Still Life Read Free Page B

couldn’t move. “What …?” she began, and then stopped, the bubble in her chest instantly metastasizing into her throat, robbing her of her voice. Why couldn’t she move? Was she tied down?
    She tried to lift her hands but she couldn’t feel them. She tried kicking her feet, but she couldn’t locate them either. It was as if they didn’t exist, as if she was a head without a torso, a body without limbs. If only there was some light. If only she could see something. Anything that would give her a clue as to her predicament. She didn’t even know if she was lying down or sitting up, she realized, trying to turn her head; when that failed, she strained to lift it.
    I’ve been kidnapped, she thought, still trying to make sense of her situation. Some lunatic had snatched her from the parking garage and buried her alive in his backyard. Hadn’t she seen a movie like that a long time ago? It starred Keifer Sutherland as the hero and Jeff Bridges as the villain, and hadn’t Sandra Bullock played the small part of Keifer’s girlfriend, the poor unfortunate who was chloroformed at a gasoline station and came to in an underground coffin?
    Oh, God, oh, God. Had some lunatic seen that movie and decided to play copycat? Stay calm. Stay calm. Stay calm.
    Casey fought to regain control of her now ragged breathing. If she had been kidnapped, if she was lying in a coffin beneath the cold ground, that meant her supply of air was limited, and it was imperative she not waste it. Although she didn’t feel a lack of air, she realized. Nor did she feel cold. Or hot. Or anything.
    She felt nothing at all.
    “Okay, okay,” she whispered, straining to see traces of her breath in the darkness. But again there was nothing. Casey closed her eyes, counting silently to ten before reopening them.
    Nothing.
    Nothing but deep, unending blackness.
    Was she dead?
    “This can’t be happening. It can’t be.”
    Of course it wasn’t happening, she realized with a sudden rush of relief. It was a dream. A nightmare. What was the matter with her? Why hadn’t she realized this before? She could have spared herself a lot of needless grief and wasted energy. She should have known all along she was dreaming.
    Now all she had to do was wake herself up. Come on, silly. You can do it. Wake up, damn you. Wake up.
    Except she couldn’t remember having gone to bed.
    “But I must have. I must have.” Obviously, the whole day had been a dream. She hadn’t met with Rhonda Miller at nine o’clock this morning to discuss her ideas for decorating the Millers’ new riverside condominium. She hadn’t spent a couple of hours checking out the wide assortment of materials on Fabric Row. She hadn’t met her friends for lunch at Southwark. They hadn’t talked about Janine’s hair or her unpleasant encounter with Richard Mooney. The little twerp, Janine had called him.
    Since when had she ever been able to recall her dreams in such vivid detail? Casey wondered. Especially while she was still dreaming them. What kind of nightmare was this? Why couldn’t she wake up?
    Wake up, she urged. Then again, aloud, “Wake up.” And then, louder still. “Wake up!” She’d read somewhere that you could sometimes jolt yourself awake with a loud scream, a scream that would literally push you from one level of consciousness to another. “Wake up!” she screamed at the top of her lungs, hoping that she wouldn’t frighten Warren, who was undoubtedly sleeping peacefully beside her in their king-size bed, his arms wrapped loosely around her.
    Maybe that was why she couldn’t move. Maybe Warren had fallen asleep with his body draped across her side, or maybe their down-filled comforter had twisted itself around her, like a cocoon, preventing her from moving or feeling her arms and legs. Except Casey knew even as she was thinking these thoughts that they weren’t right. She’d always been able to sense when her husband was close by. Now she had no sense of