Page 125 of The Night Before (Savannah 1)

Hannah wasn’t here. She should just leave now. But she started for the stairs and was certain she heard soft voices and thin music playing, coming from upstairs. Fear pounded in her heart. Don’t be a wuss. You’ve climbed these stairs a million times in your life. For God’s sake, Caitlyn, you’re being foolish. It’s broad daylight. This was your mother’s home. Yours.

Taking in a deep breath, she climbed to the landing, and the sound of music grew louder. Maybe Hannah had dropped off while watching television. She walked up the stairs but stopped. Hannah’s door was open. The light off. No radio or television playing.

But there was in Caitlyn’s room. The door was closed, but the muted sounds were definitely emanating from the other side of her room at the far end of the hall. Music. Vaguely familiar. She hesitated, watched the shafts of sunlight pierce the colored glass of the skylight above the landing, and told herself it was now or never. She could leave and never open the door, she could call Kelly or Troy or Adam and wait for them to show up, or she could just goddamned show some guts and walk into the bedroom where only a few days before she’d slept in her old canopied bed.

Or . . . the door to Charles’s old room was open as well. Swallowing back her fear, she eased into the room. It wasn’t disturbed. Had been left the way he’d had it when, at nineteen, he’d been killed. Athletic trophies lined a shelf, his high school letter, faded now, was still pinned to a bulletin board, and beside his bed, in the nightstand, should be his pistol. She opened the drawer and there was the little gun . . . just as he’d left it.

No bullets were in the chamber and she had no idea where . . . Her eyes narrowed on one of his shooting trophies, one that was a cup. Years ago, before he’d died, she’d seen him empty this little pistol and place the bullets in the cup. “To be safe,” he’d told her and winked when he’d caught her watching from outside the door. Could it be? Would she be so lucky? She took the cup from its resting place and sure enough, along with an unused and ancient condom, was a box of tiny bullets. Before she could think twice, she loaded the gun and slipped the rest of the box in her purse

. Then, armed and dangerous, she eyed the only closed door on the second floor.

“Go for it,” she muttered, disregarding the sweat prickling her scalp and the warning hairs rising on the back of her arms. Her running shoes were muffled against the hall runner as she forced herself down the hallway and twisted the doorknob.

The door opened, and she walked into the room.

She wasn’t alone.

Two women, two naked women, were lying tied to her bed.

Caitlyn gasped. Stepped back. Terror gripped her as the television flickered. Tied to the headboard, Sugar Biscayne and her sister Cricket stared sightlessly at her. They were dead; their flesh, where it hadn’t been bitten or eaten, white where it was covered by mounds and mounds of white crystals. Pounds of sugar that in turn was crawling with insects. Ants. Crickets. Flies. Hornets. Music pulsed through the room, was playing from a small CD player set up in the corner, the same song over and over . . . Pour some sugar on me . . . The television flickered with some muted cooking show.

Stumbling backward, Caitlyn half fell into the hallway. Her stomach heaved as she scrambled to her feet and fled down the stairs. She had to get out of here, to leave before whoever it was that did this, found her.

She flew out of the house, leaving the door open. Her heart was pounding wildly, fear pumping through her blood. She found her keys. Slid behind the wheel, could barely think, barely jab the key into the ignition. “Come on, come on,” she muttered as her fingers trembled and fumbled. She twisted on the ignition.

Nothing happened.

What? Oh, God, no!

Frantically she pumped the gas and tried again. “Come on, come on!” she cried. Oh, this was no good. No good. Her heart was jackhammering, pounding crazily, her pulse leaping. She felt it then, that horrible feeling that she might lose consciousness, the blackness threatening to swallow her. She wouldn’t let it. Couldn’t. But the damned car wouldn’t start.

Don’t panic. You have a gun.

But what good would this tiny weapon be against an unseen enemy who had killed so many?

She found her cell phone and dialed Adam’s number and left a panicked message.

Call the police.

The blackness was pulling at her mind. Trying to drag her under. She started to dial the phone again. A simple number. 911. But before she could punch the numbers, the phone rang in her hand. Relieved, trying to keep the world from spinning, she pressed the talk button. “Adam? I’m at Oak Hill and something terrible’s happened. People are dead and my car won’t start and . . . and . . .”

“Mommy?” a child’s breathless voice whispered.

“Oh, God, no!” It couldn’t be. It wasn’t Jamie . . . or was it? Things were beginning to jumble. She was breathing so hard, so fast, her heartbeat racing out of control.

“Mommy . . . I can’t find you . . .”

“Baby! Jamie? Mommy’s right here . . .”

“Mommy, I’m scared . . .”

“I am too, baby, I am too,” she said and suddenly she lost control, was slipping away, fading . . . oh, God . . . She shuddered, fought the overwhelming feeling and lost. She was no longer herself . . .

Jesus H. Christ, Kelly thought, slipping easily to the fore. Caitlyn had always been too mentally frail, a weakling, one of those simpering, feeble women that Kelly had always hated. A loser with a capital L.

Well, she wasn’t here right now, was she? She’d disappeared. Maybe now she would be lost forever. Gone. Vanished. And that was good. It was time for Kelly to be in control.

In the sterile sanctuary, Atropos clicked off the recorder. Caitlyn’s maternal instincts were so predictable. So easily evoked. A tape recording of her dead child’s voice and she’d come running. Even though she knew the kid was dead.

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