Child Of The Night Read online

  She walked over to where Cassie was sitting. Her hair was brushed in soft brown waves, and she wore a checkered pink sundress with matching hair ribbon. There was a faint smile on her lips as she held up the book for Tyla to see.

  “Oh, you found The Gingerbread Man. I like that book, too. Would you like to take it with us?”

  “You read it to me?”

  Tyla nodded, remembering that Jimmy had asked her the same thing. Thank heavens for stories that could find a way into a child’s heart. “Yes, bring it along to the playroom.”

  “Be a good girl, Cassie,” Harriet admonished, but her granddaughter walked past her without acknowledging her presence. Cassie didn’t wait for Tyla but started down the hall alone, clutching the book.

  “She’ll be ready at the usual time,” Tyla told Harriet, and hurried to catch up with Cassie’s determined little steps. The child’s purposeful behavior indicated she was gaining some inner strength.

  What if this is the last time I have her?

  Tyla’s stomach tightened. Cassie’s willing acceptance of her and the time spent in the playroom was a first step…but only a first step. She needed more time to transfer that confidence to other areas of the child’s life. And time to work with Cassie was something that she might not have, thought Tyla, anger mingling with a deep sense of loss.

  How committed was Clay to continuing the sessions? From the first he had made it clear that bringing his daughter to the clinic was not his idea. He’d been frank about the stigma attached to such treatment and had only given in because of pressure from the school and his mother-in-law. Now that Harriet had withdrawn her support, obviously backed by Doreen, he could stop the therapy sessions with their approval.

  Tyla firmed her chin, vowing he’d have one heck of a battle on his hands if he tried. She wouldn’t let the child drop out of therapy without a fight. She could take off the professional kid gloves when necessary. Remembering Harriet’s granite eyes and hard mouth, she didn’t doubt for one minute that she was up against a formidable force.

  Tyla had arranged a small experiment for this session with Cassie. She set out two play phones in view, one on the table where Tyla usually sat, and the other in the window seat. She was curious to see if Cassie would pay them any attention. The nighttime telepathic calls remained a mystery. Tyla reasoned that if the little girl had been the one sending mental images, she might reveal it by talking on the play telephone and provide Tyla with an insight into what was troubling her.

  Cassie walked by the table with the telephone without giving it a glance. Obviously she had something else on her mind. Her behavior was quite purposeful as she plopped down in front of the dollhouse. Deliberately Cassie made several sweeps of her hand through each room, emptying out all the contents on the floor. Then she looked at Tyla, her blue eyes shining with defiance. “I made a mess.”

  Tyla nodded. “Yes, you made a mess.”

  Cassie stirred up the pile of furniture, making chaos out of the tumbled pieces. “I made a big mess. A really big mess.” Again she looked at Tyla and waited.

  “Cassie makes big messes.”

  “Nice girls don’t make messes,” Cassie said with an inflection that was so close to Harriet’s that Tyla had to mask a smile. She would have laid bets that there had been a confrontation about Cassie’s room before they came to the clinic, and the little girl was getting even with her grandmother by making the biggest mess possible with the dollhouse.

  Tyla waited to see what Cassie was going to do next. The child’s expression of satisfaction wavered as she stared at the scattered furniture. After a long moment she looked at Tyla again, and her voice quavered as if on the edge of tears. “You help me?”

  “You want me to help you?”

  Cassie nodded.

  Tyla smiled and waited. She wanted Cassie to verbalize her needs in her own way. Putting words in the child’s mouth would only prevent her from clarifying, understanding and accepting her own feelings. When the little girl’s lower lip continued to quiver, Tyla asked quietly, “What would you like me to do, Cassie?”

  “Clean up the mess. Clean up Cassie’s mess. Put everything back.”

  “You want me to help put things back?”

  She nodded. “Everything where it belongs,” she said solemnly.

  “All right.” Tyla sat down on the floor beside her, and Cassie’s face brightened as they restored every room in the dollhouse to her satisfaction.

