The Night Before (38 page)

“What?”

“Now, Josh.”

He’d nearly dropped his glass as he swept up the bottle and read the label. “But I drink this all the time . . .”

“That’s not what’s in the bottle. Look, there’s no time to explain. But the wine you drank has sulfites—”

“Shit! You poisoned me? You . . . you goddamned bitch! Caitlyn . . . or . . . Jesus Christ who the hell are you? Get out! Now!” He’d taken one wobbly step toward her before reeling quickly and, nearly stumbling, heading into the bathroom where, she knew, he kept his anti-allergy kit. Through the open doorway, in the reflection of the mirror over his sink, she’d seen him give himself a life-saving dose.

Her legs had felt weak. What had she been thinking, she’d wondered. Dear God, had she really been going to kill Caitlyn’s ex-husband? She wasn’t a murderess and she was feeling dizzy . . . woozy. Was she as nuts as her sister, she’d asked herself, her vision blurring a bit.

Now, as she slunk through the shadows at Oak Hill, she couldn’t remember much more of the night Josh had died. She’d felt odd, her mind clouded, her legs like rubber as she’d tried to leave. From the corner of her eyes, she’d seen Josh return to the den and half-fall into his desk chair, but before she could call out to him, before she realized what was happening, she’d stumbled and . . . hit her head as she’d swooned to the floor of the den . . . and then she had blacked out, remembering nothing more. Later she’d learned that Josh was dead.

Obviously killed by someone who was picking off the Montgomery family members.

Whoever was behind all this had enviable sense of irony, but was as deadly as sin. That person had tried once to kill the twins in the boating accident, then recently, had attempted to frame Caitlyn for her husband’s murder.

Silently, her heart a drum, Kelly crept around the hole of a huge oak tree, the branches rattling slightly. Smelling the heavy scent of the river and dry grass, seeing the Spanish moss swaying eerily in the wind, light filmy wraiths shivering as they clung to the gnarled branches, she gritted her teeth against a dark fear that burrowed through her. She sensed she wasn’t alone. That the killer was nearby. Armed with the pistol, her cell phone and a tiny flashlight she’d retrieved from the Lexus’s glove box, she felt every hair on the back of her arms prickle in dread.

Tough.

She couldn’t back down and crumble into wimpy Caitlyn now. No more. She wouldn’t allow her weak-minded twin to fall victim any longer. Never again. It ended here. Tonight. No matter what. A gust of wind passed by, ruffling her hair, seeming to laugh at her bravado.

Lucille had said it all. “There’s ghosts here on this plantation, don’t ya know? You hear ‘em too, now, don’t cha? They talk to me and they talk to you.”

In Kelly’s opinion that was crazy talk, but now, listening to the whisper of the breeze, watching the moss dance and shimmy, she wasn’t so sure. Her fingers tightened around the pistol. She wasn’t going to cower in the car like a cornered mouse when who-knew-what was waiting, ready to pounce on her—oh, excuse me, on Caitlyn—at the drop of the hat. Charles’s gun would take care of that.

The cell phone rang and she cursed herself for bringing it with her from the car. Whoever was out here waiting for her would hear it as well. She ducked behind the old pump house and quickly hit the talk button but didn’t answer. The airwaves crackled, and no one said a word. Any noise would bring her hunter fast upon her. She raised a finger to disconnect and turn the damn thing off when the first faint sounds of a toddler’s voice cried softly. Pathetic mewling whimpers . . . “Mommy? Where are you?”

Kelly gasped. Her heart twisted.

So this was the game. Using the memory of Jamie and Caitlyn’s guilt as bait.

Kelly flattened against the weathered boards of the pump house, the peeling paint scratching the back of her neck. “I’m here, honey, and I’m coming to get you,” she whispered.

“It’s dark and I’m scared.”

