She didn’t try to slink into the house, but went straight up the walkway, slipped under the tape and jimmied the lock open.
FBI training was helpful in many ways, she thought.
She entered the foyer. She started to head into the parlor but changed her mind. In the parlor, too many events had occurred. She walked up the stairs. If she stood in one of the rooms where Malachi’s great-uncle and grandmother had been killed, she might get more.
She chose the left bedroom, and as she stood there, she felt the opaque mist start to form before her eyes, the thing that told her she was about to see.
She gripped the bedpost and waited for the scene to start to unfold.
And it did.
She saw an old woman. She might have been out of the past; she wore a nightcap and a long white nightgown, one that buttoned to her throat. But she wasn’t from the distant past. There was a digital alarm clock by her bed, and she checked it to make sure that it was set for six the following morning.
Then she lay down, and reached into her bedside table for her Bible.
Smiling, deep into the comfort of her mattress and her covers, she began to read.
Jenna felt something by her side. She turned, and there it was, the specter of the horned god, bearing an ax.
An ax that already dripped blood.
The old woman looked up. Confusion tinged her rheumy eyes at first.
And then she started to scream. A silent scream, because she couldn’t quite draw breath.
And then the horned god was upon her, the first swing catching her in the center of her breast….
Something seemed to happen then. The opaque image faded; she could see it, but more as a backdrop to something else.
And there was something else there.
Another image, standing at the side of the bed.
“Rebecca?” Jenna breathed. She was facing a ghost, or a spirit, a gentle, benign spirit. And the woman was speaking to her.
“The children, the children hear the words of their elders. Leave! Leave now!”
Jenna hadn’t come unarmed this time. She started to reach beneath her jacket from her weapon.
And that’s when the entire world seemed to come down on her head, and she whirled only quickly enough to see who had come upon her.
The horned god, once again….
Andy Yates and his son were seated in uncomfortable chairs; Jackson had purposely found those that had uneven legs for reasons of interrogation strategy. The light was made as bright as possible, and John Alden faced the table while Jackson and Sam took chairs at each end.
“I don’t understand,” Andy Yates said, bewildered. “A costume was taken from this school and used when Peter Andres was killed? And so you’re questioning all the students—not just David, right?”
“That’s right, Mr. Yates,” John Alden said.
“We were at a football game when Andres was killed,” he said. “I know you can check that out—you’ve probably checked that out. So—”
“So, we also know that David has lied to us,” Sam interrupted.
Andy frowned, looking at his son.
“I didn’t lie!” David said.
“Your friend, Joshua, admitted that he didn’t see Malachi Smith on the day that Earnest Covington was killed,” Jackson said.
“What?” David protested. “Joshua wouldn’t say that.”
“He did,” John Alden said. They’d agreed to keep the questions coming from around the table. Like uncomfortable chairs, question being shot from all directions helped confuse a person who was lying.
“Wait! What does the costume used when Andres was killed have to do with the day Covington was killed?” Yates demanded.
“You see, we’re not looking for one killer. We believe there were two, working in unison to make sure they could provide alibis for the murders,” Sam said.
“Wait, wait,” Andy Yates protested. “You think that—”
“Yes, Mr. Yates. We think your boy might be guilty,” Jackson said.
“We think he’s in a conspiracy with someone else,” John Alden said.
David gasped. “Me! I didn’t murder anyone!”
“But you lied!” Sam told him.
“I didn’t kill anyone!”
“But you did lie!” his father said, looking at his son with a sick expression.
“I lied to protect you!” David Yates said.
“Me!” Yates sounded astounded.
“I saw—I saw—” David said. “You saw what?”
“I saw… I thought it was you…heading into the costume shop after the play last spring. You and mom were there, and then you weren’t, and I thought you just went to speak to the drama teacher, ask her why I didn’t have a better role.”
“I never!” Andy protested, staring at his son.
“Mr. Yates, are you having an affair with your business partner, Samantha Yeager?” John demanded. “You hated Malachi Smith. You blamed him for every problem your son ever had.”
