Absolute Fear

Book 4: Bentz/Montoya Novel

by Lisa Jackson

Genres: Suspense

Synopsis

For the past three months, Eve Renner has struggled to remember the night she was nearly killed and her lover was tried for murder. She remembers getting the anxious call from a friend from her past: "Meet me at the cabin. I've got evidence." She remembers seeing that friend lying in a pool of blood. And she remembers a horrifying glimpse of her lover Cole Dennis's face as a gunshot plunged her into darkness. Now, her memory and emotions scarred, Eve has returned to New Orleans to forget the past. But the past will not be forgotten. Eve's shattered memory has helped Cole walk on murder charges just as a new series of killings begins.

The latest murders are bizarre and baffling. The victims are killed in a ritual fashion, a series of numbers tattooed into their bodies. 212. 101. 111. 323. There is no clue to their meaning, no connection to the victims except one: Our Lady of Virtues Hospital, the crumbling old asylum that was once the scene of unspeakable madness. For Eve, it was a second home as a child. Her father was a doctor there, and she spent hours exploring its secret chambers, hidden rooms, and forbidden passageways. Somewhere in its decaying rooms lies the key to a terrible crime, a betrayal beyond imagining whose echoes are now being felt with a vengeance-a crime that seems to lead to Eve herself. And the only man she can trust with the search is Cole, her former lover and, just possibly, a cold-blooded killer.

As forgotten memories begin to surface, bodies are found and each twist leads to another terrifying piece of the puzzle. Someone is watching, planning, luring her back to the ruins of Our Lady and the shocking truths hidden there-someone who has been waiting for this moment to strike. He is deadlier than she knows. For the sins of the past must be revealed, the crimes brought to justice, and the price paid-in blood.

Release date: March 1, 2008

Publisher: Zebra Books

Print pages: 512

Sample

Near New Orleans, Louisiana Three months earlier

The Voice of God pounded through his brain.

Kill.

Kill them both.

The man and the woman.

Sacrifice them.

Tonight.

This is your penance.

He lay on the sweat-stained sheets of his bed while neon light pulsed blood red through the slats of blinds that didn’t quite close over the windows. The Voice thundered in his ears. Reverberated through his head. Echoed so loudly, it drowned out the others—the little, screechy, irritating, fingernails-on-chalkboard voices that he thought of as belonging to bothersome insects. They too issued orders. They too disturbed his sleep, but they were small, annoying, and not as powerful as the Voice, the one he was certain was from God Himself.

A niggling doubt wormed through his mind, suggesting that the Voice was evil, that It might be speaking the words of Lucifer, the Lord of Darkness.

But no…. He couldn’t think this way. He had to have faith. Faith in the Voice, in what It told him, in Its ultimate wisdom.

Quickly he rolled off the cot and onto his knees. Deftly, from years of practice and sacrifice, he sketched the sign of the cross over his naked chest. Beads of perspiration collected on his scalp as he prayed for guidance, begged to be His messenger, felt a thrum from anticipating that it was he who had been sought out. He was God’s disciple. “Show me the way,” he whispered urgently, licking his lips. “Tell me what I must do.”

Kill.

The Voice was clear.

Slay them both.

Sacrifice the man and woman.

He frowned as he prayed, not completely understanding. The woman, Eve, he understood. Oh, how long he’d waited to do just what the Voice commanded. He envisioned her. Heart-shaped face with a strong, impertinent chin. The faintest hint of freckles bridging a short, straight nose. Intense eyes as clear and blue as a tropical lagoon. Fiery, storm-tossed hair.

So beautiful.

So headstrong.

And such a whore.

He imagined what she let men do to that athletic body…. Oh, he’d seen her before, peeked through the slit between her curtains and seen taut skin stretched over feminine muscles, skin that moved fluidly as she bathed. Her breasts were small, firm, and tipped with rosy-hued nipples that tightened as she stepped into the bathwater.

Yes, he’d watched her, spying upon her as those long legs slipped over the edge of the tub, unknowingly flashing him just a glimpse of the pink folds and red curls at the juncture of her thighs.

Thinking of her, he felt that special tingle that only she could entice from him, the hot run of blood that flushed his skin and caused his cock to thicken in anticipation.

If only he could run his fingers inside her legs, lick those tight little breasts, fuck the hell out of her. She was a whore anyway. In his mind’s eye he saw himself mounting her, his toned body taut over hers, his cock driving deep into that hot, wanton wasteland where others had spilled their seed.

He was breathing hard.

Knew what he was thinking was a sin.

But he wanted to ram deep into her just once.

Before the killing.

And he had the opportunity. Hadn’t the Voice instructed him to prove what a whore she was?

But what of the man?

