Kill Her Again

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“ Would one of you mind telling me what the hell you’re talking about?”

Pope turned to Jake, offering him a weak smile. “Maybe you don’t want to know.”

“Spill it, Danny. What kind of nonsense are you spewing now?”

The choice of words didn’t surprise Pope. While he himself had always tried to keep an open mind, Jake was a rationalist and skeptic who believed only in what could be seen or experienced or explained. And if he had no explanation, he’d look for one based on evidence, not what he called voodoo speculation.

When they were kids, Jake had been the first to question the existence of the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus, just as he had later proclaimed-during a pot-fueled soliloquy-that the story of Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection was a longstanding and commonly told myth. A myth that had traveled from religion to religion, culture to culture, for centuries before Jesus was supposed to have been born.

“The only evidence that he ever existed is the Bible,” Jake had said. “And that’s neither historical nor accurate, and was never really meant to be.”

“What about faith?” Pope had made the mistake of asking.

“Faith is nothing more than wishful thinking, based on conditioning, fear, and the desire for a reward. Ask any kid if he believes in the Easter Bunny, he’ll tell you with the greatest conviction that he does. It’s the same for those who believe in religious deities. Or ghosts and goblins, for that matter.”

“I hope you realize,” Pope said, “that you just insulted about ninety percent of the world’s population.”

Jake, who had just taken another hit of weed, exhaled a plume of smoke. “So sue me. The truth isn’t always pretty.”

Except for the switch from a pipe to a deputy’s badge, Jake hadn’t changed much since those days. To tell him now about McBride’s visions and the theory that she’d been murdered in a previous life-by the same perpetrator no less-made about as much sense as telling him that Dorothy’s adventures in Oz were based on true events. Especially after Pope had already sprung the Evan’s-a-psychic story on the poor guy.

But the popcorn was already out of the box and Pope felt he had no choice but to offer Jake a full confession. So he laid it out, sparing him nothing, as Special Agent Anna McBride remained uncharacteristically mute.

When Pope was finished, Jake leaned back in his chair and laughed. It was a smug, I-know-better-than-you laugh that set Pope’s teeth on edge.

“What’s so funny?”

“You remember when we were about fourteen and you were convinced that the old abandoned Smokehouse was haunted?”

“Of course I do.”

“You got a bunch of us together to spend the night there. Me, Tommy Walsh, Billy Kruger, Joey Shepherd. And while all you wimps were shitting your britches over some rustling noises, I took a closer look and found a family of cats living inside one of the walls.”

“This is different,” Pope said.

“Is it? The problem with you, Danny, is that you’re always a little too quick to believe the unbelievable.”

“That’s not true.”

“I know you’ve convinced yourself that you’re a straight thinker, open to any possibility. But that’s never really been the case, has it?”

Pope wondered if Jake was right. Had the fence he’d been straddling all these years been leaning slightly to one side? Even if that was true, did it really matter at this point?

“Are you telling me you have a rational explanation for any of what I’ve just told you?”

“No,” Jake said. “But that doesn’t mean there isn’t one.”

“Well, until you find it-”

“What? We toss reason to the wind and waste time on some ridiculous fantasy?”

“You know what happened with Evan,” Pope said. “You don’t want to believe it, but everything he told me turned out to be true.”

“Pure coincidence, Cuz, and the sooner you see that the better off you’ll-”

“Shut up, both of you.”

They turned, staring at McBride as she rose from her chair. Her face was pale again. She looked frightened, yet filled with a new sense of resolve.

“This is happening to me,” she said. “Not you. So all that really matters is what I think. And even if this past life regression thing is a complete bust, it’s all we’ve got right now.”

She looked at Jake as if she was daring him to contradict her. When he said nothing, she turned to Pope. “So now that that’s settled, where do you want to do this thing?”

They adjourned to the living room.

The Worthingtons had a soft leather recliner in there and Pope said he thought it would be the best place for Anna to relax.

