R. Lee Munson pulled off Route 9 into the tiny gravel lot of a roadside bar. Well, it looked like a bar. He squinted through the rainwash his wipers couldn’t quite keep at bay and strained to read the piercing red neon in the window. There was only one other vehicle on the lot, a pick-up truck. The other six or seven spots were empty. Across the street was a cornfield. Next to the bar was a junkyard. The spot was blissfully secluded.

The weather pattern shifted slightly and he could make out a glowing neon design above a single word. The design was an eye with a curling iris. The word: PSYCHIC.

“Great,” he spat. Then he laughed. “We’ll see about that.”

Turning, straining to reach the satchel in the back seat, R. Lee pried his hand under the shovel handle, nudged the rake, then found the case under a pile of loose wet garbage bags. He hoped they were just wet from the rain. It was going to be hard enough to clean the blood off himself. He hated the thought he’d have to detail his car.

Maybe the psychic has some cleaning solution? He chuckled. “I wonder if they know I’m here.”

* * *

Inside the shop, Ardelene was straightening her fake gypsy scarf and head wrap adorned with tiny fake crystals as she studied her reflection in the mirror. She had to make sure she looked authentic.

As soon as she saw the car pull into the space in front of the window, she jumped up from her chair and smacked the television’s power button. The Price is Right would have to wait.

She pulled on her slippers and bracelets, quickly pulled the scarf and head wrap from the table in the center of the room, gave the crystal ball a quick buff, and muttered her mantra with what she figured was a fairly good representation of an Eastern European accent, “Cross my palm with gold. Cross my palm with gold….”

She stood transfixed, staring at a glint of light on the fake jewel that dangled from her head wrap in the middle of her forehead. There was something in that tiny blue glow, like the point of a sniper’s laser scope that vanished when she turned ever so slightly.

Turning so the glint appeared once more, she allowed herself to forget about the source of the light and fell into it headlong.

* * *

Ardelene found herself in a forest. Her body felt different, stronger, strange. She wasn’t used to the shift in her center of gravity, wasn’t used to the collection of objects between her legs that moved naturally with her gait but were nonetheless unfamiliar to her. Her right arm felt strained, taxed, and her left hand awkwardly clutched two long-handled items. The eyes that were not her own, slightly glazed with poorer vision, glanced back at what was dragging at her right arm.

The body of a man in a shirt and tie was dragging along the ground behind her. The tie pulled like a red paisley noose, the loose end wrapped and clutched by her right hand. Her manly right hand was as strained and purple as the bald head of the man being dragged.

* * *

The jingle of the bell over the door snapped her out of the vision and Ardelene turned toward the sound.

Stepping in from the rain was a hulking shadow, silver drips rolling off the sleeves, fingertips, and the hard edges of a dark case in his right hand. He smiled and said, “Sorry to startle you. Pourin‘ cats n’ dogs out there.” His laugh was weak, fake. Like my costume, she thought.

Still trying to make sense of the fleeting vision, all Ardelene could do was let her mouth drop open.

“Can’t drive,” the man said, “The rain and all.” He remained standing in the doorway, his face and features mostly hidden in silhouette. His voice, his manner of speaking, was probing, testing. It was somehow familiar, like she’d heard it in her own head once before.

Trying her best to compose herself for the unexpected customer, Ardelene motioned for the table in the center of the room where the crystal ball waited. Her brow knitted under the glinting jewel on her forehead as she found herself unable to shake the feeling, the imagery, the realism of the vision. She never had a vision before. Her fortune-telling shop was like all the rest, a flim-fam, faux, a fake. She told people what they wanted to hear, used vagueness and pulled from her customer’s expressions. “Will my husband get the promotion he wants?” They were always easy questions, and always provided a fifty-fifty solution that didn’t matter in the present.

Ardelene slowly took her place at the table, easing into the chair, not sure if it was her own legs she was feeling, or the legs of the man she inhabited in the vision.

Flashes: The tie, the body, the tools, the woods, the dirt, the blood. She gasped and rubbed her eyes. Her mouth opened and spilled the words, “Ain’t nothin‘ under here. Nothin‘ grows under the forest, Clye.”

The man had approached the table but didn’t sit. Now he tensed. The arms at his side snapped ridged and his chin shot up. A small glint flashed in his eyes beneath the shadow of his brow. “What? …What did you say?”

Ardelene’s eyes were suddenly watery, a tear drew a black mascara track down her cheek. “I, I don’t–” Her eyes fell to his right hand which placed a small wet case on the table. In the orange glow from the crystal ball she could see a raw red burn across the back of his hand.

Like a burn caused by a silk tie pulled taught against his skin.

* * *

Ardelene began to shake uncontrollably. She couldn’t move or turn away. Somehow what she was seeing was a continuation of the vision that electrified her skin moments ago. Barely aware of the movements of the man’s scarred hand, she felt locked in place.

It wasn’t until her next blink that she noticed the pistol in his hand, rising from the case, pointing toward her heart. She whined, “No.”

The weapon discharge and the pain of the impact against her left breast made Ardelene jolt, but before the darkness took her she had a moment to marvel at two things: how quiet the gun was, and how sleepy she suddenly….

* * *

R. Lee returned the dart gun to the case, smiling briefly in awe of himself for having the forethought to re-load it after he used it to knock out the lawyer that morning. It was unfortunate that he didn’t have another tranquilizer to lock into the chamber now. You never knew who you might have to shoot next.

That thought jiggled in front of him like a carrot of paranoia so he drew the nine millimeter Glock from the small of his back. With the smoothness of a jungle cat, R. Lee moved silently to the door and switched off the neon red PSYCHIC sign, turned the OPEN sign to CLOSED, then locked the door. Then he searched the building.

The roadside psychic reader parlor was nothing more than a tiny ranch house on the brim of a cornfield. The main room was a illuminated by looping strands of white Christmas tree lights and the orange glow of a spherical lamp on the central table. Lame, R. Lee mused, that she uses a cheap kiddie night light as her crystal friggin‘ ball. A second-hand couch with a red tasseled cover sat to the side. A fan of magazines sat on a crooked coffee table in front of it. Newsweek, People, American Sportsman, Mystery Magazine. The room smelled faintly of must, incense, and cheap pine furniture cleaner. Below that, the aroma of stale cigarettes.

Through a beaded doorway was a kitchenette dominated by a card table with a small TV on it. An ash tray full of butts explained the stale air in the room as well as the burnt yellow finish of the formerly white walls. The refrigerator contained half a two liter of Pepsi, a bag from Arbys, a loaf of wheat bread, and a jar of peanut butter. Muttering to himself, “No refrigeration required,” R. Lee took out the peanut butter and placed it in an overhead cabinet devoid of anything except a Mickey Mouse mug.

In a short hall beyond the kitchen, R. Lee found a back door blocked by a desk, and two doors.

Behind the first door was a three quarter bathroom, behind the other a bedroom with an unmade bed. He spent no time searching the rooms. He could see from a glance they were both a mess. And empty. The psychic woman seemed to be the only resident. Good. This bad stop in the middle of nowhere should be fairly simple after all.

Except for one thing: the reason he had to take her down to begin with.

Returning to the main room, R. Lee squatted to examine the woman. She lay on her back where the tranquilizer dropped her. Her arms and legs were bent at opposite angles forming a human Swastika. She looked to be in her late thirties / early forties, but it was tough to tell because she was attractive despite the obvious smoking habit. Why would such a gorgeous creature make her insides so ugly? He mused. The woman wore what R. Lee figured to be a some kind of gypsy costume, a long skirt and richly-patterned blouse. A head wrap trimmed with tiny dangling crystals matched the dark green beaded shawl that hung loose around her shoulders.