As if the Voice had heard his thoughts, It whispered, You are the Reviver. The One I have chosen for this task to revive the souls of the weak. Do not fail me. It’s up to you who will live and who will die. Now, go!

Realizing he was still on his knees, he made another swift sign of the cross and felt a jab of shame that God might have read his thoughts and learned of his weakness where she was concerned. He had to fight the lust. Had to.

And yet, as he stood, stretching his honed muscles, he felt needles of anticipation piercing his skin, desire causing his groin to tighten almost painfully.

The Reviver. The Voice had given him a name. He rolled it around in his head and decided he liked it, enjoyed the thought that he was the decider, the one who ultimately chose who lived and who died. It was a good sign, wasn’t it, that the Voice had decided to name him? Kind of like being anointed, or knighted. The Reviver. Yes!

He dressed in the dark, pulling on his camouflage pants and jacket, ski mask and boots, the uniform he hung from a peg near the door. His weapons were already stowed in his truck, hidden in a locked drawer in the false bottom of his toolbox. Knives, pistols, silencers, plastic explosives, even a peashooter and darts with poisoned tips….

And something special, just for her.

He slid out of his dark room and stepped into the deep, mist-laden night.

He was ready.

 

Eve checked her watch.

Ten forty-five.

“Great,” she muttered between clenched teeth.

She was running late.

Despite the fact that the night outside the windshield of her Camry was thick with fog, she stepped on the gas. Her dented Toyota had nearly a hundred and twenty thousand miles on the engine but still leapt forward, ever reliable.

So she wouldn’t be on time. So what? A few minutes one way or the other wouldn’t hurt.

She took a corner a little too fast, cut into the inside lane, and nearly hit an oncoming pickup. The driver blasted his horn and she jerked on the wheel, slowing a little, her heart jack-hammering.

She forced herself to relax her grip on the wheel and take a deep breath. Roy could wait, she decided, thinking of the frantic phone call she’d received less than half an hour earlier.

“Eve, you’ve got to come,” he’d said in a rush, his voice tense. “To the cabin—you know the one. Where we used to go in the summer as kids. My uncle’s place. But hurry. I’ll…I’ll uh, meet you at eleven.”

“It’s late,” she protested. “I’m not going to—”

“I’ve got evidence.”

“Evidence of what?”

“I’ll tell you when you get here. Just come. Alone.”

“Hell, Roy, you don’t have to go all cloak and dagger on me. Just tell me what’s going on!”

Her answer was several clicks and dead air. He’d hung up.

“No, wait! Roy! Oh for God’s sake,” she growled, poking a few buttons on her phone, hoping to capture his number on caller ID and return the call. But her screen had come up with the phrase “Unknown Caller,” and she was left gnashing her teeth in frustration, her heart pounding with a case of nerves. What “evidence” had Roy found? What was he talking about? Half a dozen possibilities, none of them good, had run through her mind as she’d hurried to meet him.

Maybe she shouldn’t have come at all. Cole hadn’t wanted her to. In fact he’d practically barred the door, completely infuriating her. In her mind’s eye she still envisioned his taut, worried face, and she recalled every angry word. He’d wanted to come with her, but she’d insisted on going alone. She’d hurried out the door into the cold, foggy night before he could bully his way into her decision making.

This was something she had to do by herself.

So now she was driving, in the middle of a moonless Louisiana night, toward the swampland where Roy’s uncle, Vernon, owned an old fishing cabin. If it still existed. The last time she’d been there, over ten years earlier, the place had already been going to seed. She couldn’t imagine what it might be like now.

Glancing in the rearview mirror, she saw the worry in her eyes. What the hell was going on?

She hadn’t spoken to Roy in over a year.

Why would he call now?

He’s in trouble again, of course. You know Roy. He’s a prime example of borderline paranoia. The man’s got his own special brand of neurosis.

So why do you always come running when he calls, huh?

What kind of pull does he have over you?

What’s your own special brand of neurosis that you have to bail him out over and over again?

“Oh shut up,” she muttered tightly. The problem with being part of a post-grad psychology program was that she was always psychoanalyzing herself.

It got old.

She snapped on the radio. Notes from the tail end of some country ballad about a love triangle trailed into a commercial for the latest weight-loss program. Not much help. Switching stations and listening with half an ear, she peered through the rising mist. Vernon’s place was nearby, she thought. Squinting, she spotted a faded No Hunting sign that had been nailed to the trunk of a tall pine tree and blasted with a shotgun several times over, the letters nearly obliterated by buckshot.

