The Night Before

by Lisa Jackson

  “Hello Kitty,” she said as Reed climbed out of the car and Morrisette took over the wheel.

  “Wear your seat belt,” he advised Montoya, then slapped the side of the car and hurried up the brick walk. From the corner of his eye, he caught sight of a news van rolling toward the house. Great. Just what he needed.

  Before the reporter could clamber out of the van, Reed was inside the house, the door closed firmly behind him. The detectives had taken the liberty of putting the little dog in his kennel in the laundry room and, according to Landon, “The mutt hasn’t shut up for a minute. Always with the yapping!”

  “The owner hasn’t returned?”

  “Not yet,” Landon said. He was big, black and beautiful, as they used to say. Tall enough to have played college basketball and smart enough that when the NBA didn’t come knocking, he’d earned himself a B.S. in criminal justice. Landon was taking law classes at night and had his eye firmly on Katherine Okano’s job. He shaved his head these days, sported a soul patch and had one of those sculpted bodies that only came from a military-like dedication to lifting weights. “Good thing we had a no-knock-and-search,” he said now.

  Reed agreed. It would have been a pain if they’d been restricted by having to ask for Caitlyn Bandeaux’s permission. “You found anything?”

  “No weapon, nothing like that, but come upstairs.” Landon led Reed to the second story. “Take a look here . . .” He pointed to discolorations on the carpet. “And in here. Check out the shower.” He nodded toward the bathroom, where the glass shower door had been cracked, the fissures radiating from a hole in its center. “We think the stain in the bedroom might be blood. We found a few flecks on the baseboard, so we’ve already called the crime scene team. They’re going to go over the place with Luminal.”

  “Good. Check it out.” The Luminal test would prove if there had been blood on the carpet or anywhere else in the room. “And find out the type or types.” He was getting a bad feeling about this.

  “Looks like a lot of blood,” Landon said. “But the victim was killed elsewhere, right—at his home? Could we have it wrong? Maybe he was killed here and transported.”

  “Unlikely from the way the body was found, rigor and the way the blood had settled in his body, but the kicker is that someone took the time to stage his suicide in a clumsy attempt to make everyone think he’d slit his wrists, but there wasn’t enough blood at the scene or in his body to explain it.”

  Landon snorted. “You were missing blood?”

  “Yep.”

  “My guess is you just found it.”

  “Hannah?” Caitlyn called, knocking loudly on the door of the old house she’d once called home. She was worried. Hannah hadn’t returned her calls, and Caitlyn had spent most of the day trying to track her down. First in town at the few places she hung out, because she hadn’t answered; then, finally running out of options, she’d left another message saying she was coming to the house and would wait for her baby sister. She didn’t like the idea of Hannah living out here in the middle of nowhere in this old, empty, falling-down mansion. There were rust spots on the down spouts, shutters listing from the windows, mortar crumbling away from the bricks of the wide front porch. Where once this house had held a huge family, it now was nearly empty. Only Hannah remained, and that wasn’t good. No one her age should be tucked away in this old dilapidated museum of a home. When her sister didn’t answer, Caitlyn walked to the back of the house where the table and chairs were positioned on the wide back porch. It had been only days since she’d sat here, her mother in one chair, worried whether Caitlyn would be charged with murdering her husband.

  Good Lord what had happened in those few days?

  And what about last night? What had happened then? One minute you were kissing Adam, fairly throwing yourself at him, really getting it on, and the next you don’t remember anything, you blacked out again, lost hours . . . hours. How?

  She didn’t want to think about the blackouts; they were coming too close together, too often, her life spinning out of control. It was stress, that was it. The police were breathing down her neck, she was guarding this incredible secret about all of the blood she’d found the morning after Josh was killed, her mother had been murdered and now . . . oh, God, now, she was worried about Hannah.

  She had a key. One she’d never given back when she’d moved out. Finding it on her key ring, she decided to let herself inside. She pushed the door open and walked into the house. Her heart tightened as she glanced at the table where she’d eaten breakfast with her siblings before school, saw the hooks by the back door where their backpacks and jackets had hung.

