Into the Dark Page 2

  Even when they’d nearly destroyed her.

  Claire’s memory flashed to the frightening incident that had ended her first marriage a few years ago. She did not want to think about it now. One thing was certain: there was no telling what could’ve happened had Robert not been there that day, which had marked the beginning of her life with him. Unlike Cliff, her first husband, Robert never made her feel as if she was less of a woman or that her infertility was her fault.

  “I’ll do whatever it takes,” Robert said when she told him about it. “We’re in this together, Claire.”

  Robert went through everything with her in their three years together-tests for him, new workups for her. Robert’s count and motility were fine. And while they sought new doctors, new experts for Claire, the reality was sobering. Aside from Claire’s problems, she knew the chances of miscarrying increased for women thirty-five and older; along with the risk of late-pregnancy complications.

  As a psychologist Claire counseled herself to prepare to accept that nothing was working, that her feelings of emptiness, anger, guilt and depression were normal reactions. She’d struggled not to let her infertility dominate the good life they had built together.

  But it was so hard.

  The problem manifested itself every day, every time she saw a pregnant woman, or a mother pushing a stroller, every time someone in her circle announced a pregnancy, a baby shower, a birth, it was there, underscoring her isolation.

  She had devoted herself to helping troubled women, women who’d been abused. She guided them through the tragedies in their lives, helped them recognize lifelines, repair the damage and take control. Because she was contending with her own secret sorrow, it made her better at her job.

  Above everything, she counseled her patients to never, ever, lose sight of the possibility that things could get better.

  For Claire, her latest grasp at hope now stood before her at the edge of the Wilshire Corridor in the shape of a gleaming ten-story complex and the offices of Dr. Marlen LaRoy.

  He was one of California’s leading fertility experts-a pioneer specializing in controversial treatments. Claire had been seeing him for the past few months. In that time she’d undergone a series of procedures and examinations to determine if she was a candidate for a radical experimental treatment.

  Claire had been surprised, and mildly annoyed, when his office called her this morning to make a sudden, unscheduled appointment without giving her a hint as to what it was about.

  She steered her Toyota into a parking space, then reached for her phone. Making this appointment meant she had had to juggle sessions with her patients, which was a concern.

  She called her assistant.

  “Doctor Bowen’s office.”

  “Hi, Alice, it’s Claire. How is everybody doing?”

  “So far so good. Except for Amber Pratt.”

  “Amber? I don’t see her until next week.”

  “She said she’s anxious, feels like she’s being watched. She wants to push up her next session.”

  “Okay, see what we can do. Thanks. Gotta go.”

  Claire took a deep breath, then headed into the lobby and stepped into the elevator, hoping she could get back to her practice by eleven.

  “Ms. Bowen.” The receptionist stood to greet her. “Thank you for coming. Our apologies for such short notice, but Dr. LaRoy has to fly to a conference in Dallas today and insisted on seeing you beforehand.”

  The receptionist directed Claire to the doctor’s office.

  LaRoy was standing at the window, talking on his cell phone, and indicated for her to take the chair across from his desk. LaRoy was a thickset fifty-nine-year-old New Yorker, who’d graduated from Harvard. He had white hair and an air of sweet, gentle grumpiness. He finished his call, took his seat.

  “Hello, Claire. We’ve got some results. I need to show you something before we talk.”

  LaRoy began pecking at his keyboard that faced two monitors. He swiveled one toward Claire and showed her a series of images and graphs. For the next several minutes he reviewed the goal of the previous tests and procedures Claire had undergone. As LaRoy went over every detail, pointing to the monitor and explaining other images, Claire felt her pulse quicken.

  “This is all good, right?” she said.

  “It’s very good. Claire, this means you are receptive to the new drug and new cycle therapy. I’ll need you to sign some paperwork and take some literature home and read it.”

  “Then what?”

  “We’ll start you in a few weeks.”

  “And then?”

