Blood Vines

CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

Monday, March 15

4:50 A.M.

With a cry, Alex turned and ran back to her bed. She flipped on the bedside light and threw back the covers. There, on the sheets, more red.

Alex stared at it in horror. Dear God, had she done this? Could she have?

She hugged herself, feeling as if she might be sick. What was happening to her? Was she crazy? She’d have to be, to have done that-and not remember. Like one of those people with multiple personalities.

She sank to the floor and hugged her knees to her chest. She’d always feared becoming mentally ill, like her mother. Now, it was happening.

No, God no. She’d just been telling herself to remember-had she dreamed it? Had she walked in her sleep? Could she have been? Maybe the someone in her house who had awakened her had been her.

She jumped to her feet, grabbed her cell phone and, clutching it to her chest, ran to the front of the house, flipping on every light on the way.

No more scrawled messages or open windows. Nothing different. Nothing out of place.

Call Reed.

No. He can’t know this. Crazy… he’ll think I’m-

Losing my mind, she thought. Is this what it’d been like for her mother? Had she even been able to recall destroying her art? Or had it played out like a nightmare or a fugue state?

Stop it, Alex. Stop. Think. Get a grip on yourself.

She made her way to the couch and sat. She struggled for calm. She concentrated on the in and out of her breath.

The window, she thought. It’d been open. Maybe someone had climbed in and… scrawled Remember on her mirror?

But why? And how did the lipstick get on her sheets and hands?

Hold yourself together. Consider the possibilities. Look at each event and-

A list, she thought. There in black and white, to manipulate and untangle.

She jumped to her feet and hurried to the work area she had set up in the corner of the room. Her dissertation research sat on the desk there, untouched since her first day in Sonoma. She rummaged through her supplies until she found an empty legal tablet, then took it and a pen back to the sofa.

At the top of the page she wrote: “Vision while making love with Tim. Robed figures. Baby screaming.”

She followed with her panic attack in the Red Crest Winery cave. The smell of incense. The sound of people partying. Her scream.

Next, she listed the slaughtered lamb. Then the altar Reed had shown her, and meeting Max Cragan. She noted his strange behavior change after seeing the ring, then his even stranger call.

Then finding him dead of an apparent suicide. Reed sharing that her ring and the tattoo on the bottom of a murdered man’s foot matched. Max’s house torched. Beside that, she noted: Alibi/Reed.

And in the midst of all that, her morphing dreams. The forest setting. The sense of crouching, eavesdropping on something she couldn’t understand.

Alex swallowed hard and moved on to the next event-her second vision in the Sommer Wine cave. She jotted down all the details: the smell of incense again, the flickering light becoming fire, its tentacles grasping at her.

The next day, the mutilated doll. And finally, this morning: Remember scrawled in lipstick on her bathroom mirror. The damning stain on her hands and sheets.

Alex gazed at the list, heart pounding. It was overwhelming. Frightening. A boatload of really weird, scary shit.

Why was she still here? Why hadn’t she packed her bags and headed home? She recalled Reed’s words: Whatever’s happening, you’re a part of it.

A part of it, what did that mean? That she was a catalyst? The center? The victim-or the perpetrator?

Head pounding, she went to make coffee. While it brewed, she studied the list. When the coffeepot had burbled its last, she filled a mug and sat at the table, going over every detail, recalling the date each event occurred, when she had learned of it. And her reactions.

The sandalwood scent. She had recognized it. It had triggered the first event in the cave. It had intruded upon her dreams. Of course. Alex stood, went for the package of Oreos and poured a glass of milk.

She returned to the table. Humans lived experiences through the senses. Studies had proved, of all the senses, the sense of smell was the most strongly associated with recovered memories.

Alex dunked a cookie in the milk, gaze fixed on the list, thinking back to her visions and dreams and how they had adapted to each new piece of information. The faceless baby, no longer faceless. The scent, now identified. And most recently, the angry voice, the words she had not been able to grasp.

“You want to know so bad? I’ll show you.”

Clark’s voice. Even as a chill moved over her, she shook it off, frustrated. Had it been Clark speaking all those years ago? Or had her confrontation with him, the implied threat simply triggered the memory?

She didn’t know. She was no closer to an answer than when she had begun.

Could she be responsible for any of this?

She couldn’t do this alone, Alex realized. She needed someone who knew her well, who wouldn’t judge. Someone who would help her see through her emotions and ferret out the truth.

Tim. She needed Tim.

Alex dialed his number. It rang once, then twice. She prayed he’d answer. He did and relief rolled over her. “Tim, it’s me.”

“Hey, you.” He yawned. “I’d wondered if you’d fallen off the planet.”

She struggled to keep her voice from shaking. “I need to talk to you.”

He yawned again. “What the hell time is it?”

“Early. It’s important.”

He must have heard the urgency in her voice, because he suddenly sounded wide awake. “What’s wrong?”

“I think-” A hysterical-sounding laugh bubbled to her lips. Now she sounded as crazy as she thought she was becoming. “Tim, I think I’m losing my mind.”

He laughed. “And you’re just realizing that? Honey, you lost your mind a long time-”

“I’m not joking, Tim.” She lowered her voice. “I need you to come here. Can you?”

“I guess, sure. I have classes until-”

“Can you cancel them?”

His silence said it all. Now he was worried.

“Please,” she whispered. “You know I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t an emergency.”

For a long moment he was silent. Finally, he agreed. “I’ll be there as soon as I can. Sit tight.”