Twenty-Four

I fall back with a scream, landing hard on my ass, scrabbling back as I stare at empty pits where the woman's eyes had been. The lids flutter. Then her mouth opens and closes, and I—I don't even know what I do.

The next thing I know I'm on my feet and running as fast as I can, slipping and sliding on the rock and running, tearing down the bluff.

Someone calls my name. Shouts it. I don't slow. I don't even process whether the voice is male or female. I just keep running.

Hands grab me, and I twist, flailing and punching as I try to get free.

"Laney! It's me. Kit!"

I see his face, a flash of beard and dark eyes, and I remember that figure running up the bluff, and I fight harder. It's not Kit. Another trick. Another trap.

"Laney!" His hands tighten on my shoulders.

"Not you," I say, barely processing that the words come out loud. "Not you, not you, not you."

"It is me. Laney! Please! Stop!"

I fight harder, clawing and kicking now. I need to get away. Need to get back to Madison and Jayla and the real Kit.

His hands tighten, but he makes no move to stop me from clawing and kicking him. He just keeps saying my name, growing frantic, begging me to stop.

"Provost Steakhouse," he blurts. "That's where we went to dinner the first time. After we touched base again. When you came home for Anna. You got a… some huge drink. It was blue, and I got one, and it nearly put me under the table, and then I found out yours was a mocktail. You thought I knew and—"

"Kit."

He exhales. "Thank God. Yes. It's me. Garrett is…" He waves absently. "I heard you scream and—"

"Gazebo," I blurt. "A wind chime. It was… It was…"

The words stop in my throat, and I can't speak past them, can't breathe past them.

"There's another wind chime?" he says slowly. "Okay. Should we go see—?"

"No!" I start to shake, and I try to explain, but again, the words won't come. When I saw that horrible thing—that thing that had been a living person—I'd known what it was. I'd had no doubts about my mental state. Now, with Kit holding me and the cold wind whipping past, it's like a hug and a slap at once, reassuring me that I couldn't have seen such a thing while smacking me for being so foolish as to think I had.

"All right," Kit says. "I'll take you back to the house, find Garrett and we'll investigate."

"No!" I shake my head wildly. "P-please, don't. Please. Just… in the house. Please. Get in the house. All of us."

Another quick hug. "Got it. We'll go inside." He pulls back and shouts, "Garrett! We're going in." Then to me, "The asshole took off. Went chasing what was obviously a damn squirrel."

"You—you didn't find…"

He takes my arm to steady me as we set out. "There's no sign of Sadie. I don't think Garrett's going to give up, but that's his choice. It'll be dark in a few hours, and we're not spending the night searching for her. We can't."

"N-no more searching," I say. "No more being outside."

"Agree," he says grimly.

We continue on until I see the bridge. That snaps my thoughts back into focus.

"Man," I blurt as I wheel to Kit. "There—there was a man. On the ground. Hurt. I thought it was a trap, so I ran. Then I thought I saw you and went up onto the bluff." I shake that memory off. "But first there was a man. We should check. I don't know if it's Dr. Abbas or the security guy."

He frowns. "Security guy?"

"We think we found who was behind the staging." My heart rate slows as I find something to latch onto. "A couple who rented the place. The guy—John—was in security and asked questions. It seems his wife—Rachel—was one of the people who tried to lowball me on the property."

I quickly add, "She's not one you passed over," but he doesn't seem to hear me. Any guilt he felt has been wiped away by everything else. Taking blame right now smacks of selfishness.

Rememberthat when you start feeling awful about letting Madison come along.

No, that's an entirely other level of guilt, and one I'll deal with on my own.

I'm centered now, as if talking about the people behind the staging shifts this all into the realm of the ordinary. Horrible and unthinkable acts, but still acts committed by regular people.

"I'll show you where I saw him," I say as I straighten. "If he's still there, we'll decide what to do."

"And if he's not, then we know he's out there, and we need to stay inside."

That's not the only explanation if the man is gone, but I nod. Keep it in the realm of the believable. Forget what I thought I saw on the bluff. Nothing moved. I hallucinated that. The rest was just staging, and if the man is gone, that proves it was a trap, and he's alive and fine.

Does that make sense?

I don't care. It's the story I'm going with if the man is gone.

Kit takes my hand. Our fingers entwine, holding on as tight and firm as we can. We will not get separated. I will not take off if I spot Sadie.

I tell him where I saw the man, and in thirty paces, I see my tree. I point to it and explain that's where I spotted him from.

"Good idea," he says. "Climbing for a better vantage point."

"It didn't help me find Sadie."

"Which we can't worry about. If you need someone to keep saying that, Laney, I'll do it. If you need someone to lock the door and change the code so you don't go after her, I'll do that. I'll be the bad guy here."

"You're definitely not the bad guy here," I say softly. "But you won't need to do any of that. I'm…" The wind chime flashes and my gorge rises. "I'm not going out again. Like you said, if Garrett wants to keep searching, that's his choice. We can't stop him." I point. "Over there. That bush. I saw the guy's hand—"

"I see it," Kit says.

