by Jule McBride
She fought against her returning temper, but knew he could read it in her eyes. “Tell you? When—night before last? You weren’t exactly talking to me.” Everything in his eyes said he wanted to remind her of why, so before he could, she added, “Because you’d so kindly taken it upon yourself to protect me, right?” Obviously, he didn’t share the love she felt for him. Otherwise he’d realize how completely devastated she’d been...how sure he was dead.
Her voice trembled. “Yesterday I was thinking maybe Leland’s jealousy of you drove him to...” Her voice trailed off. “But I guess not. I guess it’s your brother’s who’s been...”
Stalking us.
Dylan’s lips had slowly compressed into a tight line. After a moment they parted. “I can’t believe you got a call.”
“And the locket,” she continued. “You were wearing that on our wedding day. You always wore it. Niles’s escapes coincided with the wedding, and your time in Iowa.”
“During the attack, the medallion was taken. Which means if he really attacked me, he took it.”
“It all makes sense.”
“Don’t look so happy about it, Alice. I mean, if he’s got the locket, then the blue bag is his. Since Clarisse identified me as carrying that bag, and since I no longer even look like my twin, then that means it was me who brought the bag to the motel. Maybe I’ve blocked it out. Maybe that’s why I can’t remember. Maybe I really did check in the Blue Sage—”
“Quit saying that!” Her eyes latched on to his. “Be honest. Do you remember checking into the motel with the bag?”
“No. I just said I didn’t. That’s the point. If I was Niles Devlyn I might not remember.”
“You sound perfectly sane to me.”
“So would Niles Devlyn.”
Dawning apprehension filled her—and along with it, pure terror. “I don’t believe you’re Niles for an instant. But I do think he’s been following you all along. I don’t know how Clarisse mixed things up. Maybe Niles even paid her to lie. Whatever. The point is that Niles must have been steps behind you. He must be in Rock Canyon.”
“Maybe.”
Suddenly Alice felt sick. “He was at the wedding. Our wedding,” she repeated. How horrible. During the happiest moment of their lives, while they’d been taking their vows, a killer had been watching and waiting...
“Alice?”
She realized her thoughts had trailed off. She’d been remembering that day—the sunshine and love, all the broken promises. Now Dylan was like a stranger to her. The old Dylan never would have pushed her away. He would have welcomed her help. Something had gone wrong with their love the moment he decided to leave the church without her. “He must have known about our wedding,” she managed to continue, “and so he showed up to...”
“Hurt us?” Dylan said on another frustrated sigh. “Kill us? Separate us?” His eyes scanned her face, and sudden anger laced through his words. “God only knows what the psychotic bastard wants. Which is why I want to talk to the police, tell them everything. They’ll put you under guard—”
“Your mother!” Alice said with a sudden gasp. “If he is in Rock Canyon, she needs to be guarded.”
Dylan glanced away. “Or else I’m really Niles and I attacked her.”
The words made her livid. “Quit saying that!” she repeated.
Brown eyes she’d once loved so much stared down into hers, breaking her heart. “When I was attacked...” He paused, glancing away as if searching for words. “I can’t explain it,” he said, his eyes returning to hers. “I had the strangest feeling. An odd sense of dislocation. Of dissociation. Like I was me, and yet, somehow not me. Like I was somebody else.”
She stomped her foot. “You were being attacked, Dylan. I’m a nurse. And I can tell you right now that feeling could easily have been caused by rushes of noradrenaline.”
“You mean adrenaline?”
“No. Noradrenaline. It numbs you. Helps you dissociate to minimize the trauma.”
His eyes caught hers. “The same thing may have happened to me in the past.” Slowly, he told her the little he recalled about the events at the lake.
Her heart welled with another kind of fear as he spoke. Dylan was so strong. His lean body snapped with whipcord strength—countless times she’d seen it strain while he roped cattle—and he was fearless when it came to confronting difficult issues. And yet he was more fragile than she’d ever imagined. More than life, she suddenly wanted to help him through this. She lifted a hand, but just before she could touch his cheek, he backed away.
