Excerpt
Psyche’s Search
Book
Two of the Transformation Series
Chapter
One
Doctor Lara McInnis
began the day clinging to a slender island of solace. Hours later, waves of
patients, errands and phone calls had pounded against that island till it was
nothing but a rubble heap. Rubbing wearily at her eyes, Lara finally gave up
and closed them. For a moment or two she thought she might get away with it,
but then an image of Arabel, her long time receptionist, lying in a pool of her
own blood rose out of some subterranean reservoir. The grizzly scene was so
real, Lara’s stomach clenched. And then, like an unwelcome tape loop, it played
again. And again. Opening her eyes didn’t help one whit. Arabel was just as
bloody and just as dead.
Lara collapsed into
the chair generally reserved for her patients. Outside her western window a
scarlet sunset streaked the Seattle skyline, adding its bloody motif to the one
already playing in her head. Disgusted with herself, Lara got to her feet and
began pacing the length of her spacious office, burning a track in the Oriental
rug. She knew she should be boxing up client files, but couldn’t force herself
back to a task she was ambivalent about—at least not until she could get her
emotions under better control.
The doorknob rattled.
It startled her and Lara’s heart jumped into overdrive. In her current state, the familiar sound was
like a reproach. “How could I not have locked it with everything that’s going
on?” she muttered as she rushed into the outer office. Arabel’s desk, another
Oriental rug and ornate Victorian furniture with floral upholstery flashed past
the edges of her vision, but she was focused on the door as she watched the
knob slowly turning.
This is ridiculous,
she told herself. It’s probably a pharmaceutical salesman thinking I’m a
psychiatrist.
Or that demon that’s
been dogging you, a darker inner voice insinuated.
Since the only other
option was throwing herself out a second storey window and hoping for the best,
Lara crossed the few feet to the door and yanked it open. A decidedly
overweight woman jerked her hand away from the doorknob and eyed Lara balefully
out of rheumy, blue eyes. Pale brown hair, going gray, was gathered into an
untidy bun and fat rolls bulged over too-tight jeans and under an inadequate T-shirt.
“Missus Stone.” Lara
tried to smile as she coaxed her heart back to a normal rhythm.
“Hmmmmph, surprised
you remember me.”
“Of course I do.” Lara
stepped aside, gesturing for the woman to enter. The last thing she wanted was
another patient visit, but it would verge on the unethical—never mind the
rude—to ask Myra Stone to go away without at least finding out what she wanted.
Lara waited while Myra
stalked past her, looked inside the inner office and circled back to stand in
front of Lara, hands on her hips. “Guess she’s not here,” Myra snapped as she
sat down in one of the reception chairs.
“If you’re looking for
Caren, no, she’s not,” Lara agreed, mystified. “Is your stepdaughter missing?”
The woman grunted. She
still had an expression on her face that could curdle milk, but she knotted her
fingers together and said, “How about if you sit down and you and me can have a
little talk.”
“Okay.” Lara kept her
voice as neutral as she could, pulled the office door shut—taking care to lock
it this time—and rolled Arabel’s chair out. Her butt had barely grazed the seat
cushion when the woman started talking.
“I don’t think
spending time here is helping Caren. Nope, not at all,” Myra complained in an
unpleasant, nasal twang. “I never know where she is. She’s still taking what
doesn’t belong to her and that father of hers, well he’s not any help at all.
So it’s just me.” Accusatory eyes drilled into Lara. “All my real kids turned
out fine. This one, she’s just a bad seed.” Rooting around in a battered
handbag, Myra pulled out a cigarette. “Do you mind?”
“Uh, yes, I’d prefer
you didn’t smoke,” Lara managed, struck by the gall of the woman and offended
to hear her belittle her stepdaughter so blatantly. Caren had said Myra hated
her, but Lara had assumed it was just teenaged hyperbole.
