Malevolent (28 page)

“Enjoyment,” he told her, “is off the table.”

She raised her head to peer at him. “Nonsense. You’ve felt more alive these last few days than you have since killing me. You’re just ashamed to admit it. Even to the woman who knows you best.”

Every time he closed his eyes he felt Kimberly Nan Reese’s slender young neck between his fingers and heard her life gurgling from her. Even fully awake he couldn’t escape those shocked, dying eyes.

“I knew her,” he said. “And she knew me. That’s what hurts most.”

“You were on nodding terms with her,” his wife corrected. “Like you’re on nodding terms with everyone. It wasn’t like you were married to her or anything.” Laney grinned at this. She’d never let him off the hook.

“I’m not doing it again,” he said in a voice as dead as he felt.

Laney poured herself off of the hood of his car and did a little twirl like a majorette finishing her routine. “Sure you will, and this one’s going to be even more fun than the last.”

His soul was sinking into brackish water. “Never again.”

She squatted beside him. She placed her cool hands on his knees, her eyes warm and concerned. “Now come on, honey bear. Answer me truthfully. You get a hard-on thinking about her, don’t you?”

He pushed her away and pulled himself shakily to his feet. “I’m going back inside if you talk to me like that.”

Kimberly Nan Reese. He’d come to think of her in three-name terms, just like the press. So young and sweet, her hair dark and lustrous, pale neck long, slim and inviting.

He blinked and Laney stood by the car again. “Let’s talk about how much fun you’re going to have doing the next one,” she said brightly.

“I told you—”

“You know her too. Or at least you’ve exchanged a word or two with her. You won’t believe what killing her will do for your fantasy life.”

He opened the door to the interior, hoped she’d take a hint.

“Go ahead,” she said. “You know you can leave at any time, right?”

“No I can’t,” he said. “You won’t let me sleep.”

“What have I ever done to disturb you? It’s you not letting yourself sleep. If you didn’t need what I offer, there’d be no offer. Now come back here and stop teasing me, darlin’.”

He stood half turned so he could see into the nearly empty home he’d reclaimed several weeks before. All he had to do was leave her, close and lock the garage door behind him, and in the morning put the place up for sale like he should have done years ago.

It sounded so easy.

“She’s evil,” Laney said. “You can really enjoy yourself with this one because she deserves it. She’s a recent church member who’s gone astray.”

He wished the poured concrete under his feet was still wet and he could sink silently into it, just keep sinking and disappear forever.

“Who’s the victim?” he asked, defeated as usual.

Chapter Forty-Five

“Nothing,” said Dr. Amanda Garr to the topless woman whose breasts she’d just given up poking and prodding. “No lumps.”

“What do you mean, nothing?” Melinda Dillon imitated the doctor’s stroking motion on her own body. “There. What’s that?” she demanded, redirecting her doctor’s efforts.

Amanda Garr, still youngish and attractive but for a second chin in early development, gazed into space for another half minute while her trained hands explored the region. Finally, she shook her head. “Nope. It’s literally nothing, Melinda. I don’t feel a thing because there’s nothing to feel.”

“Well, I feel it,” Melinda said. “I think I ought to be X-rayed.”

Amanda hopped up on the examination table next to her patient—and friend—their companionable closeness making Melinda feel suddenly embarrassed at her partial nudity. The tiny examination room already felt too homey with its gauzy curtain, woven rug and wooden cabinets. She could have used a little of the stark, stainless-steel medical professionalism everyone else complained about.

“You had a mammogram six months ago,” Amanda said. “Just as you’ve had once a year ever since your mother died.”

“Six months ago I didn’t have any discomfort, and six months ago I didn’t have a lump.”

Melinda could feel her doctor’s scrutiny as she got back into her bra and blouse. She knew what Amanda was thinking, her doctor friend working her mother’s death into the conversation as she had. She headed it off with, “And I’m not obsessing on account of my mother having died of it.”

It
being as close to identifying the disease as she was willing to go.

Dark images played in Melinda’s head. She saw an
 
emaciated form under summer covers, tubes poking out of her and machines beeping and gurgling, the room smelling like sanitized death. Mom, dark-eyed and radiation-bald and foul odored.

“I never said you were obsessing,” said Amanda in the subdued tones of a therapist. Melinda recognized those tones, having spent a fair amount of time with a psychiatrist some four years ago. “Given the hereditary nature of the disease, you’re wise to self-examine and schedule annual mammograms. I just think…”

Here it comes, Melinda thought.

“…that you’re particularly sensitive to the threat of breast cancer because of the experience you went through with your mother.”

It sounded so rehearsed, the comforting murmurs of a medical practitioner more adept at providing confidence than treatment. Melinda silently fumed at the time she was wasting by listening rather than acting.

All she’d thought about at work the previous night was what she’d seen—or thought she’d seen—at Windmore Hills. Obviously her mind had been playing tricks on her, but it was her subconscious sending her a very real warning—see a doctor, or else.

“What you went through four years ago,” Amanda continued softly, “was obviously upsetting. It took you a good long while to get over it, but we never really forget anything. We simply file it away, and occasionally the file cabinet opens.”

God, she’d heard variations on that gibberish before. The psychiatrist had been a referral of Amanda’s in response to, first, her mom’s long and torturous death featuring every indignity a slow cancer can heap on body and soul. Then the bills, only partially covered by insurance, stacking up and awaiting the attention of lawyers, accountants and her mother’s only child. And finally, there’d been Kevin. Good old understanding Kevin, the husband who left Melinda when he could take no more of the moodiness and panic attacks.

Her turnaround had taken time, but it had been accomplished without the shrink she’d never totally come to trust. She was more or less whole now. Despite what her friend and OB might think.