The man's hand is exactly where it had been, arm outstretched, fingers rhythmically clawing the ground.

"What's he doing?" Kit says.

"I don't know. He was doing that before. Like he's trying to drag himself along, only he hasn't moved."

Kit curses under his breath. "He's definitely hurt then. Mentally, too. Like Sadie."

Like Sadie.

"Hit on the head," he says.

No, I don't think so.I swallow, but I say nothing.

After this, I will tell him what I saw at the gazebo. I will tell him and Jayla, and they can do with that what they will, whether that's deciding I'm suffering mental confusion from the hypothermia or declaring there's a deranged human killer out there or reaching the same unfathomable other conclusion.

That I was not hallucinating.

I can tell myself I was, but I know better.

I saw those severed fingers move. I saw those eyelids open. I saw that woman's decapitated head try to speak.

That is not the work of a deranged human killer.

"All right," Kit says. "Let's get a closer look."

He doesn't add "carefully." His fingers just tighten on mine, and that says it for him. We are not letting go of each other even to move toward this injured man.

I squeeze Kit's hand. Then we take a step. A second step veers us around that bush. A third follows, and then we can see the man's entire upper body, and Kit relaxes a little, as if he'd feared what I first did: that I was only seeing a hand, severed from the rest.

The man's torso lies on the ground. What looks like a torn tarp lays over him, as if someone covered him up and he managed to crawl just this far from under it before his strength gave out.

There is no question now that he's injured. Blood smears his shirt and his neck and his exposed forearms. It's spattered all around us.

Blunt force trauma. That's what springs to mind. When Kit glances over, I realize I've said it aloud.

"A hard blow to the head," I whisper. "Or a sharp one. That'd explain the blood spatter."

"And his mental state."

The man doesn't even seem to have registered us. He's still clawing at the ground with that one hand, the other twisted at his side. His eyes are open, his gaze straight forward.

"Sir?" I say, and even as the word leaves my mouth, I mentally smack myself. Sir? Where the hell did that come from?

Yet Kit repeats it, as if acknowledging that this man is older than us. A middle-aged man with gray threads in his dark hair and a gold watch, and yes, that last shouldn't inspire respect, but it's ingrained in me. Like with Jayla and Kit's parents, when I'd been so aware of their social standing that I'd called them Mr. and Mrs. Hayes for a decade after they insisted I use their first names.

"Sir?" Kit says.

The man stops his clawing. His face turns our way, eyes still blank, but face lifting as if searching for the source of that voice. Blinded by the blow to his head?

I start to crouch, and Kit lowers himself with me, both of us carefully dropping to our knees, hands still clutched together.

Up close, I don't think this is Dr. Abbas. The light brown skin is obviously a tan, the sort that screams artificial for northerners in October. I could be wrong, of course. I'd never want to make the mistake of presuming a man with a Middle Eastern accent and an Arab surname couldn't look white. But my gut says this isn't Dr. Abbas.

"You're hurt," I say. "Can you tell me your name?" I add, "You've been hit on the head," as if I need an excuse for asking his name.

The man's gaze lifts in our direction. His pupils are huge, and his eyes are dull.

"Do you remember your name?" I say.

His mouth works, but it had started working before I finished the sentence. Is he answering the question? Or just trying to speak? No sound comes.

"Can you keep talking to him?" I say to Kit. "I'll get a look at his injuries. See if it's just his head."

Kit hesitates, but then releases his grip on my hand. We're still close, and I'm the one moving farther away. I can't imagine this man leaping up and attacking, but if he does, Kit will be ready.

The man doesn't seem to notice when I move away. I walk around the bush to where I can get a better look at his head. Before I can bend, I spot something lying a few feet away. It takes a moment to realize what it is, so incongruous in this setting.

"There's a credit card over here," I say.

Kit gives a strangled half laugh. "A what?"

"A platinum Visa. Oh, there are other cards, too." I point. "Looks like his wallet is right there."

"Fell out of his pocket when he got hit?"

"I guess. The credit card is closer. May I pick it up?"

He knows I'm really asking if it's okay for me to take those two extra steps away to retrieve this possible form of identification.

Kit nods. I scoop up the card. It is indeed a platinum Visa, the sort even Kit doesn't carry. Oh, he certainly has the credit rating. He just doesn't like the flash of a high-end card. This guy does. Gold watch. Multiple platinum cards, from what I see scattered beyond. And when I see the name, I am not surprised.

"John Sinclair," I say. "The security guy."

Kit makes a noise in his throat. "Exactly how wrong would it be to just get up and walk away?"

"If I knew for certain he murdered Nate, I'd do it in a heartbeat."

The man—Sinclair—doesn't react. His head is wobbling, like that of an infant struggling to focus. I'm about to toss aside the card when I stop. I motion to Kit that I'm getting the rest of the wallet contents, and he nods. I do it quickly, scooping up the wallet and cards and shoving them into my pocket. We need all the data we can get on this asshole. Even if he didn't kill Nate, he's done so much more, and he is going to pay—

I see the wind chimes again. See the woman's head staked on a stump.