Kelly’s gaze swept the lawn, the outbuildings, the old garage, the fruit cellar . . . the stables and old slave quarters. “I bet you’re scared, honey. Just tell me where you are . . . Mommy will come,” she said, trying to make her voice quiver, hoping that she could fool whoever was on the other end of the line into believing that she was as ragged and frayed as damned Caitlyn. She put a hitch in her voice; faked a sob. “Jamie? Honey, can you tell me where you are?”

“I don’t know . . . it’s . . . dark . . . icky . . . there’s . . . there’s . . . dirt and glass and it smells bad . . .” She began to sob and for a second Kelly almost bought into the lame, frightened-toddler charade. Almost. But not quite. “Mommy, please come,” the frail little voice said, all quavery and lisping and desperate.
Oh, for the love of God!

“I am,” she whispered. “Mommy has to hang up now.”

“No! Please . . . I . . . I . . . love you, Mommy, and I’m so scared . . .”
Click
.

Kelly froze. Never would she have expected the person on the other end of the line to hang up.

Not unless she’d been seen. Unless whoever was on the other end of the line—an assassin pretending to be a little girl—had been near enough to hear her and pinpointed Kelly’s hiding spot.

Damn.

Panicked, it was all she could do to hold on, not to bolt and expose herself further. Noiselessly, she slid past the barn, crawling behind a watering trough. Where would a person hide . . . here, on these grounds . . . what had the clues been? What had the caller whispered in a baby voice?

Well, hell, the whole place is dark.

Underground.

But there were several basements that . . .

And then she knew. Of course she knew.

She’d played there as a child.

 

 

Adam drove like a madman. His cell phone battery was shot, and he couldn’t call, had barely been able to hear the message that Caitlyn was on her way to Oak Hill.

His fingers curled over the steering wheel in a death grip, and he tried to shove aside the worry that had been with him since he’d put the CD he’d found in the backpack into his laptop computer. While parked in the gravel pit, he’d read Rebecca’s notes and felt a growing sense of alarm with each new discovery. How had he not seen what had been, in retrospect, so patently obvious? How, he wondered as he hit the bridge at seventy and saw the turnoff for Oak Hill, had he been so blind?

Rebecca had decided that Caitlyn not only suffered from Dissociative Identity Disorder, DID, often called a split or multiple personality, but that the disorder had gone undiagnosed all of her life. It had worsened with time, and when she’d almost died after the boating accident, she’d taken on her twin’s persona. She’d lose track of time, and in those gaps she became Kelly, whose body was never located. Caitlyn had kept her sister alive, giving her a fake job and renting a cabin for her on the river. Whenever Caitlyn became stressed, when her heartbeat accelerated beyond the norm, when her adrenalin was pumping wildly through her veins, she became Kelly.

As she had when they’d made love.

That was the trigger.

This was new ground for DID.

Adam didn’t know of another case where the host personality took on a second personality from another real person. Usually the splits were fragmented people, all parts of the whole. Nor did the host person speak with his counterparts. That condition was much more like schizophrenia where the patient actually would see people and converse with them, even though the people he “saw” didn’t. Caitlyn’s condition was unique and had caused Rebecca, ever ambitious, to believe she would shake up the academic world and get a “million-dollar deal” to write a book.

Christ, he’d been a fool.

Blind.

Guilt placed a stranglehold on his heart, but he set his jaw. There was no time for recriminations. Not when Caitlyn’s life was at stake.

Cranking on the wheel, his tires screaming in protest, he glanced in the rearview mirror and saw the lights of a police vehicle strobing the night. Good. He’d need help. If Caitlyn was Kelly and she was somehow responsible for the murders of her husband, mother and other members of her family, she could be dangerous.

Not only to him.

But to herself as well.

Self-destructive.

Christ, no. He couldn’t lose her now. Wouldn’t. Not if he had a chance.

He hit the gas, watched the trees lining the drive flash by in a blur.

Siren wailing, bright lights flashing, the cop car screamed after him.

Adam only hoped they weren’t too late.

