little over an hour later, the skies had cleared. When we approached the small main drag of the quaint mountain town, the streets were actually dry, the descending sun casting a warm golden hue over the picture-postcard landscape.
The setting, far from stirring any memories, was completely unfamiliar to me, but my spirits perked up nonetheless. There was something warm and friendly and easygoing about the village. Good vibes, I thought, smiling.
Greg was delighted with the change in me. “You’re already looking more like your old self,” he commented, his eyes sparkling.
The remark gave me a surprising little thrill.
We were approaching a quaint, barnboard red-shingled convenience store. “Could we stop for a minute?” I asked. “I’d like to pick up a few things. I made do with very little at the hospital.” I was thinking some cosmetics were in order, and some perfume would be nice. What scent, though? What did “Deborah” wear? Did “my husband” have a preference?
Greg drove into the small parking area in front of the convenience store. “I’ll fill up across the street and be back here in a few minutes.”
As I opened the car door to step out, I was tempted to ask him about the perfume, but then felt foolish and embarrassed.
“Do you need some money?” he asked.
“Oh…No. I have…enough,” I said, hurriedly stepping out and waving as Greg pulled out.
Actually, I’d been penniless at the hospital, a ward of the state. The only reason I had money on me now was that I’d accepted a small loan from Dr. Royce. Despite the fact that he was against my leaving the hospital so precipitously, he’d insisted that I not go off empty-handed. I felt funny about accepting the money, but I was touched, too. For a moment, I wished I’d discovered I was Dr. Royce’s wife, not Nicholas Steele’s. I suppose most patients have special feelings for their therapists. And I suppose the converse is true of some therapists, as well. It certainly was true of Dr. Royce—even though the money he loaned me wasn’t actually his, but came out of an emergency hospital kitty. I promised to pay it back as soon as possible, not thinking at the time that it meant having to ask Nicholas Steele for the money. Or did I have some money of my own?
A little bell jingled over the glass-and-wooden door as I stepped into the shop that on the inside gave the appearance of an old-fashioned general store. There was even a bulletin board near the cash register where locals tacked up folksy announcements, photos, and notices of items for sale.
I was relieved to see that other than the young girl at the register, there were only a couple of customers in the shop—a pair of middle-aged women chatting and browsing over at the book-and-magazine rack. The prospect of being around a crowd of people made me feel skittish. I had voiced that concern to Greg at one point while we were driving up. I worried that such a rich and celebrated author as Nicholas Steele would surround himself with some sort of literary “in” crowd. Greg, however, had assured me that Nick led what most people would call a very reclusive life. He valued his solitude, had few close friends, dispatched sycophants with practiced ease, never gave big parties. Greg also insisted that, sought-after though Nicholas was, he, too, felt uneasy and out of place in large groups. Of course, a certain amount of that was required to promote sales of his books. But, fortunately, Greg had added, Nicholas Steele’s horror novels were so popular at this point that they basically sold themselves, allowing him to be very selective about the guest appearances and such that he now rarely made.
The cosmetics rack turned out to be in the aisle that was directly on the other side of the book-and-magazine rack. Feeling overwhelmed by the wide assortment of choices for lipstick, blush, eye shadows, eyeliners and face powders, I could do little more than stare at it all.
I was only vaguely conscious of the conversation between the two women at the book rack until I heard one of them say, “Nicholas Steele.”
“Night Cries is his latest,” the other was saying in a raspy voice. “Of course, that won’t come out in paperback for months. I put my name on the waiting list for it at the library the day it came out in hard cover. It was weeks before my turn came up. And then, I foolishly went and made the mistake of starting the darn thing right before bed. I was so terrified I couldn’t sleep a wink that night. And I still can’t go up into my attic without Tom.”
“I don’t care what any of those celebrity magazines say about the man, I think Nicholas Steele must be a little mad himself, don’t you think?” her friend replied. “I mean, what person in his right mind could even come up with such gruesome plots?”
My whole body was trembling as I heard a soft chuckle. “Well, we devour every one of them, Joan,” the raspy-voiced woman countered. “So what does that say about us and all of Nicholas Steele’s other fans? We may gasp in horror, lose sleep, but we keep turning the pages as fast as we can.”
“It’s not the same thing, Alice,” Joan argued. “Besides, he looks…weird. That dark hair pulled back severely from his face in a ponytail. Those eyes. I’ve never seen anyone with truly black eyes before. Why, you can’t even see where the irises leave off and the pupils begin. He gives me the willies.”
“I don’t know,” Alice mused. “I think he’s rather medieval looking. His features are so arresting and unusual. He looks like he stepped out of a history book. Or some swashbuckling movie. On the few occasions I’ve spotted him in town, I found myself thinking he ought to be wearing a dark cloak, rapier sword in hand, riding a white charger down Main Street.”
“Hiding in the shadow of doorways seems more appropriate,” Joan said dryly. “Or lurking in a rat infested dungeon like that madman, Olafson, in his book, Only the Dead.”
“Oh, please, I get goose bumps just thinking about that book.”
“I tell you, Alice, Nicholas Steele has a warped mind. It’s no wonder that wife of his ran away like she did. Can you imagine living with that man?”
There was another soft chuckle from Joan. “I don’t know. It could be rather exciting. Even…dangerous.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Surely this couldn’t be the same man Greg had told me about? He’d made Nick sound so appealing and glamorous. He’d said women adored him. Not if they perceived him as weird and frightening, surely. But hadn’t I conjured up a frightful image of Nicholas Steele myself when Dr. Royce first told me he was a horror novelist?
I was so caught up in the conversation and