The Opal Legacy Part 2

Chapter Three.

Today. Something will happen today, Lesley thought as she fastened the name tag to her uniform. Lesley Campbell, RN, she read backward in her bedroom mirror.

The apartment doorbell rang. Jon? Lesley wondered. Jon Hollister?

She found Craig Ritter on the landing outside the door. "Craig." She tried to keep the disappointment from her voice.

"You're on your way to work," he said, glancing at her pantsuit uniform. "I'll come another time."

"No, come in. I've fifteen or twenty minutes before I have to leave. I like to get ready early."

Craig followed her into the living room where he sat on the couch. "I came to apologize," he said. "For the way I acted the other day at the university. I didn't mean to upset you."

"Don't apologize. It's over and done with."

"I hoped you wouldn't say that, Lesley. Won't you come to the inst.i.tute again? You've got exceptional ability. I want to know more about you."

She hesitated, knowing how she felt. Yet, to her own surprise, she was reluctant to hurt his feelings. "No," she said at last, "I don't want to come. You were right when you told me I had the wrong idea about what your inst.i.tute was. I expected too much. Not too much, exactly, I thought the inst.i.tute would have a different approach."

"If we had more money we could do more. Or if we had more staff."

"I understand, Craig. I didn't when I saw you the first time but I do now. The mix-up was my fault. I wasted your time so I should be the one to apologize."

He looked down at his hands folded in his lap. "I haven't been able to get you off my mind these last few days," he said.

Lesley felt herself redden. Not knowing what to say, she glanced at the clock on the mantel.

"You won't reconsider?" Craig asked.

"About going back for more tests? No, I'm sorry, I can't. But you do have another prediction of mine in your computer."

Craig raised his eyebrows. "I'll check it out. You're looking at the clock; it must be time for me to go."

"I'm on the three-to-eleven shift at the hospital," Lesley told him.

"Will you do one thing for the inst.i.tute? If you should move again will you let us know where you are and how we can get in touch with you?"

"Of course. And I am interested in your work, really I am."

Craig started to leave but turned back when he reached the doorway. "And Lesley," he said, shifting from one foot to the other. "Will you go to dinner with me? When you're not working? May I call you?"

"Yes, call me."

He shut the door hurriedly as though afraid she might change her mind. I was wrong about Craig Ritter, Lesley thought. I like him.

Lesley walked quickly to her car and, frowning, checked the spare.

"I can't find anything wrong with your tire, miss," the garage man had told her. "I've pumped it up and it's held air so far, but you'd better keep your eye on it."

Finding the tire still firm, she got into the Pinto and drove to the hospital, where she left her car in a nearby parking garage. Today, she told herself as she pushed open the door of the main building. It would happen today. No, not Craig Ritter's visit, something else, something more important.

An hour after she reported to pediatrics, Lesley returned from the ward to the nursing station to check a chart.

"Why they don't give the p.m. shift more help I'll never know." Agnes Halloran, one of the older aides, leaned on the counter as she talked "Christie must realize we have just as much work as the day shift if not more. If I was director, this hospital would be run different, let me tell you."

Lesley nodded, moving away. She didn't have time to listen to Halloran's complaints today.

"Miss Campbell, Miss Campbell." At the sound of the urgent call, Lesley looked up to see Georgia, a new aide, hurrying toward her along the corridor. "Eric's having an attack," Georgia said.

Lesley walked quickly to the boy's room. Eric, a ten-year-old asthmatic, strained for breath. Beads of sweat glistened on his pale face. "The doctor ordered adrenalin," Lesley said, half to herself as she hastened to the emergency tray. Back in the boy's room, she swabbed his thigh with alcohol. "You'll breathe better in a few minutes," she rea.s.sured him. Eric winced as the needle went in. While Lesley watched, his breathing quieted and in a few minutes he was asleep.

"Oh, oh," Agnes Halloran said when Lesley returned to the nursing station. "Christie says for you to go see her."

