When the Dead Speak

Chapter 46

Chapter 46

After Sam went up to bed and Jake called Carl to tell him of their latest finding, Jake filled the whirlpool, stripped out of his clothes, and climbed in. Only the verdigris patina sconces on the wall were turned on, giving the gym a tranquil mood.

The whirlpool was in the far corner, bordered on two sides by five feet of tiled wall. Above the tiles, jalousie windows were cranked open for ventilation.

The low hum of the jets propelled tiny fingers of pressure over his tired body. He leaned back against one of the jets and let the force work its magic on his lower back.

The more he tried to clear his head, the more the plexiboard puzzle cluttered it. But then he found his thoughts drifting to Sam. He could picture every flawless detail of her face, her eyes that were the color of an azure sea, the mass of curly hair he wanted to plunge his hands into.

He spent his life drifting from one woman to the next. It was safer that way, emotionally. Valerie had been the last. Jake met her two years ago when he responded to a call for a drive-by shooting in an upscale complex. In interviewing the neighbors, he knocked on the door of Valerie Tweed, a high school English teacher, twenty-six years old, short blond hair. She came compact, five-foot-three inches, with an hourglass figure. Except for the times that she corrected Jake's grammar (occupational hazard, she had explained), Jake felt they had a good relationship.

Valerie had a pouty mouth, kind of a young Joey Heatherton. Unfortunately, when she opened it she sounded more like a truck driver. Jake thought it was cute in the beginning. But it wore thin real quick.

He rarely called before going over (occupational hazard, he had explained). Once a month for servicing, completely understood by Valerie, or so he thought.

But last month he had knocked on Valerie's door and interrupted a bridal shower...Valerie's. He had the pleasure of meeting Valerie's fiancee. Jake was livid. Not over having been dumped but that she had been sleeping with someone else while he was dating her. Risky sex these days was frightening enough to drive a person to have his entire body hermetically sealed.

Valerie set him straight in front of Jim, the geek science teacher fiancee; the white-haired grandmother who wore a blue pill box hat and sipped champagne through a straw; and all the bridesmaids and other guests.

Suddenly the pouty mouth didn't look that cute, her compact size was too petite, her hair too short and the color too fake. She had always been far too demanding and flaunted her master's degree every chance she had.

It took a lot to get Jake to lose his composure. But he exploded that day. "You slept with another man while you were sleeping with me?" he demanded.

"Wrong, asshole," Valerie replied. "I was a convenient place for you to drop by any time you felt like it. You never called. We never went out except maybe to dinner once in a while. You usually drank until you passed out, then you got up from your little nap and went home. I saw you once every other month, Jake. We haven't had sex in almost a year."

Almost a year. The words had reverberated in his head. He slinked out of Valerie's apartment red-faced. When he confessed the ordeal to Frank, Frank laughed and commented that it was a wonder his dick hadn't atrophied and fallen off.

Jake had done major backpedaling in his day when it came to women. But for some reason the pedals weren't working now. Something was sneaking up on him and he seemed powerless to stop it.

He inhaled deeply in an attempt to push Sam, Valerie, and Hap Wilson out of his head. Suddenly, his senses detected Sam's perfume, that faint clean scent, like the morning dew. Not that sickening floral worn by some women. This was more like walking through a forest after a heavy rain. He heard the flute music in the background becoming louder and wondered if there was a control somewhere else in the house. He could swear he had turned off the CD player.

Slowly he opened his eyes. Through the mist snaking up from the whirlpool he saw Sam. She was walking through the doorway, nude. A leather cord necklace dangling feathers and beads tapped against her chest. Another ring of feathers rested around her hip hanging just low enough to cover strategic areas. Her hair hung loose, the natural curl framing her face. Lips were parted slightly, inviting, and her eyes had a sultry gaze which was riveted on him.

Soon the music faded, replaced instead by the pulsating beat of a drum, a drum similar to what he had heard in Sam's backyard.

There was something too dreamlike about this. But his eyes were open. He knew he didn't have THAT much to drink.

As Sam moved her body to the drum beat, Jake felt her eyes burning a hole, drawing him into her. He wanted to move his arm, just a finger, something to prove to himself he was awake. But his arms refused to budge. He tried to speak but his mouth failed him, too. The brown tips of the white feathers touched softly against her breasts. For a strange moment, Jake felt as though they were his fingertips that touched her.

Then she started to drift, not walk, but float toward him, into the whirlpool. Or was it through the whirlpool? She stood close enough for him to reach up and touch those dangling feathers.

He forced himself to move, forced his hands to push himself off the concrete seat. He slid under the water and came up gasping, the bandage on his forehead soaked.

He winced as he swiped his hands across his forehead and face to clear the water from his eyes. Looking around the gym, he saw that he was alone. The door was closed. All the traces of the hallucination were gone-the drum beat, feathers and semi-nude body-but the lust was overpowering. He stumbled to the shower and let the ice cold water pour over his body. It took ten minutes for him to regain his sanity.

He pulled on his jeans and went out onto the patio. His hands shook as he lit a cigarette. The night air felt clammy. Thunder rumbled in the distance while flashes of lightning brightened the skies. He didn't try to rationalize what had just happened.

He flicked the cigarette butt into the azalea bushes on the opposite side of the brick patio wall and went back inside. As he made his way to the study, something caught his eye. It was lying outside the door to the gym. Stooping down, he picked up a white feather with a dark brown tip.