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  The young man next to Phyllis stared at her, fascinated. Then he jumped up limberly and stood beside his seat in the aisle.

  Phyllis postured herself in front of the young man, who took several steps backward.

  ‘Thanks, honey,’ Jerrod said.

  ‘Just hurry on up and get it done.’

  Strike three and out.

  Finally, the aisle was clear. Jerrod hurried toward the nearest toilet and disappeared inside. While opening his fly, he worried for a gruesome moment that he was too late, that there was no stopping the deluge.

  He rolled his head back and heaved a sigh of relief when finally he discharged his load and the pain eased.

  But then, from the corner of his right eye, he caught sight of an image in the mirror: a black figure behind him who was bigger and wider than Phyllis.

  He spun around, his heart racing.

  There was no one there. He was alone.

  An icy shiver crawled up his spine, the origin of which he could not imagine.

  Jerrod turned back to the mirror. He saw nothing there but his own pale, frightened face.

  Urine remaining in his bladder momentarily blocked up, causing painful hot cramps in his lower abdomen. Gasping for breath, Jerrod finally managed to squeeze out the final streams.

  Suddenly the temperature in the stall dropped precipitously. I have to get out of here, he thought.

  He zipped up his fly and pushed against the folding door.

  It didn’t budge. Stupid! He had locked it, of course. He pulled the aluminum slider back and turned the latch. Still the door refused to budge.

  Confused, he shoved the lock the other way and kept pushing against the door, rattling the latch. But it would not let him out.

  Jerrod shivered in the cold. Was the air conditioner malfunctioning?

  He was overcome by the ridiculous notion that this was Phyllis’s way of getting rid of him – or at least of getting back at him for inconveniencing her. She would leave him to rot in an airplane toilet stall. But that, of course, was nonsense.

  Just as stupid as his hallucination of the man in the mirror.

  Except it hadn’t been a man. It hadn’t been human.

  Warily, he peered around the small space.

  In the mirror he saw only his befuddled expression staring back at him.

  Jerrod pounded on the door, but he didn’t have any strength left. His claustrophobia was beginning to paralyze him. He was locked in this little cubicle, and for him that was a nightmare in the extreme.

  ‘Help me, I’m stuck!’ he cried out, but his voice sounded more like a croak. Not a soul would hear him. He could not scream, his vocal chords had jammed along with the door.

  ‘I’m stuck in here! Help! Please help me!’

  But it was a hoarse whisper, a pitiful silent plea for help.

  Although the stall seemed to be growing colder, Jerrod started to sweat. He couldn’t breathe. It felt as if something or someone was squeezing his throat.

  He was aware of something unimaginable happening. That door not opening was impossible. Utterly impossible. So was this frigid temperature. Impossible. It was as simple as that.

  The 300 or more passengers on the plane were suddenly a long way away. Or could it be that everyone on the other side of this door was dead? It was another insane thought, but it seared through his brain, nonetheless.

  Jerrod was having increasing difficulty breathing. He moaned and whimpered. Nothing happened and nobody came to help him.

  Once more he glanced sideways at the mirror.

  The enormous black form had appeared behind him again, leaning over him, almost swallowing him like a man-eating shark.

  Jerrod again tried to shout, but his voice was reduced to a meaningless high-pitched gurgle, the same sort of strangling noise he’d made after eating the clams at Hae Chang BBQ.

  THIRTEEN

  Cassie

  Evelyn Hooks was a surly woman who was not easily fazed. At home, in Sugar Creek, she could impose her will on just about anyone except Cassie – who alone could intimidate her.

  That was in large part due to Evelyn’s rather impressive figure. She had never been slim, but in recent years she had started piling on the weight and that made her even more daunting to anyone brazen enough to cross her.

  Evelyn was respected by friends and enemies alike. Not that she had many enemies, apart from the local silly drunks who couldn’t seem to get it through to their thick skulls that Sugar Creek was a sober city. If they wanted to get hammered, Evelyn often commented, they should move to Las Vegas, or Los Angeles. Plenty of sinful thinking there, but not in her town – or rather, John’s town, since her husband was the one who had put Sugar Creek on the map. Thirty years ago the town didn’t exist. Today it was a prospering community of 3,000 people.

