“She’d have realized, Lucy, believe me.”
Lucy went silent. She watched as he leaned back on the ground, propping himself on his elbows. He stared far out at the opposite bank, and his gaze narrowed, hard as steel.
“Katherine was such a gentle person. Probably the only truly good person I’ve ever known in my life. And that’s what made it so much worse. The way she suffered … her fear and her pain … There were times she really thought she was losing her mind. And sometimes I think …” His voice faltered … softened. “I think maybe … finally … in a way …”
A shadow seemed to cross his face. After a moment of uncertain silence, Lucy gently touched his shoulder.
“Wasn’t there anyone she could talk to? Someone who could help her?”
“And who would that have been? How do you explain something like that—especially in a town like this? Hell, everybody here already thought she was crazy.”
“But maybe someone who has experience in—”
“Ssh!” Jerking upright, Byron grabbed her shoulder. “Did you hear something?”
Lucy’s heart took a dive to her stomach. As she slowly followed the direction of his gaze, she listened hard through the quiet.
Wind sighing through trees … water lapping gently at the shore … her own pulse pounding in her ears …
“What?” she mouthed silently. “What is it?”
But she could feel his grip relaxing now … his body easing back down beside her. His hand slid away from her arm, though his expression remained wary.
“What?” she asked aloud, but Byron only frowned and turned his attention back to the view.
“Nothing. Just jumpy, I guess.”
Lucy glanced nervously over her shoulder. Strange … she hadn’t really heard anything, yet she could feel a tiny sliver of dread at the back of her neck.
“It’s okay,” Byron reassured her again. “This is one of my secret places … and nobody’s around here this time of year anyway.”
Lucy wasn’t entirely convinced. She picked up a broken twig and nervously began scratching circles in the dirt.
“What about your grandmother?” she asked then. “Does she know about Katherine?”
His mouth twisted in a rueful smile. “There’s not much Gran doesn’t know. But I haven’t told her, if that’s what you mean.”
“So … do you think she believes Katherine’s dead?”
Byron fixed her with a calm stare. “When Katherine left home a year ago—that was before Gran had her stroke—Gran told me I’d never see Katherine alive again. I didn’t want to believe that, of course. I should have known better. Maybe if I’d tried harder to stop Katherine from going … or maybe if I’d gone with her, maybe she’d still be alive now. That’s why you have to listen to me—maybe we can stop it this time—before you get hurt—”
“Before I get hurt?” Lucy shrank back in dismay. “What do you mean—”
“Because maybe he hasn’t realized it yet—”
“Byron—”
“—hasn’t realized yet who you are—”
“Stop it! You’re scaring me!”
“You should be scared, Lucy—you need to be scared! It might be the only thing that keeps you alive if—”
He broke off abruptly, his body tensing, his glance shooting once more toward the trees. As Lucy followed the direction of his focus, she felt that fine prickle of fear again, though now it was creeping down the length of her arms.
Very slowly Byron got to his feet. As Lucy started to follow, he shook his head at her and held a finger to his hps.
“No,” he whispered. “Wait here.”
“Where are you going?” Thoroughly alarmed now, Lucy watched him disappear into the woods. She stood there, heart pounding, listening to the faint rustle of branches as Byron moved away from her. But even that sound faded within minutes.
All that remained was silence.
Dangerous silence.
Should she call his name? Ignore what he’d told her and go after him? Lucy didn’t know what to do. With the lake on one side and the woods on all others, this spot that had seemed so idyllic just five minutes before, now seemed more like a …
Trap.
That’s it. I’m going.
Lucy started toward the trees, toward the exact spot where Byron had gone in. Surely he couldn’t be that far ahead of her—it should be easy to catch up. But what if she got lost? She’d be of no use to him then, and someone had to be able to go for help.
She wished she had a weapon. Quickly her eyes scanned the shore, coming to rest on a large branch dangling over the water. With some effort, she managed to wrestle it loose; she could use it as a club if she had to.
“Lucy!”
Lucy froze. She hadn’t imagined it, had she? That voice calling through the trees …
“Byron?” she yelled back.
It had sounded so faint, that call—distant and muffled. Oh God, maybe he really is hurt. Why had he just gone off like that, anyway—what a stupid thing to do!
Lucy squinted off through the shifting shadows of the forest. Cupping her hands around her mouth, she shouted as loud as she could. “By-ron!”
No answer.
I didn’t imagine it—I’m sure I didn’t imagine it!
Yet at the same time the hairs lifted at the back of her neck, and her nerves went taut as wires. Just like I didn’t imagine that voice in the confessional, that voice behind the tent at the fair …
She wished now that she’d told Byron about that voice—why hadn’t she told Byron about it?
“Byron!” she called frantically. “Byron, where are you?”
The wind blew a long cold breeze in off the lake.
It wrapped around her like a damp caress.
“Lucy!” the voice seemed to echo, ghostly through the hills. “Please, Lucy! I need you!”