  When they had finished, Cassie placed the doll family in the living room. “Stay there,” she told them, and firmly shut the doors to the house.

  Tyla waited to see what Cassie would do next. Without a word she got to her feet and began wandering around the room. When she passed a small sink, she stopped, turned around and looked at Tyla, who was still seated on the floor in front of the dollhouse.

  “Boat?” Cassie asked.

  “You want to play with a boat?” Tyla pointed to one of the toy shelves. “There’s a big blue boat and a little red one.” Her pulse quickened as Cassie took a small sailboat off the shelf. Was the child thinking about her father’s boat? Clay must have taken her and Lynette sailing at some time.

  Cassie went back to the low sink, closed the drain and ran cold water into the bowl until it was just a couple of inches from the top. Tyla wouldn’t have stopped her if she’d let the sink run over. The floor was linoleum, and any water mess could be cleaned up. Every child needed to learn by doing and by making mistakes, no reprimands, no lectures.

  Cassie put the boat in the water and gave it a little push so that it went around and around in the small bowl. Playfully she brought her hands down forcibly in the water, sending waves rolling from one side until the water spilled over onto the floor.

  Tyla watched without interference. Suddenly Cassie jerked back. She stared at the red boat slowly turning over on its side. She began to scream.

  Tyla leapt to her feet. “Cassie! It’s all right…it’s all right.” She put her arms around the trembling child.

  Cassie’s little mouth formed one breathless and tearful word, “Papa.”

  Chapter 12

  Cassie pointed toward the little sailboat floating on its side and slowly sinking as the waterlogged cloth sail pulled it under the water. “Papa’s boat,” she whimpered again, sending a frantic glance at the sink.

  Was Cassie distressed because her rough play had capsized the boat or because she’d experienced some kind of clairvoyance that involved her father’s boat? In either case, Cassie’s water play had turned into a traumatic experience for the child.

  Tyla reached over, took the boat out of the water and set it upright on the counter. Cassie stared at it for a long moment, then she pulled away from Tyla, ran across the room and bounded up into the window seat. She grabbed a pillow, hugged it and rocked slightly as she pressed her cheek against it.

  Tyla wanted to respect the child’s space while offering her presence as a comfort, so she quietly sat down at the other end of the window bench. She hoped that Cassie would volunteer some insight into her thoughts, given freely and without coercion, but she continued to curl up in a ball, withdrawn and unapproachable. Tyla knew that any probing and prying would just close the door of communication even tighter than it was now.

  The second play telephone lay on the cushion between them but Cassie ignored the toy. Any hope that the phone might be an invitation for Cassie to “play talk” faded when the hour ended without any overture on the little girl’s part to talk to Tyla directly or otherwise. The session that had started on such a promising note ended with Cassie as withdrawn as she had been during her first visit.

  Harriet’s scowl deepened when she saw Cassie’s dejected lethargy and downcast eyes. She gave Tyla a scathing look as they left.

  Later, going back over her notes covering Cassie’s sessions, Tyla searched for any insights that she might have missed. Two steps forward and three back was often the progression in perplexing cases, and sometimes the difficult s
essions proved to be the most valuable. What did Cassie’s terror over the sinking sailboat really mean? Was it significant? Only time would tell. Time. Tyla pursed her lips, remembering Harriet’s threat to remove the child from therapy.

  All evening Tyla expected Clay to call her about discontinuing Cassie’s sessions. She hesitated to take the initiative and contact him. She didn’t want to give the impression of a grasping professional who was trying to hold on to a client. On the other hand, she deserved to know whether or not her services were going to be terminated.

  He didn’t call that night, but the next afternoon she had her answer. No one brought Cassie to the clinic for her session.

  “Are you sure there’s no message for me about Cassie Archer?” Tyla asked the receptionist when it became apparent that her client was a no-show.

  “I’m sure, Dr. Templeton.”

  Tyla was furious. Common decency required notice of cancellation. “Damn,” she swore under her breath.

