Stranger in the Mirror [Shades of Heaven] (Soul Change Novel) (33 page)

“Find what you were looking for?”

A cold fear blanketed her before she even looked up to see Carl standing in the doorway. Blocking her escape. Smiling.

CHAPTER 18

Carl’s hair was disheveled. “Or did you… come to see me?”

Marti’s heart pounded so hard it actually throbbed in her vision. Which way to go? Some reason for being there. To see him? To find something?

“I—I wanted some answers.”

He should be angry to find her snooping in his house, trying to convict Paul even after his death. That would have been normal. Justified. But no, his eyes had a glassy sheen, as though he’d been doing drugs.

Carl moved closer. Without looking back, she tried to remember what was behind her. No escape, that she knew.

“Why don’t you just ask me, Marti?” he said softly, enunciating each word carefully. “I would be glad to clarify anything for you.”

“P—Paul. I wanted to know what happened.” That seemed safest.

“You thought you could come here and prove somehow that I killed him? That I shoved him through the attic entrance and broke his neck?”

Ice shot through her veins, paralyzing her body. “You killed him?” she stammered, wishing he had not confessed.

He took another step closer. “It looks like you already figured that out.”

“No! I mean, I didn’t know. I never thought you would k-kill your own son.”

“It wasn’t easy. He put up a fight, but he’s a wimp, down to the core. His mother made him that way, coddled him and fussed until she left.”

The crucial link between emotion and sanity was gone. She could see it in his eyes. The picture of Paul’s broken body lying in the grass flashed in her mind, followed by the realization that the man standing before her had been in her room not long ago. He had tried to kill her.

“Jesse knows I’m here,” she blurted out, trying desperately to hide the fear in her eyes. Too late. He already knew she was afraid.

“Sure, he does. Because that hothead would let his wife come into big, bad Carl’s house all by her lonesome. And he’s on his way over, right?”

Her nod faded at his knowing smile. Instead of the adrenaline she needed, her body felt weak. She watched him as a mouse might watch a snake, weighing her options, judging its next move.

Taking a deep breath, she relaxed her shoulders. “Well, I guess you’re going to arrest me for trespassing. I wouldn’t blame you. Let’s go down to the station.”

She started to walk by him. If she could make it to the door, she could run. The stairs would be too dangerous in her condition, but maybe she could make it to another room, lock the door, and scream for help out the window.

Just as she thought she was going to get by, he grabbed her wrist. With a swift movement, he pulled handcuffs from his belt and snapped one on her wrist. She wriggled, desperately trying to keep the other one away, but her strength was no match for his.

“You’re not going to get away from me as easily as you did the last time. Pretending to die was clever, very clever. And then you got yourself released from jail before I wanted you out. But not this time, blood of my heart.”

Those words sent chills through her body, but she kept her fear hidden. He touched her chin, and she jerked away from him. His finger remained poised in front of her, his expression hard. The cuffs were tight around her wrists, jangling every time she moved.

Stay calm. Something isn’t right inside his head. He killed his son. He’ll kill you, too.

Subtly, she sucked in a great big breath, and as he moved toward his dresser, she let out the beginning of a howling scream. His palm shot out and smashed her into the wall, crushing her nose. Blood started dripping down, trickling past her lips and over her chin. The sharp pain made her eyes lose focus for a second.

Carl reached into the top drawer, but she didn’t see what he took out. The room spun as terror spun her brain in circles. Then darkness pulsed as she dropped to the floor. She tried to clutch at the walls, but her shackled wrists could hardly move.

No, not now! Don’t faint now!

That was the last thought she had.

Marti woke with a start, staring into blackness. Lucidity eluded her for a few minutes as she struggled to wake from a nightmare. Her mouth felt full of cotton. Wait. It
was
full of cotton, or something, and no amount of pushing with her tongue would dislodge it. Because a gag tied around her head kept it in place. Afraid to move, she waited for her eyes to adjust to the darkness. Patches of dim light moved around in front of her, but she thought that might be her eyes playing tricks on her.

She turned over to touch Jesse, intent on waking him. With a screech of metal against metal, she was stopped abruptly. She jerked her hand again, but found it attached to something above her. Icy fear rushed over her, washing her with reality. She tried to kick, but shackles clamped around her legs, too. Her scream came out as a muffled noise.