He pressed the back of his hand against her long smooth throat and felt a pulse and a rhythmic rush that accompanied the rise and fall of her chest. Though she was breathing heavily, the woman’s pulse was slow and steady.

R. Lee grabbed her wrists and dragged her toward the couch. Nudging the coffee table aside with his boot, he hooked his hands under her armpits and hoisted her onto the couch in an angled sitting position. Then he went back to the case on the center table, removed a pair of handcuffs, and returned to the woman. He pulled her arms back and cuffed her hands behind her before leaning her back and gently resting her head on a beaded throw pillow on one end of the couch.

* * *

Ardelene’s dream was hot with rushes of ice water that shocked periodically through her veins. In the dream, she was in Palley’s Woods on the far side of town. She was breathless, running from a man chasing her. Though the man carried a shovel and rake clumsily in one hand and dragged a full-sized man by the necktie in the other, he was gaining on her. She could feel his hot breath as he came closer and closer, fury burning his dark eyes.

Waking with a gasp, Ardelene choked on her own saliva and tried to wipe her eyes and face but her hands were somehow trapped behind her.

“Good morning, gorgeous,” came a throaty voice. Recognizing it, she snapped to a full waking position and sat upright on the couch.

“W-Who–?” Ardelene sucked panicked air as she glanced wide-eyed around the room, searching for the voice. She focused on him and felt an instant combination of panic and relief that he was no longer holding the gun. But I’m tied up? What’s he going to–

To Ardelene’s surprise, the man smiled, pulled a chair over from the reading table, turned it so its back faced her, and straddled it. His smile was slippery but confident. His jaw was hard and angular. His blue eyes were piercing but angry in an otherwise handsome face. He said, “My name is R. Lee Munson. Never mind what the R stands fer. I never did care for it.”

His accent betrayed him as a local though she had never seen him before.

“What’s yer name, honey?” He asked. Then he produced a pack of Marlboro Lights from a pocket, a pink flamingo lighter from another, and proceeded to light up. Ardelene followed every movement of his hands, how they boldly produced her cigarettes and lighter. He was in charge. That’s what that was saying.

After a long drag, he blew smoke toward her. “I asked politely.”

Inhaling the second-hand cloud and longing for a drag of the real thing, Ardelene said, “My name’s Ardelene. Ardelene Jacobi, but my friends call me Ardy.”

He smiled wide behind the hand holding the cigarette. “Like Arty the Smarty? The cartoon fish?”

“A-r-d-y. Short for Ardelene.”

“Never heard o’ that name before.”

“Was my gram’s.”

“She long dead?”

Ardy nodded solemnly. “Long time,” she confessed.

“Ardy.” He appeared to taste the name as he repeated it two more times in different tones. “I like it. It suits you, but not the gypsy you. Why do you put on all those phony airs? You ain’t no psychic.”

She shrugged, felt her chin quiver as new tears welled up. She could sense that he was trying to lead her away from the truth – that she had discovered something, that her one and only vision produced a clear window into the soul of the murderer across from her. Or maybe he was testing her, trying to draw her out.

“No, no, no,” R. Lee barked, standing and pushing the chair noisily aside. “You’re not gonna break down on me. Not when we’re off to such a super start.”

She sniffed and glanced toward the tissue box on a narrow shelf in the corner.

R. Lee glanced where she looked, crossed over to the shelf, and plucked down the box. He returned to her and sat next to her on the couch. Pulling a couple of tissues, he gently dabbed her eyes before wiping away the smudges and lines of mascara.

“You shouldn’t wear make-up,” he said as he studied her skin beneath the coloring he removed. “You’ve got a warm face.”

Ardy sniffed. “Thank you,” she whispered weakly. Again, the chin quivered. She couldn’t help it.

“Stop it!” He bolted up from the couch and began pacing. “I hate that water works crap. Women should be stronger than that!”

Chin still quivering, but tears drying up, Ardy stammered, “W-Why are you doing this?”

R. Lee Munson paced two more circuits before stopping and turning toward her. He smiled. “I was just gonna stop in until the rain quit, but then I sees you n’–.”

Ardy blinked.

“How did you know about Clye?” He asked. “I thought this psychic junk was all fake.”

“So did I,” she said. Her voice was as cracked as her soul felt. “So did I.”

He lit the smoke with her lighter and tossed the lighter on the table. It clinked against the crystal ball. For some reason, that made him laugh.

Ardy squirmed and scooted on the couch, trying to get herself to a comfortable upright position. No matter how she twisted, the handcuffs continually fought her. Wanting to ask her captor to remove, or at least loosen, her bonds, she instead blurted, “What’re you gonna do to — with — me?”

She cringed at the misspoken word. While it was obvious she didn’t need to give him any ideas, she also didn’t want to inadvertently dare him to rape or kill her.

He turned his head and squinted through the stream of blue smoke rising from the cigarette. He appeared to consider the option she desperately tried to push from her mind.

“You’re afraid I’m gonna rape you, ain’t it?” R. Lee muttered.

Ardy quickly shook her head. No. Then convulsed a shrug or two. She began to feal queasy. “P-Please don’t. Please don’t. Don’t. . . .”

“See.” His laugh was a harsh bark. “I’m a psychic too!”

“P-Please.”

“Don’t worry about it, Ardy dear. I ain’t no rapist. I’m a killer.” He took a long draw of the cigarette, let the smoke form whisps around his words as he said, “Hell, you saw that, didn’t you?”

She shook her head slowly, then with greater, yet false, conviction.

“You said Clye. That ain’t no name you hear every day.”

Ardy just stared at him. She couldn’t look away and she couldn’t pull out of the twin black holes that were his piercing dark eyes.

“Ain’t it interestin’ that I just happen to kill a man named Clye. Then here you go sayin’ his name not two minutes after I walk in here.”

She remembered the vision, the clarity within that tiny glint of light reflected from the jewel in her phony gypsy head wrap. Ardy had entered another world in that glint, as though she were pulled by some unseen energy force into a parallel universe. There she was a man. A killer. This man. But it wasn’t an alternate universe. It wasn’t even as phony as her getup. It was real. It was recent. It had happened and she had seen it. Lived it. Ardy tried to reason it out, but her present circumstance robbed her of the luxury of reason. She could only sit scrunched on the couch, her wrists throbbing with pain from the handcuffs, and answer to the whimsy of R. Lee Munson.

The killer stood and replaced the chair at the small round table, then he rounded the table to the throne-like chair she sat in when doing readings. He sat down and leaned forward, stairing into the orange light in the frosted glass ball.

“Know what I see?”

Ardy shook her head.

R. Lee Munson reached out slowly, dramatically, and caressed the sides of the crystal ball as he stared deeply into it. His eyes twitched and widened, darted from side to side as though he could actually see something.

“I see a woman in a corn field. She’s dressed like . . . Like a . . . ,” he glanced toward Ardy, “What do you call ‘em? Like the old lady in that old werewolf movie?”

She swallowed, “A gypsy?”

His laugh was a mischievous chuckle, but it wasn’t infectious. “Yeah, that’s it. But she’s young, ya know.” He squinted into the light. “Yeah . . . . Young and beautiful. A real looker.”

R. Lee turned and faced Ardy directly. “And she’s being raped.”

Ardy gapsed and shuddered, a sudden chill rocked her bones and made bile rise in her throat. She tried to pull her knees up to her chest, to hide behind the quivering bones in her legs, but she was too unbalanced. All she could do is shake her head and sob.

“By worms,” he added after a pause long enough to enjoy her palpable fear.

