Page 73 of Shiver

William Miller’s face hardened. “I’m sorry, Mr. MacIntyre, but she doesn’t trust you.”

“She said you don’t believe in her,” Lydia added.

Riley cringed. He’d had his doubts, but he hadn’t said a word. How had she known?

“Any idea where she could have gone?” the chief asked.

“You gonna lock her up again?” William asked. “I won’t be party to that. I can’t go through that again.”

The chief sighed. “No, William. Officer MacIntyre is right. Your daughter’s in danger. For Devra’s sake, tell us where she is.”

“She’s gone to find her brother,” Lydia said, her voice barely above a whisper. “She said she was going to track him down and take her life back.”

“Where was she headed?” Uneasiness churned through Riley. He couldn’t bear to think of Devra out there trying to track down a killer alone.

“Where it all began,” William said. “Jensen’s Peak, about an hour east of here."

* * *

Devra staredinto the black depths of her brother’s eyes. Eyes that had tortured her for years, every time she’d lay down to sleep. Panic sliced through her. “What do you want?”

“I just want to play, Devy.” The tinny timbre of his voice scraped across her mind. There was a wild look to his eyes, an excitement, which caused fear to constrict her chest.What did he mean play?

He’d chased her through the forest that day he’d killed Tommy. He’d stood over her after she’d fallen to the ground, but had left her alive to face the wrath of a town. “Why didn’t you kill me? Why everyone but me?”

“I would never hurt you, Devy. I love you.”

Love me? The bottom dropped out of her stomach. “Is it true? Are you my brother?” She knew it was true, as much as she tried to deny it; she’d seen the picture, she’d read the headlines. She knew better than anyone exactly what Donny Miller was capable of.

He smiled that perfect smile and, for a second, he looked normal. She could almost imagine what their lives could have been like, if only he were sane.

He touched her hair, pulling a lock of curls through his fingers. She cringed as she stared at the smooth skin of his hand. It wasn’t large, callused, or even dirty like she’d expected a killer’s hand to be. It was just an ordinary hand, yet it had stolen so much—her parents, Tommy, her life.

He’d ripped Michelle from Mac and Riley, and all those other women, those she knew about and those she didn’t. It’s her brother she had the psychic connection with, her brother who’d killed anyone who’d gotten close to her, anyone who’d reminded him of her.

“I told you that you couldn’t hide from me, Devy. Don’t you remember when we used to play Peekaboo? How you used to laugh. Laugh for me now, Devy.”

She couldn’t laugh. She wanted to laugh. Wanted to laugh with the maniacal glee of those poor sick souls she’d lived with in the sanitarium. But she couldn’t laugh any more than she could disappear into her head to better worlds, safer worlds.

Because she was sane.

The knowledge hit her with twisted irony. Of course, she was sane. She’d always known she was sane, no matter what everyone had said to convince her differently. They’d been wrong.

He touched her shoulder, softly running his finger down her arm. She cringed and closed her eyes.

“You’ve been hiding for years now,” he said. “But I’ve always found you. And I always will. We’re connected. I can see you in my dreams, see what you’re doing. I can see who you’re with.”

Nausea rose in her throat. Had he seen her with Riley? Had he seen her alone in her house, scared out of her mind after she’d had one of her “dreams”? Is that why he continued to kill, to have that connection with her?

Her stomach turned, and she knew she was going to be sick. She opened the SUV’s door and stumbled out onto the side of the road, bent over, clutching her stomach, and gasping huge breaths of air.

She was sore where the seatbelt had cut into her. But she couldn’t let that stop her. She hurried back down the road toward her parents’ house, still holding her stomach, trying to get away from him, to get away from the knowledge of who he was and what he’d done.All because he loved her.

She heard him running toward her. He grabbed her from behind and spun her around to face him. He was happy, he was laughing, he was completely insane.

“Smile for me, Devy.”

She couldn’t smile any more than she could drag her gaze away from his face. She supposed it was a handsome face, so different from her own. She wondered if he took after their papa, wondered what it would have been like to have been a family, to have known her parents. To be normal.

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