Your imagination.
Maybe just water dripping?
Nothing to worry about.
Yet, she was a little unnerved, probably due to being called out and fired by her patient and also, let’s face it, because there had been a murder in this small town; the first one Evelyn had ever heard about. Well, other than those committed by Lester Reece.
She didn’t want to go there, to think of the sadistic killer who, she knew from counseling him at Sea Cliff, could charm the panties off the most devoted nun. The man had something . . . dark, dangerous, and deadly—a bad combination, and one from which she hadn’t been immune.
Now, alone in her kitchen, thinking of the men who’d been a part of her life and the mistakes made, every last one of them, she felt the heat of embarrassment rush up her neck.
Had she been a colossal fool over Wyatt? Had she misread the signs? Hadn’t his touches on her sleeve or back lingered a little too long?
She’d thought so.
Hadn’t his stopping by her home and her office under the guise of being concerned for his wife been just an excuse to see her again?
“Idiot,” she muttered, and started cutting the small brick of cheese.
When had her female radar gone so haywire?
Oh, come on, your radar was always messed up. Remember Chad Stanton in high school? That ended when you found him with your best friend, Carlie, and then there was the string of guys in college. Not one turned out to be the love of your life. Especially not Trent Church—you had a thing for him, didn’t you? She winced as she recalled getting drunk and throwing herself at him. They’d ended up in bed and he’d slipped out in the middle of the night. She’d woken up with a headache and a flower, near her bed, a rose he’d picked from a scraggly bush near her apartment’s front door, but he’d left no note, and there had been no phone call from him in the ensuing days. In fact, the next time she’d seen him, he’d been friendly enough, as before, as if nothing had happened, and when she’d pressed him to talk about it, he’d said, “It really wasn’t that big of a deal, was it? I mean, we enjoyed ourselves, but that was it.”
She’d wanted to drop through the lush grass of the quad. Somehow they’d remained friends, and she’d attended that fateful Christmas party with him, the one from which Noah Garrison, Wyatt’s son, had gone missing, but Trent and Evelyn never ended up in bed, or a relationship, again.
And grad school was no better, she chastised herself. Remember the professor, only six years older than you? And then, oh, God, then Sea Cliff . . .
She closed her eyes at that. Didn’t want to think that she was even remotely attracted to one of the patients, especially a dangerous, convicted killer. But it was true, she thought with a grimace; the wrong men had always held a fascination for her, men who were either distant, unavailable, or dangerous, and there were all kinds of reasons for that. She was a mess when it came to love and sex.
So she was lucky she’d gotten fired before she did something stupid! She’d been on the brink of—
Ouch!
Needle-sharp pain burned at the tip of her index finger, where, distracted, she’d nicked herself with the knife while slicing the damned cheese.
“Stupid, stupid, stupid,” she whispered, then stuck the throbbing finger into her mouth and walked through the master bedroom where she snapped on the switch and a bedside lamp turned on. The temperature in this part of the condo had seemed to drop another five degrees, but she couldn’t bother with the heat now. She made a beeline to her bathroom where she kept all of her first-aid supplies. She was certain she had a tube of Neosporin in the medicine cabinet.
Her injured finger still in her mouth, she didn’t bother flipping on the overhead, just let the light from the bedroom spill into the room as she opened the medicine cabinet.
There was enough illumination that she could see—and there it was, the small tube kept right near her box of Band-Aids. Closing the cabinet, she saw a face, shadowy and dark in the mirror.
Dropping the tube, she started to scream, just as strong hands caught her from behind, fingers digging deep into her throat, forcing her Adam’s apple backward, cutting off her air. She flailed frantically, wildly, striking backward, her hands glancing off her attacker’s head and body. She tried to kick but missed.
The world turned blacker.
Her lungs felt as if they would burst.
She felt the heat build in her head, and her hands scrabbled and clawed at the gloved hands surrounding her neck, cutting off her air. Oh, God, she was going to die! This monster was trying to kill her. Frantically, she struggled, knocking over bottles and cans on the counter.
Crash! A glass candle smashed against the tiles of the floor.