Myra stuffed the
cigarette into her T-shirt pocket and pushed her bulk upright. “Not much reason
for me to stay,” she muttered. “Really thought she’d be here. You’re the only
one she ever says anything good about.”
If she felt like one
of your real kids, maybe she’d say good things about you—or feel safe enough to
love you . . . Discouraged by the woman’s callousness—after all, Caren had been
through hell in her sixteen years—Lara stood, too. Trying for a positive spin,
she said, “You must be concerned or you wouldn’t have come looking for Caren.
Would you like to make an appointment, Missus Stone? I already told you on the
phone I’m closing my practice, but I’d be glad to find a time slot for you in
the next couple of weeks. We could talk about some of the challenges of
step-parenting and how hard it is for abused children to learn to trust—”
“Nah.” Myra waved her
to silence. “Hell, my uncle did me and I didn’t turn out like her. I didn’t cut
school or steal stuff. Or carve on myself.” Shuffling over to the door, she
pulled it open and stalked out into the hall, the tiny chink in her armor
replaced by a brittle, defensive anger.
“Well, think about
it,” Lara persisted, addressing the woman’s back as Myra headed for a
stairwell. Drawing the door shut behind her, she retreated to her office
thinking that Myra could do with a smattering of psychotherapy herself. Yeah,
like about ten years worth. Crimson from the sunset bled through stained-glass
windows, casting her familiar furniture in an eerie light. Lara wrapped her
arms around herself, seeking the warmth of her own body for comfort.
That poor child… From
abusive kin to a stepmother who doesn’t want her. Sorrow for Caren replaced the
Arabel tape loop as color faded from the room. Lara decided it was an
improvement, all in all, and she kicked a box over a few inches so she could
open the lower drawer of her filing cabinet. Pushing her long red hair back
over her shoulders, she proceeded to dump banded files into the banker’s box
without any particular regard for order.
The outer door of her
office rattled again. This time, though, it was a key sound.
“Lara?”
“In here, Trev,” she
called back, straightening to greet her longtime boyfriend.
Trevor, his usually
buoyant mood notably subdued, held out his arms. “’Lo, Lara. Sorry I’m a bit
late but . . . well, never mind, it will keep.” He scanned the room with his
intensely blue eyes, taking in her half-finished packing job. “How much more .
. .” he began tentatively as he put his arms round her for a hug.
Shooting him a look
that was laced with pain, she shook her head. “I don’t know. I’m doing this as
fast as I can in between seeing patients who want a last session or two. Thank
god Arabel started calling all of them before . . .”
His arms tightened
around her. “Doesn’t matter, love. It’ll be done eventually.” Blonde curls
brushing against her face, he kneaded her shoulders with both hands. “Bloody
hell, you’re wound up tighter than a spring.” The familiar clipped tones of his
British accent washed over her like a balm.
“Feels heavenly,” she
breathed. “I didn’t realize how . . .” Her voice trailed off. “Well, maybe I
did, but I’ve been forcing myself not to pay attention.” She pulled away,
sinking onto the floral couch spanning part of one wall. Exhaustion dragged at
her as she dropped her head into her hands, rocking slightly.
Pushing a couple of
boxes out of the way, Trevor joined her. “I miss Arabel, too, you know.” There
was a catch in his voice that he tried to clear away. “Any of those ready to take
home?” he asked, pointing at the half dozen boxes littering the floor.
“Yeah, those three.”
She jabbed her index finger at a corner of the room. “They’re records from
patients I haven’t seen in at least a couple of years.”
“What are you going to
do with the others?” His voice was gentle, but he placed a finger under her
chin, forcing her to look at him. “What are you saving them for?”
“Guess I can’t very
well keep any of them,” she muttered. “It’s not like we’re even going to be
here after a little while.”
“No,” he agreed
solemnly. “It’s not. And we’re not.”
Pursing her lips into
a thin line, she found her feet. “Okay, then,” she snapped, angry with the
universe that seemed to be stealing her life away. Pulling open file drawers,
she grabbed a few charts and dumped them onto her desk. “I need these since I’m
not quite done with these people, but all the rest can go.”
