The Night Before (26 page)

Ignoring that thought, he went to work. He looked through everything. Drawers, files, bookcases, tables, even the pillows on the couch and chairs. He searched the closet and the dry planters, behind the pictures he’d taken from the walls and through all the pockets of the coats he found in the closet.

He rolled up the carpet, looked through the bathroom next door and finally, as the sun rose steadily in the east, was about to give up. If the information he sought wasn’t on the computer’s hard drive, then he was sunk. But something bothered him; something about the office didn’t seem right. He sat down on the couch and viewed it again, remembering where the furniture had been placed when he’d first walked in, thinking of the few objects he’d removed . . . what was incongruous about the place?

His gaze skimmed the desk and furniture, the decor. All recent. Made to look older, yes, but acquired in the past few years. Aside from a few books, a pair of boots, a jacket and the backpack, the items were fairly new.

But so what?

Frustrated, he sat on the corner of the couch where Caitlyn always took her seat. He thought he smelled the hint of her perfume, and his heart raced a little. Innocence and sexuality all rolled into one seductive package.

Stupid, stupid, stupid. That’s what his attraction to Caitlyn was. Professional dynamite. Personal disaster. And yet when she appeared in this room, he couldn’t deny the physical allure of the woman. Slim, but not bony, she carried herself with a slightly aloof air, a facade that shattered in their sessions when she, fighting to maintain control of her ragged emotions, would refuse to break down, or try and laugh off her own case of nerves. Her smile was sexy. Her movements sensual. Her worries deep. Shadows darkened her eyes, and confusion occasionally tugged at the corners of her mouth, but beneath the layers of anxiety and tragedy, he sensed there was an intelligent, sharp, deep woman that she rarely allowed out.

He was an idiot. Plain and simple. He didn’t have time for a woman and certainly not a complicated one like Caitlyn Bandeaux. Already the police were nosing around, asking questions about Rebecca. It was only a matter of time, days or possibly hours, before they figured out that he was subleasing her offices and using her equipment. Then he’d have some explaining to do. Her disappearance would be a matter of record, and they would seal up the office and house. Not that their investigation would necessarily be a bad thing, just a hindrance, and he would be looked upon with suspicion. His movements would be restricted, and he really believed that he was more likely to find her than any other person on the planet.

He’d lived with her.

He knew her.

He understood her.

He knew he could find her.

But he was beginning to worry that it wouldn’t be fast enough. Too much time had slipped by. With each passing day he felt with growing certainty that she was dead.

Worse yet, he had the chilling premonition that Rebecca’s disappearance was somehow tied to Caitlyn Montgomery Bandeaux.

“I don’t know where she is,” Sugar said, blocking the cop’s entrance to her home. Caesarina was standing next to her, growling a warning at the detective on her doorstep.

“But Christina Biscayne does live here.”

Sugar nodded. She usually hated cops. Didn’t trust them. But this one seemed a little different, with his rugged good looks and intense gaze. More interesting than the green yahoo who had interviewed her after Josh Bandeaux’s death. That cop had been a kid, but this one, he was definitely a man. He had a woman with him—tight-packed body, tons of attitude and really bad hair. What was with that? The department must have loosened its dress code. “Cricket’s an adult. Sometimes she doesn’t come home.”

“Will she be back later?”

“Who knows? I hope so.”

“Doesn’t she have to work?” the woman cop asked.

“Yes. But I don’t know her schedule.”

They seemed to want to ask more, but settled for asking Sugar to have Cricket call the police station once she turned up. Sugar lingered at the door, watching Detective Reed climb into the passenger side of the vehicle. He had a nice walk. Easy strides that were long enough to stretch his slacks over a tight butt. As he settled inside, he flipped on a pair of dark aviator glasses. He wasn’t exactly handsome, not in Hollywood terms, but there was something innately sexy and male about him. Maybe a hint of danger, which, of course, she was always drawn to. The driver lit a cigarette, backed the car up, and as the dust was still settling, stepped on it and roared down the rutted lane, leaving a plume of dust and Sugar to wonder where the hell her sister was.

 

 

Where the hell was she? It was dank, dark . . . and she was lying on what felt like a dirt floor. Cricket couldn’t move, couldn’t lift her head, didn’t know how long she’d been here. Her hands were bound behind her, her feet wrapped, her mouth covered with tape. Not that she could do anything. Ever since she’d been brought here, driven in her own car and hauled in a child’s cart to this dirty, stinking hole in the ground, she’d been drugged, unable to move. She’d seen flashes of light from beneath a door and her captor, who called herself Atropos, had come and gone. Hours—maybe days—had passed. Cricket couldn’t tell, but she had a bad case of the creeps here in this godforsaken cellar.

“You awake again?”

Cricket started. She hadn’t heard her captor approach.

