Secrets Amoung The Shadows (18 page)

"As long as you're here, let's don't waste time. Why don't we do some therapy, some more hypnosis?" She tried to keep her voice level, not give him any hint that she was aware of his attempted deception...or that she was terrified of him.

He stood, strode across the room and leaned over her desk toward her. He might have meant the position to be intimate, but she found it threatening. She flinched involuntarily, and his eerie smile changed to a scowl.

"We can't do any therapy," he said. "You're not my shrink anymore. Thurman Powers is. So there's no reason we can't go to lunch."

She swallowed hard, trying to repress her fear and behave in a calm, rational manner. But it was no use. This man wasn't Bruce Hedlund or any of the other disturbed people she took pride in being able to handle. This was a dangerous man. He might look like the man who was concerned about her welfare, the man she'd kissed so willingly in the park, but this was a man who fantasized about killing her.

"No," she said breathlessly, "I guess there's no reason at all. I'll just...uh...finish my notes on my last patient and meet you downstairs."

"You went through my trash?" She had a sudden image of him standing in the alley only a few feet from her house, sorting through her garbage, reading messages she might have thrown away, picking through her old magazines, stealing little bits and pieces of her in the most sordid manner possible.

"You don't think I'm Eliot, do you?" he demanded.

It was a measure of the crushing fear she had of him that Leanne found her hand reaching for the drawer that contained the gun Eliot had given her.

She clenched her hand into a fist and forced herself to return it to her desktop

Somewhere inside this man is Eliot!
she reminded herself.
You don't dare hurt Edward because you'll hurt Eliot.

But her warnings to herself were only words. It was hard to believe this was the man who'd kissed her so tenderly at the lake. This man was evil.

Her heart thudded wildly, painfully, as she remembered Eliot's dream...Edward's fantasy. Her breathing became difficult, restrained, as if he'd actually put his hands around her throat.

"Why do you say that?" she asked, hating the breathless, frightened sound of her words.

He leaned even closer, supporting himself with his hands on her desk, and she had to brace herself not to back away. "Because I'm just as observant as you are," he said softly.

Leanne drew in a deep, shaky breath. She was trapped, alone with a madman. Becky wouldn't be back for an hour. She could only try to make the best of things, try to regain control of the situation, bluff her way through.

"Edward, why do you hate Eliot? Is it because he deserted you for Kay, because you think he betrayed you?"

His jungle-bright eyes narrowed. "You think Eliot's so perfect. Well, you don't know him very well. You'd be surprised how cruel he can be."

At least she'd managed to take his attention off her. "You're right. I don't know. So why don't you tell me?" Her hand reached automatically for her recorder, but she drew back. This wasn't an ordinary session. She'd just have to depend on her memory. If she was to keep Edward talking, she'd do best not to call his attention to her professional capacity. "What cruel things has Eliot done to you?"

He grinned knowingly. "Trying to psychoanalyze me? Forget it." He straightened and walked to the window, then stood looking out, his back to her.

She tried to calculate her chances of making it to the door...

But then he began to talk again, and she sat transfixed, fascinated, almost forgetting her fear of him.

"Just so you'll know that he's not as perfect as you seem to think, I'll tell you. For years he left me alone, in prison, while he went his way and had a good time. We were friends at one time, you know. But then Kay came along. And after her, there were others, and all I could do was watch. Eliot had women, he went to school, he had a good job. He had a life. I didn't. It was always Eliot, only Eliot. That's the only person he cared about, himself."

He turned around and faced her, and she drew back at the anger on his features. He reached into his jacket pocket, and she shot to her feet, ready to run for her life. He smiled tauntingly, obviously delighting in her fear, then slowly withdrew...not a gun or a knife but only a pack of cigarettes. "Do you mind if I smoke?" he asked.

She shook her head jerkily and sank back down into her chair. "Not at all." Normally she refused to let patients smoke in her office, but common sense told her this was no time to stick to her rules.

"Do you have an ash tray?"

She didn't. Her gaze darted around the room, settling on the decorative crystal bowl on her bookshelf. "You can use that." She pointed, and noticed that her hand trembled.

She could tell by the expression on his face that Edward noticed, too. His eyes never left hers as he lit his cigarette with a gold lighter and inhaled deeply. "Ah h h," he said, exhaling. "Eliot doesn't know what he's missing." He studied the glowing end. "I only took up smoking because Eliot did it, and then he quit." His voice was unexpectedly gentle, reminding Leanne that the two personalities had once been friends.

"But I'm not going to quit." His voice had a bitter tone. "I've got my own life now. I'm not dependent on him to take me along. Soon he'll be out of the way, and I can lead my own life. You'd be smart to throw in with me, not him. Go with the winner, not the loser."

Deliberately, watching her the entire time, he tossed his cigarette to the floor and ground it into the carpet. She leapt from her chair and started to protest, then closed her mouth judiciously.

His sneer told her she'd reacted as he'd expected. She'd shown her fear of him. She couldn't have that, couldn't let him know he was in control.

"That was extremely rude," she said quietly, and was surprised and pleased that her voice didn't quaver. "I'll expect you to pay for having that carpet repaired."

He strode across the room to the door and stood with one hand on the knob. "Partial. When he's in prison for killing you and Kay, I'll have everything."

A cold hand clenched her heart. "Edward, did you kill Kay Palmer?" For the first time, she completely believed this side of Eliot could be guilty of murder.

"What would you do if I said
yes
? Would you turn Eliot in?" He shook his head. "Not yet. You can rest easy. Eliot didn't kill her. But Eliot's going to take the blame. He's going to prison. Maybe even get the death sentence."