  “I heard that,” said Barry, coming up beside her. “What’s happening? You’re giving off enough red sparks to blind a guy.” He made a sizzling sound as he touched her arm with a fingertip.

  Tyla drew in a steadying breath. “It’s the Archer child. The grandmother warned me yesterday that the family was going to discontinue my services. I guess she figured that was notice enough. No one brought Cassie in today.”

  “I can’t say I’m surprised. Lynette Archer gave the impression that she was short on professional courtesies. You know how some rich people are. They don’t bother with mundane details like canceling appointments.” He eyed her. “How’d you size up the father?”

  “Not very accurately.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I thought he would at least have the decency to talk the matter over with me before he pulled Cassie out of treatment.”

  He took her arm. “Come on. Let’s get a cup of coffee in the cafeteria. You can tell me about it. Get it off your chest before you explode. Were you making any progress with the kid?”

  “Yes,” Tyla said firmly. “And that’s what makes it difficult to close out the case.”

  The cafeteria was a sunny room filled with brightly painted tables and chairs. In nice weather Tyla often enjoyed a cup of tea on a small adjoining patio, but in her present mood, she took the first empty table and only nodded when Barry offered to get the coffee. When he brought the steaming cups, she stared into hers without comment.

  He leaned back in his chair and waited in true counselor fashion.

  After a moment she said, “I don’t understand what is going on between Cassie and her father. She displays intense hostility toward him.” Tyla related the incident about the sandbox and the dolls.

  “She buried both of them?”

  Tyla nodded. “No surprise that Cassie buried the mother doll. Her mother is dead, and I’m sure Cassie’s either been to see the grave or heard people talk about it. But why bury Papa and leave him in his grave?”

  “Maybe the child wishes him dead.”

  “Instead of her mother?”

  “Could be. Maybe she blames him for her death. Children sometimes have a twisted sense of justice and revenge.”

  Tyla put both of her hands around the coffee mug and stared at it. “Yesterday Cassie sank a toy sailboat that she called Papa’s boat. I don’t know if she deliberately sank the boat and then was frightened by what she’d done. Or if it was something entirely different.” Tyla leaned back in her chair and met Barry’s eyes. “There’s one thing I’m positive about.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Cassie Archer has demonstrated some clairvoyant sensitivities.”

  “What? Did I hear you correctly?” His eyebrows rose in mocking disbelief. “Clairvoyant? You’ve got to be kidding.”

  His attitude irked her. “Why? Despite ridicule for years by the medical community, psychic abilities have been validated hundreds of times and you know it.”

  He gave a dismissing wave of his hand. “I’ll grant you that theoretically ESP is possible, but most demonstrations are quackery, pure and simple. You’d have to provide me with undisputed evidence before I’d believe in any mysterious sight.”

  She smiled. “All right, Mr. Skeptic, I will. But first you have to accept my word as the honest truth, factual and totally valid, so help you, God.”

  He smiled. “So help me, God.”

  The smile faded as she told him about Cassie’s vision when Jimmy set himself and the closet on fire. “’He shouldn’t play with matches,’ Cassie told me. The only contact between Jimmy and Cassie was his baseball cap that she was holding at the time. I checked on the time. Cassie’s vision and the fire took place at the same time. She saw it!”

  “There has to be another explanation.”

  “All right, what is it?”

  He never had a chance to reply, because Clay appeared in the cafeteria doorway. Dressed in a tailored business suit, crisp white shirt and gold tack in the center of his silk tie, he stood there, his eyes narrowing as he caught sight of Tyla and Barry sitting together.

  His temper flared. Having coffee with her guard dog, he thought as his white scar stood out on his flushed, face. Tyla might dismiss Reardon’s attention as friendship, but anyone with two eyes in his head could see the shrink was crazy about her.

  Tyla’s eyes showed her surprise as Clay walked over to their table. His greeting dripped with acid as he said coldly, “Forgive me for the intrusion, Dr. Templeton. I wonder if I could have a few minutes of your time? That is, if you’re not too busy?”

