The Night Before (37 page)

Stumbling backward, Caitlyn half fell into the hallway. Her stomach heaved as she scrambled to her feet and fled down the stairs. She had to get out of here, to leave before whoever it was that did this, found her.

She flew out of the house, leaving the door open. Her heart was pounding wildly, fear pumping through her blood. She found her keys. Slid behind the wheel, could barely think, barely jab the key into the ignition. “Come on, come on,” she muttered as her fingers trembled and fumbled. She twisted on the ignition.

Nothing happened.

Frantically she pumped the gas and tried again. “Come on, come on!” she cried. Oh, this was no good. No good. Her heart was jackhammering, pounding crazily, her pulse leaping. She felt it then, that horrible feeling that she might lose consciousness, the blackness threatening to swallow her. She wouldn’t let it. Couldn’t. But the damned car wouldn’t start.

But what good would this tiny weapon be against an unseen enemy who had killed so many?

She found her cell phone and dialed Adam’s number and left a panicked message.

The blackness was pulling at her mind. Trying to drag her under. She started to dial the phone again. A simple number. 911. But before she could punch the numbers, the phone rang in her hand. Relieved, trying to keep the world from spinning, she pressed the talk button. “Adam? I’m at Oak Hill and something terrible’s happened. People are dead and my car won’t start and . . . and . . .”

“Mommy?” a child’s breathless voice whispered.

“Oh, God, no!” It couldn’t be. It wasn’t Jamie . . . or was it? Things were beginning to jumble. She was breathing so hard, so fast, her heartbeat racing out of control.

“Mommy . . . I can’t find you . . .”

“Baby! Jamie? Mommy’s right here . . .”

“Mommy, I’m scared . . .”

“I am too, baby, I am too,” she said and suddenly she lost control, was slipping away, fading . . . oh, God . . . She shuddered, fought the overwhelming feeling and lost. She was no longer herself . . .

Jesus H. Christ,
Kelly thought, slipping easily to the fore. Caitlyn had always been too mentally frail, a weakling, one of those simpering, feeble women that Kelly had always hated. A loser with a capital L.

Well, she wasn’t here right now, was she? She’d disappeared. Maybe now she would be lost forever. Gone. Vanished. And that was good. It was time for Kelly to be in control.

 

 

In the sterile sanctuary, Atropos clicked off the recorder. Caitlyn’s maternal instincts were so predictable. So easily evoked. A tape recording of her dead child’s voice and she’d come running. Even though she knew the kid was dead.

But then, Caitlyn never had been all together, now had she?

And it had only worsened with time. As a child she’d had an imaginary friend in Griffin . . . someone to play with when her siblings, especially Kelly, who tormented her sister, were busy. Griffin had emerged after the episode when Caitlyn had been locked away with dead Nana. Atropos smiled. Even Nana hadn’t suspected that her tea was being doctored, that her frailty was manufactured.

After the trauma with Nana, Caitlyn had found solace in her little pretend friend. She’d gone on and on about Griffin to the point that Berneda had forbidden her to ever speak of him. Refused anyone’s suggestion that Caitlyn needed help; she was just a child with an imaginary friend. What was the harm in that? And Berneda hadn’t wanted to believe that any of her children could have been afflicted with the Montgomery curse, that they might be mentally unstable.

So Griffin, the invisible, had stayed with Caitlyn and was there when she’d discovered Charles’s body buried deep in the snow. An imaginary friend or the first evidence of schizophrenia? What did it matter? Caitlyn was a fruitcake. Had really lost it after the boating accident.

As she thought of Caitlyn, Atropos snipped at the pictures of Cricket and Sugar. She’d gotten the snapshot of Cricket from her driver’s license, a pretty ugly shot, but she didn’t need much. Atropos cut off Cricket’s head and attached it to a bug’s body . . . yes, that was a nice touch. And for Sugar, the cunt, she used the Polaroid she’d found in Sugar’s lover’s wallet . . . a naked shot of Sugar spread-eagled on a bed. The picture was sickening, but would be perfect for the gnarled family tree with its broken, falling branch reserved for the Biscaynes.

