The Sinner Page 27

  I walked across the kitchen to peer down the hallway. Shadows lurked. I had left the light on in the entry when Angus and I first got home, but now it was off and the door to the front bedroom hung open. Either someone had come in while I was outside or they had been here all along. Or more likely, it wasn’t a someone at all.

  The floor creaked from an invisible weight and I felt a shudder go through me. I took a few steps into the hallway and another floorboard creaked beneath my feet. I froze and the house fell into a waiting silence.

  I wished that I had brought Angus in with me, but I didn’t dare go out to the backyard to call him. I was afraid to take my eyes off the hallway. I stood there for the longest time, straining to hear a sound or pick up a scent that would provide me with an explanation for the creeping fear that prickled my scalp.

  I moved deeper into the hallway, telling myself all the while that nothing was wrong. I was just anxious from everything Dr. Shaw had revealed to me. From everything that had happened since I’d seen those hands clutching the mortsafe. I had nothing to fear. The house remained secure and Angus patrolled the yard. And anyway, when had running away ever solved my problems? When had denial and pretense ever chased away my bogeymen? Best to face those lurking shadows head-on. Best to do battle on my own terms.

  I reached in my pocket for the pepper spray, thumbing off the top of the canister as I inched forward. Despite my resolve, a voice in my head screamed for me to get out of the house. Get out now while you still can!

  But I couldn’t run away. I couldn’t seem to fight the compulsion that drew me steadily toward George and Mary Willoughby’s bedroom. When I got to the threshold, I balked just as Angus had done, sliding my hand along the wall to feel for the light switch. Then my hand fell away as my heart jerked in shock.

  Moonlight spilled in through the tall windows and I had no trouble discerning the tall figure that perched on the edge of the bed. A stray draft rippled his loose clothing and I could see the sheen of a metal talisman at his throat and another at his wrist as he sat motionless, head bowed, shoulders uncharacteristically slumped.

  I wanted to turn away from Darius Goodwine. I wanted to run from that house and the secret that was about to be exposed, but I could not. I stood frozen as he finally lifted his head to observe me.

  “How did you get in here?” I demanded. But, of course, he wasn’t really there at all. He was inside my head. Or was I inside his? It was all too confusing and I couldn’t seem to settle my nerves enough to make sense of his visit.

  I summoned shaky indignation. “You shouldn’t be here. How dare you come into my home uninvited? What do you want?”

  He pointed to a spot on the floor at the end of the bed.

  My gaze flicked to the large floral area rug and then back to him. “What is it? What do you want? Enough of these games. Just tell me!”

  I noticed the smell then. Not the ozone of his magic or the must of an old house, but a thin metallic trace of fresh blood.

  My gaze shot back to the unstained rug and then once more slowly returned to him. There was something different about his appearance. From our very first meeting, he had always come to me as a flesh-and-blood man. As real and as solid as if he actually stood before me. But his form seemed to waver in the moonlight. For a moment, I swore I could see right through him.

  “Why are you here?” I asked in dread.

  His gaze remained fixed on the floor. He again pointed to the rug at the end of the bed and I moved into the room with dawning horror. I knew what he wanted now. I knew what I had to do.

  Kneeling at the end of the bed, I rolled back the carpet. Dust tickled my nostrils and fear slid along my backbone. The wood beneath was old and streaked with what I thought at first might be Mary Willoughby’s blood. But the splotches were fresh. I ran a hand across the floor, staining my fingertips crimson.

  A small indention, worn smooth by time and use, had been chiseled into one of the boards. I crooked my fingers through the handle and pulled. A section of the floor lifted on hinges, revealing a gaping hole similar to the one we’d found in the shed.

  Easing to the edge, I peered down into the abyss, but I could see little beyond the opening. I fished the flashlight from my pocket and flicked on the switch, angling the beam down through all those shadows to a form huddled on the concrete floor.

  I drew back in shock. My hand trembled so badly I could barely grip the light. I took a moment to compose myself and then I moved back to the rim, stabbing the beam down through the darkness to run it along a bloodstained torso and the pale, mutilated face that stared up at me.

  No, no, no!

  My mind screamed in protest, not wanting to accept what had already been absorbed into a part of my brain. First he took their blood and then their hands, their eyes, their tongues.

  Almost of its own volition, the light traveled slowly down the body as I duly noted the loose clothing and the metal talisman that hung from a leather cord still wrapped around the arm above one of the stumps.

  My mind exploded with a thousand images as reality rained down horror upon me. Understanding came in the blink of an eye. Darius Goodwine had been lured back from Africa out of fear for his daughter’s safety, but he had badly underestimated the power and vengeful nature of his enemy. He had been ambushed by Atticus Pope, paralyzed by a powerful drug, tortured beyond any normal person’s endurance and then he’d been thrown down into that hole so that the agony from his injuries would rejuvenate Pope’s magic.

  Without hands, Darius hadn’t been able to claw his way out of his prison. Without a tongue, he couldn’t call out for help. So he had come to me using the only means available to him. Had it also summoned the kitten? I wondered. To alert me of his presence. To warn me about those holes.

