Der Schädelring: Thriller (German Edition)

to go. Another call's coming in."
    Wouldn't want you to miss a call. Some savings and loan might need help foreclosing on an orphanage.
    "Bye, Mitch—"
    He'd already hung up.
    Julia held the phone to her chest for a moment. No shadows had crawled from the bedroom. No Creep had tiptoed past her to mess with her clock. Nobody had spelled out strange words on her coffee table.
    One good thing about Mitchell, he never failed to make her forget her other worries. He'd driven her crazier than a hundred Creeps could. First by getting her to fall in love and then leaving her wondering if love really existed.
    It was nearly noon. She took a sip of cool coffee, carried the cup to the kitchen, and rinsed it. She gobbled an avocado-and-bean-sprouts sandwich and grabbed an apple on the way out the door. Even though the day remained chilly, Julia didn't get her sweater from the bedroom.
    The clock might still be stuck on 4:06. Could electronic brains go insane? Or only people?
    She wasn't sure she wanted to know the answer.
    To warm herself, she balled some newspaper, piled the clumps in the fireplace, and struck a match to them. Then she stacked on the wooden blocks, staring wide-eyed as the tongues of fire licked the wood into a gray pile of ash, erasing the name that had been spelled out on the flat wooden faces.

 
     
    CHAPTER THREE
     
    "What did you dream last night?"
    Julia stared past Dr. Forrest to the painting that dominated the office wall. It was done in shades of orange and brown and red, an abstract piece with jagged edges. Piled triangles, shredded squares, the angles reamed and raped. Art that was disquieting instead of soothing.
    Dr. Danner had favored pastorals, not-so-skilled paintings of the sort seen in beginner's art classes. Barns and willows, creeks and fences. No people. No threats. Just plain old boring nature.
    "Julia?"
    "Oh, sorry." Julia looked at the doctor. Pamela Forrest smiled wisely, her glasses perched on the end of her nose. Fortyish, well-dressed, low heels and short, up-to-date hairstyle. Comfortable in her leather chair, her neat office the external manifestation of an ordered mind.
    And here Julia was again, shrinking her shrinks, comparing their defects.
    Dr. Forrest nodded, nudging her along. "You're a little distant today. What were you just thinking about?"
    She thought about lying. But then she'd really be crazy. If you couldn't trust your therapist, who could you trust?
    "I had an episode," Julia said. "When I came home this morning. I . . . I thought I had locked my front door, but then I found it open."
    "Open?"
    "Well, not open, just unlocked."
    "And how did that make you feel?"
    "Scared."
    "Scared of what?"
    Julia looked down at her hands. "I don't know."
    "I think you do."
    "Him. It. The Creep."
    "Ah." Dr. Forrest leaned forward in her chair. "You thought the Creep had unlocked the door and was waiting inside."
    "Yes."
    "Was there a Creep inside?"
    "No. But there could have been."
    "And what would the Creep have done?"
    "I don't know."
    "Yes, you do. It's not very hard to imagine."
    Julia dreaded imagining it again. The fantasy was almost as painful as the real act would be, had been. But if she acted out the scenario, Dr. Forrest would be pleased with her. Julia needed to please someone.
    So she concentrated on what the attack would have been like. The anxiety of that morning came back to her, as fresh as it had been the first time. She gripped the arms of her chair and squeezed until her knuckles were white. " Please don't hurt me ," she gasped through clenched teeth, almost feeling the knife thrusting with every word.
    "Yes, that's it," said Dr. Forrest, her voice low, intense, urging. "Let it out, live it. Bring out the fear and face it."
    "He's got me," Julia said, eyes closed, drenched in the sweat of tension, aching from the hot knife in her chest, seeing her blood spilling on the living room carpet.
    "Can you see his face?"
    "No."
    "Try."
    "I'm trying," she said, barely above a whisper. Though the room was sweetened by the chrysanthemums perched in a vase on the doctor’s desk, Julia could have sworn she smelled smoke.
    "Try harder. If you can see him, it will be a small victory over him."
    "I . . . " The Creep’s features almost coalesced from the mists of her imagination. The handyman? Mitchell? That college kid who been watching her from across the street yesterday? Or was it older than that, older than her, older than time?
    "Who is it? Who has brought this fear