Sleepwalker (Nightwatcher #2)(9)

No, she was trying to lose herself in other things: working as a fashion editor at 7th Avenue magazine, hunting for a new apartment far from the shadow of the fallen towers and her murdered friend, establishing a friendship with the newly widowed Mack.

Carrie had been in her office high in the south tower when the first plane struck below her floor. She never had a chance.

Nor did Kristina, who was most likely sound asleep that very night when Jerry crept into her apartment—dressed as a woman, believing he was his alter ego, his dead sister, Jamie—and slaughtered her in her bed.

Allison and Mack became two more New Yorkers trying to pick up the pieces of shattered lives that September. Two more New Yorkers drawn together by unspeakable tragedy . . .

And somehow, we fell in love.

But not right away. No, that would have been wrong. Though Mack had confessed to Allison that his marriage to Carrie was crumbling before she died, he had a lot of grief and guilt to work through before he was ready to move on.

Earlier that year, Allison had endured a bitter breakup with Justin, a biologist, for whom she’d fallen hard. Bruised, regretting that she’d let someone into her life despite having promised herself that she never would, she wasn’t interested in another relationship. Ever.

She was there for Mack when he needed her; when he didn’t, she steered clear for her own sake as well as his. She knew she was attracted to him long before anything romantic happened between them, but it felt wrong.

Then one December night more than a year later, he kissed her—and suddenly, it felt right.

She tries not to look back at the tragic circumstances that brought them together.

Sometimes, though, she just can’t help it.

She stares at the televised photo of Sullivan Correctional Facility, where Jerry Thompson is serving a life sentence. Why is the media dredging all this up again? Is it just another dismal footnote on the heels of the wall-to-wall retrospective September 11 coverage?

Or is it something much more ominous?

How many nights has she lain awake—thanks, in part, to her husband’s chronic tossing and turning—and imagined what would happen if Jerry were to somehow escape from the maximum security prison? How many times has she imagined him creeping into her bedroom the way he did the others?

The great irony in all of this is that she never would have believed—even though she saw him at the murder scene that night—that he was capable of murder. She didn’t know him well, but her gut instinct told her he was innocent.

Then he confessed.

So much for my gut instinct.

That same undependable gut instinct had also made her wary of Mack in the beginning. She’d actually entertained the fleeting notion that he might have been having an affair with Kristina, and that he’d killed her in a fit of violent passion or passionate violence or . . .

God only knows what I was thinking. But I couldn’t have been more wrong about Mack.

Or about Jerry.

He’s a cold-blooded murderer, and now he’s back in the news. Why? Did he break out of prison?

But there’s a witness notification program. She would have been told immediately if Jerry were back out on the street.

Then again, no system is foolproof.

She looks at Mack, watching the screen intently, and asks, “What if—”

“Shh, wait, listen!”

Allison clamps her mouth shut.

“This past weekend marked ten years not just since the worst terror attack in our nation’s history,” the reporter is saying, “but ten years since Jerry Thompson’s murderous rampage through a scarred, burning city. Sometime in the wee hours of September 12, however—perhaps to exactly the hour, the very minute, that he murdered aspiring Broadway dancer Kristina Haines ten years ago—Jerry Thompson took his own life.”

Allison clasps a hand over her mouth, her blue eyes wide.

Again, she looks at Mack. This time, he meets her gaze, nods slowly.

“He’s dead.” For some reason, she finds it necessary to say it aloud.

“Yeah.” Mack’s expression is so relieved that she knows she wasn’t the only one who’s always worried that Jerry might escape one day and come after her again.

But they don’t have to worry anymore. Thank God. Thank God.

It’s over at last.

And so it begins . . . again.

The need—the overpowering need, consuming every waking moment, every thought, every breath . . .

The need is back. And so is Jamie.

After all these years.

Ten, to be exact.

Funny how it happens. One morning, you wake up and everything is great, and then the next . . .

Wait a minute, great? Your life was never great.

All right, no, it wasn’t.

But it was manageable.

For almost ten years now you’ve been functioning, going to work, paying bills, taking meds, and Jamie was nowhere to be found. . .

Then, out of nowhere, came the news that Jerry was dead.

Dead, and you had to find out on television.

Well, what did you expect? No one even knows you exist—not in Jerry’s world, anyway.

If it weren’t for the media, you wouldn’t even have a clue what happened to Jerry after you left him there that night ten years ago, helpless and alone, with his mother’s stinking corpse in the bedroom and the cops closing in.