  John had a nose for gold. Thirty years ago he had struck it rich by staking a claim in the Wah Wah Mountains. As Fate would have it, there was an old mine in the tiny plot of real estate that constituted his claim. In it John found a ripe harvest of beryls, precious gems that had made him rich overnight. He now owned six mines – seven until a few months ago, when he had sold one of them to an Australian trading company, clearing a cool 8 million dollars after expenses. Despite a healthy bank account – or rather, bank accounts – he saw no justification for changing his austere lifestyle. He still made regular trips to his mines, taking with him only his old Land Rover and a tent. Sometimes Evelyn accompanied him. She had married him, so she figured that half of what he owned belonged to her.

  She wasn’t greedy, and neither was John. Not anymore. He used to love money when he was younger and he had gone to merciless lengths to obtain it. But ever since his health had started to fail, he had come to realize that material possessions were only relative. They were by no means what truly mattered in this life.

  Reminded on a daily basis of his own mortality, he began opening up to the prospect of marriage, something he had never anticipated or particularly desired. Evelyn could say the same thing. Always being on the road left little room for serious commitments, and she never would have believed that she would end up in the remote town of Sugar Creek.

  Seven years ago Evelyn had needed some extra cash. She was broke, so she applied for a job at John’s motel, where he was living by himself in a simple room. Although a wealthy man, he had never had much taste for luxury items. Evelyn and John were immediately attracted to each other, and in what seemed to them an amazingly short span of time, just a year after her job interview, they walked down the aisle together. Later, they adopted Cassie.

  Evelyn and her daughter were now on their way to the Sydney Gem & Mineral Show. Several buyers who would be there had taken an interest in John’s gems. That was reason enough to endure the long flight. In addition, for three years running John had skipped the Sydney exhibition, and it was about time he waved the family flag again. But two weeks ago he had taken ill with pneumonia. Although the worst was now behind him, his doctors had concluded that he had not recovered sufficiently to make such a strenuous trip. Evelyn had thereupon offered to go in his place. Her doing so raised the issue of what to do with Cassie. John suggested having Cassie stay with him, but Evelyn would not hear of it. She refused to be half a world away from Cassie, even if only for seven days. So they decided that Cassie would accompany Evelyn to Australia.

  Evelyn prayed it would not prove to be a bad decision. Serious doubts had set in the day before departure, when Cassie had gone berserk.

  Inside the plane, where it was quiet now, Evelyn was beset by memories. Yesterday, when she had returned to her home in the motel in Sugar Creek, she was not yet out of the car when she saw Ginette running out of the front door. Ginette and her husband also lived at John’s motel. For many years the couple had managed the restaurant and bar, and taken care of the rooms.

  When Ginette told her that Cassie was in a bad state, Evelyn ran inside the motel where she found Cassie in her bedroom fuming and growling, with a deep
gash over her left eyebrow that was bleeding profusely. Evelyn’s first thought was that Cassie had raked her fingernails across her face, causing the gash.

  In her airplane seat located between her adopted daughter and the pretty brunette, Evelyn pursed her lips as the memory of yesterday’s debacle assailed her. She raised her eyes to the ceiling of the plane to prevent Cassie and Sabrina from noticing her tears.

  As she looked up, she spotted a scrawny man making his way hastily down the aisle. His seat appeared to be a few rows down where a rotund woman – Evelyn thought even she would look slim and sexy beside her – was blocking the aisle. The man stalked by, his eyes riveted dead ahead.

  Evelyn’s thoughts returned to yesterday’s episode with Cassie. The girl had been furious for a reason Evelyn could not determine. She had formed a claw with her fingers and hissed at her mother like an angry cat. That same sort of thing had happened quite often during the first few weeks after Cassie came to live with them.

