Lover in the Shadows

by Lindsay Longford

  In her heightened mental state, Molly was aware of the cat before he leapt up onto her shoulder, perching there as he had on Harlan’s much-wider shoulders. “Ow, buster.” She reached up and lifted him down onto the counter. He hissed as she lowered him. “Hey, don’t get mad at me. Your claws need clipping.” A thin red line showed in the low square of the neckline. “Well, look what you’ve done.” She turned on the faucet and soaked another paper towel. When she lifted the towel to her neck, water drops arced and sprayed onto the cat.

  Leaping straight into the air, all four legs stiff, he came down next to her cup and the pan with the extra milk, and the tip of his tail dunked into the pan like a doughnut. His expression was so offended that Molly laughed. “Sorry. I know you’re not clumsy. No, you’re not. You’re the most magnificent beast around.” Thinking of another magnificent male, she rolled her eyes and scratched the cat’s chin as he flicked his tail back and forth.

  Suddenly he went still and his tail fluffed out. His back arched and stiff, his hair standing on end, he backed up straight into her cup. The cup teetered and clattered into the sink, spilling her drink down the drain. The cat leapt to the floor and stalked to the pantry door, where he folded his paws underneath him and stared arrogantly at her.

  “I take it all back, beast. That was clumsy. Or deliberate.” She scowled at him and rinsed her cup out before shoving it into the dishwasher with the pan. “Thanks a bunch, buster. See if I let you curl up on my bed tonight.”

  Walking up the back stairs from the kitchen, Molly felt the cat brush against her bare ankles. “Oh, all right. Hey, you already know I’m a pushover.” She reached down and lifted him to her shoulder. With his sandpaper tongue, he licked her chin. “What? I have milk on my chin?”

  Her bed seemed empty without Harlan next to her. Even the cat curled close at her side left her lonely.

  She wanted Harlan.

  Tapping her hand, the cat waited. When she frowned, he pushed his head against her fingers, placed his nose next to her wrist and finally wrapped his tail around his body. But he faced the stairs, and that realization sent a small, unwelcome shiver over her.

  She thought about calling Harlan, but she didn’t.

  A week ago she wouldn’t have been able to sleep. But with the large cat a solid, breathing presence at her side, and with the phone next to her, she drifted in and out of sleep at last, some knowledge at the edge of her conscious thought teasing and taunting her.

  Something to do with drugs and amnesia.

  Her scent was all around him, and he was helpless to warn her. He tried, God knew he tried.

  She turned in her sleep away from the door and back again, restless. She wasn’t dreaming, she knew she wasn’t; but Harlan was there, touching her, whispering to her, telling her to wake up.

  Molly opened her eyes and stared around the quiet room. She must have been dreaming after all.

  The house was still.

  No boards creaked, no breeze lifted a branch and scraped it against the house.

  Downstairs, from the kitchen, the refrigerator motor kicked in and the vibration carried upstairs to her, a familiar sound, nothing to wake her.

  The cat was watching her, his eyes enormous, the gold only a rim around the black. He looked toward the staircase and back to her, waiting expectantly.

  She was too tired to go downstairs and look for food for him. She yawned and her eyelids drooped.

  Ketamine.

  It was used as an anaesthetic. It could cause disassociative disorders if administered incorrectly. Nightmares. Flashes of hallucination. A patient under the influence of Ketamine could have wide-open eyes, could sleepwalk and never remember. Without another drug to counteract its effects, Ketamine, in high doses, would cause the reactions she’d had.

  Paul used Ketamine in oral surgery. She’d ordered it for him.

  Her heart pounding and her stomach queasy, Molly ticked off the symptoms she’d had. Ketamine would account for all of them. But Ketamine was administered intramuscularly or intravenously. It wasn’t a drug that could be slipped into her food.

  Leaning back against her pillow, Molly thought about her reactions each time she’d found herself on the floor of her kitchen. With each passing second, the queasiness in her stomach increased. She was sure she’d been given Ketamine. And Paul was the only person who could have given it to her.

