Inside Out wm-1

by John Ramsey Miller

  After Greg moved into the room, Dylan came up behind him.

  When she saw Dylan, Sean jumped up, jerked the sheet off the bed, and wrapped it around her. “All of you, get out of my room!” she yelled. “What are you doing?”

  “I'm sorry,” Winter said. “Dixon and Martinez were drugged.”

  “I don't understand.”

  “Ask him.” Winter indicated Dylan.

  “Ask me what?” Dylan said.

  “He thought it would be me,” Winter told Sean.

  “Thought what would be you?” Greg asked.

  “I was listed on the board to be in the security room, but I traded with Dixon. Devlin planned to take me when I was knocked out.”

  “You're a paranoid fool,” Dylan said, smiling. “I could take you if I was knocked out.”

  Martinez was awake when they returned to the den but looked like hell.

  “What happened?” Greg asked.

  “I don't know. I was just sitting here.”

  “You got coffee from the security room?”

  “Yeah. Then I came in here thinking I would read.”

  “You didn't lock the door?”

  “Of course I locked it.”

  “It was open,” Winter said.

  “You don't suppose the wind blew it open?” Dylan asked.

  “Sean's wasn't locked, either,” Winter said.

  “I locked my door,” Sean insisted.

  “Goodness,” Dylan mocked. “This is frightening. Someone could have harmed me.”

  Without a word, Winter went straight to the security room. “What's up?” Bear asked, staring at him blearily.

  “Devlin drugged you.”

  “How?”

  “Was he in here at all earlier?”

  “For a minute, around eleven, talking to Cross.”

  Crouching low and close to the coffee table, Winter spotted white residue on the surface. He pressed his finger to the powder and touched his tongue. Hurriedly, he left for Devlin's room.

  Greg followed him and watched grimly as Winter started pulling open the drawers and rifling through their contents.

  “Can I help you?” Dylan asked from the doorway. Winter reached into the table beside the bed, lifted out a bottle, and tossed it to Greg.

  “Here you go.”

  “Prescribed for pain,” Dylan needled. “You think they might be too strong for me?”

  “You put them in the coffee, you son of a bitch,” Winter told him.

  “That's crazy talk, Deputy. Why would I?”

  Greg had poured the capsules out into his palm. “Bottle says there should be twelve. They're all here.”

  “I didn't take any. You can become an addict taking narcotics.”

  “Maybe you figured if you knocked us out you could talk reason to your wife,” Winter said.

  “Unnecessary,” Dylan replied, smiling confidently. “She's my wife. While she might be a bit miffed, she still loves me as much as ever, probably more. Sean's a good Catholic, loves and obeys the Pope. Doesn't believe in divorce.”

  Winter took one of the pills from Greg. He pulled it apart and poured the contents into his palm and looked at the granules. “It's sugar.”

  “They're all sugar,” Greg said after he had emptied two more, tasting to make sure.

  “Someone stole my drugs? What if I had been in pain? You can't even trust United States marshals anymore! I demand an investigation.” Devlin crossed to the bed and climbed in, snickering at them. “Cut out the light and close the door after you, boys.”

  Greg suggested they account for all of the weapons in the house, even the kitchen knives. They found that every gun was where it was supposed to be-all loaded, all firing pins in place.

  “Dylan didn't drug the coffee to gain access to the guns,” Winter said. “The only other reason for him to do it would be to get to Sean. He was in her room.”

  “Unless Martinez was zonked, opened the door herself, and then didn't lock it,” Greg said.

  “And Sean unlocked her bedroom door and forgot? No, he picked the locks.”

  “Maybe he was planning to get to you,” Greg told Winter.

  “There's no love lost, but I can't see Dylan risking his deal with the government to punish me.”

  “Unless he could make it look like an accident.” Greg yawned. “One more thing I need to know, pal, and I want the absolute truth.”

  “Yeah?”

