After Midnight, page 9
“I wish I could be more like you,” Cait said thoughtfully. “I worry about everything.”
* * *
The Boston hotel Cait had stayed in last summer with Kevin had been clean and comfortable, if not exactly plush. So it was the first place she had decided to check for lodging, and when she discovered rooms were available, Cait had reserved a double for her and Virginia.
The cab ride from Logan was uneventful—at least as uneventful as possible given the reckless abandon with which everyone in this city seemed to approach driving—and now Cait and her mother busied themselves by unpacking their bags and filling the little dresser located at the foot of the two single beds with clothing.
The stay would be a short one, and while she guessed Kevin’s inclination would have been to toss their suitcase on top of the writing desk in one corner of the room and remove things as needed, Cait knew her mother would want to get comfortable and the fact was she felt the same way.
The two women worked without speaking. Cait had felt strong and empowered when they left Tampa, as if by coming here she was moving in the right direction, taking action to solve this bizarre problem as opposed to waiting in fear to see what might happen next.
But checking into this hotel, stepping into this room, had changed all that. It reminded her of Kevin, and all she could think about was him lying injured in a hospital room, under armed guard, facing charges he had little chance of defending himself against successfully.
Maybe they should have chosen a different hotel after all. Maybe staying in the place she had shared with Kevin was a bad idea. Picturing him helpless and alone was causing a chain reaction of emotions she didn’t need, especially right now. What was she really doing here? What did she hope to accomplish? How could a comatose Milo Cain even bear any responsibility for what had happened?
She sighed and Virginia seemed to sense her despondence. “Hang in there,” she said quietly. “You’re doing the right thing.”
“I hope so,” Cait answered, unable to stop her voice from cracking.
Virginia sat on the edge of one of the beds and patted the spread with one hand. “You look exhausted,” she said. “You always look exhausted lately. We have a couple of hours before dinner, why don’t you lie down? Take a short nap. I’ll stay right here with you, I’ll watch Oprah or something, and you can get a little much-needed rest.”
Cait couldn’t help smiling. She had only known Virginia Ayers for a few months, but she couldn’t picture the frail-looking but deceptively tough old bird ever sitting down and watching an entire episode of Oprah or any other talk show.
Still, a couple of hours sleep under the watchful eye of her mother sounded wonderful, and she said, “I think that’s a great idea. Maybe things will look better when I wake up.”
She didn’t believe the words even as she was speaking them, but decided to give it a try anyway.
* * *
And it helped.
Sort of.
Cait slept on and off for maybe two hours, aware in some far-off corner of her brain that she was sleeping poorly, tossing and turning and moaning and muttering. Still, she did get some rest, and when she finally threw back the covers and sat up in her bed, yawning and rubbing the sleep out of her eyes, Cait had to admit she felt marginally better.
She was still keyed up, worried about Kevin and as unsure as ever about what she hoped to accomplish in Boston. Her stomach was wrapped in knots and she could feel the tension thrumming inside her body like electricity flowing through a high-tension wire.
But at least some of the exhaustion had receded, not really disappearing but fading into the background. For now. Cait had no doubt it was lurking just out of sight, ready to charge back in and take control, but sleep had been a precious commodity the last few days, even more so than usual, and she wasn’t about to complain about getting some.
She looked to the right, at the identical double bed next to hers with an ancient nightstand placed in between. Virginia returned her gaze steadily, her eyes clear and bright despite her otherwise feeble appearance.
Cait ran her hands through her tangled hair in a fruitless attempt to straighten it a little. “Did you get any sleep?” she asked.
“I didn’t try,” her mother said. “I wasn’t tired.”
Cait nodded in the direction of the television, which Virginia had apparently never turned on. “Couldn’t find Oprah?”
“I lied about watching her,” Virginia said without a trace of embarrassment. “I can’t stand that windbag.”
Cait laughed. “So what did you do while I was sleeping?”
“I watched over you.”
“Wasn’t that a little…I don’t know…boring?”
“Quite the contrary, honey. I lost you when you were less than twenty-four hours old, missed out on three decades with you. I never saw your first steps, never watched you lose your first tooth. No piano lessons, no first dates, no graduations. I missed out on so much, and the worst part was the knowledge that I would never get to know you.
“When you came back into my life, it was the most frightened I had ever been. The reason we were forced to break up our family in the first place was the knowledge of the awful history of twins in this bloodline. The history of murder. If we had raised the both of you, you would never have survived; Milo was destined to kill you. Hundreds of years of bloodshed had proven that point beyond any doubt.
“But when I saw you standing at my front door that day last summer, in addition to being the most terrifying moment of my life, it was also the happiest. Seeing the beautiful and successful young woman you’ve become has made every second of heartache worthwhile. I’m so fortunate to have gotten to know you, so fortunate you’re finally back in my life. And now that I’ve gotten that second chance, I want to make the most of every single minute we have together. Sitting with you while you sleep is about as far from boring as it could possibly be for me.”
