The Night Before (32 page)

Atropos squatted down by the jar teeming with spiders. The girl was angry and scared, shouting behind her gag, and Atropos could only imagine the words. Ugly words. Not that it mattered. Slowly Atropos unscrewed the lid of the milk bottle and checked the life cord . . . time was fast running out. Then, using her gloved hands, she slid the forceps into the bottle, gently angling them around a particularly thick webbing where tons of the tiny spider babies were crawling.

“You know, you’re lucky your nickname is Cricket,” Atropos said and glanced back at the girl. Her eyes were round with fear. She couldn’t take her eyes off the surgical tongs as they extracted a slowly elongating silken sac that was pulsing with life. “If you’d been called Bunny, or Rosebud, or Chrissy, I would have had a lot more trouble determining your fate, but as it is . . .” She turned, waving the bit of spider web into the flashlight’s beam and dangling it over Cricket’s head.

The girl was sweating now, scooting back farther into the corner. “I wouldn’t go there,” Atropos warned. “I’ve seen rats and snakes in here and . . .”

Cricket was going nuts. Kicking and screaming behind her gag. Atropos would have none of it. She held the bit of fluff over the girl, then let it drop. Cricket screamed. “Now . . . let’s see. We wouldn’t want to separate a mother from her babies. Which one do you think it is . . . oh, here she is.” She found a particularly nasty-looking creature staring at her through the glass, all of its eight eyes reflecting the light, spinnerets visible. “Oh, here we go.” With the precision of a surgeon, Atropos slid her forceps inside the milk bottle again, and while Cricket wriggled and shrieked behind her gag, she gently grabbed the silken tuft on which the dark creature resided. A bit of red, in the shape of an hourglass, showed on the glistening black abdomen. Atropos was pleased . . . She’d had to gather some of the creatures herself, others she’d found on the Internet and had shipped to a post office box, paid by an anonymous check, and this one, the black widow, with its pear-shaped egg sac, had been her favorite. “Come to Mama,” she said, nudging the shy creature into her tongs.
Black Widow.
How appropriate, for surely Caitlyn Bandeaux would be blamed for not only her husband’s death but all the rest.

All according to plan.

Cricket was screeching now. Scooting and shaking as if she could feel each and every little spider and mite on her. Tears raining from her face. Slowly Atropos turned, holding the tongs over Cricket’s head, watching her tremble as she closed the gap until the forceps with their wriggling prey was just inches above the panicked girl’s nose, the red hourglass visible. “They’re not as poisonous as most people think,” Atropos said. “But, with enough bites—”

The girl squeaked pathetically.

It was time to end this.

Atropos opened the forceps.

Rolling over, Caitlyn opened one eye and squinted at the bedside clock. Eight-thirty? Was that possible? She glanced at the French doors to the verandah, where shadows were lengthening over the flagstones, promising night. She must’ve dropped off after the drinks with Kelly and . . . oh, the heart-wrenching phone call from a child. Dear God, she’d thought it was Jamie. Who would play such a sadistic trick on her? Who would derive pleasure from making her think even for a fleeting moment that her daughter was still alive?

Groaning, she reached for the handset and checked Caller ID, but there were no numbers in the memory bank. As if she’d erased them. Had she?

She remembered coming back from the run and she remembered showering . . . and . . . and . . . and what?
What?

“Damn it all to hell.” Try as she might, she couldn’t recall the last few hours. Not clearly.

She did recall that Detective Reed had shown up on her doorstep, though. Right? Yes . . . she was certain and she remembered slamming the door shut, telling him she needed to see her lawyer, but she didn’t doubt he’d return. It was only a matter of time before he’d come with handcuffs. Oh, Lord, how had she gotten herself into such a mess? Everyone in her family was dying . . . one by one they left this world. Sadness stole over her when she thought of her daughter and her mother and even, a little, about Josh. He had been a bastard, but he didn’t deserve to die so horribly . . . at his desk. She blinked. Remembered the tiniest bit of conversation.

Now her skin crawled.

What had she done that night? She’d been there, at Josh’s home, in his den . . . but he’d been alive . . . So the blood . . . how had the blood gotten here?

Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God.
Her heart thundered, and she imagined the room as it had been: the sticky sheets, dark smudges on the tile and carpet, cracked shower door.

Fingers scrabbling on the bedside table, she knocked the remote control for her television to the carpet, then snapped on the bedside light. The hairs on the back of her neck lifted as she took a quick look around just to make sure there were no half-open doors, no smeared bloodstains, nothing out of the ordinary. But all seemed quiet. Maybe too quiet.