The more she jerked and twisted, the more the handcuffs bit into her skin. She was cuffed to a bed in a dark, hot place. The baby kicked three times in succession, and she started to put her hand on her belly as she usually did. But her hand stopped far short. Could the baby feel her terror?

A creaking noise made her go still. A shaft of light shot up to the trusses several yards above her. She was in the attic. Another pinpoint of light in a dark reality. And no doubt, Carl was coming up some kind of creaky stairs or a ladder. Coming for her.

His silhouette loomed over her, reminding her vividly of the night he’d broken in to kill her. Was he going to kill her now? She didn’t move, afraid to breathe. Sweat trickled down her sides. He stood there for several long seconds. She kept her eyes closed, wishing he’d go away so she could think.

Carl reached up and pulled a chain, sending harsh light from a bare bulb hanging above her. The fixture swung back and forth on its chain, casting wild shadows around her. She blinked painfully. He stood there with a stupid smile on his face. He was still wearing his uniform, unbuttoned down to his hairy navel. It seemed absurd that he should be wearing a sheriff’s uniform when he was going to kill her in his attic. She wanted to tell him so but couldn’t speak.

He glanced around with narrowed eyes, then stepped over an upturned cardboard box to pull a dusty rocking chair next to the bed. His pungent cologne and sweat mixed nauseatingly with the musty smell of the mattress beneath her. She swallowed, trying to push down the lump in her throat that felt like a tennis ball. He rocked back and forth in the chair, making the floorboards creak with every movement.

She was not going to plead, even if he did remove the blasted, foul-tasting cloth from her mouth. Somehow she knew begging would incite him. Maybe the first Marti had found that out.

When he reached for her, she flinched. He didn’t falter as he smoothed her damp hair back in the way a father might do for a sick child. His low, rumbling laugh shot fear through her.

“You’re finally mine, Marti. I’ve wanted you for a long time, a long, long time. But you were always afraid of me.” He pinched her chin between his fingers, his expression fierce now. “Why?”

She just stared behind him, wishing to God that Jesse would suddenly pop out of the opening and snare Carl in a killing throat hold. Jesse. The thought of him injected a small amount of hope in her. Carl glanced behind him as if she was really staring at someone. When he turned back to her, he held his finger threateningly near her nose, which still ached dully.

“Don’t even think about screaming, blood of my heart.”

That horrible endearment. He pulled at the cloth around her head until it finally came out of her mouth. She now recognized the taste as car wax. Her tongue felt like a withered prune.

“I am not yours,” she stated simply, after moistening her mouth. “I’m Jesse’s.” Just saying his name gave her strength.

Carl’s laughter sapped that strength as he gestured to her surroundings. “Looks like you’re mine now.” It was frightening the way his expressions changed so rapidly. His eyes grew hard again as they surveyed her body. “But now I don’t want you. You’re fat. You repulse me.”

She flinched at the way he spit the words out. “Then why don’t you let me go?”

That laughter again, fraught with evil. “Can’t do that. You know too much. You and Jesse just kept snooping around. You couldn’t let it rest, could you?”

His mention of Jesse made her suddenly afraid for him. Almost as scared as she was for the baby inside her. “You tried to kill me.” He had actually killed Marti.

“Yes, I did.” He said the words wistfully, tilting his head up. “But I didn’t. And you know why? Because you are meant to be mine.”

“Was Helen meant to be yours, too?” she ventured.

He turned to her, surprised. “Why do you say that?”

“You asked her to marry you, but she turned you down.” Jesse had told her that after Bernie died, Carl had come around panting like a dog. Marti didn’t mention the photo she’d found.

“Don’t talk to me about Helen.”

“You couldn’t make her love you, could you?”

He leaned so close she smelled the whiskey on his breath. “Are you calling me a failure?”

She shrunk back as far as the bed would allow. “No. You succeeded in killing your son, didn’t you?”

He leaned back, placing his ankle on his other knee. “Yes, but that wasn’t planned. He was going to squeal on his own father. He came in here accusing me of being the one who attacked you both times. Said if I didn’t confess, he had enough evidence to interest the Ft. Myers police.”

