The Presence. Heather Graham

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      For Rich Devin, Lance Taubald, Leslie and

       Leland Burbank, Connie Perry, Jo Carol, Peggy McMillan, Sharon Spiak, Sue-Ellen Wellfonder, Kathryn Falk and Rubin, with much love—and to great memories of streams and castles in Scotland.

      Prologue

       Nightmares

      The scream rose and echoed in the night with a bloodcurdling resonance that only the truly young, and truly terrified, could create.

      Her parents ran into the room, called by instinct to battle whatever force had brought about such absolute horror in their beloved child.

      Yet there was nothing. Nothing but their nine-year-old, standing on the bed, arms locked at her side, fingers curled into her fists with a terrible rigidity, as if she had suddenly become an old woman. She was screaming, the sound coming again and again, high, screeching, tearing, like the sound of fingernails dragged down the length of a blackboard.

      Both parents looked desperately around the room, then their eyes met.

      “Sweetheart, sweetheart!”

      Her mother came for her unnoticed and tried to take the girl into her arms, but she was inflexible. The father came forward, calling her name, taking her and then shaking her. Once again, she gave no notice.

      Then she went down. She simply crumpled into a heap in the center of the bed. Again the parents looked at one another, then the mother rushed forward, sweeping the girl into her arms, cradling her to her breast. “Sweetie, please, please …! ”

      Blue eyes, the color of a soft summer sky, opened to hers. They were filled with angelic innocence. The child’s head was haloed by her wealth of white-blond hair, and she smiled sleepily at the sight of her mother’s face, as if nothing had happened, as if the bone-jarring sounds had never come from her lips.

      “Did you have a nightmare?” her mother asked anxiously.

      Then a troubled frown knit her brow. “No!” she whispered, and the sky-blue eyes darkened, the fragile little body began to shake.

      The mother looked at her husband, shaking her head. “We’ve got to call the doctor.”

      “It’s two in the morning. She’s had a nightmare.”

      “We need to call someone.”

      “No,” her father said firmly. “We need to tuck her back into bed and discuss it in the morning.”

      “But—”

      “If we call the doctor, we’ll be referred to the emergency room. And if we go to the emergency room, we’ll sit there for hours, and they’ll tell us to take her to a shrink in the morning.”

      “Donald!”

      “It’s true, Ellen, and you know it.” Ellen looked down. Her daughter was staring at her with huge eyes, shaking now. “The police!” she whispered. “The police?” Ellen asked.

      “I saw him, Mommy. I saw what that awful man did to the lady.”

      “What lady, darling?”

      “She was on the street, stopping cars. She had big red hair and a short silver skirt. The man stopped for her in a red car with no top, like Uncle Ted’s. She got in with him and he drove and then … and then …”

      Donald walked across the room and took hold of his daughter’s shoulders. “Stop this! You’re lying. You haven’t been out of this room!”

      Ellen shoved her husband away. “Stop it! She’s terrified as it is.”

      “And she wants us to call the police? Our only child will wind up on the front page of the papers, and if they don’t catch this psycho murdering women, he’ll come after her! No, Ellen.”

      “Maybe they can catch him,” Ellen suggested softly.

      “You have to forget it!” Donald said sternly to his daughter.

      She nodded gravely, then shook her head. “I have to tell it!” she whispered.

      Ellen seldom argued with Donald. But tonight she had picked her battle.

      “When this happens … you have to let her talk.”

      “No СКАЧАТЬ