  Her stomach turned over and she almost threw up. Clutching the phone, she raced to the bathroom. The cat padded behind her, staying clear of her feet but keeping near. She was glad of his company. “Hey, puss, Paul wouldn’t try to kill me, would he? He wouldn’t kill Camina, right?”

  Standing at the sink and looking at the vase of wilting, bloodred flowers, Molly thought about Paul and his inability to be faithful. What if he’d had an affair with Camina?

  And Camina had threatened to tell Molly?

  With that thought, she lost control of her stomach.

  Afterward, she brushed her teeth; her stomach still roiling, she lay down, pulling the sheet up around her.

  The cat prowled in a triangle from the bathroom to the bedroom door to her bed, on guard duty as she lay there, thinking and not liking any of her thoughts.

  Wouldn’t she have changed her will if Camina had come to her before the divorce with a story of Paul’s unfaithfulness? But after the death of her parents, she hadn’t even thought about her will.

  Could Paul have killed her parents—Paul, who didn’t like guns? But he had always gone along with Reid and their father on hunting trips. Paul, who hated confrontations and who always seemed to have expensive toys. Molly pulled the sheet tighter.

  She’d lived with Paul. Made love with him.

  No, she hadn’t made love. Harlan had shown her what was possible between a man and a woman. She and Paul had only played at making love.

  Air swirled against her cheek.

  The cat stopped and faced the door. His mouth drew back over his teeth and a low, savage growl came from his throat.

  The hairs on Molly’s arms and neck rose straight up.

  Primitive, gut level, this fear.

  Someone was in her house.

  Someone had come past her locks and bolts and was moving quietly, carefully through her kitchen.

  John Harlan had left her house earlier today, leaving it locked and bolted behind him.

  Her hand shaking, she reached for the cordless phone, and her fingers spread out against the pillow. She’d left the phone in the bathroom.

  Reaching for the phone beside her bed, she knew even before she heard the silence in the earphone that it was dead, but she wasted seconds listening before she laid the receiver down and slid out of bed.

  And the whole time, the cat’s low growl filled her ears.

  Making no sound, her feet slipping easily over the wood, she made her way backward to the bathroom, never taking her eyes off the open doorway of her room. She realized she should have shut and locked her bedroom door. Too late.

  She was coming out of the bathroom, phone in hand, when he entered her bedroom. The cat howled, long and low, a nightmare sound of fury as the man stepped into her room.

  He stood in the doorframe and frowned at her. “You’re supposed to be asleep, Sissy. You drank your milk—I know you did. Now you’ve messed everything up for me.” His hand was in the pocket of his jeans.

  “Reid?” Molly recognized the bloodred shirt. It was one she’d given him for his birthday two years ago, two years ago when everything had been exactly what it seemed. “Reid?” She couldn’t believe her brother was standing in front of her, alive.

  “What, Sissy?” He was annoyed, and his light blue eyes glittered with anger.

  She sagged against her chest of drawers. Shaking her head in confusion, she realized that, no, the shaggy-haired man in front of her couldn’t have been the loving twin she’d believed in. There was no love in his face, nothing but emptiness. Emptiness and determination. “I thought you were dead.”

 
; “Of course you did. I meant for everyone to. You, that damned, snotty detective. Everyone had to think I’d been killed.”

  “Why?” The face and form were the same, but the being glaring at her from her brother’s eyes was not the brother she’d known and loved.

  “Shut up, Sissy. I need time to think. Be still while I figure out what to do now. You were supposed to be asleep,” he accused. “Why aren’t you? I know there was enough sedative left in the Ovaltine for one more time. I only needed tonight to make everything work out, and you’ve ruined it. I should have known you would.” He glared at her. His mouth was working furiously as he chewed his bottom lip. “It would have been easier if you’d been asleep. Easier for you. It’s your fault. That’s all there is to it.”

  Giving her no time to punch Harlan’s preprogrammed number into the phone, Reid strode toward her. The cat leapt for his face, clawing and hissing and shrieking. Reid screamed and dodged to one side, but the cat dug into his shoulder, spitting and striking out with extended claws and teeth.

  Molly flung the phone at him and it bounced off his chest as he whirled and knocked the cat off of him. Landing with a thud, the cat was a still, unmoving shape on the floor.

