Someone's Watching (37 page)

“Damn,” Lieber said. She redialed her phone. “Is there a white female named Robbie Ivy there? You sure?”

Jeremy watched the lights of Miami Beach grow larger, the sky lighting up as though it was on fire.

“I see,” Lieber said. She put her phone down.

“What?” Jeremy said.

“Robbie’s not there.”

It was only a few more blocks. Robbie fumbled with her cell phone and punched in Jeremy’s number again.

It went to voice mail.

She felt like banging the small black box against the dashboard. Jeremy, why aren’t you answering?

She dialed Lieber’s number. Pick up. Please pick up.

“Lieber,” the voice said.

“Thank God. It’s Robbie.”

Robbie’s phone beeped.

“Robbie. Where are you? What’s going on?”

“This is urgent. I’m on my way to my apartment. I think Gina Fieldstone is heading over there. She may try to kill my sister.”

She waited for Lieber to say something.

“Hello?” Robbie said. “Did you hear me?”

No response.

“Hello?” Robbie shouted.

She glanced at her phone. The screen was blank.

She wondered if Lieber had heard her before the battery had gone dead.

The knock came again.

“Who’s there?” Kate said.

“It’s just me, Robbie,” a pleasant woman’s voice said.

Probably the neighbor Robbie borrowed the wig from.

Kate unlocked the door and opened it.

Robbie pulled the car up to the sidewalk with a screech. The lights in her apartment were on. Was that good? Bad? Had Robbie gotten here in time?

She ran up the stairs to her apartment, kicking off her heels to make better speed.

She tried the doorknob. Locked. If Gina was here, the door would be unlocked, right? No. Not necessarily.

Think. Quickly. What should she do? Wait, hoping Lieber had heard her before the phone went dead? Knock on Gabriele’s door? But he had been on his way out earlier, so he probably wasn’t home.

Should she try to find a phone and call the police again? But what if Gina hadn’t arrived yet? Then Robbie needed to get Kate out of here.

She couldn’t wait.

She pushed her key into the lock and quietly opened the door. She stuck her head in.

The living room was as she’d left it. No sign of violence or a forced entry. But there hadn’t been last time, either.

Robbie tiptoed into the room. Her bare feet were soundless on the wood floors.

Matilda jumped from one of the bookcases and took a few running steps toward her.

Where was Kate?

The door to the bedroom was closed. Could Kate have gone to sleep? Then Robbie needed to get her up and out of here. And quickly.

But what if Gina had already arrived and was in there with Kate?

What should she do? She didn’t even have a weapon.

She went into the kitchen, took her sharpest knife from the butcher block, then stood outside the closed bedroom door. She pressed her ear against the door and listened. Absolutely quiet.

Sleeping. Please let Kate be asleep in there.

Robbie opened the door as quietly as she could. She stuck her head into the dark bedroom, the knife in front of her, just in case.

She tried to make out Kate’s form on the shadowy bed as she stepped closer.

A heavy smell like overripe flowers hung in the air.

Oh, God, was Robbie too late? Where was Kate?

She felt a painful chop across her wrist. The kitchen knife clattered against the floor.

Something clamped hard over Robbie’s mouth, jerking her head back.

No. STOP. HELP.

Arms tightened around her.

She couldn’t scream. She couldn’t breathe.

She kicked against legs as hard as stone pillars, but her bare feet were ineffectual.

Robbie felt herself being lifted, as though she was no more than a doll.

Light from the outside streetlamps cast the room in sepia.

Someone was sitting in the rocking chair beyond the bed in the corner of the room. A slender woman, a cardigan over her shoulders and a sheer scarf wrapped around her head. Gina Fieldstone. She was rocking slowly, back and forth.

Then the man holding Robbie was probably Aidan.

She tried to turn her head, but Aidan held her firmly. Kate. Where was Kate?

Gina was looking down at something in the narrow space between the bed and the wall. Robbie blinked, trying to make sense of the shape at Gina’s feet.

A moaning sound came from the figure on the floor.

Dear God. Kate. Her arms were tied behind her back and something was stuffed in her mouth.

Robbie tried to bite the fleshy skin blocking her own mouth and nose, but it was pressed too tightly against her. Breathe. She needed to breathe.

The rocking chair creaked against the floorboards. “Bring her closer, Aidan,” Gina said. “I want her to watch this.”