“You blamed him for the stigma of having to see a shrink,” Jackson said.
“And you’d have done anything for Samantha Yeager!” Sam said.
“Wait—what? No! No!” Andy protested. “We were in business, yes, and if Abraham Smith had agreed to sell the place, we would have opened it together. Yes, yes! That’s true. But I—I wasn’t sleeping with her. I swear it.”
“You hired a hit man to kill Jenna Duffy just last night!” Sam said.
“No, no! That wasn’t me—it wasn’t me—” Andy Yates’s protest broke off in a moment of pained silence.
“Dad—” David Yates began.
“Shut up! Shut up!” Yates said. “I want a lawyer. We won’t say another word until we get a lawyer.”
Sam looked at Yates, the way he pulled back, and suddenly he knew. They’d been wrong. They’d been close, but they’d been wrong.
He jerked out of his chair and headed into the hallway. He hadn’t wanted Jenna here today; somehow, he’d just felt she was in danger. He’d been worried sick last night.
But she should be at Jamie’s house—safe. Unless someone called on her.
He dialed quickly. The phone rang and rang, and her voice mail came on. He tried calling Angela, but got her voice mail, too.
Jackson came out to the hallway.
By the time he tried Jamie’s house phone, Sam was already running out of the school. He reached his car, and he didn’t know where he was going. Jackson slid in beside him. He started to jerk the car into gear, and stopped.
There was an old woman standing in front of him. An old woman in costume. Hell, it was Halloween.
“Get out of the way, get out of the way, get out of the way—”
“Who are you talking to? Where are you going?” Jackson demanded.
“The woman! That old hag in the road. Jackson, get her out of the way before I run her down!”
“There’s no one—” Jackson said. “What does she look like?”
“Old. Dressed to the throat. In a cap—what are you talking about? She’s right there!”
“No. She’s just there for you. Start the car. She’ll move.”
“What?”
“Tell me again, who does she look like?”
“An old Puritan woman!” Sam exploded. “Damn you, Jackson, no one is answering a phone. I can’t reach either Angela or Jenna. And it’s not Andy Yates who’s a killer—it’s his wife!”
“Drive!” Jackson said. “And follow her—she’s here to lead you.”
“To what?”
“Life for the innocent.”
Jenna came to slowly and saw a horned god hovering over her. She tried to move, but couldn’t. She realized that she’d been tied to the sofa downstairs, that she was lying in the chalk outline that denoted the place Abraham Smith had been killed.
“Why couldn’t you have let well enough be?” the horned god asked her. “I never wanted to hurt you…I didn’t want more dead.”
“Shut up,
Cindy!” someone behind her said. Jenna knew the voice.
It was that of Samantha Yeager.
“Why? We both came in from the back,” Cindy Yates said, impatient. She pulled off the mask of the horned god and looked at Jenna, serious anxiety in her eyes. “He really is evil, you know. Malachi Smith is evil. His father was evil. This house makes everyone in it evil, you have to understand that.”
“Cindy, come on!” Samantha said. She was wearing the horned god’s cape, like Cindy, but she hadn’t bothered with a mask. “Get a grip! We need to get this over with. I have to get back to the shop or I won’t have an alibi.”
“Well, we’re not going to chop her up,” Cindy said. “It has to be an accident.”
“It won’t be an accident. My partner’s on the cliff right now, watching the house,” Jenna said. Her head hurt. Her mouth seemed to be working only with great effort.
Samantha Yeager chuckled and leaned over her. “No, honey, she’s not watching anything right now.”
“You better pray that you didn’t kill Angela,” Jenna said, trying to keep calm. Except that she had panicked at first and jerked against her binding.
It was loose. And they hadn’t bothered to tie her legs.
“If you hurt her, you’ll have to watch out for Jackson Crow. He’s part Native American, you know. He learned all sorts of unique tortures from his father’s family,” she said.
