Scent of Roses & Season of Strangers Read online

She thought of his behavior and her own erotic desires, felt her face go warm with humiliation. She stiffened her spine. The headaches were slowly getting better. She was sure in time they would disappear. Her sister needed her help—she would do what she could to take care of her.

  As for Patrick…Patrick Donovan could go straight to hell.

  * * *

  Val paced the bedroom of his apartment, stopped and turned and paced the length of the room again, his shoes making a squeaking sound on the carpet with each of his long, agitated strides. Before he’d left for work that morning, he had completed his required communication with his superiors using a small, powerful device the size of a credit card he carried in his wallet.

  As soon as he had returned home tonight, he had begun work on his journal, which lay open on the desk a few feet away, the pages overflowed with words he had written about what had happened at Julie’s. Personal impressions he wasn’t yet ready to share with his superiors aboard the ship.

  I thought I was prepared. I was not. My experience with Julie Ferris was more intense, more powerful than anything I had imagined. More than any Torillian could begin to imagine. Combined with the things I’ve learned since my arrival, along with the knowledge in Patrick’s memory banks, it has made me see these people in a different light, understand them as I never have before.

  I try to find the words but they do not come easily. Suffice it to say that although there are ways our cultures seem the same, their world is nothing like ours. They are nothing like us. Perhaps in simplest terms, I could say that passion dominates their nature. It is there in all they do, in everything they feel. They are absorbed by it, swallowed by it. Each of their experiences is more intense because of it. At times it controls them. Their passion stirs anger, fear, murder, and even wars, driving them to lengths we cannot comprehend.

  He paused for a moment, thinking of the words he had written, thinking of the things he had experienced tonight. Though he had not actually completed the act of sex as he had intended, the passion he had experienced had given him an insight into feelings a Torillian could not fathom. For the first time he was beginning to understand the intense degree of emotion humans felt.

  He paced the floor thinking of all he had learned, all he had yet to learn, thinking of Julie Ferris.

  Wanting her still.

  His body continued to throb with the ache she had stirred, still pulsed with the heat of his desire for her. He could feel the weight of her breasts in his hands, recall the erotic taste of her skin. He wanted her more than ever, craved to know the full extent of what he might discover from their joining. But now, because his body’s needs had frightened him so badly, he had destroyed their growing bond, and the odds weren’t good he would be given a second chance.

  Val felt another sweep of emotion, this one tightening a hard knot in his chest. He wasn’t sure what it was, a mixture of pain and something deeper, more intense.

  He didn’t know how to ease it, how to make it go away.

  And part of him was afraid to find out.

  * * *

  Julie didn’t see Patrick all the next day, which was the only stroke of good fortune she’d had. Laura had called early that morning. Dr. Heraldson had arranged for her to sit in with Peter Winter’s abduction group at 7:00 p.m. that evening.

  “I was kind of hoping you could come with me,” Laura had said over the phone.

  Julie pondered that. “I would have to rearrange my evening appointment with the Harveys. They’re supposed to sign the escrow papers on the condo they just bought, but I can probably meet with them tomorrow.” She still felt funny about steering them away from Patrick’s condo project, but she had rarely seen him so adamant on a subject as he had been that day, and the condo the couple had finally purchased might turn out to be the better deal.

  “I’d really like you to come,” Laura urged.

  Julie heard the anxiety in her sister’s voice. “Then I will. In fact, I’ll pick you up. Where will you be? At home or at work?”

  A long silent pause. “I’m not working at The Boutique anymore.”

  An equally long pause on Julie’s end. “Why not?”

  “I didn’t like working so late. I didn’t like coming out of the building after it got so dark.”

  Julie thought of her sister cowering in terror the night of the birthday dinner, and her heart went out to her. “I’m sure you’ll find something else. In the meantime, this will give you plenty of time to work with Dr. Winters. I’ll pick you up at six.”