Watch what? What was Gina planning to do?

Aidan dragged Robbie between the foot of the bed and the chest of drawers, stopping short of her sister.

Kate whimpered.

No. NO. This was her sister. Robbie couldn’t let anything happen to her sister. She kicked and twisted, trying to break Aidan’s hold.

He tightened his grip around her arms and mouth. Robbie strained against him, but she was weakening. Breathe. BREATHE.

Gina rocked back and forth. In the weak light, her high cheekbones, straight nose, and broad forehead appeared to have been carved from grayish wax. She was only a few feet away, on the other side of Kate.

“Well, I see you found your sister.” Gina’s voice, too high, too tight, sent shivers through Robbie. “Your journey’s over.”

Robbie grunted through the hand covering her mouth. Please, please don’t hurt Kate, she tried to say.

“How does it feel?” Gina continued in the strange voice. “Your long-lost sister. Your dream fulfilled.”

Robbie squirmed and kicked.

“Let her go, Aidan,” Gina said. “She can’t do anything.”

Aidan’s grip relaxed. Robbie dropped to the floor, choking as she sucked in the air. She covered her sister’s body with her own and looked back at Aidan. One fist was balled up; in his other hand, he clutched a knife.

Robbie could feel Kate trembling beneath her. “It will be all right,” Robbie whispered.

“All right?” Gina’s features twisted into a distorted grimace, as though her face had partially melted, making the woman Robbie knew as Gina Fieldstone barely recognizable.

The transformation was chilling.

Gina unwound the silk scarf from around her head, then jerked it tight with both hands, like a garrote. She stared straight at Robbie. “How can anything ever be all right again after what you’ve done, Marylou?”

Marylou? Who was Marylou?

Gina got up abruptly. The rocking chair swung wildly back and forth. She was wearing the champagne-colored suit she’d had on at Mike’s house, but there were splatters of blood on it. “My dreams,” she said in a voice that made the hair on Robbie’s arms stand up. “You tried to take my dreams from us.” Gina’s violet eyes bulged and a muscle in her throat twitched.

Robbie held her sister tighter, feeling the rise and fall of Kate’s back as she breathed.

“I honestly believed you and I were alike.” Gina’s voice returned to normal, the rage gone from her face. “You with your unfortunate family, me with mine.” She pushed a strand of hair behind her ear, exposing a pearl earring. “I even forgave you for bewitching him.” She laughed her xylophone laugh, but now it sounded almost hysterical. “I actually saw myself in you. And I tried to keep you away from Stanford. But you ignored me. You couldn’t leave your little game alone.”

Keep her talking, Robbie thought. Maybe Lieber would get here in time. She was conscious of Aidan just behind her, the knife in his hand.

“But it wasn’t my game,” Robbie said. “I had no idea about Mike’s blackmailing operation. I was just doing Brett a favor.”

“And I realized, we’re nothing alike, you and I.” Gina seemed not to have heard Robbie. “Your wounds, your losses; they’re nothing. A dead mother? An absent father? A lost sister? Nothing compared to what I suffered.”

“I wasn’t trying to compete. I trusted you. I believed you wanted to help me.”

“Help you? Like anyone cared about helping me? Did anyone give a shit about me?” Gina inhaled and her nostrils flared. “Tell me again about your scars. Did your mother beat you and lock you in the cellar? Did she throw you out of the house when she found out you were pregnant with your father’s child?”

Had that been Gina’s life? Beaten? Abused? Pregnant with her father’s child?

“I was fifteen years old. I had no one. Nothing. So tell me about how terrible your family was.”

Gina came closer, her overripe smell filling Robbie’s lungs. Robbie refocused. Whatever tragedy had shaped Gina, she was still capable of murder. Robbie needed to do something.

“She called me a slut and I hated her for it.” Gina’s voice was flat.

Robbie could grab Gina’s leg and perhaps flip her, but Aidan was within striking distance with a knife.

“Hated that she let my father do what he wanted to me and then discarded me.” Gina took a step back and adjusted her cardigan. She was just beyond Robbie’s reach.

“But then I realized my mother had been right. And I decided to get them back for her. Her dreams.” Gina ran the silk scarf through her fingers. “So she would love me.”

