Page 134 of The Night Before (Savannah 1)

Amanda looked directly at Caitlyn. “Can you imagine that? Having children with a man you knew was fucking his own half sister?” Amanda’s face darkened. Her lips twisted in disgust. “And not just that. Copper was having kids, too. Cameron couldn’t keep his dick in his pants, could he? And he didn’t know diddly squat about birth control. Not our sick bastard of a father. He just kept spawning kids. With two women. What an amoral prick. He deserved to die.”

She snipped off a bit of thread with her teeth and admired the cord she’d been braiding.

Caitlyn tried to concentrate, to keep hold of her wits as Amanda seemed obsessed with unburdening herself.

“It wasn’t just with Copper, you know. Dad had other mistresses.” Her jaw slid to the side as she glanced at Caitlyn. “Bet you didn’t know that even ever-faithful Lucille couldn’t resist him. I overheard her talking to him about it years later. Oh, she was crying and carrying on, promising to look after Mother, but the truth of the matter was she had a one-night stand with Cameron and bang-o, got herself pregnant.”

Caitlyn was horrified. What was Amanda saying? God, could this twisted woman really be her sister, the girl and woman she’d grown up with? “That’s right, Marta Vasquez, Lucille’s daughter was really our half sister. But Lucille managed to pass her off as her ex-husband’s. Why do you think Lucille took off so fast after Mom died? Because she figured it out. Knew that someone was killing off everyone close to the Montgomerys, including her daughter. I got lucky with that one. Marta was stupid enough to come to the office where I work, as the firm had handled Dad’s will. She was going to contest it because she’d found out that she was a Montgomery. I guess Lucille must have finally told her the truth. Who knows? Rather than go to one of the partners, Marta started with me. Luckily no one knew that we met. And so . . . I had to improvise.” Amanda’s gaze moved to the hideous family tree with its broken branches. There was a picture of Marta as a child.

Caitlyn felt sick.

Amanda nodded, as if to convince herself. “Oh, yeah, Marta had to go. Like the rest.” She hesitated, then added, “Including Dad.”

Caitlyn was still having trouble tracking the conversation, but Amanda helped her out.

“That’s right, I killed him. Didn’t know that, did you? No one did. But I did. I was with him in the car that day and I just grabbed hold of the damned steering wheel and forced him into the river. It helped that he was drunk but”—she smiled slyly—“the real trick of it all was that I’d already fiddled with his seat belt, made sure it wouldn’t hold.” She looked up at Caitlyn then, as if seeking approval for being so clever. “The seat belt was the easy part, though. Cutting off his testicle, that took a little more stamina, let me tell you. I had to surface, then take a couple of dives. Good thing I can hold my breath for a long time.”

Amanda the athlete. Of course. She could swim, shoot, run, row . . . you name it. Always an overachiever. Caitlyn trembled. She remembered seeing Cricket and Sugar in her bed . . . lying beneath the crawling insects, their eyes and mouths and other areas of soft tissue already devoured. Amanda had killed them . . . she’d killed all of them.

And without a doubt she’d planned Caitlyn’s fate as well. It was only a matter of time before she’d kill her. Caitlyn retched at the thought.

Amanda sighed. “You were always such a wimp, Cait. Such a weakling. Once Kelly disappeared, you were never the same. I orchestrated that, too. Wanted you both dead, but though Kelly presumably drowned, you survived and took on part of her personality. I’m surprised I’m the only one who caught on, but then the rest of the family was in such shock. You cracking up actually helped things along. Now, I had a scapegoat—I made sure that you were always around before I knocked someone off. Clever, don’t you think?”

You bitch!

The thought was foreign. As if it had come from somewhere else—the Kelly personality? No . . . Kelly wasn’t dead . . . Yes, she is. You’ve known it for a long time, you just wouldn’t face it.

No. I’m Kelly.

What? No . . . you’re Caitlyn. You’ve known it all along. Fight the blackouts, fight the urge to let Kelly take over, to hide from the pain. You have to stay clear. Fight. You have to save yourself. Caitlyn shivered inside, refused to close her eyes and as she did she noticed that her mind was clearing a bit. Her head throbbed but her vision was less blurred, her thoughts more connected.

She heard a noise and glanced to the floor. Oh God. Hannah, poor Hannah was tied and bound, her eyes as big as saucers, sweat rolling down her face.

Alive! She was alive! For a second Caitlyn felt a glimmer of hope, but it was short lived. Amanda wouldn’t set them free. Already she was cutting lengths of red and black thread, another braid to be cut and trimmed and added to the macabre family tree. Hannah didn’t appear drugged, just frightened out of her mind.

Think, Caitlyn, think! You have to save her. Save yourself. Somehow you’ve got to get out of here and soon. There isn’t much time.

“Oh . . .” Amanda saw her sisters exchange glances. “I guess you didn’t know that Hannah was here, too. She’s been waiting for you. I let her see the others—you know, the ones up in your room, Sugar and Cricket—damned interlopers, so she understands what’s going to happen.”

Behind her gag Hannah made mewling noises.

“Shut up!” Amanda shouted at Hannah, kicking at her, then looked at Caitlyn again. “She always was spoiled. Talked back. She goes, too. And Troy . . . I haven’t quite decided. I won’t be able to blame his death on you, so I’ll have to make it look like he was involved in a horrible accident, kind of like the fire that took Copper Biscayne’s life.” Arching an eyebrow she said silently that she’d killed Copper.

Hannah was screaming behind her gag, trying to roll on the floor.

“I said, ‘shut up!’ Do you want me to give you a shot of what I gave Caitlyn? Christ, you’ve been a pain ever since I called you from Caitlyn’s, pretended to be her and invited you ‘out to dinner.’ And,” she added with a touch of sick humor, “uh-oh, you never made it to any restaurant. Instead you disappeared, didn’t you? No one could find poor Hannah and even her older sister, Amanda, was frantic.” Amanda laughed to herself. “Don’t play the victim, okay. This isn’t a B-horror flick.”

Hannah was blinking hard now. Terrified. Tears welled in her eyes and Caitlyn, too, wanted to crumple. To hide. To pretend it was a dream and hope she’d wake up . . .

Stop it! For crying out loud, there’s no one here to help you, Caitie-Did! This is no time to be a wuss. You have to save yourself. To save Hannah. To save me. Kelly’s voice was loud as it pounded through Caitlyn’s brain.

What could she do . . . what? Her mind was racing, searching for answers, her gaze traveling from Hannah’s terrorized face to the deadly calm of Amanda . . . Atropos, who kept on braiding, weaving the hideous red and black cords.

“You know, I worked it all out,” she was saying, as if letting Caitlyn in on a deep secret. “I made sure I killed all of them right after you’d seen them. Remember when you visited Aunt Alice Ann? Remember you told me about it? And then the attempts on Amanda’s life, I made sure you’d been over and in the garage, that you’d touched the TR so that your fingerprints would be on it. Amanda had to appear a victim,” she said and Caitlyn realized she was Atropos now, the murderess, a separate entity from her older sister.

Come on, Caitlyn, try to move. Try, damn it!

“I knew you were so fragile, that you wouldn’t remember.” Atropos looked up from her work for a second. “You should never have told me about your meetings with the shrink. That’s what tipped me off. I knew something was happening, that you were changing, becoming stronger, but I didn’t realize what it was all about until I witnessed the change myself after your hypnosis therapy. I saw the transformation once, when you were really upset and your adrenalin was pumping. It was weird the first time, seeing the Kelly personality emerge, but then I realized what the trigger was, how to get your heart rate up, h

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