  Sick and trembling, I stared at his ghost and he stared back at me. He had started to fade but his lips still moved. He made no sound but I could hear him inside my head.

  Save her.

  Perhaps it was understandable, though not admirable, that my first thought was not of protecting Rhapsody Goodwine, but of how to save myself.

  Thirty-Three

  I rose on watery legs and backed from the room, away from Darius Goodwine’s ghost. Away from that hole and the secret at the bottom.

  I fled down the hallway, through the kitchen and out to the back porch, but my call to Angus died away on a whisper as I spotted someone crouching at the edge of the orchard. Pressing my back into the wall, I tried to melt into the shadows. I almost expected the ghosts of Pope’s disciples to form a circle in the yard as they chanted for me to release them. But the silhouette was female, human and, I knew now, deadly.

  I had no idea where Angus was. He would have alerted me to Annalee’s presence if he’d been able. The thought of him lying wounded somewhere or even worse...

  No. I wouldn’t think about that right now. I couldn’t. The image would undo me. I had to stay focused. I had to get out of that house because I had no idea if Annalee was acting alone or if she had summoned more followers.

  Sinking beneath the half-wall on the porch, I crawled back into the kitchen and then raced down the hallway to the front door. I wouldn’t look inside the front bedroom. I wouldn’t search for Darius Goodwine’s ghost. I had to get out of there now. Go for help. Call the police...

  That thought gave me pause. Tom Malloy was the police and I’d had the distinct feeling that he and Annalee were in this together. Might Pope have recruited others on the force? Could I trust anyone in Ascension?

  Don’t think about that now. Don’t think at all. Just run!

  Plunging headlong down the porch steps, I dashed across the yard to my vehicle. As I started the engine, the headlights leaped to life, trapping Annalee Nash in the glare as she came through the back gate. For a moment she stood frozen, then she started forward just as I caught a
movement near the porch out of the corner of my eye. Fear pounded in my chest. Maybe I was seeing things and maybe I wasn’t, but I had a terrible feeling that I was being surrounded. Hemmed in by Pope’s newest recruits.

  Images of Darius Goodwine’s mutilated body flooded my mind and I heard myself muttering, “Go, go, go.”

  I put the car in Reverse and backed out of the drive, barely missing the ditch. Then jerking the gearshift into Drive, I slammed on the gas pedal, fishtailing down the road in a shower of gravel.

  * * *

  I hadn’t meant to end up at Lucien Kendrick’s house. I had no clear destination in mind until I drove past the blue mailbox. My only intent was to get as far away from the Willoughby place as possible and call for help. Then I would go back and look for Angus.

  No, I hadn’t meant to end up at Kendrick’s house at all. How did I know that I could trust him? He could be a follower, too, for all I knew.

  But I’d been inside his head. I’d glimpsed a piece of his past. Surely if evil resided there I would have sensed it.

  I had to place my faith in someone because I couldn’t battle Atticus Pope alone. I couldn’t elude his followers without help. I needed someone capable, someone armed and dangerous, to go with me back to the house to search for Angus.

  Leaving the safety of my locked car, I bolted across Kendrick’s yard and up the porch steps to bang on his front door. Please be there, please be there, please be there.

  No answer.

  Again and again I pounded until sanity prevailed and I accepted the reality that he wasn’t home. I got out my phone and called him. From inside the house, I heard a faint ringtone. His phone was inside but where was he?

  Those terrible images flashed in my head again. What if Pope had taken him? What if he lay in a heap at the bottom of another dark hole, mutilated and bleeding and perhaps already beyond help?

  I rushed down the steps only to pause at the bottom as a familiar feeling stole over me. The watcher was nearby. I could feel those invisible eyes peering at me through the darkness. The sensation grew stronger until I whirled, expecting to find someone standing on the porch above me. No one was there, of course. I saw nothing in the shadows, heard nothing from inside the house. But I could feel the traveler’s presence in the icy fingers that slid up my backbone. In the rush of adrenaline that pulsed through my bloodstream.

  “Who are you?” I whispered.

  No answer. Nothing stirred but my own heartbeat and the silent creep of fog from the water.

  I told myself the sensation was just nerves. Who could blame me for being frantic? But the feeling wasn’t nerves or imagination. The traveler was there. Not in the woods, not in the swamp. Right there beside me. For a moment I thought I might be able to reach out and touch a flesh-and-blood being.

  “Who are you?” I whispered again. “What do you want from me?”

  If I hadn’t paused at the bottom of the steps, if I had not glanced down at precisely the moment the moon skirted a cloud, I might never have glimpsed the spark of red embedded beneath a splinter in one of the stairs.

  Even as I bent to dig the ruby stud from the wood with my fingernail, the significance of my find hadn’t fully registered. How else to explain my sudden calm when only moments earlier I had been fleeing for my life? When desperation had guided my car past that blue mailbox and down the wooded lane to this lonely, isolated destination. To this very spot at the bottom of Lucien Kendrick’s porch steps.

  I was still bent over the stair, prying loose the ruby stud, when my gaze lit on a darker shadow beneath the porch. Someone huddled there just beyond the reach of moonlight. I peered through the gloom, dreading yet another gruesome discovery. But the silhouette moved. The person was still alive. I suppressed a scream as Rhapsody Goodwine crawled to the edge of the light and put a finger to her lips.

