here at this hour, especially not somebody who don’t yet know who’s who and what’s what around here. Why, you got them oil trucks speeding back and forth from the rigs. You got folks coming out of the lounge hardly able to stand, let alone drive. And we ain’t gonna get into discussing the kind of trash that’s been known to jump off one of the freight trains rambling through town. Just what’re you up to, anyway?”
Rachel had assured her that she simply felt the need for some fresh air, which the walk would provide. Cleo hadn’t bought the story for a second.
“This is on account I couldn’t drive you on Monday and Tuesday, ain’t it? I knew it. You’ve been acting weird ever since. Trying to make me feel guilty.”
It hadn’t been easy convincing Cleo that she wasn’t trying to do anything of the kind; nevertheless, Rachel had held firm to her decision to get herself home her own way. Suspicious and openly offended, the older woman had sped away with a burst of spinning tires and spitting gravel, leaving Rachel to finish turning off all but the security lights.
It was just as well, Rachel decided, drawing the key out of the door. She picked up her bag and squared her shoulders. Right now she had too many questions of her own without having to answer someone else’s.
Come on, Gentry, she cajoled as she found herself hesitating. You know the plan, and it’s too late to turn chicken now. Move. If nothing happens this time, no one need ever know besides you. If something does…well, how much stranger could things get?
Either way she would be safe in her bed in another twenty minutes or so. Safe, although not necessarily asleep. She sighed, not relishing the prospect of lying wide awake for the rest of the night analyzing what she’d seen and what it meant, while mice, or who knew what, scurried around within her bedroom walls.
Well, don’t forget you came down here because you also wanted some adventure in your life, remember?
What a thing to remember. Cleo was right; Rachel had been foolish to insist on walking alone at this hour, even though the boardinghouse stood just across Black Water Creek Bridge. And to do it repeatedly? She had to be tempting fate. How she wished she still had her car; having that sleek curve of steel and fiberglass wrapped around her would be a comfort right about now.
On the other hand, how could she regret selling her parents’ graduation gift? She’d accepted it under duress, anyway, and selling it had cut in half the balance she owed on her medical school loans.
Stop wasting precious time, Gentry. Make the one-eighty.
She executed a quick pivot, and her heartbeat accelerated to a stronger thump against her ribs. She forgot about Cleo, the red sports car, even that her feet and back were killing her. She simply stared at the veil of gray obliterating the night sky, along with almost everything else, and knew her instinct to experiment one more time was going to yield results. Exactly what kind, she didn’t know, but there would be something.
Mist…as it had for the first two unforgettable nights of the week, once again it hung in the air, consumed it. Bone-dampening, vision-blurring, spring mist. Fog. Floating rain.
Before Monday, she wouldn’t have given the soggy weather much thought beyond the fact that it made everything in the boardinghouse smell like moldy bread or overripe cheese, caused her clothes to stick to her body as though they were a decayed layer of skin, and made hard-to-curl hair like hers borderline frizzy. Droll musings. Trivial reflections. But Monday had changed everything, as had Tuesday—and she was losing her ability to remain dispassionate.
She drew a slow, calming breath and reminded herself that she couldn’t afford to get too caught up in the atmosphere. She was a doctor. Maybe she had a lot to learn, as Sammy had pointed out, but that didn’t mean she shouldn’t approach this with logical, methodical and, above all, scientific thinking.
This time she wouldn’t overreact. This time she wouldn’t make any mistakes. This time she would determine what was happening on the single-lane bridge linking one side of the rural community to the other. Oh, yes, she would. Even if it meant being drawn deeper into what was beginning to feel like a bad dream.
With a death grip on her medical bag, and her hand already damp from nerves and the fine moisture hanging in the air, Rachel pocketed her keys, then switched the bag to her right hand. Rubbing her left palm against the side of her jean-clad thigh, she started walking.
As she eyed the spans on the cantilever bridge, illuminated by the lights from Alma’s Country Cookin’ on the near side and Beauchamp’s Gas and Body Works on the far side, an eighteen-wheeler rumbled by. It prompted her to accelerate her pace. If the driver saw anything while crossing, she reasoned, surely he would stop.
But she had just stepped onto the single-lane bridge when she heard the change of tone signifying tire rubber meeting solid ground. The truck had reached the other side and was speeding away. Obviously, the driver hadn’t seen anything unusual at all.
No Dr. Watson award for you, old girl.
Somewhere in the distance a bloodhound bayed. Beneath her, bullfrogs croaked their night songs in somber bass, and the indolent creek flowed with barely a murmur. She’d heard it would take several days of heavy rains and severe flooding north of Baton Rouge to rouse this swarthy stream, but mid-July wasn’t exactly monsoon season in Nooton, and in the few weeks since she’d moved here the rain they did have had been light.
She swatted at a mosquito and then two more, deciding a gully washer would be welcome if it rid them of at least a percentage of the pesky bloodsuckers. She’d heard that when they got bad this high up on the bridge, you knew the population was at epidemic proportions. Local trivia fact number eighteen, she thought, making a conscious effort to keep her growing tension in check.
At least her long-sleeved jacket protected her arms, and her jeans saved her legs from all but the most persistent insects. But how appalled her mother would be if she could see her. “No self-respecting Gentry woman would allow herself to be caught wearing such attire in public,” she would say, her aristocratic nose angled to insinuate just the right amount of disdain. Well, none of her “genteel” relations would be caught dead in Nooton, anyway, and they certainly would never have given up two years of their lives to fulfill anything as archaic and austere as a two-year “moral commitment contract.”
Almost halfway across the bridge the mist grew thicker. It swirled as warmer air rose from the creek and mossy banks to merge with slightly cooler air currents. Rachel narrowed her eyes, searching each shifting mass. Her heartbeat raced faster, until it seemed one constant thrumming. Was that something? Was that? The phantomlike mist played trick after trick with her vision, making her feel as though she was part of some middleworld and had to wrestle for control of her imagination.
Oh, God, what was she doing? With another twenty-two months on her contract, what right did she have to go on some wild-goose chase that took her attention away from caring for those who relied on her? Suppose an emergency arose and Sammy learned she hadn’t been there to handle things as she should have? How would she explain? What person in their right mind would accept the flimsy excuse that she’d been following a theory—one based on mathematics to be sure, but still weak?
“Help me.”
She jerked to a halt, the rubber soles of her jogging shoes squeaking against the cement sidewalk, and just as abruptly, all doubts and concerns vanished from her mind. Peering through the writhing mist to the other side of the bridge, she saw it. Him.
So, this wasn’t a fluke after all, she thought with a contradictory sense of satisfaction and trepidation. He was back, as he had been on Monday and again yesterday.
She studied the vision that initially had made her doubt her overtired eyes. A moment later she heard it again—the desperate words which had been haunting every waking and sleeping hour since she’d first heard them.
“Help…me.”
As before, the hairs at her nape and on her arms lifted. Nevertheless, she slowly, cautiously started toward him.
He stood in the darkness