Self-Defense by Jonathan Kellerman Page A

reverberating. Right in the middle of the office ! God !”
    “Are you hurt?”
    “Not physically. But the
humiliation—everyone thinks I’m crazy!”
    “Were there a lot of people around when
you fell?”
    “Not when I fell, but right after. It was
lunchtime; a whole crowd was coming back and saw me on the floor! I ran to the
ladies’ room to straighten up. When I got back, my boss was there. He never comes into the staff area. The look on his face—like what kind of nutcase do I have working for me!”
    “If he’s worried about anything, Lucy,
it’s probably that you’ll file a worker’s comp suit.”
    “No, no, I’m sure he thinks I’m some kind
of bizarro. Falling asleep in the middle of the day—I excused myself to the
bathroom again, went down to the lobby, and called you.”
    “Come over, let’s talk.”
    “I—I guess I’d better. I’m sure not in any
shape to go back up there.”
    I called a neurologist in Santa Monica
named Phil Austerlitz and told him I had a possible referral. When I recounted
what had happened, he said, “You’re thinking narcolepsy?”
    “She’s got a troubled sleep pattern. Some
childhood enuresis.”
    “But nothing chronic in adulthood.”
    “It just started five months ago. While
she was a juror on the Bogeyman trial.”
    “Sounds more like stress.”
    “That’s what I think, but I want to cover
all bases.”
    “Sure, I’ll see her. Thanks for the
referral. Sounds like a fun one. I’ve been dealing with brain tumors all week.
People our age or younger. Must be something in the air.”
    She rang the gate bell just after five.
Her hair was tied back in a ponytail and her face was drawn. When I took her
hand it was limp and damp.
    I gave her a glass of water and sat her
down. She took a sip and put her face in her hands.
    “What’s happening to me, Dr. Delaware?”
    I touched her hand. “We’ll find out,
Lucy.”
    She tightened her mouth. “It was different
this time. This time I saw more.”
    Taking a deep breath. And another. Sliding
her hand out from under mine. I sat back.
    It took a few more minutes for her to
compose herself. “Remember the grating noise I told you about? What I thought
might be sex? It had nothing to do with sex.”
    She leaned forward. “I saw it. They were
digging a grave—burying her. The grating was their shovels hitting the rocks.
This time, I was closer. Everything was clearer. It’s never felt this real before. It was...”
    She put a hand over her eyes and shook her
head.
    “I was close enough to touch them—right
behind them. It felt so real .”
    “The same men.”
    “Yes. Three of them.”
    “Including your—including Lowell.”
    She bared her eyes and licked her lips and
stared at the floor. “He was one of the diggers. Working hard—huffing and
puffing. They all were. And cursing. I could hear their breathing—harsh, like
runners. Then they put her in, and...”
    Her shoulders started to shake.
    “I started to feel myself transforming— my soul leaving my body. I actually saw it, fluttering like this thin white feather.
Then it entered her body.”
    She stood suddenly.
    “I need to walk around.”
    Pacing the room, she covered the width of
the glass doors, then retraced her steps. Repeated it twice more before
returning to her seat.
    She remained standing, both hands on the
chair back. “I could taste the dirt, Dr. Delaware. It felt as if I was in that
grave.... I tried to shake the dirt off of me but I couldn’t move. It kept
coming down on me —stuffing me. I thought: This is what
death is like, this is terrible; what did I do to deserve this,
why are they doing this to me?”
    Her eyes closed and she swayed so low I
jumped up and caught her shoulder. Her body tightened but she didn’t seem to
notice me.
    The sound of the tide rose up from the
beach, like a swell of applause. Suddenly, her breathing quickened.
    “Lucy,” I said.
    As if her name were a posthypnotic
suggestion, she opened her eyes