Rachel Rossi.

His wife.

Whatever happened here, he was hit on the head, so severely that he was left for dead under a tarp. Then his wife was killed, her body torn into pieces and—

Don't think about that. At least it wasn't the Abbases. I have enough on my conscience already.

I move toward Sinclair. He's still looking in Kit's direction, but Kit is hunkered down, his face set in a look of barely contained fury that lessens only when he glances my way to be sure I'm all right. Then I'm on the other side of the man, crouching. Kit tenses, but Sinclair gives no sign of noticing me. He's beyond that, his head injuries too severe.

I frown and lean closer. Kit tenses more, and I say, "There's no blood on his scalp."

Kit lifts one shoulder in a shrug. "Might be a closed wound."

"Then where's the blood coming from?"

His wife.

Rachel.

Was Sinclair knocked out before she was killed? Before she was torn apart? Or did he witness that?

"I think it could be shock," I say, my voice low. "On the bluff, the gazebo, what I found." I swallow. "It was a woman. The remains of a woman. His wife, probably."

Kit flinches. "Shit. You think he saw it happen."

"Maybe. He could still have been struck on the head. Knocked out. Covered up. Left for dead. I'm just saying the blood might not be his."

"All right."

I reach for the tarp. "We'll make sure of that. If he's not suffering from any life-threatening injuries, then we need to leave him and get to the house. Figure out what to do with him later."

And if that means we leave him in the sights of a killer who might realize he's not actually dead?

So be it.

I have my priorities, and whatever John Sinclair might have witnessed, however horrible that would be, he isn't one of them.

I need to get to Madison. Warn Jayla and keep Madison safe.

I tug at the tarp. It sticks, and I pull hard enough that I topple backward. When Kit lets out a gurgling gasp, I scramble up, ready to launch myself at Sinclair, certain he's attacking Kit.

Kit has fallen back, arms behind him, bracing himself up, as if Sinclair had indeed lunged at him. But the man hasn't moved. He's lying there, just as he was, his head tilted toward Kit.

"Kit?" I say. "What—?"

Then I see it. Or I don't see it. That's what my brain screams. It shrieks that I am not seeing something I absolutely should be seeing.

My gaze is fixed below Sinclair's torso, where I've yanked the tarp aside, and I should now see the rest of him.

I do not see the rest of him.

I see his torso and then there is nothing below it.

It must be the angle. The leaves. The dead vegetation. Or even the earth itself. It's covering the lower half of his body. He'd been buried, the tarp haphazardly thrown over the spot. He managed to crawl out, but he's still half buried.

That is the answer.

It must be the answer.

"Laney?" Kit's voice is so choked I can barely make out my name.

I shove up to my feet. Change my vantage point. Take one decisive step in that direction, knowing I will collapse with relief when I see that I'm right and Sinclair is only half buried.

I take that step and—

"No!"

Kit shouts, lunging to stop me, but it's too late. I see what he's already seen, and I drop to my knees, retching. My brain fires wildly, random electrical flashes of bright light, as if it can erase what it just saw.

I told myself Sinclair's lower half was buried. Under dirt. Under vegetation. It's not. There is no lower half. It's gone. As I think that, that inner voice lets out a hysterical laugh.

Gone? Don't be silly. What do you mean, it's gone?

I mean there is nothing below Sinclair's torso except a trail of blood and gore and intestines. My brain tried to erase that image, but it cannot, and even with my eyes squeezed shut, I can see it.

Kit's arms are around me. He's trying to tug me away from the sight, but I twist out of his grip and open my eyes.

Sinclair's torso lies on the ground. His one hand claws the ground again, and his face has turned our way, those blank eyes fixed not quite in our direction. His mouth moves, as if he's trying to talk. But his bottom half is gone. Not just his legs. His entire bottom half, from the waist down. It's been ripped away, the flesh as torn as his wife's fingers, as her neck.

"He's… dead, right?" I rasp.

"I…" Kit manages. "He… he has to be but…"

"He's dead," I say, firmer now. "There's no way he's alive. Not like that. It isn't possible."

"It isn't."

"But he's moving," I say. "You do see that. I'm not hallucinating."

"You're not."

"What exactly do you see?"

Kit swallows, glances over, and then turns away. "His hand is moving. His mouth is moving. His head is turned our way."

Exactly what I'm seeing. I should be relieved. I'm not losing my mind. I am not relieved. I am the farthest possible point from relieved.

Let me be wrong. Let me be hallucinating. Even let me have lost my mind, fallen over the edge of reality and plunged into madness. That is better than this.

"On the bluff," I say. "His wife's… Her head. Her eyes opened. Her mouth moved. Someone—something—ripped her apart and stuck her head on a—"

I scramble to my feet, pulling him up with me. "Inside. We need to get inside. Now!"

Kit doesn't answer. He just grabs my arm, and we run.