With relish, Atropos mangled the damning photograph by snipping off Sugar’s breasts and the juncture of her legs. She glued both pieces to the wrapper of a small packet of sugar Atropos had slipped into her purse when she’d visited the coffee bar a few days earlier. She slipped Sugar’s head into the packet, so that only her eyes were visible. Perfect. So now they were ready to mount with their life cords. Little Cricket complete with antennae, wings and insect legs. Atropos pinned her to her branch as if she were a butterfly to be displayed upon a velvet background and ran the life cord to the main trunk of the tree. Next, she stuck the empty packet of sugar with a set of boobs and cunt attached, to the same twisted branch and added Sugar’s life cord.

She admired her work, but only for a minute. She had so much more to do, and time was running out.

Adam didn’t go straight back to his car. After slipping out of Kacie Griffin’s house, he’d explored the grounds, found nothing significant other than a few fairly fresh oil stains in the carport, then taken a short path that cut through the trees to the river. The cabin sat up from the water, the deck having a view of the river and beyond, to the far shore where, as Caitlyn had told him, Oak Hill stood. There was no dock, but a small canoe had been pulled into the tall grass and weeds, oars and a flashlight tucked inside. The flashlight looked new, and when he switched it on it worked, its beam bright in the coming dusk. Insects buzzed and whirled around the light, and he clicked it off to gaze across the darkening, ever shifting river.

Something was wrong . . . evil. Something malicious lurked unseen in the gloom. Something that followed Caitlyn around as closely as her own shadow, something he didn’t understand.

Something? Somet
hing?
How about
every
thing?

He’d lingered several hours at the cabin by the river, hoping someone might show up—Kacie? Kelly? Or someone else. He’d walked the shore, stepped in the stream by mistake and eventually sat on a flat boulder and tossed stones into the water, watching the ever-widening ripples as he thought and wondered about Caitlyn. He cared for her. Big time. More than he should have. She was the first woman since Rebecca whom he’d allowed to get so close to him.

And she was the most complicated.

Caitlyn and Kelly. Twins. They spun and blended in his mind, so alike yet, according to Caitlyn, so different. And Kelly was dead. Or so everyone thought, everyone but Caitlyn. Even though Kelly’s body had never been found. The family had buried her and buried her deep. In the cemetery where Josh Bandeaux, her father and brothers were buried, Kelly Griffin Montgomery had been interred, with or without a body. She had a grave with a headstone; he’d seen it himself, and the permanence of that etched marble pounded into the earth had caused his skin to prickle with goose bumps.

Caitlyn believed it was all a lie. That Kelly was just in hiding because of a big rift in the family. A major rift; one that couldn’t be bridged.

The truth?

Or what she wanted to believe?

Was Kelly real?

Or a ghost?

Shit, now he was wearing out. No ghosts. Just overactive and wishful imagination. Caitlyn was troubled, made up imaginary friends, hadn’t been able to suffer the loss of her sister in the boating accident and so had conjured her up, brought her back to life.

Standing, he dusted his hands and glanced across the river to Oak Hill. It stood on a bluff overlooking the river, about half a mile downstream. From here he could stare at the old manor and wondered how often Kacie, whoever she was, did.

He looked at the pictures he’d taken from the cabin and had slipped into his pocket, a group of odd photographs of Caitlyn and Kelly, Amanda, Hannah, Troy, and, he presumed, Charles. There was even a snapshot of a baby, probably Parker, the one who had died of SIDS.

So many deaths. At Kelly’s hand? Caitlyn’s? Someone else’s? He had to talk to Caitlyn and then go to the police with what he knew. First he’d advise Caitlyn to get a lawyer, tell her he would help her as best he could.
You can’t tell the police anything; you’re her counselor, her mental doctor.

But he had to save her from whom?

More and more he felt he was trying to save her from herself.

If that was possible.

Disturbed at the turn of his thoughts, he jogged back to the car as twilight was descending. Out here, where he could see the sky, a million stars were winking, and the scent of the river was strong. Frogs began to croak, insects to sing. It could have been peaceful but for the underlying feeling of evil. Ever present and pervasive. Opening the hatchback of his little car, he searched for a rag to wipe off his shoe and spied the backpack Rebecca had kept hanging in her closet, the one he’d found in her office. He’d always thought the backpack had been out of place there, one of the few things she’d kept from their life together. It was worn and frayed and he’d used it to haul some things from her office. There had been nothing in it when he’d found it, and it was nearly empty now.

