Forty-Four Box Set, Books 1-10 (44) (175 page)
Read Forty-Four Box Set, Books 1-10 (44) Online
Authors: Jools Sinclair
He was as insane as ever. He offered his hand.
“You’re crazy,” I said.
“Let’s not be rash. Hear me out. You see, I’ve been busy learning all matter of new skills. For one, I’ve discovered how to
visit.
I’ve mastered how to inhabit a human host the way you’re witnessing right now. And not just Benjamin. I’ve visited quite a few other vessels. It’s been a steep learning curve, with countless failures and sleepless nights, but all worth it, I should think. I am, after all, standing before you in my dear brother’s body. And of course that was me out in front of your home the other night and then again cutting your house tour short.”
I remembered how strange Ben had acted when I walked him home that night. I assumed it had been the alcohol.
“That was you,” I mumbled. “But how?”
“There are so many unfortunate and feeble souls out in the world. You have no idea. Their weakness is my window. Benjamin was perfect, of course, so wrought with guilt, so consumed by his maudlin grief. In so many ways, he proved an ideal candidate.”
“Where is he now?” I asked.
“Exactly!” he said. “I ask myself the same thing. You see, there is still so much to learn. I don’t really know where he goes when I visit. No idea whatsoever. I drop by, perform the work that needs to be done, and then jump out. My brother’s whereabouts during that time remain a mystery.”
He laughed softly.
“He should have accomplished more with his life, really. He had the intellect, but not the
cojones
as your friends at the diner would say. He insisted on doing small things, coming back here to this ridiculous little town, dating old flames. What a waste.”
He shook his head and looked at both hands.
“These are a bit large and clumsy. I much prefer my own.”
“Does he know?” I said.
A slow smile spread across his lips.
“That’s a very good question,” he said, lifting one hand and studying it. “I think he does suspect something is not quite right. I’ve caught him looking in the mirror, touching his face as if he’s not sure what has happened. I think I’ve scared him. I’ve seen him cower in the corner like the beaten dog that he is.”
I tried to speak, but I had no words.
None.
Not until he pulled out the knife.
CHAPTER 70
“What are you doing?” I said, my voice loud and unsteady.
He gazed at the knife for a while and then cleaned his fingernails with the tip.
“Join me in my research, Abby,” he said. “I’ve pulled together some old friends. As we speak, they are continuing my work at a state-of-the-art facility in warmer climes. Don’t you see how very much alike we are? Both dead but simultaneously alive? Alive in the ways that matter most.”
I had trouble focusing on his words, my eyes on the long, sharp blade. He leaned against a metal cabinet.
“I can promise you that you will want for nothing. But this is my final offer. I won’t continue playing this cat and mouse game. I grow weary of the chase.”
His eyes narrowed suddenly, like he was waiting for an answer. But, as always, there was only one answer.
“I’ll never go with you, Nathaniel. Never.”
He stood upright and nodded.
“I expected nothing less. You’re a woman of virtue, ethics, of defined rules. I admire all of that. From a distance. But if I am to be completely honest, I must admit to a certain degree of disappointment.” He paused and I could see him looking at my ring. “I’ve never felt at home being second best. But as they say, when life gives you lemons… Kill two birds with one stone.”
And the next second, he plunged the knife into Ben’s chest.
CHAPTER 71
Ben crumpled to the floor, folding in on himself and landing like a dead leaf in autumn.
Blood was everywhere, on his lab coat, on the ground, on my feet. It splattered on my face and in my hair. I reached for the knife and grabbed it, pulling it from his chest. I held my hand over the wounds trying to keep the blood in. But it wasn’t working. It was coming out too fast, and there was too much of it.
He looked up at me, his eyes swimming in shock. They were Ben’s eyes again.
“Hold on,” I said through my tears. “I’m going for help. You’ll be okay.”
But he just looked at me in horror.
“Why?” he said in between gasping breaths. “Why, why did you… Abby…”
“Oh, no, Dr. Mortimer,” I said. “It wasn’t me. I didn’t do this!”
He stared at me as life faded from his eyes, his breath rattling until it was completely quiet.
The door opened and a nurse stepped in. She looked at his body and then at the knife, still in my hand. I let it fall to the floor. Eyes bulging, she ran back out into the hall.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, taking his hand. “I’m so sorry.”
Then I heard it again, the quiet laughter, now behind me.
CHAPTER 72
“Abby,” his voice purred.
I turned and faced him.
Nathaniel Mortimer’s ghost stood in the corner of the lab, his arms folded in front of his chest. He looked almost the same as the last time I had seen him, wearing a suit and tie with his hair pulled back in a thin ponytail. But his face was much harder, more defined. He glanced casually at the floor and at his dead brother.
“If it helps to ease your pain, you should know that Benjamin was going to die here tonight regardless. There was no other way. I was finished with his services and he had to pay for what he had done. Benjamin was a dead man the moment he shot and killed me that day. He was living on borrowed time. Tonight, that time came to an end. And as for you and your contribution to my research, once I saw you as essential, but the moment has passed. My interest in you is now of a purely personal nature, but as you can see I am doing quite well without you.”
In the light of the moon, I could see that his energy had grown even darker, with thick bands moving around him. He seemed stronger than I remembered. I was in the presence of more evil than I had ever been in my life.
His almond-shaped eyes glared at me. A dog barked in the distance and I dropped to my knees and cried.
“I don’t want to tell you what to do, but if I were you, I would consider leaving. The police will have you in custody by morning. The glove will fit and the jury will convict. But, of course, the choice is ultimately yours.”
