In the Heart of the Wind Book 1 in the WindTorn Trilogy (50 page)

Her eyes were glued on the syringe. Her mouth had gone dry; her heart still in her chest. She had ceased to breathe, ceased to move, lying as still as death beneath him as he settled his heavy flanks on her hips once more.

“What’s in that?” she forced herself to say.

He looked at the syringe. “This?” His smile was venomous as his gaze moved back to her. “Just a little something to make you feel good, Bridie.”

“What’s in it?” She found her throat closing with fear.

His smile froze and he leaned toward her, her spittle sliding forgotten down his bloody cheek. He looked into her eyes, and for one brief moment, Bridget Tremayne Casey knew she was looking into the face of the devil.

“Fiorinal,” he whispered. “Two hundred milligrams.”

“No,” she said on a long gust of breath.

“Yes,” he answered, grinning.

“No.” Her voice was more forceful as she jerked her gaze from the needle to his face. “James, no. You can’t. I’m allergic to fiorinal. You don’t know what it does to—”

“Oh, but I do.” His eyes turned merry. “You were, what—fifteen?—when you started having those bad headaches? I remember Mama took you to the emergency room and they gave you fiorinal. I remember it, Bridie.” The merriment left his eyes. “And I remember what it did to you.”

“James, please,” she implored. “You can’t do this.”

“Yes, I can,” he said reasonably as he began to lower the needle.

“James, no,” she shouted, struggling against the bonds. She bucked and twisted beneath him, but the moment the needle jammed into the flesh on the underside of her left arm, she knew the damage had already been done and she went perfectly still, the tears in her eyes overflowing, her lips pulled back over snarling teeth. “You son of a bitch!”

“Brother of one anyway,” he answered. Swinging his left leg from over her hips, he moved off the bed in one quick, lithe movement.

“Shit!” Bridget bellowed, trying to free her arms. She knew in her professional mind the drug hadn’t had enough time to get into her system, but already she thought she could feel the intense itching the drug had caused her so many years before.

Jamie folded his arms over his chest and watched as tiny red bumps began to pop out all over Bridget’s body. Her shrieks of rage and whimpers of torment seemed to please him as she squirmed.

“I think the PDR in your office said it takes butalbital—that is the generic name for fiorinal, isn’t it?—a short time to reach its maximum apparent benefit,” he said in a mild, amused voice.

“I’m...going...to...kill...you,” she hissed, panting from the crawling, insidious agony spreading over her defenseless body.

“Not a chance.”

Her snorts of anger soon gave way to true whimpers of torment, then screams of frustration and anguish as the drug invaded every nerve pathway. Her violent twisting made the entire bed tremble.

She thrust up her pelvis, drove it down into the mattress, tried turning to either side, jerking so hard against the constriction of the belt around her wrists, tiny droplets of blood began to bubble on her flesh.

“What’s it feel like to be helpless and at the mercy of whatever poison someone injects into you, Bridie?” he asked, cocking his head to one side. “Are you enjoying it as much as I did?”

“Go...to...hell,” she panted as her eyes bore into his. She was on fire with the torture the drug was inflicting and could barely see her tormenter through her swollen, puffy eyelids.

“Eventually,” he said conversationally. “But I won’t be alone, now will I? My whole family will be there. We’ll have a real bang-up reunion.”

Bridget’s agony made her foam at the mouth. Her head throbbed with pain and she felt the lassitude stealing over her. As the itching intensified, she threw back her head and howled in anguish.

Jamie sighed, the amusement dying quickly from his face. He turned from her and walked toward the kitchen. When he calmly reentered the bedroom, even as she struggled, she caught sight of another syringe.

“Go ahead, you worthless prick,” she yelled and could hear the slurring in her speech the overdose of fiorinal had caused. “Kill me and get it over with.”

He looked down at her. “Don’t you want me to stop the itching, Bridie?” he asked in a compassionate voice. He held up the syringe. “This isn’t poison. It’s just a little something to make the itching stop.”

Confused thoughts ran rampant through Bridget’s mind, but staring into the gentle face of her brother, she thought he might be through torturing her; might be finished with his vengeance. She’d never thought for one moment that he would kill her. He didn’t have the guts. He had wanted to exact the same kind of torment on her that she had given him, and now he had, he was going to help her.

“Give it to me,” she ordered in as strong and commanding a voice as she could.

He smiled and gently thrust the needle into her arm. Stepping back from the bed, he picked up the first syringe and carried it with him into the kitchen.

Bridget could feel the almost immediate benefit of whatever he had given her. The itching was dying away; the intense agony leaving her in slow waves. The puffiness remained at her lips and eyelids but the torment was subsiding and she was able to lie still with only an occasional tremor. She turned her head as he came back into the room.

“What did you give me?’ she asked as a pleasant numbness began to spread languidly over her.

“The same thing you ordered given to me—thorazine.”

He was looking around the bedroom, and for the first time, Bridget really noticed what he was wearing. His dark hair was entirely covered in a watch cap, his jeans and pullover sweater were black, and he was wearing gloves.

“How you feeling?” he asked as his gaze came back to her.

“Better. No thanks to you.”

He grinned. “Feeling a little woozy, are we?”

“Untie me, James,” she demanded, pulling weakly on her bonds. “Now. This instant.”

His grin widened. “Just as soon as I know you can’t fight me.”

Panic seized her once more. She tried to kick him as he stood at the foot of the bed, but she couldn’t seem to move. Her muscles were weak and would not obey her. She knew she wouldn’t be able to fight, to escape, once he untied her wrists. With a sinking feeling, she realized she was entirely at his mercy.

Jamie pointed his finger at her. “Now you wait right here. Okay?”