Tears welled up in Virginia’s eyes as she talked, and Cait realized with some surprise that she had begun crying as well. She thought back to the first three decades of her life, to all the nights she cried herself to sleep wondering what was wrong with her, why her own mother had considered her so worthless and damaged as to be beyond even attempting to save.
She knew now that as much as she had suffered over those thirty years, the toll on Virginia had been far worse. Giving up both her children just hours after their birth, questioning herself daily about the wisdom of her decision for years after, seeing her husband succumb to the unending numbness in his soul and take his own life, and then finding her daughter years later only to discover her son had become one of the most notorious serial killers in the history of the United States, all of it had aged her far beyond her years.
It had sapped her vitality.
It had practically killed her.
And yet here she sat with Cait, accompanying her on what would undoubtedly prove to be the wildest of wild-goose chases, not just uncomplaining but actually happy to be here.
It made Cait realize that as unfortunate as she had thought she was for all those years, she was that lucky and more now. She swiped at her eyes with a sleeve and sniffled. “I love you, too,” she said simply. “Now let’s figure out how we’re going to get to the bottom of what’s going on here.”
* * *
Milo Cain lay motionless in his empty room. He was always motionless, and his room was nearly always empty, the only exception being those few minutes every day when a nursing crew would bustle in, changing linens, bathing him, refreshing his colostomy bag and changing his clothes.
Milo hated those few minutes and every day spent them counting the seconds, impatient for them to be over. Fortunately, given his status as a reviled and feared sociopath, the nurses were none too anxious to hang around—it was as if they feared his illness might be contagious—and they hurried through their tasks as quickly as possible, gossiping and chatting as they worked, but wasting no time on this particular chore.
They had, of course, no idea Milo could hear and understand them, although he doubted it would have made any difference if they had. And he didn’t care either way.
The nurses and guards didn’t matter. All that mattered was that they do what they had to do and go away, leaving him alone to think. And to plan, which was what he was doing now.
The room was cool and quiet. Empty. And Milo was lost in thought, trying to calculate the best time to slip back inside Caitlyn Connelly’s head and begin to put his plan in motion. Doing so would come with a cost, he now knew. He would suffer extreme exhaustion, and it would grow significantly worse the longer he stayed inside her.
It was a price well worth paying, but it was important he plan properly, so as to get the most bang for his buck. So to speak.
So he considered. And he calculated. He knew The Evil Bitch was planning to fly up here to New England. What the hell she thought she might accomplish by doing so was beyond him, but Milo realized that was irrelevant. He was unable to push suggestions into his twin sister’s consciousness, so he couldn’t stop her from coming, and that was the relevant factor.
She was coming.
And given the fact that he knew she was coming, he tried to estimate when she might get here. That was critical, because when she arrived, he planned on finishing her off once and for all.
For a while he had considered doing it while she was still in Tampa, but with lover boy Kevin Dalton in custody she now lived alone for the time being, and there was no real way of knowing when she might be around other people. Popping into her skull while she was in her apartment packing for her trip would do him no good and would just waste effort for no good reason. Same thing if he entered her head while she was driving to the airport. Unless someone else was in the car with her, he would be helpless to hurt her.
But once she arrived in Boston, there would be people around her almost constantly. She wasn’t coming all the way up the coast just to sit alone in a hotel room, so as long as he didn’t jump into her head very early in the morning or very late in the evening, he knew he had an excellent chance of catching her around other people.
People he could use to kill her.
And that was what he needed.
The problem was that the concept of time for someone trapped comatose inside his own body was much different than for a normal person, who could gauge the passage of it easily by glancing at a clock, or by observing the sun rising or setting, or in any of a hundred other ways.
Milo didn’t have that luxury. But he did have the daily nurse’s visits, which he had determined almost always occurred around mid-afternoon. That being the case, he guessed it now to be late afternoon. He felt confident Connelly would not have wasted any time booking a flight to Boston once she had made her mind up to come, so she had probably already arrived in the city.
All of these calculations meant that the odds were good she would be out in public, most likely either sitting down to dinner in a restaurant or in a cab on her way to eat. If he was wrong, and she was alone when he popped into her head, he would simply stay for a short time, try to get the lay of the land and some idea when she would no longer be alone, then exit quickly and wait for a better opportunity.
But he didn’t think he was wrong.
He was hardly ever wrong.
17
The Crow’s Nest Grill and Tavern was located on the waterfront in downtown Boston, just north of the New England Aquarium. Despite its rather pedestrian-sounding name, The Crow’s Nest was home to what the locals almost universally acknowledged as the finest and freshest seafood available, and in a town like Boston, that was saying something.
Virginia hadn’t eaten at The Crow’s Nest in ages. Even in the years before Robert’s suicide, money had been tight; afterward, making ends meet was a continual struggle, and dining out at any restaurant that didn’t feature a drive-through window along the side of the building wouldn’t have been feasible financially even if she had wanted to, which she didn’t.
