David … Her heart thudded, hard, against her ribs and misery spread through her. If this bitch hurt her, that would be another bruise, another wound, that he’d carry with him. Sybil knew it as well as her own name. It wouldn’t be his fault, but nothing she did or said would change it so that he’d see it otherwise.
So don’t let her hurt you. Easier said than done.
“Lady, he’s all yours.” Sybil shrugged, pasting a smile on her face. “Didn’t you hear? He dumped me. I guess he’s already figured that yours thing out.”
The woman blinked, caught off-guard. “Dumped you?”
“Yeah. We’re not seeing each other anymore. He doesn’t want anything to do with me.” Forcing a casualness into her voice that she didn’t feel, she moved a little, circling around so that the woman had to turn away from the window.
That’s it. Watch me. Keep watching.…
Wariness edged across the woman’s face. “You lie. Whores always lie.”
“Please. No woman is going to lie about a man dumping her. I get that you might not understand that kind of thing—I imagine it’s different with men and women where you come from. But with us? It’s humiliating.”
“You bring the humiliation on yourself.”
This time, the smile stretching her face was so brittle, it felt like it might crack. “I guess so. I mean, I dunno what I was thinking with him, but trust me, I’m not going down that road again. He’s not my type, anyway. I guess he’s happier back on that farm.”
“You wouldn’t understand,” the woman whispered, her voice low, ugly with malice.
“I guess I wouldn’t. I like it here, where I’ve got a house with air-conditioning, where I can wear jeans and makeup and work a job and date whoever—”
“Whore.” The word was flung out, like a stone, her voice louder.
Sybil shrugged. “If you want to view it like that, hey. Go ahead. Just … put the gun down. I don’t have any designs on Caine. He’s done with me. I’m happy with that.”
She tried to judge the distance between them. Two feet.
Would she be quick enough?
If she judged wrong and got shot, then she ended up shot. And David would suffer, and Drew would end up back with Layla. But if she didn’t do something, she was dead anyway.
I’ll only have one chance.…
* * *
Edged fury lit inside David’s gut as he caught sight of a familiar coat of paint.
Abraham’s car.
Whipping his truck around, David turned off Main. Horns blasted behind him. He ignored them. It was harder to ignore the cop up ahead, one who lifted his head and eyed David narrowly as he came to a stop in front of him.
“Mr. Sutter.” Officer Gardiner nodded at him. “Going mighty fast up there.”
“Where is she?” David demanded, ignoring the officer’s comment.
“Who?” Gardiner asked, greying brow cocking up.
“The woman who owns the—”
“Help!”
David and the cop both jerked their heads up. Dread twisted in David’s gut, vicious and cold, as he saw Drew and a taller, skinny black boy pounding down the sidewalk toward them.
Drew’s breath was tight, alarmingly so, and he couldn’t speak as he struggled to breathe. But the taller boy could—and did—talk. Darnell, David thought absently. His name was Darnell—Taneisha’s son. His eyes were huge and wide as he looked from David to the cop.
“Something’s wrong. Miss Sybil … I think somebody might be in her house.”
That slow, red drift of rage crept across David’s vision. The officer moved to Darnell, but David didn’t hear anything. Shifting, he stared through the houses. Just barely, he could make out the back right edge of Sybil’s place.
Sarah.
She was at Sybil’s.
For him, the rest of the world ceased to exist.
He didn’t hear the cop’s startled shout, didn’t even realize he’d tried to chase him. An Olympic runner could have caught him, but that was probably it, and anybody who tried to stop him was going to go down in a sprawl of pain and blood.
Sybil …
He was in the yard, staring at the back of the house with no memory of running through the yards, of the fences he’d climbed or hurtled to get there. Harsh breaths panted out of him and the emotions that he’d locked awayfor so long were drowning him. Fear. Panic. Rage.
Not now. Have to think.
Sybil.
She was in there.
It was that thought that let him finally yank it all under control.
Finally.
And his steps were calm, measured, as he started across the grass. He reached into his pocket, almost surprised to realize he had his keys. He didn’t remember pulling them out of the ignition when he’d stopped his truck, but he must have. He’d never returned Sybil’s, though he’d told himself over and over he needed to. But of course, he never would. That string, that connection, was one he couldn’t live without.
The boards of the porch squeaked under his feet as he mounted the steps.
The panes of the glass reflected his own image back at him as he crossed the porch and for a few, terrified seconds he stood there, off to the side, staring through the window to see if he could see them. Or anything else.
But he saw nothing.
* * *
The children.
Where were they?
She’d seen them, climbing out of the car. Two boys, one shorter and pale, the other tall and dark, both of them smiling. Bring them unto me.…
The scripture spun wildly through her head.
Then the whore blocked the door and sent them off. Part of Sarah had been relieved. Children. Innocent. She didn’t want to hurt a child, but the one was connected to Caine. She’d seen it. She’d been watching him for so long and she’d seen how he looked at the boy, seen how he watched him. Once, she’d even stood at the window of this very house and peered inside. They’d watched the TV—Caine was watching a movie. With this family, and he’d watched the boy with a look that made Sarah’s heart hurt.