“Well, it won’t be for long, now will it?”

Up yours, you bitch!
Cricket thought, her mind disjointed. It seemed as if she’d slept, or been knocked out, but she didn’t know; she resided in a kind of netherworld that was foul smelling and dark. It had been a long while and she was thirsty and thought she might have wet her pants . . . her bladder had been full and now wasn’t.

If she had the chance she’d kill the bitch, but so far she hadn’t had the opportunity or the strength. Any time her mind had cleared and she’d thought about trying to lash out at her attacker, she’d suddenly been overcome with drowsiness. She was being drugged, no doubt about it. But if she ever got a clear head . . . the bitch was dead. Dead!

“Here we go. I thought you might be lonely.” Atropos squatted near Cricket’s head and flipped on a flashlight, the narrow beam showing off old rotten wood and bits of broken glass. There were bottles as well and what looked to be rat poison on a shelf. Oh, no . . .

Atropos placed an old glass milk jug on the floor. It seemed to be moving, breathing inside, growing.

Cricket began to sweat. Couldn’t take her eyes off the milk bottle. Her heart was pounding, adrenalin laced by fear, kicking through her bloodstream.

“Watch this.” Atropos trained the flashlight’s beam directly on the jar. Inside were nests of spiders, cottony-looking drifts and lacy webs, crawling with hatchlings, tiny spiders moving everywhere, elder arachnids as well, their many eyes ever watchful, some with front legs upraised, ready to eat each other’s young. “I’ve been incubating them for weeks,” she explained.

Cricket began to shake.

Atropos retrieved a smaller vial from a pocket in her jacket and placed it in the light. Within, atop a cotton ball, were insects . . . no, not just insects. Crickets. Three or four of the dark bugs.

Oh, for the love of God!
Cricket’s guts turned to water.

Carefully, Atropos unscrewed the lid and then, using a pair of tweezers, pulled one of the tiny pests from the jar. It struggled against the tight forceps, but it was no use. Adeptly Atropos retightened the lid, opened the milk jar, held the cricket over it for a heart-stopping second, then opened the tweezers and let the cricket fall.

Horrified, her gaze glued to the milk jar, Cricket watched the cricket land in the cobwebby pit, where it was stuck on a web.

It struggled but a second.

The spiders pounced.

With new terror, Cricket watched the spiders fight over the struggling insect, a large brown arachnid becoming the victor and piercing the cricket’s tiny body with deadly fangs.

Cricket recoiled in terror. Her heart was pounding. She wanted to throw up, but she was gagged in this macabre place with its broken bottles, dark corners and sick, sick inhabitant.

“Mmmm. Not a pretty sight,” Atropos said as she tied a braided cord—red and black strands—around the neck of the milk jar, then rescrewed the lid. “Oh, well, show’s over. Now remember, ‘sleep tight and don’t let the bed bugs bite.’ ”

Atropos flipped off the flashlight and walked up stairs that creaked and moaned.

Cricket was plunged into darkness once again.

With the jar of spiders only inches from her nose. She didn’t have to be a brain surgeon to guess what fate Atropos had decided for her. Tears filled her eyes; terror stole through her heart.

And, in the darkness nearby, the spiders waited.

 

 

The horrid voice in her head, sounding so much like Kelly’s, was at it again, pushing Caitlyn as she drove through the city streets. Distracting her so that she nearly ran a stoplight. She bit her lip, turned up the radio and switched on the headlights. It didn’t help. The damning voice couldn’t be sidetracked.

Heart in her throat, recriminations echoing through her mind, Caitlyn pulled into the small lot off the back alley. She looked up at the elegant old Victorian house that was now cut into private offices. From the car she found the windows of Adam Hunt’s office, the very rooms that Rebecca Wade had used. The third floor, near the roof line, with only the dormers of the attic above. It was near evening. She’d been at the hospital most of the day, but Adam had agreed to meet her after the scene at Oak Hill, and the shadows of the buildings and surrounding trees were lengthening, promising dusk and twilight.

Could Adam not be trusted? Could he have some kind of ulterior motive in seeking her out?

The scene at the plantation home with her mother, Lucille, Ian and her siblings, then Berneda being rushed to the hospital, had been more than she’d been able to handle. All the melodrama. All the secrets. All the damned innuendoes. No wonder the family was cursed with mental problems; everyone seemed to feed on them.

And it was time to put a stop to it. At least for her.

She had to get better. To end the demons in her mind. Adam Hunt was a psychologist; what transpired between them was private, and she had to trust somebody. Not the police. Not her own family. Not her own mind. Not even Kelly.

Caitlyn could almost hear Kelly mocking her.

You
are
nuts. Bona fide and certifiable. Just like Nana!

