Here it was, another opportunity to feel finality, closure. Geddes was cold meat in the prison morgue. You couldn’t get any more final than that. Right? He searched his soul for that finished feeling. He didn’t find it.
Robin had put on the sweatshirt again. She crossed her arms over her chest. “Bad news?” she asked.
He opened his mouth to tell her it was none of her business. “The guy I just put in jail,” he blurted. “Son of a bitch just committed suicide. He found a way to off himself after just a few days in the joint.”
She bit her lip and gazed at him, big-eyed, like she wanted to say something, but was afraid to let it out. “And, ah…this is bad?”
“Too easy!” He was breathing hard. “Too fucking easy. The bastard deserved to have his extremities pulled off by tractor trailers! He deserved to be some tattooed Nazi sadist’s bitch! Not a half gallon of fucking hand gel, and off he drifts to fucking never-never land! Fuck that!” He punctuated that by punching the closest pine tree.
Shit. The bastard was covered with rough bark. What a dickhead.
Robin grabbed his shaking fist, and looked at it, murmuring softly at his bloody knuckles. She took his wrist and tugged. He followed her into the cabin, feeling docile and thick. And unbelievably stupid.
She led him to the sink and washed his hand, then rummaged in the cupboards for cotton balls, ointment, bandaids. Then she sat him down, spread his hand out on a clean dish towel. Dabbed and tweezed, smeared him with ointment, wrapped bandaids around each lacerated knuckle. When she was done, she lifted his hand, kissed it. Something twisted in his chest, unstable and dangerous. He pulled his hand back.
Robin sighed, and bent over the fridge. She pulled out two more beers, popped them open, set one before him. He took a grateful pull.
The silence was thick. He was intensely embarrassed, about the wild oral sex, his insane rudeness, the flagrant tree abuse. All of it.
“I don’t think I’ve ever heard you keep your mouth shut for this long at one time since I’ve known you,” he said, just to say something.
Robin propped her face in her hand, tracing designs on the fog of condensation on her beer bottle. Her eyes were thoughtful.
“Usually I ham it up, clown around,” she said. “My way of dealing with scary stuff is to make a joke of it, make people laugh. But I can’t make fun of something like this.”
He shook with bitter laughter. “Oh, you’d be surprised what we can make fun of.”
“Sure. You’re a cop. But it would be inappropriate from me to try it. It’s outside my scope. I’m just sorry this happened.”
He acknowledged her words with a brusque nod.
“Who was this guy?” she asked. “What did he do?”
“You don’t want to know,” he said brusquely.
“Um, actually, I do.” Her voice was quietly stubborn.
He gulped his beer. “He liked to kill young women. Slowly.”
“The Egg Man?”
He looked up at her, startled. “You know about him?”
“I watch the news. You’re right. He didn’t deserve an easy death.”
Robin ventured to lay her hand on top of his battered one, barely touching it. She stared down at it as if she were willing the lacerations to heal. The warmth of her soft fingers felt good. More than good.
He pulled his hand out from under hers. “You should get some sleep,” he said gruffly. “It’s getting late.”
She put her hand back. “The only bed fit to sleep in is the sofa bed in the living room,” she said. “I checked the bedrooms. In one room, there was a leak over the bed. The mattress is molded slop. And in the other, some mammal clawed through the wall and had a litter on the mattress. So, ah, I’ll just take the sofa cushions and sleep on the floor.”
“No,” he said promptly. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Hey. Get real. You’re the one who’s been chasing serial killers,” Robin argued. “And I came up here uninvited. Besides—”
“Shut up, Robin. You’re taking the bed. Go get the sleeping bags.”
She scurried off. He went into the living room and wrestled the couch into position. Robin came back with pillows and sleeping bags. She offered him one of each, without looking at him. He’d stung her into silence.
He should be glad. It was the only way to survive this.
Julia sat on the chair next to the telephone table, immobile as a rock. Stupefied, she stared at the answering machine.
