Page 49 of The Night Before (Savannah 1)

She wrote a check hastily and handed it to him.

“I’ll refund this when the insurance payment comes through,” he promised, feeling even more guilt.

“Fine.” She offered him a shy smile that touched him in a way he hadn’t expected. “Thanks, Dr. Hunt.”

“Adam,” he insisted. “I like to keep things casual.”

“Adam, then.” She nodded curtly and he stood in the doorway to Rebecca’s office, watching her hurry down the stairs, not once glancing over her shoulder. God, she was an intriguing woman. Beautiful, bright and troubled. So troubled.

He looked at her check, the flourish of her signature, knowing that she was building trust in him. He winced against another sharp jab of guilt.

Maybe his grandmother was right. Maybe there was never a good reason to lie. He could tear the check up right now, or he could use it to get a little more information about Caitlyn Montgomery and hence, perhaps, Rebecca Wade. He didn’t hesitate a second, just folded the check with a sharp crease and slipped it into his wallet.

Seated at the table in her private space, Atropos closed her eyes. She needed peace. She needed rest. She needed to calm the rage that burned and clawed. She thought of ice and snow, of a serene time when her hectic work would be done. Slowly, starting with her toes, she relaxed each muscle in her body, up her legs and torso, letting her arms and shoulders go limp, easing the tension from the muscles of her face, clearing her mind.

She had to be clearheaded. Calm. Deadly. She couldn’t afford to make a mistake. Not now . . . not after so many years of planning. When her mind was free again, she stood and stared at the skeletal family tree she’d erected. There, on the appropriate, unforgiving limb, was Cameron.

The son.

And the father.

Now the not-so-holy ghost.

He’d died at the wheel of his Porsche when it missed a corner and slid into the swamp, where he drowned. He’d been on his way to visit Copper Biscayne, his lover, an

d as fate would have it, Cameron in the freak accident had not only lost his life, but one of his balls as well. It appeared to have been sliced off when he’d been thrown through the windshield; shards of glass had still been imbedded in his scrotum. That piece of information had never made it to the press; there was no mention of the lost testicle in any of the articles that Atropos had so meticulously clipped from every paper that reported Cameron’s death. Cameron’s picture had been sliced, then pasted onto the family tree. The colors had faded somewhat, but the snapshot had been taken of Cameron with his three bastard children . . . Sugar, Dickie Ray and Cricket. Atropos wasn’t certain they were all his, but it was possible, if not likely.

Yes, Cameron had deserved his end.

Another limb belonged to Charles. The eldest son. The golden boy who could do no wrong. Gifted athlete, college graduate, and honed into the image of his proud father. Charles had been set on a course from a young age to run the family businesses. Unfortunately, he’d been shot by an errant bow hunter one Thanksgiving holiday. Atropos smiled as she stared at his reconstructed picture. He’d been standing over the top of a trophy kill, a very dead bear, the first beast Charles had killed with his bow. The picture had been sliced up, of course, then carefully pasted back together so that it seemed as if the bear had killed Charles.

How fitting. It just seemed more like the natural order of things.

There were other limbs that were filled in as well, but Atropos didn’t have time to bask in each murder. Not when there was so much work to be done. She wondered if anyone, the police or Montgomery family members, realized that the killings were not random, that the causes of death were planned to perfection, that there was a bit of irony in each. How easy it would have been to buy a stolen gun and shoot her victims while they were alone. But that wasn’t the point. It wasn’t just the erasure of a life, but the artistry of the killing that was important, so that every victim realized they were about to die, at her hand. In those last, gasping, terrifying moments of life, the doomed needed to know that their fate had been sealed. They’d had no chance of escape.

That was the thrill.

That was the artistry.

That was the magic.

That was the brilliance.

She felt better as she stared at the death tree. Her blood sang through her veins. She felt her heart beating, tingled with anticipation of the next kill.

She glanced again at the snipped torso of Joshua Bandeaux. A truer bastard had never walked the earth. He deserved much worse than he had gotten. And the stupid police hadn’t even figured out for certain that he’d been killed. Which was frustrating. A little press would help sate her need for recognition . . . the need that had always propelled her. The few clippings already gathered were meager, not worthy of her acts.

She glanced at the tree once more. Soon its gnarled and deadly branches would be filled. The clock was ticking. There was much to do. On quiet, padded footsteps, she walked to the desk and retrieved the snapshots from her drawer. Gently, as if they were a frail deck of Tarot cards, she shuffled them and fanned them out facedown on the desk. Eeny, meeny, miney moe . . . Pick a victim soon to go . . . if he hollers . . . make him pay . . . with his life that very day . . .

Carefully one photograph was selected and turned over.

A picture of Amanda.

Second born. Smart, beautiful, successful.

Amanda Montgomery Drummond. With her own little demons . . . or demonettes. Yes, it was the eldest daughter’s turn.

In the snapshot Amanda, in a tennis skirt and top, was leaning against the polished fender of her pride and joy, a little red sports car, a cherry-red 1976 Triumph—make that TR-6—a gift from her father long before his untimely accident. Her eyes were shaded behind sunglasses, her smile wide, her mahogany-colored hair snapped back into a ponytail. Tall, athletic, gifted . . . with double majors in college, she had graduated summa cum laude and had given herself the choice of medical or law school.

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