CHAPTER 1

Thinking back now, Susanna Ash realized her psychiatrist's couch had become much too comfortable. She was nearly in a doze when Doctor Zane's advice snatched her attention like the scream of a siren. She bolted upright. He had to be joking.

The drum of his long, bony fingers on the arm of his desk chair had indicated he was quite serious.

"Since when did this become your decision, Doctor Zane?"

His mouth thinned, reducing his lips to a mere pencil stroke. "It isn't my decision. You've known from the start you're free to either take my advice or leave it, Susanna."

"And if I choose to leave it?"

"Then I'm afraid I can no longer help you. If you don't trust my judgment, you may as well seek the guidance of another physician."

She'd taken a moment to study the man sitting behind the imposing, mahogany desk. His sixty-year-old frame was bent with the weight of a thousand troubled confidences. His pasty, aging face was fastened in a weary, tolerant look. The yellow stains on his fingernails and teeth hinted that what energy he still possessed was the direct result of cigarettes and coffee. Still, there was no doubting the sharp, insightful flash of his beady eyes. What he lacked in energy, he made up for in intelligence.

"So, you're saying all these months of therapy have gotten me nowhere? I'm not any better?"

"Do you feel any better?"

She didn't, but she wasn't about to acknowledge it–not when he was asking her to do the unthinkable. "Okay, I admit that I came here to put an end to my nightmares and the dreams are getting worse…"

"Have you asked yourself if you honestly want the dreams to end?"

"Why wouldn't I want them to end?"

"Because they include your sister. Maybe subconsciously you're trying to keep her alive."

"No, I'm not. I've accepted Amanda's death. I want the dreams to stop."

"Then it's up to you to make them stop."

"I don't see how visiting the past will force the nightmares to go away."

"Because going backward might just be the key to moving forward. I think your best hope of ridding yourself of the nightmares is to return to the lake. You've got to learn to face your fears, Susanna."

Even now, two months later, her analyst's last phrase unnerved her. It had taken six more sessions to realize she'd heard those same words before. How eerily ironic that her psychiatrist's expensive advice turned out to be the same free advice her sister had given her almost three years ago. "Face your fears, Susanna." After endless soul-searching sessions on a psychiatrist's couch, it came down to either heeding the counsel of a deceased sixteen-year-old or going crazy. She wondered which was the lesser of two evils.

The sudden blare of a horn jerked her attention to her rearview mirror. A tractor trailer was bearing down on her bumper. Wrenching her steering wheel to the right, she made room for the towering vehicle to pass. The truck missed the side of her car by mere inches. Damn. The whole purpose of this trip was to get my life back, not end it.

Copyright © 2004 by Rhonda Kirk