Why? she silently cried, and desperately wished she had a weapon—a knife or a towel bar or a lamp or anything! The fire in her lungs became unbearable.
She couldn’t die like this!
Not single, with no children! This wasn’t how it was supposed to happen! In the darkened room she struggled, but more slowly, her reactions slowing, the world spinning.
In the mirror, her gaze met that of her attacker. She saw the cold, hard hatred in soulless eyes . . . eyes she recognized, despite the pathetic disguise of a long, black wig.
Why? she asked herself again, just as the tightness on her throat lessened and she drew in a minuscule amount of air. Light-headed, she couldn’t fight, tried and failed to stand and nearly toppled against the counter. In the mirror, she saw her assailant withdraw a knife from a jacket pocket.
She stumbled, tried to get away.
Too late!
Sharp and gleaming, the blade flashed in the mirror.
Quickly.
Across her throat.
She gasped.
Tried to scream.
Watched in horror as the spray of her own blood spattered the mirror crimson, red drops drizzling down the glass to obscure the malevolent smile of her killer.
CHAPTER 38
Fully clothed and still lying atop her bed, Ava awoke with a start. Her heart jolted, a spurt of adrenaline rushing into her blood. Something had woken her. Something out of the ordinary, something that wasn’t right.
Then it came again. A sound as plaintive and heart-wrenching as any she had ever known. “Mama . . . Maaamaaa!” and then the sad, frightened sobs of her son echoing down the hallways.
“Son of a bitch,” she whispered between clenched teeth.
She threw back the covers and, in stocking feet, crept to the window. Half expecting to see her son on the dock, she stared outside to only darkness and the whitecaps, frothy and visible on the water. But no Noah. That image of him in his little sweatshirt on the dock was of her own making, the product of a desperate, broken mind, aided by the hallucinogens in her medication.
Evelyn McPherson had insisted she continue the use of the drugs and her own physician had agreed. “Bitch,” she muttered as Noah’s voice rang through the hallway. Couldn’t anyone else hear him? Why only her?
Outside the room, in the corridor, his voice whispered to her, and she realized for the first time it wasn’t that loud, that only someone in the rooms nearby would hear the soft, frightened cries of her child.
She started toward Noah’s room.
From the first floor, the grandfather clock bonged loudly, causing her to jump as it chimed the half hour. And then the cries stopped. Abruptly. The house again growing quiet. Seemingly empty.
But someone was up.
Someone had to be!
Before she went banging on doors, making wild accusations, Ava returned to her room, found the receiver for her equipment in her purse, jammed the connection into her computer, and as her heart counted off the seconds of her life, she saw an image appear on the screen.
Big as life, in black and white, Ava witnessed her “handicapped” cousin Jewel-Anne pull herself out of her wheelchair and, using her arms while dragging her feet and moving awkwardly, haul herself up the rickety stairs. She disappea
red from view for a while, then appeared again later, on the screen from a different camera, the one in the room with the hatbox. Using handholds in the closet, hooks used to hang clothes in bygone years, Jewel-Anne hauled herself to her feet, retrieved the box and equipment inside, and then, humming Elvis’s “Suspicious Minds,” reset her machine.
“You’re right, you bitch,” Ava said to the screen where Jewel-Anne was caught replacing the suitcase from the sixties with the equipment inside. “You are definitely caught in a trap!”
She didn’t waste a second, just e-mailed the video to herself and Tanya for safekeeping, then saved it onto a small jump drive. There was a damned glitch in her computer and it took her several minutes to get the information “Sent”. Then, fury propelling her, she grabbed the drive with its new information and marched down the hallway to the suite of rooms where her cousin resided.
Why was Jewel-Anne so hell-bent on torturing her? What had she ever done to her cousin for her to so cruelly twist her heart, make her think she was going out of her mind?
Had there been enough time for Jewel-Anne to return to her suite? She was pretty sure, but at this point, she didn’t much care. If she caught Ava at her door, so be it. They could have it out in the hallway.
Angrily, she pounded on the thick door to Jewel-Anne’s suite. Bam! Bam! Bam! “Jewel-Anne,” Ava yelled through the panels. “I want to talk to you.”
