Dark Debts (14 page)

“Where are you goin'?”

“Home.”

“Are you mad at me about somethin'?”

He shook his head and fumbled with the buttons.

“Then why are you goin' home? I thought you wanted to stay here.”

He stopped buttoning. “You know what she told me?”

“Who?”

“Cam's friend. She said he had some kind of breakdown . . . he lost his mind.”

Her face slowly softened as she began to understand. “Jack . . . you're not losin' your mind. You're just havin' bad dreams.”

She put her hand on his arm and gave it a gentle squeeze. He kissed her on the forehead and finished buttoning his shirt on the way out the door.

B
ack home he turned on the shower and let the hot water pour over his head, as if it could wash away the events of the last forty-eight hours and he could start over somehow.

What was happening to him? The onset of schizophrenia? A brain tumor? Or just a garden-variety nervous breakdown? Was that what had happened to Cam? Did things like that run in families? Would the imaginary sights and sounds turn into a sudden urge to rob a liquor store? Or was he just going to gradually disintegrate until he wound up living on a heating grate in downtown Atlanta, shouting to passersby that aliens were controlling his brain?

Out of the shower, he dried his hair with a towel and made a point of looking (
really
looking) at his face in the mirror. He hadn't cared about his appearance in ten years, just so long as he looked clean-cut enough not to threaten anyone who might want him to paint their house. Now all of a sudden, in the middle of a nervous breakdown, he found himself wondering what he looked like. He didn't look crazy. Did crazy people look crazy when they first started to go crazy?

He made his way to the bed and lay down on top of the covers. He folded the pillow and propped his head on it in an effort to keep from nodding off. He did not want to know what his subconscious had in store for him next.

He knew why he was thinking about his looks. That damned reporter woman. What was there about her that brought back thoughts that hadn't troubled him in years? He couldn't shake the feeling that he was going to see her again. Like they'd made some date he had every intention of keeping. What if they
had
made some arrangement to get together again? Where would they have met? What would they have talked about? Would she have apologized for the Ryland story and begged him to forgive her? Would he have? (He knew the answer to that one, although he'd have made her work for it.) Would he have told her that he'd been hallucinating, and, if so, would he have told her before or after he slept with her? God. What would it be like, after all this time, to sleep with a woman he was actually strongly attracted to? He was, he realized, making the gigantic assumption that
she
was attracted to
him.
It had been a very long time since he'd tried to capitalize on his looks, so he had no idea what, if anything, remained intact. (
Slightly aged but formerly extremely good-looking schizophrenic wishes to hook up with beautiful, understanding single white female, preferably recently deceased brother's ex-girlfriend.
)

He suddenly realized what he was doing and winced. He told himself that it was just easier to fantasize about her than to wonder about what was happening to him. In fact, if she hadn't hit him at a vulnerable time, he probably would never have given her a second thought.

The clock said 3:16. He should probably try to get some sleep, even if it meant risking the dreams. When he lost sleep he just got more depressed, and he needed to keep his head as clear as possible to deal with whatever the hell was going on.

He reached over to turn off the lamp and saw that the red message light was blinking on his answering machine. He thought for sure he'd checked it when he came in, but he must not have. He debated leaving it till morning, since he knew it was Rick with Monday's work schedule. But every once in a while Rick found weekend work for him, and the idea of having something to do tomorrow appealed to him. Anything to keep his mind off his encroaching insanity. He hit the Play button.

For a few seconds there was only static, and Jack had decided it was a hang up and got up to reset the machine when he heard the voice.
“
 . . .
Jack . . . you have to get help . . .”
The line crackled for another second, then the voice returned.
“She was telling you the truth . . .”
Jack felt his legs give way and he collapsed onto the chair. More static, replaced by a dial tone, then the machine's robot voice:
“End of messages.”
He reached for the machine. His hand was shaking so hard it was all he could do to rewind the message. He heard the static again and waited. It went on and on, long after the message should have started. The dial tone cut it off again.
“End of messages.”

Jack rewound the tape again and hit the Play button. The machine beeped at him.
“End of messages.”

He pulled the tape out and made sure it had rewound all the way. It had. He snapped it back into the machine and pressed the button, hard, as if that would help.
“End of messages,”
the machine insisted.

Nothing. There's nothing on the damned tape!

Jack put his face in his hands and tried to breathe. His eyes were welling up and his throat had closed so tightly it made his chest hurt. The voice was still echoing in his head. He hadn't heard it for a long time, but he knew it well.

It was Tallen.

R
anda stared at Tillie's breakfast menu through unfocused eyes, the result of a hangover that rivaled anything she'd ever done to herself at a freshman mixer, and tried to remember why it had seemed like a good idea to stay and have two and a half more drinks last night after Jack had stormed out.

Could it possibly be because you apparently had an in-depth conversation with a ghost?

I did not have a conversation with a ghost. There are a million logical explanations.

Name one.

Maybe it was someone pretending to be Ryland. Cam had a respectable amount of money and, as far as anyone knew, no locatable next of kin.

The man you saw was the man in Cam's scrapbook, and you know it.

Maybe Ryland isn't really dead. Maybe Jack lied.

Why would he lie?

Well, Cam seems to have lied to me all over the place. Maybe they're a family of pathological liars. They're certainly a family of pathological somethings.

The breakfast crowd had not paid her a lot of attention, with the exception of the occasional scowl she was getting from the little old woman who owned the guesthouse she had checked into upon discovering she was too drunk to drive to Atlanta.

