Amanda looked directly at Caitlyn. “Can you imagine that? Having children with a man you knew was fucking his own half sister?” Amanda’s face darkened. Her lips twisted in disgust. “And not just that. Copper was having kids, too. Cameron couldn’t keep his dick in his pants, could he? And he didn’t know diddly squat about birth control. Not our sick bastard of a father. He just kept spawning kids. With two women. What an amoral prick. He deserved to die.”
She snipped off a bit of thread with her teeth and admired the cord she’d been braiding.
Caitlyn tried to concentrate, to keep hold of her wits as Amanda seemed obsessed with unburdening herself.
“It wasn’t just with Copper, you know. Dad had other mistresses.” Her jaw slid to the side as she glanced at Caitlyn. “Bet you didn’t know that even ever-faithful Lucille couldn’t resist him. I overheard her talking to him about it years later. Oh, she was crying and carrying on, promising to look after Mother, but the truth of the matter was she had a one-night stand with Cameron and bang-o, got herself pregnant.”
Caitlyn was horrified. What was Amanda saying? God, could this twisted woman really be her sister, the girl and woman she’d grown up with? “That’s right, Marta Vasquez, Lucille’s daughter was really our half sister. But Lucille managed to pass her off as her ex-husband’s. Why do you think Lucille took off so fast after Mom died? Because she figured it out. Knew that someone was killing off everyone close to the Montgomerys, including her daughter. I got lucky with that one. Marta was stupid enough to come to the office where I work, as the firm had handled Dad’s will. She was going to contest it because she’d found out that she was a Montgomery. I guess Lucille must have finally told her the truth. Who knows? Rather than go to one of the partners, Marta started with me. Luckily no one knew that we met. And so . . . I had to improvise.” Amanda’s gaze moved to the hideous family tree with its broken branches. There was a picture of Marta as a child.
Caitlyn felt sick.
Amanda nodded, as if to convince herself. “Oh, yeah, Marta had to go. Like the rest.” She hesitated, then added, “Including Dad.”
Caitlyn was still having trouble tracking the conversation, but Amanda helped her out.
“That’s right, I killed him. Didn’t know that, did you? No one did. But I did. I was with him in the car that day and I just grabbed hold of the damned steering wheel and forced him into the river. It helped that he was drunk but”—she smiled slyly—“the real trick of it all was that I’d already fiddled with his seat belt, made sure it wouldn’t hold.” She looked up at Caitlyn then, as if seeking approval for being so clever. “The seat belt was the easy part, though. Cutting off his testicle, that took a little more stamina, let me tell you. I had to surface, then take a couple of dives. Good thing I can hold my breath for a long time.”
Amanda the athlete. Of course. She could swim, shoot, run, row . . . you name it. Always an overachiever. Caitlyn trembled. She remembered seeing Cricket and Sugar in her bed . . . lying beneath the crawling insects, their eyes and mouths and other areas of soft tissue already devoured. Amanda had killed them . . . she’d killed all of them.
And without a doubt she’d planned Caitlyn’s fate as well. It was only a matter of time before she’d kill her. Caitlyn retched at the thought.
Amanda sighed. “You were always such a wimp, Cait. Such a weakling. Once Kelly disappeared, you were never the same. I orchestrated that, too. Wanted you both dead, but though Kelly presumably drowned, you survived and took on part of her personality. I’m surprised I’m the only one who caught on, but then the rest of the family was in such shock. You cracking up actually helped things along. Now, I had a scapegoat—I made sure that you were always around before I knocked someone off. Clever, don’t you think?”
You bitch!
The thought was foreign. As if it had come from somewhere else—the Kelly personality? No . . . Kelly wasn’t dead . . . Yes, she is. You’ve known it for a long time, you just wouldn’t face it.
No. I’m Kelly.
What? No . . . you’re Caitlyn. You’ve known it all along. Fight the blackouts, fight the urge to let Kelly take over, to hide from the pain. You have to stay clear. Fight. You have to save yourself. Caitlyn shivered inside, refused to close her eyes and as she did she noticed that her mind was clearing a bit. Her head throbbed but her vision was less blurred, her thoughts more connected.
She heard a noise and glanced to the floor. Oh God. Hannah, poor Hannah was tied and bound, her eyes as big as saucers, sweat rolling down her face.
