by Margaret Carter, Crystal Green, Erica Orloff, Patricia Rosemor
“Yeah. We bonded. I was special to her.”
“Are you linked with her at this moment?”
“No. Must be too far.”
She opened the door far enough to sidle into the hall. Still woozy, leaning on the wall, she crept toward the living room.
“Listen carefully, Fred. I’m stronger than she is. My power cancels hers.” Again a growl crept into Max’s tone. “As of right now, that bond is severed.”
“No—please—” A noise of thrashing and wheezing.
“I told you not to fight me.” Silence. “That’s right, relax. She can no longer invade your thoughts. You’ll be much happier out of her control, won’t you?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Why did you enter her house this evening?”
“Looking for her. She wasn’t supposed to leave without me.”
“Why not? Did she make you a promise of some kind?”
“She told me to stay out of sight for a few days. But she gave me a key to the house. That’s got to mean something. Trusted me—said she’d take me with her, when it was safe.”
“Take you where?”
“To her other house.” A resentful whine tinged Fred’s voice. “She must’ve been lying all along. I came back when she told me to, and she was gone.”
“You expected Nola to wait for you. What about the other people in her group?”
“Naw, she wouldn’t trust any of them with her secrets. Just me and a few others.”
“Including Deanna?”
“Yeah, she was one of Nola’s favorites. Plus me and Jodie.”
“Who is Jodie?”
Linnet remembered her—a skeletally thin, blue-haired girl who wore white makeup and had a dragonfly tattooed on her cheek, one of the few kids from the gang Deanna had brought home.
“One of the other girls. I’ll bet Nola tricked me—used me for her dirty work and then took Jodie along instead.”
“Oh, and why would she do that?”
“So I’d get blamed for what she made me do.” Linnet heard Fred’s labored breathing. “I didn’t want to. I didn’t have anything against them.”
Max lowered his voice. “Against whom?”
“Anthony and Deanna.” A choking sound, followed by a rapid mutter of, “Oh, God, your eyes…You’re like them—Nola and Anthony! Who the hell are you?”
Still deadly quiet, Max said, “I am Anthony’s brother.”
“I didn’t mean anything—she made me—”
“Nola didn’t kill them, did she?”
“For God’s sake, please don’t take me!”
“Fred, who did murder Anthony and Deanna?”
“She made me!”
Linnet’s breath caught in her throat. She barely kept herself from screaming. Releasing air in a long sigh, she prayed Max wouldn’t notice her watching from the end of the hall. She still wore her glasses, but they were slightly crooked. She cautiously adjusted them and peered into the living room. Fred sagged on the couch, goggling up at Max, who loomed over him.
“What, exactly, did Nola force you to do? Tell me all about it.”
“She said those two had to be punished. Deanna left her, and Anthony helped. They had to be punished for that.”
“Did Nola specify the kind of punishment?”
“She didn’t have to. I figured out what she was, what Anthony was. Most of the guys didn’t have a clue. Thought it was all a game, like role-playing but with more realism. I knew better.”
“Of course. No doubt Nola allowed you to remain conscious while she preyed on you. So you knew how to deal with Anthony? Tell me exactly what you did.”
Fred’s hands twitched. His mouth twisted as if suppressing words that fought to burst out. “No, I can’t! She’ll kill me!”
“Nola isn’t here. I am. Continue.”
“I remember Nola telling me to take care of them. She didn’t want Deanna back after Anthony messed with her, but she wanted them both taught a lesson. She said after I took care of that, it would be too dangerous for us to hang around, so she was packing up to move, and she’d let me come along.”
“Your reward? I see.” How could Max stay so calm? Linnet felt acid burning in her throat. “Then what?”
“Things got a little fuzzy. Next thing I knew, I was in the car, driving, with a gun on the floor beside me. I guess I got it from Nola—don’t remember. I spaced out again, and then I was at Anthony’s place. I had a hatchet, too. Must have swung by my apartment to pick it up, because I didn’t get that from Nola. I knew I’d need it for Anthony.”
“How did you get in?”
