Kill Her Again (A Thriller) Read online

  “Spill it, Danny. What kind of nonsense are you spewing now?”

  The choice of words didn’t surprise Pope. While he himself had always tried to keep an open mind, Jake was a rationalist and skeptic who believed only in what could be seen or experienced or explained. And if he had no explanation, he’d look for one based on evidence, not what he called voodoo speculation.

  When they were kids, Jake had been the first to question the existence of the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus, just as he had later proclaimed—during a pot-fueled soliloquy—that the story of Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection was a longstanding and commonly told myth. A myth that had traveled from religion to religion, culture to culture, for centuries before Jesus was supposed to have been born.

  “The only evidence that he ever existed is the Bible,” Jake had said. “And that’s neither historical nor accurate, and was never really meant to be.”

  “What about faith?” Pope had made the mistake of asking.

  “Faith is nothing more than wishful thinking, based on conditioning, fear, and the desire for a reward. Ask any kid if he believes in the Easter Bunny, he’ll tell you with the greatest conviction that he does. It’s the same for those who believe in religious deities. Or ghosts and goblins, for that matter.”

  “I hope you realize,” Pope said, “that you just insulted about ninety percent of the world’s population.”

  Jake, who had just taken another hit of weed, exhaled a plume of smoke. “So sue me. The truth isn’t always pretty.”

  Except for the switch from a pipe to a deputy’s badge, Jake hadn’t changed much since those days. To tell him now about McBride’s visions and the theory that she’d been murdered in a previous life—by the same perpetrator no less—made about as much sense as telling him that Dorothy’s adventures in Oz were based on true events. Especially after Pope had already sprung the Evan’s-a-psychic story on the poor guy.

  But the popcorn was already out of the box and Pope felt he had no choice but to offer Jake a full confession. So he laid it out, sparing him nothing, as Special Agent Anna McBride remained uncharacteristically mute.

  When Pope was finished, Jake leaned back in his chair and laughed. It was a smug, I-know-better-than-you laugh that set Pope’s teeth on edge.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “You remember when we were about fourteen and you were convinced that the old abandoned Smokehouse was haunted?”

  “Of course I do.”

  “You got a bunch of us together to spend the night there. Me, Tommy Walsh, Billy Kruger, Joey Shepherd. And while all you wimps were shitting your britches over some rustling noises, I took a closer look and found a family of cats living inside one of the walls.”

  “This is different,” Pope said.

  “Is it? The problem with you, Danny, is that you’re always a little too quick to believe the unbelievable.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “I know you’ve convinced yourself that you’re a straight thinker, open to any possibility. But that’s never really been the case, has it?”

  Pope wondered if Jake was right. Had the fence he’d been straddling all these years been leaning slightly to one side? Even if that was true, did it really matter at this point?

  “Are you telling me you have a rational explanation for any of what I’ve just told you?”

  “No,” Jake said. “But that doesn’t mean there isn’t one.”

  “Well, until you find it—”

  “What? We toss reason to the wind and waste time on some ridiculous fantasy?”

  “You know what happened with Evan,” Pope said. “You don’t want to believe it, but everything he told me turned out to be true.”

  “Pure coincidence, Cuz, and the sooner you see that the better off you’ll—”

  “Shut up, both of you.”

  They turned, staring at McBride as she rose from her chair. Her face was pale again. She looked frightened, yet filled with a new sense of resolve.

  “This is happening to me,” she said. “Not you. So all that really matters is what I think. And even if this past life regression thing is a complete bust, it’s all we’ve got right now.”

  She looked at Jake as if she was daring him to contradict her. When he said nothing, she turned to Pope. “So now that that’s settled, where do you want to do this thing?”

  THEY ADJOURNED TO the living room.

  The Worthingtons had a soft leather recliner in there and Pope said he thought it would be the best place for Anna to relax.

