Peggy Holloway - Judith McCain 05 - Monroe Beach (2 page)

MONROE BEACH

CHAPTER 1

After much arguing, I had won.
Tracy had let me come to Monroe beach. John Shepherd had wanted me here from the start. Tracy had been afraid it was too soon after Ben’s death and the ordeal I had gone through when we caught Jupiter.

My name is Judith McCain
. I am a psychologist, employed by the FBI. Ben had been my husband of two years. The psychopath who killed him had called herself Jupiter. She almost killed me too, before the FBI finally caught her for the last time.

I had finally convinced Tracy that I needed to start another case to keep me busy.
Tracy is married to my uncle Mark and is the head of the Houston FBI office. John Shepherd is an FBI agent from New Orleans, whom I met when I was sixteen, when he hypnotized me to help me remember my childhood and the horrible thing that happened to me. He is married to my best friend, Rosa.

I had been to Monroe Beach
, briefly, a few years before. A psychopath, who called himself Twoon, was terrorizing the beach. I had been called in to evaluate Sarah James, who was a suspect at the time.

I
had limited time to spend there at the time. It was when I still had my private practice and I was only working for the FBI part time. I had always wanted to come back to Monroe Beach, Georgia. It is one of the most beautiful beaches I have ever visited.

When I got off the plane
, John was waiting for me. We hugged and went to get my luggage. He filled me in while we waited for my bags.

“It’s really the most interesting case I’ve ever worked, Judith.
It involves Sarah James. You remember her. She’s been having nightmares. Then she sees things during the day that are part of her nightmares.

“She didn’t think much about it until people started turning up dead on the beach
, people who had been in her nightmares. Also, sometimes when she looks in the mirror she sees people behind her, but when she turns around, there’s no one there.”

As I was thinking about this my luggage was going by
. I grabbed the first piece and John grabbed the others.

We walked o
utside and got a cab, heading for the hotel where he had checked us in. He had been here a few days and had tried to hypnotize Sarah, but had had no luck. I was surprised. He had been so effective with me when I was sixteen.

I thought
about all of this and when we got to the hotel suite I spoke. “Twoon is still in jail, isn’t he, John? Is he still on death row? I know they had a strong connection, he and Sarah. Do you think he could be influencing her again?”

“No, he’s still locked up.
I can’t tell what’s going on. You know, it’s a shame that such horrible things happen in such a beautiful place.”

John had taken a suite at the local Hyatt
, so we could have separate rooms. We ordered room service and went to bed early. The next morning, I was up before John. I’m not usually a morning person, but I had been thinking about this case and didn’t sleep much. I wanted to get started right away.

“Sarah and Robert are having a hard time,” John said as he poured maple syrup on his pancakes. We had stopped at a new diner on the beach for breakfast. “Sarah still has a lot of issues about what happened to her as a child. She still talks to Dr. Anna on the phone, but, and this is why I wanted you involved, Judith, she needs someone who can spend more time with her.”

I nodded.
“Dr. Anna has too much on her plate as it is. She says she’s trying to retire, but I don’t see any sign of it. She’s still running Ocean Sands Psychiatric Center. I’m still using her from time to time with my own issues, and Julia still calls her. John, do you think it would be better if Sarah were to go back to Ocean Sands?”

“Well, here’s the thing, Judith.
Sarah and Robert have only been married a short time and they want to stay together if at all possible. Robert is open to it if you think it’s necessary, after spending time with Sarah.”

I was puzzled about something and decided to come out with it, “John, why is the FBI involved anyway?
This seems like a local thing to me, not that I’m not willing to help Sarah.”

“These murders are very much like some at several of the beaches up and down the coast of both Florida and Georgia.
I’ll fill you in on that later or let Robert tell you. Right now I want you to meet with Sarah, while I discuss some things with Robert.”

CHAPTER 2

Sarah was waiting for
me at the sheriff’s office. After getting reacquainted with everyone, we decided to walk down along the beach and talk.

Sarah is
a petite, pretty woman with light brown hair, sun-bleached almost blond. She works out and runs on the beach. She is one solid muscle.

Since being held captive by Jupiter, I had been trying to get in shape
by working out more with weights. Tracy had talked me into taking Judo, but I had a long way to go to get in as good a shape as Sarah.

We took off our shoes and walked in silence, walking in the hard wet sand at the edge of the surf.
Then she led me up to a sand dune and we sat staring out at the ocean. I could watch the waves all day long and it amazes me how each wave is different than the last.

Sarah broke the silence, “I’m sorry about your husband.
I never met him, but from what John has told me, he was a wonderful person.”

She looked over and saw
the tears running down my face. “I’m so sorry,” she said, and put her arms around me.

“That’s okay,” I said, wiping the tears on the back of my hands.
“I’m still grieving. It’ll take some time. My boss, Tracy Carr, didn’t want me to take another assignment so soon but I needed to.

“Besides, I wanted to see you again and visit this fabulous beach once more.
I felt bad about not being able to take your case when I was here last time. So I’m glad I’m here now.”

“I am too,” she said.
“Don’t get me wrong, I love Dr. Anna, but it’s difficult to have therapy over the phone, and I don’t want to be a patient again at Ocean Sands. There are too many bad memories about that period of my life.”

