Just Evil (24 page)

Woodenly the one with the knife nodded.

“Good. Hop to it. I’ll go pop open the champagne.” She
strolled off down the hallway, singing the tune, “We’re in the Money”.

Knowing what had to be done, the one holding the knife
dipped the end of the blade in some of the excess blood. Using the sharp point,
the letters began to take shape. Soon the words PIG, DEATH, and DIE, appeared
on the wall in blood red. Checking her work, she got a little pissed when she
saw that some of the letters had started to run down the wall, spoiling the
perfect script. But she really lost it when she looked down and realized some
of the old farts’ blood had gotten on her dress.

“Goddamn it! I just bought this outfit two days ago,” she
screamed as she viciously plunged the knife into the already dead woman before
turning to the man and doing the same thing, hacking into the bodies with a
vengeance.

The clock next to the bed read three minutes past three.

The dream left Kit fog-brained and out of breath like she’d
been running down that dark country road. Trying to catch her breath, she
blinked around her own bedroom.

Total darkness. Instinctively, she bumbled toward the lamp
on the bedside table to turn on the light. Her eyes landed on the only
significant light source, the digital bedside clock, burning in bright red
numerals. A steady 3-0-3 glowed back at her. Three minutes past three. The
exact same time the couple had died in the dream.

Trembling and sweating after watching the murder play out,
she struggled to get rid of the image of the couple’s eyes as they stared back
into hers. Dead eyes.

She had seen two people die right in front of her. No, in
the dream, she corrected. It had been a dream.

Flipping the switch on the lamp, she panicked when the light
didn’t come on. With her hands still shaking, she opened the drawer of the
nightstand and felt around for the flashlight, praying the batteries worked.

Thumbing on the flashlight sent a narrow stream of light
into the dark room.

At that moment, Pepper, who’d been asleep on her bed, went
on alert, letting out a guttural growl. “What’s wrong, boy? You have a bad
dream, too?”

But the dog stood up on the bed, turned his attention to the
double French doors at the end of the room. She directed the flashlight on the
doors.

“We need more light,” she told the dog. But for an instant,
she was afraid to move from the security of the covers. It seemed the death
scene from the dream still gripped her in fear.

And her dog was still snarling.

She drew in a shaky breath and decided to get up. “Come on
Pepper, we need to check the lights.” As soon as her feet hit the hardwood
floor, she threw on a robe and hurried out to the landing, trying the light
switch there. No light. With her flashlight and Pepper at her side, she made
her way slowly down the stairs to the second level.

When she got to the living room she flicked on the light
switch. No light there either. The electricity was obviously off. With her
flashlight, she peered into the open area of the kitchen, which was totally
black except for the light from the flashlight. She shined the beam at the
old-fashioned wall clock above the stove and saw the time had stopped at 2:30.

Pointing the light in the direction of the microwave, the
clock was nothing but a black rectangle.

Rationale left her momentarily as she wondered why the
digital clock in the bedroom worked. Then she remembered the clock radio came
with a backup battery feature that kept it working in the event of a power
failure. Relieved to know the clock worked because of practical technology, she
struggled to remember the location of the breaker box. The garage; it’s in the
garage, she thought. Damn.

While her courage remained at a premium, she quickly took
the stairs down to the first level, past the laundry room, and unlocked the
door going out to the garage.

Blackness greeted her. Before stepping out into the
blackened hole, however, she shined the flashlight under the Jeep and around
the sides as best she could. When she determined no monster lurked there, she
gingerly stepped out onto the concrete in bare feet. The cold floor had her
picking up her pace.

She hurriedly approached the box hung on the sidewall and
threw back the metal door casing of the breaker box. Sure enough, each breaker
was in the OFF position. Methodically, she flipped each breaker back to ON. To
test her work, as she left the garage, she turned on the light by the door to
the laundry room.

Light filled the space, as well as the stairwell. She left
the lights on all the way as she and Pepper climbed back up to the second
floor.

Once she reached the living room, she flipped on the light
switch and sighed when the room lit up like Christmas.