Nodding, Trevor joined
her in front of the twin horizontal files, and together they began to move
twenty years worth of Lara’s psychology practice into the waiting cartons.
“You’ll need more boxes,” he noted after a few minutes. “Lots more.”
“Thought we could fill
these, dump them at home, and then I’d just bring the empties back tomorrow and
begin all over.”
“Ah, brilliant. Of
course that’s the obvious thing to do.” Grunting, he shouldered a box and
headed for the door. “I’ll be back directly for another.”
“Right behind you,”
she said, picking up a box. “I do feel better when I’m doing something other
than wallowing in my own misery.”
“That’s my girl,” he
shot back over his shoulder.
The minute Trevor
opened the door of his old Mercedes convertible, Gunter, their eleven-week-old
German Shepherd lunged out of the car, making a beeline for Lara. The little
black puppy yipped, whined and launched himself at her, pulling at her wool
skirt with his claws. “There, there, little man,” she cooed, putting her box
down so she could unhook his feet from the fabric of her skirt. “Yes, yes, I’ve
missed you, too.”
As she fondled the
puppy, she glanced at Trevor. Dressed in faded blue jeans, a green chambray
shirt and a tan corduroy blazer, his tall, lanky frame exuded its usual casual
elegance. “How’d your day go?” she asked.
“Not bad,” he replied,
shoving his box of files into the car’s small trunk and reaching for the one
she’d set on the sidewalk. “We’ll have to put the rest in your car, love. No
more room in here.” He slammed the car’s boot. “I started really taking stock
of what’s in our house . . . and making lists. Went down to the waterfront,
too.” His lips curved wryly. “Didn’t find much in the way of antique farm
equipment, but I did get some leads. Bloke at the flea market looked at me as
if I was daft.”
She flashed him a weak
smile. “Well, dear, I suppose it’s not every day they get customers hunting for
scythes, or whatever it was you asked for.”
“Let’s get those other
boxes down here. Then we can walk the pup before we go home.”
Lara inclined her head
and turned to go back into her building Lucky for us the electricity’s not on
the fritz. It’s almost dark out here. Power outages had been hit-and-miss. More
often than not, she’d had to use a flashlight to find her way out of her
building. Back in the office, she continued throwing files willy-nilly into the
boxes she’d bought earlier that day. An orderly part of her rebelled when she
looked at the files, no longer alphabetized, lying on their sides like beached
whales. “It doesn’t matter,” she muttered fiercely. “All we’re going to do is
burn them.”
She remembered
something Raven had told her. Your thought patterns are still trapped in your
old life. That is what has brought modern civilization to the brink of
extinction: an intransigent unwillingness to change anything.
As she thought about
Raven, a vision of the tall, broad-shouldered Sidhe with his flowing black hair
filled her mind; and the amulet Lillian had given her, nestled between her
breasts on its golden chain, thrummed approvingly. Lara grasped the moonstone
through the fabric of her teal silk blouse, enjoying its warmth. Raven and
Lillian: two ancient creatures, somehow alive and well in the early years of
the twenty-first century. Doesn’t matter why or how, I’m just glad they’re
here, helping us.
Trevor strode back
into her inner office. “Got another box ready?” he asked, looking confused. “I
know you told me earlier, but I don’t remember.”
“Uh-huh.” She crooked
a finger off to the side. “That one. I’ll just finish this one and cart it out.
Then there’ll only be two more to fill and we can head home.”
***
“Ugh,” Trevor grunted
as he shoved the last of the boxes into Lara’s silver BMW. “Glad you only got
six boxes. I don’t think we could have crammed any more in with a shoehorn,
since all that outdoor clothing we bought is still in there.”
“Brrrr . . .” she
wrapped her arms around her upper body. “It’s getting cold. Why don’t you start
for home? I’ll be along soon.”