“Oh, God … oh God …” She knew then that something must have happened to him—something bad—something terrible—and it was all she could do to hold her panic in check.
“I’m coming!” Lucy shouted.
And ran headlong into the woods.
23
“Byron! Where are you?”
But she hadn’t heard him call in several minutes now, and she knew she’d be hopelessly lost if she went much farther.
Frightened and frustrated, Lucy stopped and yelled one more time. “Byron! Please! Answer me!”
Even the breeze seemed to have stopped. Even the trees seemed to hold their breath around her.
Maybe he’d been injured so badly that he’d lost consciousness by now. Mauled by some animal. Lying broken at the bottom of some ravine. Slowly and steadily bleeding to death. Oh God, what should I do? If she ended up lost in these dark woods, it wouldn’t do either of them any good.
Instinctively, Lucy turned and raced back to the beach. Had there been a radio in the boat? A cell phone? She didn’t remember seeing any, but she hadn’t been paying much attention. As she broke through the trees, she suddenly halted in her tracks and stared in shock at the lake.
A small boat was floating some distance from the shore.
An empty boat.
Our boat?
“No!”
Lucy couldn’t believe it. A thousand menacing scenarios rushed through her head, muddling into a numbing darkness. Fearfully she spun around and peered off into the forest.
“Byron!”
Her shout echoed back to her, mocking.
She had to think … think what to do. Try to find help—but where? She didn’t have a clue where to go—and what if Bryon roused again and called for her? Still, he was familiar with this place … perhaps even now he was on his way to safety …
The road!
Lucy suddenly remembered—hadn’t Byron mentioned a road when they’d first gotten out of the boat? A road about half a mile from here?
Praying she could find her way back to the cove, Lucy tried to retrace the route they’d taken earlier. She’d
noticed a pathway, a narrow trail leading back from the beach and angling off through the woods. As she finally reached the place where they’d originally docked, Lucy could see the path clearly, and she took it without hesitation.
The trail wound mostly uphill, and though she’d been chilly when she first started out she soon grew sweaty and out of breath. She was thankful she’d worn her sneakers. More than once she was forced to scale fallen logs and sharp boulders that blocked the rugged terrain.
She wasn’t sure when she began to be aware of the quiet. It seemed to slip up on her gradually, like shadows stalking through underbrush. As she stopped to listen, Lucy realized that the birds had stopped singing, that there wasn’t a breath of wind.
The forest filled with an eerie silence.
Just like it felt back there when I was looking for Byron …
Her heart fluttered beneath her jacket. She forced herself to keep walking, to keep her thoughts carefully focused on the emergency at hand. Find help. Find Byron. She couldn’t let herself think of anything beyond that. She just hoped he wasn’t hurt—
“Maybe we can stop it this time—before you get hurt—”
Lucy’s eyes widened as his words sprang unexpectedly into her mind. No. No. I won’t think about that; I refuse to think about that …
“Because maybe he hasn’t realized it yet—hasn’t realized yet who you are—”
And Byron had started to tell her something, something important, had been trying to warn her about something, when the sound had come, when he’d looked so startled and so wary, when he’d gone into the woods and never come out again …
“You should be scared, Lucy—you need to be scared! It might be the only thing that keeps you alive if—”
Lucy broke into a run.
And the silence was so loud, so dangerous, threatening her from every side, silence like shadows, silence like stalkers …
No—no—it’s just my imagination—
Silence like evil …
No!
Silence like death—
Her feet slid off into nothingness; her body hurtled down through an endless black void …
She didn’t even have time to scream.
Just fell farther and farther … down and down … into the silence …
And finally lay still.
24
She was so beautiful.
Beautiful in this brief spell of sleep … lost in her dreamless drifting …
Is this what peace looks like? he wondered.
The way she’d looked that night at her window, and the way she’d looked at the Festival … her face tilted, smiling, bathed in the glow of the lights, just so …
And now … as she lay here on her back, unconscious from falling, sprawled before him in innocent slumber …
He could do anything he wanted to her at this very moment, anything he pleased, for she’d be helpless and completely unaware …
But time enough for that later.
Right now all he wanted to do was look at her.
At her hair spread around her head like a halo, her lashes soft against her cheeks. Her fingers curled in upon her palms, like flower petals unopened, and her arms wide in an empty embrace, half buried beneath the leaves that had cushioned her fall.
She was still wearing red.
He loved her even more when she wore red.
It seared into his soul, this brand-new image, like the pink of that very first night … like the blue of the Festival … and oh, how he’d loved the deep bloodred of her panic and terror at the church just this morning …
He’d carried those sights of her, those smells of her, deep in his heart through every single hour since then.
Like a seductive dream, both sleeping and waking.
It was sheer luck that he’d tasted her, as well …
He’d picked up the apple she’d dropped at the fair, and she’d never suspected, never stopped to look back, never even realized he was near. And ah, how it tasted just the way he’d imagined … the blood from her lip still fresh on the fruit … so luscious, so sweet, with its red candy coating.