“No, Alice,” he said flatly, his eyes looking pained. “We can’t be together. There’s a chance that the lapses in my memory and my feelings of dislocation have occurred because I’m really Niles Devlyn. I’m going to the cops now, and they’re going to protect you.”
“From what?”
“From me.”
“That’s the most insane thing I’ve ever heard.”
“Until this is solved, I can’t risk hurting you. Or having you be hurt.”
If nothing else, she guessed she had to admire his determination. “What are you going to tell the police?”
“Everything,” he said. “Dr. Clark already called. Whoever he talked to probably took the information straight to Detective Santiago. So I’ll go to him first. I’ll tell him everything, including the fact that I’m really Dylan Nolan. Or that I think I am. I’ll tell him I’m afraid I’m Niles, too. But that it seems as if I was attacked on our wedding day.”
“It doesn’t seem,” Alice insisted. “It is.”
“Maybe. But we can’t risk it. Anyway, right now every piece of the puzzle has to be made available.”
Realizing her heart had begun hammering too hard, she took a deep breath. “What if they lock you up? You know they’re going to want to question you about Jan’s murder.”
“I’ll tell them what I know.”
“But you don’t know anything. You didn’t do it.”
He sighed. “C’mon, Alice. You know going to the police is the right thing. And according to the news there was a child witness who said I killed Jan.”
“But you didn’t!” Risking Dylan’s being locked up hardly seemed right to Alice. “Please,” she pressed. “Do you really think you’re Niles Devlyn, and that you might have killed your father? Or Jan?”
“I don’t know.”
A male voice came from the trees. “I do.”
It was Santiago. Both Alice and Dylan turned toward him, just as two more uniformed officers appeared.
“Detective Santiago,” Dylan said simply.
The detective nodded. “We headed over as soon as Dr. Clark called. We’ve also recovered tapes from some more hidden surveillance cameras on the grounds of the estate. Dr. Clark just confirmed that you’ve had surgery and no longer look like yourself, though fingerprints identify you as Stuart Devlyn.” The detective heaved a world-weary sigh. “I don’t know what to make of all this, but I do know one thing.”
Alice didn’t much like his tone. “Which is?”
“That whoever he is—” Santiago nodded at Dylan. “He’s under arrest. The surveillance cameras show him on the estate grounds on the day of Lang Devlyn’s murder.”
Dylan’s voice remained exceedingly calm. “I have no recollection of ever going there before today, when Alice and I spoke to Ben Rose.”
Santiago nodded thoughtfully. “Well, you don’t seem to recall a lot of things, now, do you, Mr. Devlyn ? And that might add credence to your own theory, most of which I just overheard, that you’re really Niles, not Stuart, Devlyn.”
“That’s crazy!” Alice emphasized adamantly.
Santiago shrugged. “I always let the D.A. ponder questions of sanity. He loves mind games. Me, I just lock up bad guys. Right now I’ve got proof on video that you—” he nodded toward Dylan again “—were on the grounds of the estate.”
Something in Alice gave. Without even thinking, she edged back a step. Suddenly, she heard with real c
larity what the detective was saying. Despite his verbal claims to the contrary, Dylan had been at the estate on the day of his father’s murder. Clarisse had seen him check into the motel, carrying the blue nylon bag which contained Alice’s picture. The ring bearer had said he killed Jan, though he would have looked different then. Suddenly she wasn’t so sure she knew the truth. She stared at him. It was hard to believe—no, impossible to believe—that this man was Niles Devlyn. He was so like Dylan...
But he would be. They’re twins, Alice.
Moments ago, she’d been so sure this couldn’t be true. But now her stomach churned and bile rose in her throat. What do they always say? she thought in panic. The body doesn’t lie. But what if it had? What if she was wrong last night? Dear God, what if he really is Niles Devlyn...what if I made love to a murderer?
“Really?” he was saying to Santiago. “Are you sure my picture was on the video cameras? I was really there the day my father was murdered?”
“The tapes show the whole thing,” returned Santiago.
He said, “Whole thing?”