  She settled in, feeling a small nervous knot in her stomach. Even though she’d seen him at work and knew it was harmless, she felt as if she’d just climbed into the dentist’s chair.

  Deputy Worthington sank onto the sofa to observe, promising not to interfere, but making sure to let them both know that he’d be “watching for the cats.”

  I’m sure you will, Anna thought.

  Bending down next to her, Pope pulled the lever on the side of the recliner, pushing her back until she was nearly lying down.

  She waited silently, hearing the faint sound of a TV—Evan and Ronnie watching cartoons in the den—as Pope went around the room, closing the blinds to dim the light.

  He carried himself with the subtle authority of a man who was completely within his element, like a practiced and confident lover, so skilled in the art of seduction that the moves were second nature to him.

  As he slid a footstool over and sat next to her, Anna couldn’t help feeling that attraction again. And despite her better judgment, all she could think was that she wanted him to touch her. She didn’t care how. She just wanted to feel his hands against her flesh.

  A moment later she got her wish. It was a simple gesture, his fingertips touching the back of her forearm as he said softly, “Okay. All I’m going to do is help you to relax.”

  The warmth emanating from those fingertips, the electricity they generated, did something to Anna that was difficult to describe. She couldn’t tell you why, but she felt immediately and completely under his power. It was as if that touch—dare she say it?—

  —was the touch of a soul mate.

  And in that moment, any trepidation she’d felt, any uncertainty, immediately dissolved.

  She knew she was being silly. This man was almost a complete stranger to her and this was neither the time nor place to be thinking such things, but Anna couldn’t help herself. If Pope were to lean forward at this very moment and tell her to remove her clothes, she knew that despite Worthington’s presence and the sound of that TV in another room, she’d gladly oblige.

  Fortunately, Pope had other ideas.

  “Close your eyes,” he said softly.

  There was a quality to his voice now that she hadn’t noticed before. The hoarseness was gone, replaced by a kind of amorphous sensuality. And as he spoke, he seemed to be both inside and outside of her head.

  Anna closed her eyes as Pope continued to speak, letting the words caress her, envelop her.

  “Take a deep breath,” he said. “Fill your lungs, then let the air out slowly.”

  She did as she was told, letting her body relax as she exhaled.

  “I’m going to count backwards from ten,” Pope continued. “And as I do, you’ll feel yourself falling, very slowly, into a state of complete relaxation.”

  He began to count, pausing after each number.

  “Ten . . . nine . . . eight . . .”

  Anna felt as if her chair were dissolving beneath her. Then she was falling—floating, really—a leisurely descent into the darkness of a long, black corridor, as Pope’s voice continued its caress.

  “Seven . . . six . . .”

  He had told her earlier that, under hypnosis, the subject is always aware of her surroundings, is still conscious to some degree, but Anna couldn’t be sure that this was true. With each number he spoke, she felt as if she were floating farther and farther away from the real world.

  “Five . . . four . . . three
. . .”

  When he finished counting, the words he said were little more than vague abstractions, formless murmurs that surrounded her in the darkness. She sensed more than she actually heard, as if his words, his voice, were part of her own consciousness.

  A part of her being.

  Then the darkness itself began to envelop her, seeping into her skin until she was little more than vapor, and she felt as if she were floating backwards in time, drifting deeper into her memories as fleeting images of the past filled her head:

  Her arrival in Victorville, the fiasco in San Francisco, her graduation at Quantico, a college love affair, the boarding schools, her mother’s funeral, her mother’s good-night kiss . . .

  Her entire life played on her own private movie screen, the memories vivid. Alive.

  All along the way, she sensed that Pope’s voice was guiding her, asking her questions. And while she was aware that she was responding, wanting somehow to please him, she couldn’t quite tell you what her answers were.

  And before she knew it, she was in a small dark place, the sound of a beating heart in her ears. A liquid sound, a warm, comforting thrum that seemed in perfect synchronization with her own heartbeat.