“She’s bluffing, the wicked little bitch!” Samantha said, hunkering down beside her. She lifted a strand of Jenna’s hair. “But your ol’ Indian pal won’t have to be upset—your friend will be okay. I got her with a slingshot from the woods—I was ready from the minute Cindy saw you on the move and called me. Slingshot! I’m good at it, by the way. Like I am with so many things…”
“Like making men think that you want them?” Jenna suggested, carefully inching around in the ties that bound her.
She’d hit pay dirt. She eased back.
“It’s only fair,” Cindy said.
“What’s only fair?” Jenna asked.
“Oh, my husband! My fine, upstanding husband!” she said. “Our son is attacked, and what does he do? He sends him for psychiatric care! A real man would have gone to battle for his child! He would have done something about Abraham and Malachi Smith existing in the same world as our David. He should have done something. But, no! He looked at my boy, my beautiful, strong, handsome boy, and said that he needed help! What kind of a father does that?” she demanded. “And then, oh, he’s such a smarmy bastard! He meets Samantha, and what the hell does he do? He comes on to her! He brought her into our house, introduced her to me and my children, and then came on to her. He’s such a fool.”
“A fool with money,” Samantha murmured.
“If he weren’t,” Cindy said, her eyes narrowing, “I’d have been out of that house by now. And then you come into town and start sleeping with that sleazy lawyer! Bringing your hotshot FBI friends. And when I challenge you, what does my smarmy bastard of a husband do? He yells at me! He yells at me for slapping you, you bitch!”
As if suddenly realizing that her husband wasn’t around to yell at her now, she slapped Jenna. Hard. And then again and again. The blows were stinging, but Jenna used the time to work harder at the ropes binding her.
“Stop it!” Samantha warned her. “We have to figure out exactly how to make this look like an accident.”
“Like you did with Milton Sedge?” Jenna asked, running her tongue over her lips and tasting blood.
“That was me,” Cindy said proudly. “Samantha did in Mr. Andres—with my compliments, of course—and I took care of the rest. They deserved to die! The Smiths deserved to die! They were horrible people. Don’t you understand? They were evil!”
“Cindy!” Samantha pleaded.
“Does it matter what we tell her now?” Cindy asked softly.
“What about Earnest Covington? How the hell could you butcher him like that?”
“I had to! Don’t you understand? I had to. They had to lock up Malachi!”
“Cindy! Stop it, please. Come on, and move! I’ve got to get her head cracked in and then leave her at the foot of the stairs. You wanted to talk to her—to explain. You’ve done it. We’ve got to get rid of her now, Cindy. Come away!”
Cindy started to rise. It might be Jenna’s last chance.
Jenna knew that she couldn’t tear free from the bonds holding her, but she might be able to use her legs to help her get free. She jerked up with all her might, chair still strapped to her back and arms, desperately finding her balance in split seconds. She had no choice of weapon or flexibility: she head-bashed Cindy, causing her to cry out and fall back.
“Oh, screw this!” Samantha cried, and she reached for the old lamp on the table and started to bring it down on Jenna’s head.
Jenna threw herself down and managed to avoid the first crash by tumbling awkwardly away. Her head was still ringing; it felt like it was a thousand pounds itself, and the wood chair slats and rope hurt her skin.
“Cindy, help!” Samantha raged.
Cindy staggered to her feet.
Samantha picked up one of the heavy candlesticks from the mantel.
She raced toward Jenna; Jenna ducked the blow.
Cindy came up behind her with the remnants of the lamp, striking her hard. She willed herself not to feel the pain. She still had no weapon but the force of her own body.
She threw herself on Cindy, taking her down.
Samantha reached for Jenna, grasping a handful of her hair and viciously pulling her up. She rammed Samantha, but Cindy rose.
And Jenna realized that her strength was failing. She fell to her knees, hunched over, the chair covering her somewhat.
But she didn’t want to die….
“He’s here!” she exclaimed suddenly. “Abraham Smith is here…and all those who have died at the hands of others. They’re all here, watching you!”