  “In all of your life, have you ever seen two more perfect breasts than Sean Devlin's?”

  27

  Thursday morning

  Just after Martinez had left her bedroom, Sean saw the first light flares, which would be followed by nausea and blinding, incapacitating pain. She had immediately taken two of her migraine pills, then lay in the darkness waiting for them to work. She had suffered from the headaches since she was a teenager, but as long as she managed her diet and stress, they were infrequent. Since her miracle pills effectively stopped the headaches as they formed, she was never without them.

  Sean propped herself up against a stack of pillows, wearing only her robe. She had never felt more angry with herself. If only her mother had still been alive when Dylan came along. Olivia Marks would have sniffed him out for what he was. She had always warned her about making friends too fast with strangers. The rule had always been that they didn't trust anybody but each other. There were things you just didn't share, and she had held to that, even with Dylan. Was it because she never fully trusted him? She wanted to believe it had been that she had sensed she couldn't trust him fully. She hadn't asked enough questions, pushed him for answers to the mystery that was his life before they'd met. He'd been guarded and so had she. She didn't think for a moment that was how normal married people behaved. If she was honest with herself now, she had suffered misgivings from the start.

  He had absolutely and completely betrayed her. It was as though the disarming and handsome man she married had been kidnapped while she was in Argentina and switched with his evil twin brother. She despised and feared this alien creature who had murdered twelve people. She wanted to get as far away from him as fast as she could.

  She had been in bed for three hours since the marshals left-ransacking her memory for clues she had missed about Dylan's secret life-but there were none to be found. Angela had done her best to comfort her, but Sean had wanted to be alone. Besides, what could she have told Angela that didn't make her look like an idiot, a complete fool?

  It was true the marshals hadn't told her anything from the time she was seized from the airport, except that things would be explained to her as soon as she saw her husband and that he was perfectly fine. Perfectly fine how? She had taken as gospel everything Dylan told her after she'd arrived because she had wanted and needed to believe him. And that bastard had known she would.

  They had never fought. In fact, she now realized, they had never talked about anything that mattered. He had listened to her opinions without disagreeing. He had always liked what she had, shared her dislikes.

  She thought back to the day Dylan had walked into her life-a chance meeting in a South Hampton coffee shop. She had turned from the counter straight into him and doused his expensive suit with her coffee. He had been such a gentleman and was so charming that she had sat and had her coffee with him. That small entree was all he'd needed. In the space of two months, Dylan had gone from being a total stranger to caring sensitive friend to tender lover, and finally to perfect husband. Way too perfect. Dylan Devlin had been everything she had ever wanted in a man, but she was sure now that he had become so by design. He was a consummate actor, a shell filled with lies.

  In hindsight, her feelings for him had somehow become diluted during their marriage. While she had been in Argentina looking at the properties Dylan had made a list of, she had felt guilty for not thinking of him more-for not wishing that he had come with her. In fact, she had felt relieved that he wasn't with her. She had relished her privacy. Had she started to question even then, that
perhaps there was someone else lurking behind her husband's bright green eyes? She knew she would not miss him, was glad to be rid of him. When Sean was done with a thing, she could walk away without looking back. It was part of her training-her nature.

  After all was said and done, the most troubling part of all this was why a sociopath had chosen her out of all of the millions of women out there who were far richer, more beautiful, and more vulnerable than she. Although it was possible, she didn't want to believe he had picked her at random the way a hawk selects a single mouse from the many he watches. She had been vulnerable because she was lonely-because her mother hadn't been there to offer advice.

  He's insane, she thought, and shuddered.

  She had never been afraid of him before. Now Dylan had drugged marshals and crept into her room while she slept. Had he intended to harm her tonight? Had something interrupted him before he could do anything to her? What did he stand to gain?

  Through the shutters she could see the sun rising. She would feel better after she showered and dressed. Getting out of bed, she slid a drawer open to select underwear and a top.