Melinda buttoned the last button of her blouse and stood.

“I’m sorry,” Amanda said gently. “You know I’d tell you if there was anything to say.”

Would she? Or would Amanda fear the emotional impact that full disclosure might have?

Melinda still felt something in her right breast, but it was now little more than a vague ache, the sort of nagging sensation that could have been caused by all of her kneading of the affected tissue. “Maybe all I needed was to hear that I’m all right,” she said doubtfully.

“It’s all any of us ever need. How’s work going? You look tired.”

Melinda felt something tighten inside like armor over her emotions.
Are you working too hard? Shouldn’t you take time off?
That’s what her doctor really wanted to know.

“I’m fine,” Melinda said brightly.

“Well I hope you can catch yourself some rest.”

She felt another sharp twinge in her breast on her way out, and could barely stop herself from rubbing the spot where she just knew something was festering.

Chapter Forty-Six

It rang three times before someone picked up, and he almost hung up when Lisa answered. But she’d have his number. After a pause he said, “Hi, doll girl. It’s Dad. How are you?”

He hoped the tone was right—relaxed, but not forcefully cheerful, which she’d see right through.

“Hi, Dad,” she said after a pause of her own. Her tone mimicked his—pleasant, steady, nonconfrontational.

“I was just…is your mom around?” Delivered, Vincent realized, the way divorced men refer to their exes. Not
Mom
, but
your
mom.

“Hold on, let me see.”

He heard background murmuring, a lot more than mom and daughter would need to relay a simple “Dad’s on the phone”.

Come on, Sandy, take the call,
he telepathically urged.
I’m a changed man.

More muffled bumping and banging as the phone exchanged hands. For a second he thought his wife would cradle it, but then she said, “Vincent?” Said it like you’d address an old boyfriend met again on the street, with a mixture of surprise, suspicion, tension and tentative welcome.

“Sandy, let’s talk.” The fact that she didn’t cut in encouraged him. “I’m sorry I ran off yesterday. It was wrong of me to react the way I did, and wrong to create additional concerns by staying out all night.”

There.

The static in his ear turned cold. When it seemed as though there were only icicles on the other end, she said, “Vincent, you don’t know what you’ve put us through this last week or so.”

“I’m trying to apologize.”

“I don’t know if it’s that easy. You keep accusing and apologizing. Vincent, it’s driving us crazy. There was no one in my car with me yesterday evening but Jason. Do you really think that your own son would be aiding and abetting me in adultery? Or that I’d ask him to?”

Aiding and abetting
. Still and always the practicing attorney, his wife. He nearly chuckled, but didn’t want her to take it wrong.

“I know how feeble it sounds, okay? That’s why I want to apologize. To the entire family.”

Her heavy sigh sounded like a treacherous wind in his ear. “I just don’t know, Vincent.” She lowered her voice. “You came closer to violence last night than I’ve ever seen you. I don’t mind saying that we were all relieved when you finally stormed off.”

“And that’s exactly why it’s so important that I see you all together. We’ve got a lot to talk about.”

A regular little windstorm of breath came through the line as she considered. “Where are you, anyway?” she asked, obviously stalling.

“In the car. I spent the night at a cheap motel, then just had breakfast and drove around.”

The windstorm kicked into high gear as she mulled a decision. “Well, I guess we can all be home together this afternoon if you get here before Jason goes to baseball practice at three.”

“Make him wait, will you do that for me? If he cancels, I’ll make it up to everyone. Please. For all of us.” He was surprised at how readily she’d agreed. “You won’t be sorry,” he promised.

By the time he ended the call his purchase was ready. He’d passed the background check and waiting period with flying colors. The sales clerk had added a box of shells, as requested, and accepted his credit card.

“It holds fifteen to the mag and one in the chamber,” the salesman said, as proud as if he’d designed the weapon himself.

No, of course there was no one in the car with you and my loyal son, Jason. Yes dear, I must simply be imagining things.

Vincent hefted it one more time before it went into the box. The 9mm P89 semiauto weighed two pounds and was less than eight inches long, just a four-and-a-half-inch barrel. One just like it had, years ago, wiped out a commuter train full of people in suburban New York, earning it the title of commuter gun. Cute. All in all, it was well worth the wait and hefty price tag.

Credit card purchase, he thought, smiling. Like he’d have to worry about the bill.

Chapter Forty-Seven

Tim hid his surprise at the sight of Melinda Dillon stepping out of her car and dragging herself up her flagstone walk. Her hair was unkempt, eyes dark, face pale. It looked like she hadn’t slept for a week.

Her mouth dropped open when she saw him waiting for her on the single chair on her small front porch. “How’d you find me here?”

“You ever notice how the Cleveland phone directory’s like three inches thick, yet people are always shocked when you find them that way?”

She fumbled with the front door’s lock and when it opened she didn’t invite him in. But she didn’t close the door after her, either. He could hear the insistent beeping of an alarm system. By the time the nagging sound ended, he’d installed himself just inside the airy living room.

“Iced tea?” she said.

He nodded. The house was a tall red-brick Georgian colonial on a street crammed full of them, shade trees in front. Inside, a mishmash of styles and colors. Tim directed himself to an uncomfortable but expensive-looking wingback chair. The couch looked like a family hand-me-down, a macrame blanket slung over it. There was an authentic-looking grandfather clock in one corner and a large, unframed mirror over a cluttered marble mantel.

From elsewhere, Melinda shouted, “Naturally I’m a bit surprised to see you.”

He heard tap water running, ice tinkling. She returned with a tray holding two tall glasses and spoons, a sugar bowl and glass pitcher. He took one glass, thanked her and found a coaster on a coffee table. Tim always felt formal and uncomfortable when sipping tea, even the iced variety.