Crazy in Chicago (27 page)

Cody made a face. “Maybe. But we'd have to find someone else to do it.”

“I can do it. I can hypnotize you. Garnet taught me, and he's an expert. I've done it at least twice before, doing research for one of his books. I'm sure I could do it again.”

Cody looked doubtful. “Okay. Let's go then.”

“No.” Roberta looked around. She dropped her shoes. “Let's do it right here. This place has jogged your memory. Maybe the hypnosis will work even better if we do it here.”

Roberta sat down and patted a spot on the grass beside her. “Sit here. I want to hypnotize you while there's still enough light to see.”

Cody lowered himself to the ground and crossed his legs. “Why didn't you tell me you could do this before?” His eyes narrowed. “Or were you saving it for your last chance to get me into your clutches?”

“Hmmph.” Roberta ignored him. She unclasped the chain and medal around her neck and pulled it out from under her T-shirt.

“What's that?”

“It's a medal of St. Jude, the patron saint of hopeless causes. I'm going to use it to hypnotize you.”

Cody reached for the medal to examine it. “Hopeless causes, huh? Is there a reason why you're using this now?” He looked from the medal to Roberta.

Gently Roberta took the medal back. “Because it's handy, that's all.”

She closed the chain and pulled the medal to the bottom. “Now, I'm going to swing this back and forth in front of you for several moments. I want you to watch it carefully. At the same time, I want you to relax. There's nothing to worry about.”

She suspended the silver medal and set it to swinging slowly in front of Cody's eyes. The setting sun glinted off the medal, making it glow like a jewel, as precious and shiny as all her hopes and prayers for Cody.

“Watch the medal . . . back and forth, back and forth. You are getting sleepy,” she intoned.
 

But inside she prayed, “Dear St. Jude, please make this work. Forget anything else I've ever asked for. Just make this work. For Cody. Please.”

* * *

The silver medal swung back and forth, catching then losing the light each time, as Roberta repeated the soothing, monotonous words. Cody watched the medal, and Roberta watched Cody, searching for signs that the hypnotism was taking effect.

Finally Cody's breathing slowed. His eyes drifted shut. With a sigh of relief, Roberta dropped the chain and medal into her lap.

Now, where to begin? Biting her lip, she tried to recall everything she'd read and witnessed about how to regress a subject under hypnosis, and more importantly, how to assure that she neither led Cody nor planted ideas of her own into his head.

She gritted her teeth. This was a lot easier to do with someone you didn't know and love.

Finally, she began. Darkness was falling, and she didn't want to be out here longer than a few minutes.

“Cody,” she said softly. “You can open your eyes, now.”

He obeyed. His black eyes fixed on her.

“We're going to go back now, to that time a year ago when you were missing from your home for six weeks. You'll recall, you disappeared from your car the morning of June sixteenth. You saw a blue light. Later, you remembered being in a cold, gray room, unable to move. You heard voices, human voices, and a man's shadow covered you.”

Cody nodded. “That's correct.”

“Now, we're sitting in the spot where you were found, six weeks later. You were incoherent and they took you by ambulance to the hospital. I want you to think back now, to your captivity, and to the moments before you arrived here, at this spot. Try to do that.”

Cody frowned. “I . . . I don't remember, exactly. My eyes are shut. I don't open them. I don't know why. But I can feel motion, jerky motion. And hear voices.”

Suddenly his face blanched and he clasped his stomach. He seemed to be hyperventilating. “The motion is overwhelming. I'm going to be sick. I can't breathe. I can't see. I—aaahh.”

“What's happening, Cody? Are you all right?”
 

Slowly his arms relaxed. His breathing returned to normal. “It's okay now. I've stopped moving. The whirling sensation, it's fading away. So is the noise, the hissing or whooshing in my ears.”

Cody moved his shoulders as if he had an itch. “I can feel something now, something scratchy, under my shoulders and around my neck. Why, why, it's grass. Grass!”

Roberta's eyes widened at the delight in his voice. But why would the feel of grass delight him? Where in God's name had he been kept if mere grass delighted him?

“I'm shaking all over. I open my eyes. I can open my eyes! Everything's blurry, but I can see. I think that's the sky overhead—the night sky. And the moon. A full moon.”

“Can you see anything else?”

“No. Yes. I don't know. I'm so relieved to see the sky. I haven't seen anything for so long. It's wonderful. But . . .” Cody broke off and groaned.

“Are you hurt? Is someone hurting you?” Roberta yelped, then could have kicked herself. A leading question, dammit.

“No one's hurting me. But I don't think I can move yet. I feel sick still. My body's heavy. It's not really responding to my mind.”

Drugs. Does that mean he was drugged? Roberta wondered. Anger and indignation rose in her. How could anyone do this to Cody? And for what?”

With difficulty she kept the anger out of her voice. “Do you hear anyone or anything?”

“No.”

“There is no one about or . . .” Roberta almost said “creatures” but bit her tongue just in time.

“No. No one. That is . . . oh!”

“What? What's happening?”

“Someone is bending over me now. I still can't see very well. It's a woman. I think I recognize her but I'm not sure.”

“What is she doing?”

“She seems . . . upset. She's talking to me, asking me something. But I can't hear her. The words are fuzzy. I want to hear her. But I can't.”

“Someone's holding my hand. My fingers are stiff. They're cold. Her hand is warm.”

Cody's brow puckered in confusion. “A drop of something wet falls on my face. Then another, and another. Why, she's crying.” His voice rose in wonder.

“Can you tell who it is yet?”
 