She couldn’t take it in. It wasn’t possible. Not William. She’d just seen him, talked to him. That very afternoon at the prison. The fateful message had been blinking on the machine when she stumbled in after the long drive back to the luxurious desert lair that she’d shared with William. One of his many residences. William had been very wealthy.
Her hand reached out. It felt numb, an appendage that belonged to another person. This hostile alien insisted on punching the Play button of the machine again, like a self-flagellant wielding the lash.
Click. The message began to play once again, the words pounding at her like rocks, bruising flesh, breaking bones. “Hello, this is a message for a Ms. Julia Kirkland,” said a flat, nasal male voice. “I’m Bob Bruckner, a member of William Geddes’s legal team. I have bad news. Mr. Geddes died this afternoon. I’m sorry to say that he took his own life. He drank a container of sterilizing hand gel from the prison bathroom dispenser, and the ethanol depressed his respiratory system. Mr. Geddes left a note asking that you be contacted, which is why I’m calling this number. Uh, I’m very sorry for your loss, Ms. Kirkland. If you have any questions, feel free to call me at this number.” Bruckner rattled off a number, hesitated, as if feeling the urge to say something more. He let out an embarrassed grunt. Click.
Julia pressed her hand against the heavy raw silk of her white Gucci suit jacket, pressing it hard against the raw, screaming empty spot inside her. Gone. Her William was gone. Her fingers closed around the fabric of the jacket, crumpling it in a white, shaking fist. She never would have guessed that he’d do that to her. She’d been so certain that he’d find a way to escape. He was so smart, so indomitable.
She must have looked so strange today in that place, in a white designer suit. Blazing with the jewels William had given her. All done up like a doll to visit a maximum security prison. But it had seemed appropriate. A gesture of respect and love. All she could offer him.
She closed her eyes and saw it all again, every detail. From the moment they led him into the glass-fronted cubicle. He’d been so pale. Hollows under his cheeks, shadows under his eyes. The orange jumper and harsh lights made his skin seem blue. And the bruises! Someone had beaten him! It made her so angry, she wanted to vomit.
But his eyes still burned like lasers, transfixing her like always.
He had been so brave and noble, to pay the whole price for what they had done together. He’d forbidden her to turn herself in, or to confess. Insisted that she stay away during the trial. It nearly killed her.
She would have died for him. Anything.
You have to carry on, he’d said. You fly for both of us now.
It made her cry to think of it, but William despised tears, so she forced them back. They picked up the phones, but neither spoke. So many things could not be said in words, particularly not in front of listening ears. Others were too obvious to say. How it tore her heart out to see him like this. How she wished she could suffer every blow in his place. The worst pain could be sweet, if it was suffered for love.
William taught her that, in the eight years they’d been together.
She’d been barely seventeen when he’d found her, cheerleading at a high school football game. He’d found her e-mail address, and quickly became the one ray of light in her monumentally shitty life. The one person in the world who understood her. Her true soulmate.
It had taken her months to work up the courage, but she’d finally let him take her away from the insanity of it all. Her cold, uncaring bitch of a mom, the rich, bloated lech of a step-dad with the hot eyes and the wandering hands. The stupidity of panting high school jocks.
William had showed her a new world, a different universe. His inner power electrified her. She’d looked for her picture on milk cartons for a while, but no one ever found her. Not with a genius like William covering her tracks. He’d given her a new name, a new face. A new life.
She’d belonged to him, completely. He was her everything.
“What can I do?” she’d asked him. “My love.”
His eyes held hers, full of dark shadows like storm clouds. “One thing, Jule,” he had whispered. “All I’ll ever ask from you.”
“Anything,” she promised. “Anything, William.”
He lifted his hand, and pressed his palm to the glass.
AMENDOLA was sliced into his flesh, in big, jagged bloody block letters. Blood smeared over the thick layers of glass.
Excitement buzzed through her as she stared at it. All she wanted in the world was to punish the police detective who had gutted their lives. But so far, William had forbidden her to risk exposure.
Jon Amendola of the PPD was the reason she wasn’t with William right now, liberating their sixth candidate. They’d chosen the girl so carefully. Blonde, like Julia. Pretty, like Julia. Smart, like Julia. Bouncing from frat party to frat party at a nearby college. No clue she was about to transcend her own body and fly with the angel of death.
