Kill Her Again (A Thriller) (20 page)

When Pope was finished, Jake leaned back in his chair and laughed. It was a smug, I-know-better-than-you laugh that set Pope’s teeth on edge.

“What’s so funny?”

“You remember when we were about fourteen and you were convinced that the old abandoned Smokehouse was haunted?”

“Of course I do.”

“You got a bunch of us together to spend the night there. Me, Tommy Walsh, Billy Kruger, Joey Shepherd. And while all you wimps were shitting your britches over some rustling noises, I took a closer look and found a family of cats living inside one of the walls.”

“This is different,” Pope said.

“Is it? The problem with you, Danny, is that you’re always a little too quick to believe the unbelievable.”

“That’s not true.”

“I know you’ve convinced yourself that you’re a straight thinker, open to any possibility. But that’s never really been the case, has it?”

Pope wondered if Jake was right. Had the fence he’d been straddling all these years been leaning slightly to one side? Even if that was true, did it really matter at this point?

“Are you telling me you have a rational explanation for any of what I’ve just told you?”

“No,” Jake said. “But that doesn’t mean there isn’t one.”

“Well, until you find it—”

“What? We toss reason to the wind and waste time on some ridiculous fantasy?”

“You know what happened with Evan,” Pope said. “You don’t want to believe it, but everything he told me turned out to be true.”

“Pure coincidence, Cuz, and the sooner you see that the better off you’ll—”

“Shut up, both of you.”

They turned, staring at McBride as she rose from her chair. Her face was pale again. She looked frightened, yet filled with a new sense of resolve.

“This is happening to
me
,” she said. “Not you. So all that really matters is what
I
think. And even if this past life regression thing is a complete bust, it’s all we’ve got right now.”

She looked at Jake as if she was daring him to contradict her. When he said nothing, she turned to Pope. “So now that that’s settled, where do you want to do this thing?”

T
HEY ADJOURNED TO
the living room.

The Worthingtons had a soft leather recliner in there and Pope said he thought it would be the best place for Anna to relax.

She settled in, feeling a small nervous knot in her stomach. Even though she’d seen him at work and knew it was harmless, she felt as if she’d just climbed into the dentist’s chair.

Deputy Worthington sank onto the sofa to observe, promising not to interfere, but making sure to let them both know that he’d be “watching for the cats.”

I’m sure you will, Anna thought.

Bending down next to her, Pope pulled the lever on the side of the recliner, pushing her back until she was nearly lying down.

She waited silently, hearing the faint sound of a TV—Evan and Ronnie watching cartoons in the den—as Pope went around the room, closing the blinds to dim the light.

He carried himself with the subtle authority of a man who was completely within his element, like a practiced and confident lover, so skilled in the art of seduction that the moves were second nature to him.

As he slid a footstool over and sat next to her, Anna couldn’t help feeling that attraction again. And despite her better judgment, all she could think was that she wanted him to touch her. She didn’t care how. She just wanted to feel his hands against her flesh.

A moment later she got her wish. It was a simple gesture, his fingertips touching the back of her forearm as he said softly, “Okay. All I’m going to do is help you to relax.”

The warmth emanating from those fingertips, the electricity they generated, did something to Anna that was difficult to describe. She couldn’t tell you why, but she felt immediately and completely under his power. It was as if that touch—dare she say it?—

—was the touch of a soul mate.

And in that moment, any trepidation she’d felt, any uncertainty, immediately dissolved.

She knew she was being silly. This man was almost a complete stranger to her and this was neither the time nor place to be thinking such things, but Anna couldn’t help herself. If Pope were to lean forward at this very moment and tell her to remove her clothes, she knew that despite Worthington’s presence and the sound of that TV in another room, she’d gladly oblige.

Fortunately, Pope had other ideas.

“Close your eyes,” he said softly.

There was a quality to his voice now that she hadn’t noticed before. The hoarseness was gone, replaced by a kind of amorphous sensuality. And as he spoke, he seemed to be both
inside
and outside of her head.

Anna closed her eyes as Pope continued to speak, letting the words caress her, envelop her.

“Take a deep breath,” he said. “Fill your lungs, then let the air out slowly.”

She did as she was told, letting her body relax as she exhaled.

“I’m going to count backwards from ten,” Pope continued. “And as I do, you’ll feel yourself falling, very slowly, into a state of complete relaxation.”

He began to count, pausing after each number.

“Ten . . . nine . . . eight . . .”

Anna felt as if her chair were dissolving beneath her. Then she was falling—floating, really—a leisurely descent into the darkness of a long, black corridor, as Pope’s voice continued its caress.

“Seven . . . six . . .”

He had told her earlier that, under hypnosis, the subject is always aware of her surroundings, is still conscious to some degree, but Anna couldn’t be sure that this was true. With each number he spoke, she felt as if she were floating farther and farther away from the real world.

“Five . . . four . . . three . . .”

When he finished counting, the words he said were little more than vague abstractions, formless murmurs that surrounded her in the darkness. She
sensed
more than she actually heard, as if his words, his voice, were part of her own consciousness.

A part of her being.

Then the darkness itself began to envelop her, seeping into her skin until she was little more than vapor, and she felt as if she were floating backwards in time, drifting deeper into her memories as fleeting images of the past filled her head:

Her arrival in Victorville, the fiasco in San Francisco, her graduation at Quantico, a college love affair, the boarding schools, her mother’s funeral, her mother’s good-night kiss . . .