Then he stood again, took a final draw of the cigarette, and stomped it out on the floor. Slowly moving toward her, R. Lee smiled a wide greasy grin. “You know why, Ardy dear? Why worms?”

Again, a shake of the head. Not committal. Not adamant. She kept telling herself, Tell him what he wants and give him what he expects. You might live –

“She’s dead, deary. She’s dead because she didn’t cooperate. She didn’t answer questions.”

Ardy swallowed again. This time the lump in her throat burned as it met the rising bile.

Munson moved closer, rolling his head and shoulders like a human snake. His tongue tasted the air as he licked his thin lips. “And you’re dead if you don’t tell me how you knew about Clye. I mean . . . . How many people in this town are named Clye?” He was close enough to bring the stale finished-cigarette smell to her nostrils.

And that’s when the next flash came to her.

She glanced to the side, down, away, away from his eyes — those terrible black eyes. Then a tiny orange glow caught her attention. The cigarette he smashed out was not completely deprived of fuel. An ember, a faint red star, seemed to get brighter as her eyes locked on it.

Ardy felt herself catapult from the couch, the handcuffs melting away as she rocketed toward the orange glow that intensified and bloomed around her. She gasped and sighed as she felt herself sore and simultaneously shrink. The room became a vast dark cavern, the ember before her a forest fire.

* * *

She was looking out the window, through the neon glow of the PSYCHIC sign distorted by rivers of streaming rainwater, and scratching the stubble on her chin. Stubble? Wait. No. It’s happening again. I’m him. I –

Ardy — inside the man — looked over toward the couch and saw herself reclining there asleep. As she watched, she experienced R. Lee Munson’s thoughts. He wanted her. He did want her that way, but he didn’t want to rape her. He wanted her to give in to him, to actually desire him as a lover, consensually, as a wife. A wife!?

Aware of his thoughts, but also in control of her own mind, she could hardly believe the patterns that were shifting in his head. Maybe I’m imposing this myself, because I’m afraid he’ll attack me. No. No, it’s real. I know it’s real because–.

Because R. Lee Munson’s mind, like every other human brain, didn’t remain focussed on one thing for long. Other flights — memories, plans, ideas, dreams, distractions — raced through in silvery streaks of thought. Munson, as Ardy experienced it, imagined a small house in the country, coming home through a swinging white picket fence. A young red haired boy comes running, shouting, “Daddy! Daddy! What’d you bring me?” Munson’s lunch pail, Ardy can see as she looks down the suited sleeve to the hand in the mind flash, has his initials on it: RLM. “Hello, dear. How was your day?” And Ardy looks up into her own face through his eyes. There, Ardelene Jacobi, happy housewife complete with apron. Her name in the flash is Ardy Munson. That sounds better, he thinks, and she feels him think it.

But that happened in a fraction of an instant within a second. Other things that flash are memories from the last time he smoked a cigarette. Apparently, it had been several years. The pack Ardy had was giving him a pleasant buzz and the pull of the tobacco was calling him back.

He thought briefly of his own childhood, a scarred an horrible memory that Ardy couldn’t resolve with the roiling emotions of hatred, revenge and bloodlust that smeared them. There was also regret, loss, fear, and a deep down scream for redemption.

And he thought about Clye, the man in the suit. The lawyer. A flash: A nameplate on a door that reads, Clyde R. Morrow, Family Law. And another flash, an instant where the lawyer began unbuttoning his shirt and winking, and the lawyer’s ham sandwich breath close and repugnant on R. Lee Munson’s face as the man steps up to him and touches his –

But it’s not a real memory. Ardy feels it as. . . as a fantasy? She wonders if the combination happy household wife vision and the stripping man mean Munson’s homosexual? A subtle flash of internal nausea, a cold brace of anger and remorse, and she instantly knows the truth. R. Lee Munson is a man who lusts for nothing more than a normal, happy life.

And it’s something he realizes — he knows without a doubt — that he will never have.

A sound outside pulls the distracting thoughts of R. Lee Munson, and Ardy the observer, back to the window. A seething hatred of the attorney brews deep within Munson and he feels the urge to kill again. Outside, a semi tractor-trailer roars by.

Again, he turns his attention to Ardy on the couch. She’s propped up on an elbow now, awakened by the sound of the semi. Inside his head, Ardy hears herself say, “Don’t go out there. I’m serious! If you go out to move the truck, they’ll kill you.”

Munson snorts and flash-thinks about being gunned down by marshals, then quickly dismisses the thought while simultaneously realizing the gypsy’s right. He has to move the truck.

Seizing the keys he spotted earlier on a pegboard near the door, R. Lee Munson steps out into the rain. He steps up to Ardelene’s pick-up and climbs into the cab.

That’s the precise moment a beige Homer, Indiana squad car pulls up diagonally next to Munson’s car one space over. Suddenly panicked, he throws the truck into drive instead of reverse and it lurches forward, jumping the porch and smashing the glass panes and the neon PSYCHIC sign which jiggles and sways until the cord gives out.

“It’s him! It’s him!” shouts one of the deputies. They raise their service revolvers as Munson springs from the driver’s door.

Spinning, not sure where to run (and Ardy getting dizzy as she goes along for the ride in the killer’s head), he finally picks a direction — the cornfield across the road.

He knows he’ll never make it, but he has no other choice. Repeating, “Jesus, forgive me!” over and over in his head, he sprints across the road.

He feels the impact in his back before he hears the black police revolver explode. Immediately thinking his spine is shattered by the hollow-point lead, because his legs collapse under him, R. Lee Munson falls on his slackened face across the double yellow lines of the old rural road. Another shot stings the back of his skull and –
* * *

Ardy woke from the vision as a roaring semi truck rocketed past the main window. Propping herself up onto her elbow, she saw Munson stare at her. She knew exactly what was on his mind because she had just come from there. Wait a minute. Where was I? When?

“Don’t go out there!”

Munson glanced at her, appeared to consider something, then set his jaw with resolve.

“I’m serious! If you go out to move the truck, they’ll kill you!” The deja-vu was as strong as a recent memory.

Then he was gone.

He’s already out there.

“Why did I try to stop him?” She wondered aloud, and scrunched up her forehead as she searched for the logic and waited for the screech of tires and gunshots. He came in here, shackled me at gunpoint, threatened to kill me, and I know he is a murderous maniac. Why do I care if he gets gunned down on Route 9 in front of my shop? This is the middle of nowhere. It’s not like I get a lot of traffic.

Because he’s innocent.

Ardy watched as Munson moved to his own car instead of the truck, pulled open the door, and backed out after only an instant’s hesitation.

He’s not innocent, she told herself. He murdered that lawyer in cold blood.

But there was something else to it, a deeper murmur running through his thoughts as she occupied his brain. Ardy more than sensed something. She felt it. As sure as her psychic act was all a sham up until this day, she was sure the man outside was more confused and desperate, needful and hurting, than anything else.

“Now why would I say that?” Ardy muttered to no one under her own breath. Her logical, rational thought continually screamed warnings at her. It doesn’t matter what the visions showed you. The man is a killer. He’s holding you captive in your own home. He’s going to kill you too!

She watched as Munson pulled his car around her truck and ground it through the mud alongside her building. She could hear the engine taxing as the wheels struggled for traction. When the muffled revving stopped in back, she turned her attention toward the window.

And gasped as she saw a Homer police cruiser roll by. Not seeing anything out of the ordinary, and no reason to stop, the deputies continued down the road toward town.

A moment later Munson came in the front door and slammed it shut behind him. Dripping from the rain, he blew water off his upper lip and said, “How’d you know?”

