Beautiful Musician (9 page)

I glanced at the time. Luckily I was
right on schedule. I put away my phone and entered the building. It
was much bigger than I’d expected and not all of the tables were
out in the open, as I’d assumed they would be. A row of high-backed
booths were positioned beside softly tinted windows, with natural
light filtering in.

I was glad that Duncan would be on the
lookout for me, rather than me having to seek him out. Still, I
hoped that he would hurry up and notice me. Otherwise I would feel
stupid standing around, waiting for him to appear. The place was
packed with all sorts of people.

I approached the front counter and
ordered a vanilla latte. If Duncan didn’t come out of the woodwork
before my drink was ready, I should probably call him, just to make
sure that he wasn’t running late. For all I knew, he wasn’t even
here yet.

Then, as if on cue, I heard a man say
from behind me, “Excuse me, miss, but are you the short, skinny
blonde in the green dress and gold sandals that I’m supposed to be
meeting?”

I smiled. He’d just repeated what I’d
told him about myself. I turned around, intending to reply, “No,
you must be looking for someone else,” but those silly words died
in my throat.

All I could do was stare blankly at
him.

He was tall, about six
feet, and powerfully built, with piercing eyes and shoulder-length
hair. At first glance, his hair could be mistaken for black, but
was actually a dark shade of brown. His Native American heritage
seemed obvious, chiseled into the strong, bold angles of his face.
He was
exactly
as
I’d described him to Abby when we were kids. But Duncan couldn’t be
him. The warrior wasn’t real.

Not real. Not real. Not
real
.

“
Vanessa?”

He spoke my name, his voice now giving
me a chill. Was I imagining him? Was this my introduction into
schizophrenia? Was my biggest fear coming true? Was I like Abby
now?

“
Are you okay?” he
asked.

I didn’t reply. I just kept staring.
Unblinking. Unmoving.

He appeared to be searching my frozen
expression, concern evident in the depth of his eyes. “I already
got us a booth. Do you need to sit down? I can wait for your
order.”

I struggled to take in my
surroundings. Did anyone else see him? Or was I standing there like
a loon, interacting with a hallucination?

I couldn’t very well ask the employees
or other patrons if they saw him. I would look like the nutcase I
very well might be.

“
I have to go,” I
said.

“
Go where?”

“
Out to my car. I left my
phone in the front seat.” It was the only lie I could think of, and
I needed an excuse to get away from him.

I dashed outside. This wasn’t how my
meeting with him was supposed to unfold. He was supposed to be an
ally, not the guy who sent me over the edge.

I unlocked my car and climbed inside,
breathing as deeply as I could. What in God’s name was I supposed
to do?

Somehow, someway, I needed to figure
this out.

I racked my brain for an answer. Maybe
I should call Linda and ask her about Duncan. Really? And what good
would that do? What if I had created Linda and the entire online
support group? What if none of this was real? I knew how powerful
Abby’s hallucinations were. If I was doing the same thing, then
there was no way to prove or disprove a thing.

I glanced at the building
I’d just exited. Even if I’d manufactured the support group, The
Coffee Shell was an actual place. I wasn’t sitting at home,
imagining
all
of
this.

Was I?

I couldn’t be. I refused
to believe I was
that
crazy. So I considered my options. I had one of two choices.
Cower in fear or go back inside and talk to Duncan.

I picked the latter, but before I got
out of my car, I checked my appearance in the rearview mirror.
Thankfully, I looked just fine. Healthy and sane. No one would be
able to tell what was going on inside my head.

Upon my return, I found Duncan waiting
off to the side of the front counter. In his hand he had a cup of
coffee that I assumed was mine. And now that I had a less chaotic
moment to study him, I noticed details that didn’t match my
creation of him: his ears were pierced with small black gauges, and
both wrists were inked with tribal-looking tattoos. How could he be
the warrior if I hadn’t given him those things?

“
Did you get your phone?”
he asked.

“
Yes, and I’m sorry I
panicked like that.”

“
It’s okay. I wouldn’t
want anything to happen to my phone, either.” He extended the
coffee. “I picked it up for you when they called your
name.”

“
Thank you.” I tried not
to be overwhelmed by his beauty. Or with the memory of Abby telling
me that I was supposed to kiss the warrior someday. Even if Duncan
wasn’t him, even with the inclusion of the piercings and tattoos,
he still unnerved me. “You should have warned me about how handsome
you are.”

He broke into an instant laugh. “Who
says things like that? You’re a funny one, Vanessa.”

If he only knew how funny. “I just
wasn’t expecting someone like you.”

“
It’s okay. I’m
flattered.” He shot me a boyish smile. “And as long as we’re on the
subject, I think you’re hot, too.” His smile turned devilish. “If
we got together, we’d make cute babies.”

I knew he was kidding, but I couldn’t
find it within myself to appreciate his humor. “I’m sorry, but I’m
having an off day. And I wasn’t trying to start a flirtation
between us.” That was the last thing I could cope with.

“
I wasn’t trying to start
anything, either.” He went serious. “I know this isn’t an online
date, certainly not with what we came here to discuss. Are you
still up for that talk?”

“
Yes.” I definitely wanted
to find out more about him and who he was.

He guided me to the booth, where he’d
left his coffee. We sat across from each other, and I did my best
to relax.

I even started the conversion. “Where
are you from?”

“
I have a loft
downtown.”

I relaxed a bit more. If he would have
said that he was from Room 105 I would’ve covered my face and
cried.