“Bastard,” she mumbled as her eyes followed him out of the room. She heard the kitchen door open.

He was gone for only a minute or two, but to Bridget, it felt like an hour. His face was carefully blank as he began to untie her wrists. She felt his eyes crawling over her naked body and inwardly cringed, hating the feel of a man’s eyes on her for the first time in her life.

“It’s really rather a waste,” he remarked as he lowered her hands to her side and began to wrap her in the sheet. “You’re not half bad, Bridie.”

She felt herself slipping over the edge of consciousness as she felt the stupor of the thorazine claiming her. Even as he tucked the satin sheet carefully around her then lifted her, she couldn’t quite seem to say anything. He carried her into the kitchen and out into the chilly garage.

“W...h...e...r...e?”

“Where am I taking you?” he asked as he stepped to the back of her car. “Oh, just a little place I found.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Bridget saw the opened car trunk. She groaned, really all she found she could do as he gently laid her inside.

“James...”

“Give it a rest, Bridie,” he said, his voice no longer warm or friendly.

She became aware of the thick tarpaulin beneath her. She could smell it and the roughness beneath her cheek making her feel sick to her stomach as she turned her head away from her brother. She looked back at him as he picked up her right hand. He was bending over her, nail file in hand.

“What...are...you...doing?”

“Well,” he said in a matter-of-fact voice, “just in case they find your body, I don’t want my skin to be beneath your fingernails.” Very carefully he was running the file’s point beneath her fingernails, then wiping the file on his pants. He worked slowly, diligently, until he was satisfied there was nothing beneath her nails to incriminate him.

“Very...thorough...James.”

“I know.”

He straightened up, then disappeared from her line of vision. A moment later he was back with the satin sheets wadded up beneath his arm. He laid the sheets and the belt from her robe on her belly and reached for the lid to the trunk. He stared down into her eyes.

“You know something, Bridie?  I used to love you.” He turned his head to one side. “When I was a kid.”

The trunk lid came down, shutting off the light and the face of a man intent on death.

Patrick listened to
his father’s angry snarl as the old man berated him over the phone. Between the gasps for breath, he could hear the pain in Liam’s voice—and the fear.

“We don’t know that anything’s happened to Drew, Papa,” he finally said as his father paused long enough to draw in deep, harsh breaths. “You know how he is. It’s the weekend and he’s probably spending it with one of his mistresses.”

“He didn’t go home last night, Patrick,” the old man wheezed. “There was a party he
knew
he had to attend and he never made it. Something’s happened to him and I know it!”

Patrick couldn’t have cared less. In fact, he wished something
had
happened to his eldest brother, but he was careful not to let his feelings enter his voice.

“Please don’t get yourself worked up, Papa. I’m sure everything’s all right.”

“And what about Bridget?” his father gasped. “If something’s happened to Drew, Bridie could be next.”

“Why would you think that, Papa?” Patrick asked in a reasonable tone. “You’re letting your imagination run away with you.”

“I’m sending bodyguards to protect all of you,” Liam told him, ignoring his son’s placid words. “I won’t have the little bastard coming after you, too.”

“Who, Papa? Who are you afraid of?”

“James!” Liam shouted into the phone and then began to cough violently. His wracking bursts of phlegmatic breathing was painful to hear.

“We don’t even know where Jamie is, Papa. And at any rate, he wouldn’t harm—”

“The man’s insane!”

And who made him that way?
Patrick shook his head as his father began a litany of things his younger brother was capable of doing. He didn’t bother to interrupt. It would be useless. Once his father had worked himself up into such a state, all you could do was listen to him, agree with him, then pretend the conversation had never taken place.

“He’s out there, Patrick,” Liam finally said in a whimper. “He’s out there and killing off my heirs one at a time.”

Patrick sighed. “I don’t believe that, Papa. Jamie isn’t capable of killing anyone.”

“You just wait,” his father prophesied. “He got Drew and he’ll get Bridie if we don’t stop him. Then he’ll come after you.”

No, Patrick thought. He’ll come after
you.

Bridget flinched
as the trunk lid opened. It was dark outside but she could make out the ghostly silhouettes of thick oak branches overhead. She groaned as Jamie’s arms slid under her, lifting her from the confines of the trunk. She grunted as he shifted her weight further up his body and began to walk with her.

“He’ll...hurt...you...for...this...Jamie.”

“Be quiet, Bridget.”

She could smell earth—rich and fertile, musky and damp. She tried to turn her head, but she couldn’t. Her eyes lifted to her brother’s face, but all she could see was the underside of his chin.

“Did...you...kill...Drew?” she asked, then grunted as the ground seemed to disappear from under her and she jostled heavily in his arms. Around her, she saw thick black walls and wondered for an instant where she was.

“I did to him what he did to me,” he said. He began to lower her. “What I’m going to do to you.”

Cold, hardness and a thick smell of dirt invaded her senses and her eyes went wide. She stared up at him as he stood over her, hands on his hips. Through the skyglow around his head, she could just see his dark outline, but she thought she could see the evil gleaming in his eyes.

“Where...am...I?” she forced through her trembling lips.

He didn’t answer, but turned his back to her and pulled himself up one pitch-black wall. His feet dug into the wall and then he was over it, his belly on the top, followed by his left leg swinging over the edge.

It wasn’t until the dirt began to cascade softly down the wall that Bridget Tremayne Casey knew where she was. Her mouth opened in a scream of primitive horror and echoed hollowly toward the silent, dark heavens.

He went back
to the trunk, carefully gathered up the tarpaulin that had covered the trunk’s interior and walked back to the place where he had left his sister. Her screams were mindless now, vibrating over the swamp like a siren. He dropped the folded tarp into the hole in which she lay and reached for the shovel.