All the Pretty Dead Girls Part 41

"No," Sue said.

Billy smiled again. "G.o.dd.a.m.n, Sue. It is so good to see you. I've missed you. I really have."

She stared at him. "Have you?"

"Of course," he said. "Have you missed me?"

"Yes," she admitted, averting her eyes.

"So now we can be together again. That's what you said, right?"

She had said that. And she'd meant it. She'd wanted it. Needed it.

But it wasn't right. She cared about Billy. She might even love him. But what kind of relations.h.i.+p could she have with him now?

"I really started to like you, too, Billy," Sue said, looking again at him, at his soft, kind eyes. "I want you to know that."

His smile flickered, but didn't fade. "Don't say that in the past tense."

Sue looked away again.

"You said you needed me, Sue. It seemed like something was wrong. Are you okay?"

Her eyes misted with tears. "I've found something out about myself, Billy."

She moved her eyes back to his.

Their gaze locked.

"What, Sue?" he asked. "What did you find out?"

"Look into my eyes, Billy," she said. "What do you see?"

She could see so much by looking into Billy's eyes. She could see how much he loved her. She could see how much he had missed her.

And now, she saw how much he feared her.

"What do you see in my eyes, Billy?"

In the booth across from her, Billy stiffened. His face went white.

"What is it, Billy?" Sue asked.

Her voice was calm. She knew the answer to her question.

"Sue," Billy said in a low voice.

"Tell me what you see, Billy."

Suddenly, he gasped. He gripped the side of the table, unable to tear his eyes away from what he saw in her face.

"Do you still love me, Billy?" Sue asked.

She no longer recognized the sound of her voice.

Billy let out a sound. He whipped his face away from her eyes, then jumped from the booth. Stumbling across the floor of the diner, he looked back at her.

"You..." His voice trailed off. "You're not Sue."

Sue just stared at him.

Billy let out a whimper. Sue saw the utter terror in his eyes.

So she was right.

Billy ran out the door. Marjorie looked after him, shaking her head, apparently concluding it was a lovers' squabble.

But Sue knew differently.

She lowered her head, and began to cry.

Bernadette was back, standing beside her.

"Leave town," she whispered. "Get out while you can. Go to see your mother. There is still time."

Sue just sat there crying, the enormity of the horror settling around her.

"Your mother," Bernadette repeated. "Go see your mother."

61.

"So I got back into my car," Sue said, draining her winegla.s.s and holding it out for Ginny to refill, "but I didn't leave town. Not right away."

"What did you do?"

"I went to the campus. Just what Bernadette warned me against doing."

"Why?"

"Because now I had some sense of my power. I wasn't afraid. I just wanted answers."

"Who did you want to see on campus?" Ginny asked.

"Who else? Dean Gregory."

62.

Sue rang the doorbell at the dean's house.

This is where they killed Tish Lewis.

Sue knew it the moment her finger had touched the bell.

They killed Tish-but I condemned her to die.

The horror and the guilt and the shame sank deep into Sue's soul.

"h.e.l.lo, Sue."

It was Mrs. Gregory, dressed in a red robe.

"Is the dean in?"

It was a weekend. Sue expected that Gregory would be at home, rather than at the office.

But he was out, his wife explained. "Would you like to wait for him?" Mrs. Gregory asked.

"Yes, thank you."

Mrs. Gregory stepped aside so that Sue could enter. "Did you have a nice holiday in New York?"

"Yes," Sue lied. She was certain that her grandparents had called Gregory to report she'd left abruptly. He's out looking for me, He's out looking for me, Sue realized. Sue realized. I've got them all in a tizzy. I've got them all in a tizzy.

"You're back on campus earlier than expected," Mrs. Gregory said. Sue realized the woman was nervous.

"Yes," Sue said, maintaining the charade. "I came back early to study for my finals."

"What a good student you are, Sue. Here, why don't you wait in the parlor? I'll call Ted on his cell phone..."

And rustle up his goons to overpower me...

"Mrs. Gregory, wait," Sue said. "I just have a quick question for you. Did you know my mother?"

"Your mother?" Mousy Mona's face blanched. Her shaky hand went to a b.u.t.ton on her blouse, which she twiddled anxiously. "Oh, no, I'm afraid we weren't yet on campus then..."

"But you were involved, weren't you? You must have been."

Mrs. Gregory smiled nervously. "Involved in what, dear?"

"The cult of Revelation. The movement to bring about the end times. You must have been. Otherwise, your husband wouldn't have been named dean."

Mrs. Gregory fell silent.

"Was it worth it, Mona?" Sue asked, drawing close to the woman, almost menacingly. "What it did to your sons?"

In a flash, looking into Mrs. Gregory's eyes, Sue had seen the tragedy of the two Gregory boys. One was now dead-an overdose in just the last couple of days-though she didn't think Mona knew about that part yet.

"My sons," Mrs. Gregory said. Then she began to cry.

"What will you get when it's all done?" Sue asked, so close to Mona that she could see the whites of her eyes. "What have they promised you? Certainly, your husband isn't content with just staying dean of some backwoods women's college."

"I...I don't know what you're talking about..."

Sue could see she'd get nowhere with Mrs. Gregory, who just stood there bawling her eyes out. She knew now it had been a mistake to come here. She could get trapped. Gregory would keep her- "Tell your husband I'm not going to play the game the way he intended," Sue said, moving away from Mona toward the door. "I have a few ideas of my own."

"You can't leave," Mona managed to say.

"Watch me."

"No!" Mrs. Gregory's arm darted out, her hand gripping Sue around her wrist. "If I let you go, they'll punish me."

"Let go of me!"

Sue felt something rising inside of her-something that seemed to fill her brain and her body like water filling a gla.s.s. A force pushed into the very back of her mind. Powerful. It felt thrilling.

It felt good good.

The power rose within her, and Sue's vision was tinted with red. Her entire body was tingling, the hairs on her arms standing up, and it felt good, so good, like nothing she'd ever felt before in her life. This is who I am, This is who I am, she thought. she thought. This is who I am meant to be This is who I am meant to be. A smile played across her lips as Mrs. Gregory's tears suddenly turned to blood.

Sue wrenched her arm free.

And then the dean's wife was sailing through the air, smas.h.i.+ng against the opposite wall with a horrible thud. For a moment, she stared at Sue, her face covered in blood. "You cannot escape who you are..." she said, before her eyes rolled back into her head and she slumped down, lifeless, to the floor.

63.

"She was dead."

Sue put her winegla.s.s down with shaky hands.

"I walked over to her, checked her pulse, but there wasn't one. She was dead, and I had killed her. I killed her, I killed her, Dr. Marshall, and what was more, it felt good while I was doing it." Dr. Marshall, and what was more, it felt good while I was doing it."