He smiled his macabre smile again, opened the door and slid through, leaving her office.

Her first reaction was relief, but that was followed by an even greater fear than she'd yet experienced.

"Edward!" she called after him, running into the reception area. He was already halfway through the outer door. "Edward, you and Eliot share the same body! You'll go to prison, too!"

He didn't turn back.

Chapter 15

Leanne hesitated, torn between going after Edward and trying to reason with him or locking her office door behind him and drawing in a deep, thankful breath that he was gone.

With that hesitation, the moment was gone. Indecision became decision.

She went to the window and watched the parking lot for his appearance, half afraid he wouldn't leave the building, that he'd come back to her instead.

He strode out, then turned to look up at her and gave her that smile that was and wasn't Eliot's. A chill shot through her, and she took an involuntary step backward even though she knew on a rational level that, through the tinted glass, he could only see an outline of her at best.

He lifted a hand in a mock salute, then continued on toward the dark blue Lexus.

She watched with hypnotic fascination, wanting to turn away, to ignore this abhorrent side of Eliot. Instead, she forced herself to watch, to acknowledge and accept that this was Eliot, the man who'd kissed her, the man she'd wanted to kiss her. With the pleasure he brought her came this other creature, this other part of him, who would bring her nothing but pain.

He climbed into his car and backed from the space, heading out of the lot. Was it the same car, she wondered, or had he, in his certainty of being separate from Eliot, bought a car identical to Eliot's?

But the license plate wouldn't be the same. If this license was different from Eliot's, they could contact the Department of Motor Vehicles and perhaps obtain some more information, find out if Edward had set up a separate residence.

Regaining some of her composure in the process of taking action, she made a mental note of the letters and numbers before he disappeared from view, then went to her desk and wrote them down.

For a long moment she stared at the digits, trying to analyze her own feelings. The journey—from being thrilled to see him then desperately wishing him away—had been an illuminating trip.

Eliot was a very sick man. He needed extensive therapy before he could be cured, assuming he could ever be completely cured. There was only so much she could do to help him. She'd brought him into contact with Thurman. That was his best chance of getting well. Now she needed to back off and protect herself.

At best, assuming Eliot didn't go any further down the road of madness, assuming everything went well and Edward was integrated into his personality, would he be the same person? Would she still be attracted to him when that happened?

And that was assuming the best case scenario. As for the worst—

She folded the paper with his license number and put it into her purse. She couldn't deal with the worst. She couldn't deal with a continuing relationship of any sort with Eliot Kane.

***

Edward drove away from her office feeling pleased with himself. He'd frightened her. He'd failed to convince her he was Eliot for longer than a few minutes, but the visit hadn't been a total waste. He'd frightened her badly...so badly she'd allowed him to smoke in the purified air of her office. Her fright added to his power.

When they were young, Eliot had a cat, a sop from the people he called his parents to keep Eliot from talking to him. Once the two of them had caught the cat playing with a mouse, and they'd both been disgusted. But now Edward knew how that cat had felt...the thrill of toying with someone while knowing the game would end with the other person's death.

He'd used Leanne. Given her information he wanted passed on to Eliot. Kay's murder had put Eliot's guard up. Edward knew he was getting stronger, but so was Eliot. Sometimes it was difficult to get through to him.

But it didn't matter. The game was almost over. And there would be only one winner.

***

Leanne had just finished feeding Greta when she heard a car stop in the street—Eliot's car or Edward's. Going to the window, she looked out and saw his tall, sturdy frame as he strode boldly up to Thurman's house. His steps were unhurried, firm and sure as though he'd come for a visit, as though nothing was amiss in his life. Only a certain stiffness to his broad shoulders told of the inner turmoil she knew he was feeling. Someone who knew him less well than she would never have noticed it.

This was Eliot. She was certain.

Just before he stepped onto the porch, he turned as if sensing her gaze on him, and she realized she'd been staring, just as she'd stared at Edward earlier...though Edward's fascination was that of a snake over its intended victim, while Eliot's was more elemental, simply that of a man and a woman.

Embarrassed by both her actions and her thoughts, she lifted a hand in greeting. His eyes scanned her house, then he turned back and continued onto Thurman's porch. He hadn't seen her. In the early evening twilight without her lights on, she'd been invisible.

Which raised the question of why he'd been looking in her direction. Had he sensed her watching him or had he been searching for her, as hungry for a glimpse of her as she was for him?

She bit her lip and moved away from the window. She couldn't allow herself to think things like that...feel things like that. If seeing him across the street set her heart racing and all rational thought skittering, how would she react when he and Thurman came over after their session to discuss Edward's latest visit with her?

The thought of Edward recalled the slip of paper where she'd written his license number. Fumbling in her purse, she withdrew the paper and looked at it, then at Eliot's car. The automobile sat in the street, sideways to her line of vision so she couldn't see the plates. She could go outside and check, or she could restrain her inappropriate curiosity, wait and ask Eliot when he came over.

Inappropriate or not, with Eliot's car sitting so close, with Eliot's arrival at her house imminent, she had to know. She took the paper and went outside, crossed the street and walked behind Eliot's car.

The plate was different.

Her stomach clenched into a hard, painful knot. Two license numbers. Two identical cars. Further evidence of the intensity of Eliot's disorder. Edward was so strong, he owned his own car.

Edward
. The name sent anger flashing through her. Even though she understood the reality of the situation, on an emotional level, she blamed him for Eliot's problems, for her problems, for the wall that must always exist between Eliot and her.