Page 126 of The Night Before (Savannah 1)

But then, Caitlyn never had been all together, now had she?

And it had only worsened with time. As a child she’d had an imaginary friend in Griffin . . . someone to play with when her siblings, especially Kelly, who tormented her sister, were busy. Griffin had emerged after the episode when Caitlyn had been locked away with dead Nana. Atropos smiled. Even Nana hadn’t suspected that her tea was being doctored, that her frailty was manufactured.

After the trauma with Nana, Caitlyn had found solace in her little pretend friend. She’d gone on and on about Griffin to the point that Berneda had forbidden her to ever speak of him. Refused anyone’s suggestion that Caitlyn needed help; she was just a child with an imaginary friend. What was the harm in that? And Berneda hadn’t wanted to believe that any of her children could have been afflicted with the Montgomery curse, that they might be mentally unstable.

So Griffin, the invisible, had stayed with Caitlyn and was there when she’d discovered Charles’s body buried deep in the snow. An imaginary friend or the first evidence of schizophrenia? What did it matter? Caitlyn was a fruitcake. Had really lost it after the boating accident.

As she thought of Caitlyn, Atropos snipped at the pictures of Cricket and Sugar. She’d gotten the snapshot of Cricket from her driver’s license, a pretty ugly shot, but she didn’t need much. Atropos cut off Cricket’s head and attached it to a bug’s body . . . yes, that was a nice touch. And for Sugar, the cunt, she used the Polaroid she’d found in Sugar’s lover’s wallet . . . a naked shot of Sugar spread-eagled on a bed. The picture was sickening, but would be perfect for the gnarled family tree with its broken, falling branch reserved for the Biscaynes.

With relish, Atropos mangled the damning photograph by snipping off Sugar’s breasts and the juncture of her legs. She glued both pieces to the wrapper of a small packet of sugar Atropos had slipped into her purse when she’d visited the coffee bar a few days earlier. She slipped Sugar’s head into the packet, so that only her eyes were visible. Perfect. So now they were ready to mount with their life cords. Little Cricket complete with antennae, wings and insect legs. Atropos pinned her to her branch as if she were a butterfly to be displayed upon a velvet background and ran the life cord to the main trunk of the tree. Next, she stuck the empty packet of sugar with a set of boobs and cunt attached, to the same twisted branch and added Sugar’s life cord.

She admired her work, but only for a minute. She had so much more to do, and time was running out.

Thirty-Two

Adam didn’t go straight back to his car. After slipping out of Kacie Griffin’s house, he’d explored the grounds, found nothing significant other than a few fairly fresh oil stains in the carport, then taken a short path that cut through the trees to the river. The cabin sat up from the water, the deck having a view of the river and beyond, to the far shore where, as Caitlyn had told him, Oak Hill stood. There was no dock, but a small canoe had been pulled into the tall grass and weeds, oars and a flashlight tucked inside. The flashlight looked new, and when he switched it on it worked, its beam bright in the coming dusk. Insects buzzed and whirled around the light, and he clicked it off to gaze across the darkening, ever shifting river.

Something was wrong . . . evil. Something malicious lurked unseen in the gloom. Something that followed Caitlyn around as closely as her own shadow, something he didn’t understand.

Something? Something? How about everything?

He’d lingered several hours at the cabin by the river, hoping someone might show up—Kacie? Kelly? Or someone else. He’d walked the shore, stepped in the stream by mistake and eventually sat on a flat boulder and tossed stones into the water, watching the ever-widening ripples as he thought and wondered about Caitlyn. He cared for her. Big time. More than he should have. She was the first woman since Rebecca whom he’d allowed to get so close to him.

And she was the most complicated.

You mean the most screwed up.

Caitlyn and Kelly. Twins. They spun and blended in his mind, so alike yet, according to Caitlyn, so different. And Kelly was dead. Or so everyone thought, everyone but Caitlyn. Even though Kelly’s body had never been found. The family had buried her and buried her deep. In the cemetery where Josh Bandea

ux, her father and brothers were buried, Kelly Griffin Montgomery had been interred, with or without a body. She had a grave with a headstone; he’d seen it himself, and the permanence of that etched marble pounded into the earth had caused his skin to prickle with goose bumps.

Caitlyn believed it was all a lie. That Kelly was just in hiding because of a big rift in the family. A major rift; one that couldn’t be bridged.

The truth?

Or what she wanted to believe?

Was Kelly real?

Or a ghost?

Shit, now he was wearing out. No ghosts. Just overactive and wishful imagination. Caitlyn was troubled, made up imaginary friends, hadn’t been able to suffer the loss of her sister in the boating accident and so had conjured her up, brought her back to life.

Standing, he dusted his hands and glanced across the river to Oak Hill. It stood on a bluff overlooking the river, about half a mile downstream. From here he could stare at the old manor and wondered how often Kacie, whoever she was, did.

He looked at the pictures he’d taken from the cabin and had slipped into his pocket, a group of odd photographs of Caitlyn and Kelly, Amanda, Hannah, Troy, and, he presumed, Charles. There was even a snapshot of a baby, probably Parker, the one who had died of SIDS.

Or been killed.

So many deaths. At Kelly’s hand? Caitlyn’s? Someone else’s? He had to talk to Caitlyn and then go to the police with what he knew. First he’d advise Caitlyn to get a lawyer, tell her he would help her as best he could. You can’t tell the police anything; you’re her counselor, her mental doctor.

But he had to save her from whom?

More and more he felt he was trying to save her from herself.

If that was possible.

Disturbed at the turn of his thoughts, he jogged back to the car as twilight was descending. Out here, where he could see the sky, a million stars were winking, and the scent of the river was strong. Frogs began to croak, insects to sing. It could have been peaceful but for the underlying feeling of evil. Ever present and pervasive. Opening the hatchback of his little car, he searched for a rag to wipe off his shoe and spied the backpack Rebecca had kept hanging in her closet, the one he’d found in her office. He’d always thought the backpack had been out of place there, one of the few things she’d kept from their life together. It was worn and frayed and he’d used it to haul some things from her office. There had been nothing in it when he’d found it, and it was nearly empty now.

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