Her entire life played on her own private movie screen, the memories vivid. Alive.

All along the way, she sensed that Pope’s voice was guiding her, asking her questions. And while she was aware that she was responding, wanting somehow to please him, she couldn’t quite tell you what her answers were.

And before she knew it, she was in a small dark place, the sound of a beating heart in her ears. A liquid sound, a warm, comforting thrum that seemed in perfect synchronization with her own heartbeat.

Then she felt herself fading away, only faint tendrils of the vapor remaining. The vapor that was once Anna McBride.

And in the dark distance came another sound. The sound of a ringing bell.

A school bell?

Anna felt herself being pulled toward that sound.

And a moment later, she was gone.

2
5

W
HEN THE BELL
rang, Jillian Carpenter’s stomach went sour. She didn’t want to go home.

She never wanted to go home these days.

“I hate him,” she’d told Suzie during recess.

“Why?” Suzie asked. “You said he’s nice to you. What’s the big deal?”

“He’s always hogging the TV. Last night, I wanted to watch
Gimme a Break
, but my mom let him watch
The Fall Guy
instead. She says we have to share now.”

“
Gimme a Break
was a rerun.”

“So?” Jillian said. “It’s our TV, not his.”

But that wasn’t quite true. It
was
his TV now. Craig Winterbaum was part of their family, whether Jillian liked it or not.

And she definitely did not.

Mom had met Craig at a garden show down in Fullerton last year, and before Jillian knew it, they were dating full-time. Then, about a month ago, he’d asked Mom to marry him and, to Jillian’s everlasting dismay, she’d said yes.

The wedding came less than two weeks later. They had decided to jump right in, Mom had told her, and got married at the courthouse, in front of a judge. Jillian had watched the whole sickening thing, her stomach feeling more sour than ever as Craig slipped a gold band onto Mom’s finger.

The thing was, she and Mom were a team. That’s what Mom had always said. Ever since her dad left, when Jillian was six, it had been just the two of them. And even though she missed her dad sometimes, the last four years had been just fine with her.

Until Craig came along.

Jillian had stayed with her aunt Maggie while he and Mom went on a honeymoon in Las Vegas. Now they were all back home, their first official week as a new family, and Mom and Craig kept getting all kissy-face on the sofa while Jillian tried to watch TV.

Ugh.

“Jillian?”

Jillian snapped out of her daydream. Mrs. Gann was standing over by the blackboard, staring at her.

“Yes, ma’am?”

“The bell rang, dear. Did you need something?”

Jillian looked around the room and felt her face get hot. All the other kids were gone.

She did that sometimes. Got so caught up in her own thoughts that she didn’t know what was going on around her.

“No,” she said, then quickly gathered up her books and papers, stuffed them into her desk cubby, and shuffled out of the room. “Bye, Mrs. Gann.”

“See you tomorrow, dear.”

S
UZIE HAD SAVED
her a spot in the bus line. Jillian and Suzie had been best friends ever since kindergarten, when Suzie’s family moved in next door to Jillian’s. That was back before the divorce, when she and her mom and dad were living on Randall Street.

When they sold the house, Jillian had been afraid she’d have to move too far away and go to another school, but they got lucky and found an apartment close by. Jillian was relieved, because she couldn’t imagine having to go to another school and make new friends and all that. And she couldn’t imagine being without Suzie.

Suzie said, “So did you ask?”

“Ask what?”

“About Big Mountain, dumbo.”

Big Mountain was the new amusement park that had opened up over in Allenwood, which was about a half-hour drive away. Right before they got married, Mom and Craig had taken her and Suzie to opening day, and Suzie couldn’t stop talking about it.

“I forgot,” Jillian said.

“Forgot? How could you forget? Your birthday’s only two weeks from Saturday.”

Suzie was dying to celebrate Jillian’s eleventh birthday with another trip to Big Mountain, but the truth was, Jillian wasn’t all that excited about the idea. She’d had fun, sure, but not
that
much fun, and there was something about the place that had given her the creeps.

First off, Big Mountain wasn’t all that big. Northgate Shopping Mall was bigger and even had a McDonald’s. Second, it was supposed to be brand-new and everything, but Craig told them that all Big Mountain had really done was buy a bunch of old rides and stuff from a park that closed up in Oregon somewhere, then slap some new paint on them and add a big plaster mountain with a tunnel in it, so sky cars could go through.

And Craig should know, because he worked for the company that owned Big Mountain.

“Are you sure it’s safe?” Jillian’s mom had asked.

“We’re not looking for a lawsuit,” Craig said. “They test those rides like crazy before they let anyone get on them.”

And that was the other reason Jillian wasn’t so thrilled about Big Mountain. If Craig Winterbaum worked for the company that owned the place, how good could it really be?

“Promise me you’ll ask tonight,” Suzie said.

Jillian didn’t want to, but she didn’t want to disappoint Suzie, either, who was not only her best friend but practically her
only
friend—and vice versa. So she reluctantly nodded. She was about to say,
Promise
, when the whistle blew and all the kids started piling onto the buses.

It was almost their turn when Jillian had a sudden inspiration. Anything to keep from going straight home. Craig had taken a day off from work, and he and Mom were probably on the sofa right now, going at it.