  Grabbing her arm, Reid dragged her out of her bedroom and down the stairs. Pulling back against his maniacal strength, she clutched the banister until he knocked her fingers loose with the back of the Luger.

  She’d thought Harlan had taken it.

  But Reid had. He was the one who’d left her shutters open, not Harlan.

  “Reid, stop. What are you doing?” Molly felt no fear, only a cleansing anger that suddenly roared through her, burning away everything except her resolve to live.

  Stronger than she, Reid twisted her arm behind her and frog-marched her to the kitchen door. She thought she might have a chance to make a run when he had to turn her loose to throw open the bolts and chains, but keeping her hard against him, he lifted one foot and battered the door until it hung crazily on its hinges. With each kick, he tightened his hold on her until she was afraid he would break her arm.

  “This doesn’t make sense,” Molly panted as he shoved her through the ruined door and onto the veranda. “I can help you. Tell me what’s wrong. We can fix it,” she babbled, everything in her world turned upside down in the face of his violence.

  The grass was wet on her bare feet and clouds were moving across the face of the waning moon. She stumbled and tried to slow his mad race across the lawn. “We can fix it, Reid,” she said again as he twisted her arm.

  “No, you can’t. We certainly can’t. Sissy,” he said, and for a moment she heard an old echo of her twin, “it’s so bad. I’m in such trouble. And it keeps getting worse. I try to fix it and nothing works.”

  She touched his arm. “But I can help you. Let me.”

  He was dragging her, inch by inch, to the pier where Camina had been killed.

  He moved toward her, his body aching. He’d known it was impossible but he’d gone to her anyway. He’d done everything within his powers to protect her, and he wasn’t going to be in time now to save her. The grass hid him as he slid closer. He’d made a mistake, and she was paying for his carelessness, his self-indulgence. He’d found her, found heaven, and he was losing everything. He cocked his head, listening to Reid’s ferocious voice.

  Reid would kill her.

  When he did, Reid would die, too. He would see to it, and then he’d return to the shadows. But they would be unendurable now that he’d tasted the sunshine, walked in the light.

  He needed her. She was the beat of his heart, the pulse of his blood. He needed her.

  The smell of evil lying over Reid was acrid, sour. Reid’s sweat rolled off, dropped onto the grass, and he followed it like a spoor.

  Molly saw a shadow at the edge of her vision, and she kept quiet, not wanting to alert Reid. If she could keep him talking, she would have a chance. If she could get the gun from him, she could…Could she shoot her brother?

  “Come on, come on, Moll. Step up here. It has to be the dock. That ties everything up nice and tidy for the cops. They’ll think you killed yourself because you were afraid to face the music.”

  “Reid, you disconnected the phone. You broke the door. Nobody’s going to think I killed myself,” Molly added reasonably, desperation fighting old habits, old love.

  Reid scowled. “You’re confusing me, I had it all worked out! But you weren’t asleep!” His voice was shrill and frantic.

  “Reid, give it up,” she whispered.

  “I can’t!” He gripped her tighter. “Okay, okay, so they won’t believe it’s suicide. But I can make them think Paul killed you. I can still do that! Remember? I’m dead. I can’t be a suspect. Yeah, our detective will keep poking around, and he’ll think it’s Paul. Then when they arrest Paul, I can control of the money. I changed my will, Moll. I’m my own beneficiary! With a different name, of course.” He laughed. “I’ll have to stay in Costa Rica permanently, but once I have the money, I can straighten out things down there. It’ll work.” He smiled, the old, beloved smile of her twin.

  “Harlan will figure it out,” Molly said, knowing he would, but it would be too late for her—too late for them—and now she knew how much she wanted to be with him forever, now that time was running out. She pulled hard against Reid’s grip, anger giving her strength she didn’t know she had. “Harlan will know what you’ve done.”

  Reid’s calm words were terrifying. “I saw your detective at the door last night. I didn’t think you’d let him in, though. He was there at Paul’s office that afternoon, too.”

  “That was you? In the corridor?” Molly dug her fingernails into his hand.

  “Stop that, Sis.” He struck her hand with the gun. “Yeah, that was me. I only meant to scare you a little. Keep you on your toes. I had to get another vial from Paul’s office, and I saw him leave. I thought the office was empty except for his receptionist.”