She headed to the kitchen, but got no further than its
entrance when fear had her stopping. She thought she heard voices.
I’m
losing my mind
. But then the voices grew fainter, and she heard only the
familiar sound of ocean surf outside.

Were there tourists walking on the beach at three in the
morning? she wondered. Is that why Pepper had growled?

When Pepper gave a half-bark, she looked at him and shook
her head. “No way. We are not opening that door and taking a stroll outside
now. You’ll just have to hold it till morning. Or not. Either way, we’re not
going out there in the dark.” 

But her unease didn’t abate. Whether it was the disturbing
dream or Pepper’s behavior, something seemed―off.

To make sure she was alone in the house, she walked each
room with Pepper by her side. It took under fifteen minutes for her to
determine that no one else was in the house. Still rattled, it was apparent she
could not return to sleep in her bedroom. For a moment, she thought of calling
the police, but thought better of it. After all, what would she tell them? That
she’d had a nightmare and the electricity had gone off and she’d heard voices
outside on the beach at three in the morning?

She pictured getting a response from Max St. John. Would he
put the cuffs on her immediately or simply bypass jail and send her straight to
the loony bin?

She considered calling Jake, just to hear his voice, but
then remembered he’d had enough to deal with when he’d dropped her off. An
image of what they’d almost done on the boat popped into her head and she grew
suddenly hot. She desperately wanted to call him. But then realized that’s
exactly what a lovestruck teenage girl might do.

She decided that was a bad idea.

But her mind couldn’t shake the dream. She considered
calling Gloria, maybe get her take. She had no doubt her aunt would find it
fascinating since she’d always believed in stuff like premonitions and woo-woo
psychic abilities that included dream interpretations.

Unlike Alana, Kit had never openly criticized Gloria about
her weird beliefs. Alana had often called her sister crazy. In fact, over the
years when Alana was particularly cruel in her comments regarding Gloria, Kit
had staunchly defended her aunt. All those séances, her so-called telepathic
visions, her self-proclaimed psychic abilities, might have been unorthodox, but
Kit had simply taken it in stride. 

But then Gloria had never embarrassed her like she had
Alana. There was the time Gloria had taken out her tarot cards in the middle of
a party she hadn’t been invited to and enlightened the mayor’s wife that her
husband had been cheating. Now that had been fun to watch. Then there was the
time Gloria advised Alana’s potential real estate client, a Saudi prince, that
it would be unwise to purchase a particular house because evil spirits dwelled
there. The prince had found another real estate agent.

Each time Gloria’s unconventional moments humiliated her
sister, Alana would explode in a verbal attack, calling Gloria everything from
a phony to a raging lunatic. Kit came to realize over the years that Gloria was
just a bit different, an unconventional sort who marched to the beat of her own
drum and was a kick to be around. But in reality, Kit had a harder time with
Gloria’s beliefs than she’d ever let on. Taking Gloria’s side over Alana’s was
pure instinct, but in truth, Kit had never really put much store in her aunt’s
weird, woo-woo theories.

Until now.

Bone tired, she decided sorting out the dream at this hour
was too much anyway. She decided she might as well go back to bed after all. As
she climbed the stairs with Pepper, she couldn’t stop thinking about those two
old people in the dream. She couldn’t get their faces out of her head.

And the killers—were—familiar, the way they spoke to each
other, the way they bickered. The images hit a little too close to home.

Maybe she was projecting her own fears from childhood. Maybe
it was the stress from the long day, the funeral, the explosion on the water.
Maybe all of it had contributed to the dream of witnessing coldblooded murder.

But what exactly had brought the enemy into her head, into
her bed and thus, into her sleep. She obviously hadn’t put that much behind
her.

When she reached her four-poster bed, she instinctively got
down on her knees and hands to look underneath just in case. Of course, there
was no one hiding there.

She crawled back into bed and tried to put Alana and the
murder out of her mind, snuggling as far beneath the covers as possible, as if
hiding under the covers would alleviate the fear she felt, the aloneness.