“Parked a block away and walked to the house, then went around back and picked the lock. Nola must’ve given me the lock-picking tools and showed me how to use them. Not like I ever did that before.”
“No one saw you, then?”
“Middle of the afternoon. People were at work. Anyhow, Anthony had this little house with a lot of trees and hedges around it.”
“Inside, what did you do?”
Fred writhed on the sofa, tossed his head from side to side. Max grasped his temples and held him still. “Tell me.”
No, I don’t want to hear that! Linnet silently cried.
“Sneaked into the bedroom.” Fred’s breath came in spasmodic gasps. “They were both asleep. I wrapped the gun in a towel and shot them in the chest, him first, then her. She died fast. But Anthony—I knew a bullet wouldn’t be enough. I cut off his head so he couldn’t come back.” A long moan, almost a sob. “The blood—I didn’t want to—Nola forced me—”
“Yes, I know. What did you do with the weapons?”
Linnet’s chest felt crushed by an invisible weight. She drew a labored breath and squeezed her eyes shut for an instant, praying for the image spawned by Fred’s words to fade.
“I dumped them in the river, everything separately, like Nola ordered. Then I guess I drove home and passed out. The rest of the day is a blank.”
“After which you waited a suitable time, as Nola commanded.”
“Yeah. I slept most of the week, didn’t dare leave the apartment. All I remember thinking was that the police would show up any day and haul me off to jail. But they never did.”
“Nola would have persuaded them to ignore anyone associated with her. You obediently waited for a summons from her that never came. Today you became impatient enough to return to her home, and you found she’d vanished.”
“Yeah. With Jodie—I just know it.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised. Nola isn’t the type to leave all her pets behind. Do you know where she went?”
“Somewhere in California. Promised she’d take me, too. Liar. I have to go look for her.”
Max sighed aloud. “You’re obviously not responsible. You acted under Nola’s compulsion.”
His eyes widened in desperate hope. “You mean you’re not going to, like, rip out my throat?”
“Why would I do such a thing?” Max’s gentle tone didn’t reassure Linnet. If tigers purred, they would sound that way. “You aren’t worth the trouble. I have a better idea.” He leaned closer to Fred.
With Max’s back to her, Linnet couldn’t see his face, but whatever the young man saw there threw him into a frenzy of high-pitched babbling. Max seized his flailing arms. “Quiet! Be still!”
Fred fell silent and went limp in Max’s grip. Only his wide-eyed stare conveyed his panic.
“Relax. I won’t hurt you. No more than Nola hurt my brother and his lover. Not personally.” After a long silence, Fred’s face went slack, his eyelids drooping. “That’s fine. Now, this is what you will do. After I leave, you will sit here for half an hour, resting in perfect tranquillity. You will not be afraid. Understand?”
Fred nodded.
“Do you have any liquor in the house?”
“Scotch,” he mumbled.
“Good. After the half hour has passed, you will drink as much of the bottle as you can manage without losing consciousness. Then you’ll go into
the bathroom and get a sharp razor blade. You will fill the bathtub with very hot water, strip and get in. You will slit your wrists with the blade. Make long, deep vertical cuts. This will not hurt. Continue cutting until you become unconscious.”
The young man murmured something incomprehensible.
“No, I assure you that you’ll feel nothing. Do you believe me?”
Another nod.
“You want to do this, Fred. You’re sorry for murdering your two friends. You want to atone, don’t you?”
“Yeah.”
The glazed stare and calm affirmation shocked Linnet out of her paralysis. “No—stop it!” She let go of the wall and staggered toward him. She had to grab the back of a chair to keep herself from toppling over.
Max spun around. “How long have you been listening?”
She took a shuddering breath and swallowed bile. “Long enough. You can’t—”
“Blasted female, I should have knocked you out.” He turned to his victim, who’d begun to stir and mumble. “Fred, you had better rest now. You cannot see or hear anything until I speak directly to you again.” Fred’s eyes closed, and he slumped sideways.