  I was so taken aback I could do nothing but mouth her name. She stared back at me through wide, frightened eyes. I wanted to ask her how she’d gotten there and why, but I didn’t dare utter a sound. Had Pope or one of his disciples lured her to Kendrick’s house? Had she come looking for Darius, drawn down that same desolate road as I by curiosity and a willful nature? I knew for certain we were both in danger. And I was the only one who could save us.

  As she melted back into the shadows, I heard a voice in my head as plainly as if the traveler stood at my side, whispering into my ear. It wasn’t Rhapsody’s voice, nor Kendrick’s, but a familiar drawl that feathered along my nerve endings like the softest caress.

  Danger...danger, Amelia.

  Devlin’s presence was so strong at that moment and so overpowering I almost said his name aloud. His second warning lifted the hair on my arms and turned the blood in my veins to ice.

  Careful. He’s right behind you.

  Thirty-Four

  Kendrick had come up from the swamp, moving quietly across the yard, perhaps hoping to catch me by surprise. For a moment as moon glow fell across his face, his features seemed to contort into something dark and bestial, the loup garou from his grandmother’s stories. Then he was Detective Kendrick again, handsome and confident and striding toward me with his head slightly cocked. But he wasn’t really Kendrick at all. Not anymore. His mask had fallen and I knew that I was looking into the soul of Atticus Pope. I had a vision of him standing over the young Kendrick’s bed, scratching at his chest—not to claw out his heart but to find a way in.

  He hesitated a fraction as if trying to read me, but I closed him out. My heart thudded and my stomach churned in terror, but somehow I managed to raise a barrier so that he could not enter my head, so that he couldn’t glimpse Rhapsody inside my memories.

  I said in surprise, “So you are home! I was just about to give up.”

  As he continued toward me, I had to fight the impulse to flee. But I was all too aware of Rhapsody crouching underneath the porch, trembling and frightened and counting on me to somehow protect her.

  “I was out on the water,” he said.

  “Really? I didn’t hear the outboard.”

  “I took the rowboat out. I like the exercise. I find it therapeutic.”

  I had a sudden vision of him paddling through the swamp, looking for the symbol that would guide him to the church ruins once he had what he needed from Rhapsody Goodwine.

  “Anyway, I realized I’d forgotten my phone and came back for it.” He closed the distance between us and stood staring down into my upturned face, probing and probing, but I still wouldn’t let him in. “What’s wrong? You look upset.”

  What to tell him? I couldn’t let him know that I’d found Darius Goodwine beneath the floor of the Willoughbys’ bedroom or Rhapsody Goodwine lurking under his porch. He would never let either of us leave here alive. My only hope was to build on our previous conversations. Play on the budding intimacy that I now knew had been nothing more than a devious manipulation.

  I folded my arms as I gazed up at him. “I guess I am a little upset, but that’s no excuse for coming over here this time of night. It was impulsive and I’m sorry for intruding on your privacy.” I hoped the remorse gave me sufficient cover for glancing away to compose myself.

  He took my arms and it was all I could do not to shrink away from him. His touch made my skin crawl. Those same fingers gently digging into my flesh had wielded the knife that cut out Darius Goodwine’s eyes and tongue and sawed off his hands. All for the sake of Pope’s dark magic. All to satisfy his depraved nature.

  “Why are you upset?” he asked.

  “It’s nothing. I don’t want to bother you.”

  “What if I want to be bothered?”

  I was in mortal danger from this man, but I couldn’t let him sense my fear. I couldn’t let him know about Rhapsody. Our only hope of escaping unscathed was to keep him out of my head.

  He was still searching, st
ill probing, still trying to find a way in as his fingers tightened around my arms, and all I could see in the back of my mind was Darius Goodwine’s mutilated body in that hole...

  “I was in Charleston earlier tonight having dinner with a friend. He told me some distressing news. Distressing to me, but nothing that concerns you. I really don’t know why I came here except...”

  “Stop apologizing. I’m glad you came.” He sat down on the steps and pulled me down beside him. “Just tell me what happened.”

  I hugged my arms around me as I huddled next to him. “You asked the other night if there was someone else and I told you there had been. Someone important.”

  “I remember.”

  “I found out tonight that he’s engaged. It’s been over a year since we were together, but the news still hit me hard. Harder than it should have.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. It’s for the best. Rationally, I know that. Now I have no reason to cling to the past. It’s just...”

  “I understand.”

  I drew a breath and nodded as I sorted through my options. My car keys were in my pocket, along with the pepper spray. My phone was still in my hand and my arms were folded in such a way that I might be able to place a 911 call without him noticing. But could I trust the local authorities to come to our rescue? What if he really had recruited Tom Malloy and Annalee Nash to do his bidding? To rebuild his dark alliance?

  I didn’t know if my defenses had momentarily slipped or if Kendrick’s senses were so keen that he had intuited my intention, but he removed the phone from my trembling fingers and placed it on the step beside him, out of my reach.