  “Within a few months you’ll be pregnant.”

  “I’ve been pregnant before.”

  “Yes, but I’m quite confident that this time you’ll give birth to a healthy baby.”

  Tears filled her eyes.

  “Really?”

  “We’ve checked your results carefully. All the indications are strong, Claire.” LaRoy passed her a tissue. “Really strong.”

  5

  Van Nuys, California

  Pilot Robert Bowen eased the Gulfstream jet into the corporate hangar for ExecuGlide and cut its twin engines.

  He liked the G200. It had a smart design and flew evenly no matter what the conditions were. Taxiing and landings were fluid.

  God, how he loved to fly-loved the rush of power and control, to rise above everything on earth.

  “That was a nice touchdown, Tim. Good to be home,” he said to his copilot, switching everything off and unbuckling his belts.

  After bidding farewell to the eight TV producers they’d flown on a multi-city charter to Seattle, Vancouver and San Francisco, Bowen collected his bag and signed off on the flight. Heading for his SUV in the parking lot, he turned on his phone to text Claire, to let her know he’d returned.

  A text from her was waiting for him.

  Wishing you a safe landing. Dr. LaRoy’s office called me in this am. No appt-wouldn’t say why. Have to scramble. Good news maybe??? Talk later.

  Love C.

  Bowen responded.

  Good landing. Good trip. Good luck with doc-any word?

  He waited several minutes.

  When no response came he figured Claire was driving, or with the doctor.

  After placing his bag in the rear he got into his SUV. Nothing was out of place. No disturbed maps, take-out wrappers or filthy commuter cups. It was spotless, showroom clean and still smelled new. Bowen insisted on order. The leather seats squeaked as he buckled up. He flipped on the radio and listened to traffic conditions, then decided to take Ventura to the 101, rather than swinging over to the 5.

  Joining the freeway traffic, he considered Claire’s text to him. He was hopeful her sudden call to see Dr. LaRoy would result in good news. How many times had they had their hopes raised only to be disappointed? It was not fair to Claire. It hurt him to see her anguish. She ached to have a baby, he wanted one, too, for her. It had cost them thousands, but he didn’t care. He loved her and would do anything for her. He didn’t want to lose what he had with her, the way he’d lost what he’d had with his first wife.

  Cynthia.

  Like Claire, Cynthia was beautiful and so giving. In his quieter moments he still thought of her. They had been so in love. At that time he was flying commercial, his schedule was brutal and he was rarely home. Cynthia began to change. She complained, grew jealous and started imagining terrible things.

  It shouldn’t have ended the way it did, but they couldn’t continue and that was that. Why dwell on it? Sometimes, even after all these years, he’d felt something was unresolved and wished he could talk to Cynthia, to tell her he was sorry about the way it had turned out for them. But he had a new life now, a good life, and you can’t go back in time.

  Bowen left Ventura and got on the 101 southbound. There was more traffic, but it was moving at a good speed. He’d gone less than half a mile when something blue rocketed by in the left lane, startling him.

  He cursed.

>   The thing must’ve been doing one-thirty. Looked like a pickup truck. He couldn’t tell the model as it knifed through the lanes ahead, leaving a wake of brake lights and angry horns.

  That idiot’s going to kill somebody.

  The distraction passed, and with it, Cynthia faded from his mind.

  He repositioned his grip on the wheel, maintained a safe speed as his thoughts had drifted back to the first time he’d met Claire. The scene with her and her husband. Bowen shook his head slowly until the images of that day dissipated. Since that time all he’d wanted to do was protect Claire, let nothing hurt her again. But how do I protect her from heartbreak-from forces that are beyond my control?

  He dragged the back of his hand across his mouth. He was forty-five, and some days he couldn’t see what Claire told him she’d seen and liked: The small crinkles around his eyes, his chiseled jaw, his thick salt-and-pepper hair. He was six-one, about one-eighty. His workouts gave him an athletic build. But he didn’t see the strong, decisive, capable, kind man that Claire saw. He saw a man who’d failed too many times, a man constantly at war with himself, a man unworthy of her.