Ardy stood shivering, and wondered why exactly it was that she was relieved the cops were gone. She shrugged weakly.

Instead of the rage she thought would come, Munson cringed against a pain Ardy couldn’t identify and ignored her as he turned back toward the ornate chair in the middle of the room.

“Are you all right?” She asked.

He nodded and plopped down. He stretched and arched his back. “Bad back,” he said by way of an explanation. “It flared up when I hauled Clye into the wood and–” Suddenly catching himself, Munson’s eyes widened, “Hey! You git your butt back on that couch, or I swear I’ll kill you right now.”

If he was trying to sound cruel and serious, the tone was lost by the obvious pain.

“No you won’t, Mr. Munson.”

He stared, agape.

“Because you need me. You need me more than you’ve needed anyone in your life.”

Was that the hint of a tear in the corner of his eye, or just a droplet of rain?

Ardy continued, “I believe you came here after you murdered that man for a reason, and I believe I suddenly acquired a real ability to see psychically for a reason too.

“I think we need each other. I don’t know why, or how this’ll work, but I do know one thing.”

He waited a moment, still staring, before his gruff, angry exterior seemed to melt slightly in the chair. “What’s that?”

“You are going to take these handcuffs off me and let me make you a hot soup and sandwich.”

His laugh was that of a pretender. Suspicious.

“And I’ll get you some Ibuprofen for that back.”

R. Lee Munson, murderer, was suddenly disarmed. He looked around uncomfortably, suddenly on the defensive, but also defeated. He slumped further in the chair and started to cry like a weak frightened child. His sobs were so heavy and racked his body so hard that Ardy shrank back expecting a shrieking wail of anguish.

She took a step toward him, her head tilted compassionately.

Munson suddenly sat bolt-upright, reached back for his pistol, drew it, and pointed it at Ardy’s chest.

Ardy gasped and jumped as though frightened by a sudden crash of thunder.

Then he shot her.

When she came to Ardy thought she was in the afterlife. At any moment an angel or demon was going to step out of the dim to escort her to her final rest, but the smell of cigarette smoke and roar of another semi speeding past outside tuned her back to the world of sweat and pain and nausea she was now cycling through.

She was on the couch, but this time propped up with pillows from the bed. Her legs were also elevated and she was covered with a quilt tucked in around her neck. Her right side was stiff and ached and, when she reached over with her left hand to touch the area where she was shot, she felt tight bandages stretching the skin of her side under her arm. She was also bandaged around her right forearm. The bullet must have passed by her right breast, creasing both her side and her arm as it punched through. It wouldn’t have been more than a scratch if her arm wasn’t held tightly to the side by –.

Handcuffs.

They’re gone! Ardy winced from the pain in her side as her right hand felt her left wrist. She could trace the creases of depressed skin where the cuffs had been pulled tight, probably while she was unconscious and being moved around like a rag doll by Munson.

Munson. Where? Ardy turned her head but couldn’t see the fortune telling table from this angle. A table with gauze, bandages, alcohol, rubber gloves, a syringe, and a small vial of a clear liquid drug obscured her view.

Ardy shifted and winced. She held her side as she attempted to sit up, but immediately felt dizzy and collapsed again. With her left arm across her midriff to her side she noticed something else. Her clothes had been changed. She was no longer wearing any of the gypsy gear she’d worn before. Though she kept her panties, everything else had been stripped away and replaced with a long gray nightshirt.

Tears welled in her eyes. Part of her was still riding the terror train, her heart trying to beat hard and fast against the mystery drug that kept it quiet. The other part of her wanted to relax. He hadn’t killed her, and if he had meant to, he would have walked up to her where she had feinted from the shock-blast and put a bullet through her forehead. No, Ardy thought. The shot was either a warning — or a mistake.

That couldn’t alter two very urgent new items. One, she was alone. Munson had gone and the top of her truck was no longer visible through the big picture window beyond the backwards PSYCHIC sign. And two, she was no longer cuffed.

Blinking her eyes as she looked around, Ardy’s vision locked on the vial of clear liquid. A tiny glint reflecting off the chrome lip of the drug pierced her vision like a lightning bolt and she found herself pulled into it. As the room elongated and Ardy’s body shrunk, she felt herself levitated off the couch, soaring for countless miles, toward the vial on the table right next to her, all pain and stiffness gone.

* * *

She was in him again, looking down at herself. But this wasn’t a vision of the future, or even a glimpse of where R. Lee Munson was now. This was moments after he’d shot her.

She followed his thoughts: Oh my God! No! I didn’t mean to! It just went–! I thought I’d flicked the safety! Ardelene! Then aloud, “Ardelene!”

He goes to her prone body, face down, and watches as a small amount of blood stains the hardwood floor. He rolls her onto her back and feels for a pulse in her neck. Thank God. Thank God. Just unconscious. She’ll be all right. Where’s my medical bag?

He’s a doctor! Ardy was treated to flashes of memory: internships at the University of Chicago Hospital, medical missionary work in New Guinea, crying buckets over the first patient he ever lost, leaving the medical field to become –.

Then the thought-chain broke and Ardy finds herself within him as he carefully lifts her and carries her to the bedroom. He gives her a shot of something pulled from the medical bag: a combination sedative and anti-biotic. There, he gently removes her vest and blouse, struggles with her bra (… Never done this before …), and noticing how tightly she pulls her belt, loosens it and — from the end of the bed — pulls off her shoes, socks, and slides down her pants.

Oh, God, Ardy thinks inside his head. This is it! But she can’t pull away from his eyes, the feel of his hands as his grip flexes.

But his thoughts are clinical. He takes only the briefest moment to admire her body, but doesn’t think of her as anything but a patient. Rolling her onto her side, he wrestles with the handcuffs before laying her flat again and elevating her right arm to check the damage underneath. The bullet passed through perfectly, searing the skin next to her right breast and tearing a trough out of the inside of her right arm. Scar won’t even show, he thinks.

As Munson works: giving Ardy a Tetanus booster, cleaning and stitching the wound (such detail to minimize the scar!), bandaging her carefully; she can feel and hear all of his thoughts. Again, he thinks of being with her (happily married — Never done that before, either. She’d be nice, but she’d never want to . . . .) and he fears what will happen when she wakes up. He knows she’ll accuse him of raping her, or at the very least attack him for shooting her. ( . . . Has every right. She didn’t know it was an accident . . . .)

But I need her, he thinks. She sees things. Knows things. She can help me get my life back. And another voice deep within his head, perhaps his conscience, But you killed a man, idiot. You cain’t turn away from that! You’re a murd’rer.

And then he cries. He cries again, like the child who was beaten and told not to cry when his father did those horrible horrible things to him. Clye’s better off dead so he can’t do that. Then nausea. Munson turns, vomits into a waste basket.

Ardy would like to stay, hear and feel more as she learns about the demons within the demon, but she is pulled back, out of his mind and heart, out of his hands and head, and painfully back into her own contorted weeping body.

She gasps loudly, sucking in air as though she’d been holding her breath the whole time she was in the vision. She closes her eyes and tries to relax, to absorb all the thoughts and miasma of feelings within the man that she experienced. He didn’t do anything but correct his mistake. He accidentally shot her, almost killed her, but felt deep remorse for doing so. Ardy couldn’t be sure, because it must be different for everyone, but she could almost believe R. Lee Munson, murderer and abused child-man, was truly repentant and considering turning himself in. She would help.

The door opened in time with a distant peel of thunder and her eyes snapped open. She gasped at his silhouette in the doorway.

He stood for a moment, still as a tree. She couldn’t make out his face or his expression, though the angle told her he was staring right at her.