“Go away,” a groggy voice responded.
So she was there. Ava pounded even harder.
“It’s nearly three in the morning!” Jewel-Anne complained.
“Open up, Jewel-Anne, or I’m breaking in.” Ava tried the door, found it unlocked, and stepped into the little-girl apartment. Larger than her brother’s room in the basement, Jewel-Anne’s suite had her bed, desk, and sitting area along with a private bath, retrofitted for someone in a wheelchair.
“Why?” Ava said, her fury mounting as she glared at her cousin lying in the bed, surrounded by those weird glass-eyed dolls, all in pajamas, cuddled up around her. “Why did you do it?”
“Do what?” Jewel-Anne blinked and yawned, as if she’d been dead asleep. Her hair, caught into a thick braid, was slightly mussed around her face. She was wearing her nightgown, but her glasses were neatly in place and the computer on her desk was just shutting down, making all the appropriate clicks and noises, indicating someone had just pressed the key to close down its programs.
Ava crossed the room, then hit the button on the keyboard to bring it back to life.
“What’re you doing?” Jewel-Anne pushed herself upright, knocking a red-haired doll with freckles onto the floor where it collided with her stupid bunny slippers. “Now look what you’ve made me do!” She picked up the doll quickly, tucking it under the covers next to the others. “It’s the middle of the night, for God’s sake. I was asleep and—”
“I’m tired of your lies,” Ava bit out. “You weren’t asleep.”
“Of course I was! How dare you accuse me of . . . of . . . lying. I don’t lie. Ever.”
“Yeah?” Barely able to keep her composure, Ava glanced at the computer screen, which was glowing again, the system going through its machinations as the CPU came back on.
“Get away from my things.” Jewel-Anne was scrambling out of the bed now, pulling her wheelchair closer to the edge of the mattress, frantic to stop Ava.
“Not yet.”
“I mean it, Ava, get out!”
“Not until you tell me why you tried to make me think I was going crazy.”
“Leave my things alone!” When Ava showed no signs of ceasing and desisting, Jewel-Anne, who’d hauled herself into the wheelchair, scooped up her cell phone from her nightstand and warned, “I’m calling Demetria and Wyatt!”
“Good. I think they’ll be interested in this, too.”
“In what?” Jewel-Anne asked. For the first time, there was a bit of trepidation in her voice.
“Just watch.”
“What the hell are you doing?” she asked as Ava jammed her flash drive into one of the USB ports. “Stop it! Get away from my things! You’re trespassing and . . .” Her voice trailed off and her skin turned the color of death as images appeared on the screen, and there, in clear black and white, was Jewel-Anne hauling herself upstairs and then resetting the camera in the closet. “This . . . this is a mistake. You . . . you created this!” Jewel-Anne cried.
“I just took your lead.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yeah, let’s get Demetria and Wyatt and everyone in the house in here so that they can see I’m not the one who’s crazy!”
The range of emotions that crossed Jewel-Anne’s face went from horror to resentment to fury. She jutted out her chin and her lip curled in disgust. “Get out of my room! Now!”
“Or what?” Ava found the desk chair and sat down. “Why, Jewel?” she asked, her voice low. “Why in God’s name did you go to all this trouble to make me think I was going insane?” She was shaking now, her anger pulsing through her veins.
“It wasn’t much of a push!” Jewel-Anne cried.
“But there has to be a reason.”
Jewel-Anne actually winced.
“What is it? Tell me. I intend to show this little video to everyone here, so you may as well tell me now. What reason did you have for terrorizing me, for letting me think my little boy was haunting me, crying out for me. Do you have any idea how that tore me up inside?”
“Yes!” she nearly shouted. Her little-girl features twisted with a hatred so intense, Ava recoiled a bit. Hard eyes bored into hers. “I do know,” she snarled. There was a sudden gleam in her eye that suggested she would relish showing how she’d duped Ava, pulled one over on her successful cousin.
“You know, for a woman who’s supposed to be smart, with a near-genius IQ, you sure are dense,” she said.