  The floorboards creaked beneath her feet, and though it was still light outside, the clouds had covered the sun and the broad porches flanking the first floor had cooled the house and shaded the windows, making it seem dark. “Hannah?” she called, but heard nothing. The house felt empty and yet . . . did she hear music or a television on? Playing from somewhere upstairs? “Hannah? Are you home?”

  Her cell phone rang and she jumped, then chided herself for her case of nerves. This old manor had been her home; she’d grown up here. And bad things had happened here. Along with the good. You remembered the nights you hid beneath the bed, the menacing footsteps in the hall outside your door, the frightening shadow that would pass, blocking the slice of light under the door as they moved on the other side . . . monster . . . brother . . . Charles with his hot breath and rough hands . . .

  She was breathing fast now, adrenalin pumping through her blood. The phone jangled sharply and she gasped, then dug through her purse and dragged it out. “Hello?” she said breathlessly as she hit the talk button. Silence. Oh, no, not now. “Hello?” Nothing. She clicked off quickly. Shut the damned thing off. Whoever had decided to terrorize her knew her cell phone number. How much more? What other intimate details of her private life did they know?

  Hannah wasn’t here. She should just leave now. But she started for the stairs and was certain she heard soft voices and thin music playing, coming from upstairs. Fear pounded in her heart. Don’t be a wuss. You’ve climbed these stairs a million times in your life. For God’s sake, Caitlyn, you’re being foolish. It’s broad daylight. This was your mother’s home. Yours.

  Taking in a deep breath, she climbed to the landing, and the sound of music grew louder. Maybe Hannah had dropped off while watching television. She walked up the stairs but stopped. Hannah’s door was open. The light off. No radio or television playing.

  But there was in Caitlyn’s room. The door was closed, but the muted sounds were definitely emanating from the other side of her room at the far end of the hall. Music. Vaguely familiar. She hesitated, watched the shafts of sunlight pierce the colored glass of the skylight above the landing, and told herself it was now or never. She could leave and never open the door, she could call Kelly or Troy or Adam and wait for them to show up, or she could just goddamned show some guts and walk into the bedroom where only a few days before she’d slept in her old canopied bed.

  Or . . . the door to Charles’s old room was open as well. Swallowing back her fear, she eased into the room. It wasn’t disturbed. Had been left the way he’d had it when, at nineteen, he’d been killed. Athletic trophies lined a shelf, his high school letter, faded now, was still pinned to a bulletin board, and beside his bed, in the nightstand, should be his pistol. She opened the drawer and there was the little gun . . . just as he’d left it.

  No bullets were in the chamber and she had no idea where . . . Her eyes narrowed on one of his shooting trophies, one that was a cup. Years ago, before he’d died, she’d seen him empty this little pistol and place the bullets in the cup. “To be safe,” he’d told her and winked when he’d caught her watching from outside the door. Could it be? Would she be so lucky? She took the cup from its resting place and sure enough, along with an unused and ancient condom, was a box of tiny bullets. Before she could think twice, she loaded the gun and slipped the rest of the box in her purse
. Then, armed and dangerous, she eyed the only closed door on the second floor.

  “Go for it,” she muttered, disregarding the sweat prickling her scalp and the warning hairs rising on the back of her arms. Her running shoes were muffled against the hall runner as she forced herself down the hallway and twisted the doorknob.

  The door opened, and she walked into the room.

  She wasn’t alone.

  Two women, two naked women, were lying tied to her bed.

  Caitlyn gasped. Stepped back. Terror gripped her as the television flickered. Tied to the headboard, Sugar Biscayne and her sister Cricket stared sightlessly at her. They were dead; their flesh, where it hadn’t been bitten or eaten, white where it was covered by mounds and mounds of white crystals. Pounds of sugar that in turn was crawling with insects. Ants. Crickets. Flies. Hornets. Music pulsed through the room, was playing from a small CD player set up in the corner, the same song over and over . . . Pour some sugar on me . . . The television flickered with some muted cooking show.

  Stumbling backward, Caitlyn half fell into the hallway. Her stomach heaved as she scrambled to her feet and fled down the stairs. She had to get out of here, to leave before whoever it was that did this, found her.

  She flew out of the house, leaving the door open. Her heart was pounding wildly, fear pumping through her blood. She found her keys. Slid behind the wheel, could barely think, barely jab the key into the ignition. “Come on, come on,” she muttered as her fingers trembled and fumbled. She twisted on the ignition.