Jenna had wanted the exclamation to spook the women, but she found that she wasn’t actually lying—the ghosts of the deceased had gathered in the room to watch them.
As if sensing something herself, Cindy stood still in fear, shaking. “Where, where?”
“Nowhere!” Samantha cried. “Help me, Cindy.”
She had retrieved the candlestick and went at Jenna again.
“Abraham, no!” Jenna called, seeing that the ghost was going to do his best to trip Samantha. “Let the law punish them, and it will be years and years…”
“Stop it!” Samantha shrieked. But coming forward, she tripped and landed inches from Jenna, who pivoted on her knees to hit the woman with the legs of her chair. “Cindy, help, she’ll kill me!”
Cindy cried out herself, lifting the coffee table, ready to hurl it at Jenna.
But, before she could, a whirlwind rushed into the room.
It was Sam. He put his arms around Cindy and threw her to the ground, the table landing with a loud crash. At that moment, Jenna became aware of the sound of sirens coming closer. Samantha rose one more time to come after her.
Jenna felt lightness in her head, and she knew she was going to faint, with darkness and stars bursting before her eyes.
But Sam ran in her direction, and his arm snaked around Samantha before she could strike. He lifted her off her feet, swinging her around to crash land on top of Cindy.
“I always knew you wanted to touch me, honey,” Samantha said, dazed.
Then Jenna saw no more. The stars in front of her eyes burst, and then became blackness.
Waking up, Jenna felt a bit as if she were on display.
There were so many people staring at her.
A doctor in a white uniform and a stethoscope in his hand. A concerned nurse in a pert white hat. Uncle Jamie, Jackson, Angela, Will, John Alden—and Sam.
Sam was seated by her side on the bed, holding her hand. His gray eyes were so misted with concern that it seemed her heart ached, rather than her head.
“Ah, you’re back with us again,�
�� the doctor said. “Well, that was a pretty good wallop you got on your head, and I know you’re an R.N., Miss Duffy, but you’re staying right here tonight, you understand. You should know that a good concussion is definitely something to watch.”
“Don’t you be worrying!” Jamie said. “The lass will be staying right here, till you say that it’s fine for her to leave.”
“Ditto,” Sam said sternly, squeezing her hand.
“May we have just a minute?” John Alden asked.
“A minute!” the doctor said sternly.
“I’m not leaving at all,” Sam said. He looked at the doctor. “I’ll be good, I swear. I’m just going to sit here and make sure she doesn’t try to get up.”
“All right, but not too much stimulation—the rest of you out of here in two minutes!” the doctor said firmly.
When he was gone, John Alden said, “Jenna, I just want to say—well, I just want to say that the women are both locked up, and—” he paused, shaking his head with a smile and looking at Jamie “—and the prosecutor has already gone in to see that the charges against Malachi Smith are dropped. Of course, now he has to press charges against Samantha Yeager and Cindy Yates, and you will be called to testify in court, and God knows, Sam may be defending them—”
“No,” Sam said. “Sam won’t be defending them.”
“Who knew?” Jamie said quietly. “Who knew that a woman like Cindy could go quite so crazy over the perceived injury done a child?”
“Well, we did think that maybe Andy Yates was that furious,” he reminded her. “We didn’t think that a mother would resort to that kind of violence. That’s still the way of the world—we don’t like to think that the female of our species can be so violent and diabolical. And I sure didn’t suspect that the affair was with Cindy Yates, not Andy,” Jackson said apologetically.
“Oh, my God, Angela!” Jenna tried to sit up to address her friend.
“No!” the word was a cacophony from the entire group, and Sam gently pushed her back down.
“I’m fine—absolutely fine,” Angela told her. “I’m embarrassed, frankly. I was armed and everything. The rock came from the trees the minute I turned to watch the house. But, honestly, I was already getting up when Jackson came rushing over for me. So much for my intelligent stakeout.”
The Evil Inside (Krewe of Hunters) Page 28