  She rang off, worked for a while on her escrow files, showed a big Palos Verdes estate to a friend of Owen’s who was thinking of moving, then bought a couple of submarine sandwiches she and Laura could eat on the road, and set off for Venice Beach.

  Dr. Winters’s abduction group was meeting at a residence in Long Beach, not that far away. It turned out to be a lovely two-story home that backed up to one of the scenic canals. It wasn’t what she would have expected. Neither was the group of people who had gathered to discuss their fears.

  “I’m Robert Stringer.” The owner of the house waited for them on the porch and invited them in. “You must be Laura, and this must be your sister, Julie.”

  “I’m Laura,” her sister corrected, since the man had reversed their names. “This is Julie.”

  “Hello, Mr. Stringer,” Julie said, wondering if being shorter made her a more likely victim than her taller, more willowy sister.

  “It’s just Robert. We’re all friends here.” He was a dignified man in his early forties, the head of Digital Associates, a big computer software company. The last person she could imagine believing in alien abduction.

  As they walked into the foyer, a small man in jeans, penny loafers, and a long-sleeved white button-down shirt stepped forward. “Welcome. I’m Dr. Winters.”

  Peter Winters led them forward and introduced them to the rest of the group seated in the living room. Carrie Newcomb, an attractive young woman in her late twenties, was a hairdresser who had moved to L.A. from Phoenix. Leslie Williams was African-American, tall and willowy with intelligent dark eyes and a warm, broad-lipped smile. She worked for Xerox in the sales and marketing division, driving up for the meetings each week from San Diego. Matthew Goldman, a thin, nervous man with a tic, was unemployed; and fiftyish Willis Small was the successful author of a dozen books on gardening.

  An interesting mix, Julie thought, people without any apparent connection. The only one there with an obvious disorder was Goldman, the man with the tic, who in less than fifteen minutes proved to be either a fake or a schizophrenic. Julie wasn’t sure which, but she was betting on the latter.

  “Since the group is open to anyone who wants to come,” the doctor said, taking a chair at the head of the circle, “I’d like to open the discussion by turning the meeting over to whomever might have something they wish to say. How about you, Leslie?”

  The cocoa-skinned woman smiled. “I’m happy to say it’s been a good week for me, since I slept better than I usually do. I’m feeling stronger, less frightened since I’ve been coming here. I want you all to know how much I appreciate being a part of this group.”

  Dr. Winters smiled. “Thank you, Leslie. We’re glad to have you with us. Anyone else?” He turned to Robert Stringer. “Since we have a newcomer with us tonight, perhaps you wouldn’t mind, Robert, repeating for us the story of your abduction.”

  Julie didn’t know why Robert Stringer had been singled out until she saw the way his story began to affect the others. Where all but Goldman had appeared calm before, now they had all begun to fidget in their seats. Perhaps for most of them, repeating the tale was like reliving it. The occurrence was just too traumatic.

  “As most of you know, I was working in Denver at the time it happened…my first encounter with the Visitors. My oldest son, Tommy, loved to fish, so for the
weekend, the two of us had traveled up to a small mountain lake near Crested Butte. It was such a pleasant summer day we had taken the top off the Jeep. It was nearly dusk when it happened. We had already caught our limit and were heading back to camp when we heard an odd sort of buzzing. It wasn’t like anything either of us had ever heard before. It was rather unsettling, irritating you might say. It was sort of thick and heavy, and at first we couldn’t decide where it was coming from.”

  An prickle of uneasiness ran along Julie’s nerves. She had heard a sound like that the day they were at the beach.

  Robert Stringer shifted a little in his chair. “I pulled off the road when we realized it was coming from directly above us. The object we saw was disk-shaped, made of highly polished silver. It looked massive, hovering right over our heads. Both of us just sat there, staring at the object in awe. I remember little Tommy reaching out to grasp my hand.”

  Leslie Williams started crying.

  A chill raced down Julie’s spine.

  “What happened then, Robert?” Dr. Winters gently prodded.

