Repressed Page 29

  From the front, something banged again. Out of time. He was up and over the sill in moments and had wiggled through the hole in even less, trying not to care when he heard the knife slide off the outside sill and into the grass. He heard another sound behind him, but didn’t stop to think, didn’t stop to see, just moved. Someone behind him. Someone after him. But if he could get to Evie and Shannon first …

  The dimness of the room stretched around him, but the last blush of twilight through the torn window covering gave him enough light to see there was no crib in there, no mattress. Just a table against the far wall that held … bottles. A glass cup. A pet carrier crate in the corner of the room with a handle on top.

  Did they have a guard dog? He had not considered coming up against an animal, but surely the beast would have heard him and growled by now, or attacked Roger if it was in the front end of the house. In this room, he was the only beast. For now.

  Evie had quieted, and for once he wished she was crying—he couldn’t discern her silent breathing above the sound of his own heart and the muffled voices out front. Where would she be? Where would they keep her? In the picture Janice had sent of Shannon, she was in a room, attached to a beam, but behind a door. Like it used to be a—his eyes locked on the folding doors along the far wall.

  He ran to the closet, the treads on his shoes soft and supple and above all else, silent. He paused as an image of Evie, suspended from the clothes rod, smashed into his brain: his baby girl hanging from a T-shirt around her throat, her skin blue and cold and dead. He inhaled sharply, reaching for the knob. And opened it.

  The door creaked just a touch, but there was nothing inside that hinted at his family, only a few boxes of electronic equipment, empty bags, and a fast food cup as if someone had gone shopping and deposited everything including their snack.

  But Evie had been here. He’d heard her. Janice hadn’t taken her to the front door, had she? No, she wouldn’t have let Roger see her. Morrison turned, scanned the walls, the floor, the—plastic pet crate.

  Two steps and he was at the pet carrier. He gingerly lifted the crate, rushing back to the window as he did so he could see inside it. She was there, barely moving, wearing only a diaper, one tiny fist opening and closing. “Baby. Oh baby.”

  At the front of the house, a door slammed. Evie mewled weakly. Fuck. He tried to wrest the carrier door open and only then did he see the padlock on the front. Opening the crate would take too long and he’d risk hurting her if he smashed it.

  A shadow fell over him from the window and he shifted the crate into one hand, grabbing his gun with the other. Die, motherfucker. So help him, he’d—

  “Give her here, Cali,” the silhouette in the window whispered.

  He didn’t lower the gun.

  “For fuck’s sake, Morrison—”

  He heard them then, the footsteps approaching the door. “I love you, baby. Daddy’ll be right back.” Morrison handed the crate to Petrosky and ran for the bedroom door.

  44

  Janice didn’t have Shannon with her—the padded sounds of her feet on the floor were too quick, too clean. Purposeful. And then the steps just … stopped. Morrison flattened himself against the doorframe, waiting, listening for one harsh inhale, a gasp to indicate her understanding that he was there for her ass. Nothing. He held the gun trained on the crack above the doorknob. If she opened the door, Janice wouldn't have time to speak.

  But the knob did not turn. She knew he was there. She was listening, trying to hear him breathe even as he was trying to hear her. Perhaps she had a gun on the other side of the door, waiting for him to open it, ready to blow his face off too.

  Perhaps she’d change her mind and go after Shannon instead.

  He strained his ears for sounds of her feet on the wooden floor. If she stepped away from the door, he’d fling it open, go in low, and shoot for the knees, the belly. Even if he missed, a wild shot or two might throw her off balance so he could cap her in the back of the head before she could get to Shannon.

  And her ability to focus might be impaired—she’d be angry now. Angry that she might not be able to complete whatever sick goal she had in mind. Angry he hadn’t killed Roger as he’d said. That she’d been tricked by the story in the paper—a story he’d leaked the day he’d carved the tattoos off the already dead pedophile and left him in Roger’s house to burn.

  But now, instead of the crackle of flaming wood and cloth, he heard only her breath. Whisper quiet, but there. Fast. She knows.