“Right, then.” Coming
over to her, he gathered her close. “No wonder you’re cold, love.” He fingered
the silky fabric of her blouse. “Be sure to put on your jumper before you
leave.”
“Yes, Daddy.” She
smiled into the folds of his blazer, thinking how good it felt to be cared
about.
He ruffled her hair,
spun her round and gave her a friendly swat on the butt. “Off with you, love.
I’ll try to have something started for supper by the time you get there. You
are leaving directly behind me?”
“Right after I lock
up.”
Lara ran up the broad
front steps of her Victorian office building knowing she’d miss the old place
with its unique stained glass windows. Pulling the front door shut and taking
care to spin the deadbolt, she padded up the carpeted stairs to her office,
opened the door and stopped short. Caren was sitting on the floor in the
darkened reception area.
“Caren! How on earth
did you get in here?”
“Back door was open.”
The teenager’s voice was barely audible.
“I don’t think so,”
Lara said, looking closely at her young client. “I distinctly remember locking
it earlier.”
“So, I helped it along
a little,” the girl said, her voice rising defiantly.
“It’s okay,” Lara
murmured. “However you managed to get in, it must have been important for you
to find me.”
“Uh, yeah. I—I didn’t
believe what my stepmother told me. I thought she was just being mean. But it .
. . it’s true.” Caren’s voice broke and a low, keening moan escaped her. “I
looked in there,” she jerked a thumb towards the inner office where Lara saw
her clients. “You’re really leaving, aren’t you? Just like everyone else has
left me. You’re leaving, too.” Reproachful blue eyes vilified Lara.
“Oh, sweetie . . .”
Lara began.
“Don’t sweetie me,”
the girl snarled. “You really had me going there, Doc. I thought you actually
cared about me. But it was just a job, wasn’t it? Just a fucking job and now
you’re . . . you’re . . .” Her face twisted into a rictus and Caren began to
cry. Soft little animal sounds tore out of her as she turned her face to the
wall.
Ach, what can I tell
her that she’ll believe? “Do you mind if I sit down?” Lara asked, as she drew
the outer door of her office closed.
“I don’t fucking care
what you do,” the girl choked out between sobs.
Nodding, Lara sank to
the floor, but not too close to Caren. “I can see why you’d think I’m
abandoning you,” Lara began, as she reached out to her psychic side for help.
Caren’s aura reflected the girl’s misery. Instead of lively colors, it had
reverted to an opaque gray.
“You are.”
“Well, I am leaving,”
Lara agreed. “But I’m not leaving to get away from you.” Caren was silent, so
Lara forged ahead, hoping against hope the girl would listen for long enough to
not simply pigeonhole what was happening now into the long cavalcade of adults
who had let her down. “My receptionist, Arabel, was murdered during the riots
last week. She . . .” Lara swallowed hard. “She was like a mother to me, since
my own mother died when I was very young. I . . . well, Caren, I just can’t
stand to be here without her. I know it’s abrupt, and I would have liked to
have had at least a month to tell all of my patients goodbye, but . . .”
A tear dripped down
her face and Lara brushed it away. “I don’t think I can keep on seeing people
without Arabel’s help. What I do is hard work. I can’t do it if I’m empty
inside.”
“Oh.” The girl’s voice
was small and wounded. “You didn’t have a good mother either?”
“Uh-uh.” Fishing
around in her skirt pockets for a Kleenex, Lara wiped at her eyes.
“That’s why you
understood . . . about me.”
“Yes, dear. That’s
part of it.” Glancing at her patient, Lara saw that Caren had straightened
slightly from her slumped position in the corner where she’d looked like a
discarded rag doll. Her aura seemed just a bit better, too.
“But I don’t want you
to leave.” The words tore out of the girl like shards of glass, painful to
hear.