“Had to move yer truck,” he said. His voice deep and menacing, but more wary, like a jungle cat approaching a zebra large enough to put up a good fight. “Want to make sure this joint looks as closed as it is.”

Ardy allowed herself to sink deep into the down pillows. She nodded slowly, pretending to be more scared than she actually was. Munson approached her, straddled the chair he had before, and rested his arms on the back. He wasn’t too close. Maybe he thought she’d spring up and attack him.

“Hurt?”

She blinked. Nodded again.

Munson looked away, thumbed his upper lip, looked back. “You was gettin’ too close. That,” he said, pointing at her side, “was a warning shot. You step outta line again and I swear I’ll put a slug through yer skull.”

Ardy was tempted to call him a liar, to stand up to him and tell him she knew the truth about what haunted him — at least part of it. But that might be dangerous. He wouldn’t — nobody would — want to know someone could get inside your deepest most intimate thoughts. Plus he had a gun.

So, instead, she said, “So . . . What happens now?”

He thought for a moment, his eyes tracing her body beneath the quilt, his brow knitting. Ardy guessed he was probably wondering why she didn’t point out the fact he had removed all her clothes. He’s probably thinking that any woman in her right mind would unleash fury at the violation.

She moved her arms beneath the quilt and widened her eyes, pretending like she just came to and was only now discovering the change. She gasped, “W-What did you do to me!?”

Munson scowled, stood and pulled the chair away. “I shot you –.”

“My clothes!”

He retrieved the gun from the fortune table and came back to her. He didn’t point the gun but swung it at his side to make sure she saw it.

“What did you do to me?” She whimpered. And, to her surprise, found real tears to accompany the act.

He chewed his tongue, then said, “I didn’t rape you, if that’s what you’re thinkin’. But you don’t have to believe me. None of the others did.”

Others? This new revelation jolted her. In his mind there was only Clye — the lawyer. “What do you mean, ‘o-others?’”

“The women I killed.”

She knew — felt — it was a lie. It was a lie that didn’t even taste right to him. She could tell by his crooked smirk. Still, she didn’t dare say a word.

“And you’ll be next if you don’t do exactly what I tell you.”

She swallowed hard. Allowed her eyes to grow wide again.

His smirk straightened into a grin. “Hungry?”

Munson kept coming back to the door, looking in on her to make sure she hadn’t moved. He’d left off the handcuffs, but denied her a change of clothes. So, Ardy sat in the long gray nightshirt and panties, awaiting her captor’s meal. Even if she could escape, she wasn’t sure she wanted to. Something weird was happening to her. She was actually able to enter his mind from time to time: flashes of someone else’s past, glimpses of his memories, and absent times filled in. It was all very strange and, she thought, somehow connected to him. After all, she never had a vision until the second before he walked into her psychic parlor. Huh. Irony.

“You got milk?”

She looked up. He was standing in the doorway, his dark eyes wide and demanding. “Huh?”

“Milk. You got any?”

Ardy shook her head slowly. “Just the Pepsi.” She was a little ashamed to admit her habits for keeping a tidy refrigerator and a stocked cabinet were a little lax. Ardy wasn’t a gypsy, or a real fortune teller — well, at least until a couple hours ago. She didn’t have any family or friends. She lived alone in the back of this roadside psychic reader parlor.

It used to be a farmhouse, but the land was bought up by a farming conglomerate and the family that used to own it took the money and bugged out. They had planned on keeping the house separate from the farm, but soon found there was no reason to live glued to a rural route if you weren’t going to farm the land around it. So, the two acres surrounding the house and tractor barn were left out of the deal with the conglomerate and consequently went for cheap when the family left. Ardy continues to get buy-out requests from the company, but hasn’t been ready to give up her solitude yet.

Munson came out of the kitchen with a glass and a plastic Disney tumbler emblazoned with Mickey Mouse. He set the plastic cup in front of her and the glass at his place, then he returned to the kitchen and came back with a couple of peanut butter sandwiches on wheat bread. All she had.

“Sorry I didn’t have more,” she shrugged.

“You need t’just shut up.” Munson’s tone was suddenly agitated. His eyes were still wide, but this time they were fierce and tiny droplets of sweat ringed them and dotted his forehead. “You don’t speak ‘less I say you can.” His smirk was poisonous. “I got the gun!”

She didn’t need the proof. Her side still throbbed, but Munson pulled the Glock from where it was tucked in his pants and pointed it at her face. If it went off now, even by accident, she doubted there would be a psychic journey into his apologetic mind. Ardy winced and lowered her head. She held her hands up and leaned back in the chair. “No. Don’t.”

“Don’t what?” He came forward and smacked her hands down, pressed the hard square barrel of the Glock into the top of her head. “Don’t what?!”

Ardy started to cry again. How could she be so wrong? She had been inside his thoughts, his deepest thoughts when she was unconscious. He’s troubled, yes, but he’s not as bad as he’s acting. She wished she could fly into his mind now and see where he was going with this torture, why he was suddenly so violent.

“DON’T WHAT?!” He roared again. The barrel pushed down hard enough to force Ardy’s chin down and her shoulders up.

“P-Please don’t k-kill me,” she whimpered. Then, the pain radiating from the weapon’s metal barrel became too much. “Oww… Please.”

“What!?” He breathed hard through his nose. The tension, the fury was rising in his vibrating muscles.

Pain pushing her, Ardy ducked her head and twisted away from the gun. “You’re hurting me.”

“You don’t know what hurt is!“

Ardy looked up at him, agape, and before she could stutter a response, the black blur of the Glock swung down at her temple. And everything went black and cold.

* * *
R. Lee Munson looked down at Ardelene Jacobi’s crumbled body. Her nightshirt had hitched up above her hip and he cocked his head, tracing the curve of her thigh with his eyes. Then he pinched his gaze shut and flicked the image from his mind.

Munson took a deep breath through his nose and tucked the Glock back in his pants. Then he turned away from the overturned chair and Ardy’s sprawled unconscious form, and sat in the fake throne to eat his peanut butter sandwich.

Maybe I should just kill her so I don’t have to debate this with myself.

Then how will she become your precious wife? How will you get your life back.

Shut up!

Oh, you’re going to start yelling at me now? You’re going to what, turn the gun on yourself and knock your own ass outta the chair?

A jolt of fury waved through Munson’s arm and he reached out with a swoop, flipping Ardy’s plate and cup of soda onto the floor. The Pepsi hissed like an angry snake as it spread across the hardwood.

Real smooth, dummy.

Shut up!

Maybe you should kill her? It’ll calm you down.

Maybe I should.

Maybe you should… what?

Kill her.

That’s when Munson rose from the throne.

That’s when a car pulled up outside.

Where is the light? She wondered. Isn’t there supposed to be a shaft of light?

Maybe not. Maybe I just float here for eternity, not knowing–

“–To talk to her this time.”

What was that? Ardy strained. A disembodied voice, but not her mind’s voice, had spoken. She wasn’t sure, but it may have been a man, a gentle man’s voice. Not Munson’s. Not the psychotic killer with the family issues. I wonder–.

“Oh, Ardelene. How am I gonna say this?”

The voice was familiar, but she couldn’t place it. And suddenly she didn’t feel like she had died anymore. She was alive, but deeply unconscious, and somehow in the mind of yet another person in their deepest thoughts.

As she floated, the stars around her condensed and coalesced into a streaming blurry vision. At first, the vortex of dark orange light appeared to rush toward her, around her. Then the image divided: orange and blue on top, dark gray below with green on either side, rushing toward her, spreading around her.