  Then a step, just one, then another, and he yanked the door and fired into the hallway, low, so if he missed, it’d lodge in the floor and not ricochet into another room where he might accidentally murder his own wife with a stray bullet.

  A scrambling, a thin squeal.

  He got his head around the doorframe in time to see her foot, clad in a fuzzy yellow sock, disappearing into the next room. He leapt for the door, for her ankle, grabbing at her but coming away with only a few threads of yellow fuzz. He lunged again, trying to keep his head behind the frame, wanting to drag her out. His fist connected with ankle bone and he gripped her foot so hard he thought he’d break it. He yanked her to him.

  Pain, white and hot, shot from the side of his hand and up his arm, forcing him to release her as she swung the lamp again, the base heavy and metal and dented from the first blow to the back of his hand. He rolled in time to avoid it, clambering after her into the bedroom. She skittered back on her butt and he reached again for her leg, but she was faster, scrambling for the closet on the far side of the room, pressing numbered buttons on a padlock.

  He couldn't move his pinky finger. From the corner of his eye he could see that it was bent at an unnatural angle. But he wouldn’t need it to fucking kill her.

  He leapt to standing at the same time she did. She threw the closet door open and ducked behind—

  Shannon. Oh, dear god.

  Her eyes were red-rimmed, her face haggard. Around her throat was the collar: heavy, metal, black like iron, bolted to an oiled wooden beam that ran horizontally through the closet five feet off the ground. Her hands appeared to be free. But she made no attempt to grab the woman—her fingers were locked around the beam on either side of her iron-clad neck. And her lips—oh baby, I’m so sorry—angrier in person or maybe simply infected by now, congealed blood and yellowed pus clinging to the sutures, black thread piercing her lips from top to bottom like a huge, grisly zipper. Janice had done this to his wife. Put his baby in a cage. Hatred burned hotter than any flame. I will fucking kill you.

  “Come closer and she’s dead. I’ll slit her throat.” Janice remained low, but shoved Shannon’s legs from behind, just a touch. Blood trickled from somewhere behind the collar. Her neck had been sliced. Shit, no, no, no. Shannon whimpered, her eyes wide, moving her hands to the collar itself as if trying in vain to stop the bleeding from her neck.

  The collar. Blades or something inside it. But it didn’t matter what—he couldn’t get near enough to free her and as he peered closer he could see the bolts and the lock attaching the collar securely to the beam. He’d have to coax Janice out, have to—

  The collar swung open and Shannon was free, and she stumbled forward against the closet door and pivoted, trapping Janice behind her near the beam.

  Janice’s jaw dropped, and she put her hands up, trying to block Shannon’s knee as it connected with her chin. But Shannon was weak, off balance, maybe she hadn’t eaten or slept, and she fell to her knees, a piece of curved metal falling from her hand to the carpet.

  Janice reeled forward, teeth bared and punched Shannon in the belly.

  Fucking bitch.

  Morrison jumped in front of Shannon, hauling Janice from the closet before she could attack his wife again. He threw her against the wall, watched her mouth move, knew she was saying something, but he couldn’t hear a word, couldn’t hear anything but the ragged hiss of air through his teeth. Or maybe he was just far beyond listening.

  He wrapped his h
ands around her throat. The broken bones behind his pinky and ring finger poked at the skin from the inside like spiked alien parasites. His tendons, swollen and bright with agony, screamed as he tightened his grip.

  He didn’t fucking care. He squeezed.

  45

  She fought him, slashing at his hands with her nails, every attempt to free herself stoking the fire in his gut. You fucking deserve this. Streaks of bloody red welled on his fists and dripped onto the floor, but he did not relent. Nor did he stop when pain careened from his hand to his wrist and shot into his brain like lightning, an electricity composed of concentrated malice.

  Her face reddened, then went purple, her eyes bulging. But her mouth. It wasn’t the shocked o he’d expected. For though her survival instinct was kicking in, she was no longer pulling from him, pulling away—trying to escape.

  She had expected to fight him. She’d invited him here. Once you remember, you’ll know where to find me.