“Yes,” affirmed Santiago. “The murder. From start to finish. How you stabbed your father thirty-two times.” Santiago turned away in disgust as the two uniformed officers came closer. “‘See him bleed,”’ Santiago muttered. “That’s what you kept saying on the tape while you killed him. ‘See the poor bastard bleed.’”
SHE’S MINE, all mine now. Oh, my sweet little wife. Very soon, we’ll get to see you bleed.
He watched Alice from a car in the parking lot. She was as pretty as ever, as pretty as a picture, with the light California breeze making the hem of her sunflower sundress sway. No one could have looked more sweet and innocent.
Or so...confused. She turned this way, then that. Just staring around, clutching the shoulder strap of her handbag. The keys to the rental car were now dangling from her hand—she’d just taken them from her bag. But she couldn’t get inside her car, not yet. Instead, her eyes were still riveted on the police officers leading Niles Devlyn away.
Inside the car, he sighed with relief. “Niles Devlyn,” he muttered, shaking his head. “My brother definitely ought to be locked up.” Oh, yes. Shame on him. He was a murderer, after all. A cold-blooded killer who took such pride in his work. And now the cops had finally figured it out.
Which was good, since now Alice would be all his.
Hunkered down in the seat of the stolen car, he peered through the windshield, then reached up and adjusted the rearview mirror. No cops behind him. Good. He wouldn’t want them accidentally noticing him now. That might raise a few eyebrows.
He raised his own in the rearview mirror, and then he felt suddenly odd. As if he were seeing everything from a vantage point that was underwater. As if nothing was quite real.
Stuart Devlyn stared back from the mirror.
Or Dylan Nolan.
Or whatever you wanted to call him. Scum of the earth. Bastard. Scourge.
He continued staring at himself. Gone were the cherubic cheeks, the thick wavy golden sun-kissed locks of hair. Tilting his head, he listened for a long moment, hearing an undercurrent of something dark sliding through his blood. He could almost hear the words that dark voice wanted to speak...
Words that were wicked.
And evil.
Because suddenly, he wasn’t Stuart Devlyn at all. Why in the world had he been thinking he was Stuart? No, he was Niles Devlyn, wasn’t he?
“Yes,” he murmured. “I think I am.”
A breathy insane chuckle escaped his lips. Oh, yes...he could remember now. Shutting his eyes, he saw red. The red of the sun as it bled into the sky on hot summer nights. The red of apples. Cherries.
And blood.
That was the best red of all.
Definitely, he was Niles Devlyn. And now he could remember things—attacking his brother in the church on his wedding day, making calls to him, years ago, from an office phone at the Highland Home. Wrecking their mother’s credit from the office computer.
Not to mention beating her...hurting her. And killing Jan Sawyer.
Giggling, he simply couldn’t believe it. He was in this car. And Stuart was going to jail!
What a coup. But following Stuart to Iowa had been the best idea. There’d been no greater pleasure than leaving the Highland Home again. Ha! The place had the most lax security money could buy. Finding the plastic surgeon had been easy. So had getting him to duplicate the same surgery he’d given Stuart, and then killing the doctor.
It had been a thrill to see the bandages come off. Oh...the pain of those few days when Niles and his twin looked so different. When Niles still possessed cherubic round cheeks and golden hair. And Stuart or Dylan had those enviable dark good looks. Niles Devlyn glanced into the rearview mirror again, at his long dark hair, full lips and brown eyes.
Their father’s eyes.
Yes, Lang Devlyn had possessed the same liquid, dreamy eyes. At least until he’d died. In death, they’d become something so much more interesting. Darker, wider and terror-filled. As he’d died, Dad had looked so...alive.
Loosing a soft, satisfied moan of pure pleasure that warmed him to his bones, Niles imagined his father’s wounds.
See him bleed.
Niles had watched, gleefully following as his father dragged himself over the marble floors, holding the wounds while the blood ran through his fingers. How ridiculously futile that gesture had been. Niles sighed again. People could be so crazy....