  She had also trashed her room. Evelyn and John had seen this sort of destructive behavior before, when Cassie had broken mirrors and anything else that might reflect her image back to her. It was as though she could not stand to look at herself. She had also wrecked pieces of furniture and anything else she could get her hands on. But that wasn’t the worst part of her tantrums. The worst part was her self-mutilation. Some nights Evelyn could not go to sleep out of fear that Cassie would cross a line and do serious damage to herself – perhaps even kill herself.

  Yesterday Cassie had acted as though Evelyn and Ginette were out to get her. She didn’t seem to recognize them. Evelyn had approached her carefully when Cassie began flailing her arms and uttering strange, incomprehensible sounds. By the time her anger had abated, she was exhausted and bathed in sweat.

  As Evelyn and Ginette tended to Cassie, Evelyn repeatedly asked her daughter why she was so upset. Hadn’t she been doing better recently? Why this horrible relapse?

  Evelyn had received no answers, nor had she expected any.

  By then their suitcases had been packed and their tickets were waiting for them at the airport. So Evelyn had stood by her decision to take along her daughter.

  Now the only visible signs that anything untoward had happened yesterday were faint lines of scratches on Cassie’s cheeks and a scab over her eyebrow. As if she sensed Evelyn’s thoughts, Cassie started rocking back and forth in her seat. Then she leaned to the side and glanced over her shoulder down the aisle. She started whimpering like an animal in pain, sounds that Evelyn couldn’t remember ever hearing before, although she had heard her daughter uttering strange noises over the years.

  Evelyn turned her head and glanced behind them, to see what was upsetting her daughter this time. She saw nothing but passengers in various stages of sleep, plus the two toilet stalls at the rear of their section of seats. That was all. But Cassie continued making these strange whimpering sounds.

  Sabrina Labaton noticed a colossal woman standing in the aisle a few rows in front of them, and wondered how anyone could let themselves go to that extent. The man darting away from her appeared to weigh a third as much as she did. Sabrina assumed they were married, judging by the peevish look the woman gave him. The man almost ran past Sabrina, and she didn’t need a psychology degree to realize that he urgently needed to use the bathroom. She pitied him for a variety of reasons, but mostly for what undoubtedly awaited him upon his return to his seat.

  Shortly thereafter, her neighbor again seemed to be having her hands full with her adopted daughter, who had not yet uttered a word during the flight. Cassie was leaning across the armrest of her seat, staring behind her and making strange small noises. Sabrina had once had a puppy who had his leg broken when he was hit by a car. The animal’s pitiful cries had cut deep into her soul, and it was those same sort of whiney sounds that Cassie was making. The girl was staring at the skinny man who had hurried past them toward the toilet stalls.

  Evelyn, who had followed Cassie’s gaping, shook her head and settled back down. ‘There’s nothing going on,’ she said to the girl. ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

  When Cassie paid no heed, Evelyn used her considerable strength to pull her daughter back into her seat. As she did so, Sabrina saw the pain in Cassie’s eyes, although her mother apparently did not. She was breathing a sigh of relief that yet another crisis seemed to have been averted.

  ‘She doesn’t talk much, does she,’ Sabrina said. It was not a question, and her voice conveyed a mixture of concern and worry.

  Evelyn’s eyes found hers, and she seemed hurt.

  ‘I didn’t mean to …’ Sabrina started, although she didn’t really see a need to apologize.

  ‘Cassie hasn’t spoken a word in two years,’ Evelyn said as a matter of fact.

  Sabrina’s jaw dropped.

  ‘Longer, even,’ Evelyn went on. ‘My husband and I adopted her two years ago. She had already lost her speech by then.’ She rubbed tears from her eyes. ‘She’s going through another bad spell that started yesterday.’

  All kinds of questions seared through Sabrina’s mind, but the first one she came up with was ‘Why did she stop talking?’

  Evelyn shrugged. ‘What difference does it make? She’s a branded child.’

  Sabrina frowned. ‘A what?’

  ‘A branded child,’ Evelyn stated as though speaking of a well-rehearsed routine, ‘What I mean is, Cassie witnessed her parents being murdered. Her biological parents. She barely escaped with her life. Had she been less fortunate, she wouldn’t have survived.’