  At times he would steal glimpses of her when they were at home, or while he waited for her at her office. He liked how her hair curtained over her eyes when she studied her notes, or the way she slid her small silver cross back and forth on her necklace chain when she was on the phone with a patient. She was devoted to them-compassionate and caring, never allowing her own heartache to interfere.

  He didn’t deserve her.

  As he drove, Bowen massaged his temple. A million things rushed through his head. He was tired from the flight and stressed over those rumors of looming cutbacks at the company.

  He couldn’t go back to commercial. He couldn’t face those hours again and that kind of strain at home. He just couldn’t. Look at the toll it had taken with Cynthia. He couldn’t go through that with Claire.

  But that was the least of his worries.

  There was more, much more.

  The darkness is back, stirring again.

  It had been triggered by Claire when she started taking serious steps to have a baby, because in a corner of his heart he knew that would change everything.

  The darkness is taking over. Sometimes at night, I feel I-

  The chaos of horns and screeching tires jerked his concentration to the freeway where traffic ahead had come to a standstill.

  6

  Los Angeles, California

  Robert stopped and got out of his SUV, joining other drivers craning their necks at the heaps of mangled metal several car lengths away.

  A boy, about twelve, staggered between the stopped cars toward him. The kid’s face glistened with crimson scrapes. His T-shirt with a T-Rex on it was torn, smeared with blood. Somewhere a woman was screaming.

  “Por favor ayuda!” The boy’s eyes, wide with shock, found Bowen’s and he switched to English. “My mother, my sister, please, mister, they will die. Please save them!”

  Robert’s mind raced.

  “Por favor ayuda!” the boy pleaded again before he collapsed into the arms of a well-dressed woman who’d stepped from a Mercedes. She wrapped her Realtor’s jacket around him as he sobbed, “Please! My mother…my sister…they’ll die. Please, mister!”

  Bowen tore off his tie and ran to the carnage.

  Some motorists were calling 9-1-1 while others, uncertain what to do, stood helpless. Black smoke now curled from the wreckage.

  Bowen counted three vehicles: a pickup that appeared to be a landscaper’s truck was turned around, its front smashed and air bags depleted. Mowers, tillers, tools and supplies were scattered. He saw a small green car that had flipped onto its roof. Then he saw a van; it was on its side with its hood folded open and its engine on fire. A man was climbing out of the van’s driver’s side. Blood oozed from his mouth as he gritted in pain. Bowen got hold of his arm and got him to the ground.

  “I’ve got a first aid kit,” said a motorist wearing a Lynyrd Skynyrd T-shirt who’d stepped forward to help.

  When Bowen turned to the inverted car, something splashed at his feet. He looked down to a widening puddle with the telltale rainbow film and smelled the fumes. Fuel cans from the landscaper’s truck had ruptured, spilling gasoline everywhere around the overturned car, pooling in spots. Bowen glanced at the flames licking from the van’s engine a few feet from the car.

  The fire was growing.

  His stomach lurched. He saw a hand reaching from the car and heard a woman crying softly as someone shouted at him, “Get out of there, man! There’s too much gas, it’s going to blow! Back off! Get out!”

  He ignored the warning and hurried to the driver’s side of the car. He dropped to his hands and knees. Everything had been unfolding with dizzying speed, but it slowed the instant he saw the woman.

  She was upside down. Her hands and arms hung to the ground. The air bags had deployed. She was still belted to her seat and pleading weakly.

  “Please, save my baby.”

  Bowen’s attention moved beyond the woman to the back. He saw the child, about a-year-and-a-half-old, upside down, strapped in its car seat, little arms hanging down.

  “Please,” the woman cried.

  In a surreal moment Bowen saw how the gasoline now seeped into areas of the car. Then he noticed among bags of clothes, boxes of cereal and cans of soup, a leather-bound bible. It had splayed open, a light wind lifting the pages.

