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  The case was called to a close and Heather made eye contact with the judge one last time. Everyone else gathered their briefcases and fi les and headed for the doors when the judge spoke into her microphone. Her disapproving leer toward Heather never faltered and her voice exposed a simmering rage.

  “How will you ever save the world when you have no loyalty?” the judge asked her.

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  Heather was confused.

  “No loyalty, Your Honor?” Heather asked.

  Judge Oliva’s expression changed to one of sincerity.

  Her tone no longer dripped of anger and the sudden change made Heather pay attention.

  “Ms. Simmons, you accuse me of being close-minded when I am simply being loyal to my beliefs. They are steadfast and remaining loyal to them has allowed me to get where I am today. You, on the other hand, are wishy-washy. I’ve seen you fi ght both sides of the same argument in different cases.”

  She paused for a moment and Heather didn’t reply.

  She was still busy processing the judge’s words.

  “That makes you good in the courtroom but not prepared in the least to save the world. Go fi nd something you’re loyal to and then come back and talk to me about closed-mindedness.”

  She dismissed Heather with a bang of her gavel and a turn of the cheek.

  The judge’s words cut her more than the woman would ever know. Heather was all too aware of her lack of loyalties and the residual guilt that had taken up residence long before. She used to know devotion but she had lost even that and didn’t know how to get it back.

  The world had taught her to accept certain things and to run away from others. It had also forced her to open her mind to endless possibilities. Heather wondered which was worse – holding onto loyalties at the price of a bad 57

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  result or spreading loyalties around and ending up with a good result.

  “I understand your point, Your Honor, and I don’t mean to be disrespectful. You asked me questions and I answered honestly.”

  The judge wouldn’t hear it and the bailiffs gently escorted her out. She had waited for a long time to go off on Judge Oliva and now that she had, she was scared to death.

  She glanced at Lucas on her way out of the court room.

  He was shaking his head but he still wore a small smile. He waved at her with a look of pity and Heather waved back.

  On her way out of the courtroom doors, she considered the possibility of blaming a bad medication interaction.

  Dropping her head as she passed her colleagues in the hall, she silently blamed Billy.

  On her way back to the parking garage, Heather passed two underground newspaper employees handing out copies of their free weekly papers. Though she wasn’t really interested in one, she accepted the outstretched offering anyway. She hated to reject anyone directly.

  Heather smiled and she thanked the smiling hippies as she headed toward the dimly lit garage. She made it to the cover before stopping to take a deep breath. For the sake of pride, she held her tears in but once out of view, it all came out.

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  Chapter 4

  November Rain

  As luck had it, there was nobody else in the garage to witness her breakdown. Heather made a beeline for her car, her mind in turmoil and her anxieties high. She couldn’t remember where she had parked it and tried to calm down by reminding herself that she would have lost her car even in a normal state of mind. Deciding to start with the fi rst fl oor, she made her away across the long fi rst level. Not fi nding it there, she headed toward the stairwell.

  As she neared the short staircase to the second fl oor, Heather noticed she wasn’t alone. If she continued toward her destination, she would have to pass a tall, scraggly man with misplaced facial features and an assaulting odor. If she turned around, the stranger would know she was avoiding him and the option almost felt more dangerous.

  She refused to show her fears to anyone and told herself he was just looking for his own car. He continued to stand very still in his spot where the staircase turned 59

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  and Heather’s hair stood on end. She wouldn’t have been as freaked out if he hadn’t been staring at her so intently.

  She was usually a little pensive in the garage as there were clients who personally blamed her for terminating their parental rights. The scraggly man was not involved in any of her cases but still, he seemed oddly familiar.

  When her only choice was to pass him or to turn around, Heather turned quickly, hoping to change her destiny along with the direction.

  “Do you have the time?” he asked hoarsely.

  His voice was worse than his appearance. The mocking drawl that oozed out of his snarled lips was more chilling than nails on a chalkboard. Goosebumps ran up and down her arms, warning her that terror was on its way. When frightened, Heather’s fi rst reaction was to freeze. It took all of her courage and strength to submit to eye contact but she forced herself to turn around and face him.

  His smile chilled her so badly that she had to pull both arms in toward her chest to ward away the cold. She glanced away only long enough to peek at her watch.

  “It’s 1:11 p.m.,” she answered hurriedly.

  She dismissed him without words as she turned and walked back the way she came. When she heard his fi rst footfall and realized it was directed toward her instead of the stairwell he came from, Heather picked up her pace.

  She power walked the fi rst level armed with nothing more than prayers of protection. When she felt him following closely behind, she stuck her right hand into her purse to 60

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  search for a sharp object. She felt a pen and held tightly to the end of it, trying to imagine how much damage she could do by stabbing him in the eye with a Bic. She also wondered if she would ever be able to stab anyone in the eye.

  “Wait! Come back!’ he called out tauntingly.