He loves the boy. You can’t bring him home and expect him to stay if you don’t sever that connection.…
She’d have to kill the boy.
But the whore sent them away.
Maybe it was a sign.
The cold part of Sarah’s heart that had ached so badly at the thought eased and breathing, thinking, wasn’t so painful. Maybe what she was supposed to do was bring the boy with her, like Abraham had done. She was too old now to bear a child for Caine, but he’d want a son. All men wanted sons.
Yes. That was what she should do.
The boy wasn’t responsible for what the woman had done after all. He was an innocent. Probably scared, too, of all the things she’d probably subjected him to. Innocent … scared. Like she’d been. Like Caine had been.
Tears burned and the gun in her hand seemed heavier, harder to hold.
There was a faint sound and she narrowed her eyes, glaring at the woman in front of her. “It’s because of you that this happens. You never should have touched him,” she said, her voice shaking.
“No arguing there.” The woman lifted her hands, shifting yet again, and Sarah braced herself.
But all she did was inch around, backing away. Trying to escape. She couldn’t, though. Nobody could escape judgment.
“You aren’t going to come between us, ever again.” Sarah steadied the gun.
* * *
Sybil caught her breath. Those muddy eyes had started to burn. Death stared back at her. Time slowed to a crawl and she lunged.
The woman was strong, solid. Sybil had a few inches on her, but the woman had several pounds and lot of muscle. Sybil’s weight drove them into the coffee table and she slammed the woman’s weapon hand down into the floor.
A fist slammed into Sybil’s side and she grunted, pain exploding through her. She gritted her teeth, fought harder.
If she didn’t get that gun, nothing el
se mattered. Fisting one hand in a coil of neatly pinned-up hair, Sybil yanked.
The furious yowl was like music to her ears and she yanked again, harder, more savagely.
With the other hand, she still gripped the woman’s gun hand, keeping it away. Useless, Sybil hoped.
A second later, a fist slammed into her cheek.
Panting, Sybil blinked away the tears. “Wow. And I thought … you were a peaceful bunch of people.”
“Shut up.” The woman tried to shove up, continuing to jerk her weapon hand from Sybil.
Sybil let her jerk away, some. Then Sybil drove her fist upward into the woman’s chin. Her eyes went glassy, and for a split second Sybil thought she’d be able to wrest the gun away.
But then, with a savage strength, the woman tore back and rolled to her feet.
Sybil couldn’t roll herself into a ball in time to defend herself from the vicious kick to her gut. Breath exploding out of her, she fought to see past the pain. Rolling onto her knees, she looked up, certain she’d see the gun … and then the end of her life.
Instead, she saw the woman, standing in the hall.
Frozen.
And the look in her eyes was one that froze Sybil to the core.
CHAPTER TWENTY
“Put it down.”
He’d never wanted to shove a knife into anybody so badly in all his life. Not even the one time he’d found himself standing in his father’s room when he was fourteen and a nightmare had sent him sleepwalking out of his bed.
He’d woken up, standing at the foot of his parents’ bed, holding a butcher knife, and he’d been that close, that close to using it. They’d slept on, blissfully unaware, and he’d taken the knife and stood in the bathroom instead. For nearly an hour, he’d stood there, thought about using it on himself.
But it was nothing like this.
The filleting knife had been in the dish rack and he’d grabbed it blindly. If it weren’t for the fact that the gun was pointed directly into Sybil’s face, he might have already sliced it across Sarah’s throat. He could kill a woman. He could easily kill a woman who threatened Sybil. Nobody knew better than him just how monstrous the so-called weaker sex could be. After all, his mother had left him to the hands of a monster because it suited her purposes.
But the gun, shaky was it was, continued to point at Sybil.
“Put it down,” David said again, keeping his voice soft as that dangerous, deadly red started to flood through him. He moved closer and she just watched him, her eyes wide and shining. That look made him want to scrub himself clean.
“You don’t understand,” Sarah said gently, turning her head to look at Sybil. “She’s coming between us. Nobody can do that.”
Sarah darted him a look, and when she did the gun lowered, just enough. Shooting out a hand, he caught her wrists and jerked up. Boom! His ears were still echoing as his gaze flew to Sybil. She’d flung herself away and was already to rising to her feet, watching him with stark eyes.
At that same moment, a voice boomed from outside: “This is the Madison Police Department!”
Sarah tried to tear away from him. Wrenching the gun out of her hands, he held it out to Sybil. “You better open the door before they do.”
Sybil moved to the door.
He didn’t follow.
Two seconds later, Sarah was slammed against the door and a startled shriek escaped her.
He didn’t care.
“Why?”
“She was coming between us.”
The words made no sense. “There is no us, Sarah.”
From the corner of his eye, he saw cops fanning into the room. “Mr. Sutter, let the woman go.”
He ignored them. “There is no us, Sarah,” he said again. He stared into her eyes, watched as that flat, emotionless surface started to fracture, then break. It was like watching a glass window break, in slow motion, tiny little lines spreading out, out, out, until the entire surface gave way and collapsed.
“There is.” A sob ripped out of Sarah.