He walked over to me as I sobbed.
“Goodbye, Abby. Perhaps we’ll cross paths again someday. I certainly hope so.”
Nathaniel disappeared, vanishing like a wispy vapor in the air.
I took his advice.
CHAPTER 73
I drove all that night and the next day, with the two-lane highway in front of me and my heart empty and black. I kept the Impala just below the speed limit at all times, through the back roads as I made my way south. I didn’t know where I was going, only that I had to get away.
I had to leave it all behind. My friends, Back Street, cooking school, the Deschutes River, the snow-capped mountains, my house with the herbs growing in the backyard.
Ty.
It was all gone now, turned to ash and scattered in the wind.
My eyes hurt from all the crying, and I was struggling to keep them open on the dark road. I would stop soon and try to get some sleep. But not yet. Not yet. Maybe in the next small town. Or the one after that.
I had checked the news before leaving my phone by the side of the road in Oregon. Nathaniel had been right. Dr. Benjamin Mortimer was found dead in a St. Charles lab room and the person of interest authorities were searching for was the young woman who claimed to be a psychic. My high school picture was once again posted online and as I read the story it dawned on me that it hadn’t been a prediction at all. Nathaniel had planned it, had planned to have me arrested and sent away for the murder of his brother.
There was an eyewitness who saw me holding the murder weapon. My fingerprints were on it. And then there was the waitress at the restaurant that night. She had seen us together. People had probably seen me walking Ben home with my arm around him. It wouldn’t be too much of a stretch for the prosecution to spin it as a love triangle gone wrong. Ben, Kate, and me.
Case closed.
There was no way they would ever believe what really happened.
I could never go back home again.
I looked at my hand. It felt as if something had been amputated. Fresh tears rolled down my cheeks.
I had left Ty a note. Along with the ring.
I told him how sorry I was. That I loved him too much to put him through what was coming. I had already put him through enough. I asked him not to try to find me, to forget me because it was for the best. And I told him that I would always love him.
I had been selfish in wanting Ty, wanting the kind of life we dreamed about together. A normal life. I had brought him into my twisted world of ghosts, visions, and killers. Along with a dead boyfriend who I refused to let go of.
I had always been a dead girl walking in a world where I didn’t belong. I just hadn’t realized it until now.
I realized something else. The tragic, lonely figure at the bar in my vision wasn’t Ben at all. It was Ty.
“I’m sorry, Ty,” I whispered. “I’m so sorry.”
As I drove it dawned on me that I was meant to end up here all along, alone and afraid and running. No matter how much I wanted to be married or to be a chef or to sit by the pond with a bottle of beer in my hand watching the long branches of the willow tree blow in the breeze, this road had always been waiting for me. It was where I was headed since I drowned that day in the lake.
The tears turned into rivers, flowing off my face and onto my shirt, spilling out from a place deep inside me that I didn’t know existed. I was having trouble keeping my eyes on the highway, keeping the car steady.
I saw the blurry lights of a town in the distance. I would look for a cheap motel there. I would get some sleep and get back to running in the morning.
CHAPTER 74
I started again early.
I thought about Kate. Her heart would be broken now, crushed when she heard the news that the man she loved had been killed by her sister. I would call her. But not today. And not tomorrow. I’d leave her alone until it felt right. I hoped that someday she would listen to me, believe what had really happened.
I didn’t know how much longer I could risk keeping David’s car. People had seen me driving it after I lost the Jeep. It was only a matter of time.
I pulled into a gas station. I was somewhere in Nevada now, the morning already hot.
“Fill ’er up?” a man said, walking out of a small office.
“Yeah.”
I went into the restroom on the side of the building. I used the bathroom and washed my hands and face for the tenth time. I still found small specks of blood embedded in my scalp. I wondered if I would ever be able to wash them out completely.
I took off my shirt, leaving on my tank top, and headed back outside. It had to be pushing a hundred. A gritty wind blew into my face.
“Nice car,” the man said, washing the windshield.
I nodded, handed him a couple of bills, and drove away.
And that’s when I saw him.
Standing by the side of the road like a mirage, a tumbleweed bouncing behind him.
CHAPTER 75
I didn’t stop.
I kept going, not sure it was who I thought it was. Not sure about anything anymore.
A hundred miles passed, and then a hundred more. I flipped on the radio, settling on a country station. Miles of empty space surrounding me, hot and deserted, with the sun beating down furiously as Dwight Yoakam sang about being nowhere.
And then I saw him again.
CHAPTER 76
I didn’t pull over until I saw him for the third time.
He appeared on the side of the road somewhere in Arizona at the edge of dusk, the sun finally sinking away, giving the tortured land some relief.
I waited on the gravel with the engine running, watching in the rearview mirror while he walked toward the car. He looked exactly the same as the last time I had seen him in my vision. He headed toward me slowly and with ease, a backpack slung over his shoulder and his leather jacket flapping in the wind.
I took in a breath, but he didn’t scare me. Not like before.
He opened the door and stood for a moment. I saw that familiar tattoo on his right hand.
“Hello, Abigail,” he said.
“Hello.”
He climbed in the car, his energy massive and electric. Almost unbearable.
“Who are you?” I said.
He didn’t answer, looking over at me with piercing eyes. They were a deep brilliant blue. I could see them.
I pulled back out onto the deserted road.
We drove away in silence, the night coming down hard all around.
THE END
The adventure continues…
(the final chapter)
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Books by Jools Sinclair