Why would the director of nurses want to see me? Lesley wondered as she rode the elevator down to the nursing offices on the main floor. Miss Christie motioned Lesley to a chair in front of her desk. The director of nurses, who was prematurely gray, wore a pastel-blue uniform. Lesley sat on the edge of the chair while the older woman opened and studied a folder on her desk.

"You've been with us a month now, Lesley?"

"Yes, a month last Wednesday."

"How are you getting along on peds?"

"We're busy and I like being busy. I hate having nothing to do. And I enjoy working with the patients. I think I'm getting along fine."

"Miss Garcia tells me you're a good nurse. And as you probably know, your references from the hospital in New York were excellent."

Lesley said nothing. The palms of her hands felt damp. What was Miss Christie leading up to? she wondered.

"In fact, there's only one problem." The director glanced at the folder in front of her and then her eyes sought and held Lesley's. "You've called in sick four times in the short while you've been here."

"I was sick."

"I don't doubt you were. Yet you must realize that when you're sick and we have to call in someone unfamiliar with the pediatric ward, or when we can't get a relief RN at all, the patients suffer." Lesley looked down at her hands in her lap. Miss Christie closed the folder and tapped it on the edge of her desk. "I don't like to see this pattern developing. You're a good nurse and we'd like to keep you here at Copley but you must improve your attendance. Will you see what you can do, Lesley?"

"I'll try. I'll do my very best."

"That's all I can ask." Miss Christie stood and Lesley, knowing the interview had ended, backed to the door and fled along the corridor. Tears welled in her eyes. She must keep her job, she thought, not only for the salary, but because work gave a form to her days, a pattern to her life. Yet Miss Christie was right, Lesley knew. She clenched her hands into fists, dismayed that the interview had bothered her so much. Why am I this upset? she wondered. She had thought she was getting better. Now this.

The remainder of the shift pa.s.sed in a blur of activity and by the time she finished the last chart, the clock at the nursing station read eleven forty-five. She was tired as she walked from the elevator to the hospital's side door. Outside in the dark night, she felt a fine mist on her face. Ahead of her the parking garage huddled in the fog.

Her footsteps echoed from the sidewalk, from the buildings, echoed with a soft and m.u.f.fled sound. Soon, they told her. Soon. A man in the psychiatric unit laughed, a high and piercing laugh that went on and on. To Lesley's left the headlights of cars leaving the garage reflected eerily from the layers of fog.

She pressed the elevator b.u.t.ton and the door slid open. Empty. She was alone. Three, she told herself when she pushed the numbered panel. I left the car on the third level. She laced and unlaced her fingers. Will I be able to sleep? she wondered. A gla.s.s of warm milk might help. I'll stop for milk on the way home. The elevator jerked to a stop and she looked up at the lighted number of the floor over her head. The elevator had stopped on two, not three. Had someone on the second level pressed the up b.u.t.ton? Why? The door slid open. She saw a dimly lighted driving lane, parked cars, and the fog beyond. No one waited in the gloom. She hunched her shoulders, willing the door to close. The door whispered shut.

On the next level she saw her blue Pinto at the far end of the parking area. I must have pushed the wrong elevator b.u.t.ton, she decided. As she walked to her car, she heard a woman's voice from below. A car door slammed.

Lesley slid into the Pinto, locking the door from the inside. She drove slowly along the shrouded streets, feeling alone, adrift in a sea of fog. When she was almost to her apartment, she remembered she wanted to buy milk. Pulling into an all-night market, she turned off her lights and crossed the littered parking lot. Faces seemed to stare at her from behind the plate-gla.s.s window of a donut shop next door and Lesley smoothed the creases from her pantsuit uniform. Inside the store she brought the milk carton to the cashier, a young man in a red jacket who was talking to a girl wearing a low-cut blouse with a bare midriff. Lesley handed him a dollar and watched while he put the milk in a sack and handed her the change.

"You didn't give me enough," Lesley said.

"What?"