She nodded slowly. Yes. Gladly. She could hardly wait.
Lightning flashed deep in William’s fathomless blue eyes. Make it slow, he mouthed. Make it hurt.
She nodded, eyes locked with his. One with him. And then their time was up. They’d spent the whole time staring at each other.
Their gazes stayed locked to the last, until they led him away.
So she had a task to accomplish. The huge responsibility had electrified her, kept her awake for the long drive home. But he hadn’t told her that he was going to leave her alone forever. That was cruel.
Julia squeezed her eyes shut to block out the blinking answering machine. Those bloody letters were carved into her brain. AMENDOLA.
She went into her bedroom, removed her clothing. Paced into the room that she and William had used for their special, private rituals. She lit the candelabra, and stared at her nude body in the mirror, the intricate beauty of her scars. She was a living work of art. William had sculpted her, with knives and fire. She was his legacy, his masterpiece.
Amendola would pay. Double. She would take his wife, or his girlfriend, and perform the ultimate tribute to William’s memory upon her. She would toss the limp, broken body back at him like garbage. And when she finally did kill him, he would already be dead inside.
William’s face took form in her mind, giving her a burst of joy. She realized, in a blinding flash of insight, that he was free now. Really free.
Free of the burden of his own body. Free to guide her.
Make it hurt. She’d been tutored by a master in the intricacies of pain. Levels upon levels of agony that transformed the soul.
Make it hurt.
Oh, yes. She would. And inside her head, William smiled at her.
4
Flapping wings, beating. Glaring eyes, hooked beak, a shriek that froze his blood. Rending claws, plummeting like a missile—
And he was looking down at the girl, staked out, her naked body scarcely recognizable as human. Her jaw gaped. In her slack mouth was that telltale gleam of a delicate blue ovoid. The robin’s egg.
The girl’s eyes snapped open. Horror stopped his heart.
Robin’s huge brown eyes. Whites showed all around. They stared out, weeping tears of blood that streaked down her distorted face—
Jon jerked upright, choking off a scream, and stared around, trying to orient himself. The cabin. The kitchen. Robin. Geddes and his hand gel. Jesus. Just a dream. One of the worst.
It wasn’t getting better. He didn’t get it. He was thick-skinned. He bounced back from whatever plowed into him. Growing up in foster homes had made him tough, resiliant. He knew how to look out for himself. He knew better than to let anyone or anything get too close. He kept the world at bay, by habit. It worked for him. It always had.
That had worked for him as a cop too. He wasn’t cold or uncaring. He was just detached. Victims had counselors to be empathetic to them. Empathy wasn’t his job, thank God. His job was to hunt those fuckers down and haul them in. To make them stop.
So how was the Egg Man messing with him from beyond the grave? It made him feel violated. Helpless. A feeling he hated intensely.
He forced himself to consider all the possibilities, however unpalatable. Maybe he was having a breakdown. Accumulated job stress. He’d never dreamed it could happen to a cast-iron bastard like himself, but how else would he let himself get snookered into fooling around Robin? He was losing his mind. It was the only explanation.
His heart still galloped from the dream. He tried to breathe deep, calm down, but it wasn’t happening. He twisted around, stared at the bed, dimly visible in the light of the dying fire. The virgin sacrifice.
What the hell. She wouldn’t know he was gawking. He padded into the other room and stared at her, curled up in her nest of puffy nylon. Her shoulder had slipped out of the sweatshirt. So soft, and pretty. And sweeter than sweet. That made it so much worse somehow.
He went back to the kitchen and snagged a chair, carried it back with him. He sat down near the bed. Hell, he couldn’t sleep anyway.
It made him breathe easier. As long as he was watching, no stinking bird of prey could swoop down on her and start rending.
The dream was deliciously erotic. Rocking bursts of delight pulsed through her as she twined herself around Jon’s body. But she knew it was only a dream. Something was pulling on her from the outside, tugging at her mind. An urgent, anxious feeling. Someone needed her.