  “You don’t want this.” Morrison heard the words but did not see the speaker, and though he knew it was Petrosky’s baritone, it seemed to come from Shannon’s mouth, and—oh dear god—she was on the floor, her lips unmoving, sewn together like a voodoo doll, and still the voice came again: “Morrison, this is what she wants.”

  He squeezed harder, watching Janice’s face as her lips turned blue, the veins in her temples bulging like fattening worms as she crept toward unconsciousness, toward death, the only fitting punishment for what she’d done.

  “Morrison!” Now Petrosky was there, at Shannon’s side, tugging her shirt down, and Morrison caught a whiff of her, the harsh metallic tang of the collar, maybe Shannon’s blood, maybe his own. He squeezed until he was sure he’d tear a muscle in his hand.

  “You’re not a killer. She wants you to be.”

  Shannon. Shannon’s voice. He jerked back to her. Petrosky stepped away from her, a knife in his fist, and Shannon opened her mouth, her lips bleeding and swollen and cracked. Speaking—or whispering—but she might as well have been yelling at him, for her words were all he could hear.

  Petrosky touched Morrison’s elbow, not trying to impede him, just letting him know he was there, and then Janice was falling, this bitch who’d tried to take everything from him, who’d tried more than once to kill his wife, who had tortured her, who had taken his daughter. A woman who’d followed him, hunted him, plotted against him, with nothing but vengeance in her heart.

  She hadn’t won. But if he killed her, he was exactly what she believed him to be.

  Janice was in a heap on the floor, unconscious, unable to stop herself from smacking her head on the boards, and then Petrosky was there, cuffing her arms behind her.

  Morrison watched, dumbfounded. It was over. But no, it wasn’t. They were missing one. “He here?”

  Shannon’s gaze darted to the door. He knelt beside her and her hair smelled of grease and gore and the must of body odor and piss and rank, spoiled milk. And it was the most beautiful thing he’d ever smelled.

  “Evie,” she said into his chest, her voice trembling with terror that the news was bad, that she’d lost her daughter.

  “She’s okay. She’s okay.” Morrison jerked his head toward Petrosky.

  “Roger has her,” Petrosky said. “He’s driving her to the hospital with a police escort. Figured it was safer than staying here, in case there was any … trouble.” He hauled Janice to her feet and her eyes rolled around, but she stood, wavering ever so slightly. Her face was returning to a furious shade of pink.

  “Your asshole boyfriend on his way here?” Petrosky asked Janice. When she didn’t answer, he jerked her arm and she stumbled, almost fell and caught herself against the wall with one shoulder.

  “Fuck you.” Janice’s voice was hoarse but she could still speak. Morrison should have squeezed her throat harder. Or sewn her goddamn mouth closed. He glanced at Shannon, who was running her tongue over the sutures, the ends of the severed threads poking from her torn lips.

  “I sent Decantor over to the rehab center,” Petrosky said. “That’s where these douchebags met, where Adam still works. If he’s there, Decantor has him.”

  Morrison eyed the door behind them, straining his ears, listening for the telltale sound of the latch on front doorknob, a boot in the hall, the clink of spikes ripe with purpose and violence. Morrison would show him fucking violence—he’d ram those spikes down his throat. But there was no noise besides the far-off clang of a grandfather clock striking a quarter past the hour.

  “We’ll get his ass, Morrison. Let’s get Shannon and Evie to the hospital. Put your family back together.”

  Relief shuddered through Morrison in waves, one after another. He wrapped his arms around Shannon again, but trying to be gentle. She was so weak, so beat up, so bruised. She’d suffered because of him.

  “I’m so sorry,” he whispered into her hair.

  “You didn’t do anything wrong,” she said. “There is no sorry here.”

  “Only love,” he finished. But he felt the guilt, tearing through his gut, that heavy aching sorrow he feared would never disappear. And one day she’d resent him for it—for all of it. She’d leave him. Take Evie.

  And then he’d only have the drug. The vein in his thigh throbbed, one slow, deep pulse, then stilled. But when she put her injured lips to his neck and kissed his throat though it must have hurt like hell, he knew he’d endure.