Only one other vehicle passed by her as the road wound through the swampland. She shivered, though the night was far from cool. Finally her headlight beams splashed upon a burned-out snag of a cottonwood tree, and just beyond was the entrance to Vernon Kajak’s property. A rusted gate hung drunkenly on one hinge; the old cattle guard was still intact, causing her tires to rumble and quake as she entered the private acres.

The drive was little more than twin ruts. Where there once had been gravel, there was now only scattered stones and mud. Weeds scraped the Camry’s undercarriage. The car shuddered and bounced over the potholes and protruding rocks, and she was forced to slow to a creep as she picked her way through the bleached trunks of the cypress trees and brush.

God, it was dark. Eerie. The stuff from which horror films are made.

Eve had never been faint of heart, nor was she a coward, but she wasn’t an idiot either, and driving around in the middle of the Louisiana swamp on a gloomy night seemed like a bad idea. Years of practicing tae kwon do and a small canister of pepper spray tucked inside her purse didn’t seem like enough firepower to fight whatever evil might lie in the dense undergrowth. “Oh, get over yourself,” she said aloud.

She clicked off the radio and picked up her cell phone, only to note that it was receiving no service.

“Of course,” she said beneath her breath. “Wouldn’t you know…”

Her car edged forward, and she narrowed her eyes, straining to see the cabin.

Everything that had happened today was out of sync, just not quite right, and it had culminated in that fight with Cole.

How had that happened? Okay, so she’d been prickly after a visit from her father, but had that warranted the kind of cold fury that had been unleashed upon her by the man she planned to marry?

The call from Roy had sent her out here…into this seeping, clinging fog. Everything about this day and night felt a little out of kilter, and Eve gave herself a shake, trying to dispel the heebie-jeebies.

She checked her watch again.

In a few minutes it would be over.

The cabin was less than a quarter of a mile ahead.

 

The Reviver waited.

Trembling.

Anticipating.

Ears straining.

Every nerve ending stretched to the breaking point.

But the Voice was silent.

There was no praise for his act; no recriminations for not completing the job.

His heart raced, and he turned his face skyward as a cold spring wind rattled through this part of the bayou. The moon, nearly obscured by the rising fog, offered only a chilling slice of illumination in the night.

Senses heightened, he smelled the metallic odor of blood as it dripped from the fingertips of his gloves.

Talk to me, he silently begged the Voice. I have done Your bidding as best I could. She wasn’t there, not where you said she’d be. I couldn’t kill her. Should I track her down? Hunt her?

His breath quickened at the thought of stalking her, cornering her, witnessing her fear, then taking her.

But the night was deathly quiet.

No frogs croaked.

No cicadas hummed.

No crickets chirped.

There was nothing but silence and the sound of his short, rapid breaths—visible breaths that mingled with the fog in the still air.

The Voice of God, it seemed, had grown mute.

Because he’d erred.

Horribly.

And now he was being punished.

He tried to concentrate. Had he been mistaken? Hadn’t the Voice told him there would be two inside? Two to sacrifice? Yes, he was certain of it. A man and the woman, Eve, were both supposed to be inside, and yet he’d found only the man.

“Forgive me,” he whispered in agony. What would his penance be this time? He thought of the scars upon his back from flagellation, the burns on his palms from hot coals. He shuddered to think what was to come.

And yet…

His heart was still beating erratically, his blood still singing in his veins from the kill. Oh, how exquisite had been that first slice of his blade as it separated the soft tissue of the throat. And the thin, pulsing seam of red as the blood began to flow…. He closed his eyes and felt the rush all over again.

Nervously, he chewed on the inside of his cheek.

Disappointment gnawed at his guts.

Still he waited.

The Voice had never been wrong before.

And who was he to doubt God’s instructions?

Sometimes he became confused. Often the other voices screamed at him—screechy, irritating little things that would hiss, whine, and yell at him, clouding his judgment, causing his head to pound, making him wonder about his own sanity. But tonight they too were silent.

“Help me,” he mouthed. “Talk to me. Please assure me that I am doing your bidding.”

There was no response, only the sound of a short gust of wind rattling leaves as it whipped through the cypresses and live oaks in this part of the swamp.

He would wait.

Quickly, pleadingly, he made a desperate, deft sign of the cross over his chest, and as he did, he heard the soft rumble of a car’s engine approaching.

YES!!!

His eyes flew open.

Tires crunched on the sparse gravel.

He didn’t have to see the car to know it was a Toyota. Eve’s vehicle. Anticipation gave him a rush of heat through his blood as he spied her headlights, mist swirling in their weak golden beams. His gloved hand tightened over the hilt of the knife, the razor-thin blade scarcely visible in the darkness.

Crouching, he began to steal silently through the undergrowth and stopped near the cabin garage, behind a rotting tree stump, close enough that he could reach her in three steps when she walked to the door.