But Cait’s trip to New England last summer hadn’t included much sightseeing—they had been far too busy trying to stay alive to play tourist—and this time Virginia was determined to give her daughter at least a small taste of life in the Northeast.
Besides, her concern for Cait’s wellbeing was growing almost by the minute. With all that had happened, the poor girl looked on the verge of a nervous breakdown. The formerly hard-charging, self-confident lawyer was pale and drawn, with dark circles under her eyes and a defeated stoop to her shoulders.
She had been beaten down and she needed a few hours to do nothing but relax. They would have dinner and a couple of drinks, then hopefully get a good night’s sleep and be ready for tomorrow.
At the door, a smiling young man greeted them. He was dressed in old-time seafarer’s garb, or at least what Virginia assumed was meant to be old-time seafarer’s garb. The restaurant was brightly lit, clean and busy, and the young man led them to a table not far from a massive plate-glass window facing the open water of the Atlantic Ocean.
“Have you dined with us before?” the man asked, pulling Virginia’s chair out for her and then doing the same for Cait’s.
“Not in more than thirty years,” Virginia answered.
“Then you’re in for a treat. During the warm weather, our outdoor patio is available for dining. This time of year, obviously it’s a bit too chilly for that, so you’ll have to make do with an indoor experience. Still, people have been enjoying The Crow’s Nest for nearly fifty years, in all weather conditions.”
He waited for them to get settled and then said, “Your server will be along in a moment. Please, if you need anything, don’t hesitate to ask, and have a wonderful evening.” Then he was off.
The view was spectacular, and Virginia was treated to the sight of Cait’s eyes widening in awe as she took in the panorama. Darkness was falling but a little daylight remained, steel-gray as a result of solidly overcast skies. The Atlantic looked turbulent, threatening.
“It’s…wonderful,” Cait exclaimed.
Virginia laughed and said, “You’ve lived in Tampa your entire life, haven’t you?”
Cait nodded, her eyes still fixed on the view outside the big window.
“Well, you must have seen the ocean thousands of times, then.”
She shook her head. “Not like this. The Gulf Coast can be stormy, obviously, but there the waters look tropical and inviting most of the time. This is different. It looks forbidding, like we’re being warned away.”
“Well,” Virginia said, “that friendly young man just informed us The Crow’s Nest has been here for almost a half century, so I think we’ll be safe enough from Mother Nature’s wrath while we’re here.”
Cait dragged her gaze reluctantly away from the picture window and mumbled, “It’s not Mother Nature I’m worried about.”
Virginia watched her daughter, saying nothing, staring steadily until Cait was forced to glance up at her. “Let’s not forget why we’re here,” she said quietly. “We didn’t fly fifteen hundred miles just to eat fresh clam chowder and lobsters and enjoy the view, as wonderful as it is. We’re going to hash out a game plan.”
“I know,” Cait said. She seemed to make a conscious effort to relax. “But sometimes it seems so hopeless. As horrible as that day was last summer inside your house, I thought we had turned a corner, and things were going to be…I don’t know…normal. Whatever that means.”
A bubbly young woman brought menus and took their drink orders and then bounced away. Virginia waited until she was gone and said, “One thing I learned a long time ago is that life will never be normal for those of us in this bloodline, at least where twins are concerned. I’ve researched our family history exhaustively, both online and through hard copies of birth records, etc., going back hundreds of years in some cases.”
“And?” Cait had picked up her menu and Virginia thought she was scanning it for dinner choices, but when Virginia looked across the table, her daughter’s intense blue eyes were above the menu top, locked onto her.
“And most of what I’ve learned you already know. Twin births have been prevalent throughout our history, much more so than in the general population by a factor of ten to twenty times. And in every case I could find, those twin births were followed by the murder of one by the other, sometimes in their youth, sometimes in adulthood, but always, without exception, in a gruesome manner.”
Cait was watching her without speaking. Virginia took a deep breath and continued. “Now, where the births were not twins, the children seem to have developed normally and grown into typical adults, with the exception of the ability you’re so familiar with, the ability to see Flickers.
“But it’s probably not realistic to expect your life ever to be normal, honey, at least not as the term ‘normal’ is generally understood. But that doesn’t mean you can’t have a happy, fulfilling life.”
“It does until people stop trying to kill me.” She lowered the menu and gazed with haunted eyes at Virginia. “I keep going back and forth about Milo being responsible. It just seems so unlikely, but it’s the only explanation I can come up with for what Kevin did to me. His actions Friday night were brutal, and he’s simply not a brutal man. He’s never been anything but kind and gentle and accommodating to me since the day we met.”
The waitress returned and Virginia ordered for both of them. Cait was so distracted Virginia doubted she would be able to handle the simple task, and she knew what Cait would like, anyway: lobster dinner with a side of New England clam chowder.
As the waitress disappeared into the kitchen with their order, Virginia took a moment to consider how to proceed. Then she said, “Lots of people given up for adoption choose to investigate their roots when they get older, so the fact that you did so isn’t unusual. But in your case there was another reason as well, wasn’t there?”