  Nothing happened.

  What? Oh, God, no!

  Frantically she pumped the gas and tried again. “Come on, come on!” she cried. Oh, this was no good. No good. Her heart was jackhammering, pounding crazily, her pulse leaping. She felt it then, that horrible feeling that she might lose consciousness, the blackness threatening to swallow her. She wouldn’t let it. Couldn’t. But the damned car wouldn’t start.

  Don’t panic. You have a gun.

  But what good would this tiny weapon be against an unseen enemy who had killed so many?

  She found her cell phone and dialed Adam’s number and left a panicked message.

  Call the police.

  The blackness was pulling at her mind. Trying to drag her under. She started to dial the phone again. A simple number. 911. But before she could punch the numbers, the phone rang in her hand. Relieved, trying to keep the world from spinning, she pressed the talk button. “Adam? I’m at Oak Hill and something terrible’s happened. People are dead and my car won’t start and . . . and . . .”

  “Mommy?” a child’s breathless voice whispered.

  “Oh, God, no!” It couldn’t be. It wasn’t Jamie . . . or was it? Things were beginning to jumble. She was breathing so hard, so fast, her heartbeat racing out of control.

  “Mommy . . . I can’t find you . . .”

  “Baby! Jamie? Mommy’s right here . . .”

  “Mommy, I’m scared . . .”

  “I am too, baby, I am too,” she said and suddenly she lost control, was slipping away, fading . . . oh, God . . . She shuddered, fought the overwhelming feeling and lost. She was no longer herself . . .

  Jesus H. Christ, Kelly thought, slipping easily to the fore. Caitlyn had always been too mentally frail, a weakling, one of those simpering, feeble women that Kelly had always hated. A loser with a capital L.

  Well, she wasn’t here right now, was she? She’d disappeared. Maybe now she would be lost forever. Gone. Vanished. And that was good. It was time for Kelly to be in control.

  In the sterile sanctuary, Atropos clicked off the recorder. Caitlyn’s maternal instincts were so predictable. So easily evoked. A tape recording of her dead child’s voice and she’d come running. Even though she knew the kid was dead.

  But then, Caitlyn never had been all together, now had she?

  And it had only worsened with time. As a child she’d had an imaginary friend in Griffin . . . someone to play with when her siblings, especially Kelly, who tormented her sister, were busy. Griffin had emerged after the episode when Caitlyn had been locked away with dead Nana. Atropos smiled. Even Nana hadn’t suspected that her tea was being doctored, that her frailty was manufactured.

  After the trauma with Nana, Caitlyn had found solace in her little pretend friend. She’d gone on and on about Griffin to the point that Berneda had forbidden her to ever speak of him. Refused anyone’s suggestion that Caitlyn needed help; she was just a child with an imaginary friend. What was the harm in that? And Berneda hadn’t wanted to believe that any of her children could have been afflicted with the Montgomery curse, that they might be mentally unstable.

  So Griffin, the invisible, had stayed with Caitlyn and was there when she’d discovered Charles’s body buried deep in the snow. An imaginary friend or the first evidence of schizophrenia? What did it matter? Caitlyn was a fruitcake. Had really lost it after the boating accident.

  As she thought of Caitlyn, Atropos snipped at the pictures of Cricket and Sugar. She’d gotten the snapshot of Cricket from her driver’s license, a pretty ugly shot, but she didn’t need much. Atropos cut off Cricket’s head and attached it to a bug’s body . . . yes, that was a nice touch. And for Sugar, the cunt, she used the Polaroid she’d found in Sugar’s lover’s wallet . . . a naked shot of Sugar spread-eagled on a bed. The picture was sickening, but would be perfect for the gnarled family tree with its broken, falling branch reserved for the Biscaynes.

  With relish, Atropos mangled the damning photograph by snipping off Sugar’s breasts and the juncture of her legs. She glued both pieces to the wrapper of a small packet of sugar Atropos had slipped into her purse when she’d visited the coffee bar a few days earlier. She slipped Sugar’s head into the packet, so that only her eyes were visible. Perfect. So now they were ready to mount with their life cords. Little Cricket complete with antennae, wings and insect legs. Atropos pinned her to her branch as if she were a butterfly to be displayed upon a velvet background and ran the life cord to the main trunk of the tree. Next, she stuck the empty packet of sugar with a set of boobs and cunt attached, to the same twisted branch and added Sugar’s life cord.