Alive! She was alive! For a second Caitlyn felt a glimmer of hope, but it was short lived. Amanda wouldn’t set them free. Already she was cutting lengths of red and black thread, another braid to be cut and trimmed and added to the macabre family tree. Hannah didn’t appear drugged, just frightened out of her mind.
Think, Caitlyn, think! You have to save her. Save yourself. Somehow you’ve got to get out of here and soon. There isn’t much time.
“Oh . . .” Amanda saw her sisters exchange glances. “I guess you didn’t know that Hannah was here, too. She’s been waiting for you. I let her see the others—you know, the ones up in your room, Sugar and Cricket—damned interlopers, so she understands what’s going to happen.”
Behind her gag Hannah made mewling noises.
“Shut up!” Amanda shouted at Hannah, kicking at her, then looked at Caitlyn again. “She always was spoiled. Talked back. She goes, too. And Troy . . . I haven’t quite decided. I won’t be able to blame his death on you, so I’ll have to make it look like he was involved in a horrible accident, kind of like the fire that took Copper Biscayne’s life.” Arching an eyebrow she said silently that she’d killed Copper.
Hannah was screaming behind her gag, trying to roll on the floor.
“I said, ‘shut up!’ Do you want me to give you a shot of what I gave Caitlyn? Christ, you’ve been a pain ever since I called you from Caitlyn’s, pretended to be her and invited you ‘out to dinner.’ And,” she added with a touch of sick humor, “uh-oh, you never made it to any restaurant. Instead you disappeared, didn’t you? No one could find poor Hannah and even her older sister, Amanda, was frantic.” Amanda laughed to herself. “Don’t play the victim, okay. This isn’t a B-horror flick.”
Hannah was blinking hard now. Terrified. Tears welled in her eyes and Caitlyn, too, wanted to crumple. To hide. To pretend it was a dream and hope she’d wake up . . .
Stop it! For crying out loud, there’s no one here to help you, Caitie-Did! This is no time to be a wuss. You have to save yourself. To save Hannah. To save me. Kelly’s voice was loud as it pounded through Caitlyn’s brain.
What could she do . . . what? Her mind was racing, searching for answers, her gaze traveling from Hannah’s terrorized face to the deadly calm of Amanda . . . Atropos, who kept on braiding, weaving the hideous red and black cords.
“You know, I worked it all out,” she was saying, as if letting Caitlyn in on a deep secret. “I made sure I killed all of them right after you’d seen them. Remember when you visited Aunt Alice Ann? Remember you told me about it? And then the attempts on Amanda’s life, I made sure you’d been over and in the garage, that you’d touched the TR so that your fingerprints would be on it. Amanda had to appear a victim,” she said and Caitlyn realized she was Atropos now, the murderess, a separate entity from her older sister.
Come on, Caitlyn, try to move. Try, damn it!
“I knew you were so fragile, that you wouldn’t remember.” Atropos looked up from her work for a second. “You should never have told me about your meetings with the shrink. That’s what tipped me off. I knew something was happening, that you were changing, becoming stronger, but I didn’t realize what it was all about until I witnessed the change myself after your hypnosis therapy. I saw the transformation once, when you were really upset and your adrenalin was pumping. It was weird the first time, seeing the Kelly personality emerge, but then I realized what the trigger was, how to get your heart rate up, h
ow to bring out Kelly when I needed her. But I also figured Rebecca Wade had discovered that you were a split personality, so I broke into her office to make sure. Everything was in the computer files, and as I read and realized that she meant to write a book about you, make you some kind of landmark case, that she, too, had to bite the big one. It was interesting, using the GHB on her, slipping it into her coffee—oh, no, let’s see, not coffee.” She hesitated and placed a finger along side her jaw. “It was a tall non-fat single latte with light foam, I think.” She laughed again, amused at herself. “Didn’t you like my little mafia touch of cutting out her tongue to keep her from talking—even though she was already dead?”
Oh, God no. Not Rebecca, too!
Caitlyn felt something. A tingle. Was it her imagination, or could she move one thumb?
Don’t listen to what she’s saying. Move, for Christ’s sake. Move. It’s your only chance. Kelly’s voice seemed to scream at her from inside her mind.