Lara held out her
arms. “Come here,” she invited. “Let me hold you. You look like you could use a
hug. And I know I could.” Figuring it was the last phrase that had done it;
Lara took a deep breath as she closed her arms around the distraught teen who’d
scuttled across the floor, flinging herself into the offered embrace.
“This is so hard,”
Caren snuffled. “You’re the first one I’ve trusted in . . . in years. And now
you won’t be here anymore.”
“But you’ll carry the
knowledge in your heart that you can trust someone,” Lara murmured, stroking
Caren’s soft, dark hair. “And I’ll carry you with me as well.”
“You won’t forget
about me.”
“Oh, sweetie, how
could I?” Lara closed her eyes. Disclosing personal information ran against her
professional grain, but what possible difference could the truth make at this
point? Disentangling herself slightly from the trembling girl, Lara said, “Look
at me. I want to tell you something.”
When the girl’s
troubled eyes met hers, Lara let out a breath. “I could never forget you
because you remind me so much of me when I was young.”
Caren’s eyes filled
with tears. “You aren’t just saying that. You really mean it.”
“Yes, I really mean
it. Now, when I called your stepmother, I asked her to find out if you wanted
to come in for a last session or two. Did she tell you that?” Caren shook her
head and Lara was filled with silent fury at the woman. “How about tomorrow
after school?”
“I . . . I’d like
that.”
“Okay, let me take a
peek at my schedule.” Lara heaved herself to her feet, feeling even more
drained than when she’d been packing boxes. Just then her cell phone trilled.
Picking it up, she glanced at the number and then pushed the answer key. “Hi,
Trev . . .” she began.
“Where in the bloody
blazes are you?” he snapped. “Please, please tell me you’ve got a good reason
for not being home.”
“I’m almost out of
here,” she replied carefully, aware Caren was listening. “I’ll call you from
the car once I’m on my way. Don’t worry, Trev. I’m okay.” She heard his breath
whistling through the cellular system.
“Righto.” His accent
was very crisp, betraying his fear. “I’ll wait for you to ring me back.”
Of course he’d be worried
after the riots and Arabel, never mind that patient of mine who tried to kill
me. Lips pursed together, Lara pulled up the calendar on her phone.
“Is your husband mad
at you?” Caren asked tremulously.
“No dear, just
worried. Would three-thirty work?” Lara looked questioningly at the teenager.
At Caren’s nod, Lara began tapping buttons. “There,” she said. “You’re in. Do
you have a ride home?”
“Yeah, I brought my
car. It’s in the, uh, alley.”
“Next to my back
door?”
Caren dropped her
eyes. “Yeah.”
“Okay, give me a sec
and I’ll walk you out.”
Lara slipped on a gray
tweed wool jacket, grabbed her phone, pager and purse and shepherded Caren out
of the office, down the stairs and around to the back. “Is that it?” Lara
asked, pointing to a yellow Volkswagen.
“Uh-huh.”
“Are you better?”
Caren looked at her,
bit her lower lip and said, “Yes, some. But I still wish you weren’t going.”
I wish I wasn’t
either. “Bye, dear. Drive safe.” Locking up, she marveled that the unruly teen
had managed to defeat a locking mechanism designed to stymie professional
burglars. After setting the building alarm, she hit the speed dial digit on her
BlackBerry that would connect her to home. Trevor picked up on the first ring.
“Well?” he said, still
sounding half-sick with fear.
“It was one of my
younger patients,” she said as she walked to her car, “needing reassurance.
She’d snuck in the back while we were out loading boxes and, well, she looked
round the office, put two and two together and panicked. Anyhow, I’m on my way.
Can I tell you the rest when I get home? I’m tapped out, and I don’t want to
try to talk and drive at the same time.”
“Sure, love.” His
voice had softened. “See you soon.”
“I love you.” She hit
the end call button and engaged the ignition.
Shutting her eyes for
a few seconds to rest them before trying to deal with the glare from other
cars’ headlamps, Lara grimaced. Her eyes felt gritty and she was so tired her
bones ached.