  The blood rush in his ears pounded him into a trancelike state.

  He found himself looking into the woman’s terrified eyes.

  He swelled with pleasure, his ears rang and an ancient, familiar, evil erupted inside him.

  Let her die.

  I hold this woman’s life, and that of her child, in my hands, the power over life and death, the power to rise above everything on earth.

  Go ahead and plead.

  I love it.

  I am the beginning and I am the end.

  I’m going to let you die. Your baby, too. I’ll watch you die.

  “I’m sorry,” Bowen said. “I can’t reach you. I’m sorry.”

  Her eyes bulged. Her fear excited him, pushing his sensual gratification to a new level.

  “Please!” she gasped.

  Keep begging. Beg me for your life.

  She coughed. Her voice was fading.

  “Please, I beg you, please! God, someone, please save us!”

  The break in her voice connected with Bowen, telling him he could not let this happen. He closed his eyes, battling himself for control as the woman’s cries slowly pulled him out of his trance and back into the chaos.

  “Okay,” Bowen said. “Okay, ma’am, I’m going to get you out.”

  He maneuvered his upper body deeper into the car and, while on his knees, reached up, feeling for and finding the woman’s seat belt buckle.

  “Can you get your arms around my neck?” he said.

  He felt her lock her arms around him, felt her trembling, she smelled of soap and sweat and was nearly choking him as he tried to depress the button to release the belt. The woman’s full downward weight had created pressure and the button refused to depress.

  Bowen tried but it wouldn’t move.

  Panicked motorists were shouting.

  “Get out now!”

  “It’s going to go up-get out!”

  He glimpsed the flames horribly large and nearing the gas pools that patched their way to the car. He reached deep into himself and with every bit of strength he had in him he lifted the woman’s weight upward, taking pressure off of the belt while depressing the button with every fiber of strength he had until he heard: click.

  The belt released.

  The woman slid down onto him and he immediately dragged her out of the car where helping hands seized both of them.

  “My baby!”

  Bowen shook off the people pulling him to safety and crawled back into the car for the child.

  “No, don’t do it!
” Someone shouted. “It’s too late!”

  The fire had now grown large enough for Bowen to hear its roar as he scrambled inside to the baby’s seat. He shifted his body, relieved to hear the child crying. He reached up, fumbled for the buckle and button, and lifted the child to ease weight from the buckle.

  Click.

  He got it.

  Taking a deep breath, he disentangled the baby from the car seat. He started snaking backward with the child at his chest. He’d just gotten his legs out the window when someone screamed-

  “Oh, my God!”

  He turned to see the flames lapping the gasoline pools, felt the air spasm as the pools ignited in a chain reaction creating a blinding, churning wall of fire that swallowed them.

  7

  Los Angeles, California

  Claire Bowen was unsure her feet even touched the ground as she left the building and got into her car. She cupped her hands to her face.

  I have to tell Robert.

  Glancing at the time, she reached for her cell phone and read his response to her earlier text to him.

  Good landing. Good trip. Good luck with doc-any word?

  Great, he’s back, she thought, her fingers blurring as she texted him.

  Can you call me now!!!

  As the minutes passed, she scanned the literature about ovulation. Not much there she didn’t already know. She glanced at her phone. Unless Robert was stuck in traffic or couldn’t pull over, he was usually pretty quick at getting back to her. Two minutes passed, then three.

  While waiting, Claire revisited a small concern. Over the past few weeks he seemed to have become a little withdrawn, as if wrestling with something. Whenever she’d asked him about it, he’d tell her that he was merely lost in his thoughts, leaving her to wonder if everything really was okay with him.

  Claire checked the time. Too excited to wait, she pressed her cell’s keypad for his number. The phone rang twice before a woman answered.

  “I’m sorry,” Claire said. “I’ve misdialed.”