Come and Find Me A Novel of Suspense - By Hallie Ephron Page 0,61

so dry she couldn’t swallow. As the plane had gained altitude, she’d sat there rigid, unable to breathe, imagining the engine stalling. In her mind’s eye she’d seen the plane dropping like a rock, slamming into the ground, shattering like glass and spewing bodies.

“You feel out of control,” Dr. Lightfoot had explained weeks later. “Anxiety is your body’s natural response to danger. But now you’re becoming conditioned to respond this way even when there’s no real reason to be anxious.”

It had been one of their first Skype video call sessions over the computer, and Dr. Lightfoot’s quiet voice and compassionate expression had calmed her. Now she shuddered at the thought that someone might have been listening in, hearing everything she said and reading everything she typed into her computer.

Dr. Lightfoot had said, “You can’t always stop yourself from losing it, but you’re a very logical person. In some situations, recognizing what’s happening and analyzing the situation may help you maintain control.”

Dr. Lightfoot had been right. Logical analysis helped.

Now Diana tried to build a map in her mind of the mazelike path they’d followed as Jake guided her through the dark corridors that snaked through the basement of the old mill. As he led her through yet another passageway and up a stairway, she visualized the schematic she’d make to replicate this place in OtherWorld. In it, she envisioned two yellow dots—her own and Jake’s—climbing the stairs. She’d feel calmer still if she knew where other yellow dots were lurking in the complex.

They emerged onto a landing. Jake held open a door to a stairwell so Diana could continue up. He kept a firm grip on her arm. After two flights, the stairs ended at an open metal door. She stepped through into a vast space, an entire floor of the mill building.

Jake closed the door and bolted it shut. Then he punched some numbers into a keypad mounted on the wall. A light on it began to blink yellow, and she heard a metallic click as the door locked. The light turned to a steady red. The door at the opposite end of the floor was closed, its keypad light red too.

She was locked in. Diana touched her jacket pockets. The GPS was in one, the cell phone in the other. Either of them would be able to pinpoint her location.

“What have you got in there?” Jake asked.

Diana reached into one of the pockets and pulled out her pills. She offered the container to Jake. He read the prescription label. “I didn’t know you still needed these.” He handed it back to her.

“So now you do.” She shook some pills out into her palm. Jake watched as she placed one on the back of her tongue and swallowed. “Not everyone just bounces back the way you did.”

“I . . .” He looked back at her, tense and tentative. Off balance. He watched as Diana poured the remaining pills back into the container and closed the lid. Then he seemed to shake himself out of it. Maybe she had some advantage—one that she had yet to understand.

Diana tried to focus on the space around her. Pipes and conduits crisscrossed overhead. The center of the floor was stacked with hulking pieces of rusted machinery along with a pile of defunct sinks and toilets.

The outside wall was a massive bank of multipaned windows. From the sound of rushing water, she wondered if she was near where she’d seen the cascade of water over the dam alongside the building. Rain pattered on the roof and rivulets dripped down the windows.

The far corner of the loft had been screened off with sheets of wallboard set into hinged wooden frames. Jake dropped her arm and Diana approached the sheltered area. She came to a halt when she saw what was beyond the wallboard screens. There was her four-poster Shaker-style bed, the one she and Daniel had bought together. It was made up with her own flowered sheets and white down comforter. In the high-ceilinged space, the bed looked like a piece of doll furniture. Next to it, on her grandmother’s bedside table with its serpentine carved legs, was a vase containing a lavish burst of red roses. Jake tossed her backpack on the bed.

She stood there, stunned and shaking with mute fury. Jake had lured her out, invaded her home, and moved the furniture that he knew meant the most to her. She approached an unfinished bookcase that wasn’t hers. The clothes neatly folded on its