He let her go, half-expecting the police to come rushing in, but everybody seemed frozen as she went to her knees. “There always was, even though nobody could see it. So I waited. I tried to make my father see, but he couldn’t. And then he seemed to understand that you had to leave, and I couldn’t have that.”
“Couldn’t have…” The words trailed off as she lifted her head.
“He was in the way. I couldn’t lose you and he wanted to take you away,” she whispered, her voice pleading.
“Abraham,” he whispered. “You killed Abraham.”
“It was for you. It was always for you.” Her eyes were rapt on his face, a tremulous smile forming on her lips. “You understand that, don’t you, Caine?”
“You killed him.” Somebody moved up, standing closer. He heard his name, but it came to him as though from across a canyon, echoing before fading into nothing. “Who else?”
Sarah’s eyes glittered with tears. “They were all in the way. You couldn’t see how much you needed me because they were always there. Max knew how much you needed me, at first. He brought you to me, but then he seemed to forget. He stayed in this evil town and he just forgot. That awful woman—she had alcohol and drugs in her home and you were there late at night. How could you turn to her, Caine?”
“Who?”
* * *
“David, step—”
Jensen laid a hand on the chief’s arm.
The woman wasn’t a threat to David, and right now she was spilling out information they just might need.
As long as she kept spilling, Jensen wanted to listen.
Sybil had already turned over the gun and she stood there in rapt fascination.
Training told Jensen that she needed to get the civilian out of there. But her instincts told her that the woman hovered on the edge. Any small thing would push her over, and if she shut down on them now they might never get those answers.
Sorenson shot her a glittering look but held still and quiet, his weapon lowered, clutched in a two-handed grip.
“That woman,” Sarah insisted. “She dyed her hair and drank too much and cried on your shoulder about her father. I’d come into town to try and get you to come back home—you were staying away more and more and I needed you.”
Rita.
David seemed to realize it at the same moment. “Rita Troyer. You made it look like she’d killed herself. She was grieving and you killed her.”
“She didn’t need you. I did!”
David’s face was like stone. “Who else?”
“Why do they matter?” The woman, still sprawled on the floor, lifted a hand to him. “I’m the one who loves you. I’m who needs you, who cried and prayed and begged for you to come home.”
David slowly backed away.
That subtle rejection made the woman’s face crumple. “You drove the truck that killed Brumley, Sarah. You killed Louisa, the lady in the coffee shop. You attacked Taneisha, too.”
Sarah. Jensen filed that name away, just like she mentally filed away everything else.
“I only tried to remove those who stood between us.” She gave David a watery smile, the blind adulation in her eyes something that made Jensen’s blood run cold. “Once your whore is gone, you’ll be free. You’ll come back to me.”
* * *
David had faced evil before.
He hadn’t realized, until that moment, though, just how much evil and insane could walk so far apart. His father had been evil, his head so fucked-up and his morals so twisted, they didn’t resemble anything normal. But now, looking into Sarah’s blue-grey eyes, brimming with tears, he realized he’d never once met anybody who was truly, truly crazy.
They were unwell.
Had her father passed something on to Sarah? Had his brain been so fucked-up that he’d passed his madness on to his child? Or had the abuse twisted her?
David didn’t know.
“David.”
He didn’t turn away.
>
“Let the cops do their job now.”
Sybil’s voice was closer now. He tightened his fist on the knife he held, tucked against his thigh.
“She can’t hurt me. They aren’t going to just let her merrily walk away. It’s over.” There was a pause and then Sybil said gently, “Come to me, okay?”
At that, Sarah lurched upward and the cops rushed them.
David held still, watching as she was subdued and then handcuffed.
She watched him with accusing eyes and he turned, put the knife down on the coffee table. Jensen lowered her gaze to it, stared at it for one second before she looked back at him.
He looked back, unblinking.
Then he looked at Sybil.
She stood there, hand outstretched.
Staring into her eyes for a long moment, he said softly, “She would have killed you. If Drew had come in here, she might have killed him. Maybe even Darnell. But she wanted you, probably even Drew, dead. You’re the only ones who matter.”
She continued to wait. “Then come to me.”
He took another step, then another. “You told me to stay away.”
“Only if you’re not going to stay.”
Slowly, he reached out and closed his hands over hers.
She moved in and tucked herself against his chest, her head settling into the curve where his neck met his shoulder.
I’m staying.
He couldn’t say it yet. Couldn’t say a lot of things yet. But he would.
Soon.
“I think,” she said, her voice muffled against his chest, “after this, we really should have a good long talk about our relationship—you know, that one you think we don’t really have.”
His hand came up, curling over the back of her neck. His sigh teased the curls at her temple and he nuzzled her.
His response was lost in a fury of screams.
“No. No!”
Both of them looked up, watched as a woman in a simple blue dress and a prim white cap tried to tear away from three uniformed officers. Her face was red, her eyes full of a fury that made them almost inhuman. “Mine! You were meant to be mine. I’d kill you before I let you go.”
Sybil leaned against David as the cops finished hustling the enraged woman outside. “I guess that’s the difference,” Sybil mused.
Darker Than Desire Page 27
