Sleep No More
Page 1
Praise for
Sleep No More
“Sleep No More is that rarity, a thriller that really thrills.”
—Stephen King
“Completely engaging…irresistible pass-the-popcorn fun…a spirited chiller.”
—People
“A broody, moody writer whose books have the twitchy languidness of Tennessee Williams combined with the suspense of Alfred Hitchcock…a dazzling combination of guilt, obsession, and suspicion.”
—St. Petersburg Times
“Reads like a revved-up go-cart, with surprises at every curve. Erotic, shocking, pulse racing, and a whole lot of white-knuckled fun.”
—The Clarion-Ledger (Jackson, MS)
“Iles presents whodunits that are a cut above…. His characters have some dimension. You usually can’t see his plot twists coming.”
—Fort Worth Star-Telegram
“This is exactly the sort of action at which Iles is best: the cornered family man trying to do right by his people, facing extraordinary problems with heroic effort.”
—The New Orleans Times-Picayune
“Wild.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“It takes an exceptional writer to make a story about soul transfer believable. Iles, who has wowed critics with his six previous thrillers, not only makes the incredible seem logical but also engages the reader completely in the hopes and doubts of his protagonist…. Iles is masterful at sustaining psychological suspense, as Waters is drawn into an affair with the woman who claims to be his lost love, again jeopardizing his life. An irresistible page-turner.”
—Booklist
“Fans will certainly enjoy the way he once again brings to piquant life…Natchez and the Mississippi Delta.”
—Publishers Weekly
“With this new novel, Iles has once again proven himself master of the suspense genre…. He has crafted a compelling psychological thriller…. This work offers surprise after surprise.”
—Library Journal
“Greg Iles is a versatile, multitalented author who has a unique voice and never writes about the same thing twice….[Sleep No More is] a chilling paranormal thriller that will be put on this reviewer’s keeper shelf.”
—BookBrowser
Praise for Greg Iles’s other
heart-stopping thrillers
“Hair-raising…. Iles continues to scare the livingday lights out of readers.”
—The New Orleans Times-Picayune
“Filled with so much action that it deserves to be read in one long and satisfying session.”
—Chicago Tribune
“An enigmatic crime figure, as brilliant as Hannibal Lecter…. Iles provides enough twists and turns to keep his hair-raising ending unpredictable.”
—The Memphis Commercial Appeal
“Brilliantly plotted…bone-chilling suspense.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Incredibly engrossing…. Here is a major talent strutting his considerable stuff.”
—The Denver Post
“The pace is frenetic, the fear and paranoia palpable.”
—The Cleveland Plain Dealer
“An ingenious suspense thriller…fascinating.”
—The New York Times Book Review
“An irresistible plot…. A scorching read.”
—John Grisham
BOOKS BY GREG ILES
Dead Sleep
24 Hours
The Quiet Game
Mortal Fear
Black Cross
Spandau Phoenix
SLEEP NO MORE
Greg Iles
A SIGNET BOOK
SIGNET
Published by New American Library, a division of
Penguin Putnam Inc., 375 Hudson Street,
New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.
Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand,
London WC2R 0RL, England
Penguin Books Australia Ltd, 250 Camberwell Road,
Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia
Penguin Books Canada Ltd, 10 Alcorn Avenue,
Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4V 3B2
Penguin Books (N.Z.) Ltd, Cnr Rosedale and Airborne Roads, Albany, Auckland 1310, New Zealand
Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices:
Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England
Published by Signet, an imprint of New American Library, a division of Penguin Putnam Inc. This is an authorized reprint of a hardcover edition published by G. P. Putnam’s Sons. For information address G. P. Putnam’s Sons, a division of Penguin Putnam Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014.
Copyright © Greg Iles, 2002
All rights reserved
REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA
ISBN: 0-7865-8659-1
Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
PUBLISHER’S NOTE
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.
This book is dedicated to my readers, who have allowed me to write something different each time out. We all like the familiar, but in the end I think we’re all the richer for going new places with new characters. You may not like every book as much as your favorite, but at least you—and I—won’t be bored. This novel is a wild one, so settle in and open your memory and imagination. (And for those who write in to ask, you may just see some familiar characters here and in the future, but probably where you least expect them.)
The normal man is a fiction.
—CARL JUNG
“Cathy! Cathy!”
