"Why didn"t you say anything?"
Just then the road straightened out ahead of them. Mandy realized they were approaching a long bridge that appeared to cross an arm of the reservoir behind the dam. Marc pulled to the side of the road and drove a short way to a vista point overlooking the bridge and lake. He stopped the car, turned it off, and rested his forearms on the steering wheel. "I didn"t say anything because I didn"t remember the dream until we got to the stop sign back there. That"s when I realized why I felt as if I needed to come this way.
"This is just so weird, Mandy." He opened the door and got out of the car. So did Mandy, and she walked around to the front of the vehicle and slipped an arm around his waist.
"What do you remember?"
"I was four in the dream, and I was in my parents" room that same night, after it had gotten quiet. I tried to sneak out and my father caught me. I was terrified of him. In my dream, I remembered that he had beaten me recently with his belt." He shook his head. "I don"t know if that"s true or just something I imagined, but the sense of terror was real."
He stared toward the bridge, his arm draped over Mandy"s shoulders, a stance that would appear relaxed to anyone who saw them. He was anything but. She felt the tension in his muscles, in the shuddering flex of his biceps against her neck, in the defensive way he held himself. She wrapped her other arm around his waist, hugging him close, pressing herself against him. Telling him without words that she was here for him, that she wasn"t leaving.
"I think she"s buried somewhere out near this road." His voice cracked, emotion evident in every word he spoke. "No. I don"t just think it. I know she"s here. He took me with him and we drove a long way. I fell asleep, but I remember stopping in the dark while he got a shovel out of the trunk along with something heavy wrapped in the comforter off their bed. I remember wondering why he"d brought it. I fell asleep again, but when I woke up he was putting the shovel back in the trunk. I had to take a p.i.s.s and he let me out of the car. The dome light was on, enough for me to see what I was doing. I remembered peeing against a big rock with a tree growing out of one side. That was over thirty years ago, but I remember the tree and the rock. And I remember when we left, we crossed this bridge. Most of all, I remember what he said when I asked him what we had come out here for."
Marc"s shoulders slumped. He turned and wrapped his arms around her, hugging her so tightly she could barely breathe. "He said he had to bury some garbage. In my dream, his words were, "I had to bury some stinking garbage."
Mandy leaned away so that she could see his face, his ravaged face, eyes filled with tears, lips pressed tightly together.
He inhaled deeply, slowly let it out. "She"s out here, somewhere. He killed her, and he buried her body where no one would find her."
"I don"t know, Marc. You saw the rock in your dream. You saw the tree. It"s mostly oaks out here, and while thirty years is a long time for us, it"s not long at all for an oak tree." She tugged his hand. "Let"s take a drive. See if anything looks familiar."
He glanced at their linked hands, pulled Mandy close, and kissed her. "Thank you," he said. "I love you, and that sounds like a terrific idea."
CHAPTER 7.
They"d gone all the way to the end of the road-around ten miles before it became a private dirt road-without any luck. There had been so many changes to the rolling, tree-studded hills. Vineyards grew where sheep had once grazed, and vines marched in neat, trellised rows across the landscape. Marc drove slowly, studied the terrain to the right, since he remembered his father making a left turn from a dirt road to pavement when they left, but there was no sense of familiarity at all.
Mandy reached across the console and took his hand. "It"s been over thirty years, Marc. A lot of changes have been made. Ca.s.sie said the vineyards up here are relatively new."
He nodded, staring at the hills rolling off into the distance. "Once they started putting vineyards in up here in the 1990s, all kinds of changes could have been made. The tree could be long gone and even the rock might have been moved. What good are a little kid"s bad dreams?"
"Don"t give up. Ca.s.sie mentioned the museum in town. They"re doing a history of this area since the dam was built. It"s not open until later in the week, but if we"re still here, we can stop by. You might see a photo that jogs more memories, might run into someone who remembers a big oak tree growing out of a rock. Were you right on this road when your dad stopped the car, or did he pull off on a side road? Because there aren"t too many of those. That might help you narrow it down."
He shook his head. "I remember there was a long stretch of b.u.mpy road, so it might have been a dirt road. Then he turned left off the b.u.mpy stretch to go home. I was a little kid and scared to death. He could have been making a U-turn for all I know."
"But you might know." She squeezed his hand. "Maybe that"s something Alden can help you recall."
"Maybe," he said. But he didn"t sound convinced.
They had the list of caterers Kaz had emailed to Marc. Mandy called as they headed back into town, setting up brief appointments for the rest of the day. By five o"clock, they"d narrowed the list down to three. One of them was a Thai restaurant in town that Kaz loved.