  “You stole Ketamine from him, didn’t you?”

  He stopped. “How did you know?” He sounded petulant, and she had a flash of Reid at five, frowning and scowling because she’d found his hidey hole and he hadn’t fooled her. “It was easy. Paul’s my buddy, and neither he nor his pretty receptionist suspected I’d walked off with a couple of vials of his anesthetic and syringes.”

  His breathing was loud and harsh. He was having a hard time dragging her deadweight behind him, but Molly had no intention of making his plans easier. She found a perverse satisfaction in realizing that she’d surprised him once more. “I knew. After the last time. I don’t know how you managed it, though.”

  Holding her with one hand, he pulled out a syringe with the hand holding the gun. “When you went to sleep, I injected you. It was too easy, Moll. All I had to do was wait for you to drink your milk, and then crawl through the pantry window.”

  “But it was locked.” Molly made herself go limp. Dropping to the wooden pier, she wrapped her hand under the edge, as far as she could reach, and dug her fingers into the barnacles and splintered wood.

  His smile was boyish, all charm, and her heart turned over with memories. The point of the syringe was thin and small, not in the least frightening, not threatening at all. This was Reid, after all. She couldn’t believe he would hurt her.

  Reasonably, she added, “I checked. Harlan checked. The windows were all locked.”

  “No, right after—” he stopped and frowned, as if the sudden thought disturbed him “—about four months ago, I started making plans. I cut off the back of the lock and painted over it. You’d never know the lock was there only for show unless you tried it from the outside. And no one did. All painted over, it looked as if it hadn’t been moved in centuries, and I didn’t think you would put a rod across the top. There was no reason to, was there? No one ever opened that window for air. It was caked with years worth of thick paint. That was how I got in and out, even after you changed the locks on me. The window slides open quick and quiet.” He grinned.

/>   He lifted his head and turned his right ear toward them. Reid’s voice was filled with satisfaction and greasy with self-congratulation. Now was the time.

  Molly gripped a barnacle in her fingers. Her hand was bloody where the sharp shell had cut into her. Rising, she slashed down with the razor-sharp barnacle at Reid’s hand holding the gun. He jerked, and the gun skittered across the dock.

  Leaping toward her, flowing in one long shadow from the side of the pier onto it, he tried to reach her, but she stood up as he leapt, her hand arcing down to Reid’s and she stooped and picked up the gun as he stepped to one side of Reid, not near enough to grab him, not close enough to Molly to save her.

  “What the hell?” Reid turned to him, throwing up his hand. The syringe somersaulted into the bayou. “Detective Harlan? Where the hell’d you come from?”

  “Harlan!” Molly’s voice rang in his ear, and he longed to leap toward her, catch her in his arms and vault off the pier with her safe against him.

  Standing at the edge of the dock with the Luger gripped in her hands, she was everything he’d craved all his life. Sweetness and softness, with vinegar under the sweetness, steel under the softness.

  And Harlan saw no way he could save her. Reid was at one point of the triangle, Harlan at the other. Reid could reach her before he could get to her.

  “Moll,” Reid said, turning to her, but keeping Harlan in sight. “Let me have the gun. You know you would never shoot me, Sis.” He reached out his hand, and Harlan edged toward her. “That’s far enough, Detective.” Reid smiled at Harlan. “Don’t do something stupid now. We don’t want Molly to be hurt, do we?”

  “No,” Harlan replied, watching him. “You can relax. I’m not going to do anything to hurt Molly.” Primitive rage churned his gut.

  Molly hadn’t dropped her arms, and the gun wavered between Reid and Harlan. He wondered if she even realized she was pointing it. From the way she gripped it, he could tell she’d had experience with guns, but the situation had eaten at her reactions, and she couldn’t be expected to react normally with her brother risen from the dead.

  “Hey, Sis, put the gun down, will you?” Reid teased her. “This is all a mistake. Let’s sit down, like you said, and I’ll explain everything. You said you’d help me. You said it wasn’t too late to fix things, make everything okay. Put the gun down, okay? So we can talk?”