The kitchen knife was on the floor behind Robbie, near the chest of drawers. Something tickled her cheek. Gina’s scarf.

“I want you to know how it feels to lose what you love,” Gina said, pulling the scarf back from Robbie’s face. “To lose your dreams.”

With no wasted movement, Gina slid the scarf around Kate’s neck, tied a knot, and pulled. Kate let out a strangled cry.

“NO!” Robbie shouted. Not her sister. Robbie feinted toward Gina, then lunged in the other direction, toward the kitchen knife.

She sensed Aidan momentarily off balance. Her fingers grasped the knife handle. Got it. Then something heavy pounded down on her hand. Robbie saw a flash of white.

The pressure eased off her hand, though the pain was excruciating. Robbie thought she might throw up. Aidan was lifting his foot, to stomp on her again.

She jerked her hand away and rolled.

And then, Aidan cried out, his arms groping the air as though struck from behind. “Ma!”

Ma? Who was Aidan calling Ma?

His eyes bulged and he held his throat, gasping.

“Aidan, what’s wrong?” Gina got to her feet.

Aidan toppled over Robbie, knocking the breath out of her. Something pierced her back. A loud thump shook the floor.

“Aidan,” Gina shrieked.

Aidan was sprawled out in the narrow space next to the bed, eyes wide open, a ragged, ugly wheeze emanating from his gaping mouth, as though he was unable to breathe.

A man stood in the doorway, something clenched in his hand. A syringe. A hypodermic syringe.

Her father.

“Aidan.” Gina threw herself across his prostrate body.

Aidan’s face was frozen as the harsh rasping sound continued like a distant foghorn, and then faded off into silence.

“Breathe, Aidan. Please breathe.” Gina buried her head against Aidan’s chest. “Oh God. What have you done to my son?”

He was her son? So Gina had never given up her child? There was no lost daughter? But Robbie wasn’t thinking clearly. She felt a warm pulsing in her lower back, then a drawing pain. Had Aidan stabbed her? My God. He had. She’d been stabbed. And blood was welling out of her.

“My darling boy,” Gina cried. “Don’t leave me.”

Kate was lying still. Robbie needed to get to her and loosen the garrote, but she couldn’t move. Everything spun around her, a whirlwind of light.

Her father pressed something against Robbie’s back. “The bleeding’s letting up,” he said. “You’ll be okay, princess.”

“PRINCESS?” Gina said, in that strange, distorted voice. “SHE’S NO PRINCESS. MARYLOU’S A SLUT.”

Marylou? What was she talking about? But before Robbie could process what was happening, Gina had slid off Aidan and seized something from the floor. And then she was straddling Kate, poised to plunge the knife into Kate’s chest.

Everything was blurry. Robbie could hear her father breathing hard against her neck.

Two daughters, Robbie thought. Her father had two daughters. Two chances. If he chose Robbie, Kate would die. If he chose Kate, then Robbie would die.

In slow motion, Robbie saw Gina lift the knife above her head, then bring it down toward Kate, just as her father lunged across the room and sent Gina sprawling.

Gina kicked and flailed beneath him, and then lay still.

Her father got up.

Gina’s eyes were terrified, her mouth open gasping for air. The hypodermic protruded from Gina’s neck like a twig.

Everything went dark, then brightened.

Sirens and lights from the street filled the room.

Her father was beside her, pressing her lower back, once again.

She could hear her sister sobbing.

“Robbie, Kate,” her father said.

He’d called them Robbie and Kate.

And then he said something else. Robbie struggled to hold onto the words, to hold onto the light.

His arms tightened around her. She saw a necklace with beads and feathers and heard his voice like a lullaby.

You’re my Pocahontas
, he said when he tucked her into bed.
You’re my little Pocahontas
.

Robbie sat next to her sister at a picnic table beside the St. Johns River eating fried shrimp and hush puppies from a ramshackle waterfront bar. Their father was across from them, the bench seat all to himself. Giant oak trees festooned with Spanish moss stood on both banks of the river and she smelled a sweet bloom in the air that reminded her of the magnolia blossoms of her childhood.

Robbie had taken the train up from Miami, and Kate was down from college for the weekend. The University of Florida was in Gainesville, only a couple of hours from Deland, so Kate was able to drive home whenever she was overcome by the panic attacks she still occasionally experienced.