Her headlights washed over the grayed walls of the tiny cabin, and the engine died. The car door opened, and he caught a glimpse of her, red curls scraped away from her face, jaw set, eyes darting quickly. She cast a glance at Roy’s truck, parked beneath the overhang of a carport. Then, using a small flashlight, she walked swiftly toward the cabin’s door, tested it, and found it locked.

“Roy?” she called, knocking loudly, a hint of her perfume wafting his way. “Hey…what’s going on?” Then, more softly, “If this is some kind of sick joke, I swear, you’ll pay….”

Oh, it’s no joke, he thought, every nerve stretched to the breaking point. She was so close. If he leaped out, he could tackle her.

She shined the flashlight’s beam over the dilapidated siding and onto a sagging, battered shutter. “What’re the chances?” she asked herself. She reached behind the broken slats, extracted a key, and looked at it a long moment. “I can’t believe I’m doing this,” she muttered, inserting the key into the dead bolt.

With a click, the old lock gave way.

As she stepped into the house, he moved swiftly. He had his knife gripped tightly in his hand, and he desperately wanted to use it, to watch as it slit her soft, white flesh. But, just in case, there was always the pistol, a small-caliber one but deadly enough.

A light snapped on inside the cabin.

Through the dusty glass of the kitchen window, he saw her, her hair pulled away from the long column of her throat. His heart kicked into overdrive, and he drew a shivery breath, envisioning the act.

She’d hear his footsteps, turn, gasp when their eyes met. Then he would move quickly, slashing that perfectly arched throat, slicing her jugular, crimson blood spraying.

He drew in a swift breath.

His cock hardened.

He could almost taste her.

Eve.

The original sinner.

Time to pay.

 

“Roy, are you here?” Eve called into the watery light of the cabin. She didn’t know whether to be scared or pissed as hell as she stepped through the kitchen, where a thin layer of dust covered everything. “You know,” she said, sweat beading in her hair as she spied a half-drunk bottle of beer left on the scarred drop-leafed table, “this is creeping me out. I mean, if this is one of your games, I think I’ll just have to kill you.”

She heard a scrape, turned. Her heart jumped as a small black body scampered across the yellowed linoleum to hide beneath an ancient refrigerator. She bit back a scream with all she had, watching the mouse’s tail slide from sight. “Oh Jesus.” Her pulse pounded in her ears. She shouldn’t have come here, and she’d known it from the get-go. When Roy called, she should have insisted he come to her or that they meet somewhere in public. Being here was creeping her out.

Where the hell was he? “Roy?” He had to be here. His truck was parked in the carport. “Roy? This isn’t funny. Where are you?”

The door to the bathroom gaped open, but it was dark inside. She tried the switch, but the bulb had burned out, and when she raked her flashlight beam across the sink and toilet, she saw only rust, stains, and dirt. Something was definitely wrong here.

She walked three steps to the living room, where a lamp on an old end table was burning bright. Obviously Roy had been here…. no, not really. Obviously someone had been here, though the room itself looked as if no one had inhabited it for a decade. Dust and cobwebs covered the floor, pinewood walls, and ceiling. Even the ashes and chunks of burned wood in the grate seemed ancient. There was a yellowed fishing magazine, its pages curled and tattered. It was as if time had stopped for this dilapidated cabin on the bayou.

So what the hell was she doing here?

To see Roy? To find out what he meant by “evidence”?

What the hell kind of evidence could he mean?

Something to do with Dad, she thought. That’s what Roy meant. You know it. You can feel it in your bones. Roy knows whether dear old Dad is innocent…or guilty as sin.

Swallowing, she pulled her cell phone from her purse. Still no service.

“Royal Kajak, you’ve got about two minutes, and then I’m outta here,” she called to the shadowed corners of the cabin. “I don’t give a damn about whatever ‘evidence’ you think you’ve got. E-mail me, okay?”

Irritated, she took one last look around. Just past the open stairway was a short hall leading to the one bedroom on the main floor. The door to it yawned open.

Steeling herself, she walked toward it.

 

Shit! She had a cell phone! He hadn’t thought of that. The Voice hadn’t warned him about the phone. The Reviver stared through the window, watched her walking carefully through the house. He knew she’d call 911. The number was probably on speed dial.

He had to stop her. Fast!

Without a sound, he sheathed his knife, flicked open his ankle holster, and pulled out his pistol.

Time to finish this.

 

Nerves on edge, Eve pushed open the bedroom door. It creaked on old hinges. “Roy?”

She heard the faintest of moans.

The hairs on the back of her neck were raised as she fumbled for the light switch. With a click, the room was instantly awash in light from an ancient ceiling fixture.

She screamed.

