After Midnight, page 4
But the vantage point, that was another story. He could see through her eyes!
Connelly had known immediately that something was wrong; Milo could sense it. But she had no idea what that something might be, and why would she? Nothing in her life, not even her experience with Flickers and her deadly run-in with Milo back in Revere last summer, could have prepared her for her cranium being invaded by a comatose cripple, incarcerated and largely forgotten, all the way up the Atlantic coast.
And while that was fascinating—who wouldn’t want to see the world through someone else’s eyes for a while?—what had happened next was truly magical. The flustered Connelly, embarrassed and confused about what was wrong, had requested a cup of coffee she didn’t really want as a way to get the unwanted attention of the ancient hag of a secretary off her.
When the wrinkled bitch returned with the coffee, Milo had, almost randomly and on the spur of the moment, pushed a suggestion through Connelly and into the head of the old lady. And to his immense surprise, it worked. Milo’s suggestion was for the lady to trip and spill the full-to-the-brim coffee cup all over the evil Connelly bitch, and she had done exactly that!
Whether the secretary had slipped or tripped or dumped the coffee without even knowing why she would do such a thing, the scalding-hot liquid flew through the air, as pretty as you please, and burned The Evil Bitch.
Exactly as he had intended.
But something else had happened, too, something that was equally unexpected. He had been overcome by exhaustion. Milo exited Connelly’s head immediately, partly because he felt he had gained all the knowledge he was likely to from his little experiment, but mostly because he was suddenly so tired he knew he needed to rest and recover.
Apparently, invading his twin sister’s skull required a much greater expenditure of psychic energy than did simply implanting a suggestion in an unwitting recipient’s brain. After only a few minutes spent observing the world through Caitlyn Connelly’s eyes, and then especially after forcing a suggestion through her head and into the secretary’s brain, Milo felt drained, utterly enervated.
He knew instinctively that to remain inside The Evil Bitch’s skull for much longer would have resulted in…what? Exhaustion? Unconsciousness? Death?
Milo wasn’t sure what would have happened had he overstayed his welcome, but he knew he didn’t want to find out. Right now he needed to recover, to regain his strength, to celebrate this odd victory and consider its ramifications.
It was a minor achievement, to be sure. Spilling coffee on your hated enemy’s arm would not exactly qualify as winning the war, even if you did manage to inflict second-degree burns. But the experiment was significant not for what it accomplished but rather for the possibilities it opened up.
There were so many possibilities. And they all revolved around the destruction of Caitlyn Connelly.
7
Caitlyn’s arm throbbed, despite being slathered in antibacterial burn cream and covered with gauze wrap. Pearl hurried to her in a panic after spilling the coffee, eyes wide, apologizing profusely for her clumsiness. She took one look at the damage and picked up Cait’s phone, dialing 911.
Caitlyn immediately canceled the call for the ambulance. There was no way she was going to the hospital. She was too busy for that.
“It’s fine,” she told Pearl. “We have first-aid supplies here. I’ll dress the burn and keep it clean and it’ll be good as new in a few days.”
Pearl looked dubious. She gazed at the burn with obvious skepticism, but to Cait’s relief did not argue the point. After helping Cait dress the wound, maintaining a near-continuous stream of apologies, Pearl finally left the office and returned to her desk, which was really what Cait had wanted all along.
She needed some time to think.
Something strange was happening, that much was obvious, but what in the heck it might be she had no idea.
She cleaned her computer’s keyboard the best she could, suspecting that once the spilled coffee finished dripping through the case and into the electronics, it would be a goner. After saving and backing up all her work, she made another attempt at completing the disputed lease agreement, but after a few minutes, Cait was forced to give up and admit defeat.
Her concentration was shot. And more importantly, her arm was killing her. It was Friday afternoon and she’d already put in nearly sixty hours this week, so given all that had happened, Cait felt she was more than justified in cutting out early and going home. She would relax for a while, maybe pamper herself with a bubble bath, and would still have time to surprise Kevin with something special for dinner.
She deserved a little time to herself.
* * *
The lasagna was cooling in a pan on top of the stove when Kevin walked into their apartment.
He mock-checked his watch. “Well, this is a pleasant surprise,” he said enthusiastically. “My sweetheart is home and it’s not even nine o’clock yet!”
“Home,” she said, “and I’ve been cooking like Betty Crocker. If I was any more domesticated, I’d never go back to work.”
“Smells delicious,” Kevin said. “But where’s my martini?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Isn’t that what the truly domesticated little woman is supposed to do? Meet her man at the door, hand him a drink and then hang up his suit coat?”
Cait grinned. “Good luck with that. And besides, you don’t wear a suit.”
“Hmph. Seems like you need more practice at this ‘little woman’ stuff,” he said, laughing, as he dodged a punch. “But seriously, what’s the occasion? You’re never home this early.”
Cait decided to downplay the strange events of the afternoon. The odd sensation of pressure inside her skull hadn’t returned, and as the hours went by it became easier to pass the bizarre occurrence off as nothing more than some weird trick of her mind. She was tired all the time thanks to her insomnia; maybe this afternoon was just her body reacting to her constant state of exhaustion.