Ava was shaking her head and feeling, again, as if she were standing in quicksand, slowly but surely being sucked under.
“I guess it’s time you knew the whole truth.” Jewel-Anne’s malicious smirk stretched wide, an ugly curve across her face. “You can’t even remember who the birth mother of your child is, can you?”
Ava felt like the room was receding, like she was at the end of a long corridor. She lifted a hand to ward off what was coming, but it was a useless gesture.
“That’s right, Ava. Wyatt’s story about . . . who? Charles Yates and Tracey Johnson?” She gave a brittle laugh. “News to me, too. That cock-and-bull story was made up just to confuse you.” She was nearly rabid now, her eyes glowing with the truth, her need to rub it in overpowering. Her voice rose, carrying into the hallway and reverberating in Ava’s brain. “I’m Noah’s mother, you stupid bitch! I was the one who carried him. I was the one who felt that he was ripping me up inside that night on the boat! Noah was my son, Ava, and you couldn’t even acknowledge that simple, but oh-too-important fact: Noah was my son. Not yours. Mine!”
“No . . .” She wouldn’t believe it. Couldn’t. But the truth was bared, no longer hidden in a web of lies. Was it possible her son, her beautiful son, was really Jewel’s?
Shaking her head and backing up, she had to deny it. “No!”
“The truth, Ava. Truth.”
Oh, God, she remembered. She remembered! Jewel-Anne had been pregnant, too, at the same time as Ava, never divulging the father of her child, acting as if she were some modern-day Madonna . . . Oh, Lord, this was all so, so twisted. So painful. So wrong. Her insides wrenched and she thought she might throw up as she remembered losing her child and, in her grief, willing to do anything to replace him.
“Noah was my baby!” Jewel-Anne crowed again loudly.
“Was?” Ava repeated, hearing the past tense for the first time. No, oh, no. Noah couldn’t be dead. He couldn’t be. Like a zombie, Ava felt dead inside, denial rippling through her, and yet she advanced upon her cousin, towering over her. “What the hell did you do to my son?”
“I don’t
know what happened to him.”
“You little faker!” Ava clasped her hands over her cousin’s shoulders and yanked her to her feet.
Jewel-Anne shrieked in horror. “Let go of me!”
“Tell me where he is!” Angrily, Ava shook her cousin. Jewel-Anne’s head bounced around like one of her eerie dolls.
“I don’t know!”
“Liar! You’ve been lying the whole time. For two damned years. Gaslighting me! Making me think that I saw my son, that I heard him crying for me!”
“Let go of me!”
For an answer, she dragged Jewel-Anne into the hallway. The smaller woman wriggled and writhed, flailed with her hands, her legs moving wildly, uncontrolled.
“Ava, what’re you doing? Don’t!” Jewel-Anne cried as Ava pulled her toward the stairs. “No! Oh, God!”
“Where is my son?”
“I don’t know,” Jewel-Anne insisted, her eyes round, panic showing as they reached the top of the staircase. “Really, Ava, I don’t! Stop this!” She was blubbering now.
Ava pushed her cousin against the rail, bending her back over it as Jewel-Anne clung to her. “Why did you set up the recording?” she demanded. “Why did you let me think Noah was here in the house? Why did you try to make me go insane?”
Fear rounded Jewel-Anne’s eyes. “Ava, please—”
“Why?”
“Because you got it all!” Jewel-Anne blurted, frantic. “The house, the estate, the looks, the athleticism. Everything. You and Kelvin, you inherited everything. I tried to buy you out, but oh, no, you wouldn’t even think about it. I’m a part of this family, too. I am! My father owned half of this place, and you should have found it in your heart to let me buy back some of the parts you bought from my stupid brothers and sister! But you never would. Never!” She was crying now, tears drizzling down her cheeks, her fingers digging into Ava’s shoulders as she was bowed over the rail. “And then . . . and then you took my son. Wyatt worked a deal and it was all for you. You!”
“Ava!” Wyatt’s voice boomed from somewhere nearby. He’d returned and was bearing down on them. “What the hell are you doing? Stop!”