  “Only love,” she said. “You didn’t cause this. But you did save us.”

  His heart swelled and throbbed, harder than the vein.

  The drug could kiss his ass.

  46

  The room was dim when Petrosky awoke. Not the mellow dusk of a day’s end, but that brassy half dark of another day trying to creep in when you’re not yet ready for it. He rolled over and tried to push himself to seated, his tongue rank and sour from last night’s vomit, shoulder still tender from the tattoo he’d had Jenny ink on him last week. Julie’s face, memorialized. Maybe it would always hurt.

  And that was difficult to take.

  Each day he drew closer to an unknown conclusion. But he didn’t want to get there. He eyed the gun in its holster, hanging innocently over the chair as if it had no intention of luring him with that quick, easy path to peace. Petrosky reached for it, comforted by the hardness of it, wondering if he’d register the moment he died as a flash of light, a deafening crack of lead as his soul left his body, or if it would be only silence and floating. He wasn’t much for religion and the afterlife. If he’d believed in a heaven where Julie waited for him with open arms, he’d have put a bullet in his brain a long time ago.

  He put his feet on the floor and heaved his doughy body off the bed. The room shuddered violently around him, the edges wavering, then solidifying like he was exiting a tunnel or a horrible nightmare. He might as well have been.

  Another day, another dollar. Another day of wondering: Will today be the day someone shoots me?

  Like he’d be that fucking lucky.

  He met Morrison and Shannon at their house, the leaves already falling to their deaths on the front lawn. Helicoptering red and orange skittered across the driveway, and he kicked them aside on his way to the stoop.

  Everything died, and today just happened to be their day. Petrosky envied them.

  Morrison greeted him with a warm smile and a worried look, though he said nothing. He never did. Petrosky was thankful for his silence, though perhaps Morrison simply knew that the moment he opened his mouth, Petrosky would cut his ass out of his life. Not like Morrison and his family needed Petrosky’s bullshit.

  Shannon was already at the table, their newest addition at her heel, his ears pricked and alert. The dog appeared to relax when it saw Petrosky, but he knew it was from the gentle command Shannon had whispered. One word and the German shepherd would rip his fucking throat out, as would the other two who were probably in the backyard now, patrolling.

  Shannon spooned eggs off her plate with a pink plastic spoon and grinne
d at Petrosky as he entered the kitchen. Petrosky tried to smile back.

  Her mouth turned down and the tiny marks where her lips had been sewn together dimpled just a touch. Almost healed now, but still a little pink, a little angry. “You look like shit,” she said.

  No wonder they’d sewn her mouth closed. “Nice to see you, too.”

  Evie gurgled and waved her arms, spraying eggs across the highchair tray and into Shannon’s hair. Shannon ignored it, just frowned at him. She’d gone from tough to fucking badass after the kidnapping. Maybe being locked in a closet for a week made you realize what was important. Maybe she was on guard in case Adam Norton came back for her, though he was surely long gone by now.

  And Janice had been little help. She’d met Norton at the rehab center, and swore she’d never met Michael Hayes, the guy who raped Acosta and Reynolds. Further investigation had determined that Norton and Hayes had met at the hospital, Norton working with the cleaning service and Hayes volunteering as a clown. Both of those jackoffs seemed so fucking fragile he couldn’t begin to determine who had approached who, though from everything they had found online, Michael Hayes seemed the less violent one—creepy tattoos, and a rapist, though not a killer.

  But Adam Norton—that motherfucker was vicious. Dangerous. And impulsive, possibly because of how young he was. At least Norton’s DNA information was in the computer now, so they’d find him when he did it again—it wasn’t like he’d be able to stop himself.

  And he could be anywhere. The trail had dried up. They’d chased down every futile lead and, through it all, Morrison had kept that stoic, cool-collected façade, as if this shit had never happened. Like it didn’t bother him.

  But Morrison had bought the dogs.

  Petrosky squinted back at Shannon’s narrowed eyes. Still watching him, possibly for tremors or looking for needle scars. His ankle twitched and Petrosky shifted his weight. At least she didn’t look scared. Maybe it was the canine unit.