But there was no hiding the burn. She rolled up her sleeve and Kevin blinked in confusion and then looked at her questioningly. “What the hell happened to you?”
“Coffee accident. And you think being a cop is a dangerous job. Try working in a law office.”
“With all those sharks? No thanks. I’ll take my chances on the street. But if you spilled coffee on yourself, how did you manage to burn your arm almost all the way to the elbow?”
Cait explained about Pearl tripping and the coffee flying through the air, leaving out the conviction she had felt at the time that the older woman had done it intentionally. That notion was plainly ridiculous. Cait had worked with Pearl Hinton for almost three years and while the woman could be frosty, she had never treated Cait with anything but the utmost professional courtesy.
Kevin listened without speaking, and when Cait finished the story, his face remained a mask of cop skepticism. She knew the expression well.
“What is it?” she asked.
“The woman slipped walking across a carpeted floor and the coffee ended up burning you? How far away was she when this happened?”
Cait shrugged. “I don’t know. Five or six feet, I guess.”
Kevin stared at her without speaking and finally she spread her hands apart in frustration. Sometimes living with a cop could be tiring. “What?”
“Doesn’t it strike you as, I don’t know, a little unlikely that someone could slip badly enough to launch a full cup of coffee at a person sitting five or six feet away? We’ve all spilled coffee before, but when it happens, who usually takes the brunt of the spill?”
“Well…the person carrying the coffee.”
“Exactly. Did Pearl fall? How badly did she get burned?”
Cait shook her head. “None of the coffee landed on her.”
“You see where I’m coming from?”
“I do,” Cait said, recalling again her fleeting thought that the secretary had engineered the spill on purpose. “But it’s over now. Let’s forget about it and enjoy dinner.”
Kevin wasn’t quite ready to let the subject drop. “She needs to be more careful. Thank God it wasn’t your other arm that got scalded. I’m no doctor, but I’m guessing a burn like that would be bad news for those still-healing skin grafts.”
Cait nodded. She had considered that issue, too. “All’s well that ends well,” she said brightly. “Now, let’s eat before the lasagna gets cold.”
At that moment, the pressure in her head returned with a vengeance.
* * *
The timing of his return into The Evil Bitch’s head couldn’t have been better if he had spent months planning it. Milo took his good fortune as a sign that fate was on his side. Cait Connelly was home, and even better, her wannabe-hero cop boyfriend was there as well.
This was perfect. Because there was more than one way to skin a cat. Milo could not push a suggestion into his whore sister’s brain and cause her to kill herself like he had done with Warden Pender, but that didn’t matter now. He would adapt and overcome.
He was clever that way.
8
Caitlyn raised her hands to her head exactly as she had done sitting at her desk earlier in the day. The pressure was immense and she stumbled forward a step or two, her body sagging. A small jolt of pain ripped through her skull.
She moaned and reached for Kevin, grabbing at his uniform shirt with both hands. Thank God he was home. He was big and strong and could easily support the weight of her small form. He would help her.
She waited for him to take hold of her staggering body, waited for him to gasp in surprise or to ask what was wrong or to do anything, but he stood wooden, unmoving. Cait sagged to her knees, her fingers losing their tenuous grip on Kevin’s shirt. She looked up at his face and saw that he was gazing down at her blankly.
“Kevin,” she said, not knowing how to continue. The pressure in her cranium seemed to have stabilized and now that the initial shock of her head being invaded—that was what it felt like, an invasion—was wearing off, Cait rallied slightly. The initial sensation of pain had disappeared.
She placed her hands on the floor and pushed off, struggling to regain her footing. At that moment she felt herself being lifted roughly. Kevin had grabbed her under her armpits and was hauling her upright.
“Take it easy,” she said, shaking her head as he lifted her and then dropped her onto her feet. She felt dizzy and disoriented.
He said nothing in response. Instead, he placed both hands on her upper chest, just below her shoulder blades, and shoved her hard. She flew backward, smashing into the wall and rattling a framed photograph of her and Kevin on vacation in Tahiti that had been taken two winters ago. The picture banged against the wall once and dislodged from its mounting. It fell and the glass inside the frame shattered, scattering shards across the floor like a sprinkling of snow.
Cait crumpled to the floor, stunned, too surprised even to scream. She had known Kevin Dalton for six years and in all that time he had never once touched her in anger. But now he leaned down and grabbed a fistful of her blouse, yanking her off the floor in an explosive burst.
Silk ripped and buttons scattered, bouncing randomly among the glass on the floor. This is a brand-new blouse, Cait thought absurdly, and now it’s ruined.
And then Kevin slugged her, striking her in the side of the head with the base of an open hand but knocking her once more against the wall, scrambling her circuits. Her vision flickered like lights in a thunderstorm. From somewhere far away, she heard another crash and registered it as the bathroom mirror falling and smashing on the sink.
She slid to the floor and lay stunned, taking vague notice of blood trickling onto the hardwood.