Roy lay on the floor by the old metal bedframe. His entire face was covered in blood, and there was a huge gash on his neck spreading a dark stain across the floor.

She stumbled forward. All she could see was blood. Dark. Black. Sticky. Everywhere.

His chest moved ever so slightly as he struggled to breathe. Eve moaned with hope. He was still alive!

“Hang on!” she cried, terror clawing through her, bile rising in her throat. “Who did this? Oh sweet Jesus…” She tried to staunch the flow of blood with one hand while dialing with the trembling fingers of the other. The phone slipped from her hand, sliding through a thick smear of blood. Pressing against the gash in Roy’s throat, she retrieved the bloody cell with her free hand and punched out 911 with sticky, shaking fingers. “Help,” she pleaded, but the screen silently mocked her: NO SERVICE.

Panic welled up inside her. She was frantic.

Calm down, Eve. You can’t help Roy without a clear head. Don’t lose it. Think! Does the cabin have a phone? A landline? The electricity’s working. Maybe Vernon keeps phone service for emergencies…. Her gaze swept the room and skated over the pinewood walls. No phone outlet, but near Roy’s head, upon the yellowed pinewood walls, was a number written in blood:

212

She recoiled in horror.

What the hell did that mean?

Had Roy written it?

Or someone else?…Oh God, was Roy’s assailant still here? Maybe in the house? She thought of the can of pepper spray buried in her purse.

She didn’t have time to waste. She had to get help. The blood seeping against her fingers at Roy’s neck had eased to nothing. Oh God…

Another low moan, and it was over. Roy took one last shallow wet breath.

“No! Oh God, no…Roy! Roy!” But the hand on his neck found no pulse. “You can’t die, oh please—”

A floorboard creaked.

She froze.

The killer was still here!

Either inside the house or on the porch.

Heart thundering in her ears, she tried her damned phone again. Come on, come on, she silently pleaded, listening for any sound, her gaze moving quickly around the room and to the doorway. If only there were a back door, a way to escape.

Another soft footstep. Leather sliding over wood.

Her insides turned to water.

She carefully reached into the purse, bloody fingers scrabbling for the pepper spray as she kept her gaze moving from the doorway to the two windows, to the mirror, to the reflection there of her own panicked face. She risked glancing down, found the spray and had the cannister out of her purse when she heard the footsteps again. Louder. Coming at her!

He knew where she was.

Get out, Eve, get out now!

She shot to her feet, adrenalin fueled by horror pushing her. She reached for the light switch, slapped it off. Darkness blinded.

She turned quickly, her shoes sliding in Roy’s blood. She fell noisily, biting back a scream, holding fast to the canister. Her leg scraped down the iron bedframe. Her head thudded against the wall. Pain exploded behind her eyes.

More footsteps!

Don’t pass out. For God’s sake, don’t lose consciousness!

She flung herself toward a window.

Pitched forward.

She saw him.

In the glass.

He was holding something in his hand. Pointing it at her.

She recognized him in a heartbeat.

Cole?

The man she loved?

Cole Dennis was going to shoot her?

NO!

 

Bam!

The noise slammed like a blow.

The muzzle blazed fire!

Glass shattered.

White-hot pain exploded in her head.

Her knees buckled. She crumpled to the floor. The dark room swirled around her, and Cole Dennis’s angry face was the last image burned into Eve’s brain.

Three months later

“This is a big mistake, Eve. Big! You can’t leave yet; you’re not ready.” Anna Maria, in a bathrobe, fuzzy slippers, and no makeup, was chasing Eve down the driveway of her home.

“Watch me.” Eve wasn’t going to get into it with Anna again. Not now. It was morning, barely light, the street lamps still offering some bit of illumination as dawn crept down the manicured street of this suburb tucked between Marietta and Atlanta. Time to leave.

Holding a cigarette in one hand and a cup of sloshing coffee in the other, Anna somehow managed to keep up with her sister-in-law. “You’re not through with physical therapy, you can’t remember jack-shit about the night you were attacked, and for God’s sake, there’s a rumor, probably a good one, that Cole Dennis is going to be released. Did you hear me? The man you think tried to kill you is going to walk!”

At the mention of Cole’s name, Eve’s heart clutched. Just as it always did. And she ignored it. Just like she always did.

“We’ve had this argument a kazillion times. I need to get home.” Lugging a cat carrier, Eve made her way to her Camry as Samson, her long-haired stray, howled from within. “No matter what you think, you’re not dying,” she assured the unhappy animal as she scrounged in her purse for her keys with her free hand. The carrier bobbed wildly, and Samson, freaked out of his mind, hissed loudly. She placed the plastic crate on the driveway near the back tire of her car as she kept searching for the damned keys.