  At his sarcastic tone, she fought back an equally tart reply. How dare he act as if she were some subordinate taking an unscheduled break? She couldn’t believe that she’d been in his arms, abandoning all thought to a wild desire that nearly swept her beyond control. The man was a harsh, domineering stranger. Her face was as closed as his as she nodded. She shot Barry a silent apology.

  The psychiatrist rose to his feet and gave Clay a measured glance. “Mr. Archer, I believe….”

  “Dr. Reardon.” Clay gave him a superficial nod, and once again his dark eyes fixed on Tyla. “Where can we talk?”

  This time she caught the anxiety in his brisk tone. Her irritation instantly fled. What was the matter? What had happened? She rose to her feet. “My office. Excuse us, Barry.”

  “We’ll continue our conversation later,” he said, and his irritated gaze followed them as they left the cafeteria.

  Tyla chose to ignore Clay’s stiff posture as he strode down the hall beside her. She was glad he had come. This was a good time to get everything out in the open. When they reached her office, she purposefully put a desk between them before she gave Clay a chance to say anything. She sat down in her chair. “Would you like to tell me what this is all about?”

  “As if you didn’t know.”

  “Enlighten me.”

  He put his hands on her desk and leaned over it. “What in the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  “At the moment I’m trying to make some sense out of your behavior,” she answered crisply.

  He straightened up and drew in a ragged breath. “You sure had me fooled. Talking about putting Cassie first and all that. To think I bought it and felt damn guilty. Tell me, Dr. Templeton, how professional is it to make my daughter pay for something that’s between you and me?”

  Her eyes rounded. What was he talking about? “Would you please explain? I’ve no idea what has upset you.”

  “Really? Well, let me spell it out for you. This afternoon I went to a lot of trouble to rearrange my schedule so I would have some free time. I wanted to see you and I knew my best chance was to catch you during business hours. When I called home to tell them that I’d pick up Cassie, I found out that my daughter was home…and not at the clinic.”

  Tyla nodded. “Cassie didn’t come today.”

  “So I was told. Imagine my surprise when Harriet told me that you weren’t going to see Cassie anymore,” he said an
grily. “I bet you didn’t tell her the real reason that you didn’t want to work with my daughter anymore, did you? No, of course not. That heavy scene in your apartment scared you, and you dumped Cassie because you’re afraid to admit you have some passionate feelings for me, isn’t that it? How fair is that, Doctor? Why make Cassie the innocent victim?”

  Tyla stood up, her eyes flashing with suppressed fury. “Let me enlighten you, Mr. Archer.”

  “I wish you would. All your talk about professional ethics, not wanting to compromise your work with Cassie, and then, damn it, you make a decision to cut off her therapy without blinking twice.”

  “I made no such decision. I was as surprised as anyone when Cassie didn’t come today…even though Harriet warned me yesterday that the family was looking elsewhere for treatment.”

  Conflicting emotions crossed his face, and she felt an unprofessional quiver of satisfaction at his open bewilderment. “Harriet said what?”

  Tyla repeated the conversation she’d had with his mother-in-law on the previous day. “When Cassie didn’t show today, I concluded that her grandmother had followed through and was placing Cassie elsewhere.”

  “Harriet doesn’t have that kind of authority. I make the decisions where Cassie is concerned.”

  “That’s what I thought, and to be honest I was surprised—and annoyed with you—when I thought you had taken this kind of action without talking it over with me.”

  “You should know I wouldn’t handle the situation that way.”

  “And you should have made certain that you hadn’t been misinformed,” she countered.

  “But Harriet was the one who insisted that we bring Cassie here.” He shoved back a shock of dark hair and frowned.

  “Maybe she thought that gave her the right to stop the sessions.”

  “Well, it doesn’t.” He came around the desk, and his gaze softened as he looked into her face. “What cap I say? I’ve made a fool of myself, haven’t I? Storming in here the way I did. I should have given you a chance to explain the situation before I exploded.”