  Then she felt herself fading away, only faint tendrils of the vapor remaining. The vapor that was once Anna McBride.

  And in the dark distance came another sound. The sound of a ringing bell.

  A school bell?

  Anna felt herself being pulled toward that sound.

  And a moment later, she was gone.

  25

  WHEN THE BELL rang, Jillian Carpenter’s stomach went sour. She didn’t want to go home.

  She never wanted to go home these days.

  “I hate him,” she’d told Suzie during recess.

  “Why?” Suzie asked. “You said he’s nice to you. What’s the big deal?”

  “He’s always hogging the TV. Last night, I wanted to watch Gimme a Break, but my mom let him watch The Fall Guy instead. She says we have to share now.”

  “Gimme a Break was a rerun.”

  “So?” Jillian said. “It’s our TV, not his.”

  But that wasn’t quite true. It was his TV now. Craig Winterbaum was part of their family, whether Jillian liked it or not.

  And she definitely did not.

  Mom had met Craig at a garden show down in Fullerton last year, and before Jillian knew it, they were dating full-time. Then, about a month ago, he’d asked Mom to marry him and, to Jillian’s everlasting dismay, she’d said yes.

  The wedding came less than two weeks later. They had decided to jump right in, Mom had told her, and got married at the courthouse, in front of a judge. Jillian had watched the whole sickening thing, her stomach feeling more sour than ever as Craig slipped a gold band onto Mom’s finger.

  The thing was, she and Mom were a team. That’s what Mom had always said. Ever since her dad left, when Jillian was six, it had been just the two of them. And even though she missed her dad sometimes, the last four years had been just fine with her.

  Until Craig came along.

  Jillian had stayed with her aunt Maggie while he and Mom went on a honeymoon in Las Vegas. Now they were all back home, their first official week as a new family, and Mom and Craig kept getting all kissy-face on the sofa while Jillian tried to watch TV.

  Ugh.

  “Jillian?”

  Jillian snapped out of her daydream. Mrs. Gann was standing over by the blackboard, staring at her.

  “Yes, ma’am?”

  “The bell rang, dear. Did you need something?”

  Jillian looked around the room and felt her face get hot. All the other kids were gone.

  She did that sometimes. Got so caught up in her own thoughts that she didn’t know what was going on around her.

  “No,” she said, then quickly gathered up her books and papers, stuffed them into her desk cubby, and shuffled out of the room. “Bye, Mrs. Gann.”

  “See you tomorrow, dear.”

  SUZIE HAD SAVED her a spot in the bus line. Jillian and Suzie had been best friends ever since kindergarten, when Suzie’s family moved in next door to Jillian’s. That was back before the divorce, when she and her mom and dad were living on Randall Street.

  When they sold the house, Jillian had been afraid she’d have to move too far away and go to another school, but they got lucky and found an apartment close by. Jillian was relieved, because she couldn’t imagine having to go to another school and make new friends and all that. And she couldn’t imagine being without Suzie.

  Suzie said, “So did you ask?”

  “Ask what?”

  “About Big Mountain, dumbo.”

  Big Mountain was the new amusement park that had opened up over in Allenwood, which was about a half-hour drive away. Right before they got married, Mom and Craig had taken her and Suzie to opening day, and Suzie couldn’t stop talking about it.

  “I forgot,” Jillian said.

  “Forgot? How could you forget? Your birthday’s only two weeks from Saturday.”

  Suzie was dying to celebrate Jillian’s eleventh birthday with another trip to Big Mountain, but the truth was, Jillian wasn’t all that excited about the idea. She’d had fun, sure, but not that much fun, and there was something about the place that had given her the creeps.

  First off, Big Mountain wasn’t all that big. Northgate Shopping Mall was bigger and even had a McDonald’s. Second, it was supposed to be brand-new and everything, but Craig told them that all Big Mountain had really done was buy a bunch of old rides and stuff from a park that closed up in Oregon somewhere, then slap some new paint on them and add a big plaster mountain with a tunnel in it, so sky cars could go through.

