“And if it is?” her voice croaked, foreign to her own ears.
“We’ll make it through. We’ll survive. You’ll survive.”
“And Nikki won’t. Just like when we were kids.”
“Risa…”
“Go.”
“You’ll stay here?”
She nodded.
“I’ll come back. As soon as I know.” Trent swung the car door open and climbed out. Cool spring air rushed into the interior, the scents of spruce and lilac strong and sweet. The door slammed behind him.
For a moment Risa merely sat still, breath coming in gasps. Her mind swirled with images of tangled hair and pale, dead eyes. Images of Dryden’s evil she’d seen while studying him. The thought that Nikki had been victimized by that evil sent waves of panic crashing through her.
No matter what she told Trent, she couldn’t stay in the car. Horrific or not, she had to see. She had to know if the dead woman was Nikki. Risa couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe until she knew.
She grasped the handle of her door, the metal cold and solid under her fingers. Gathering her strength, she shoved the door open. Her head pounded. A hum rose in her ears. Hefting herself from the car, she forced her legs to support her weight.
One step. Two steps.
Risa teetered across her lawn toward the police lights, toward the front porch of her house. She was already within the police barrier. Just a straight shot across the yard. The grass dragged at her shoes. The scents of spring swamped her, sticky as sweet syrup in the humid air.
Three steps. Four.
The hum grew louder in her head, drowning out the murmur of voices, drowning out the pounding of her heart. She walked on. Over the grass. Through the plantings. Up the cement walk. Closer and closer to the gathering of people. Closer and closer to the front porch.
Closer and closer to death.
Nikki.
The cloying odor of raw flesh reached her, covered her, clogged her throat. Still she forged ahead. She had to see for herself. She had to know.
The hum choked out all other sound, like mind-numbing static. Her heart felt as if it was about to burst, her lungs about to collapse. She took the final steps to the porch, nudging between the circle of cops and technicians. Shoving her way through.
“Rees.” From out of nowhere, Trent lunged for her, grasping her arm, trying to pull her away.
Too late.
Red glistened from the open chest of the sprawled woman. The open belly. Her brown hair was tangled around her pale face. Her hollow eyes stared.
Not Nikki.
Not Nikki.
Farrentina Hamilton.
Horror and relief swept through Risa in a powerful wave. Her knees buckled. Her stomach retched. Strong arms grabbed her, pulled her close, and swept her away.
Risa clung to Trent, burying her face in his shoulder. Her body trembled in fits and spurts, like shock waves after an earthquake. Horror numbed her mind.
Trent
Trent held Rees tight against him even after her shaking had waned. He shouldn’t have left her in the car alone. He hadn’t been thinking. If he had, he would have realized Risa would have to see the body for herself. She would have to know if it was her sister. He never should have allowed her to reach the porch.
To witness Dryden’s work.
He pressed his cheek to her hair and breathed in her scent. Over the top of her head, he could see Subera directing evidence technicians. Now that they had a second body on their hands, Subera would use anything at his disposal to bring Dryden down. And Cassidy would make sure that Rees was at the top of the list.
Unless Trent could provide an alternative.
“You have to go,” he said.
She peered up at him. “I’m fine. I’ll be fine.”
Her voice was firm, but her dilated pupils and the deathly white pallor of her skin told a different story. But as much as he hated to let her out of the circle of his arms, he had to. His embrace might have been comforting at the moment she saw Farrentina’s body. But in the long-term, he would only bring her more pain.
If he wanted to comfort Risa, the one thing he could do was his job.
“I’ll get a deputy to take you back to the hotel and stand guard outside your door. It’s hard to say when I’ll get back. I want to study the evidence here and attend the autopsy. And then there’s the warden and Cassidy and the guards Farrentina bribed.”
“So it will be a while.”
“Yes.”
“Chief Schneider wanted to ask me some questions about Nikki. Will you tell him to come to the hotel?”
“You need to rest, Rees.”
“While Dryden does to Nikki what he did to Farrentina?” She shook her head. “I have to do whatever I can to stop him. And so do you.”
“All right,” he said. There was no use arguing. Rees would drive herself into the ground if it meant even a sliver of a chance Nikki would return home alive. And he couldn’t blame her. He’d done the same for people he’d never met. “I’ll give Schneider the message.”
“I’ll be fine, Trent.” She managed a shaky smile, a smile that didn’t fool him for a minute. “Just find Nikki. Before...”
“I will.” He looked into her dark eyes then forced himself to let her go.
Nikki
Nikki shook another cigarette free from its pack and pinched it between her aching lips. Her hands were still shaking so badly, it took her three tries before she could get the lighter to work. She held flame to tobacco and drew.
The smoke burned a little, no cool menthol like the kind she and her friends had smoked in the gully behind their high school. She waited for the chill feeling she’d always gotten back then, but it was out of reach.
She suspected she’d never feel chill again.
The screams had stopped hours ago, but Eddie hadn’t come back. Not yet. At first Nikki hadn’t known what to do. She’d paced. She’d cut the barbs off the end of the fish hooks with a wire cutter and pulled them out of her lip. She’d cleaned the cabin floor, sweeping, then washing it with a rag and pine cleaner she’d found under the sink. Another cabinet yielded a carton of smokes, so she’d been focused on them since.
Trying to calm down.
Trying to make sense.
An engine hummed from outside the cabin. Tires popped over gravel. The slam of a single car door.
Nikki took another drag, her trembling not lessening one bit. She could only hope the car outside belonged to the cops. That they’d arrest her, take her away, lock her up where she could never see Eddie again. But when the door opened, Eddie walked in.
“You’re still here. Good girl.”
“I… I have nowhere else to go.”
“That’s right.”
Eddie rummaged through a cupboard, finally pulling out a bottle of whiskey covered in dust. He opened the bottle and took a swig, not bothering to offer it to Nikki. He sat next to her, the old hide-a-bed couch creaking under his weight.
Nikki finished smoking then lit up another. She was starting her second pack by the time she got up the nerve to ask. “Who was she to you?”
“Who?”
“Farrentina. The woman you killed.”
“What does that matter?”
“She visited you. At Banesbridge. Before we got married.”
“And after.”
Nikki couldn’t even manage to feel hurt. All she could think about was Farrentina. Nikki had seen her waiting at the prison after Nikki emerged from the visiting room. The woman was beautiful, glamorous, someone who stuck in your head. Nikki’d never guessed they were there to see the same man.