—HEATHCLIFF, Wuthering Heights
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Acknowledgments
chapter 1
Eve Sumner appeared on the first day of fall. Not the official first day—there was nothing official about Eve—but the first day the air turned cool, blowing through John Waters’s shirt as though it weren’t there. It was chilly enough for a jacket, but he didn’t want one because it had been so hot for so damn long, because the air tasted like metal and his blood was up, quickened by the change in temperature and the drop in pressure on his skin, like a change in altitude. His steps were lighter, the wind carrying him forward, and deep within his chest something stirred the way the bucks were stirring in the deep woods and the high leaves were pulling at their branches. Soon those bucks would be stalked through the oaks and shot, and those leaves would be burning in piles, but o
n that day all remained unresolved, poised in a great ballet of expectation, an indrawn breath. And borne on the first prescient breeze of exhalation came Eve Sumner.
She stood on the far sideline of the soccer field, too far away for Waters to really see her. He first saw her the way the other fathers did, a silhouette that caught his eye: symmetry and curves and a mane of dark hair that made the mothers on both sides of the soccer field irrationally angry. But he hadn’t time to notice more than that. He was coaching his daughter’s team.
Seven-year-old Annelise raced along the sea of grass with her eye on the ball, throwing herself between eight-year-old boys nearly twice her size. Waters trotted along behind the pack, encouraging the stragglers and reminding the precocious ones which direction to kick the ball. He ran lightly for his age and size—a year past forty, an inch over six feet—and he pivoted quickly enough to ensure soreness in the morning. But it was a soreness that he liked, that reminded him he was still alive and kicking. He felt pride following Annelise down the field; last year his daughter was a shy little girl, afraid to get close to the ball; this year, with her father coaching, she had found new confidence. He sensed that even now, so young, she was learning lessons that would serve her well in the future.
“Out of bounds!” he called. “Blue’s ball.”
As the opposing team put the ball inbounds, Waters felt the pressure of eyes like fingers on his skin. He was being watched, and not only by the kids and their parents. Glancing toward the opposite sideline, he looked directly into the eyes of the dark-haired woman. They were deep and as dark as her hair, serene and supremely focused. He quickly averted his own, but an indelible afterimage floated in his mind: dusky, knowing eyes that knew the souls of men.
The opposing coach was keeping time for the tied game, and Waters knew there was precious little left. Brandon Davis, his star eight-year-old, had the ball on his toe and was controlling it well, threading it through the mass of opponents. Waters sprinted to catch up. Annelise was close behind Brandon, trying to get into position to receive a pass as they neared the goal. Girls thought more about passing than boys; the boys just wanted to score. But Annelise did the right thing all the same, flanking out to the right as Brandon took a vicious shot at the net. The ball ricocheted off the goalie’s shins, right back to Brandon. He was about to kick again when he sensed Annelise to his right and scooped the ball into her path, marking himself as that rarest of boys, one who understands deferred gratification. Annelise was almost too surprised by this unselfishness to react, but at the last moment she kicked the ball past the goalie into the net.
A whoop went up from the near sideline, and Waters heard his wife’s voice leading the din. He knew he shouldn’t show favoritism, but he couldn’t help running forward and hugging Annelise to his chest.
“I got one, Daddy!” she cried, her eyes shining with pride and surprise. “I scored!”
“You sure did.”
“Brandon passed it to me!”
“He sure did.”
Sensing Brandon behind him, Waters reached back and grabbed the boy’s hand and lifted it skyward along with Annelise’s, showing everyone that it was a shared effort.
“Okay, de-fense!” he shouted.
His team raced back to get into position, but the opposing coach blew his whistle, ending the game with a flat, half-articulated note.
The parents of Waters’s team streamed onto the field, congratulating the children and their coach, talking happily among themselves. Waters’s wife, Lily, trundled forward with the ice chest containing the postgame treats: POWERade and Oreos. As she planted the Igloo on the ground and removed the lid, a small tornado whirled around her, snatching bottles and blue bags from her hands. Lily smiled up from the chaos, silently conveying her pride in Annelise as male hands slapped Waters’s back. Lily’s eyes were cornflower blue, her hair burnished gold and hanging to her shoulders. In moments like this, she looked as she had in high school, running cross-country and beating all comers. The warmth of real happiness welled in Waters at the center of this collage of flushed faces, grass stains, skinned knees, and little Jimmy O’Brien’s broken tooth, which had been lost during the second quarter and was now being passed around like an artifact of a historic battle.
“Hell of a season, John!” said Brandon Davis’s father. “Only one more game to go.”
“Today was a good day.”
“How about that last pass?”
“Brandon’s got good instincts.”
“You better believe it,” insisted Davis. “Kid’s got a hell of a future. Wait till AYA football starts.”