  His tone was unmistakable. The sarcasm in his voice sent up fi erce red fl ags and Heather’s clumsy speed walk turned into a half-run.

  She looked around the garage for some help and wondered why she always found herself so isolated during times of peril. She wondered if life really played out like in the movie Final Destination and if all the random attacks she’d experienced were death trying to take her again and again.

  Her dark thoughts unnerved her almost as much as the man following her. His footsteps invaded her personal space and she could feel his hot breath on her neck. The tiny hairs stood up in salute and it felt as though tiny bugs were crawling all over her. Her skin became icy and her knees started to weaken.

  Knowing she only had the capacity to run for so long before she fi nally facing her fears, Heather abruptly stopped walking.

  “What do you want?” she asked without turning around.

  Her voice was fi rm but she stood with her back to him. As scared as she was about getting a sudden bullet lodged in the back of her brain, she was more afraid to 61

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  turn around to a bullet in the face. Heather decided that she preferred to face her fears backwards.

  When he didn’t answer, she pushed away thoughts of what his arm would feel like suddenly curling around her waist.

  Unable to withstand one more hot exhalation on the back of her neck, Heather forced herself to turn around while envisioning herself pulling a band-aid from her knee. The horror took on new meaning when she saw that nobody stood behind her.

  She still felt the hot breath on her neck and could still sense an ominous presence. Heather ran back across the fi rst level of fl oors but the warm puffs on her neck continued. Somehow, he was still following her.

  Finally spotting her car, she ran to the driver’s door.

  As she turned the key, Heather instinctively wiped at the sweat on the back of her neck. When she felt a puff of hot hair on t
he back of her hand, she couldn’t catch the scream that escaped her vocal chords. She opened the door and jumped inside.

  Heather’s blurry gaze swept the back seats and then the rest of the garage. There was no one in sight and the absence of her enemy scared her on a different level. She couldn’t protect herself from someone she couldn’t see.

  She kicked off her heels and laid them on the seat beside her. They weren’t much but they were the best weapons in her possession. Heather stabbed her key into the ignition and listened to the song that had been fated to play out such a wicked moment in her life.

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  Bullets with Butterfl y Wings was playing and she listened to Billy Corgan whine about feeling like a rat stuck in a cage. She fought the delirious laughter that threatened to overtake her. The radio always seemed to play out whatever situation was before her and she nervously sang along with the Smashing Pumpkins as she rounded the inner turns of the garage and headed toward the exit.

  Despite all my rage, I am still just a rat in a cage.

  She didn’t understand how fi tting the song was until she realized the parking garage was nothing more than a human maze. She told herself to look forward so that she wouldn’t get blinded by her fear. The self suggestion came with good timing because what was in front of her at the moment was a cement wall and it was getting closer.

  Heather turned the wheel sharply to the left and missed the wall by an inch. She was able to slow down enough to follow the circular decline that promised to lead her out of the garage. She had only two fl oors to go before escaping the tomb that had once been just a downtown parking lot.

  When her cell phone rang, she had no intention of answering but the announcement feature told her that it was Diane calling. Her supervisor had probably just been given the news of her meltdown and Heather needed to hear what she had to say. Even in the midst of her fear, she had to know what fate had planned for her professionally.

  She would decide during the call whether or not to share 63

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  what had just happened in the garage with her trusted mentor.

  “Hey, Diane,” Heather answered.

  As she made the next turn, she kept her eyes wide open. She constantly swept her gaze around the perimeter of the garage and between parked cars. Heather hoped the superior she loved and respected hadn’t been forced to call and fi re her.

  “Hey,” Diane answered more quietly than usual.

  Her voice was soft and her demeanor said something was wrong. It wasn’t a good sign as Diane was normally animated and playful with her.

  “Did you have an interesting morning?” she asked Heather

  “I’m sorry, Diane,” Heather gushed without prodding.

  She wasn’t capable of conversational foreplay. “She was so unfair and so inappropriate, I just lost it. What do you have to do to me?”

  Her heart clenched at the question even as it came out and she came very close to sharing the demonic experience with her mentor.

  “Well, the judge made a few angry phone calls and now you get to take a two-month leave and have a psychiatric evaluation that says you’re sane,” Diane answered. In that moment, Heather decided to keep the garage incident to herself.

  She knew Diane felt bad but that she had also had a job to do. Heather understood her behavior had been bad 64

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  and that she was lucky she hadn’t been fi red or criminally charged.

  The only thing she could say to appease her boss was that she would increase her therapy and get some rest.

  Diane knew about Heather’s history of attacks as well as her struggle with repressed memories. Her supervisor had never made her feel bad about her problems and Heather vowed to do the same for the woman who had taught her so much.

  Heather fi nished the call just as she turned the corner that offered an exit. She was upset about the suspension but just a little more freaked out by the man who had turned invisible in front of her. Had she turned around to discover maggots oozing from his face, she probably would have been less frightened. To turn around and fi nd nobody there was nightmarish in a different way.