"My change. You still owe me ten cents." She held her hand open so he could see the coins.

"Hey, you're right. Sorry." He gave her the dime. With the milk cradled in one arm she pushed through the door into the night. A sports car had parked between the doorway and her own car. A man wearing gla.s.ses watched her from the front seat.

Clutching the bag, her head down, Lesley walked past him to her car. Again she pressed the inside lock b.u.t.ton before she started the motor. Don't look at the other car, she told herself. As she drove into the fog, she felt the man's eyes on her, following her.

She shivered. I'm foolish, she thought. It's foolish to be afraid. Yet she had been so sure that something good would happen today. And now? She shook her head, confused. She swung the car into the alley behind her apartment and eased it between two posts into her stall. Before leaving the safety of the car she peered right and left into the enclosing mist. As far as she could tell, the alley was deserted.

Lesley's shoes padded on the patio walk. At the bottom of the outside stairs to the upper apartments, she paused to look around the courtyard. One window, in number ten across the court, glowed yellow; the others were dark. She climbed the stairs and followed the second floor walkway to her door. Footsteps. Coming from the front, from the direction of the street. Fumbling her key into the door, she turned it and pushed on the door and at last she was inside. Safe. She pushed the lock b.u.t.ton, turned and leaned back against the door. A chain, she told herself. I'll have to buy a chain for the door.

The apartment was stuffy, so she switched on the air conditioner. Uneasiness spread within her, as slowly and inexorably as fog creeping through the night, so she walked from room to room examining each closet, each hiding place. Nothing. Lesley undressed quickly, showered, and put on blue pajamas. Slipping into a quilted robe, she looped the belt in front. After heating and drinking the milk, she turned off the kitchen and living room lights.

In her bedroom she lifted the jewel box from the bottom drawer of the dresser. When she held the opal in her hand and rubbed the smooth surface, the gem came alive as flashes of red, orange, and yellow sparkled from its depths. Nestling the opal in her hand, Lesley turned off the light and pulled the drapes.

She loved the opal, and she hated it; loved the dazzling colors of the gem and the mesmerizing spell they cast upon her; found herself fascinated by the stone's history while at the same time hating the unbidden visions the opal could bring. She found the gem to be a talisman, lighting for her a corner of the alien land that was the future.

She sat in the rocker with her eyes shut and slowly, gradually, her mind closed. For a few minutes she saw nothing, heard nothing, while she felt an isolation and a great peace. Then an opening appeared, an oval opening, the same shape as the gem. Dark, cold mist swirled ahead of her, and she heard the crash of waves. The mist began to lift. She trembled, not wanting to see what would be revealed once the mist was gone.

All at once Lesley sat up, her eyes open. She saw the outlines of the dresser, the bed, and the rosewood desk. What had she heard? She listened, the pulse in her neck throbbing: Someone was in the other room. The noise had been the click of the front door closing. Her heart pounded. She stood with one hand on the k.n.o.b on the back of the rocker and laid the opal on the dresser. A whisper of sound like footfalls on a thick carpet came from the living room. She pressed back against the wall, her palms flat on the paneling, her breath quick.

A figure stood in the doorway, no more than a black shadow against the gray of the open door, A man; she knew it was a man. He waited, eyes searching the room. Should she scream? Call for help? The air conditioner hummed, the windows were closed.

He saw her. She knew he saw her. The man stepped toward her and light from the window glinted on his gla.s.ses. She backed away until she came to the wall next to the window. She could see his outline now, dark, stocky, a few inches taller than she.

"Don't make a sound." His words knifed out, startling her, and she gasped. He was an arm's length away. Light reflected from metal in his hand, then light blinded her and she shut her eyes. He clicked off the flashlight, laughing softly to himself.

His hand touched the neck of her robe; fumbled down, down, down; found the looped belt, pulled, and the robe parted. She clutched it together.

"Oh." Her head snapped to one side from the force of his blow. Her cheek stung.