  “That’s the last I recall until I woke up on the ship.”

  “And once you were there?”

  “They stripped off my clothes. I remember trying to fight them, but I couldn’t move. I remember looking frantically for my son. I never saw him, but somehow I knew he was there.” Robert Stringer’s throat moved up and down, but no sound came out. With obvious effort, he dragged himself under control

  “Can you go on, Robert?”

  He nodded, rubbed his palms on the sides of his pants. “They placed me on a cold metal table and bathed me in something…it was slimy and I remember it smelled a little like cheddar cheese. It was wet and colorless and it made me start to shiver. I was lying flat on my back. They lowered some sort of machine over my head and attached it to my forehead with what looked like some type of electrodes. It was reading something, my thoughts I think. It was learning everything about me. When they were finished, they inserted a metal probe down my throat and another into my rectum. They forced me to climax then took a semen sample. I remember I cried. I couldn’t stand having them touch me.”

  Julie swallowed against the dryness in her throat. Her hands were shaking. She glanced worriedly over at Laura, saw tears spilling onto her sister’s cheeks. She wanted to go to her, comfort her, but she had to see this through. Julie bit down on her lip and forced herself not to move.

  “What did they look like?” the doctor asked softly.

  “There were several different types. Most of them were little, less than four feet tall. They had big heads and large dark eyes, and they were dressed exactly alike. At the time I remember thinking they were soldiers.” He moved restlessly now, crossing his legs, then straightening them out in front of him. “There were others there, too. Taller, thinner. They were the ones giving the orders, though I wasn’t able to hear them.”

  “I could,” one of the others said softly, her voice scratchy and low. Julie turned to see Carrie Newcomb leaning forward in her chair. “Their mouths didn’t move, but I could hear them speaking, telling me not to be afraid.”

  “They were devils,” Goldman snorted, “with pointed ears and long spiked tails. They’ve consigned us to hell and they’re going to make sure we get there.”

  “We all know your opinion, Matt,” the doctor said firmly. “Why don’t we let Robert finish?”

  Goldman sat back in his chair. It was obvious the others wished he wasn’t there.

  “I don’t remember much more about that particular time,” Robert continued. “When I woke up I was back in my car and it was almost morning. My son was asleep in the passenger seat. He doesn’t remember anything that happened to us, and I hope he never does.”

  “How…how can you be certain he was taken?” Julie asked.

  Robert Stringer leaned forward. He rolled up the sleeve of his shirt. “Do you see this?”

  “Yes. It looks like a tiny isosceles triangle.”

  “When I awakened that morning, this mark was on my forearm. My son has one just like it on his.”

  Laura made a strangled sound in her throat. Julie turned in her direction in time to see her unbuttoning the cuff on her blouse. When she turned it back, Julie saw the small triangle. Oh, dear God. A knot clenched in Julie’s stomach. Laura’s face was as pale as Dr. Winters’s white shirt.

  “Laura?” Julie stood up, her mouth dry, her chest so tight she could barely speak. She started in her sister’s direction, but before she could reach her, Laura’s eyes rolled back in her head and she slumped sideways on the sofa.

  “Damn it!” The oath roared out from the end of the room. The sliding door slammed open and Brian Heraldson strode in, his face as dark as thunder. Obviously he had been listening. “I was afraid something like this would happen.”

  Peter Winters gripped his arm, stopping him before he reached the couch. “Were you also afraid your patient’s fears might actually be real?” He pointed to the tiny mark on Laura’s arm, holding Brian’s gaze for long disturbing moments, until Laura’s soft moan broke the silence.

  Brian tore himself away. “Laura?” He sat down beside her on the sofa. “Just take it easy. It’s Dr. Heraldson.” The bearded doctor rested a hand on her forehead and Laura’s eyes fluttered open.

  “Brian?” She sat up on the sofa a little too fast and swayed against him. “Oh, Brian, I’m so glad you’re here.”