“Eve—”

“Don’t start.” Glancing up at her sister-in-law, Eve shook her head, short strands of hair brushing the back of her neck. “You know I have to leave.” She managed to slide her key ring from a side pocket, but as she did, her cell phone, tangled in the keys, popped out of the purse and dropped onto the concrete, landing with a sickening smack. “Oh great!” Just what she needed; another reason for Anna, supposedly a devout Roman Catholic but as superstitious as anyone Eve had ever met, to find an excuse for Eve to linger. It amazed Eve how Anna was forever seeing “curses,” “signs,” or “omens” in everyday life—so much so that Samson, being a black cat, was nearly banished from Anna and Kyle’s home.

“I saw that!” Anna announced. “God is trying to tell you something.”

“Yeah, like I need a new cell-phone carrier,” Eve muttered through clenched teeth.

“Not funny, Eve.”

“You’re wrong. It was really funny.” She managed a smile and looked up at her sister-in-law as dark clouds, heavy with the promise of rain, moved slowly across a low Georgia sky. Only the slightest breath of wind rattled the spreading branches of a magnolia tree growing close to the drive, but it was enough to cool the sweat that was already sprouting on Eve’s neck and spine. Picking up the phone, she saw that the screen was still illuminated. Hitting the speakerphone button, she heard the familiar hum of a dial tone. “Still working. Guess I won’t have to switch networks.” She tucked the phone more securely into a pocket of her purse, unlocked the door, and slid the cat carrier onto the backseat.

“For the record, I’m against this,” Anna said, her arms crossed beneath her large breasts.

“For the record, I know.”

“You could at least wait until Kyle gets home. He just ran out for milk and cigarettes. He’ll be back any minute.”

All the more reason to leave. Eve and her oldest brother had never gotten along. Having her camp out at his house while recovering from a gunshot wound and trauma-induced amnesia hadn’t improved their relationship.

“You’re not talking me out of this, so don’t even try. Nita says I’m eighty-five percent of normal, whatever that is.”

“Nita’s an idiot.” Anna Maria took a long drag on her cigarette and shot smoke out of the side of her mouth.

“Nita’s a board-certified physical therapist.”

“What does your shrink say?”

Eve paused. “Low blow, Anna.” She’d quit going to the psychiatrist after just three sessions. She hadn’t “clicked” with him and knew enough about psychiatry to realize a patient had to trust in her doctor completely. She didn’t. Dr. Calvin Byrd was too guarded, too quiet, too studious. The way he’d leaned back in his chair, pen in hand, as she’d confided in him had given her a bad feeling. She’d felt as if he were more interested in judging her than healing or helping her. So she’d quit the sessions. She’d been around enough shrinks in her lifetime to know the good from the bad. Wasn’t her own father proof enough of that? Not to mention that she herself had been working on her PhD in psychology before her life had been shattered at that cabin in the woods. Bottom line: no doctor should make a patient nervous.

“He might be able to help you with your memory,” Anna argued.

“I told you, I don’t like him. End of story.”

“He’s well respected. One of the best psychiatrists in Atlanta.”

“I know.” Eve had seen all the degrees, awards, and letters of commendation so proudly displayed in Dr. Byrd’s office. “It’s personal—just a gut feeling.” She was already walking back to the house, to the breezeway, where her luggage was stacked. Eve passed by her brother’s work van—a dirty paneled truck with the predictable words WASH ME scribbled into the dust on the back windows. Obviously he’d taken his Porsche for his morning run to the store. “Look, Anna, I’m not arguing about this anymore. You can either help me load up the car or stand there and rant and rave to no good end. So what’s it going to be?”

“This is nuts, Eve.”

Eve smiled gently. “Oh, come on. Things aren’t that bad.”

“Not that bad? For the love of God! When did you become such a Pollyanna? You were shot. Shot! The bullet hit your shoulder and ricocheted to your temple, and your brain was bruised. Bruised. You didn’t end up dead or paralyzed or God only knows what else, but pul-eeze don’t tell me things aren’t bad. I know better.” Anna took a long drag on her cigarette and glared at her sister-in-law over the glowing tip. “You were almost killed. By that son of a bitch you thought you might marry! C’mon, Eve. Things are definitely ‘that bad’ and probably a helluva lot worse. The problem is, you just can’t remember.”