She lay there with Pepper by her side half of her afraid to
move and the other half afraid not to, scared of returning to sleep, of closing
her eyes, wondering if the dreadful nightmare might return.

As the minutes ticked on, she dozed fitfully, drifting
between awareness and unconsciousness. But the faces of the murdered people in
the dream wouldn’t go away, especially the terror she’d seen in their eyes.

And the killers―their faces, those coldblooded eyes
wouldn’t go away either.

After a time, she gave up the notion of trying to go back to
sleep and decided she had to get up in another hour anyway. She curled up under
the covers, picked up the remote, clicked on the television, then the VCR.

Her father’s image appeared on screen, this time in color, riding
on the back of a beautiful black stallion. He delivered his lines, tipping back
his tan cowboy hat looking as handsome as she remembered.

She finally drifted off to sleep.

A ringing doorbell roused Kit out of a deep slumber. Before
she could crawl out of bed, she had to untangle the sheets and push Pepper off
her legs. Meanwhile the doorbell kept ringing. Through bleary eyes, she looked
at the clock; it read 6:35. Shit, she’d overslept.

But who on earth would be ringing her doorbell at this hour
of the morning? Her mind formed a mental picture of Max St. John and Dan
Holloway.

As she grudgingly crawled out of bed, she pictured a
contingent of police waiting on her front porch to arrest her, pictured the
neighbors leaving their bowls of corn flakes long enough to come out on the
street and stare as the police led her away in handcuffs.

And when the doorbell kept ringing she knew it must be the
police; why else would they be so impatient? With a sickening dread in her
stomach, she took her time making her way downstairs to the second level. The
doorbell finally went silent, but seconds later the pounding began.

As soon as her bare feet hit the tiled entryway, an image of
Collin Boyd popped into her head. So did fear. Before she ever reached the
front door, she yelled at the person on the other side, “I’m armed. I have a
vicious attack dog and I’ve just called the police.”

The pounding stopped.

She went closer to the peephole and peered out. Relief
washed through her knowing it wasn’t the police or Collin. Jake stood there
staring back at the front door, looking tired and upset as his hands rested on
his hips in a warrior-like stance.

He might as well have been wearing combat fatigues instead
of a dark tailored suit with a white dress shirt opened at the collar. Despite
the fierce look on his face, a rush of sexual heat sent her glancing at her
reflection in the mirror hanging to the right of the door.

She let out a groan. Her hair stuck up in spikes like a punk
rocker. But she opened the door anyway with as much panache as she could
muster.

“Why are you here so early?”

Jake noticed her rumpled mass of hair and the dark circles
under her eyes. But in a matter of seconds his gaze drifted to the silky robe
she wore and settled on the peaks of her breasts. She wasn’t wearing anything
underneath.

Not a stitch.

Kit studied his combative appearance as he charged past her
into the hallway. “Early? When you didn’t show up for work this morning, and
you didn’t answer your phone, Baylee got worried, almost closed up the shop to
come and check on you. Instead, she called Gloria, Gloria called me. After what
happened the other day with Collin, there were people worried about you. I
drive like a bat outta hell to get here and find you just wanted to sleep late.
Couldn’t you have called Baylee and told her that?”

“What are you talking about? I had a rough night.” Her
temper shot up. “So I’m running later than usual, slept in until six-thirty. I
don’t understand why you’re here so early—and yelling at me.”

“Early? It’s ten-fifteen. What makes you think it is
six-thirty, Kit?”

“The clock in the bedroom said six-thirty.”

“Then the clock is wrong.” He held out his arm and showed
her the time on his wristwatch.

 The Rolex read 10:15.

She reached out and grabbed his arm, staring at the time on
the watch. She glanced around the living room and then ran to the kitchen. The
microwave clock flashed on and off in green digital numbers that blinked 0:00
back at her. The kitchen wall clock showed the time as 8:35. For some reason,
she picked up the telephone. “There’s no dial tone. The line’s dead.”