  And Craig should know, because he worked for the company that owned Big Mountain.

  “Are you sure it’s safe?” Jillian’s mom had asked.

  “We’re not looking for a lawsuit,” Craig said. “They test those rides like crazy before they let anyone get on them.”

  And that was the other reason Jillian wasn’t so thrilled about Big Mountain. If Craig Winterbaum worked for the company that owned the place, how good could it really be?

  “Promise me you’ll ask tonight,” Suzie said.

  Jillian didn’t want to, but she didn’t want to disappoint Suzie, either, who was not only her best friend but practically her only friend—and vice versa. So she reluctantly nodded. She was about to say, Promise, when the whistle blew and all the kids started piling onto the buses.

  It was almost their turn when Jillian had a sudden inspiration. Anything to keep from going straight home. Craig had taken a day off from work, and he and Mom were probably on the sofa right now, going at it.

  “You wanna walk today?”

  “Huh?” Suzie said.

  “I got carsick yesterday. I feel like walking.”

  Suzie looked around, then shrugged. “Okay.”

  They quickly got out of line.

  THE BUS RIDE home usually took about ten minutes, but walking was a different story. Carl’s Liquor Store was on the corner of Crestwood and Mill, and whenever they walked, Jillian and Suzie usually stopped there for Pixy Stix.

  Jillian’s favorite flavor was lime, but they were out today and she had to settle for grape. It didn’t hit the spot like lime did, but it was better than nothing.

  They were coming out of the store, Suzie still blathering on about Big Mountain, when Jillian noticed the car.

  It was an old thing, kinda funky-looking, and she was sure it was the same car she’d seen parked outside of school a couple times.

  And on her street the other night.

  She had been getting ready for bed when she noticed it. Just happened to look out her bathroom window and saw it parked below. There was someone sitting inside, but it was too dark to make him out, and all she could see was an arm dangling out the driver’s window, cigarette in hand.

  For a moment Jillian had thought it might be her dad, because he had always smoked cigare
ttes, but then that didn’t make much sense. Dad had moved to Idaho with his new girlfriend four years ago and didn’t seem all that interested in staying in contact with Jillian. So why would he be parked outside her apartment building?

  But whoever it was, Jillian got the sense that he was watching her. And she didn’t like it. It made her feel kinda crawly, like she had spiders inside her blood.

  So she made sure that both the window and her curtains were shut, even used a clothespin to seal the gap between the curtains, then promptly tossed off her school uniform and climbed into the shower.

  She knew she should have told her mom about the car, but she hadn’t. Every time she thought about it, Craig had been there. Craig was always there.

  Now here the car was again. Parked outside Carl’s Liquor Store.

  But why? Did he live in the neighborhood?

  “That’s it,” she said to Suzie. “That’s the car I told you about.”

  Suzie looked at it. “The Rambler?”

  “Is that what it’s called?”

  Suzie nodded. “My uncle has one just like it. He collects old cars.”

  “Does he live around here?”

  “He lives in New Jersey, dumbo. You know that.”

  “I thought maybe he moved or something,” Jillian said. “Who do you think it belongs to?”

  “Probably some hobo. Come on, let’s go.”

  But Jillian wasn’t ready to go yet. Curious, she started toward the car.

  “What are you doing?” Suzie asked, sounding a little nervous.

  “I wanna look inside.”

  “What?” She sounded alarmed now.

  “Just a quick look,” Jillian said. “I’m not gonna get in or anything.”

  “What if somebody catches you?”

  “I’ll tell him we thought it was your uncle’s car.”

  Moving up to the driver’s window, she took a look inside. The seats had rips in them and the ashtray was hanging open, overflowing with funny-looking cigarette butts. Jillian had never seen yellow cigarettes before.

  Then she noticed a crumpled pack lying on the passenger’s seat. It had some kind of foreign language written on it.