Mandy called Ca.s.sie. "Okay, we"re in town and picking up takeout. Do you like Thai?"
"Love it. Buy everything on the menu."
"We"re in Marc"s Tesla, not a U-Haul." Laughing, she added, "Get specific, preggo."
She had a long list by the time they pulled into the little restaurant. Marc ordered a beer for himself and a gla.s.s of wine for Mandy while they waited for their food. He sat there staring out the front window for at least a full minute, sipping his beer. "Would you be averse to driving back to the city if I can get in to see Alden tomorrow? I have a feeling I could remember more with help. We could go down in the morning, have the appointment, and come back tomorrow evening." He turned and smiled at her. "We still need to check on bands and security."
"Sure," she said. "I don"t mind going back in. What kind of music?"
"Kaz likes blue gra.s.s, Jake likes jazz."
Mandy laughed. "Jazzy bluegra.s.s? Is there such a thing?"
"Ya never know." He pulled out his cell phone and typed it into the search engine. "Yep, there is, but I might have to fly them in from New Orleans."
"I doubt that"s in Kaz"s budget."
"Kaz doesn"t have to know. Neither does Jake." He glanced away and blushed.
Mandy reached across the table and tapped his chin. "You"re blushing." She laughed. "You have to tell me."
He shook his head, laughing. "Yes, ma"am. The thing is, Jake"s the closest friend I"ve ever had." He took her hands in his and stared at their fingers. "Well, before you, that is. I guess that sort of moves him back to number two, but now that he has Kaz, that"s only right. Anyway, they don"t know that their wedding is my gift to them."
"That"s a pretty special gift, but why aren"t you telling them?"
"Because then Kaz would want to cut corners, and so would Jake. They"d feel like they were taking advantage, but they"re not if they just plan what they want. They"re both making good money now, so I doubt that they"re at all concerned about cost. I don"t want them to be."
Sometimes he was just so thoughtful that she"d forget he was a smart businessman who"d earned a fortune by virtue of brains and hard work. She stared at him for a moment. "You"re so busy looking out for your friends, Marc. Who looks out for you?"
The waitress walked out before he could answer and handed a large cardboard box to Marc. He"d already paid for everything, so Mandy held the door for him and then opened the back door on the car. Marc strapped the box onto the back seat with a seatbelt and then joined Mandy in the car. He backed out of the parking s.p.a.ce, drove out of the lot, and took the on-ramp to the freeway that would get them to the Dry Creek Road exit.
Once he"d merged into the heavy late afternoon traffic, Marc said, "You asked me who looks out for me. That"s your job." His smile was actually sort of loopy. "Think you can handle it?"
She folded her hands across her chest and said, "I can handle anything you toss at me, Marcus."
"Good." He sighed. His smile had disappeared by the time he checked the rearview mirror and cut over to the right for the exit. "Because I have a feeling I"m going to be tossing a h.e.l.l of a lot your way before this is over."
Alden said he"d make time to see them if they could get in early, which meant getting up at the crack of dawn and dealing with the commute traffic, but they arrived at his office a little after eight. When they walked by the closed coffee shop, it appeared that renovations were already starting to turn it into something else.
"Wow. It looks like someone else has already taken over." She paused long enough to read a note on the door. "It"s going to be a cafe with a bakery. At least Alden will be able to get his coffee."
Marc tugged her hand and they walked to the hypnotherapist"s office. "Does it bother you, seeing it changed?"
"Not really. It"s not the shop I miss as much as the people who stopped in all the time. That and the fact that I feel as if the owner treated me badly, but I only have myself to blame. People can"t use you unless you let them. I was a cla.s.s A enabler with her."
She wrapped both her hands around his arm as they paused at the door to the office. "You, of course, may use me as you see fit. I"m all yours."
He raised an eyebrow as they went up the stairs. "All mine? I think I like that." He pushed open the door to the office. Alden was going through a file cabinet, but he turned and greeted them.
"Good morning. I hope the traffic wasn"t too bad."
"We gave ourselves plenty of time." Marc shook his hand. "I appreciate your meeting with us on such short notice."
Alden closed the cabinet and led them into his office. "Your dream intrigues me, the fact you suggested that you wanted to dream before you fell asleep, and yet you still dreamt it from the point of view of your four-year-old self. Possibly we can learn even more, now that you"re aware that the event wasn"t something you did yourself, but rather one that you observed when you were still too young to understand exactly what you saw."
Marc took a seat on the sofa, and Mandy settled beside him. "I thought about that," he said. "I realized that a four year-old-in 1984 was so innocent compared to children today. Kids now are exposed to violence on television and movies, even video games that aren"t age appropriate. If I were four now and saw someone strangling a woman, I think I"d know exactly what was going on. I would know my mother wasn"t going to come in and wake me in the morning. When I was little, we weren"t programmed to think like that."