  She wondered who he was and defl ected the thoughts of Thorazine and padded rooms that began to take residence in the corners of her awareness.

  Heather tore through the remainder of the garage like a madwoman and almost broke through the white bar that reminded her she was still in the garage. She had forgotten she needed to stop and pay the parking ticket.

  She applied sporadic pressure to the brake pedal and heard the car behind her screech to an angry halt. Heather cut her eyes to the rearview mirror and mouthed a silent apology to the fat lawyer fuming behind her. Her apology was answered with the fl ick of a chubby fi nger.

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  She knew that if she saw the scraggly haired man again, nothing would stop her from speeding through the bar, open or closed. A night or two in jail for reckless driving was a far better prospect than running into that nightmare again.

  Heather didn’t know where to go so she headed to the only other hiding spot she could think of. She needed a few moments to collect herself and assess everything that had just happened. She was either in real danger from something she didn’t understand or had somehow stumbled into a level of madness while looking for her car.

  Heather pulled into the smaller, private parking garage attached to the opposite side of the courthouse.

  The building was typically reserved for court personnel but her badge allowed both Heather and her car inside.

  She reminded herself it was usually during times of crisis that she was able to hold her head highest. Once she’d had a good cry, she would reach deep down for the gonads that led her out of most bad situations. She would allow a tearful release later but decided not until the crisis was over.

  When the need to sob threatened to overtake her before fi nding a parking spot, Heather reconsidered her inner strength. How could she tell anyone about the parking garage incident without them thinking she had lost her mind? She didn’t mind that everyone believed her to be a little loopy but the thought of them truly considering her state of sanity was beyond uncomfortable.

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  Heather closed her eyes and tried to calm herself down. She thought back to court and a shiver raced down her spine. She couldn’t believe she had told off the judge and tried to ease the tightness in her chest by telling herself a suspension was worth Judge Oliva’s public humiliation.

  The pep talk wasn’t effective because she didn’t believe herself. The judge’s discomfort had been admittedly satisfying at the moment but wasn’t even close to being worth the consequences.

  Heather’s eyes darted around the garage as she tried to decide where she would go next. As much as she wanted to share the situation with Jade, she couldn’t worry her little sister. Jade would only get upset and there wasn’t anything she could do about it anyway.

  Heather looked into her rearview mirror and pushed her driver’s seat back as far as it would go. She cracked open both front windows and lit a cigarette. The second level started to become more congested as other drivers searched for their own cars. Heather wondered, with some hostility, if any of them had been visited by a scraggly man who disappeared at will. She fi gured they probably hadn’t and felt the seeds of self-pity start to blossom.

  She tried to take her mind off of her fears by guessing what the people milling around had been in court for.

  Sometimes, in the public lot, she heard angry defendants screaming about the judges who had wronged them but in this garage, most of the occupants were well-dressed and had an air of confi dence. The difference in their attitudes told her these were employees rather than litigants.

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  The elevator beeped and Heather watched the doors open. Lucas came into view and s
he hunched deeper into her leather seat in her attempt to hide. Remaining indiscrete in a bright yellow car was a challenge but it was one she accepted.

  She wondered how many other professionals were huddled in their cars, puffi ng desperately on a cigarette as they hid from a madman. She doubted there were any but still held out hope that she wasn’t alone.

  As Lucas got into his own car two spots over, Heather crouched down even more. She peeked up over the bottom edge of her window and watched as he gently reversed his car. She realized that her cigarette smoke was billowing up from the front seat and blowing a stream headed straight for his open passenger window. She prayed that if he noticed it, he would just think her car was on fi re and mind his own business.

  He drove away and Heather pulled herself back into a sitting position only when he was completely out of sight.

  She considered going to cry on the shoulder of one of her girlfriends but wasn’t sure which one to run screaming to this time. They seemed to lie in wait for yet another bizarre plot to fi nd her and their eagerness for her next adventure would only minimize the signifi cance of her current situation.

  Her girlfriends had fun living vicariously through her crazy ordeals and her creepiest situations were perceived as adventures to most of them. Heather needed someone who would take her seriously. She envisioned the pals she had chosen for her trek through life.

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  She had made many friends throughout her thirty-fi ve years but in the end held onto only the few who passed her unspoken tests of faith and humor. Possession of a limitless sense of humor was an important qualifi cation for a potential friend, as well as the ability to go long periods without hearing from her.

  Eventually, she always returned to those she loved. Those who didn’t fi nd her life funny or held her accountable for small things, such as not returning calls, would be weeded out eventually. In the end, she had discovered men displayed more of the necessary qualities than her female friends and that it was usually the girls who ended up on her chopping block. For every girlfriend she kept, Heather had two male friends who made it through the annual weeding process.