She had sliced herself falling onto broken glass.
That was the least of her problems.
After a stretch of silence that might have been five seconds or ten minutes—Cait was too stunned and confused to know—she once again felt herself being lifted into the air. She blinked rapidly in a desperate attempt to clear her spinning head as Kevin half carried, half dragged her down the hallway and into the living room.
He dumped her onto their couch. Then he drew his service weapon from its holster and, impossibly, aimed it at her head.
She stared in shock and horror at the barrel of his gun, its open end pointing into her face. From this perspective it looked as big as a cannon.
Cait had never felt unsafe with a firearm in their apartment; in fact, the reality was just the opposite. Kevin Dalton was a cop. He was responsible and professional. He kept his weapon locked in a gun safe while at home and Cait had always felt more secure with the knowledge that the weapon was here and available to him, not less.
But now she stared into the gaping maw of the barrel, too surprised to be afraid.
Yet.
What the hell was happening? One minute she was smiling and joking with her longtime boyfriend, just another Friday night at home, and the next he went crazy, attacking her, striking her multiple times, and now threatening her with deadly violence.
He spoke, and through her ringing ears the sound was utterly unlike his normal voice. The total lack of inflection was nothing she had ever heard out of another human being. Certainly not out of Kevin, whose normal tone was warm and silky. The vocal transformation was just as unexpected as the sudden, vicious attack.
“Make one move off that couch and you die,” he said. “I’ll put a bullet right between your pretty blue eyes. Do you understand me?”
Cait was too shocked to answer. This couldn’t be happening. It just could not.
Then he said, “Well?”
She nodded once. “I understand,” she said, although she didn’t. She didn’t come close to understanding.
“Good,” Kevin—or whatever it was—answered. He stood motionless for another minute. Then two.
Cait felt blood trickling down the side of her face.
She felt her eyes begin filling with tears.
And then her attacker turned and walked into the kitchen. A second later, Cait heard drawers being opened, utensils being dumped onto the floor.
She tried to control her rapidly rising panic. She had to make absolutely the right choices from this point on or she would likely die. She might die anyway.
That monster digging through the silverware in their kitchen was not Kevin. The man she lived with, made love to, and trusted more intimately than anyone else in the world would not treat her like this.
Kevin would not assault her and threaten her and point a loaded gun at her.
So she would have to treat him not like Kevin Dalton, the man she loved, but like a stranger with an unknown agenda and uncertain motives. She would have to treat him like…she flashed on Milo Cain, leaning over her prone body in her mother’s house in Revere, calmly peeling the skin away from her forearm. The similarities between the two situations were startling. But Milo Cain lay in a prison hospital fifteen hundred miles away, comatose and helpless, nothing more than a bad memory, left behind to rot in her past where he belonged.
She snapped back to the present and pictured their apartment’s front door, no more than twenty feet away, a slab of reinforced metal beckoning with the promise of freedom.
Maybe she could make it. She would have to climb off the couch, race down the hallway and past the kitchen, and then pull the door open before he could catch her from behind or shoot her in the back as she passed.
Had Kevin locked the door when he came home? She didn’t know, but guessed he probably had. He was a cop, after all, obsessed as all cops seemed to be with safety and security.
Of course he had locked the door. For him not to have locked it would represent a shift in character every bit as significant for him as what was going on right now. So she would have to unlock the door, too, before escaping. That would take precious time.
And just getting into the hallway would not be enough. Unless one of her neighbors happened to be entering or exiting their apartment and she could convince them to let her in and then lock the door behind them, the hallway would provide no margin of safety. She would be a sitting duck; the Kevin-thing could overtake her or shoot her without even breaking a sweat.
Still, it might be her only chance.
Anything would be better than lying here waiting for…whatever was going to happen next.
She would have to risk it.
She started to swing her legs onto the floor. The adrenaline filled her system like it was being pumped into her through a fire hose. Her head swam, she felt dizzy and weak from the beating she had taken.
Fight or flight. She had to try.
And then the opportunity was gone, because Kevin Dalton—or whatever Kevin had suddenly become—was back. She had missed out on what might be her only chance to escape an unknown fate. What probably would be her only chance.
He stood in the doorway studying her, hands clasped behind his back, his eyes somehow simultaneously blank and calculating.
“What’s this all about?” Cait said, speaking softly, knowing her only chance was to try to gain the upper hand. If that was even possible. Get him talking and keep him talking.
“This is about unfinished business,” the Kevin-thing said. “This is about putting people in their place and teaching them to keep their noses out of things that don’t concern them.” His voice rumbled from deep inside his chest, sounding completely unlike the man she knew. He sounded like some bizarre cyborg straight out of a low-budget science-fiction movie, the strange lack of inflection both terrifying and inexplicable. The sound no more resembled Kevin’s voice than his actions represented his normal personality.
Cait’s mind raced and she tried to focus on nothing but the need to keep this monster talking. She noticed he had holstered his gun and took that as a positive sign.
“Where did I put my nose that didn’t concern me?” She tried to keep her voice steady and more or less succeeded.