His eyes shifted to the windshield, settling on Alice again. The plainclothes detective had already gotten into the unmarked car, and the two uniformed cops had already seated Stuart into the caged back seat of the marked vehicle. A siren swooped once.
Looking vaguely uncertain, Alice now opened the door of the rental car. A moment later, Niles turned the key in the ignition of his ride. Not that he needed to follow her.
He already knew she was staying at a high-rise hotel called the Sunset Arms in Beverly Hills. The police would probably be posted outside her room, too. But that didn’t really bother Niles. People never really bothered Niles Devlyn.
And if they bothered him too much, he simply killed them.
He didn’t care if they were cops, either. Hatred surged within him. He didn’t pause to question what it meant or where it came from. Probably it had begun deep in the womb, when it was determined that he would be born without his own face.
A twin.
A replica. A duplicate. The son who came into being second—on the heels of a brother. The son who, consequently, had nothing. Not the mother. Not the wife. Not the job on the fancy ranch.
But all that was about to change.
Because he was about to have Alice.
His eyes were still glued to her. Now he could see the back of her blond head peeking above the headrest. As she pulled out, he followed, imagining how lovely her pale skin was going to look, covered with so many bright red beautiful slashes.
Chapter Thirteen
“Stop the car.” Tearing his gaze from the wire screen between the front and back seats, Dylan wrenched around, his heart racing, his eyes riveted on Alice. Why hadn’t he listened to his gut? Given what Dr. Clark said, it made sense that Dylan might be Niles—it had to be considered—but Dylan hadn’t really believed he was someone other than himself, not deep down.
Especially not when he’d seen Niles.
“C’mon,” Dylan growled. “You’ve got to stop.”
This time the young dark-haired rookie on the passenger side turned and said, “No can do.”
“Damn,” Dylan muttered. Santiago had just pulled out of the parking lot when Dylan turned to look at Alice—and found himself staring right at his twin brother. A straight, unbroken line could have been drawn between them, and the sudden connection was terrifying. In a heartbeat, Dylan understood: Niles was still his look-alike. He’d followed Dylan, duplicated the plastic surgery, then killed the surgeon.
Because he’s insane.
&n
bsp; Not that Dylan could see the maniacal glimmer in Niles’s eyes—he was too far away—but Dylan could swear he felt it. The man had killed repeatedly in cold blood: Jan Sawyer, the surgeon, and Lang Devlyn. He’d attacked their mother and fantasized about murdering Alice, judging from the phone calls and what he’d done to her picture.
In the heartbeat when their eyes connected, memories flooded Dylan. He was swinging, staring down, flying toward the ground, the dew-wet, fresh-cut grass rushing up. His daddy was inside the house. And he loved his daddy, who played guitar and piano, and who sang him songs at night as he and his brother went to sleep. But he could never understand why his brother was so jealous.
“You get everything,” Niles said while they were swinging.
“Do not.”
“Do, too.”
“Do not.” Why couldn’t his brother just act normal? “Wanna race me to the house?”
“Sure.”
The two golden-haired boys jumped from the swings and ran for the house, but they never made it. On the way, Niles grabbed him and pushed him into the lake, under the water. Now he relived every terrifying moment—plunging into the icy water, losing consciousness. Right before he went under, he smelled that cloying scent: the mixture of oleander and wet leaves. He could smell cinders, too, from summer brushfires down in the canyons. He’d remembered that smell during the attack at the wedding, and he’d remembered the feel of a hand wrapping around his throat. Now he knew it was Niles’s hand. And when he’d look up, toward the lake’s surface, it had been Niles’s face staring down at him, not his own.
He punched the back of the seat. “Pull over!”
Behind them, Alice’s rental car dropped back a block, and now Niles Devlyn’s blue car turned a corner, following. Quickly, Dylan scanned the back seat. There were no door handles, no objects he could use to knock out a window or windshield. The windows were rolled up. How could he get out of here, run back and warn Alice? “You’ve got to stop. He’s a killer.”
“He who?” said the driver. He was old—bald with gray whiskers and a paunch. He looked as if he were hours from retirement, and hardly about to put himself in the line of fire.
