Lisa Jackson's Bentz And Montoya Bundle Part 37

She began to shake as she saw the door crack open a bit more.

"Sweet Jesus." Trembling, she backed up, her gaze fixed on the closet, her fingers sc.r.a.ping her forearm like mad. The door creaked open in slow motion. "Go away!" she whispered, her stomach knotting as full-blown terror took root.

A weapon! You need a weapon!

Anxiously, she looked around the near-dark room with its bed bolted to the floor.

Get your letter opener! Now!

She took one step toward the desk before she remembered that Sister Madeline had taken the letter opener away from her.

The lamp on the night table!

But it, too, was screwed down.

She pressed the switch.

Click.

No great wash of light. Frantically, she hit the switch again. Over and over.

Click! Click! Click! Click!

She looked up and saw him then. A tall man, looming in front of the door to the hallway. It was too dark to see his features but she knew his wicked smile was in place, his eyes glinting with an evil need.

He was Satan Incarnate. And there was no way to escape from him. There never was.

"Please don't," she begged, her voice sounding pathetic and weak as she backed up, her legs quivering.

"Please don't what?"

Don't touch me . . . don't place your fingers anywhere on my body . . . don't tell me I'm beautiful . . . don't kiss me . . .

"Leave now," she insisted. Dear G.o.d, was there no weapon, nothing to stop him?

"Leave now or what?"

"Or I'll scream and call the guards."

"The guards," he repeated in that low, amused, nearly hypnotic voice. "Here?" He clucked his tongue as if she were a disobedient child. "You've tried that before."

She knew for certain that her plight was futile. She would submit to him again.

As she always did.

"Did the guards believe you the last time?"

Of course they hadn't. Why would they? The two scrawny, pimply-faced boys hadn't hidden the fact they considered her mad. At least that's what they'd insinuated, though they'd used fancier words . . . delusional . . . paranoid . . . schizophrenic . . . delusional . . . paranoid . . . schizophrenic . . .

Or had they said anything at all? Maybe not. Maybe they'd just stared at her with their pitying, yet hungry, eyes. Hadn't one of them told her she was s.e.xy? The other one cupping one cheek of her b.u.t.tocks . . . or . . . or had that all been a horrid, vivid nightmare?

Scratch, scratch, scratch. She felt her nails break the skin.

Humiliation washed over her. She inched backward, away from her tormentor. What was happening to her was her own fault. She'd sinned somehow, brought this upon herself. She was the one who was evil. She had instigated G.o.d's wrath. She alone could atone. "Go away," she whispered again, clawing more frantically at her arm.

"Faith, don't," he warned, his voice horrifyingly soothing. "Mutilating yourself won't change anything. I'm here to help you. You know that."

Help her? No . . . no, no, no! her? No . . . no, no, no!

She wanted to crumble onto the floor, to shed her guilt, to get away from the itching.

Fight! an inner voice ordered her. an inner voice ordered her. Don't let him force you into doing things that you know are wrong! You have will. You can't let him do this to you. Don't let him force you into doing things that you know are wrong! You have will. You can't let him do this to you.

But it was already too late.

Close to her now, he clucked his tongue again and she saw its pointy, wet, pink tip flicking against the back of his teeth.

In a rough whisper, he said, "Uh-oh, Faith, I think you've been a naughty girl again."

"No." She was whimpering. There it was . . . that horrid bit of excitement building inside her.

"Oh, Faith, don't you know it's a sin to lie?"

She glanced to the wall where the crucifix of Jesus was nailed into the plaster. Did it move? Blinking, she imagined Jesus staring at her, his eyes kind but silently reprimanding in the semidarkness.

No, Faith. That can't be. Get a grip, for G.o.d's sake.

It's a painted image, that's all.

Breathing rapidly, she dragged her gaze from Christ's tortured face to the fireplace . . . cold now, devoid of both ashes and the mirror above it, now an empty s.p.a.ce, the outline visible against the rosebud wallpaper. They said she broke the mirror in a fit of rage, that she'd cut herself. That her own image had caused her to panic.

But he'd done it, hadn't he? This devil whose sole intent was to torture her? Hadn't she witnessed the act? She'd tried to refuse him, and he'd crashed his fist into the looking gla.s.s. Mirrored shards sprayed, hitting her, then crashed to the floor like glittery, deadly knives.

That's what had happened.

Right?

Or not? Now, feeling the blood beneath her nails, she wondered.

What's happening to me?

She stared at her bloodied hands. Her fingernails, once manicured and polished, were broken, her palms scratched, and farther up, upon her wrists, healed deep gashes. Had she done that to herself? In her mind's eye she saw her hands wrapped around a shard of gla.s.s and the blood dripping from her fingers . . .

Because you were going to kill him . . . trying to protect yourself!

She closed her eyes and let out a long, mewling cry. It was true. She didn't know what to believe any longer. Truth and lies blended, fact and fiction fused, her life, once so ordinary, so predictable, was fragmented. Frayed. At her own hands.

She edged backward, closer to the window, farther from him, from temptation, from sin.

Where was her husband . . . and her children, what had happened to her girls?

Terror burrowed deep into her soul. Confused and panic-stricken, she blinked rapidly, trying to think. They were safe. They had to be.

Concentrate, Faith. Get hold of yourself! Zoey and Abby are with Jacques. They're visiting tonight, remember? It's your birthday.

Or was that wrong? Was everything a lie? A macabre figment of her imagination?

She took another step backward.

"You're confused, Faith, but I can help you," he said quietly, as if nothing had happened between them, as if everything she'd conjured was her imagination, as if he'd never touched her.

Dear Lord, how mad was she?