"Sad but true." Alden glanced at the picture of his wife and kids. "Their childhood was still relatively innocent, but already marred by violence in the media. Thankfully, not in their lives." He stared a moment longer before turning back to Marc. "Are you ready to get started?"
When Marc nodded, Alden turned on the recorder and focused on Marc. "Are you comfortable? Excellent. Now I want you to close your eyes and think of a number..."
Mandy was surprised at how quickly Marc went into his trance. It seemed mere seconds before he was sitting there, completely relaxed, holding her hand. His eyes were closed, but he responded easily to Alden"s softly spoken a.s.surances of safety.
"You told me about a dream you had, Marc. Are you comfortable discussing it further with me? The same commands we used in our prior appointment will work."
Marc"s forefinger tapped the arm of the sofa.
"Excellent. You dreamed about a ride you took with your father. Just the two of you? You may speak now, to answer me."
"I don"t know."
"Who else do you think was with you?"
"My mother. In the dream, I was sure I heard her voice."
"What did she say to you, Marcus?"
He smiled and nodded his head. "She said she loved me. That she would always love me, but I already knew that. Then I went back to sleep."
"Later, when the car stopped, where were you?"
"It was really dark."
"Were you in a city?"
He shook his head. Mandy"s hand was sweating where their fingers were clasped. It had to be her. Marc was completely calm, but she wasn"t about to let go. Not now.
"Were you in the country?"
"I think so. There weren"t any houses around. Not much of a moon, either."
He asked Marc more questions, retracing the dream scene by scene as Marc had relayed it to him earlier. But then he asked Marc to describe what was outside the car.
"But it"s dark," he said. "I can"t see."
"You have a flashlight, Marc. It"s magical, and it shows you what"s hidden in the shadows. Do you have it in your hand?"
Marc lifted the hand that held Mandy"s. She shot a quick glance at Alden, but he merely nodded.
"Yes. I have it."
"Shine it outside the car. Tell me what you see."
"I see Daddy. He"s digging a hole."
"Is there anything around him?"
"The pile of garbage he said he had to bury. It"s wrapped in the blanket off Mommy and Daddy"s bed. I wonder why he"s throwing it away?"
"I don"t know, Marc. Maybe he made a mistake. Are there any buildings or trees or big rocks around? Anything that you might use as a landmark to find the hole? What if Mommy wants her blanket back? Do you think you can find it for her?"
"There"s a post in the ground where we turned onto this road. It has numbers on it. Would that help?"
"It might. What numbers are they?"
Marc rattled off a string of numbers that Alden quickly wrote down. He read them back to Marc. "Is that right?"
"Yes.
Mandy"s gasp startled even her. "That"s an address. I saw mail boxes with addresses on them-they"re long. All five digit numbers. Fifteen thousand, seventeen thousand. I can"t..."
Alden held his finger up to silence her. She remembered she wasn"t supposed to speak and clamped her lips shut. Marc turned to her, still deeply in the trance state. "Mommy always said I was very smart."
"You are," Alden said. "Marc, is there anything else you remember about your dream?
"No. No more."
"Why don"t you close your eyes and rest? I"m going to count to five, and you will slowly awaken until I say five, when you will come fully awake. You"ll remember everything we discussed. You"ve done very well, Marc. Very well indeed." He paused and then slowly counted to five.
On five, Marc blinked and turned to Mandy. After a moment of disorientation, he said, "We need to go back. I want to see if we can find the rock at that address." He stood and turned to Alden. "Thank you so much for agreeing to see us on such short notice."
"Any time." He shook Marc"s hand. "Your story is fascinating."
"When Mandy first told me about you, I thought she was nuts." Marc turned to her. She stuck out her tongue, but he just leaned over and kissed her. "I"ll let you know what we find."
"Please do. Which winery is yours? My wife has been asking me to take her to Healdsburg. She loves the shops and restaurants, and we"d really like to come out and try the wine at your place."
Marc grabbed one of his business cards and wrote the name and address on the back. "If you come this week, we should still be there. Call me and we can give you a tour. There"s a really neat wine cave that"s not open to the public."
As they walked back to the car, Mandy tugged on his hand. "I haven"t even seen the wine cave. I forgot you had one."
"I promise to give you the private, after-hours tour. Will that make up for my error?"
"Possibly."
She was laughing when he opened the car door and she got in. Marc came around to the driver"s side, but his phone rang as he sat down. "Ted. How"s it going? Have you learned anything? Mandy"s with me. I"m putting you on speaker."