LITMIR.BIZ

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I don’t want to come out for the weekend, Julie. I’d rather stay here.”

      “Come on, honey,” Julie coaxed her sister over the phone, “it’s my birthday. Babs is coming for dinner on Saturday night. Owen’s in town. He’s promised he’ll stop by. We’ll have ourselves a party.”

      “I-I don’t know….”

      Julie rubbed her temple, trying to ignore the headache that had built behind her eyes. “Come on, Laura, please? The weather’s going to be clear. We can lie out in the cove and no one will bother us. You can tell me how your sessions with Dr. Heraldson are going.”

      “He wants to hypnotize me.”

      “So?”

      “I don’t want him to, Julie.”

      “Why not?”

      “I-I don’t know. I just don’t like the idea.”

      Julie took a steadying breath and slowly released it. “We’ll talk about it when you get here.”

      “It’ll be too late by then. Tomorrow’s my appointment.”

      “Well…if Dr. Heraldson thinks it’s a good idea, maybe you should do it.”

      “I suppose so. I guess it couldn’t hurt.” A pause on the phone. “I’d forgotten it was your birthday.”

      “Does that mean you’ll come?”

      “Of course I will.”

      “Great. Can I count on seeing you Friday night? We could go out for a bite of dinner.”

      “I can’t, I’ve got a date. I’ll drive out Saturday afternoon.”

      A date, Julie thought, praying it wasn’t with that no-good Jimmy Osborn. Her head throbbed even harder. “I guess if that’s the best you can do, it’ll have to be good enough. I’ve got a couple of properties to show on Saturday morning. If I’m not home when you get here, you know where to find the extra key.”

      They both said goodbye and Julie rang off thinking about Laura. She was worried about her, but then as Babs had said, she usually was. Walking into the bathroom, she opened the medicine cabinet and searched the shelves, looking for the plastic bottle of painkillers Dr. Marsh had prescribed for her migraines. This one was shaping up to be a doozie.

      Her hand shook as she pried off the lid and dumped a couple of capsules into her palm. A third fell out. For a moment she was tempted, then she thought of Patrick’s drug abuse and where it had finally landed him, and slid the third pill back into the bottle.

      Thirty minutes later, the medicine had still not kicked in. Pain shot into her skull as the phone beside the bed began to ring. She reached over and lifted the receiver.

      “Julie? It’s Patrick.”

      The headache was getting so bad it was starting to upset her stomach. She dampened her dry lips with the tip of her tongue, thinking she might throw up. “Hello, Patrick. How are you feeling?” It had been a week since Patrick’s release from the hospital. He had been taking it easy, as the doctors suggested, surprisingly circumspect for Patrick.

      “Better than I have a right to. That’s why I’m calling. I’m down at the office. I thought you’d be in. I figured you might want to go over the Rabinoff file.”

      “I’m afraid I’m not feeling well, Patrick. But the escrow’s all set to close. I don’t think there’ll be any more unforeseen problems.”

      “You’re sick?” He sounded suddenly worried. “What’s the matter with you?”

      “Another one of my headaches. This one’s pretty bad and nothing seems to help. I took some of the pills Dr. Marsh prescribed, but—”

      “I’m coming over. I’ll be there in just a few minutes. Lie down and take it easy till I get there.”

      “Patrick—you can’t drive all the way out here. You probably shouldn’t be driving at all. Besides, there’s nothing you can do the doctor hasn’t already done.”

      “Maybe there is. I have hidden talents you wouldn’t believe. Besides, you helped me, didn’t you? I owe you one.” He hung up the receiver before Julie could say any more.

      Val knew what was wrong with Julie Ferris. Her resistance to their scanners had been painful and immediate. The brutal headaches that followed were not unexpected, since they had occurred in subjects like Julie before. But the vicious assaults had lasted far longer than they had predicted, perhaps because, unlike the others, she had been taken aboard a second time.

      Val felt a shot of guilt, a feeling he had never really known. When he’d made the difficult decision to bring the older sibling back aboard, he had known there might be complications. He wished he could explain, reassure her that the headaches would soon disappear. But he wasn’t exactly certain that would happen. It was one of the things he’d been sent here to observe. Grabbing his coat off the wooden valet in the corner of his office, he started for the door.

      In the meantime, he knew the cause and what to do to treat them. At least he could ease some of her pain.

      Shoving open the office door, he walked down the sidewalk toward the pudgy young man in front of Spago’s who parked Patrick’s car, and handed him a couple of dollar bills. He had driven the shiny black Porsche for the first time that morning—an antique mode of transportation he found fascinating. He was grateful Patrick knew how to handle the car and had enjoyed every second behind the wheel.

      Patrick was a very good driver, he had discovered, with what seemed a natural ability to handle the vehicle on the route through Laurel Canyon. Later he had cruised Mulholland Drive.

      All along the way, a fierce blue sky curved above him, brightened by clouds so white and incredibly lovely it made him feel funny inside. At the top of the hill he’d parked the car for a while and simply stared out over the landscape. Wildflowers in vivid purple and saffron gold, poppies in scorching red-orange. A large brown bird, a goshawk, his memory recalled, spiraled down off the mountain, coasting on the currents of the wind.

      Afterward, he jotted down the experience in the journal he was keeping, filling the pages with words written in Patrick’s bold hand. It was the only way he could think of to capture the unfamiliar feelings, the subtle nuances of his thoughts. He had been making reports to his superiors, of course, communicating with the Ansor team through normal space channels.

      But there was just no Torillian way to describe what was actually going on.

      The journal would have to do that. When he returned to the ship, the pages could be scanned, translated by computer into words and images far more detailed than his logical, straightforward mind could manage.

      Val tipped the valet for the second time that day, vowing to start parking the car himself in the office parking lot, then slid into the deep red leather seat of the softly purring sports car. He stepped on the gas, relaxed his mind, and let Patrick’s well-honed driving skills take over. He knew the way to Julie’s house and the fastest way to get there. Avoiding as much of the traffic as he could, he pulled onto Pacific Coast Highway and roared along the beach to Julie’s batten-board, ranch-style beach house.

      He spotted it clinging to the side of a cliff, a two-car garage on the bottom, forming a two-story structure, the walls of the house draped with shocking-pink azaleas. If he hadn’t been so worried, he might have smiled.

      Instead he parked the car in the driveway, knocked on the door, and a few minutes later, Julie Ferris let him in.

      “This is silly, Patrick. You shouldn’t have come.”

      But she looked so pale he was glad he had. He felt responsible for what was happening to her. Was responsible. There was just no way around it. Still, science was all-important. The Ansor’s mission was all-important.

      And yet when he looked at Julie, he wished there could have been some

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