“So, Sarah, you want to tell me about what’s been going on with you?
First of all, when did all this start?”

She narrowed her eyes and stared out to sea before she answered, “About six months ago.”

“What else was going on in your life six months ago?”

“I had a miscarria
ge and Robert and I split up for awhile. It was a bad time for me all the way around. He blamed me for the miscarriage.”

I was shocked.
I had spent some time with her husband, Robert, when I was here before. I couldn’t believe he would blame her for the miscarriage. Robert is a huge black man and one tough dude. I know he loves Sarah with all his heart.

When everyone in town thought Sarah was the Beachfront stabber, he stood by her
. All the evidence had been strong against her and his deputies thought she was guilty. They had put a lot of pressure on the sheriff to see that she was prosecuted.

“Why did he think it was your fault, Sarah?”

“There was a couple who had a big boat. They were staying in one of the cottages on the beach for awhile. They were giving parasailing lessons. I was a little over two months pregnant. It looked like so much fun, I wanted to try it. Robert told me not to go. I hate it when he tries to tell me what to do. It’s been a sore spot in our relationship from the start and I almost didn’t marry him because of it.”

She stared out to sea with an angry look on her face.
Then, with a long sigh, she continued, “I think it’s because of the way I grew up and didn’t feel like I had any control over what happened to my body. When Robert starts telling me what to do, I feel like that small helpless little girl again.”

I gath
ered my thoughts before speakin., “So, you lost your baby and your marriage almost broke up, and then what? How long before you started having the nightmares and seeing people in the mirror?”

“It st
arted happening a few days before Robert and I made up. It took us awhile and I really thought it was the end of our relationship. I didn’t think there was any sense of me staying when it was all over. So I had moved out.”

I thought about Ben and me and
I was sad all over again. We hadn’t even been together long enough to have a fight.

She continued, “It was a couple of days after that
, that all this weird stuff started happening.”

“Are you still integrated?”

“As far as I know, I am. Dr Anna asked the same thing and I asked her if I would know since I didn’t even know I had Multiple Personality Disorder until some of my other personalities started taking over. What do you think?”

“Have you had any missing periods of time like you did before?” I asked her and watched to see if I could detect a lie.

She looked me straight in the eye and said, “I swear, I haven’t had any lost time. I think Robert would know anyway, don’t you?”

I let out a sigh of relief because I
knew she was telling the truth. “Okay, so we have that out of the way. From what you’ve told me, I tend to believe that you have developed some sixth sense that you didn’t have, or realize you had, before. Maybe you were distracted by the entire trauma in your life, while growing up. Then all the things going on caused all the personalities to come out when Twoon found you.

“I think maybe you had become more relaxed after you married Robert
. Maybe the trauma of losing the baby, and at the same time, not having the other personalities to take over for you anymore and handle the overload, you developed this sixth sense. But this is all a guess. What do you think?”

“It’s really scary, Judith.
When I realized I had those other three personalities, it was scary but I think this is even more so. I used to read a lot about people who could see into the future and people who could move things with their mind and so on. I used to think it would be cool to be able to do all that, but now that I have it, I don’t want it.”

“I know you’re scared
, but it can also be a blessing. You might be able to help the police and the FBI catch this killer. John said he didn’t have any luck trying to hypnotize you. That surprised me. He’s so good at what he does.”

“I know
it surprised me also. I always thought I would be an easy subject. I wonder if it has anything to do with my new abilities.”

I didn’t think she wanted a reply and I didn’t give her one.
Instead I said, “Why don’t you tell me about what it has been like from the beginning.”

“Well, I had left and gone back to live in my condo
, on the beach, because I thought it was all over for Robert and me. I did nothing by cry and sleep for days, I was so depressed. I had just lost a baby and my marriage.

“After about four or five days
, I got up and decided to try to pull myself together. I noticed that Robert had left several messages on my answering machine. I had turned everything down so I couldn’t hear it, and I had let my cell phone run out of energy.

“In the messages he had apologized and asked me to call so we could talk about things.
He later told me that he was ashamed of himself for blaming me and not giving me support when I needed it the most. That’s why he didn’t try to come by.

“I listened to his messages and felt nothing.
I thought it was truly over. I took a long bubble bath and washed my hair. When I got out of the tub and dried off, I wiped the mirror in the bathroom off because it was fogged up.

“As soon as it was clear enough to see into, I saw a woman standing behind me.
I jumped and turned around but no one was there. I looked back in the mirror and saw her again and studied her.

“She was taller than I
, but very thin. She had on a thin cotton print dress that buttoned in the front. Her hair and dress were wet like she had been swimming and her dress clung to her body.

“Her eyes were light gray and she stood there staring at me like she was trying to figure out who I was.”

At this point Sarah sat staring out to sea and I waited for her to speak. I have learned to be comfortable with silence when doing psychotherapy, because sometimes the patient needs time to work something out in his or her mind before continuing.

She scooped up a handful of sand and sifted it between her fingers.
The sand on Monroe Beach was white and fine grained. Then she took a big long breath, letting it out before continuing.

“I wondered if I could communicate with her
. I asked her who she was. She opened her mouth like she was going to say something but then she disappeared. That night I dreamed about the same woman. In the dream, someone was pushing her head under the water.

“They found her body the next day
, about five miles from here, washed up on the beach.”