He reached for his cup. “What about
you?”

“
I live in
Riverside.”

“
That’s off the 91,
right?”

“
Yes, in the Inland
Empire.”

“
I read in one of your
posts that your sister is ill.”

“
Her name is Abby. She’s
the schizophrenic in my family. Our parents died in a car crash
when she was seven and I was eight. Our aunt Carol raised us after
that. Losing our parents was traumatic for both of us, but it was
worse for Abby. She was already a troubled child. For now, she’s
living at a therapy center that’s designed to treat people with
mental illnesses and help mainstream them. But her progress has
been slow.”

“
Are you
close?”

“
Extremely. As kids, we
were inseparable. We were homeschooled together because my sister
wasn’t able to handle regular school.”

“
Did you want to go to
regular school?”

“
Sometimes. But it was
easier for Carol to have me there. Abby has always been paranoid of
my aunt.”

“
But she never gets
paranoid of you?”

“
No. I’m like her other
half, I guess.” Which made my fear of becoming like Abby worse.
“She always wanted to wear the same outfits as me when we were
little. She tried to mimic everything I did.”

“
That sounds
sweet.”

Disturbingly sweet, I thought. “There
used to be tons of pictures of us as kids, looking like twins,
until Abby went ballistic and destroyed every single photograph
that she was in. I don’t even have a recent picture of her. She
refuses to let anyone get near her with a camera. It freaks her
out.”

“
I don’t have a picture of
Jack, either. He was the schizophrenic man who raised me, but he’s
dead now. It’s a complicated story. That’s why I didn’t post it
online.”

“
Will you tell me about
it?” I was desperate to know what made him tick, to learn what
separated him from the warrior, to keep reassuring myself that they
weren’t one and the same.

“
It might make me sound
strange.”

Nothing could be as strange as what
I’d been going through. “I’m not going to judge you,
Duncan.”

“
Most of my childhood is a
complete blank. Jack was a homeless man who found me wandering
around by myself when I was thirteen.”

A shiver ran through my blood. I was
thirteen when I’d created the warrior, and he was supposed to be
the same age as I was, maturing as I matured. “How old are you
now?”

“
Twenty.”

I forced myself to breathe. “So am
I.”

“
But you know who you are.
My identity is made-up. Jack gave me the name Duncan.”

God help me. I was sitting across from
a man who had a fabricated identity. What were the chances of that?
“Why did he pick that name?”

“
It was in honor of Duncan
MacLeod.”

“
I don’t know who that
is.”

“
He’s a fictional
character from the old
Highlander
TV show and spin-off movies. One of the movies
was a theatrical release that Jack scrounged up enough money to
see. He was obsessed with alternate universes, and Duncan was an
immortal from a meta-universe.”

Should I tell him that Abby was
obsessed with other realms, too? No, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t
say it.

He continued, “When Jack found me, all
I knew about myself was my age and that I was of Native descent. I
still don’t remember anything else. Where I’m originally from, who
my parents are, what tribe I belong to, when my birthday
is.”

“
What date do you use for
it?”

“
June thirtieth. That’s
the day Jack found me.”

Was that the day I’d created the
warrior? I couldn’t remember the exact date, but it had been the
week after my birthday, which fit the troubling
timeline.

I studied him from across the table,
thinking about how the warrior was supposed to die. “Your birthday
just passed. So did mine. We both just turned twenty.”

He raised his coffee in a mock toast.
“Here’s to us. We have almost a whole year to go before we can
officially buy a beer.”

Or before he died? I couldn’t bear to
think about that, not now, not while I was sitting here, trying to
figure him out. “Tell me more about you and Jack.”

He lowered his cup. “I was scared and
confused when he first found me. He was all I had. He protected me,
treating me as if I was his own. We lived on the streets together
until I was fifteen, then I was taken away from him and put into
foster care.”

“
Why didn’t Jack turn you
over to the authorities himself? Why did he keep you with him for
so long?”

“
He thought I was sent to
him from another dimension to be his adoptive son.”

“
The Highlander
dimension?”

“
No. He knew that one was
created for the movies.”

Dare I ask? “Then what dimension did
he think it was?”

“
He didn’t know. But he
said that I would find out someday. Of course I knew that he was
delusional, but I played along with him anyway. I preferred to
think of myself the way he thought of me.”

“
Why?”

“
Because I figured that I
must have run away from a bad situation. That’s what they assumed
in foster care, too, especially since they searched for missing
kids fitting my description and didn’t uncover anything. If I
wasn’t reported missing by my family, then it seems obvious that no
one cared.”

“
What about now that
you’re older? Don’t you want to know the truth?”

“
Not if it’s something
that’s going to trigger disturbing memories. I’d rather just leave
well enough alone.”

I struggled to comprehend his
mysterious past. How could there be so many parallels between him
and the warrior? How was that possible? “What last name do you
use?”

“
Lock. That was Jack’s
last name.”

“
So you’re Duncan
Lock.”

“
Yep. That’s me.” He
glanced toward the window. “I used to have blackouts during the
time I was with Jack, and he said it was because I would disappear
and go to the other dimension, then would return with no knowledge
of where I’d been. He even said that he saw me disappear. But I
knew the blackouts were just part of my amnesia. It stopped
happening after I went into foster care.”

“
Why did that make a
difference?”

“
I don’t know. But Jack
had his theory, of course. He said that I couldn’t slip off to the
other dimension with the foster care system watching me so closely,
so I had to stay grounded to this world.”