  She admired her work, but only for a minute. She had so much more to do, and time was running out.

  Thirty-Two

  Adam didn’t go straight back to his car. After slipping out of Kacie Griffin’s house, he’d explored the grounds, found nothing significant other than a few fairly fresh oil stains in the carport, then taken a short path that cut through the trees to the river. The cabin sat up from the water, the deck having a view of the river and beyond, to the far shore where, as Caitlyn had told him, Oak Hill stood. There was no dock, but a small canoe had been pulled into the tall grass and weeds, oars and a flashlight tucked inside. The flashlight looked new, and when he switched it on it worked, its beam bright in the coming dusk. Insects buzzed and whirled around the light, and he clicked it off to gaze across the darkening, ever shifting river.

  Something was wrong . . . evil. Something malicious lurked unseen in the gloom. Something that followed Caitlyn around as closely as her own shadow, something he didn’t understand.

  Something? Something? How about everything?

  He’d lingered several hours at the cabin by the river, hoping someone might show up—Kacie? Kelly? Or someone else. He’d walked the shore, stepped in the stream by mistake and eventually sat on a flat boulder and tossed stones into the water, watching the ever-widening ripples as he thought and wondered about Caitlyn. He cared for her. Big time. More than he should have. She was the first woman since Rebecca whom he’d allowed to get so close to him.

  And she was the most complicated.

  You mean the most screwed up.

  Caitlyn and Kelly. Twins. They spun and blended in his mind, so alike yet, according to Caitlyn, so different. And Kelly was dead. Or so everyone thought, everyone but Caitlyn. Even though Kelly’s body had never been found. The family had buried her and buried her deep. In the cemetery where Josh Bandea
ux, her father and brothers were buried, Kelly Griffin Montgomery had been interred, with or without a body. She had a grave with a headstone; he’d seen it himself, and the permanence of that etched marble pounded into the earth had caused his skin to prickle with goose bumps.

  Caitlyn believed it was all a lie. That Kelly was just in hiding because of a big rift in the family. A major rift; one that couldn’t be bridged.

  The truth?

  Or what she wanted to believe?

  Was Kelly real?

  Or a ghost?

  Shit, now he was wearing out. No ghosts. Just overactive and wishful imagination. Caitlyn was troubled, made up imaginary friends, hadn’t been able to suffer the loss of her sister in the boating accident and so had conjured her up, brought her back to life.

  Standing, he dusted his hands and glanced across the river to Oak Hill. It stood on a bluff overlooking the river, about half a mile downstream. From here he could stare at the old manor and wondered how often Kacie, whoever she was, did.

  He looked at the pictures he’d taken from the cabin and had slipped into his pocket, a group of odd photographs of Caitlyn and Kelly, Amanda, Hannah, Troy, and, he presumed, Charles. There was even a snapshot of a baby, probably Parker, the one who had died of SIDS.

  Or been killed.

  So many deaths. At Kelly’s hand? Caitlyn’s? Someone else’s? He had to talk to Caitlyn and then go to the police with what he knew. First he’d advise Caitlyn to get a lawyer, tell her he would help her as best he could. You can’t tell the police anything; you’re her counselor, her mental doctor.

  But he had to save her from whom?

  More and more he felt he was trying to save her from herself.

  If that was possible.

  Disturbed at the turn of his thoughts, he jogged back to the car as twilight was descending. Out here, where he could see the sky, a million stars were winking, and the scent of the river was strong. Frogs began to croak, insects to sing. It could have been peaceful but for the underlying feeling of evil. Ever present and pervasive. Opening the hatchback of his little car, he searched for a rag to wipe off his shoe and spied the backpack Rebecca had kept hanging in her closet, the one he’d found in her office. He’d always thought the backpack had been out of place there, one of the few things she’d kept from their life together. It was worn and frayed and he’d used it to haul some things from her office. There had been nothing in it when he’d found it, and it was nearly empty now.