“So where the hell are you?” he wondered aloud as he located an old golf towel he’d stashed in a compartment with the spare tire. He swabbed his legs and shoes, wiping off any trace of river water. He was about to throw the used towel into his car and take off, but hesitated and, instead, picked up the backpack. Inside he found a few things from her office that he’d intended to return. He took them out. Files and computer disks, a couple of pictures and a notepad. Laying them on the back floor of the hatchback beneath the tiny bulb, he examined the bag more closely. It was a simple design, made of a canvaslike material and reinforced with leather on the bottom. One of the straps had frayed. The leather was scuffed and torn in places. All of the pockets and zippered closures were empty. The main zipper to the biggest compartment was jammed and wouldn’t close. All in all, the old bag was a piece of crap. So why hadn’t she gone out and gotten a new one? Why hang on to the thing? Nostalgia? For this? He doubted it. Get rid of the men in her life, but keep this old battered backpack when she had a leather briefcase he’d discovered in her home? Definitely not Rebecca’s style. He held the bag aloft, turning it beneath the dim light on the roof of the car. As it slowly spun, he noticed something that wasn’t right, a slit in the bottom where the leather had been reattached to the canvas.

Rebecca fixed the cut, but not the zipper?

He pulled; the thread was tight, the rudimentary hand stitches gone over several times. He didn’t have a knife, but he used his keys, pulling at the stitches and shredding them there in the gravel pit, feeling like a fool because this was probably nothing but a hasty repair job, then finally opening the bottom of the bag enough to peer inside. Tucked deep inside was a compact disk.

His throat tightened. He knew in a heartbeat that it was the information he was looking for, the information on Caitlyn Montgomery Bandeaux.

 

 

Reed caught a ride with Metzger back to the station. The guy was fifty pounds overweight. When he wasn’t smoking, he was chewing tobacco. He had a wife and five kids and a cholesterol count in the stratosphere. And he was one of the best cops Reed had ever worked with.

Reed left Diane Moses and her team at Caitlyn’s house and gave her instructions to detain Caitlyn Bandeaux and call immediately if she returned. Reed had asked specifically for hair samples from the dog as well as from Caitlyn’s brushes, for which he earned one of Diane’s famous don’t-tell-me-how-to-run-my-team looks. So he’d shut up. Diane wasn’t the most fun at a party, but she knew her business.

As he and Metzger pulled into the station parking lot, Morrisette and Montoya were just getting out of their unmarked Crown Vic.

“Any luck?” Reed asked, but could tell by Morrisette’s sour expression that she’d come up empty-handed.

“Nada. Not at Hunt’s place or his office, which we’re sealing. Couldn’t locate any of the Montgomery relatives either. Troy’s quote ‘out of the office’ and the secretary won’t say where, though she promises to try and call him on his cell. Translate that to ‘on the golf course’ or with some woman he’s not supposed to be. Amanda’s not in the office, out with a client somewhere, again, the secretary at the law firm will try to call. Sugar Biscayne seems to have joined her sister as I can’t raise her either; no one’s seen her since last night. Hannah’s not answering out at the house, and I’ve got a county deputy going out to knock on the door. As for Lucille Vasquez, she’s still in Florida, right?” Morrisette asked and Reed noted that the skin over Montoya’s face tightened.

“As far as I know, though supposedly she was coming back for Berneda’s funeral.”

“Which is when—day after tomorrow?”

Reed lifted a shoulder. “Soon. The family’s been demanding we release the body.”

“Have we done that?” she asked as they walked toward the station.

“Yep. Autopsy’s finished. Toxicology’s back. No reason not to let her go.”

“What about trace evidence? Anything found in the bed sheets or room or the scrapings under her nails?”

“Still checking.”

“It’s a bitch, you know?” Morrisette said as she flipped her sunglasses onto her head. “The whole effin’ family being out of touch. Ain’t that about as convenient as free hot dogs at a vegetarian convention? I’ve got All Points out on both Hunt and Bandeaux and their vehicles, but so far nothing.

“We’ll find ’em.”

For the first time since Reed had met him, Montoya grinned. “That’s the attitude.”