Done with arguing, Eve picked up a duffel bag and her computer case, then started hauling them back to the Camry, where Samson was crying loud enough to wake the dead. Yes, she had big holes in her memory. But her amnesia wasn’t complete. She did recall bits from that night. Painful little shards that cut through her brain. She remembered being late. She remembered seeing Roy lying on the floor, bleeding out, barely hanging on to life. She remembered the bloody number 212 scrawled on the wall. She remembered reaching for her cell phone, hesitating, her fingers shaking too badly to dial, dropping the damned thing, seeing NO SERVICE in bold letters against a glowing LCD. She remembered seeing the gun leveled through the window before it went off. And she remembered blood. Everywhere. Splattered on the wall, pooling on the floor, making the touch pad of her cell phone sticky, oozing from Roy’s neck and forehead…

She closed her eyes for a second and drew a long breath. Guilt, ever lurking, loomed again. Deep, dark and deadly. It ate at her at night. Cut through her dreams. If only she’d been at the cabin earlier as she’d promised, if only she hadn’t hesitated or dropped her phone before dialing 911, her friend Roy might still be alive…. Shaking inside, she opened her eyes to the somber morning. The clouds overhead seemed even more ominous.

“The doctors think my memory will return,” Eve said as she reached her car and tossed the duffel onto the floor of the backseat. She slid her computer next to the cat carrier. She noticed Samson, pupils dilated, glaring through the tiny windows of the crate.

“Maybe getting your memory back isn’t a good thing.”

Boy, was Anna on a tear this morning. First one side of the argument, then the other. Eve tossed her purse onto the front passenger seat then turned to find her sister-in-law standing within inches of her.

“Aren’t you the one who told me that the brain shuts down because of trauma, to protect itself?” Anna pushed her long hair from her eyes. She was close enough that Eve smelled the smoke and coffee on her breath, the hint of perfume clinging to her skin. “Maybe you don’t want to know what happened.”

“I want to know,” Eve responded evenly.

Across the street, a door opened. In a striped terry robe and slippers, a balding man pushing eighty stepped onto his porch and shot a glance their way from behind thick glasses. He sketched out a wave then bent to retrieve his newspaper.

“Morning, Mr. Watters,” Anna said, waving back as her neighbor scanned the headlines and disappeared inside. She lowered her voice and moved closer to Eve. “I’m just asking you to wait. A week. Maybe two. ’Til you’re stronger, and maybe by then we’ll know what Cole is up to. Stay here until we’re certain you’re safe.”

“I am.”

“He’s dangerous.”

Eve had already started up the drive again. “Besides, I’m thinking of getting a dog…a puppy.”

Anna Maria took a final hit on her Virginia Slim and sent it to the concrete of the driveway, where she stomped the butt out with her pink mule. “A puppy? Like that’ll keep the bad guys at bay!”

“I’m talking about a really, really tough puppy.”

There wasn’t the slightest hint of humor in Anna’s worried eyes. “Look, Eve, you can laugh and make light about this all you want, but the bottom line is: someone tried to kill you.”

“I was at the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Anna tossed her an exasperated look. “You think it was Cole. You were going to testify that he shot you. And now…now they expect him to be released from prison. The whole case against him has fallen apart. But that doesn’t mean he won’t come after you. He did before, didn’t he? When he was out on bail? He called. Planned to meet with you, and you, being some kind of idealistic numbskull, were actually going to see him! What the hell were you thinking?”

Eve’s stomach knotted. The headache that never seemed to quite go away began to beat slowly inside her skull. She didn’t want to think about all this again.

“Cole thought you were having an affair. Probably with Roy.”

Anxiety clamped over Eve’s lungs. The truth of the matter was that she couldn’t remember. Her headache thundered. “Damn it all.” She found her purse in the car, scrounged through a zippered pocket, came up with a nearly empty bottle of ibuprofen, and tossed two pills into her mouth. “I told you, I don’t want to rehash this. I’m done arguing.” She grabbed Anna’s cup and washed down the tablets with a swallow of tepid, milky coffee. “God, this is awful.”

Anna snagged her cup.

Feeling a tic develop beneath her eye, Eve sensed another panic attack in the making. Her heart was racing, and she felt as if her lungs were strapped by steel bands.

Not now. Not here. A full-blown anxiety attack will only add fuel to Anna Maria’s you-aren’t-ready-to-leave fire…. One …Breathe!… Two…Think calm thoughts…. Three ..Slow your heartbeat…. Four …

By the time she reached ten, she was taking normal breaths again, but Anna was watching her closely. “I gotta go.” Eve grabbed her makeup kit, not that it would do much good. Her face was still a bit puffy, the plastic surgery around her right eye not quite healed. She placed the makeup bag beside the cat carrier, then turned to reach for her large roller-bag.

“Okay, fine. Hey! No! Stop! For God’s sake, don’t lift that. Just wait a sec, will ya?” Anna set her cup down then grabbed Eve’s roller-bag. “Jesus, this weighs a ton. What’ve you got in here, lead weights?”

Eve smiled faintly. “At least you didn’t say a dead body.”