“But the shrink’s notes did help me in one way,” Atropos continued. “They showed me how to bring out the Kelly personality when I needed her. Once I figured out how to make you hyperventilate, get your blood pressure up, I was able to bring Kelly out whenever I needed you to lose track of time and therefore not have an alibi.”
Hannah let out a panicked squeak and Caitlyn stared at her, willing her to understand to be calm.
“Clever?” Amanda asked as she tied off the braid.
Not clever, you maniac. Psychotic. Sick. Horrible. Amanda had killed so many people, tortured them, used them and then set it up to blame Caitlyn. But she had feeling in her feet and arms though she didn’t lift her head, didn’t show any sign that she was recovering. If Amanda had the slightest inclination that she could move so much as one muscle, she’d drug her again. Better, for the moment, until she had her strength, to pretend to be incapacitated.
“So now you have to die, here in your lair . . . I’ll claim the roles were reversed, that you captured me. See, look here.” She lifted her arms, showed where there were bruises around her wrists. “Handcuffs,” she explained, “because it’s going to look like you handcuffed me to a post out in the wine cellar and I broke free, we struggled, the tables were turned and you ended up dead, not me.”
She tied off another cord. Time was running out.
“It helped that you . . . or was it Kelly . . . made a pathetic attempt to kill Josh. You didn’t know that I’d already arrived and caught him drinking. So while he was using the facilities I slipped in the GHB. I ducked outside to the patio to watch and guess what? That’s when you showed up. Giving the police a perfect suspect. Josh didn’t suspect his drink had been doctored, so he gave you a glass. Bingo, I got two birds with one stone.”
She admired her work and slid one eye in Caitlyn’s direction. It was all Caitlyn could do to remain still. Her limbs were beginning to tingle, feeling was coming back to her hands and feet.
“You know,” Amanda said, “it was fitting, don’t you think, the way Josh died? Josh, the bloodsucker, had his own lifeblood drained.” She finished braiding and again looked over at Caitlyn. For a second Caitlyn’s gaze cleared and she focused more clearly on her sister. The horrendous implications curdled her stomach. Amanda or Atropos, she was a murderer, a cold-blooded killer.
“. . . little Jamie was difficult.”
What? She’d killed Jamie?
No, oh, God . . . No! No! No! Agony ricocheted down her body, tore at her with angry claws, bit into any peace of mind she’d found. Not the baby. Please, please, not my precious, precious baby.
Caitlyn quaked from the inside out, felt her self begin to slide. No . . . not now, she couldn’t step aside now. She couldn’t, wouldn’t let the Kelly personality take over. She had to fight. She had to win. But it was so hard. Caitlyn’s personality had always been weaker, but now she wouldn’t let go. Couldn’t.
“She would have died anyway,” Atropos insisted with a beatific smile. “She was a wonderful child, but, we all know she was very, very sick, there really was no hope.”
Caitlyn’s heart froze. How could this monstr talk of Jamie so coldly, so clinically?
“I hated to do it. But I just helped her along, like I did Mother. She was an heir, you know. In the way. Just before I did it, I managed to tape Jamie. She was scared in the hospital. You’d just stepped downstairs for dinner; it was the only time she was alone and I had my little recorder in my pocket when I slipped in to ‘visite’ her. That’s what you heard on the phone, that and my impersonation of her.” She paused a second then said in a scared little voice, “Mommy . . . Mommy . . . where are you?”
Caitlyn tried to scream, tried to move. Her baby! Her sister had killed her baby! Adrenalin pumped through her bloodstream. Anger and rage poured through her. Her fingers curled over the edge of the desk.
Hannah let out a muffled wail.
“You’re all so pathetic. I find it incredible that we came from the same damned gene pool,” she said, glowering down at Hannah before pointing a finger at Caitlyn. “So now you pose a problem. Are you Caitlyn? Or are you Kelly? Twins. Two people in one body?” Amanda began to pace. “I think the best thing to do is to cut you in half. Right down the middle. One half put somewhere, another half somewhere else. But it”s so messy. So messy . . . I already had to deal with one mess. Draining Josh’s blood from him and splashing it all around your room wasn’t that easy. You were so out of it, and I needed your handprint to make the marks. Fortunately you hit your nose when you fell at Josh’s and spilled some blood. I bet the next morning you freaked, didn’t you, when you woke up? And you thought you had too much to drink?” She laughed then, and the sound was as evil as Satan’s cackle. Caitlyn quivered, but tried desperately to pull herself together. She could move. Barely. Her vision was getting less blurred and she thought, over the droning of Amanda’s voice, that she could hear footsteps. But maybe she was imagining the sound.