  She picked out a sky-blue T-shirt, then opened another drawer for a pair of jeans and was startled to see a towel laid carefully on top of her clothes. Odd.

  Puzzled, Sean lifted the towel away.

  The thing she saw there, a nightmare lying between the stack of folded pants, made her scream in horror.

  28

  Winter was in the security room watching the monitors when he heard Sean. Drawing his handgun, he ran out into her bedroom just behind Martinez. Sean, her face as white as porcelain, stood pointing at the open drawer. Except for the fact that its severed head had been placed inches from its body, the cat looked as if he had climbed into the drawer and curled up to nap.

  “Midnight,” Sean murmured.

  “Jesus wept,” Greg muttered over Winter's shoulder.

  “Hee-yere kitty, kitty, kitty,” Dylan sang out cheerfully from his bedroom.

  Sean sat on the edge of her bed and sobbed. Martinez sat beside her and put her arm around her.

  Winter lifted Midnight from the drawer, wrapped him in the towel, and carried the animal past Dylan's open door without looking in.

  “Whut has happened to mah pussy?” Dylan called out as Winter passed. His laughter filled the house like acrid smoke.

  “He killed Midnight,” Winter said gently, when Jet saw the bundle.

  Tears of grief and anger rolled down her cheeks. “That man's the devil. He drugged me, too. Came into my bedroom and took Midnight.”

  Winter wrapped the towel containing Midnight in old newspaper and secured the bundle using twine. Greg sat beside Jet and placed his hands on hers, speaking in a voice so low that it was impossible to hear what he was saying.

  “Winter,” Greg said, his voice choked with anger, “Jet will be leaving on the store boat as soon as it gets here for the Thursday delivery.”

  “I'm sorry, you'll have to get another cook. I can't stay here now.”

  She stood slowly, as if her bones were brittle, and put on her raincoat. Gently, she took the bundle from Winter and went out the back door.

  Greg went to the doorway and gestured for Dixon.

  “You feeling all right, Bear?” he asked. When Dixon nodded, he said, “Then go out back and help Jet bury her pet.”

  “Sick son of a bitch!” Winter's temper was blazing. “He did all that just so he could kill the cat and plant it so Sean would find it. That miserable, sick bastard.”

  “This is a Taser,” Winter explained to Sean. “It's nonlethal, but it will knock Dylan on his ass for several minutes, which will give you time to get away from him.”

  Sean weighed the plastic handgun-shaped object in her hand.

  “It's instinctive, like aiming a gun. Point it like you're pointing your finger and squeeze the trigger. Don't jerk it.” Winter instructed her. “Fires tiny darts that pull wire leads out, darts stick into the target, completing a circuit from a nine-volt battery in the handle.”

  “Isn't that much electricity dangerous?” she asked, hoping he'd say yes.

  “No amps, just voltage.”

  “It makes the muscles seize up. If you ever have to use it, yell for help while you're running away,” Martinez added.

  “So, do I just carry it around in my hand?”

  “When we're close, you won't need it,” Martinez told her. “Tell you what. Take my jacket. There's a pocket inside for my duty piece. That okay, you think, Winter?”

  “If it makes her feel safer,” Winter said.

  Sean was comforted by the control over Dylan the strange weapon could offer her.

  An hour later in the living room, when she looked up from her book and saw Dylan coming, it was too late to reach inside the jacket for the Taser. As he loomed over her, his expression was one of amusement. Martinez was coming back and Beck appeared at the door to the dining room, then started across the room. “I see your escort isn't any better than mine.”

  “Back off, Mr. Devlin,” Martinez ordered, crossing the room.

  “Stay where you are, Deputy,” Dylan said, his voice icy calm. “Still don't want to talk, Sean?”

  Sean knew that Dylan could hurt her, perhaps kill her, before Martinez could stop him.

  “What's the matter, darling? Cat got your tongue?”

  Sean was frightened until he said that, but after the words registered, she felt white-hot rage. Before she knew she was going to do anything, she had lashed out, striking Dylan's cheek with her open hand hard enough to rock his head.