Linnet’s legs trembled. She sat down on the coffee table, staring at the entranced victim. “How did you do that? I’ve never heard of anything like it.”
“I don’t have time to explain things to you. Just accept that our young hit man is extraordinarily suggestible.”
Linnet didn’t buy that premise for a second, but she had more important things to worry about. “No matter what he’s done, you can’t make him commit suicide. You said yourself it was really Nola’s fault, not his. He belongs in a mental hospital.”
“What right do you have to interfere?”
“Right?” She clenched her fists, her head pounding as she fought the urge to shriek at him. “He shot my niece!”
“Yes, and for that reason I let you participate thus far. But I won’t allow you to interfere with my revenge. Which is yours, too, for that matter.”
“I told you, I don’t want revenge just for the sake of it. Killing some poor kid Nola used like a robot is going too far.”
Max glowered at her, his eyebrows drawn together in a satanic V. “Anthony and Deanna died. Their killer will die, much less painfully than they did. That is my idea of justice.”
“Well, it’s not mine.” She clutched her necklace and glared back at him. “I won’t let you.”
Chapter 3
“Do you seriously think you can stop me?”
She sprang to her feet and slammed both fists into his chest. “If I don’t, I’m as bad as she is!”
Max grabbed her wrists just as her knees buckled. Holding her upright, he said with a thin smile, “Yes, I had certainly better ask your permission.”
When her head stopped swimming, she said, “What did you do to me a few minutes ago?”
“Simply applied arterial pressure to cut the flow of oxygen to the brain. No permanent damage. I wish I’d knocked you unconscious instead. Then I wouldn’t have to waste energy on this ridiculous argument.”
“Ridiculous?” Panting, she strained against his effortless strength.
“Come in here and sit down before you fall.” He led her into the adjoining bedroom and steered her to the unmade bed. She cooperated, afraid she really would embarrass herself by collapsing. Max pushed aside the open suitcase, sat next to her and cupped her chin to make her face him. “Have you considered that I don’t need to listen to you at all? I can’t hypnotize you, but I could certainly use more direct methods.”
“Yeah, like decking me. That’s just a temporary solution.”
“You don’t believe I’d resort to a permanent one?”
Recalling the cold voice in which he’d ordered Fred to commit suicide, Linnet felt her stomach clench. “I don’t believe it.” Sourness filled her mouth. She swallowed and said, “If you wouldn’t kill a murderer outright, you sure won’t do it to me. Too messy.”
His fingers tightened on her jaw, not hard enough to hurt, but enough to make her pulse race. “If you become an intolerable nuisance…”
Linnet shook her head. Relaxing his grip, he rested his hand lightly on her shoulder. “You don’t know me at all.”
“No, but Anthony seemed like a nice guy.”
His eyebrows arched. “Far nicer than I, you mean.”
“I didn’t say that.” Not that she hadn’t thought it. “He must have gotten his character from somewhere. You’re his brother.”
“I’m much older. We had little contact during his adolescent years, so you can’t predict my behavior by his.”
“You’re right, I don’t know you. All I can go by is what I saw in him.”
Max’s thumb idly caressed her collarbone under the neck of the T-shirt. Again his touch felt refreshingly cool.
For a second the tension trickled out of her, and she leaned toward him. When she realized what she was doing, she snapped herself to attention. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
With a faintly puzzled look, he removed his hand. “I don’t understand you at all. That man in the other room committed a loathsome crime. You share my anger. I sense the bitterness in you.”
“Yeah, sure. But if you can hypnotize him into slitting his wrists, I believe Nola could hypnotize him into killing. I’ve always heard hypnosis can’t make people do things against their will, but this is different.”
“Yes, it is.”
“He was really scared out of his mind—I saw. I believe Nola’s the one responsible, not him.”
“Yet he pulled the trigger. Shouldn’t he die?” Max spoke as dispassionately as if they were debating over coffee, not deciding the fate of a man who sat a few yards away in a trance. “Surely you want your vengeance.”
“Doesn’t matter how I feel. It wouldn’t be right.” She stood up and paced around the cluttered room.