The dog lying beside her stretched and yawned, displaying his black lips, pink tongue and sharp teeth. “Lazybones,” she said, scratching him behind his ears as she tried to quell the rising panic clawing at her. “Both of us. We’re just two lazybones.” But her pulse was leaping erratically, her nerves jangled, her peace of mind stretched beyond its limit. Forcing herself from the bed, she managed to make her way to the bathroom, where she caught sight of her terrified expression. “Get hold of yourself,” she growled, her fingers curling over the rim of the pedestal sink. “Don’t fall apart. Don’!” Shaking, she ran cold water, leaned forward and took a drink, then splashed her face, hoping to shock herself out of the panic attack. Then she slammed her eyelids shut and dragged in several deep breaths.
Slow down, don’t listen to the voices in your head . . . don’t.

Slowly opening her eyes, she glowered at her reflection. So weak. So scared. So frail.
Pull yourself together!
Determined not to succumb to the fear, she brushed her teeth and finger-combed her hair. She began to calm down, saw her reflection in a different light. A little lipstick would help. She opened the medicine cabinet and sifted through the tubes. Only three. Not the usual four. And the pink shade she liked best, the one that was sold exclusively at Maxxell’s, was missing. Was she right? A little disconcerted, she sorted through the cupboard, decided it wasn’t worth the stress and settled for a soft berry shade. The lipstick had to be in her purse, that was it.

Lately she was always losing things, misplacing her cell phone, her makeup, her favorite pair of shoes . . . “Comes with the territory, nutcase,” she grumbled as she threw on a pair of shorts and T-shirt. The marks on her wrists had faded enough that she didn’t need to be so careful, she decided, as she walked past the door to Jamie’s room. It was closed . . . how odd. Caitlyn didn’t remember shutting it; in fact, she rarely did, but kept it ajar so that she could look in and remember.

But then Kelly had been over, right? Or had she? She opened the door and was instantly assailed by memories of her daughter. “Mommy, Mommy, read me a story. The bunny one!” she had insisted, all smiles and ringlets and bright eyes. Caitlyn’s heart wrenched and she started out the door when she glanced at the bed . . . it seemed wrong somehow . . . something was missing . . . the bunny. Jamie’s favorite stuffed animal wasn’t on the bed, or on the bookcase or . . . Caitlyn felt a breath of fear slide down her back.

Again she heard Jamie’s frightened voice resonating through her mind. Had her daughter . . . No, had someone
posing
as her daughter really called, or was it all in her mind? What had Lucille said once? “You hear ’em, too, Caitlyn, I know you do. The ghosts, they talk to you.” Well, Lucille was a bit off, everyone thought so, that’s the only reason she stuck it out with Mother. Or had stuck it out. But Jamie’s voice had been real. She’d called . . . Caitlyn ran back to the bedroom, checked Caller ID, but all the old numbers had been erased. She froze. Someone had been in here. Someone had done it. She hadn’t. She would have remembered.

I told ya, Caitie-Did, you’re crazy as a fuckin’ loon!
How many times had she heard Kelly’s recriminations thundering through her brain. Hundreds? Thousands? Way too many to count.

Shaken, she walked across the landing to her computer. She flipped on her e-mail in-box and saw several messages from Kelly.

Kelly had been here? Had she taken her lipstick and Jamie’s bunny? Or . . .
or what?
She must have. She clicked on the second message.

What? Oh, God. Caitlyn’s gut clenched.

No, that couldn’t be right. Caitlyn remembered Detective Reed showing up.
She’d
asked him to leave. Or had she? She’d been asleep and then . . . and then, oh, no. Panic bells began bonging in her mind.

Caitlyn felt sick inside. Kelly had always loved the overly dramatic, the cloak and dagger, mistaken identity stuff. It was all a game to her.

Caitlyn clicked off the computer and let her head fall into her hands. Kelly was becoming difficult.

Okay, more difficult.

If only Kelly would give up the charade. The pretense. Make amends with the family. Life would be so much easier. But it would never happen. Never. She tried to call her twin and ended up getting the damned machine. This time, Caitlyn didn’t bother leaving a message.

Why would Kelly steal things? Things as personal as her lipstick and Jamie’s favorite stuffed animal. It didn’t make sense unless . . . unless Kelly was somehow trying to confuse her . . . but why?

