You're Not Alone Read online

  ***

  “Quinn! Open this door now or I’m going to break it down.”

  I jumped. I looked around unaware of where I was. The river? My apartment? Yes, my apartment. But there was that pounding of the waves on the shore. “Okay, Quinn!” I heard a loud thud against the door that brought me back to consciousness and I realized what was happening.

  “Chaz! Stop. I’m coming.” I ran to the door and opened it as he was beginning his assault upon my door. His actions played out just like a scene from the movies where someone is trying to break a door down, and as they throw themselves at it, a person on the inside opens the door, and they fly right through it.

  That was Chaz. Just like those movies, I even moved aside at the right moment, so his enormous body didn’t take me with him as he rocketed into my apartment and luckily right onto the couch.

  I couldn’t help it. I laughed. I laughed long and hard until my eyes were watering, only not with tears of sadness but tears of laughter. I ran over to him as he sank from the couch to the floor and kneeled beside him. “Are you okay?” I finally choked out.

  He was rubbing his shoulder and looked more wounded by his pride than his body. “I’m fine!” he

  snapped. “What is wrong with you?”

  His angry face stopped my bout of hysterics. I plopped down on the floor next to him. “I’m so sorry. It was just, I mean, watching you fly across the room…”

  He grinned. Then he smiled wide. Then he laughed, a deep, thunderous roar, and we both doubled over to the point of stomach pain. I never heard him laugh such a gut-wrenching laugh. Usually it was a high-pitched giggle. That only made me laugh more. It was a few minutes before we finally got control of ourselves, I looked at Chaz curiously. “Why were you trying to break down my door?”

  “Good God girl, you were screaming. I thought someone was beating you, or worse.”

  I looked quizzically at him. “Screaming?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What was I screaming?”

  “The only word I could make out was ‘stop’ until just before I was about to break the door down. Then I thought I heard you shout ‘come back.’ That really confused me, but I was already in motion.” He stopped. “So what was going on?”

  “I think I fell asleep and was dreaming.”

  “That must have been some dream.”

  “Yeah. More like a nightmare.” I jumped off the couch. “The answering machine!” I shouted at him. “That’s why I asked you to come over. They were on it. The voices.” I lunged at the end table where the machine was and pressed the play button for the one and only message that was on it. I stood up and looked at Chaz with a smug look on my face waiting for the reaffirmation I knew was going to come.

  Silence.

  Wait for it.

  Nothing.

  Wait.

  Still nothing.

  No. It can’t be, I thought. All sorts of feelings began to swell up from the very depth of my emotions. I started angrily pushing the buttons. Stop, play, pause, rewind, play, rewind, stop, play, play, play, play. There was only static.

  I yanked the answering machine off of the end table pulling, the chords from the wall and threw it across the room watching it fly right out the door. “You’ve got to be kidding me!” I shouted.

  I looked at Chaz with disbelief and saw amusement and bewilderment on his face. I couldn’t tell if he was going to laugh, cry, or scold me. Instead, he merely looked at me and said, “How many electronic devices have you broken this week?”

  “Ahem.” Chaz and I looked at my still opened door to see Mr. Princeton standing there with a few plastic bags of groceries and a bottle of wine hanging from one hand and my answering machine in the other. At this point, I was too worn down for embarrassment. I hung my head and tried to remember if I had accidently hit the erase button on the answering machine.

  “Hi, Mr. Princeton,” I said weakly.

  “Uh, is everything okay?”

  Chaz walked over to Mr. Princeton and extended a hand. Mr. Princeton looked down at his outstretched hand and then at the items he held in his own. He gently set them on the floor and returned Chaz’s handshake.

  “Chaz—a friend of Quinn’s—her assistant at the funeral home and maybe soon to be person who drags her butt out of jail if she doesn’t stop disturbing the peace by breaking everything she owns.”

  I looked at the answering machine on the floor to see if and how badly it was broken, and at the same time Mr. Princeton peered around Chaz to look at me. He looked back at Chaz.

  “Mr. Princeton—Quinn’s neighbor and soon to be dinner companion.” He picked up his bags, bottle of wine, and my answering machine. He handed the answering machine to Chaz. “Would you like to join us, Chaz?”

  “I’d love to. What are we having?”

  Mr. Princeton surveyed him like a college professor would a student who just gave a totally ridiculous answer to what he thought was a very straightforward question. “It was going to be casserole, but I changed my mind. Spaghetti and salad.” He held up the bottle of wine. “And wine, of course. I think Quinn could use a glass or two.” His eyes twinkled at me. “I might have an extra one of those,” he nodded to the answering machine in Chaz’s hand.

  “That’s okay. I was thinking of getting rid of the landline and just using my cell phone.” I relented.