“Stop it!” Caitlyn screamed, pounding a fist on the steering wheel. The horn blared and she jumped. Shocked herself out of the rage that consumed her. She couldn’t put up with this another second. Couldn’t stand listening to the doubts in her mind. Wouldn’t be a victim any longer. For years she’d been a prisoner of her own mind, but no more.

Either Adam Hunt was salvation or he was destruction, but he was damned well
some
thing, her only hope.

She had to push forward, to find a way out of the trap that was her mind. Whether it turned out to be the biggest mistake of her life or her deliverance, she was going to go through with it. She swung out of the car. Before she could second-guess herself, she strode up a short path and up the back flight of stairs to Adam’s office.

The door was ajar.

She tapped lightly on the old painted panels; the door creaked open to a darkened, empty room. Caitlyn felt a chill. As if it were a warning reminding her that she shouldn’t be here, shouldn’t step across the threshold. Which was silly. She was just a few minutes early. And she had to change the course of her life. Today. Before she lost what fragile hold she had on her own sanity.

You’d better take a seat outside, in one of the chairs clustered around the corner at the landing, where all the patients who visit this floor wait until they’re invited in.
It was a cozy spot. Magazines littered the small table, and water was available from a cooler. She knew Adam would expect to find her there.

But tonight, after hurrying up the back staircase, Caitlyn saw no reason for that kind of protocol. Tonight she was a new person. Bold rather than timid. Forthright rather than shy. She stepped into the darkened office and noted the empty coffee cups on a small table and the crumpled tissues in the wastebasket tucked discreetly behind one arm of the couch. Were they hers from her last visit, or did Adam have more clients, other people he was trying to help?

She heard a creak and turned to the open door, but no one arrived.

Ghosts,
she thought, remembering how Lucille had told her that if she listened very hard and concentrated, wasn’t distracted by outside noise or even the sound of her own heartbeat, she could hear them.

No one arrived. She ran a finger along the edge of Adam’s desk and wondered what he thought of her, what notes he’d jotted about her and her family. Did he think she was truly going out of her mind? His legal pads were stacked in a corner of the desk. All she had to do was lift one up and start reading. What was the harm in that? As long as she only looked at her file, what kind of trouble could she get into? After all, it was
her
life and she was paying him to help her.

Biting her lip, she picked up the first tablet, but dropped it as if it burned her fingers when she heard footsteps on the stairs. Quickly, making as little noise as possible, she flew to the couch and had just sat down when Adam walked in and flipped on a light switch. He visibly started, his body flinching as he saw her in the corner of his couch.

“Caitlyn?” Glancing at his watch, he said, “I didn’t realize I was late.”

“You aren’t. I got here early and the door was open, so I decided to park it.” She smiled and hoped she didn’t look as guilty as she felt. All her doubts seeped away as she saw the ghost of a smile touch his lips. He seemed so genuine. So caring. “I hope that was all right.”

“Of course it is.” But his voice didn’t sound as warm as it usually did. “I just ran out to get some more coffee.” He held up a small brown bag, then opened it and pulled out a jar of coffee crystals and non-dairy creamer. He carried the soup heater into the bathroom and filled it with water, then plugged it in. As the water heated, he took his chair and reached for his notepad. The one on the top of the stack.

“You want to tell me about what happened to your sister and your mother? You sounded pretty shook up when you called.”

“I was. Am,” she admitted, refusing to back down, to listen to the warnings in her mind. Tonight. She was going to start reliving her life. Right now. This very moment. Her fists clenched so hard she felt her nails bite into her palms. Slowly uncurling her fingers, she started with her sister’s accident and its aftermath. She explained the family dynamics, about Ian’s anger, Berneda’s frailty and Hannah’s bad attitude. She mentioned that Lucille had been bristly and that the whole family treated Caitlyn with a hands-off attitude.

“It’s as if they not only think I’m addled or feebleminded,” she said, standing to walk to the window and watch night descend over the city, “but they treat me as if I’m some kind of scary creature and they’re afraid that if someone says or does the wrong thing, I might completely flip out and end up in the mental hospital again.”

“Are you afraid of that?”

“Yes!” She turned to stare straight at him. “Yes! Yes! Yes! I’ve been in one and let me tell you, it’s no picnic. The people in there . . .” She lifted her hands toward the ceiling, as if in supplication from heaven. “My God, for as long as I can remember I’ve heard people whispering about me, about how I’m some kind of freak. Some people think I killed Charles, even members of my family, because I pulled the damned arrow from his chest and they think . . . Oh, I don’t know what they think. Just that I’m crazy, I guess.” She flopped back onto the couch. “Looney Tunes is the favorite phrase. I guess that’s not quite as harsh as insane, and please, don’t ask me if I’m insane, okay? Because I don’t really know.” Tossing her hair out of her eyes, she fought the urge to crumble completely. “You should have seen them at the house. All of them. Mom included. It was just plain weird.”