Waters wasn’t comfortable with this kind of talk. In truth, he didn’t much care if the kids won or lost. The point at this age was fun and teamwork, but it was a point a lot of parents missed.
“I need to get the ball,” he said by way of excusing himself.
He trotted toward the spot where the ball had fallen when the whistle blew. Parents from the opposing team nodded to him as they headed for their cars, and a warm sense of camaraderie filled him. This emerald island of chalked rectangles was where it was happening today in Natchez, a town of twenty thousand souls, steeped in history but a little at a loss about its future. In Waters’s youth, the neighborhoods surrounding these fields had housed blue-collar mill workers; now they were almost exclusively black. Twenty years ago, that would have made this area off limits, but today there were black kids on his soccer team, a mark of change so profound that only people who had lived through those times really understood its significance. Before he knew why, Waters panned his eyes around the field, sensing an emptiness like that he felt when he sighted a cardinal landing outside his office window and, looking closer at the smear of scarlet, saw only the empty space left after the quick beat of wings. He was looking for the dark-haired woman, but she was gone.
He picked up the ball and jogged back to his group, which stood waiting for concluding remarks before splitting up and heading for their various neighborhoods.
“Everybody played a great game,” he told them, his eyes on the kids as their parents cheered. “There’s only one more to go. I think we’re going to win it, but win or lose, I’m taking everybody to McDonald’s after for a Happy Meal and ice cream.”
“Yaaaaaaay!” screamed ten throats in unison.
“Now go home and get that homework done!”
“Boooooooooo!”
The parents laughed and shepherded their kids toward the SUVs, pickups, and cars parked along the sideline.
Annelise walked forward. “You blew it at the end, Daddy.”
“You don’t have that much homework.”
“No, but the third-graders have a lot.”
Waters squeezed her shoulders and stood, then took the Igloo from his wife and softly said, “Did we have homework in second grade?”
Lily leaned in close. “We didn’t have homework until sixth grade.”
“Yeah? Well, we did all right.”
He took Annelise’s hand and led her toward his muddy Land Cruiser. A newly divorced mother named Janie somebody fell in beside Lily and started to talk. Waters nodded but said nothing as Janie began a familiar litany of complaints about her ex. Annelise ran ahead, toward another family whose car was parked beside the Land Cruiser. Alone with his thoughts for the first time in hours, Waters took a deep breath of cool air and savored the betweenness of the season. Someone was grilling meat across the road, and the scent made him salivate.
Turning toward the cooking smell, he saw the dark-haired woman walking toward him. She was twenty feet away and to his right, moving with fluid grace, her eyes fixed on his face. He felt oddly on the spot until he realized she was headed back to the now-empty soccer field. He was about to ask her if she’d lost her keys when she tilted her head back and gave him a smile that nearly stopped him in his tracks.
Waters felt a wave of heat rush from his face to his toes. The smile withheld nothing: her lips spread wide, revealing perfect white teeth
; her nostrils flared with feline excitement; and her eyes flashed fire. He wanted to keep looking, to stop and speak to her, but he knew better. It’s often said that looking is okay, but no wife really believes that. He nodded politely, then looked straight ahead and kept moving until he passed her. Yet his mind could not recover as quickly as his body. When Lily leaned toward Janie to say something, he glanced back over his shoulder.
The dark-haired woman was doing the same. Her smile was less broad now, but her eyes still teased him, and just before Waters looked away, her lips came together and formed a single word—unvocalized, but one he could not mistake for any other.
“Soon,” she said without sound.
And John Waters’s heart stopped.
He was a mile from the soccer field before he really started to regain his composure. Annelise was telling a story about a scuffle between two boys at recess, and mercifully, Lily seemed engrossed.
“Hey, we won,” she said, touching her husband’s elbow. “What’s the matter?”
Waters’s mind spun in neutral, searching for a reasonable explanation for his trancelike state. “It’s the EPA investigation.”
Lily’s face tightened, and her curiosity died, as Waters had known it would. An independent petroleum geologist, Waters owned half of a company with more than thirty producing oil wells, but he now lived with a sword hanging over his head. Seventeen years of success had been thrown into jeopardy by a single well that might have leaked salt water into a Louisiana rice farmer’s fields. For two months, the EPA had been trying to determine the source of the leak. This unpleasant situation had been made potentially devastating by Waters’s business partner’s failure to keep their liability insurance up to date, and since the company was jointly owned, Waters would suffer equally if the EPA deemed the leak their fault. He could be wiped out.