  Beck and Martinez rushed to intervene, but Dylan's response was instantaneous. Sean saw stars and had a numb realization that she had been punched square in her mouth. Martinez tried to grab him, but Dylan pushed her away. Sean reached into her jacket and drew out the Taser, but before she could fire it, he grabbed her hand and twisted it. Sean wasn't sure whether she triggered the weapon or Dylan did, but when the apparatus popped loudly, Beck fell heavily to the floor, convulsing.

  When Dylan drew back his fist to hit her again, Winter seemed to materialize out of thin air. He caught Dylan's wrist, spun him around, and punched him hard on the nose.

  In a blur of motion the two men fell backward. Dylan now had Winter's wrist, and he used Winter's weight to pull him off-balance. When Winter landed on the floor, Dylan was straddling his chest, pressing the muzzle of Winter's pistol, which he had managed to grab in the struggle, against the supine deputy's forehead.

  Blood ran in dual streams from Dylan's nose, dripped from his chin onto Winter's shirt.

  “With your own gun, you meddling piece of shit,” Dylan told him calmly.

  Sean was afraid, but Winter merely looked defiant. His arms were stretched out, his hands resting on the rug, palms open.

  Suddenly Greg had his gun inches from the back of Dylan's skull. Martinez aimed at Dylan's temple and Cross at the rear quarter of Dylan's head.

  Greg barked, “Think, Devlin. You pull the trigger, you'll be all over this room.”

  Sean didn't care if the deputies shot Dylan. Of the two men with guns aimed at them, she cared only about Winter.

  “Maybe I won't kill this faggot, if he begs.”

  “Dylan,” Sean said in a steely voice, “you're making a complete fool of yourself.”

  “I'm not bluffing,” Greg said calmly.

  Dylan placed the gun flat on Winter's chest and stood. “Next time, son,” he said to Winter.

  “Cross, see that Mr. Devlin gets packed immediately. We're leaving here at six to meet the plane,” Greg announced. “Devlin, that was your last stunt. You are going to be in handcuffs until we get you to D.C.”

  “What about my wife?” Dylan asked.

  Sean's heart was pounding. She held her breath, waiting.

  “She's staying here,” Greg told him.

  A wave of relief surged through her, and when she smiled, the pain caused her eyes to tear up. Sean put her fingertips to her lower lip and
they came away smeared with blood.

  29

  Sean's lip was split open and bloody. Winter took a tissue from a box on the coffee table and handed it to her.

  “Should get some ice on that,” he said.

  “I thought he was going to kill you,” Sean said.

  “It crossed my mind,” Winter admitted.

  “Thank you for stopping him. He would have killed me,” she said.

  “Did you see Dylan move?” Greg said incredulously.

  “He's faster than he looks,” Winter said.

  “You okay?” Greg asked him.

  Winter straightened and Sean saw him wince. “I'm fine.”

  Martinez knelt to help Beck sit up. “I think I can get up,” Beck said, dismissing her assistance.

  Winter caught his eye and shook his head. Don't be an idiot!

  “Maybe I could use a hand,” Beck capitulated. “That Taser hurt like hell.”

  “Come to the kitchen,” Winter told Sean, taking her arm until she was seated at the table.

  She watched as Winter filled a sandwich bag with crushed ice. When he placed it against her numb lip, tears flooded her eyes-tears of anger, not pain.

  She held the bag against her lip. “He is utterly and totally insane.”

  “What's his military training?” Winter asked.

  Sean looked baffled. “He was in marketing and public relations. He never said anything about being in the military.”

  “He didn't learn those moves at an ad agency.”

  “I think he ran track in high school,” she said.

  “That would explain it.”

  “Was that sarcasm, Deputy Massey?” she asked, trying to smile.

  “Absolutely.”

  Greg entered the room, pocketing his Palm organizer.