 

 

The cellar beneath the slave quarters was Stygian dark and silent as death. It reeked of musty earth, and something else . . . something metallic. Kelly swallowed hard as she inched down the stairs. Her muscles were tense, the gun clenched in her sweaty fingers. Dear God, what would she find down here?

Each step creaked against her weight, announcing her arrival. Her nerves were frayed as she reached the earthen floor and then the darkness was broken by one flickering sliver of light that shone like a damned beacon beneath a back wall covered by a rack of dusty, forgotten wine bottles. From a dark corner behind her, she heard a rat scurry and she jumped, nearly dropping the gun.

Get a grip
she told herself, but expected someone to pounce on her at any second. She didn’t take her eyes off the crack of light and suddenly all the old rumors congealed in her head. The slave quarters, unused for generations, had been renovated once years ago, the basement converted to a wine cellar. There had been hushed gossip within the family that Cameron had even had a secret room installed, one where he could meet with his lover when Berneda had gotten suspicious of the carriage house. Was it possible? Was someone in there now?

Fear gripping her, Kelly took a chance. She flipped on the flashlight and expected a shot to ring out and burrow into her heart.

Nothing happened.

Quickly, she ran the beam of her flashlight over the empty cracks, piles of forgotten burlap sacks, broken bottles and debris . . . all the old, decaying . . .

Her heart glitched. There in the middle of the floor, among the shards of glass, leaves that had blown in over the years and dust, was the bunny—the droopy eared stuffed animal Jamie had adored—the one that should have been resting on Jamie’s bed in Caitlyn’s house.

Kelly’s heart wrenched for her niece, the innocent baby. How could anyone take her most precious toy and leave it here to taunt and agonize Caitlyn?

Gritting her teeth, Kelly shone the beam of her flashlight onto the wall above the crack of light on the floor. She nearly missed it as the beam tracked over the old bottles and then she saw it, a glint of metal, the hidden lever in the wall. So this was it.

She eased forward, around the bunny and pulled together all of her courage. Gun in hand, she flipped the switch and stepped back.

The wall swung open silently.

Quickly.

Instantly, Kelly was blinded by the flood of white light.

Everywhere.

She blinked and caught glimpses of flourescent lamps, white walls, white furniture, gleaming stainless steel. The images came at her in a bright rush.

Her eyes couldn’t focus quickly enough. She saw movement from the corner of her eye and there, from a hiding spot deep in the shadows of the old wine cellar, caught a glimpse of a figure erupting from beneath the old burlap bags. Sacks flew, dust clouded and the figure raised some kind of club high overhead.

Kelly spun. Aimed. Fired as the murderer—oh, God, a woman—ducked, then swung wildly. The club slammed into her head.

Pain exploded behind her eyes in a terrifying flash.

Her legs wobbled.

The gun went flying.

The cell phone hit the dirt floor with a thud.

Kelly’s knees buckled. She tried to hold on to her consciousness, but as she crumpled to the cold, damp earth she saw the glint of something in the darkness. A needle. Thin. Wicked. Deadly. She tried to get away but couldn’t. As if from a distance, she witnessed the hypodermic plunge into her arm.

She thought she heard a siren wail far away and as her head hit the floor, she looked into the clinical room and caught a glimpse of a grotesque piece of art on the barren white walls—a tree with long strings of black and red pasted to it. Distorted bodies were pinned to each string . . . ugly pictures. Horrifying shots.

“I am Atropos, Caitlyn,” a familiar voice intoned as the darkness seeped from the edges of her eyes, threatening to claim her.

“And now it is your turn. It’s time to join the others.” A face she recognized came close to hers and with terrorizing certain, she knew she was about to die. “That’s right . . . it is time,” Atropos said with a deadly smile. “You have finally met your fate.”

“We have to go in,” Adam ordered. He was antsy, ready to climb out of his skull and this dull-headed cop was holding a gun on him. “Now! Don’t you get it! There’s a killer on the loose and—”

“Just turn around, sir, and lean against the car and no one will git hurta.” A pair of handcuffs dangled from the cop’s free hand.