“Don’t ever let anyone slip GHB into your drink again, Caitlyn. You really do pass out and not remember.” Then she smiled and stood near the horrendous family tree. “I guess you won’t have to worry about that anymore. You won’t have to worry about anything.” Hannah was slowly inching her body close to Amanda’s feet. She caught Caitlyn’s eye, and Caitlyn blinked slowly, hoping her sister would understand.
Amanda was prattling on, but Caitlyn barely heard her, was concentrating on moving her fingers and listening. Was someone outside this hideous lair getting closer? Was that a creak of the stairs? She almost jumped . . . and felt a measure of control return to her body. If she tried . . . With all her concentration she attempted to lift the index finger of her right hand.
Hannah saw the movement and froze.
Amanda was admiring her work. “Now let’s see”—She looked at Caitlyn—“the fun part. I’ll cut the cord as Atropos.” With her pair of long-bladed surgical scissors, she snipped the red and black braid cleanly.
Caitlyn managed to move one finger. Just barely.
“Perfect,” Amanda announced, setting the scissors on the desk and turning to the image of the grotesque tree with its frightening pictures. “Pretty soon you’ll join the others.”
Not if I can help it! Kelly’s voice reverberated through her head. Move your fucking hand, Caitlyn! Grab the scissors!
Caitlyn strained, inched her hand forward. Amanda’s back was turned. Obviously she thought Caitlyn couldn’t move, nor had she noticed Hannah slowly getting closer, inching her body near enough that Amanda, with one false step, could trip.
“What’re you doing?” Amanda suddenly demanded, glaring at Hannah. “You never learn, do you? I guess I’m going to have to teach you a lesson.” She reached for the scissors and swiped them off the table. “Maybe I should show you what happened to Josh?”
Hannah shook her head, began scooting frantically away.
“He bled to death, one little drop at a time.” She advanced on Hannah who was cowering between the desk and the rest of the room, wedged
and unable to move, just below Caitlyn.
Amanda leaned down, but instead of untying one of Hannah’s hands and reaching for her wrist she grabbed a handful of Hannah’s hair and pulled it back, exposing her sister’s throat.
Oh, God.
The gun! Where is Charles’s damned gun?
Caitlyn searched wildly, saw it on a corner of the tarp, seemingly miles away. She could never reach it in time. All too slowly, the drug in Caitlyn’s bloodstream was wearing off. She could move. Her toes wiggled slightly. Bit by bit, her muscles were responding. But she didn’t have time to wait and she couldn’t reach the damned pistol. Amanda was drawing an imaginary line on Hannah’s throat and Hannah was quivering in fear, trying to pull away, but tied in such a manner that she could do nothing but cry and whimper.
“Watch, Caitlyn. Can you see?” Amanda asked. “You’re next. That’s what the tarp is for, to catch the blood splatter. As soon as Hannah passes out, it’ll be your turn. Now.” She opened the scissors. The blades glimmered wickedly. Ever so slowly, drawing the drama out, Amanda placed the open blade against Hannah’s white throat as she struggled. A drop of blood showed against her skin.
It was now or never.
Do something. Do it now!
Caitlyn strained. Her hand moved with a jerk. In her peripheral vision, Amanda saw her and reacted. Sliced quickly. Just as Hannah squirmed away. Blood spurted as she lunged at Caitlyn, bloody scissors raised. “You little bitch. You thought you could get away?”
The blades swung down, straight at Caitlyn’s face, but she shifted, threw all of her weight to one side and Amanda missed, the scissors hit the desk hard and Caitlyn kicked, one shoe jamming into Amanda’s abdomen.
Startled, Amanda fell backward, tripping over Hannah. Caitlyn scrabbled for the scissors as they clattered across the desk. On the floor Hannah was gurgling and spitting blood. Oh, God, it was all over.