“Right!” He shook his head and said in the tone of an adult humoring a child, “Very well, tell me what you would do with him.”
“Make him confess to the police, turn himself in.”
“With what result? A few years in an institution for the criminally insane, then set free to live out his life?”
She couldn’t bring herself to deny that all-too-probable scenario. “That’s not our decision. The law should deal with him, not us.”
“Your law wasn’t written for cases like this.”
My law? What is the man talking about? She decided that either she’d heard him wrong or he was referring to the laws of Maryland, as opposed to wherever he lived. Or maybe he was some kind of anarchist, a militant survivalist or something. “I have another reason, too. Robin.”
“Your sister? What about her?”
“She needs to know the truth, needs to see someone convicted of the crime. I hate to use the word ‘closure’ like some radio phone-in psychologist, but that’s what I’m talking about. I owe that to Robin and her husband.”
“Owe? What’s this, more guilt?”
“They trusted me with their daughter, and I failed. This is the least I can do, make sure they see her killer put on trial. If he just drops dead, they’ll never—” Linnet’s chest heaved with ragged gasps. She slumped onto the bed again.
“Hush. Calm down, breathe slowly.” He massaged her shoulders, sending alternate waves of warmth and cold down her back. “Surely you don’t believe delivering your niece’s murderer to what you call justice is your responsibility?”
“Yes, I do.” Moisture stung her eyes. “I got the first call from the cops and went down to the medical examiner’s office to identify the—the victims. I made most of the arrangements for Deanna’s funeral. But it’s not enough. Robin still wouldn’t speak to me at the service.” To her dismay, she felt hot tears trickling down her cheeks. Taking off her glasses, she wiped her face with the back of her hand.
“Oh, damn. Don’t do that.” Max’s fingertips brushed lightly at the stray drops.
Her skin
quivered under his touch. His eyes captured hers. Silver-gray, she noticed, with a tinge of violet. She imagined a swirl of smoke in their depths. When he leaned closer, she gazed at him, immobilized. His lips alighted on her cheek, and she felt the flicker of his tongue. She inhaled his scent, a chill, metallic aroma. Her breath caught in her throat. Drawing back, she reached up to close her fingers around his. He allowed her to remove his hand from her face, and an involuntary sigh escaped her.
Max gave her a fierce glare. “No doubt Anthony would have let a female’s weeping influence him.”
Linnet sat up straight, appalled at her own reaction. What was wrong with her, letting a strange man kiss her at a time like this? He doesn’t need hypnosis to turn my brain to mush. “I bet he would,” she said as tartly as she could manage. “Because he had some human emotions. How would he feel about what you’re doing? Do you think he’d want you to condemn Fred to death this way?”
“Do you expect me to base my conduct on hypothetical assumptions about what my brother would have wanted?”
She pounded a fist into the mattress. “You’re avoiding the question.”
Max ran his fingers through his hair as if he felt like tearing it out. “Very well, I concede that Anthony might have agreed with you. He was devoted to causes.” He spoke the word like the name of a plague. “I can see him insisting on turning this deranged boy over to the authorities.” Standing up, he took her hand and pulled her to her feet. “All right, I’ll do as you suggest. Now, shall we get it over with?”
Caught off guard, Linnet stumbled. Max clasped her arm to steady her. Half turning, she unthinkingly placed her hand on his chest. Her knuckles grazed his chest. Touching the silken hair, finer than the coarse curls typical of most men, sent a shock up her arm. With a smothered gasp, she tilted her head to meet his eyes. He stared down at her, his lips parted. He leaned toward her. She held her breath.
Oh, Lord, I’m doing it again! “No.” She detached her hand from his shirt. Taking a step back, he released her.
“I don’t have time for this.” He stalked into the living room. Shaking her head to dispel the dizziness, Linnet followed.
Fred sat like a stringless puppet, just as they had left him. Max sat on the coffee table and tapped the young man’s shoulder to get his attention. “Listen carefully. You have changed your mind. You still feel remorse for your crime, but you don’t want to kill yourself.”