“Listen. You have to understand.” Adam was frantic. Afraid for Caitlyn’s life. “There’s a woman in danger here. Serious danger. From herself or someone else. Caitlyn Bandeaux. She’s the widow of Josh Bandeaux, who was killed.”

“I know who he is. Now, turn around.”

“You have to believe me! We don’t have any time to waste!”

“Do it!” the cop ordered, and when Adam considered lunging for the gun, he warned, “Don’t even think about it.”

“But we have to help her. We have to. It might save her life!”

The cop hesitated just a fraction. His scowl deepened. He’d heard it all a thousand times probably.

“Look, we’ve got to find her. Soon. Before it’s too late. Let me go inside and—”

“No way.”

“But—”

“Get over it! Turn around!”

Adam wasn’t about to give up. “Call Detective Reed at the Savannah Police Department. Homicide. Tell him that Caitlyn Bandeaux’s a split personality, that she’s Kelly Montgomery.”

“You’re talking nonsense,” the cop growled, his nostrils flaring. “No more lip.”

“No! I’m her psychologist and she’s here—look, her car is there. Run her plates. It’s Caitlyn Bandeaux.”

The cop glanced at the white Lexus and Adam saw him hesitate again. “Listen! There’s not much time! Call Reed. Do it now!”

“First you put your hands on the hood.”

“Then you’ll call him.”

“Then I’ll think about it.”

“Shit.” Adam wanted to punch the guy in his bad-ass cop face, but knew it would only make the situation worse. Reluctantly he turned, did as he was asked and let the cop wrench his hands behind his back and cuff him. “I’m serious. Put in the call.”

“After you’re in the cage.”

“There’s no time—”

“Get the fuck inside!” The bruiser of a cop yanked the door open, put his hand over Adam’s head and nearly shoved him into the back of the cruiser. Adam fell against a backseat that smelled suspiciously of urine and Lysol, then struggled to a sitting position to glare through the window. The cop slammed the door shut, then placed a call on his cell and started talking while Adam mentally climbed the walls of the meshed-in backseat. Seconds were ticking by. Precious minutes that might mean life or death for Caitlyn. Oh, God, what could he do? He should never have allowed himself to be locked in the car.

“Hey!” He started kicking the windows. “We’ve got to get inside. Now! She’s here!”

“Shut up!” the cop growled, but he’d pulled his side arm. Acted as if he was going inside. Alone. Oh, Christ, the dumb shit didn’t know what he was going to face.

Frantic, Adam kept kicking. He had to get out. He had to help.

In his mind’s eye he saw Caitlyn’s face—Kelly’s face. And he imagined it streaked with blood, her lips pale, her eyes staring glazed and dead upward. No! No! NO! He beat against the glass wildly and heard sirens cutting through the night. Twisting, he stared out the back window and spotted two cop cars racing down the long drive, their headlights splashing on the trees and old siding of the aging manor, their overhead lights flashing blue and yellow.

The Cavalry. Or the enemy? Adam didn’t know which.

Tires crunched to a stop and dust rose in front of the headlights.

Three detectives clambered out of their cruiser, their faces obscured in the night.

He couldn’t stand it. Adam began kicking at the windows all over again, making as much noise as he could with his heels.

Suddenly, the door was thrown open and the cop who had cuffed him stuck his head inside. “Do that again and I’ll have you in shackles so fast your head will swim.”

“Let me talk to Reed.”

“I said—”

“Let’s hear what he has to say.” Another male voice. “I’m Reed. Step out of the vehicle. And don’t do anything stupid.”

Adam half rolled out of the back seat and straightened as his feet hit the gravel. He found himself standing eye to eye with a no-nonsense cop.

“Okay, Hunt. What’s your story?”