Her naked body drifted downward and tilted back slightly. She could feel clothes form on her, but not her nightshirt. Her legs were sliding into jeans and sneakers, her chest flattened to fit into a Polo shirt. She could feel the itch of the logo on her left breast and she could feel the weight of a heavy watch on her left wrist.

Douglas?

Her vision began to clear — well, as much as it could. The eyes she was seeing through were not that good, even with the thick glasses. What she could see through Douglas’s eyes was framed by the convex distortion of the lenses and the wide rectangle beyond. Ardy felt her right foot move to the left and press down on something. Her body shifted slightly with the deceleration.

A car.

Even as she realized she was inside the man’s mind, her vision cleared more and she saw that he was driving somewhere. The road stretched out before her and the waning sun burned the blue sky and began to turn it orange.

Douglas. From the store outside town. It was him all right. But why? How?

While it was true Ardy didn’t have many friends — actually, none really at all — she knew you couldn’t go through life without meeting a person here or there, or even dealing with people on a daily basis if you had to. Sometimes you interacted with the same person repeatedly, a veritable stranger converted into a friend or acquaintance over time, simply by applying a title: teacher, boss, partner, vendor, assistant, supervisor.

In this case, Douglas — she couldn’t recall his last name — was the owner of the Hammond General Store in Homer. Ardy did all her shopping there because it was close, had just what she needed, and there were never any crouds or lines. She even spent a lot of time making small talk with the bespectacled man. He was always friendly, though she often suspected Douglas was a little mentally challenged. No one could be that friendly, or that interested in popular TV shows. Douglas always struggled to chat with her about Lost or Heroes, Desperate Housewives, or 24. She had heard of them, but Ardy hadn’t seen TV since Cheers was on. He always squirmed when he talked, crinkled up his face to push up his heavy glasses, and made bizarre groaning sounds in his throat when he was disappointed. Douglas was always disappointed when Ardy confessed she didn’t know anything about Jack’s relationship with the president, or about the Tail People, or whether or not some housewife was interested in some gardener, and she really knew nothing about Hiro’s dad being the captain of something called Excelsior.

But now she knew it all.

All of what Douglas was was now apart of her. Much deeper than the swim through R. Lee Munson’s mind, Ardy had an instantaneous grasp of who Douglas was and what his loves and fears were. He considered himself a “Trekkie,” not a “Trekker,” whatever that was. He felt a deep connection, almost a kinship, with characters from TV shows. He wept when Keith was killed on One Tree Hill. He shouted in anger every time Cancerman bested Mulder and Scully. He laughed through tears when Ross finally confronted Rachel and told her he loved her, and he repeated the performance when Chandler proposed to Monica.

He was a lonely man, profoundly so. His only solace was in communing with the characters from the boob tube. Consequently, he developed a stutter and had difficulty dealing with people in any capacity beyond store clerk.

He was tops of all his subjects in school, Homer Junior High and East Maple 394 High School. But he never had time for pursuits beyond what labeled him a “geek” and a “nerd.” Always too skinny and gawky for sports, Douglas avoided the athletic crowd. He found one friend named Kenny who invited him into the Geek Realm of Star Trek, Speech and Debate, Chess Club, and computers. By the time he was 20 he had built his own computer and was well on his way to establishing his own local network — before anyone knew what a LAN was.

The pace at which Douglas’s mind uploaded into Ardy’s consciousness was dizzying, but it didn’t seem to be harmful. Facts and figures, both real and imaginary, swarmed into her head. Visions streamed by like the road beneath the car (an old yellow Datsun just like somebody named McCandles. The transmission catches sometimes, but only in extreme cold. If I could have any car I’d have a Corvette Stingray). Lines of dialogue from TV or movies traced lines from ear to ear like Morse code (Obi-Wan never told you what happened to your father. He told me enough. He told me you killed him. No…. I am your father). And tiny factoids stuck to mental synapses like peanut butter to the roof of your mouth (I’m allergic to walnuts. I love dogs, but cats make me sneeze. I wonder if Ardelene likes dogs or cats. I miss my gram. I wish football wasn’t pre-empting my show tonight. I wonder if I should’ve washed the car before driving out here. I want to order that new video card, but the store needs an overhaul on the freezer unit in back. I could let the payment on the bait supplier go one more week. I need to pay the beer guy first).

The sound of her name in Douglas’s mind conjured pictures of her own smiling face: with her hair pulled back and her tan lines showing on her shoulders; with her hair pasted down by torrents of rain; trying desperately to carry too much without a cart; looking confused as Douglas tells her about an old Twilight Zone episode that wasn’t in the movie from the 80′s.

Oh, my God. He has a crush on me.

True enough, particularly by the thoughts racing through Douglas’s mind, but nothing like the bizarre David Lynchian visions of R. Lee Munson. Douglas had no delusions about marrying Ardy. In fact, he was on his way to see her at the Psychic Parlor to return the sunglasses she’d left on the counter last week. He had been wrestling with the notion for some time and finally got up the courage — and formulated the plan — to use the sunglasses as an excuse to visit, rouse conversation, and eventually ask her on a date. Nothing more. He just wanted a friend to talk to and she was the only one who ever gave him the time of day in the store.

Sweet. That was the word to describe it. Sweet. And, despite herself, Ardy couldn’t help but think that’s what any girl with a big heart would say, just before she let him down easy: “Oh, you’re sweet, but I can’t because… I’m a loser too but feel superior to you because I’m not a geek!” That had happened to him countless times in the past, and why he deeply feared not only that he would die a virgin, but that he would die alone. Alone with every episode of The X Files on DVD, and no one to watch it with. With Douglas’s every thought, every hope and dream, every recalled television moment in pixelated clarity, his only fear was… fear of rejection.

Wait a minute. On his way? Here?

Ardy felt herself swirl out of his head. She felt her own body coming back into form as the vision blackened and left her in cold darkness again. Then, the pain. Throbbing at first, then sharp, she felt the sting in her side and now the pulsing hell on the side of her head. Opening her eyes slowly, she pulled herself onto her side, resting on an elbow.

She was in her bedroom, lying on top of the covers, still wearing her nightshirt and panties. Listening intently, her ear cocked toward the doorway, she heard rustling but no conversation. No gunshots. No shink of a knife blade and crumple of a body Douglas’s size.

Then Ardy realized something that made her feel Douglas would be okay after all. In the vision, it was sunny and late in the afternoon. It was earlier than that now, and raining like cats and d–.

She looked toward the window, then the clock. Sunset was only an hour away, and the sky had cleared to a fading umber. “Oh, my God,” she whispered through a burning throat, and rolled out of bed as quietly as she could.

Stepping lightly into the doorway to the main chamber and Psychic Reader Parlor, Ardy braced herself on the door jamb. Through the window, orange sunlight glinted dully off the windshield of a yellow Datsun.

“Oh, Ardelene. Hi.”

Douglas, previously hidden behind the reading table, stood from his crouch. He was holding a sodden rag stained with cola. He motioned weakly toward the other door in the room, the one leading to the kitchen. “I was helping your brother, R. Lee, clean up the mess he made.”

Dazed. Stunned. She could only stare and look confused.

R. Lee Munson came to the kitchen doorway, a fresh towel in his hand and a cigarette dangling from his lips. “Hiya, sis. Dougie here was just helpin’ me with my little mishap. Hope we didn’t wake ya. We was talkin’ for seems like hours before he offered to help.”

“Well, I-Ida jumped in right away, but I didn’t, d-didn’t know if you m-minded.”

Sweet. Was all she could think. Her mind was slow to draw the points together, and her head pounded too hard to define the scene before her.

