Head Games (40 page)

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Authors: Eileen Dreyer

BOOK: Head Games
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“You don't want to do this,” Molly begged.
“But I have to,” Kenny said.
“She's talking to me, Ken,” Patrick said, his voice quivering, his eyes wide, his skin a little wet. “I have to, too, Aunt Molly, don't you see? He told me he'd do it. I had to know for sure.”
“Why? Patrick, go. God, please, just go.”
“I can't, Aunt Molly. It's a chance I'll never get again.”
Footsteps? No, it was her damn heart again. It was her conscience wondering how the hell she could have missed this. How anybody could actually believe any kid who'd flipped pancakes with such heartbreaking panache could court this kind of insanity.
“Are you surprised to see Patrick here?” Kenny asked, running the flat of the knife along her neck like a vibrator.
“Yeah,” Molly managed, her focus, such as it was, on Patrick. “I am.”
Amazing how terror and shock could dispel the effects of a sedative. She was thrumming suddenly, every nerve on alert. Sweat dripped down the side of her throat … or was that blood? she didn't care. Faced with this latest surprise, it didn't really matter.
“You have to tell me, Patrick,” she pleaded. “Why?”
Patrick jumped as if she'd pulled him out of a dream. Then, amazingly, he grinned. “You should have seen your face when that bomb went off.”
Maybe she was still more affected than she thought. It took her at least a full minute to make the connection.
Well, if you're in a cave full of nightmares, why miss one? “You were sending the notes.”
He laughed, that bright, boy's laugh that was so rare. “Do you believe how good my timing was? Jesus, I just wanted to scare you out of the house, and here Kenny's going me way one better.” He licked his lips, shrugged, his movements sharp and almost frantic.
“But the notes were from St. Louis.”
His laugh was as sharp as his movements. “If you had a computer, you'd figure out how easy that was. I have friends everywhere, Aunt Molly. Just everywhere. It didn't take much to get 'em to help me scare you shitless.” Another tic, a flash of resentment. “You really don't deserve that house, ya know.”
“I don't have it,” she reminded him. “I'm borrowing it.”
He shrugged. “Old argument. Old news. Kenny's the new news. You really goin' through with it, man?”
“Didn't you see what was on the dining room table?” Molly demanded, and almost lost her left carotid to the knife.
“She's already back where she belongs,” Kenny informed her.
“Who?” Patrick demanded in a rush. “A friend of hers? She's one of your girls?”
“Patrick, please,” Molly begged. “Think about it. You can still turn back and figure things out. I mean, you didn't rig the bomb to hurt anybody. You were just mad. This is … this is …”
It was there again, that same agitation Patrick had betrayed the night he'd first seen a bone. White-faced, trembling, his eyes dark. Compelled by the lure of something Molly would never understand, as if he couldn't believe he was here but he couldn't leave. Hell, he looked as if he were crouched at the back of a porn theater hoping he wouldn't get caught.
Sweet Jesus. Molly had known he had problems. She'd suspected a real river of rage seething deep through him. But this …
Was this what every parent thought when they stood in the police station trying to find a defense lawyer? This urge to rewrite reality into something more palatable? It sure as hell put to rest her own belief that she could play the parenting game better than her brother. It blew to hell her blithe belief that any parent should be able to pick the sociopath out of her own litter.
She hadn't known. No matter what Patrick had put her through, she simply hadn't guessed he could have already made it this far down the path to obscenity.
After all, Molly had only played The Game in short innings, witnessed only the embryonic stage of this kind of malice. And when Patrick had come to her, she'd wanted it to be for help. So she'd seen what she'd wanted to.
She should have listened to Frank. She would apologize to him if she ever got away. She'd let him say “I told you so” as often as he wanted.
If she got away. If she got Patrick away before he had the chance to succumb to the addiction he couldn't survive.
His eyes were getting glassy again, and his gaze was on the knife. On the blood, Molly thought, that was trickling down her throat.
“Patrick!” she tried again.
He startled.
Kenny damn near growled. “Miss Burke, I've tried to be fair, but you have to be quiet.”
Patrick shuddered, an almost sexual languor in his eyes. “You just don't understand, Aunt Molly.”
Molly shut her eyes, not wanting to see anymore.
“What about Sam?” she asked very quietly.
“Sam will never know. I'll be surprised when you don't come home, and I'll stay with him until the parents come get me. He'll
never know.
”
“Oh, he will,” she said softly, then opened her eyes to face him. “And it'll kill him.”
Patrick lurched to his feet as if she'd backhanded him. “You leave him the fuck outta this!”
“Don't talk to her that way,” Kenny said. “She's my friend.”
Patrick's laugh got a little angrier. “
You
talked about her that way. Especially after she got you canned.”
“My game, Patrick,” Kenny said, his voice abrupt. “My rules.”
Patrick bristled. Molly felt Kenny twitch. Maybe that was the angle she should take. Set the two of them against each other. Another one of those old movie clichés. If only she could think fast enough to make it work. To make them go for each other's throats and leave hers alone.
If only it weren't Patrick she were thinking this about.
This from a nurse who played The Game like a track bookie. Molly laughed out loud.
Patrick stared at her. “You nuts?” he demanded. “He's about to make soup out of your brain. What's so funny?”
Molly shrugged and felt the ropes bite. “Me. I can't decide if I'm a fatalist or a pessimist.”
