Touching Evil (40 page)

"No! I'm stronger! I can kill you! I can kill you all!"

"You didn't kill me, Bobby," Hollis said as she stepped out of the shadows a few yards to Maggie's right.

He let out a sort of wail and backed up until he was up against the worktable and could retreat no farther. "No. No, I can kill you. I
did
kill you . . ."

Without planning to, Maggie said, "And it doesn't do any good to blind us, Bobby. We see you. We always see you."

"Always," Hollis echoed as she took another step toward him. Her eyelids were reddened and the marks of the attack were only half healed on her face, but blue eyes gazed at him, clear and steady, and she wore a small, contemptuous smile. "Did you really think you could take my eyes, Bobby?"

"I did," he muttered. He laughed suddenly, his own eyes gleaming with tears or madness. "I did. I took them. I cut them out. I did. I know I did. I put them in a bowl and watched them float. I took your eyes, Audra. I took—they were brown eyes. I remember that. Brown eyes. And I took them. And you couldn't see me."

"I see you now." Her voice was flat, cold. "I see you, Bobby. We all see you. You'll never be able to hide from any of us ever again."

"No," he mumbled, the gun wavering, his wide shoulders hunching. "No, please."

"We see you," Annie repeated.

"We see you," Maggie echoed.

He laughed—a strange, high sound—and watching him, Maggie saw his eyes change. In those flat gray depths, something was coming apart, disintegrating. She felt a peculiar sensation, as if some force, some energy, had blown past her, pressure more than air, nearly causing her ears to pop.

It all happened within the space of seconds, and then, before she could move or react, that wavering gun pointed at her, steadied, and he whimpered, "No—"

Maggie had a split second to gaze into eyes that now held nothing but a kind of dumb hatred, and then a third shot echoed through the warehouse.

She expected pain, waited for it. But the pistol in Simon Walsh's hand clattered to the floor, and he crumpled almost soundlessly.

It was over. It was finally over.

Before Maggie could do more than catch her breath, John was there, holding her hard with one arm while the pistol in his free hand remained pointed toward Walsh.

"Maggie-"

"For a minute there," she heard herself say with astonishing calm, "I thought you were going to be too late."

"He nearly was," Quentin commented, moving out of the shadows near where Annie had been. He went to warily check for a pulse in Walsh, keeping his own gun at the ready but relaxing when he found no heartbeat. "I didn't have a clear shot from my angle, so it was all up to him."

"Tara—"

But Quentin was already moving toward the bed and seconds later looked at them with grim eyes.

"She's alive, but just barely." He took out his cell phone to quickly summon an ambulance, while Hollis joined him at the other side of the bed, helping him to gently untie Tara Jameson's wrists and murmuring soothingly to the terribly injured woman.

"You two took a hell of a chance," John said, his voice jerky. "Jesus, Maggie—"

Maggie sent a fleeting glance around, unsurprised to find Annie gone, then smiled up at him. "I know. It was just something I—"

"Felt you had to do. Yeah, I got that." He flicked the gun's safety on, then stuck the weapon inside his jacket and put both hands on her shoulders. He didn't shake her, but the desire to do so was evident in the way his fingers tightened. "Want to tell me how you thought you could win this little confrontation without so much as a big stick?"

She shook her head. "I knew my face gave me an edge, that it would catch him off guard to see me here. It gave
me
the control, at least for a little while. I thought. . . maybe the only way to fight his evil would be to shatter it—or at least the mind holding it. To have one of his victims face him, knowing all his secrets. It was the only thing I could think of to do. I had to try, John."

"Just don't ever do anything like that to me again."

"No, I won't." She looked at him searchingly.

"I won't have nightmares about killing him," John assured her. "And no regrets. When you put a mad dog out of his misery, you're only doing him a favor."

"You had no choice," she said anyway.

"I know." He pulled her into his arms. "Are you all right? Even I can feel the pain in this place."

Maggie considered, then smiled at him. "When you touch me, all I feel is you."

"Good," John said, and kissed her.

Nearly an hour later, Andy stood outside the warehouse with the others waiting for his forensics team to arrive and said, "So that was what evil looked like. I wasn't impressed."

"No," Maggie said.

He gazed at her with lifted brows. "No?"

"No. That was just the shell evil lived in for a while."

"You mean because he's dead now?"

"Because the evil was destroyed this time before the flesh was."

Andy blinked, looked at John and Quentin, then shook his head. "Never mind. I don't think I want to know what it was all about."

"Wise of you," Quentin murmured.

Scott joined them, saying, "The Caddie is parked in that shed over there. A '72, looks like. Just what your friend Joey described, Quentin."

He smiled faintly. "Yeah, he always did know cars."

Jennifer asked, "How the hell did Hollis Templeton get here?" Since Hollis had left in the ambulance with Tara Jameson, she asked the question of the others.

Maggie shrugged. "She said ... a little voice told her she should be here. So she came. Didn't say how."

"Jesus," Scott said.

Andy looked at him, seemed about to say something, and then obviously thought better of it. He settled his shoulders with the air of a man deciding things.

