Sleepwalker (Nightwatcher #2)(76)

Jamie was so proud of her handiwork when she finished.

After adding the key main ingredient to the sandwich she’d bought at a convenience store off Route 86 west of Newburgh, she discarded the bloody remains of Cora Nowak’s forearm in the woods, where furry predators would surely feast on it in short order.

Jamie did have one regret, though.

Because she hadn’t set out to kill Cora herself—her husband was the intended victim—she wasn’t able to set the stage the way she’d have liked.

No candles, no music, no lingerie . . .

And most importantly, when Cora’s body was found with the entire right arm missing, as opposed to just the middle finger, no one would even grasp the significance of the crime. No one investigating the case would ever think to link it to the Nightwatcher murders—despite the victim’s husband’s connection to Jerry Thompson. But really, that’s beside the point now. Punishing Chuck Nowak was like a warm-up for the main event.

As for Phyllis Lewis—that was far more satisfying all around.

They managed to keep it out of the press, but Jamie is certain the homicide squad made the connection. She knew it the moment she saw Detective Rocky Manzillo burst into his house early Wednesday morning, quickly change into a dress shirt and tie, grab his badge and his gun, and leave again.

Well, well, well, Jamie thought, watching the action courtesy of the surveillance cameras she’d set up in the Manzillo home so long ago. Finally, something worthwhile to see here.

There was no doubt in Jamie’s mind that Manzillo was headed up to Westchester. Too bad she couldn’t be a fly on the wall when Manzillo walked in on that oh-so-familiar murder scene and realized he’d made a tremendous mistake ten years ago.

A mistake for which Manzillo deserves to be punished.

And he will be, when it’s time. But for right now . . .

“Wake up.” Jamie slaps Zoe Jennings hard across the face.

Out cold, she doesn’t stir.

A shame she’s going to miss the best part, but time is short.

Jamie jabs the blade viciously between Zoe’s large, silicon-enhanced breasts first, because that’s what it felt like to Sam when Jerry was stolen away: as though someone had stabbed him in the heart.

Yes, that’s what it’s like to lose the person you love most at the hands of another, and you want to do the same thing to the one who stole that person away. You want them to suffer that same unbearable agony.

Zoe Jennings dies quickly.

But Jamie keeps sinking the knife into her body, over and over, eyes closed, seeing someone else bleeding, suffering, dying.

This isn’t about Zoe at all.

It isn’t about her husband, a total stranger whose loss couldn’t matter less to Jamie in the grand scheme of things.

No, the Jenningses—like Phyllis and Bob Lewis and Chuck and Cora Nowak—are insignificant casualties in a much more meaningful game. They merely had the misfortune to cross paths with her, the one who is to blame.

When it’s over, Jamie tosses the red-handled knife—the one that came from the MacKennas’ kitchen—onto the floor beside the bed.

“Allison!”

Startled from a sound sleep by an urgent whisper, she opens her eyes, then clasps her hands over them, dazzled by a blinding overhead light.

“Sorry, sweetie . . .” She hears the wall switch click and then Randi’s voice saying, “It’s okay now, I turned it off. Where’s Mack?”

Mack?

Allison opens her eyes again, this time to shadowy darkness—and confusion.

It takes her a moment to remember where she is—the Webers’ guest room—and that Mack should be here in bed with her. Yet even in the dim light falling through the doorway to the guest sitting room, where Randi is standing, backlit, Allison can see that his spot is empty

“Where’s Mack?” Randi asks again, no longer whispering.

Allison’s heart pounds as she sits up—too quickly; her head pounds as well, and her stomach gives a queasy lurch.

“Nathan Jennings is on the phone. He said Mack called him for a ride, but when he got there, he couldn’t find him.”

“Got where?” Allison swallows back excess saliva with the tinny taste of fear and vodka, trying to understand.

“Wherever Mack said he was stranded. On the road someplace, I think. Ben is on the phone with him now.”

“Mack?”

“No, Nate. Here, Al, come talk to him.”

Allison stands hurriedly, fighting back full-blown nausea. She remembers—and regrets—having downed in a few gulps that second, welcome, stiff martini Randi handed her after the Jenningses left.

She doesn’t remember much that happened after that, not even coming up to bed . . .

And now the Jenningses . . . Nathan Jennings on the phone, looking for Mack . . . Mack not here . . .

What in the world is going on?

Hearing a rustling near the bed, she remembers belatedly—J.J. is there, sleeping in the portable crib.

Not sleeping anymore, though. He emits a sound that begins as a soft whimper and winds up an ear-splitting wail, and she instinctively bends over to pick him up. He’s soaked through his terry cloth pajamas, poor thing. Did she forget to change him one last time before putting him down for the night?

Wait—she wasn’t the one who put him down. She was at the wake, and J.J. was here with Greta, whom he barely knows, and now it’s the middle of the night and he’s wet and Mack isn’t here and Allison wants to cry, too.