He laughed back, but it sounded scratchy. “Sure as shit tough to be an optimist about now.”
It was like watching a movie with the sound track off, or the reception faulty. Molly saw familiar expressions, heard familiar words, and yet saw something beneath it all she'd never seen on Patrick before. As if the protective veil had been stripped away.
There was such cold malice. Such fury.
What had Patrick's parents done to him? Those parents Molly had mostly disdained. Mostly avoided. Mostly dismissed. What had they taken away from him that could only be reclaimed in the corner of a cave that smelled like cat piss and death?
“You can't do this,” she said, even knowing how clichéd that one was. “Patrick, please. Put a stop to it now.”
“I'm not doing anything,” Patrick retorted, an arm thrown out in Kenny's direction. “He is. I'm just … studying.”
“You're not going to be if you both don't shut up,” Kenny snapped. “Now shut up or I'll make you. I'll make you both!”
“Not what your fantasy of this moment was at all, is it, Kenny?” Molly tried.
She'd expected argument. She hadn't expected him to slam her in the head again. Lights exploded behind her eyes. The floor tilted and all those barrels tucked away in the corners seemed to dance along with that ossuary in the corners. Floating sculptures, skulls, and femurs and tibias in delicate weavework that put an end to the hope that Kenny hadn't had much practice at this. In a thousand years would archaeologists dig this up and mistake it for an old monastery?
“Now you'll be quiet,” Kenny panted in her ear. “Now you'll do what you're supposed to do.”
“Her head's bleeding,” Patrick objected.
“Get back,” Kenny demanded, pressing the knife closer, as if to establish ownership. “I told you. You can watch, but just this once. And you have to do it the way I tell you.”
“What makes you think he won't tell on you, Kenny?” Molly demanded, fighting the nausea and dizziness to get her feet planted firmly on the floor. She wasn't sure what she was going to do, but she had to do it. She had to do it before Patrick was able to feed at Kenny's table and find out he liked the fare.
“He said he wouldn't.”
“He also told us he didn't know what you were doing.”
There was a pause. Patrick looked over Molly's shoulder as if to assess something.
“You told them you'd talked to me?” Kenny asked.
“You were on the answering machine,” Patrick said. “I had to tell them something.”
“You promised.”
Molly held her breath. Could they come to blows? Could they really forget she was there for a minute?
Long enough for what? Her to chew through the ropes and run up the stairs? To change Patrick's mind with the strength of her moral reasoning and yank him after her?
“I helped you, man,” Patrick objected, instinctively stepping closer.
Kenny stiffened, and Molly thought the knife made another nick. “I told you. Stay back where you belong or I'll ask you to leave. I'm not so sure about this anymore. I mean, it just doesn't seem right to me.”
“Me either,” Molly offered, trying to think. “I bet he didn't even think to tell you the truth. Didn't you hear him, Kenny? He's the one who blew up Frank's car. He's the one who's been interrupting your attempt to communicate with me.”
“It's not going to work, Aunt Molly,” Patrick objected.
“And you,” she couldn't help but say. “What have I done to you but help you, Patrick? What exactly have I done that's so awful you'd come to see my brains be scooped out?”
Nothing. No reaction. Just the twitchy, sweaty anticipation layered over cold, lifeless eyes. Beautiful eyes. Terrifying eyes.
“Shut
up
,” Kenny ordered, smacking the side of her head again with his fist. The same fist that had the knife. Molly felt it brush through her hair.
Once she got out of this, she wasn't going to so much as slice tomatoes anymore.
Once she got out of this.
She was an idiot. She was a babbling, sweating, terrified fool.
“I'll shut up,” she assured him, shaking her head to clear it.
“I need to give you more Thorazine.”
“No … no really.”
Or maybe she should let him. Wait for him to draw up a big, honkin' dose and then knock him over onto the syringe. Dose himself. She'd seen it happen on a TV show once. Maybe Magnum. She seemed to get most of her life lessons from Magnum.
She wasn't getting out of this. After all she'd been through, she was going to end up on the menu at the Serial Killer Café, and Patrick was going to watch. Was it too absurd or too awful? Did she care?
God, she did. And damn it, not just to save Patrick's soul. To save hers.
Her life didn't exactly flash before her eyes, but Molly did seem to see all her past traumas in a different light. It was easy to wallow in misfortune if you had the luxury of time. Suddenly Molly found herself with no more than about fourteen minutes left to worry about anything, which put every one of her lost chances into perspective.
She had tried her best.
It should be enough. It should go on her tombstone.
In a moment of amazing clarity, Molly realized that it
was
enough. She had done her best and be damned with the rest. It was just too bad she wouldn't get a chance to tell Frank or Sasha or Sam.
“I'll be quiet,” Patrick whispered, backing for the stairs. “I swear. Just don't throw me out.”
“You can't trust him,” Molly insisted, unable to quit trying.
Kenny answered with another jab in the neck. This time, the needle again. Molly all but groaned in frustration. Seconds. She had seconds to do something before she couldn't so much as blink her eyes anymore. She'd been so busy laying her ghosts to rest she'd missed her chance to save herself.
Well, screw it, she thought. It'd probably only end up hurting worse, but she wasn't going down without a fight, Thorazine or not. The chair wasn't that sturdy. Maybe she could knock it over hard enough that it would smash against the floor and loosen those damn ropes. Maybe she could knock Kenny out. Maybe she could fly.
She had to do something.

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