He stepped behind her, pulled her away from the wall, then grasped the collar of the robe and yanked it partway down her back until her arms were pinioned in the sleeves.

"Don't move," he whispered.

The room whirled and Lesley staggered, then slumped against the wall, sobbing. He was in front of her again and his fingers caressed her neck before they shifted lower to twist open the top b.u.t.ton of her pajamas. He didn't touch her, was careful not to touch her, as he undid the b.u.t.tons one by one until the pajama top hung open. His fingers brushed her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and she cringed away, moaning, her arms still held behind her by the robe. Once more he laughed.

He gripped her arm, spun her around and pushed her backward onto the bed. Light blinded her and she twisted to hide her body from his eyes. Her right hand pulled free from the robe. The flashlight snapped off and she blinked, unable to see in the sudden darkness. What was he doing? She thought she heard the rustle of clothing.

The phone rang. The sound sliced through the darkness. She looked toward the nightstand a few feet from her head where she saw the luminous hands of the clock and, beyond the clock, the telephone. The phone rang again. The man swore. Did he hesitate?

She lunged to the nightstand, her hand reaching for the phone. Too far. She grasped the clock in her hand and hurled it at the window with all her strength. The gla.s.s exploded and fragments tinkled onto the sill. The cord of the clock stretched taut from the plug in the wall beside the bed to the shattered window. Lesley screamed.

The man was gone. She picked up the phone, heard a steady hum. She was calm, the calmness of shock. Unreal, she thought, this is unreal. She switched on the bedroom light and, her hand unsteady, pulled the robe about her. Through the broken window came the fading thud of a man's running footsteps. The opal, l.u.s.terless, lay on the dresser. The living room was empty, the kitchen was empty. Through the front window she saw lights snap on around the court and heard the voices of men on the walkway outside. She sighed. Now the explanations would begin, the murmurs of sympathy, the narrowed looks of suspicion, the police.

The phone rang, the phone that had saved her. She walked into the bedroom and lifted the receiver.

"Lesley, are you all right? I called a few minutes ago but no one answered."

Jon. Jon Hollister.

Chapter Four.

"Where are you going?" Lesley asked.

Jon Hollister glanced at her from the driver's seat of his rented Ford. It was three days after his phone call and they had just eaten dinner at the King's Inn on Hotel Circle in Mission Valley. "Choose," he told her. "Where would you go if you had the whole world to choose from?"

"To an island."

"An island?"

"Don't laugh. It's one of my daydreams. I imagine I'm on the deck of a sailing ship, the spray in my face.

"'Land,' the lookout calls from high in the rigging. 'Land!' Through the mist I see a thin green line on the horizon-the island. They leave me on the dock with a great trunk sitting beside me. I watch the ship, under full sail, grow smaller and smaller and finally disappear. I'm alone. I imagine I go to live in a house on a bluff above the sea where I can lie in bed at night listening to the waves. I read all the books I've ever wanted to read. I walk on the beach, I explore inland along the creeks and in the forest."

"You'd be lonely."

"No, I've had enough of people. I want to live in peace."

"Instead of an island, will you settle for a foreign country? I planned to drive to Mexico tonight. To Tijuana."

"I'd like that. I've never been to Mexico."

"Are you all right, Lesley?" His sudden question caught her unaware and she looked away from his brown eyes.

"You mean because of what happened in the apartment?" She stared straight ahead, unseeing. "Yes, I'm all right. No; I don't know, I may be deluding myself. I wake up in the night. I think he's there in the room with me. I cry out. I-" She bit her lip. No tears, she told herself, no tears.

Jon's fingers touched the back of her hand, pressed, and were gone. "I shouldn't have asked," he said.

"I'm glad you did. I'm tired of storing unpleasant facts in some dark crevice of my mind." She glanced at him and quickly looked away. She could still feel the warmth of his touch on her hand. "I need someone to talk to. I haven't had anyone since my grandmother died."

"I'm glad to be of help." To Lesley his words sounded stiff and perfunctory.