"Well, as far as we're concerned, Simon Walsh raped and killed women. He was the Blindfold Rapist."

"Nobody's arguing with you, Andy," Quentin said mildly.

"No?"

"No."

Andy heaved a sigh. "Good. Now, will somebody please tell me what the fuck I'm supposed to put in my report?"

Quentin grinned at him. "You can try the truth. Of course, the truth is a bit complicated. I mean, what with Maggie and Hollis being here, to say nothing of Annie."

"Annie?"

"The little voice Hollis heard," Quentin explained solemnly. "She was here. Well, sort of."

John looked at him. "So you saw her too?"

"Oh, yeah."

"Good. I was afraid it was just me."

Andy stared at them both for a moment and, again, very obviously decided he didn't want to know. They all heard the sounds of sirens approaching, and he groaned. "I'll either get a medal or get committed."

"Welcome to my world," Quentin said.

EPILOGUE

SATURDAY,
 
NOVEMBER 10,
 
2001

Sitting up in her hospital bed to better talk to her

visitors, Kendra said to Hollis, "So Annie was Robert Graham's twin sister, the first one he killed."

"Apparently. I'd had her voice in my head since the attack, but it was only the last few days that she told me who she was. And what she needed me to do."

"I'm glad you were there," Maggie told her. "I think you were the clincher. Standing there looking at him even though he'd thought he had blinded you for good."

"I wasn't sure what I was doing," Hollis confessed. "Just . . . saying whatever popped into my head." She shook her head. "Annie had told me I had to be there, that it was the only way to help you. When she told me that, told me I
had
to see or else he'd be free to go on killing, I just—all of a sudden I could see. It was easy to distract the cop guarding my door, easy to slip out. And I knew, somehow, where to go."

"You and Maggie," Quentin said. He looked at Maggie. "Thanks for sharing."

"Don't you give me a hard time," she warned him with a faint smile. "I've already heard enough about it from John. I'm sorry I didn't tell you what I knew—or thought I knew. It was just that so much of it was vague or unclear. I was afraid if I said too much I'd cause things to go even more horribly wrong."

"We've been there," Kendra told her ruefully. "Sometimes we walk a very fine line between what we think we know and what's actually going on."

Maggie nodded. "It can be a challenge. I mean, there were flashes of memory or bits of information I wasn't sure I could trust, but all I really
knew
absolutely for certain was that I had to be there at the end, confronting him."

John said, "Because you'd been his wife long ago and weren't able to stop him from killing."

Maggie looked at the others with slightly lifted brows. "He's having a hard time with this."

"No, I'm not," John denied. He was stared at politely, and finally sighed. "Okay, I am."

"He'll get used to it," Quentin assured Maggie. "Between us, we've nearly worn away that high gloss of logic and rationality he used to wear."

Hollis looked at John. "Aren't you grateful?"

"Oh, immensely. The world's beginning to look almost normal standing on its ear."

"It's all about balance," Maggie murmured.

John took her hand with a determined air and said to the others, "If you'll excuse us, we have things to discuss."

"Thanks for the visit," Kendra said, smiling.

"We'll be back tomorrow," Maggie told her.

"I'll look forward to it."

As they left the hospital room, they heard Quentin saying to Hollis, "Listen, our boss should be here any minute, and he's sort of anxious to meet you—"

Maggie said, "Do you think she will? I mean, join Bishop's unit?"

"You know her better than I do," John replied. "But from what I've seen, I'd say Hollis Templeton is very aware of having a brand-new life stretching in front of her, and I doubt that after this she'll be eager to ... embrace the ordinary."

"Very poetic."

"Thank you."

"And probably true," Maggie added. "There are certain corners that, having once been turned, change your view of the world forever."

As the elevator doors closed and the car started downward, John looked at her gravely. "I'll say."

She smiled faintly. "You're seriously considering it, aren't you? Helping to build some sort of civilian resource organization similar to Bishop's unit?"

"Quentin's had worse ideas," John admitted.

"Admit it—you're just beginning to enjoy seeing the world standing on its ear, that's what it is."

"Well, that's part of it. And there's you, of course. You're not about to stop doing what you do best just because that greater evil got buried this time around. And much as I respect Andy and the other cops, I think we both know that your talents deserve ... a broader canvas."

"So do yours, for that matter," she said. "Building the kind of organization Quentin was talking about won't be easy. Lots of strikes against it, beginning with the uneasiness most people feel about psychic ability."

"Which is why I'm perfect for the job. I know how to build organizations from the ground up, and I'm about as nonpsychic as they come."

They left the elevator and walked down the bustling hallway toward the doors, and it wasn't until they were outside in the clear, chill air that Maggie stopped, looked up at him with a smile, and said, "It's all about balance."

"So I can say it now?" he asked, smiling but intent.

"You still don't have to." She slipped her arms up around his neck as he pulled her close, both of them oblivious to the people walking past them. "We balance perfectly. I love you, John."

Just before his lips touched hers, John murmured, "That's all I needed to hear."