“No. Yes. Yes, I do know who it is. I do. It's—” His face puckered with confusion, quickly followed by amazement.

“It's Allie!”

 

Chapter 15

 

“Allie!” The name exploded from Roberta. “Allie?”

The realization didn't seem to shock the hypnotized Cody as much as it shocked Roberta.

“I try to talk. I have to tell her—”

“Tell her what?”

“That I'm sorry. Sorry I hurt her. I cheated on her. I was a jerk. I'm sorry, Allie. So sorry.”

“What does she say?”

Cody screwed up his face. “Nothing. She lowers her head. She kisses me on the forehead. Gently, so gently. More tears fall on my face. Goodbye, she says. Goodbye.”

“Goodbye?” What Cody recalled was becoming more incomprehensible to Roberta by the minute. What was going on?

“Then she gets up and walks away. I try to see where, but I can't turn my head. Everything is still blurry.”

“Try harder,” urged Roberta. “Try to move, to see. And do you hear anything?”

Cody frowned. “No. Oh, stop. I do hear something. I think it's Allie. She's talking to someone. It's a man. I can't tell who. I . . .”

Cody clutched his stomach again. He shut his eyes. “Sick, dizzy, it's come back. The blurriness is getting worse, everything's whirling.”

Roberta wanted to reach for him, to help him through the relived sickness, but she didn't dare. Instead she waited, one minute, two, three.

Finally she touched his arm. “Are you all right, Cody? Do you want to come back?”

“Yes.”

“All right. I'm going to count to three and snap my fingers. When I do, you'll wake up. You'll feel fine, and rested. You'll remember everything you recalled in this session about your disappearance. Okay?”

He nodded.

“One, two, three.” Roberta snapped her fingers. Cody blinked, then shook his head.

For a moment he just sat there. With a start she realized the sun had set completely, though a faint light remained.

Suddenly Cody frowned. Second by second his expression filled with more consternation.

“Am I remembering what I think I remember?” he asked finally.

“Yes,” Roberta said softly.

“Oh, shit!”

* * *

The car glided to a stop in a parking space on the almost deserted street. The last remaining open businesses and retail outlets had closed more than thirty minutes earlier. No pedestrians filled the sidewalks, and traffic had died to a trickle.

Roberta turned off the car and looked at Cody. The streetlights glinted off her golden hair, and illuminated her worried face. “You sure you want to do this right now?”

Cody grimaced. “I know I don't want to do this now. But I have to know.”

Forty-five minutes after awakening from hypnosis, Cody still couldn't believe what the regression had shown. He didn't want to believe it. But like it or not, the recalled memories struck a chord deep inside, with a resonance that could only mean they were true. Together with Allie's evasiveness, and the uneasiness he had sensed whenever he asked her about Erik, they screamed out questions and demanded answers.

But why? he wondered. The how and the what were important, but it was the why that confounded him. Why had Allie never told the police that she was the one who found him? Why was she there? Why was she crying? Why had she said goodbye? What exactly was her involvement in his disappearance? And why, always why?

Cody eased out of the car. He looked upwards. Light shone from the row of windows of Erik and Allie's studio apartment. Good. They were home.

He felt a tentative hand on his arm. Roberta stood at his side. “Are you sure this is a good idea? I mean, maybe it's dangerous. Maybe—”

Cody shook his head. “No. Despite everything, I know Allie. She's the most non-violent person I know. She hates guns and would never touch one, much less own one. The worst she might do is deny it. And if she does, well, at the moment we don't have any proof. Besides, if she was involved in my disappearance and had wanted to harm me, why didn't she do it then?”

But why would she have been party to his disappearance? Cody mulled that one over. He knew that he'd hurt her, badly. She'd broken their engagement a week before and told him she knew he'd been cheating on her. He cringed even now remembering his cavalier attitude and careless acceptance. What a jerk he'd been.

But could she have planned his kidnap in revenge? The idea was preposterous.

But what about Erik? Erik, who had arrived at
The Streeter
the same day that he disappeared. Erik who clearly disliked him. Erik, who had married Allie. Was Erik the man Allie had spoken to after leaving him in the park? Was Erik the wild card in all this?

Roberta and Cody entered the lobby at the same time as another tenant and took the elevator to the fifth floor. Cody stepped out and looked down the hallway.

In a few short steps they stood at Erik and Allie's door. Cody swallowed and raised his hand to knock.

* * *

Erik opened the door. His face, like chiseled granite, registered neither surprise nor welcome at the unannounced appearance of Cody and Roberta.

But Roberta felt it—Erik's resentment, like a physical force, pushing her back, telling her to go away, in much the same way that his strange silver eyes shut them out and his massive body blocked the doorway. She had to force herself not to back up.

If Cody experienced the same feeling, it didn't deter him. “Is Allie here?” he demanded. “I need to talk to both of you, now.”
 

Erik's expression didn't change. “It's not a good time. Perhaps you . . .”

“Erik, who's at the door? Is it the—”

The female voice, high-pitched and strained yet strangely muffled, was lost in a clatter from inside the apartment. Was that Allie? Roberta wondered. It didn't sound like her.

Erik turned to speak to someone inside the apartment. “It's nothing. Don't bother to—”

Suddenly he shifted. Allie squirmed by him, pushing her way into the doorway.

Roberta started. Allie looked worse than she had this morning. Tears streaked her face, swollen from crying. Desperate eyes flitted hopefully from Cody to Roberta, then fell. A sob escaped her, and she broke into tears.

“What's wrong?” Cody forced his way into the room, taking Allie and Roberta with him. Erik stood stone-faced to one side, his large hands clenched.