“No!” Caitlyn wouldn’t believe it. She hurried down the stairs. In the kitchen she hit the lights. Two empty martini glasses and an open bottle of olives sat on the counter. She froze in the doorway. Her skin crawled. She didn’t remember having drinks with Kelly.

But she’d talked to the detective. Before or after Kelly? Oh, God. She dropped into a chair in the nook and Oscar, lying on the rug beneath, looked up at her and thumped his tail. “She has to quit this,” Caitlyn said to the dog as she absently reached down and scratched him behind his ears. “She has to.”

“I can’t,” Caitlyn said. “I just can’t !” She had too much to do already, and her life was unraveling strand by strand, faster and faster. It was true. The Montgomery curse, the mental illness, was deep in her genes, in her blood. There was no escape. Panic spurted through her, her heart pounded, her pulse was out of control.

The phone rang and she jumped.
Damn the reporters!

On her feet in an instant, she snagged the receiver before the second blast. “Hello?” she barked.

“Caitlyn?” Adam’s voice was as near as if he was in the room with her.

Tears sprang to her eyes. Relief washed over her. He was just the balm she needed. So why did she want to break down and cry at the sound of his voice? “Hi,” she managed, fighting tears, but the sound was strangled.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

No! I’m not all right. I never will be. You, of all people should know that!
Cradling the phone to her ear, she slid down the cabinets, sinking to the floor. “I heard about your mother,” he was saying. “I’m sorry.”

“So am I,” she admitted and struggled against hot tears. She wasn’t used to kindness from a man; it was hard to accept, harder still to understand.

“I thought you might want to talk.”

“I do. Yes.” She nodded, as if he could see her. She had to see him, touch him, feel something solid in her life. Someone she could trust.

Trust him? Are you nuts? A guy who flashes his business cards at a funeral, for God’s sake, a shrink culling clients out of the obits? Come on, Caitie-Did, this is crazy. You want to see him cuz you’ve got the hots for him. That’s it.
Kelly’s voice echoed through her head. These days it seemed as if her twin was her conscience as well as her tormentor.

“I can be at your place in half an hour,” he said, and the timbre of his voice touched her heart. He cared. She knew it. “Or would you rather come here?”

She looked around her home, the empty glasses, half-filled bottles, mud the dog had tracked through the kitchen. Beyond all that there was the restlessness she’d felt here lately, the feeling that she was being observed.

“Maybe somewhere in between—neutral ground,” he prodded. “Either the office or a coffee shop?”

“Tell you what, why don’t you come by and pick me up?” She dashed the remainder of her tears away with her fingertips. “We’ll decide then.”

“I’ll be there,” he promised.

She hung up and, forcing herself to her feet, she gritted her teeth. She couldn’t fall apart. What good could a nervous breakdown do? No, she had to find some inner strength and sort all this out herself. Forcing herself, she pushed all the demons in her mind back into their dark cobwebby corners as she raced around the kitchen, putting glasses in the dishwasher, stuffing the bottles back into the cupboard and swiping at the countertops and floor with a wet dishrag.

“Mission accomplished,” she told the dog as she did a cursory survey of the room. “Make that Mission Impossible accomplished.” Tossing the dirty rag into the hamper in the laundry room, she headed upstairs, then threw on a long cotton dress and found a matching sweater that covered the nicks on her arms. Then she frowned at her reflection. A couple of passes with a mascara wand over her lashes and a quick brush of blush was all she had time for. Her hair—well, forget it. She hurried downstairs and dialed the plantation. Hannah was alone, really alone, for the first time in her life, and Caitlyn wanted to check up on her baby sister. Oftentimes Hannah was a pain, but then, who wasn’t? Kelly, Amanda and Troy weren’t all that great at times either. One ring. She waited, checked her fingernails. Two. “Come on.” No such luck. Three. “Great.” On the fourth ring the answering machine clicked on, and Caitlyn froze as she heard the soft, dulcet tones of her mother’s drawl instructing her to leave a message.

“You all have reached the Montgomerys out here at Oak Hill. If you’d be kind enough to leave your name and number, we’ll get back to you . . .”

Caitlyn’s knees threatened to buckle.
Oh, Mama. How could this happen?
She remembered sitting on her mother’s lap, smelling the scent of her perfume mingled with smoke, the look of sadness that seemed to linger in her green eyes. Then there had been the nights Caitlyn had awoken to hear the creak of footsteps in the hallway. Sometimes they were a dangerous, scary tread that would pause at her door, open it and steal inside; other times they belonged to her mother as Berneda, an insomniac without her sleeping pills, would pace the upper hallways and stairs . . .