“Like the time he wanted to know exactly what his daddy did for a living. He was eight  or nine years old, and he was curious about the details of a dealer’s job. Michael sat at the kitchen table with him and dealt blackjack. Danny was barely old enough to understand the rules, but he’d never played before. He certainly wasn’t old enough to remember all the cards that were dealt and calculate his chances from that, like some of the very best players can do. Yet he won steadily. Michael used a jar full of peanuts to represent casino chips, and Danny won every nut in the jar.”

“The game must have been rigged,” Elliot said. “Michael was letting him win.”

“That’s what I thought at first. But Michael swore he wasn’t doing that. And he seemed genuinely astonished by Danny’s streak of luck. Besides, Michael isn’t a card mechanic. He can’t handle a deck well enough to stack it while he’s shuffling. And then there was Elmer.”

“Who’s Elmer?”

“He was our dog. A cute little mutt. One day, about two years ago, I was in the kitchen, making an apple pie, and Danny came in to tell me Elmer wasn’t anywhere to be found in the yard. Apparently, the pooch slipped out of the gate when the gardeners came around. Danny said he was sure Elmer wasn’t going to come back because he’d been hit and killed by a truck. I told him not to worry. I said we’d find Elmer safe and sound. But we never did. We never found him at all.”

“Just because you never found him—that’s not proof he was killed by a truck.” “It was proof enough for Danny. He mourned for weeks.”

Elliot sighed. “Winning a few hands at blackjack—that’s luck, just like you said. And predicting that a runaway dog will be killed in traffic—that’s just a reasonable assumption to make under the circumstances. And even if those were examples of psychic ability, little tricks like that are light-years from what you’re attributing to Danny now.”

“I know. Somehow, his abilities have grown a lot stronger. Maybe because of the situation he’s in. The fear. The stress.”

“If fear and stress could increase the power of his psychic gifts, why didn’t he start trying to get in touch with you months ago?”

“Maybe it took a year of stress and fear to develop the ability. I don’t know.” A flood of unreasonable anger washed through her: “Christ, how could I know the answer to that?” “Calm down,” he said. “You dared me to shoot holes in your theory. That’s what I’m doing.”

“No,” she said. “As far as I can see, you haven’t shot one hole in it yet. Danny’s alive, being held somewhere, and he’s trying to reach me with his mind. Telepathically. No. Not telepathy. He’s able to move objects just by thinking about them. What do you call that? Isn’t there a name for that ability?”

“Telekinesis,” Elliot said.

“Yes! That’s it. He’s telekinetic. Do you have a better explanation for what happened in the diner?”

“Well . . . no.”

“Are you going to tell me it was coincidence that the record stuck on those two words?” “No,” Elliot said. “It wasn’t a coincidence. That would be even more unlikely than the possibility that Danny did it.”

“You admit I’m right.”

“No,” he said. “I can’t think of a better explanation, but I’m not ready to accept yours. I’ve never believed in that psychic crap.”

For a minute or two neither of them spoke. They stared out at the dark parking lot and at the fenced storage yard full of fifty-gallon drums that lay beyond the lot. Sheets, puffs, and spinning funnels of vaguely phosphorescent dust moved like specters through the night.

At last Tina said, “I’m right, Elliot. I know I am. My theory explains everything. Even the nightmares. That’s another way Danny’s been trying to reach me. He’s been sending me nightmares for the past few weeks. That’s why they’ve been so much different from any dreams I’ve had before, so much stronger and more vivid.”

He seemed to find this new statement more outrageous than what she’d said before. “Wait, wait, wait. Now you’re talking about another power besides telekinesis.”

“If he has one ability, why not the other?” “Because pretty soon you’ll be saying he’s God.”

“Just telekinesis and the power to influence my dreams. That explains why I dreamed about the hideous figure of Death in this comic book. If Danny’s sending me messages in dreams, it’s only natural he’d use images he was familiar with—like a monster out of a favorite horror story.”

“But if he can send dreams to you,” Elliot said, “why wouldn’t he simply transmit a neat, clear message telling you what’s happened to him and where he is? Wouldn’t that get him the help he wants a lot faster? Why would he be so unclear and indirect? He should send  a concise mental message, psychic E-mail from the Twilight Zone, make it a lot easier for you to understand.”

“Don’t get sarcastic,” she said.

“I’m not. I’m merely asking a tough question. It’s another hole in your theory.”

She would not be deterred. “It’s not a hole. There’s a good explanation. Obviously, like I told you, Danny isn’t telepathic exactly. He’s telekinetic, able to move objects with his mind. And he can influence dreams to some extent. But he’s not flat-out telepathic. He can’t transmit detailed thoughts. He can’t send ‘concise mental messages’ because he doesn’t have that much power or control. So he has to try to reach me as best he can.” “Will you listen to us?”

“I’ve been listening,” she said.

“We sound like a couple of prime candidates for a padded cell.” “No. I don’t think we do.”

“This talk of psychic power . . . it’s not exactly levelheaded stuff,” Elliot said. “Then explain what happened in the diner.”

“I can’t. Damn it, I can’t,” he said, sounding like a priest whose faith had been deeply shaken. The faith that he was beginning to question was not religious, however, but scientific.

“Stop thinking like an attorney,” she said. “Stop trying to herd the facts into neat corrals of logic.”

“That’s exactly what I’ve been trained to do.”

“I know,” she said sympathetically. “But the world is full of illogical things that are nonetheless true. And this is one of them.”

The wind buffeted the sports car, moaned along the windows, seeking a way in.

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93