A woman in uniform stood next to Reed, one hip thrust out as she lit a cigarette and glared at him over the flame of a match. She passed the lit cigarette to a tall man with a dark goatee, black pants and leather jacket, then lit another.

“Caitlyn Bandeaux is Kelly Montgomery or at least she thinks she is, ” he said, frantic. “She’s suffering from DID and possibly schizophrenia.”

“DID? What the hell’s that?” the woman asked.

“Dissociative Identity Disorder.” The younger cop with the goatee narrowed his eyes and drew hard on his cigarette.

“Bullshit,” Reed said.

The young cop asked, “What the hell does DID have to do with anything?” He blew out a cloud of smoke.

“It could mean she’s in danger. Or that she’s dangerous. Either way, she’s here. And I think the killer’s here. We have to find her. Now!”

“This is all blue smoke and mirrors,” Reed said.

“I don’t think so,” Adam insisted. “My ex-wife . . . is the one who diagnosed her.”

“Your wife?” Reed’s eyes narrowed and Adam’s panic rose. They were losing time. Precious seconds were ticking away.

“Rebecca Wade. I came down here to find her. It’s a long story. We don’t have time for it now, but she’d run off before, I wasn’t sure she was missing as we’ve been divorced for years but—” He caught the glances sent between the cops. “What? Oh, God.”

“I’m afraid I have some bad news for you,” Reed said, and the night seemed to thrum with malice.

Adam braced himself. Knew what was coming. Still, he couldn’t prepare himself for the finality of Reed’s words. “Your ex-wife’s body has been found. Positively identified as Rebecca Wade.”

“Where? How . . .” He couldn’t breathe for a moment. Couldn’t think.
Rebecca? Dead? Lively, live by the minute Rebecca? No . . . Oh, God . . .
He thought he might be sick.

“We pulled her out of the water off St. Simons Island. Been there a few weeks.e” Reed was solemn.

“She . . .” He shook his head to clear it. “Was she . . .?”

“Murdered?” Reed asked and nodded. “I’m sorry,” he said and Adam felt a hand upon his shoulder.

The thought of Rebecca being killed made his skin crawl. They’d had their differences, and many a fight, but Rebecca had been passionate and vital. Adam squeezed his eyes shut, silently grieved, but knew that if he didn’t move fast, the same fate could await Caitlyn.

“We . . . we have to find her,” he said. “Caitlyn . . . we have to find her before it’s too late.”

“Agreed.” Reed scanned the eyes of the small group of cops. “Let’s get to it. Before we have another homicide on our hands. You get back in the car.”

“But—”

“Don’t argue. We’re wasting time.” He glanced at the bully of a cop who had cuffed Adam. “Stay with him and call for backup.”

Then, before the damned psychologist could argue, he led Sylvie and Montoya inside the dark house. It felt empty and smelled like death. But there was music playing, some eerie song. Reed got a bad feeling that only worsened as he stepped from one dark room to the other. They followed the sound, up the stairs and through and open door to a bedroom where two naked women had met their doom.

“Son of a bitch. Son of a fuckin’ bitch,” Morrisette blurted as she gazed at the bed, illuminated by the flickering light of a television. Covered in white powder that looked like sugar and another substance that Reed guessed was honey, the bodies were crawling with vermin.

“Bastard.” Montoya’s mouth tightened to a hard, unforgiving line, as if he’d seen it all already.

Sylvie Morrisette gagged, then swore a blue streak that would put her into hock for the rest of her life if she paid into the damned kitty bank as she recognized Sugar and Cricket Biscayne. “What kind of sick fuck would do this?” she asked. “Sugar—because of her name and crickets and . . . oh, God, let’s off the bastard.”

“First we have to find him or her,” Reed said, looking at the revolting display. “Call the crime scene team.” He glanced through the windows to the night. “Let’s go. We’re not done here. There might be more bodies.”

“Jesus,” Morrisette muttered.

Montoya added, “Or the killer.”