Marti remembered Paul’s desperation that night outside Dr. Hislope’s house. He’d known. That had been his crazy revelation, that his own father was the one.

Carl leaned forward, pointing at his chest. “He was going to turn his own father in. Can you believe the loyalty? Even before he knew I wasn’t his real father.” Marti’s eyes widened, and he seemed pleased to surprise her. “I married his mother because she told me she was pregnant with my baby. But when Paul was born, I knew—
knew
—he wasn’t mine. I made her tell me who she’d slept with. I forced the bitch to tell me.”

She wanted to keep the conversation away from her and Jesse. “B-but you forgave her?”

He smiled, showing his perfect teeth. “No. I made her life hell until she ran away one night.”

She shivered. “You killed Paul, then tried to set Jesse up for his murder.”

“I wanted Jesse out of the way, but he left without seeing the note. You found it instead. You always did find yourself in the most interesting predicaments.”

“How did you get his knife?”

“I saw it in his truck the night I arrested him for assaulting Paul.” He shook his head. “I never wanted to hurt Jesse, I really didn’t. He was just in the way.”

Her body stiffened. “What do you mean, ‘hurt Jesse’?”

“Sending him to jail for life didn’t seem so bad, but when that didn’t work out, I knew I had to get him out of the way. First, to get you. Second, to get him off my trail. He wouldn’t give up, even all these months later. But you screwed that up, too, by getting out of jail early and stopping him from racing.”

“The steering going out,” she whispered. “And the weak spots they found on the car’s frame later.”

“That’s right. But you see, it all worked out for the best. You’re here, and he’s alive. Unless he starts snooping around, that is.”

That left her with the strange decision to either hope he did snoop or hope he didn’t.

Carl stood. “I’m going to bring you something to eat. Don’t want you thinking I’m a lousy host.” His smile seemed almost normal then, not dark and sick. “Oh, and I took care of your car, too. Found it across the street. We wouldn’t want to worry anyone, so I dumped it in a lake far from here.

“What are you going to do with me?” she asked, not sure she wanted to know.

He looked thoughtful for a moment. “I’m not sure. I wasn’t exactly planning to find you in my bedroom, you know. Such a gift. But you’ll be the first to know when I figure it out.” He tugged the gag back into place.

Jesse was frantic by ten o’clock that night. He didn’t know whether to be angry or worried, but worried was quickly taking over. Sure, things hadn’t been great between them, but she wouldn’t stay out late just to make him crazy. She’d tried to call him, according to his phone, but hadn’t left a message.

“Come on, Bumpus. Let’s go for a ride.”

He already knew she’d left Donna’s earlier that day, but the woman was still too terrified to talk to Jesse personally. According to Dr. Hislope, Marti hadn’t said where she was going. Phone calls confirmed she wasn’t at the diner, his mother’s, or at any of her current clients’ houses.

The street Dr. Hislope lived on was unlit, save for a few lampposts outside some of the homes. Jesse glanced at Carl’s old colonial as he drove past.

He was glad to see the sheriff home; Carl was the last person he wanted to report Marti’s disappearance to. And it looked like the station was going to be a stop Jesse would soon be making.

The Hislope home was well-lit, but there was no sign of Marti’s car. He knew that but wanted to see for himself. Then another drive through town. He even drove past the place where Marti had been attacked and far beyond. Nothing.

At eleven, he caught Lyle heading home for the night and filed a missing person’s report. Behind Lyle’s concerned face Jesse sensed pity that Marti may have hit the road.

“She didn’t take off, Lyle, so stop looking at me like that.”

Lyle let out a sigh. “I don’t know what to hope for, Jesse. I mean, it’d be better if she did take off. Least she’d be okay. She was talking about leaving town before.”

Jesse jabbed his finger at Lyle. “You’d better look for her like she’s in danger and not like she’s a woman who just decided to run off. Because I know Marti. She wouldn’t do that to me, not after everything we’ve been through. Something’s happened to her.” The thought of it grabbed his heart and squeezed tight. “Find her, Lyle. Those two are my whole world.”