She settled in, feeling a small nervous knot in her stomach. Even though she’d seen him at work and knew it was harmless, she felt as if she’d just climbed into the dentist’s chair.

Deputy Worthington sank onto the sofa to observe, promising not to interfere, but making sure to let them both know that he’d be “watching for the cats.”

I’m sure you will, Anna thought.

Bending down next to her, Pope pulled the lever on the side of the recliner, pushing her back until she was nearly lying down.

She waited silently, hearing the faint sound of a TV-Evan and Ronnie watching cartoons in the den-as Pope went around the room, closing the blinds to dim the light.

He carried himself with the subtle authority of a man who was completely within his element, like a practiced and confident lover, so skilled in the art of seduction that the moves were second nature to him.

As he slid a footstool over and sat next to her, Anna couldn’t help feeling that attraction again. And despite her better judgment, all she could think was that she wanted him to touch her. She didn’t care how. She just wanted to feel his hands against her flesh.

A moment later she got her wish. It was a simple gesture, his fingertips touching the back of her forearm as he said softly, “Okay. All I’m going to do is help you to relax.”

The warmth emanating from those fingertips, the electricity they generated, did something to Anna that was difficult to describe. She couldn’t tell you why, but she felt immediately and completely under his power. It was as if that touch-dare she say it? — was the touch of a soul mate.

And in that moment, any trepidation she’d felt, any uncertainty, immediately dissolved.

She knew she was being silly. This man was almost a complete stranger to her and this was neither the time nor place to be thinking such things, but Anna couldn’t help herself. If Pope were to lean forward at this very moment and tell her to remove her clothes, she knew that despite Worthington’s presence and the sound of that TV in another room, she’d gladly oblige.

Fortunately, Pope had other ideas.

“Close your eyes,” he said softly.

There was a quality to his voice now that she hadn’t noticed before. The hoarseness was gone, replaced by a kind of amorphous sensuality. And as he spoke, he seemed to be both inside and outside of her head.

Anna closed her eyes as Pope continued to speak, letting the words caress her, envelop her.

“Take a deep breath,” he said. “Fill your lungs, then let the air out slowly.”

She did as she was told, letting her body relax as she exhaled.

“I’m going to count backwards from ten,” Pope continued. “And as I do, you’ll feel yourself falling, very slowly, into a state of complete relaxation.”

He began to count, pausing after each number.

“Ten… nine… eight…”

Anna felt as if her chair were dissolving beneath her. Then she was falling-floating, really-a leisurely descent into the darkness of a long, black corridor, as Pope’s voice continued its caress.

“Seven… six…”

He had told her earlier that, under hypnosis, the subject is always aware of her surroundings, is still conscious to some degree, but Anna couldn’t be sure that this was true. With each number he spoke, she felt as if she were floating farther and farther away from the real world.

“Five… four… three…”

When he finished counting, the words he said were little more than vague abstractions, formless murmurs that surrounded her in the darkness. She sensed more than she actually heard, as if his words, his voice, were part of her own consciousness.

A part of her being.

Then the darkness itself began to envelop her, seeping into her skin until she was little more than vapor, and she felt as if she were floating backwards in time, drifting deeper into her memories as fleeting images of the past filled her head:

Her arrival in Victorville, the fiasco in San Francisco, her graduation at Quantico, a college love affair, the boarding schools, her mother’s funeral, her mother’s good-night kiss…

Her entire life played on her own private movie screen, the memories vivid. Alive.

All along the way, she sensed that Pope’s voice was guiding her, asking her questions. And while she was aware that she was responding, wanting somehow to please him, she couldn’t quite tell you what her answers were.

And before she knew it, she was in a small dark place, the sound of a beating heart in her ears. A liquid sound, a warm, comforting thrum that seemed in perfect synchronization with her own heartbeat.

Then she felt herself fading away, only faint tendrils of the vapor remaining. The vapor that was once Anna McBride.

And in the dark distance came another sound. The sound of a ringing bell.

A school bell?

Anna felt herself being pulled toward that sound.

And a moment later, she was gone.