  “Not if you keep breaking that, too,” Chaz jested.

  “Well, if you change your mind,” he smiled at me, “you’re more than welcome to it.” He looked at Chaz. “I’ll see you at seven.” He turned and went back downstairs to his apartment.

  Chaz walked over and put the broken answering machine on my dining room table. I used the table more for a “catch all” than to eat at. He sat close next to me on the couch and patted my thigh. “Okay, honey. What’s going on?”

  “Chaz, am I going nuts?”

  With a swish of his arm across the room he answered, “Don’t see no squirrels around here, so I guess not.”

  I gave him a disgusted look. “That attempt at humor was bad.” But I smiled and nudged him nonetheless. “When I got home, my answering machine was blinking with one message. It was a message from the Shikmans’ lawyers. I heard voices in the background, the same ones I’ve been hearing for months. At first I thought it was background noise, but it wasn’t. It was the same voices.”

  I stopped and looked at Chaz to see his expression. There was none. “The voices, Chaz. The ones that are making me go crazy. The ones that will put me into an insane asylum if it keeps up!” My voice raised in volume as I said this. I paused. “Maybe that’s it. Maybe the Shikmans are doing this so I will get committed, and then they won’t have to fight me to get everything.”

  I stood up. It was a light-bulb-turning-on effect. “Oh, my God. I can’t believe I didn’t see this.” I started pacing back and forth like a caged animal wanting badly to be free. “How are they doing it? There must be some type of electronic device or something that plays the whispers!” I pulled the cushions from the chair frantically searching for a hidden voice recorder or player. I found nothing, so I began to tear apart my living room, starting with the couch Chaz was still sitting on. He jumped up and placed a firm but gentle hand on my shoulder, and forcibly pushed me back onto the couch.

  He took my hands in his. His voice was calm, soothing and sympathetic. “Honey, I don’t like the Shikmans any more than you do, but I really don’t believe they would stoop to something like this. Quinn, please. Stop.”

  Tears welled up in my eyes, and I turned away from him. I couldn’t bear for him to see me in this state, to cry, again. He must be thinking I’m totally crazy, that maybe I really am imagining everything out of my grief.

  I had to call David. I couldn’t take this anymore.

  I wiped at my eyes and took a deep breath trying forcing myself to calm down. The blanket of water covering my eyes started to clear and through the haze I noticed something on the end table where the answering machine
used to be. I reached over and picked up a locket Matthew gave to me on our last anniversary. I put his favorite picture of us in it, the one where we were sitting on the end of the dock at our cottage. It was taken during the “magic hour” as it was called in the world of motion pictures, when the sun starts to set casting an enchanting glow on everything. Matthew told me about it one day at the cottage. We were sitting on the dock dipping our bare feet into the river that was alive with motion. The sun was sitting on the horizon, casting bright yellows colors mixed with bold reds upon the water and the surrounding islands. “See,” he said as he pointed all around, “the magic hour.” It took my breath away.

  I fingered the locket recalling I had put it in Matthew’s coffin. I knew I did. Did the Shikmans find it and take it out? And if they did, how did they get it into my apartment? I hadn’t seen any of Matthew’s family since the funeral. This could be proof the Shikmans were behind all of this, but I knew Chaz was right—it wasn’t likely.

  “Quinn, what is it?” His question brought me out of the state I was in. I looked at Chaz. He had a very serious look on his face.

  I closed my hand over the locket. I couldn’t deal with it right now. There was still the answering machine. I turned back to Chaz. “I’m so sorry. I know I sound like a lunatic. But Chaz, there were voices on that answering machine. Maybe I erased it. I don’t know. But the voices were there.”

  “Okay. I believe you.”

  “No, you don’t. And I don’t blame you. Why would you? Why would anyone?”

  “Quinn, I can’t even begin to imagine how I would feel if James died. And I don’t think I’d be as passive as you if his family insisted on taking half of everything we have. So, I don’t know how I, or anyone for that matter, would react. It could very well make you think you hear voices. Or…” He got up and shut the door to the apartment. “You really are hearing voices. Who am I to say whether it’s true or not?” He stared hard at me. “So now, what are we going to do about it to get you back on track?”

  I looked at the locket, still wondering why I hadn’t seen it before.

  “Quinn?”

  I looked up at him. “I really don’t know, Chaz. I thought the voices I heard on the answering machine finally gave me proof it isn’t all in my head. And now, I’m not even sure.” I turned the locket over and over in my hand.

  “That’s a pretty locket.”

  “Yeah, Matthew gave it to me on our anniversary. I thought it was in his coffin...until now.”

  “What do you mean? Is that what you just picked up off of the end table?”