She spun quickly, her toe catching on the edge of a rug. Pitching forward, she again caught her reflection in the window and this time she saw him rus.h.i.+ng forward, felt his hands upon her.

"No!" she cried, falling.

Gla.s.s cracked.

Blew apart as her shoulder hit the pane.

The window broke, shattering. Giving way.

With a great twisting metal groan, the wrought-iron grate wrenched free of its bolts.

She screamed and flailed at the air, trying to reach the windowsill, the filigreed barricade that hung from one screw, the bricks, anything! But it was too late. Her body hurtled through the broken panes, pieces of gla.s.s and wood clawing at her arms, ripping her nightgown, slicing her bare legs.

In a split second, she knew that it was over. She would feel no more pain.

Closing her eyes, Faith Chastain pitched into the blackness of the hot Louisiana night.

CHAPTER 1.

Twenty years later Cambrai, Louisiana

"I just wanted to call and say 'Happy birthday,'" her sister said, leaving a message on the answering machine. just wanted to call and say 'Happy birthday,'" her sister said, leaving a message on the answering machine.

Abby stood in the middle of her small kitchen. Listening, she debated about picking up the phone, but decided against it. She just wasn't in the mood. She had spent most of the day at her studio in New Orleans, dealing with kids who had their own ideas about what a Christmas portrait should be. What she needed was a gla.s.s of wine. Maybe two. Not her sister's long-winded birthday message.

"So . . . give me a call back when you get in. It's still early here on the West Coast, you know. I, uh, I'd like to talk to you, Abby. Thirty-five years is a major milestone."

In more ways than one, Abby thought as she reached into her refrigerator and pulled out a bottle of Chardonnay she'd bought nearly a month earlier when she'd thought her friend Alicia was coming to Louisiana for a visit. Abby thought as she reached into her refrigerator and pulled out a bottle of Chardonnay she'd bought nearly a month earlier when she'd thought her friend Alicia was coming to Louisiana for a visit.

"Okay . . . so . . . when you get this, I mean, a.s.suming you're not listening to it right now and still refusing to talk to me, give me a call, okay?" Zoey waited a beat. "It's been a long time, Abby. It's time to bury the hatchet."

Abby wasn't so sure. She turned on the faucet and heard the old pipes groan as she rinsed a winegla.s.s that had been gathering dust in her cupboard for the past two years.

"You know, Abby, this isn't just about you," Zoey reminded her through the answering machine's tiny speaker.

Of course not. It's about you.

"It's a tough day for me, as well. She was my mother, too."

Abby set her jaw, reconsidered picking up the receiver, and once again determined not to. Talking to Zoey today would be a mistake. She could feel it in her bones. Digging in a drawer, she found a corkscrew she'd owned since college and began opening the bottle.

"Look, Abs, I really, really hope you're not home alone and listening to this . . . You should go out and celebrate."

I intend to.

The phone clicked as Zoey hung up. Abby let out a long breath and leaned against the counter. She probably should have answered, put up with all the falderal of birthday greetings, the fake cheer, the gee-aren't-we-just-one-big-happy-family, but she couldn't. Not today. Because Zoey wouldn't have let it go at that. There would have been the inevitable discussion of their mother, and what had happened twenty years ago, and then there would have been the awkward and uncomfortable questions about Luke.

She popped the cork.

It was just so d.a.m.ned hard to forgive her sister for sleeping with her husband. Yeah, it had been a long time ago, and before the marriage but there it was, the wedge that had been between them for five years, ever since Abby had learned of the affair.

But Zoey had dated him first, hadn't she?

So what? Abby poured the wine, watched the chilled, cool liquid splash into the gla.s.s. Her conscience twinged a little at that, even though she knew that Luke Gierman had proved to be no prize as a boyfriend and worse as a husband. No d.a.m.ned prize at all.

And though Abby had divorced him, Zoey was still her sister. There was no changing that. Maybe she should let bygones be bygones, Abby thought, staring out the partially opened window where a slight breeze, heavy with the scents of earth and water, wafted inside.

Twilight was just settling in this stretch of Louisiana, the crickets and cicadas were chirping, stars beginning to wink in a dusky, lavender sky. It was pretty here, if a little isolated, a place she and Luke had planned to add on to, to become an all-American family with 2.3 children, a white picket fence, and a minivan parked in the drive.

So much for dreams.

She pushed the window open a little farther, hoping for relief from the heat.

Happy birthday to you . . .

The wind seemed to sigh that d.a.m.ned funeral dirge of a song through the branches of the live oaks, causing the Spanish moss to s.h.i.+ft as dusk settled deeper into the woods. Off in the distance she heard the rumble of a train. Closer in, at a neighbor's place down this winding country road, she heard a dog barking and through the trees she watched the ghostly image of a rising moon.

Her 35-millimeter camera was sitting on the counter near the back door and the dusk was so still and peaceful, so intriguing, she thought she might click off a few shots and kill the roll. The film inside the camera had been there for a long time as she used her digital more often than not. Leaving the wine on the counter, she turned on the camera and flash, then walked to the French doors off her dining room. Stepping outside, she positioned herself on the edge of the flagstones. Ansel, her cat, followed Abby outside and hopped onto a bench located under a magnolia tree. Abby focused then clicked off the last few shots of the tabby with the darkening woods as a backdrop. The cat faced away from the house, ears p.r.i.c.ked forward, his eyes trained on the trees, his fur gilded by a few rays of a dying sun. "Hey, buddy," she said, and the cat looked over his shoulder as she took the last couple of shots with the flash flaring in Ansel's gold eyes. Why not have a few pictures of this, her thirty-fifth birthday? she thought as she turned to go inside.

Snap!

A twig cracked in the woods nearby.