He’d savored the juice of it inside his mouth, and then he’d lured her to a dark, hidden place.
She’d caught his scent, and she’d come to him …
He loved how she loved the scent of him.
The way he always smelled after he killed.
For blood, as he’d come to learn through the years, was a very personal thing.
It mingled with one’s own essence … and tempted … like expensive cologne or perfume.
She’d followed him there, and she’d found him there, and when he’d sucked the blood from her lip, her heart had beat wildly, as frantically as his own …
And after that—especially after that—he vowed that nothing would stop him from having her.
Only … not now.
Not now.
Now he would simply watch and admire …
For this was the sweetest torment of all.
The ache of her loneliness … the pain of her grief …
He fed off emotions such as these, they called to him like shining beacons in pitch-black rooms.
They made him dizzy with longing, and they made him want to possess her totally.
Soon, he told himself. Soon …
He had to be patient with this one.
Not arouse suspicion … gain her trust. That was how these things were done … slow and methodical … and he was nothing if not methodical.
It was a fine art he’d perfected through these many years—that when he desired something, he’d do anything to get it.
Say anything … be anything … no matter how deceitful, no matter how ruthless.
It was his nature.
And he could wait for however long it took.
No need to hurry, he reminded himself.
No need whatsoever to rush.
After all … he had eternity on his side.
25
“Lu-cy …”
“Mom?” Lucy mumbled.
She always sounded like that when she’d locked herself out of the apartment, standing down on the street corner, yelling up at Lucy’s bedroom window …
“Lu-cy …”
It was ridiculous; she was always telling Mom how ridiculous it was, a grown woman forgetting her keys all the time, leaving them at work or at the grocery store or on the kitchen table: I mean, one of these days I’m not going to be here, I won’t be here to let you in, and then what are you going to do?
“Lucy!”
“Hang on, I’m coming … I’m …”
Cobwebs drifted through her mind, but they were getting thinner now, almost transparent, and there was light coming through …
“Coming …” she murmured.
Lucy sat up so quickly that the world spun around her and the cobwebs burst like bubbles.
She didn’t realize at first what had happened.
Not until she shook herself out of the leaves and squinted up at the walls of the ravine and saw a shadowy blur of trees and sky high above her.
I was running just a minute ago … how’d I get down here?
She ached all over. Her clothes were twisted around her, and she was covered with dirt. This is starting to feel normal, she thought disgustedly, stretching out her arms and then her legs. At least nothing seemed to be broken or sprained. So far, so good …
Byron!
It all came back to her then—why she was out here in the middle of the woods, what must have happened. She should have been paying attention, watched where she was going—now what was she going to do? If Byron were still out there somewhere, wounded or even dying, she’d never get help back to him in time. Gazing up at the steep incline, she wasn’t even sure she could help herself.
“Damnit,” Lucy muttered, fighting down panic. “Damnit!” Her body winced with pain as she tried to stand up. She hobbled over to one side of the gorge, then suddenly noticed the outline of a head hangi
ng over the ledge above her.
“Lucy!” Even from down here, she could hear Byron’s sigh of relief. “Are you okay?”
“Am I okay?” her voice shot back to him, dangerously close to tears. “Do I look okay? My God, Byron—where have you been?”
“What are you doing down there?”
“Trying to save you!”
He leaned out farther over the edge. Lucy heard the sarcasm in his voice. “And a fine job you’re doing, too.”
“Get me out of here! You scared me to death!”
“I’ll be right down.”
Lucy sagged back against the wall of the escarpment, wiping furiously at her eyes. By the time Byron finally worked his way down beside her, her nerves were raw.
“I thought you were dead!” she exploded. “Where were you? Why didn’t you answer me?”
Byron regarded her solemnly. “I could ask you the same question.”
“What are you talking about? I’m not the one who was lost!”
“Then who have I been looking for? I heard you calling for help, but I couldn’t find you anywhere.”
“I’m not the one who called for help—-you’re the one who called for help! You’re the one who disappeared!” Lucy was trembling now, with anger and relief. “You’re the one who went off and left me! I called and called, and the boat floated away!”
Byron’s eyes narrowed. “You mean, you didn’t take the boat?”
“Why would I do that? It was out in the middle of the lake! Then I tried to find a road—so I could get someone to look for you! And then—”
“Lucy,” he interrupted, taking her shoulders, giving her a gentle shake. “Lucy, listen to me, I’m telling you the truth. I heard your voice, but it was so deep in the woods—and you kept saying my name, calling for help. You sounded like you were crying, like you’d been hurt. But I looked and looked, and I couldn’t find you. I’ve been searching for three hours!”
Lucy stared back at him, calmer now, but bewildered. “But … I heard you, too—and I thought you were hurt—”
“You heard me? When?”
“Right after you went into the woods! I was so scared and—” She broke off abruptly at the expression on his face. “What? What is it?”
It Begins Page 13