“I thought about it.”

“I know you did.”

From within the interior of the car came the pitiful sound of a cat who thought he was being tortured. “Won’t that drive you nuts?” Anna asked.

“Probably.” Eve flipped up the lid of the trunk. “But I’ll survive.”

“You know you’re impossible, don’t you? As stubborn as your brothers.” Anna refused Eve’s help as she hoisted the bag into the trunk. “And don’t give me any of that crap about you not being from the same genetic pool as Kyle and Van. It doesn’t matter. You were all raised under the same roof, and that’s why you’re all so bullheaded.”

Eve had given up arguing. There was just no point to it. Not when Anna Maria got going. Logic didn’t count, and the fact that Eve’s older brothers were from their mother’s first marriage, that they were twelve and ten years old when Eve, as an infant, was adopted by Melody and Terrence Renner, wasn’t going to change Anna’s mind. Eve suspected that the only reason she’d ended up living with Kyle and Anna after being released from the hospital was that Anna Maria had insisted upon it. It hadn’t been any bit of brotherly love, or nobility, or even guilt on Kyle’s part.

Anna picked up her cup, took a swallow, and scowled. “You’re right. This is really bad.” She tossed the dregs into the dirt beneath the magnolia tree.

“Told you.”

“So, if you’re going to go,” Anna said, glancing up at the menacing sky, “go already. And Eve?”

“Yeah?”

“Avoid Cole. He’s just plain bad news.”

“I know.”

“That’s not the answer I want to hear.” Anna wrapped her arms around Eve and held her tight, as if she didn’t want to let go, and Eve wondered if it was because she was worried for Eve or because she didn’t want to be left alone with her husband. Eve knew only too well what a brooding, moody tyrant her oldest brother could be. The fact that Anna had never bent to Kyle’s will or had let him break her spirit was testament to her strength.

“Take care of yourself, Anna,” Eve whispered emotionally. “Thanks for everything. I owe you!”

“I’ll try. You too.” Before the whole scene got any more difficult, Eve extracted herself from Anna’s embrace, slid behind the wheel of her car, ignored the yowling cat, and fired up the engine. “Bye!”

Anna was already reaching into her pocket for her pack of cigarettes. She shook out the last one before crumpling the empty pack.

As Eve headed out the drive, drops of rain began to pepper the ground. Just what she needed. She had over four hundred miles of asphalt between here and New Orleans.

And once you get there, then what?

“God only knows.” She flipped on the wipers and pressed her toe to the accelerator. To drown out Samson’s mournful cries, she turned on the radio, found a country station, and wondered which was worse, the wailing guitar or the unhappy cat.

The rest of her life, whatever that was going to be, was waiting.

 

“Get me the hell out of here!” Cole Dennis paced from one end of the small holding cell to the other. He was tense. Agitated. This tiny room, with its scarred cinder-block walls and steel bars, smelled of must, dirt, and broken dreams. Worse yet, beneath the strong odor of some pine-scented cleaner was the whiff of ammonia and urine, as if the someone who’d been here last had been scared enough to lose control of his bladder. Or maybe he’d pissed on purpose to mark his territory or just make a defiant, in-your-face point to the cops.

Cole’s attorney, Sam Deeds, was seated at the simple table that was bolted to the floor. Impeccable in an Armani suit, a silk tie, and a haircut that cost what some men made in a month, Deeds looked the part of the slick attorney: clean shaven and hawkeyed, his expression serious, his dark eyes missing nothing as Cole paced from one end of the cell to the other.

How many times had Cole himself sat in that very chair, dressed like Deeds, telling his client not to sweat, never once noticing the odor of desperation that clung to these chipped walls?

“We’re just waiting for all the paperwork. You know the drill,” Deeds said.

“Like hell. They’re stalling. And why am I locked in here? I’m supposed to be getting out. This is an interrogation room, for God’s sake.”

“Your case is high profile.”

“So this is for my protection? So that I’m hidden from the press?” Cole snorted his contempt. “Bullshit!”

“Cool it.” Deeds tossed a look to the large mirror on one side of the room as if in silent reminder about the two-way glass.

Cole shut up. He knew all about the mirror and about the pricks standing on the other side watching him squirm, hoping against hope that there was some way to nail his hide for the Royal Kajak murder. Jesus, what a mess. He shoved one hand through his hair and felt warm drops of sweat on his scalp. Just like he’d seen hundreds of times on the poor sons of bitches that he’d represented.

He cast a hard glance at the reflective glass, wondering if Montoya, that useless piece of crap, was on the other side, or maybe Bentz, the older, heavier, quieter guy, Montoya’s partner. Or Brinkman…Christ, now that guy was a piece of work. How he held on to a j. . .