After a moment of awkward silence, Douglas exchanged the wet rag for the towel R. Lee handed him. He said, “Oh. Sorry. It’s me, you know? Douglas Testerbird from the General Store.”

When she didn’t respond right off, Douglas turned red and dropped slowly to his hands and knees to finish mopping up. He made a soft groaning sound in his throat.

Ardy’s face slowly turned toward Munson’s. He was smiling broadly.

As she watched, he reached behind his back to pull something from the small of his back.

His dark eyes glinted. He mouthed the words, “Watch me kill him,” and produced the gun.

So, instead, she mouthed the words, Please don’t. Don’t. I’ll do anything.

Munson’s smile faded slightly, then returned, like that of a mischievous child who was halted in an act of vandalism only to think of something better to do that was even more dastardly.

Douglas rose from the floor. “T-There. I think I have it all.”

Munson took the soiled towel from him and removed the cigarette to blow smoke toward Ardy. “Not a problem, Doug. I sure do ‘preciate yer help.”

As the killer returned the sopping rag and towel to the kitchen, Ardy took a quick step toward Douglas and whispered harshly, “What are you doing here? You should leave. Leave now!”

“W-Whuh?”

From the kitchen: “Hope ya don’t mind, sis. I asked Doug to stay with us tonight. Ain’t that right, Dougie?”

Leaning toward Ardy, but twitching his ear toward the kitchen, Douglas Testerbird seemed to be trying to listen to two conversations at once, perplexed at the possible meaning underlying one and the tone overshadowing the other.

Ardy stepped closer and said, “Don’t stay, Doug. Trust me. Just leave now. He’s crazy. He’s a –”

“Lunatic,” Munson finished from the kitchen doorway. He was holding the Glock in one hand and leveling down its sites to the suddenly shivering Douglas Testerbird. The cigarette, now an orange-tipped nub, danced between his lips.

Reflexedly, perhaps from one of those shows he watched all the time, Douglas raised his hands high over his head and slowly eased them down behind his skull, interlocking the fingers. “P-Please, Mr. Jacobi, don’t shoot.”

Click.
Click.
Click. Click.

Munson squeezed off four shots at Douglas, but the gun either misfired, jammed, or was out of bullets. Not knowing anything about guns, Ardy had no clue what the answer was. A resolution to the question, however, soon announced itself in Munson’s tale.

He said, “See. You can put yer arms down, Dougie. I can’t kill ya. Ardy took all my bullets.”

Douglas slowly lowered his arms, glanced between Ardy who was studying her brother and R. Lee Munson, whose gaze was like a hawk, piercing Douglas the frightened bunny. “I-I don’t understand.”

“She took ‘em,” Munson repeated. He stepped into the room. “I haven’t seen my sister in years, ages. I was feelin’ pretty low on m’self, and was plannin’ to come back here to commit . . . To commit . . . .” Munson did an admirable job of conjuring up fake tears, albeit the soap opera variety.

“Suicide?” Ardy and Douglas asked together.

Munson sniffed. “I was gonna blow out m’ own brains, I was. Ardy stopped me.”

Douglas looked at her as if searching for more. Ardy let her gaze drop to the floor.

Munson stepped up to the two of them, raised the pistol, then spun it on his palm so he was handing it, grip first, to Doug. Lunging quickly, Ardy snatched it from his hand and stepped back before Douglas refused the offer.

Playing into the skit for now, Ardy cocked her head and said, “There, there. I told you to leave this alone. You took it outta the night stand, didn’t you?”

Munson smiled. He was obviously loving the fact that she was playing along, but — more frighteningly — he seemed nonplussed by losing the weapon. He lowered his head and acted, “Yer right, sis. I-I’m sorry.” Then to Douglas, “I didn’t mean to scare ya, Mr. Birdtester.”

“I-It’s Testerbird, and that’s okay, R. Lee. That’s okay. You can just call me Douglas.” Then to Ardy, his hands wringing, the new guest said, “Um, maybe I should g-go.”

“Don’t do that, T-bird,” Munson frowned. “Please.

“I put my sister through a whole helluva lot. She’s tarred. Stick around.”

Ardy frowned at Munson. She didn’t know where this was going, but bucks to bullets he was looking to take another hostage. She said, “That’s okay, R. Lee. I can take care of you. If Doug has to go–.” She took Doug by the elbow and began to lead him toward the door.

Douglas Testerbird, now seeing an opportunity in Ardelene’s brother’s invitation, a chance to stay and learn something about the life and family of the woman he brought an interest in, pulled back. “W-Well maybe for a b-bit. Maybe I can just stay a spell. . . ’til the rain lets up?”

Munson nodded. Fake glints of appreciation sparkled his eyes as he smiled to Ardy. “Let the man stay, sis.”

Ardy reluctantly released Doug’s arm and turned to face Munson. “Only for a spell then.”

“Maybe you should get dressed, Ardy? Now’s we got comp’ny,” R. Lee said, and spat the cigarette butt onto the floor before mashing it out with his boot.

The heavy gun in her hand, Ardy turned quickly and shut herself into the bedroom. She looked around quickly for a place to hide the weapon, but nothing sprang to mind. She moved from dresser to bed, under the bed, the closet, an old shoe box; then she moved to the attached bathroom.

Gently removing the heavy porcelain toilet tank cover, she set it aside and dropped the pistol into the chilly water, then she replaced the lid.

Returning to her room, she pulled a pair of jeans and a sleeveless blouse from the closet and began to dress herself. She wondered what the killer and the admirer were talking about.

Admirer? Yeah, she guessed that’s what he was. She had a secret admirer and, the greatest secret of all was that she never knew. She didn’t know Douglas Testerbird had a thing for her. She assumed there were other people in his life, or even in the store, he talked to more regulars than just her. Ardy was just a customer after all, and didn’t know or even care about his favorite TV shows.

But, back when she was in his mind, she detected something. He didn’t care that she seemed to feign interest at some subjects, listened to others, or honestly told him she didn’t know or care about what he wanted to discuss. He was moved by the simple fact that she looked him in the eye and listened to him. That’s all it took to snag his heart. The loneliness inside his mind — so innocent and filled with so much fiction — was palpable.

After she pulled on her sneakers and tied them tightly (in case she found herself running for her life), Ardy took a deep breath and froze. A thought chilled her.

Now what? R. Lee Munson was a homicidal killer with delusions of family he can never have. Why would he want to keep Douglas around? Why the story about being Ardy’s brother? What was he planning? While she was unconscious, Munson could have dealt with Douglas easily and hid his car around back with the other two. You can’t hang a man for the same crime twice, right? Why is he keeping him here?

When the truth came, Ardy gasped and her eyes widened. She looked up at the door, as if she could see through it to the room beyond where the two men stood. He’s going to use Douglas to get to me. He can’t wrap his head around this psychic business any more than I can, but he can’t leave me. I know too much. And . . . he’s attracted to me.

Ardy stood and went to the door. Great, she thought. All my life I could never get a man to look at me. Now I have two and they both give me the creeps. As she opened the door, she found herself feeling guilty about thinking of Douglas that way. He was the innocent. If she cut out everything she knew about his deepest thoughts and his desire to get to know her better, he would seem no more bizarre than the average geeky lonely man. Munson was the creepier of the two, but he had baggage only Ardy knew about as well. He had a deep pain, possibly from some older abuse. It was still a mystery why he came to the lawyer Clye, and why Clye tried to make a sexual advance on him.

Ardy hated mysteries. They were knots that could be left alone, but she could never leave a knot alone.