She looked out the window and was just beginning to worry about the possibility of Jack showing up when she saw him, a blur of old denim, making his way up the highway, his hands in his pockets. He was walking briskly, as if he was late for an appointment. Barely checking for traffic, he half ran across the road. He came through the door and headed straight for her booth, sliding into the seat across from her like she'd been waiting for him.

“I called every hotel in town looking for you.” This was a long way from what she'd expected; it took a Herculean effort to conceal that fact.

“Why?”

“I want to talk to you.”

“You could have fooled me last night.”

“Will you just hear me out?”

“Why, certainly. You were so patient with me, the least I can do is return the favor.”

“Let me know when you've gotten all this out of your system,” he said without emotion. He was untouchable behind the fortress of that blank expression, and he knew it. She wanted to kick him.

“Okay,” she said. “What is it?”

“I need to know the truth.”

“About what?”

“What you said, about talking to Ryland. I have to know if that really happened.”

“How could it have happened? You said Ryland's been dead for years.”

“Forget that. Let
me
worry about it.”

The redheaded waitress appeared, Bic poised above her guest check.

“What can I get y'all?”

“Coffee. Black,” Randa answered mechanically.

“Two,” Jack added.

The waitress pocketed the guest check, took Randa's menu (while giving her a stern once-over), and was gone.

“The guy who said he was Ryland. Where did you see him?”

“Cam's living room. He said I should find you and give you the books. I asked him why he couldn't do it himself. He said he couldn't get through your thick skull.” She paused for effect, then added, “Whatever could he have meant by that?”

Jack remained stoic. “So what was it that a total stranger was supposed to be able to get through my thick skull?”

“He seemed to think you were in some kind of trouble.”

“What kind of trouble?”

“I don't know. He wasn't making a lot of sense. But then, the poor guy's been dead for three years; I guess I shouldn't pick on his syntax.”

The waitress returned with two mugs of coffee.

“Are y'all sure you don't want breakfast?” It was aimed at Jack. Randa had a sneaking suspicion the girl had a greater interest in eavesdropping on their conversation than any genuine concern over Jack's nutritional needs. He looked at her, annoyed.

“Hadn't you better stop talking to me, before you get Darlene all upset again?”

Her face turned sheepish, so Randa assumed Jack had hit a nerve. Whatever he'd done, it had worked. She was gone. Jack turned back to Randa.

“How can I know?” he asked.

“Know what?”

“That you're not just trying to trick me into something.”

“Oh, come on. Are we going to do that one again?” It came out louder than she'd meant it to, and Randa was drawing stares, but she was too annoyed to care. “Look, if I wanted to write some tabloid exposé on your sacred family, I would have done it a long time ago and I wouldn't have needed you. Cam's followers will have a new messiah by the time I get home, so a story about his childhood wouldn't even be an easy sell, much less a hot property. And in case you haven't noticed, this country has been executing people at far too rapid a rate for anyone to give a damn about Tallen anymore. So if I'm trying to trick you into a story, you tell
me
what the hell story I'm trying to trick you into.”

He was quiet for a long moment, staring into his coffee. When he finally spoke, he didn't look up. “Then why are you here?”

“I don't know. The man who said he was Ryland told me that I'd do this if I cared anything about your family.”

“Why do you care about my family?”

“Apparently I have a pathological obsession with them, if you want the unsolicited opinion of your late brother's most recent girlfriend.”

He looked at her, startled out of his shell. “I thought you were . . . I mean, I assumed . . .”

Randa shook her head. “Nope. My stint as Playmate of the Year was cut down in its prime by one Nora Dixon, formerly my closest and most trustworthy friend.”

“Cam ditched you for your best friend?” He seemed mildly amused by that.

“Well, from what I heard, Nora wasn't exactly a passive participant. And I'm the idiot who introduced them, so it's hard to come up with a blameless party in the mix.” She didn't know why she was telling him any of this. It was none of his damned business. “I don't have an answer. My current theory is that I was very bad in another lifetime, and for punishment, God has made me obsess over your family.”

He smiled. He actually smiled. It took years off his face, and the hardness was replaced by something close to warmth.

“Well, whatever you did, I must have done something worse. At least you didn't have to grow up with them.”

He sounded like Cam when he said it, down to the tiniest inflection. It made Randa wince. She was grateful when he didn't seem to notice.

“I don't get it. If Ryland's still alive, why wouldn't he just come to me?” The smile was gone as quickly as it had appeared.

“Is it possible that Ryland's still alive?”

“I guess so, technically. I didn't go to the funeral. Mainly because he'd been dead for a year before my aunt bothered to tell me.”

“Why would she tell you he was dead if it wasn't true?”

“I don't know.” He sipped his coffee and stared out the window. “Nothing in my life has ever made sense.” He hesitated, then looked back at her.

“The reason I wanted to talk to you”—he paused and took a breath—“I know how crazy this sounds, but last night when I got home, there was a message on my answering machine from Tallen.”

Randa stared at him, waiting for him to explain. He didn't. “You're serious?” she finally asked.

“It's not something I'd joke about.”

Randa remembered Cam's claim that he'd seen Tallen, and she had to work to suppress a shudder. “Are you sure it was Tallen?” she asked.

“It was Tallen's voice,” he said. “You probably wouldn't have any trouble convincing me that I'm losing my mind, but I know Tallen's voice.” He choked on the words and stopped, stared down into his coffee cup. “It was him,” he said, quietly, to no one.

“Well . . . did he . . .”

Did he what, Randa? Leave a number where he could be reached?

She tried again. “What did the message say?”

“That you were telling me the truth.”

So his ghost believed that she saw her ghost. That helped.

“Do you still have the tape?”

“There's nothing on it.”