“Yeah,” Sylvie agreed. “Sure beats cryin’ in your beer. We get enough of that poor-me attitude from the jerk-offs we arrest. Is it the same in New Orleans—they couldn’t help themselves, got caught up in a life of crime because, you know, they had it rough as kids? Bad stepdads, lousy teachers, mothers who had to work. Give me a fuck—effin’ break. If you ask me, the whole world is filled with whiney-asses.” Her cell phone rang suddenly, and she pulled it from her belt. “Morrisette,” she growled into the phone, then immediately turned all of her attention to the conversation. “Yeah . . . you’re sure? . . . Okay . . . got it. I don’t like the sound of this. Call for backup and apprehend. We’re on our way.” She clicked off the phone, her face serious. “Let’s go,” she said, turning back to her vehicle. “Hunt’s car has been spotted. Looks like he’s on his way to the Montgomery family estate. I’ll drive. And don’t fuckin’ argue with me.”

 

 

Kelly felt the cold steel of the gun in her hand as she moved in the shadows of the shrubbery, the big old house looming behind her, only one window, that of her bedroom, glowing with the flickering blue light of the television set. The rest of the grounds were quiet. Eerily so. Seemingly deserted. Which, she figured, was a crock.

Someone was here. She sensed it in the prickle of apprehension running down her spine.

She’d learned to shoot years ago, at her father, Cameron’s, insistence. The old bastard. Talk about someone who got what he deserved. Well, they all did, didn’t they? Cameron dying on his way back from visiting his lover and losing control of his car as well as one of his balls? Crazy Aunt Alice letting herself be put in a mental institution, allowing the rest of the family to decide what would happen to her fortune? It was fitting somehow that she had died at that place where the life was sucked out of a person while she was being waited on hand and foot. Then there was Charles, killed by an arrow through his cold, useless heart. Charles the predator becoming the prey . . . yes, the deaths were making sense. Even Josh . . . When Kelly hadn’t had the nerve to go through with poisoning him with the wine, someone else had come in and lent a hand, polishing him off with some debilitating drug and then slitting his wrists in order to make it look like a suicide. She remembered going to his home that night—Caitlyn had been drinking in a bar and wouldn’t remember what happened. The timing had been perfect. Kelly had decided to end her twin’s anguish. Forever.

Pretending to be Caitlyn, she’d driven to the bastard’s house in her sister’s white Lexus. It was time to take Josh out. He’d been tormenting Caitlyn for years, destroying any sense of self-worth his ex-wife had ever had and Kelly was sick to death of it. So she’d shown up on his doorstep with the doctored bottle of wine and pretended to be Caitlyn.

Her ruse had worked. But it had taken some manipulating. And she’d had to grit her teeth not to tell the bastard to go straight to hell when he’d opened the door and scowling down at her had demanded, “What the hell do you want?”

Christ, what had Caitlyn ever seen in the jerk? She’d wanted to kill him right then, but she hadn’t, and played the meeker Caitlyn role to the hilt.

He’d stood on the porch, claiming he didn’t want her there, but rather than raise a scene, he’d finally deigned to allow her inside, making the mistake of leading her into the den where the damning wrongful death lawsuit papers had been lying on his desk. Never had a man more deserved to die. What a money-grubbing prick. Kelly had been glad she’d brought the wine with its fake label. She pretended to be weak and worried, even wringing her hands like Caitlyn sometimes did and Josh had lost some of his arrogance.

God, he’d been such a lying, two-faced bastard.

But she’d been lucky that night. At least she’d thought so at the time. Josh had already been drinking, enough that his judgement was obviously impaired. He’d softened up a bit, even offered her a glass of the wine he’d been drinking before he’d opened the second bottle—her deadly bottle. The cork had popped loudly, echoing in Kelly’s ears as she’d watched with fascination as Josh “The Bandit” Bandeaux had poured himself a glass. It might as well have been hemlock.

She’d drunk from her glass and stared at him as he swallowed the sulfite-laden chardonnay in one long swallow.

“Your coming here doesn’t change anything,” he’d assured her, slurring his words a bit. “I’m still going to file the suit and . . . and . . .” He’d shaken his head as if dazed, then poured himself another drink and refilled Kelly’s glass with the wine she’d brought.

She’d begun to have second thoughts as he swallowed more of the wine that could kill him.

Suddenly, she realized she’d made a horrendous mistake. She wasn’t a killer. No way. So she hadn’t been able to go through with it. Panic had seized her.

“Don’t drink any more,” she’d ordered. “Josh, look, I made a mistake. A really bad one.”

“You’ve made lots of ’em Cait.” He’d leaned heavily against his desk and she’d noticed beads of sweat on his upper lip and forehead.

“I mean it, the wine isn’t what you think,” she’d admitted, looking him straight in the eye. “You’ll need epinephrin.”