Well, nothing’s going
to get better with me just sitting here. May as well get moving. As she guided
the car into light traffic on her way to the freeway, Lara thought about the
last three weeks. Hard to believe it had only taken that short amount of time
for life-as-usual to collapse. “Get a grip,” she hissed as she drove, fingers
clenched around the leather-clad wheel. “It’s not like Trev hasn’t been warning
me for months there wasn’t enough gasoline or food. I just did my usual ostrich
routine and didn’t pay any attention to him.” She sighed. Truth, when it reared
up to slap her in the face, was always daunting. She knew she was a master of
only looking at what she wanted to see. Yeah, I save the hard work for my
patients . . .
Her minded drifted to
Lillian. After years of a love-hate relationship with her own psychic
abilities, Lara had finally made an effort to find someone who could teach her
about her magical side. “Heh! I got a tad more than I bargained for,” she
mumbled, finding enough energy to laugh ruefully.
Lara’s forehead
creased in thought. Everything that had happened since Ken Beauchamp had
accosted her on the front porch of her office, threatening her because she’d
tried to help his abused wife, merged into a confusing maelstrom. I can’t think
anymore. Maybe I could just do some breathing . . .
When Lara finally
turned the car onto her street on Queen Anne Hill, she was painfully close to
the end of her emotional tether. Relaxation breathing hadn’t helped much and
she still felt like she was running on fumes. Her head throbbed dully. As she
scanned the street for parking spots, she spotted one fairly close to the
twenty-five stairs leading to their house and maneuvered into it. Shutting off
the engine, she folded her hands together over the top of the steering wheel
and rested her forehead on them. A sharp tap on her window made her jump, head
swiveling quickly.
“Lara?” Trevor’s
voice, muted by the thick safety glass, still sounded worried.
“Yeah, yeah. I’m
coming.” She pushed the door open and stumbled out into the chill damp of a
Seattle evening. His arms closed around her. “Bring what you need, love. Or I
can get it for you.”
“Bag, phone, pager.”
She drew in a shuddery breath. “Hell, Trev, I’m not that bad off. Nothing wrong
with my body. I’m just emotionally drained and my head hurts. If you hand that
stuff to me, you can haul one of those boxes upstairs.”
Wordlessly, he
extracted the BMW’s keys from her, then reached inside to gather up her things.
While he was doing that, Lara walked around to the back of the car. Stop
feeling sorry for yourself, an inner voice scolded. He needs your help.
Straightening her shoulders and blowing out a couple of breaths, she called
out, “Hit the hatch release, would you?” Once it was open, she reached inside
and grasped one of the banker’s boxes by its built-in handles. “Here.” She
walked to the side of the car where he was standing, holding her things. “Just
drop them on top of this box.”
“Bloody bollocks,
Lara. When you got out of the car, you looked like you could barely stand up.”
“Being home helps.
Come on, dear. Please don’t fight with me.”
With an exasperated
sigh, Trevor clipped her phone and pager to her bag, then laid all three atop
the box she was carrying. “See you inside.”
“No, you’ll see me
back out here in a couple of minutes. We can eat after all those boxes are in
the house. I can’t leave them out here. They’re confidential patient files.
Burning them is one thing. Leaving them, even in a locked car, is quite
another.” Turning, she began to climb the steps to the front porch of their
five storey home.
“We could try one of
those shredding services,” he called after her.
Balancing the box
carefully on a step, she trotted back over to him. “No, we couldn’t,” she said
in a low voice. “Raven said it’d be dangerous for us if people know we’re
leaving. If we give hundreds of pounds of files to the shredders, someone’s
bound to get suspicious. Especially since they, of all people, would know I’m
supposed to hang onto things for at least seven years.”
Pulling the hatch
closed, Trevor picked up two boxes, one atop the other. “Hmmmmph, hadn’t thought
about it in quite that light. Lead on, then. I’m just behind you.”