  Sabrina’s eyes went wide.

  ‘It’s wrong, but these things happen,’ Evelyn went on in a quiet voice. ‘The psychiatrists think that the terrible trauma she has suffered makes her retreat inside herself and causes her to become autistic.’

  ‘I … I can imagine,’ Sabrina said in a half-whisper.

  For a moment neither of them spoke.

  ‘I’m one myself, you know,’ Sabrina suddenly said.

  ‘What?’ Evelyn asked, confused.

  ‘I’m a psychologist,’ Sabrina said in a more professional tone of voice. ‘I graduated not long ago. I am now practicing in Los Angeles.’

  Evelyn’s eyebrows lifted. ‘Would you like to treat Cassie?’

  Sabrina shook her head. ‘No, at least not here. There’s not a lot I could do in a few hours on an airplane. But if you wouldn’t mind telling me Cassie’s story, I’d be interested to hear it. We’ll see where we go from there.’

  Evelyn hesitated and then nodded. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘I’d like to do that. I need all the help I can get.’

  Sabrina waited while Evelyn gathered her thoughts.

  ‘It happened three years ago, while Cassie was living in Chicago,’ Evelyn began, sounding relieved, as if the story was a burden she desperately needed to unload. ‘After it happened – the murder of her parents, I mean – Cassie stayed in a city clinic for a year, where she was treated by doctors and psychologists. When they went in search of a new home for her, they picked us. I don’t know why. Maybe it was because we seemed trustworthy and caring. Or maybe it was because we have some financial means. Or maybe because no one else stepped forward to take her. Children with severe traumatic experiences such as hers are not exactly hot items in the adoption market, as you can imagine.’ Bitterness imbued her voice as she said that. ‘John and I had made the decision to adopt a child and we had filled out the required paperwork. A foster child was the only option left to us. We couldn’t have children of our own.’

  ‘Didn’t she have any relatives who could take her in?’

  ‘No. At least no one the doctors deemed suitable. I haven’t really looked into it. I don’t need to know about Cassie’s family.’

  ‘Why not?’ Sabrina asked.

  ‘Because Cassie’s uncle – her father’s brother – was the prime suspect in the murders,’ Evelyn said. ‘Apparently the two started a fight and things got totally out of hand. I want nothing to do with people like that.
I have Cassie now, I’ve become attached to her, and I want to do everything in my power to make her happy. I want her to grow up believing that she is loved and that violence solves nothing.’

  Sabrina considered that. ‘So Cassie saw everything …’

  ‘Yes. She had been left for dead in the same room in which the bodies of her father and mother were discovered. They found the body of her uncle there as well. He had killed himself. At least, that’s what the evidence points to. The only survivor of the assault was Cassie, despite a bullet fired into her abdomen. Had the police arrived even a few minutes later than they did, she would have bled to death.’

  The drone of the plane’s engines sounded muted to Sabrina. She stared ahead, her eyes focusing on nothing, her mind conjuring up images of three bloody corpses and a young girl in contortions, suffering horribly in the grip of panic and terror.

  ‘What happened, exactly?’ she asked at length. ‘Why did her uncle do this?’

  Evelyn shrugged. ‘Apparently there had been strife in the family for a long time,’ she replied. ‘According to Cassie’s friends at her old school, the strife made her very unhappy. She was talking normally before the shooting. But after she recovered physically from the bullet wound, she became emotionally withdrawn. No one knows exactly what happened in the house that day. When I look into her eyes, I see so much fear and pain it makes me feel we don’t know half of what she saw, or what she went through.’

  ‘I don’t know what to say,’ Sabrina said, as if in abject surrender to evil.

  ‘There’s not much you can say,’ Evelyn comforted her. ‘Yes, it’s bad. I deliberated a long time before deciding to bring her with me on this trip. But I couldn’t find it in my heart to leave her alone for a whole week, even though that might have been the wise decision. Cassie is going to have to pick her life back up sooner or later, I thought. But now I worry that I’m pushing her too hard too quickly. I hope I won’t be sorry for bringing her.’