Helen R. - Night Mist

The stranger’s face screwed into a grimace with those words as once again pain wracked his body. “Meeting him will only put your life in danger. I’m not going to let that happen. I’m willing to lose it all, even the memories. I can’t die like this, with you looking at me as if I were a stranger, Rachel.”

He knew her name.

Though his pain had to be excruciating, he struggled to reach toward her. As soon as Rachel understood that he meant to touch her, she backed away, but it was too late.

She felt his touch, a ghostly caress of air against her cheek. Fleeting and eerily cold as it was, she felt a burning awareness.

Then he began to disappear.

Helen R. Myers, a collector of two- and four-legged strays, lives deep in the Piney Woods of East Texas. She cites cello music and bonsai gardening as favorite pastimes, and still edits in her sleep—an accident learned while writing her first book. A bestselling author of diverse themes and foci, she is a three-time RITA nominee, winning for Navarrone in 1993.

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CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Stepping out into the night, Rachel quickly turned her back on the darkness and slipped her key into the door’s mortise lock to secure Nooton’s Medical-Surgical Clinic for another day. For four hours and twenty-some-odd minutes, to be more accurate. Until Sammy arrived at six in the morning for his ten-hour shift.

A demanding schedule, she thought again. As demanding a schedule as any she’d been subjected to since earning the right to call herself Dr. Gentry. Not that she really minded. After all, it wasn’t as though she had someplace else to be. Usually. Tonight, however, was different. That’s why she’d been compelled to close early.

But as though to challenge her, the lock refused to budge. Disgruntled, Rachel set down her medical bag and used both hands and a few whispered expletives, determined to offset the effect the Louisiana humidity had on everything in this middle-of-nowhere town. There were, of course, more practical solutions. For instance, she could get the can of petroleum-based lubricant Sammy kept in the janitorial closet. But she’d already lost too much precious time arguing with Cleo and didn’t think she could afford to risk any more.

“Come on, you stubborn…”

Finally, reluctantly, something inside the cylinder yielded and the key slid all the way to the locked position with a rusty, grating sound that cut into the night’s melancholy drone of tree frogs and other, less identifiable nocturnal creatures. Beneath her doctor’s jacket her skin tingled the way it used to during those mystery and horror movies her college roommate had insisted on watching after their late-night study sessions.

More aware of her solitude than ever, she wondered again if maybe she’d been wrong not to confide in Cleo. Her senior night nurse hadn’t approved of closing early. What’s more, instead of explaining, Rachel had simply reassured her that, despite their other nurse being on vacation, there wasn’t anything happening tonight. No one would get into trouble for this, she’d added, and Cleo had seemed okay—until Rachel turned down the offer of a ride home.

“You plan to do what?” the nurse had snapped, her hands fisted on her size-eighteen hips. “A woman’s got no business walking around here at this hour, especially not somebody who don’t yet know who’s who and what’s what around here. Why, you got them oil trucks speeding back and forth from the rigs. You got folks coming out of the lounge hardly able to stand, let alone drive. And we ain’t gonna get into discussing the kind of trash that’s been known to jump off one of the freight trains rambling through town. Just what’re you up to, anyway?”

Rachel had assured her that she simply felt the need for some fresh air, which the walk would provide. Cleo hadn’t bought the story for a second.

“This is on account I couldn’t drive you on Monday and Tuesday, ain’t it? I knew it. You’ve been acting weird ever since. Trying to make me feel guilty.”

It hadn’t been easy convincing Cleo that she wasn’t trying to do anything of the kind; nevertheless, Rachel had held firm to her decision to get herself home her own way. Suspicious and openly offended, the older woman had sped away with a burst of spinning tires and spitting gravel, leaving Rachel to finish turning off all but the security lights.

It was just as well, Rachel decided, drawing the key out of the door. She picked up her bag and squared her shoulders. Right now she had too many questions of her own without having to answer someone else’s.

Come on, Gentry, she cajoled as she found herself hesitating. You know the plan, and it’s too late to turn chicken now. Move. If nothing happens this time, no one need ever know besides you. If something does…well, how much stranger could things get?

Either way she would be safe in her bed in another twenty minutes or so. Safe, although not necessarily asleep. She sighed, not relishing the prospect of lying wide awake for the rest of the night analyzing what she’d seen and what it meant, while mice, or who knew what, scurried around within her bedroom walls.

Well, don’t forget you came down here because you also wanted some adventure in your life, remember?

What a thing to remember. Cleo was right; Rachel had been foolish to insist on walking alone at this hour, even though the boardinghouse stood just across Black Water Creek Bridge. And to do it repeatedly? She had to be tempting fate. How she wished she still had her car; having that sleek curve of steel and fiberglass wrapped around her would be a comfort right about now.

On the other hand, how could she regret selling her parents’ graduation gift? She’d accepted it under duress, anyway, and selling it had cut in half the balance she owed on her medical school loans.

Stop wasting precious time, Gentry. Make the one-eighty.

She executed a quick pivot, and her heartbeat accelerated to a stronger thump against her ribs. She forgot about Cleo, the red sports car, even that her feet and back were killing her. She simply stared at the veil of gray obliterating the night sky, along with almost everything else, and knew her instinct to experiment one more time was going to yield results. Exactly what kind, she didn’t know, but there would be something.

Mist…as it had for the first two unforgettable nights of the week, once again it hung in the air, consumed it. Bone-dampening, vision-blurring, spring mist. Fog. Floating rain.