  He cleared his throat, looking a little uncomfortable at her familiarity. “Yes, well, after I arranged for you to come, I decided that maybe I should be here. I spoke to Dr. Winters about it. I never meant to actually come in, but…”

  “I’m glad you did.”

  Julie watched her sister with a mixture of pity and concern, her insides leaden. Had Laura really experienced the terror of being abducted, the awful invasions of the mind and body Robert Stringer had described? Though her sister had never met the man before, their accounts were amazingly similar. Still, if Laura was a victim of abduction, where had Julie been during the time her sister was taken?

  She glanced down at her forearm. No triangular shape marked her skin. Surely if she had been there on the beach or in the house when the abduction occurred, as Laura’s memory suggested, surely they would share some common recollections of the incident. But Julie remembered nothing.

  “If you were listening,” Julie said to Dr. Heraldson, “then I presume you heard Mr. Stringer describe his abduction experience. Obviously it’s very similar to what Laura has told us.”

  The doctor nodded grimly. “Having read other such accounts, I thought perhaps it would be. On the surface the evidence for abduction looks convincing, but you have to understand there are other possible explanations.”

  “Such as?” Julie asked.

  “Shared hallucination, for one. All of the supposed victims might be sharing an imagined event—rather like two people having the same dream. In centuries past, people hallucinated fairies and malevolent angels who took these same sorts of liberties with their bodies. Today we see movies about aliens and UFOs and hallucinate spacemen. Or it might be caused by a medical problem.”

  “A medical problem? What sort of medical problem?”

  “It’s called temporal lobe disorder.”

  “What’s that?” Laura asked.

  Dr. Winters answered. “There are a number of diseases of the mind that can lead to hallucination. Temporal lobe epilepsy, as it is also called, is only one of them. It is often blamed for psychic and religious experiences, feelings of déjà vu, anxiety and panic attacks. Visions that occur because of this disorder can be extremely vivid, containing even sounds and smells.”

  He turned a hard smile on Brian Heraldson. “Of our group, only Willis Small has been tested for this disorder. He does not have it. What Dr. Heraldson might not be aware of is that most of th
e people who have reported the abduction experience and been tested for temporal lobe disorder have also been found to be free of the disease.”

  Brian eyed him coldly. “Schizophrenia as well as paranoia are also associated with hallucinations,” he said defensively.

  “True. And no doubt there are those to which that diagnosis would apply.” The smaller man’s glance strayed to Matthew Goldman, the nervous man with the tic. “But the majority do not.”

  Julie shifted her attention to Dr. Heraldson. “What about the triangle on Robert Stringer’s arm?”

  “As I told you, the mind and body often act as one. The former influencing the latter to a degree that is often difficult to believe.”

  “You’re saying her mind made the mark appear.”

  He simply nodded.

  “Or it’s possible these people are telling the truth,” Peter Winters said.

  Heraldson didn’t answer. He glanced from Julie to Laura, who still leaned against him. “Whatever the case, I think Laura’s had enough for the moment. Perhaps it’s time she went home.” There was tenderness and concern in his expression, and perhaps something more. Dr. Heraldson was Laura’s psychiatrist. Julie frowned at the implications.

  He helped Laura up from the sofa, then returned his attention to Julie. “I know what you’re thinking. I want you to know I’ve disqualified myself as Laura’s therapist from here on out. I don’t believe I can remain as objective as I should be.”

  Julie relaxed a little at that, grateful for the doctor’s professionalism. Heraldson helped Laura to her feet, then together with Julie they walked toward the door.

  Carrie Newcomb stopped them in the entry. “It’s always worse in the beginning,” she said to Laura, reaching out to squeeze her hand. “The fear never really goes away, but after a while you begin to accept it. Things get better after that. And Dr. Winters is terrific. He’s always there to help when you need him.”

  “That’s right, Laura,” Winters said, coming up to join them. “Talking about it can be very therapeutic. I hope we’ll see you here next week.”