“Right. Now, let’s go. Somewhere around here maybe we’ll scare up Caitlyn Bandeaux.”

“If we’re not too late,” Morrisette whispered, making the sign of the cross over her chest for the first time that Reed could remember.

“She could have done this,” Reed reminded them soberly. Who the hell knew? Adam Hunt thought that Caitlyn was a split personality. That explained a lot of things, but Reed wasn’t convinced. It sounded like psycho-babble-mumbo-jumbo. For all he knew, she could be the killer.

Or the split could be.

Or the split could make a convenient alibi.

Until he found Caitlyn Montgomery Bandeaux, he’d keep his options open.

 

 

She was floating, neither alive nor dead, one minute Caitlyn, the next Kelly as she lay upon the desk in the white, bright room. Flourescent lights blazed and the tile floor was covered with a clear plastic tarp.

Caitlyn’s eyes were open, but she could barely move, only drooled, her head turned, her cheek lying on the cold desktop . . . the way Josh had been when he’d died. The room spun, but she saw her attacker—Atropos—in her blurred vision, working deftly, measuring cords only to cut them with a pair of long-handled stainless steel scissors that winked under the harsh lights. Atropos, my ass, Caitlyn thought. The murderer who seemed to be talking to herself was Amanda, Caitlyn’s sister and she was dressed in hospital scrubs, latex gloves and even slippers and a cap under which her hair had been tucked.

Caitlyn couldn’t believe it. Didn’t want to. Amanda whom she had turned to for comfort and wisdom.

Was Amanda the one who had killed everyone so cruelly?

Amanda?
But that was impossible. Amanda herself had been attacked.
Yet not killed
. The tree she hit in her sports car was the only one for a long stretch. She could have staged the accident to make it appear as if she was a victim. But that was crazy. Wasn’t it? Caitlyn’s head thundered but she couldn’t lift it, couldn’t move. Could only wonder.

Amanda looked at her and for the first time Caitlyn realized that her older sister had been talking as she’d braided the red and black cords. “. . . so you see, Caitlyn . . . or is it Kelly? Sometimes it’s hard to tell. You were definitely Kelly when you came here.”

Amanda’s eyes narrowed pensively as she stared at Caitlyn. “You must be Caitlyn because you don’t seem to understand. You don’t even remember that Kelly is really dead and that you took on her personality after she disappeared.”

Caitlyn’s head was spinning; she couldn’t think straight. Amanda was making no sense, and yet, a very small, chilling part of her acknowledged some truth in her older sister’s words.

“That’s right,
Caitie-Did
, you’re a fruitcake. At least two people, God knows how many more, but part of the time you thought you were Kelly, you were damned convinced of it. Even lived out in that old cabin . . . Jesus, the one across the river and you had blackouts. You ended up with the Montgomery curse. Didn’t you know?”

You’re wrong
, she wanted to say,
you’re the one who’s cursed. You’re the one who’s mad. You’re the one with the split personality—sometimes Amanda, sometimes Atropos.

“Well, anyway, all those who were fated to die, all the pretenders to the Montgomery fortune were not merely killed, but their deaths were planned . . . plotted carefully . . . and fitting. By me. Atropos.”

As if Atropos were somehow separate from her. Two entities. One body.

“It started with Parker. I killed him. He was my first and it was . . .” Amanda’s quick-moving fingers hesitated a moment as she thought. “Well, it was almost by accident.”

Oh God, Amanda was confessing to killing Baby Parker. Caitlyn thought she would be sick. It was all so horrible. So bizarre.

“. . . Smothering him while no one was looking was easy,” Amanda said, her eyes narrowing at the memory. “And really, I did everyone a favor. He was always crying and colicky and . . . just such a pain in the butt. Such a noisy, rotten baby. I couldn’t believe Mother was still having children even after . . . Well, you know Cameron, dear old Dad, was screwing around on her. But he still had time to keep knocking up his wife as well, creating more little Montgomerys to fight over his money.”

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.”