Maybe, she thought, there’s a reason for Douglas to be here now. Maybe it’s divine providence, or whatever, that brought him here at this particular moment. Maybe the unexpected general store owner, even a little too shy and geeky around the edges, maybe he could save her from Munson’s unhatched plan. Maybe he can help me save Munson from himself.

Maybe he will be her knight in shining armor.

I never had one of those, Ardy thought sheepishly.

As she stepped into the room, she saw R. Lee Munson lift the crystal ball and bring it down hard on the back of Douglas’s skull.

“Oh, my God, No! Why? Why would you–?!” She screamed, partially in shock and partially in blind rage. While still blind, Ardy ran to Douglas’s side without thinking. She intended to kneel down beside him, cradle his head, and see if he was still breathing. Try to revive him. But Munson stepped between them, ducked, and came up at her like a broad defensive tackle, catching her around the waist and throwing her back.

“Easy! Easy,” Munson cautioned. He held her shoulder back with one hand and held up an admonishing finger with the other. “Don’t.”

“You killed him, you monster! You killed him!“

Munson’s hand moved from her shoulder to Ardy’s throat. He squeezed just tight enough to cut off her air, to get her attention. Her flailing arms went to his wrist and tried fruitlessly to pull his claw grip away.

The killer took a deep breath. “Now you listen closely to me, Ardelene. ‘Cause I ain’t gonna say it twice.”

She sputtered, gagged. Her eyes went wide as panic wrestled with the rational thought to stop struggling so he could ease his grip.

“I killed that homo attorney. I killed that woman in Sioux Falls. I killed Douglas Birdtester. And I’m gonna kill you . . . .” He let the last part sink in. Deep.

Ardy stopped struggling and he eased his grip. Tears welled in her eyes. She cried for the lawyer. She cried for Douglas. She even cried for the made-up woman in Sioux Falls. And she cried for herself, about to die for no reason, not having lived or found her purpose in life. All for nothing. Without helping where help was obviously need. She saw in their minds. She knew what they needed, just didn’t know how to deliver it.

“Unless,” Munson added finally, “You agree to go with me. Stay with me.”

The memory of that haunting vision flashed through Ardy’s mind: Munson coming home from a hard day’s work, the red-headed boy calling him “daddy” and running up to hug his leg, and Ardy coming to the door in a June Cleaver apron to wave and ask how his day went. Her tears became a whimper and a slow whine. Nothing would ever be the same again. She couldn’t fight this man, but she also couldn’t see going along with his twisted dream until she found an opportunity to break free. He would kill her long before then. He’d get bored and end it. Or whatever malady ate at his mind would eventually eat the bright spot, the spot she was wanting to reach.

Munson stepped away from her and turned to snag the chair Douglas’s arm was hooked on. Kicking the arm off the leg wrung, he turned the chair around and set it across the table and motioned for Ardy to sit. Then he circled the table and plopped himself in the throne, snatching up the cigarettes and lighter and drawing one out of the pack.

Ardy tried not to look at Douglas’s lifeless form next to her, but she couldn’t look away. The blood stained crystal ball had rolled against his side. A glint from a passing car’s headlights outside caught her eye. She tried to look away, to address Munson, but it was too late.

Before she blacked out, she heard him start, “We are going to talk about how I can use your psychic….”

* * *

She lifted into the air, shrank, twisted, and catapulted down to the crystal ball on the floor. She felt her hair whipping around her shoulders, her blouse flapping around her, as the smell of blood on the thick glass ball became stronger and stronger.

Then she was inside Munson’s head looking out at herself, blacked out, out cold, head lolling back as she entered the trance she’s in now.

I’m in the present, she thought to herself. I’m in him looking out at me.

“Now what,” Munson snuffed. Ardy noted to herself that this was how his voice sounded to him. And that he was struggling to keep it tough, keep it from cracking. It was deeper, more gravelly inside the skull. How distorted. She briefly wondered if all humans were under a delusion: The normal voice we hear is the voice we hear recorded. It’s the inner voice that’s wrong and sour.

As Ardy watched through Munson’s eyes, he lit the cigarette and stared. He watched her chest heave with each breath. He watched her eyes flicker under wrestless lids. What’s happening to me, she cried. Why doesn’t something happen? She began to feel uncomfortable, looking at herself with a killer’s eyes. He couldn’t help but focus on her rising breasts, the curve of her soft neck.

Do it.

No.

Look at her. Your future wife.

Shut up! Don’t do this to me.

You gonna cry? You gonna cry like that time you were the worm. The worm –.

SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP!

And though Ardy could experience each painful memory brought up by the argument between the two personalities, she could also feel rage and anger — and anguish — instead of sorrow, guilt, and fear.

The battle inside Munson’s conscience continued:

If you do it, you won’t be a virgin anymore — or a homo.

I’m not! I’m not! LEAVE ME ALONE!

I won’t leave you alone until you do to her what Clye did to you.

No! It’s wrong! I won’t!

But you’re a tough guy, remember. What did you call yourself?

Lemme alone!

A killer. You are a killer, killer. What was that Sioux Falls crap?

…

So rape her…. And kill her.

Maybe it was because R. Lee Munson really was a psychotic criminal. Maybe it was the “newness” of seeing someone else’s thoughts, but Ardy was having a difficult time sorting out what she was seeing and feeling inside Munson’s head. Images flashed by: A smiling woman (his mother?); a stern father; a car hitting his dog, the Golden’s head snapping violently away from the bumper as the carload of laughing teens accelerated away; his first kiss with a girl in pre-med; his first fight in third grade; the sting of his father’s belt; the gentleness of a stranger’s kiss; the smell of vomit; the smell of apple pie; mugged at gunpoint in Washington D.C.; swimming in a cool lake after a hard day’s work in the sun; crying over his mother’s corpse; laughing at a poker game . . . . The pace of the flashes, and their twisting and strange connections, whirled around Ardy as she struggled to make sense of them.

During all of this, Ardy was distracted by the visions. She didn’t notice that Munson had stood and had circled the table to stand next to her. His hand was outstretched, his thumb and forefinger holding her chin. He leaned down.

He’s going to kiss me! Oh, my God! I’m not unconscious! I’m here! I’m in HIM!

Ardy — inside Munson — felt her head lower to her own face, her/his lips part slightly as they were touched by her own breath –

Then pain. A shock of cold pain exploded through the left side of Munson’s head.

* * *

Ardy’s eyes snapped open. She was back — instantly — in her own body, staring up wide-eyed at Munson’s face, his mouth hanging slack over hers. Blood coming in a trickle down the side of his head.

Crack! It came quick, a silver blur, as Douglas staggered forward and swung the bloodied crystal ball again. Refusing to let go, the store owner swung like a pendulum out of control. He spiraled dizzily toward the front door and dropped the crystal ball which fell with a loud wooden crack when it hit the floor. He staggered and tried to right himself. Blood still stained the collar and shoulder of his shirt.

Munson tried to steady himself on Ardy’s chair, but couldn’t hold himself up. With a whimpering breath, he fell forward, collapsing painfully onto Ardy and driving the chair, with her in it, over backwards.

Ardy landed with a hard thump. The pain in her arm and side rang out as she tried to roll out from under Munson, but his unconscious body was too heavy. She let out a short yelp as the chair hit the floor, and Douglas moved in to push Munson aside and help her quickly to her feet.

“Oh, God, thank you, Douglas.”

“Salwhite,” he slurred. Then he collapsed on the floor next to Munson.

They were both either dead or out cold.

Ardy had a lot of work to do before they regained consciousness.

She kicked the bloodied crystal ball aside and moved quickly to the kitchen for the supplies she’d need.