Nightwatcher (Nightwatcher #1)(101)
He tried, when they pulled over at the next truck stop. He pulled a knife on the trucker, tried to use it. Bad idea. Turned out she was a black belt. He regained consciousness to find himself back in police custody.
They never connected him to Lenore, or Jamie, or Jerry . . .
But they sure as hell connected him to his rap sheet.
It was back to prison for him, for years.
And through all those years, Jamie talked to him inside his head.
He gradually came to understand that when he killed her, her spirit left her body and entered his own. Her being melded with his. She was a part of him now, and he was a part of her. Eventually, he let go of Sam and became Jamie.
He didn’t tell anyone about that, though. They would never understand. They would have thought he was crazy, just like his old man. Like father, like son. He probably would have been sent to the psych ward.
All he wanted was to get the hell out of prison; to go find the rest of his family, and make things right.
Finally, this summer, he was free. Free to leave. Free to embrace Jamie on the outside, just as he had within. He had always thought she looked like her mother, but when he put on a woman’s clothes, and the right wig, and looked into the mirror . . . he saw Jamie. It was like she was alive again. A part of him.
She told him what to do about Lenore. She deserved to be punished, Jamie said, for the way she had treated him.
It felt good, so good, to kill Lenore. When it was over, he waited for Jerry to come home. Jamie wanted him to kill Jerry, too.
But when Jerry walked in the door, another voice started speaking inside his head, drowning out Jamie’s. It was his own voice.
He’s your son. Look at him. Don’t do to him what your father wanted to do to you!
“Who are you?” Jerry asked, frightened, bewildered. He was childlike—but there was no hint of the scrappy kid he’d once been.
He’d been robbed of that. Robbed of so many things.
“I’m . . . your sister. Jamie.” The words escaped him before he could think them through, but when he saw Jerry’s face light up, he knew it was for the best.
“I thought you were dead!”
“Well, I’m not. I went away, but now I’m back, and I’m going to take care of you.”
And that’s what I did. It’s what I tried to do, until it all went wrong.
Having arrived at a northbound subway entrance, he decides that it’s time to stop walking.
He turns to look back over his shoulder.
From this vantage, he can’t see the gaping hole in the skyline, or the smoke rising from the ruins a few miles south. From here, he can see only intact buildings, glittering against the starry night sky.
Time to get out of here; time to go far, far away again.
At least for a while.
But don’t worry, he tells New York City . . . and Jerry . . . and Allison.
I’ll be back. You can count on that.
“Allison. Allison . . .”
She opens her eyes to see Mack. “What . . . ? Where . . . ?”
Dazed, she looks around and sees that she’s in her own living room. Faint light falls through the window; it’s dawn.
Emily Reiss is dozing on the couch beside her, and Mack’s sister, Lynn, is in the corner of the room, having a hushed telephone conversation. There’s no sign of Officer Green, but she can hear the crackle of a police radio in the next room.
“Allison, there’s good news,” Mack tells her. “Detective Manzillo just called. They got him.”
“Got who?”
“Jerry. The handyman. He did it. He’s under arrest. It’s over.”
“Jerry?” she echoes, stunned. “But . . . are you sure?”
“He confessed.”
“Are you sure?” she asks again, because it can’t be right.
“Positive.”
Wow. So she was wrong.
She had been so sure Jerry was harmless . . .
Guess I’m not a very good judge of character after all.
“Are you okay?” Mack asks.
“Yes,” she says. “Are you?”
He nods.
She reaches out and squeezes his hand. He squeezes it back.
“Thanks,” he says. “Again. For helping me.”
“You’re welcome. I’m usually around. Whatever you need. Right across the hall.”
He smiles—faintly, but it’s a start. “That’s good to know.”
Keep reading for
an excerpt from
SLEEPWALKER,
the chilling follow-up to
NIGHTWATCHER
Coming October 2012
from Wendy Corsi Staub
Sunday, September 11, 2011
Glenhaven Park
Westchester County, New York
Her husband has suffered from insomnia all his life, but tonight, Allison MacKenna is the one who can’t sleep.
Lying on her side of the king-sized bed in their master bedroom, she listens to the quiet rhythm of her own breathing, the summery chatter of crickets and night birds beyond the window screen, and the faint hum of the television in the living room downstairs.
Mack is down there, stretched out on the couch. When she stuck her head in about an hour ago to tell him she was going to bed, he was watching Animal House on cable.