  “Yeah, but it wasn’t there before. The answering machine was there.”

  “Well, maybe you thought you put it in Matthew’s coffin. You’ve been under a lot of stress, you know. It was probably behind the answering machine and you never saw it. How about we go down to Mr. Princeton’s for that glass of wine? I know I could use one. We’ll figure it out, Quinn. I promise.”

  I smiled at him. “Yeah, I know.” I got up and gave Chaz a hug. “I’ve got to go to the bathroom. Back in a minute.” I went to my bedroom and placed the locket on the dresser. I stared at it for several moments. I knew I put it in his coffin. It had been almost a year and I never saw it on that end table. If it had been there all along, I would have seen it.

  I touched the locket. My hand recoiled quickly as if my fingers got burned from touching an electric burner on a stove. I wasn’t ready to open it. Just finding it brought back so many memories from the candlelight dinner when Matthew gave me the locket, to our cottage on the Saint Lawrence River that I hadn’t been to in much too long.

  After Matthew died, I phoned our neighbors in Canada and told them about his passing. I asked them to watch over the place, and I sent them what money I could to cover expenses such as mowing and an occasional cleaning. I wanted to go there. I just wasn’t ready. I also knew I wanted to keep our retreat by the river and the day would come that I would want to be there once again.

  When I went back to the living room, I found Chaz at the dining room table trying to put the pieces of my answering machine together. He was diligently working at it oblivious of me walking into the room. I took a moment to look at the man who had been my lifesaver this past year. A sudden tightness grabbed my chest. If I lost Chaz…Oh my God, Quinn, stop thinking that way, my mind shouted at me.

  Just then, Chaz sensed my presence. He looked up with parts of the answering machine in each hand. “Hopeless. Too many pieces broken in all the right places for it to ever work again. So you need to get a new one.” He put them on the table and stood up. “Or that extra one the strange and mysterious guy from downstairs has.”

  Tears filled my eyes once again.

  “Quinn, what’s wrong now?”

  “I'm sorry. I just got a little emotional.”

  “I don’t think your answering machine is worth crying over.”

  I smiled at him. “Probably not, but I’m betting you and Mr. Princeton are going to ambush me at dinner and tell me how worried you are about me because I’m beginning to act like a mad woman.”

  Chaz took my hand in his. “Now honey, you’ve been kind of loony for as long as I’ve known you.”

  I punched him in the arm. “Thanks a lot.”

  He grabbed his arm and faked pain. “We’re not going to ambush you. But I am worried, and I’d be surprised if Mr. Princeton wasn’t. Now tell me about the message on the answering machine.”

  I looked at him skeptically. Was he just placating me, or did he really believe there was a message on my now defunct piece of equipment?

  “It was the lawyers for the Shikmans. I don’t even remember what they were saying because right after it started I remember hearing voices in the background. At first I didn’t think anything of it. I thought maybe the lawyers had other people in the room or pushed a wrong button or something like that but, I don’t know, they sounded…familiar.” I looked at Chaz to see what his expression was. He was listening intently. So I pushed on. “I focused on hearing the voices in the background, and I knew they were the same voices I’ve heard…in my dreams. Gee, Chaz…this does sound crazy.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. Let’s go down to Mr. Princeton’s and have some dinner. I think we both need something to eat, and maybe with his help we can make more sense of it.” He took my hand once again and pulled me into the living room. “It’s just too bad you used your answering machine for softball practice. We may have been able to find the message with a little work. Maybe you just pressed buttons too fast or something.” He opened the door.

  “I didn’t, Chaz. I listened to it three or four times, and I set it to the beginning of the message so you could hear it.” I grabbed my apartment keys I kept on a hook next to the door and looked defiantly at Chaz. “I know the message was there. And I know it wasn’t there when I tried to play it for you. What I don’t know is what happened to it in between.”

  I waited for Chaz to go out. I followed and locked the door behind me. We descended the stairs. On the bottom step, I stopped and put a hand on his arm. He turned to face me. “I know I’m still grieving over Matthew’s death, but Chaz, I believe these voices are real. I just don’t know what to do about it.”

  Chaz paused a second as if he was carefully contemplating his response. He took my hand in his. “Honey, I do believe you.” I started to protest, but he put his fingers on my lips. “I really do. But this, this is…I guess I don’t know what to do with it either.”

  “Why don’t we just try to figure out what the voices want?” Chaz and I turned at the same time to see Mr. Princeton standing in his doorway. I almost started to cry. For the first time in weeks, I didn’t feel I really was losing my mind. Whether these two men meant it or not, for a moment, they had me thinking they actually believed me. I smiled.

  “Come, come. You both need some nourishment, and we need to talk.” Mr. Princeton disappeared into his apartment.