A Margin of Lust (The Seven Deadly Sins #1)(71)

She hung over the fence and watched the babies for a long time. They were so cute, like wind-up toys, trotting around on short, stiff legs with their Slinky tails making tiny circles in the air. But pretty soon watching them didn't scratch Gwen's itch. She wanted to hold a piglet. Just for a minute.

She eyed the sow lying there on her side snorting and snoring; she didn't look too worried about her babies. Besides, Gwen wouldn't hurt the little things. Didn't her dad say she was the best vet-in-training in the whole county? She knew what she was doing. He'd taught her how to hold kittens and puppies and chicks. Piglets were much sturdier than chicks.

She slipped past a twinge of guilt into the pen and shut the gate softly behind her. She tiptoed to the closest piglet. It wasn't even a foot off the ground before it let out a shattering, ear-piercing squeal. The sow vaulted to her feet.

Gwen dropped the piglet and slammed against the wall of the pen. The sow charged. She moved with more speed than Gwen thought possible from an animal of that size. Gwen's father, motivated by the same need to protect his young, must have moved just as fast. If he hadn't, she wouldn't be having nightmares about it today. She'd have been torn apart.

Bobby White, one of the boys who lived near the farm where it happened, heard all about it. At school that week, he told her the story of a farmer who went to feed his hogs and never came back. When his wife went to look for him, all she found were bits and pieces in the slop.

Bobby said those hogs would have eaten every last bite of him if their dinner hadn't been interrupted. Sometimes that unnamed farmer showed up in her dreams missing fingers, toes, and other important body parts.

After that, fear of dark, close places became Gwen's constant companion. For a time it seemed she'd shaken off the worst of it when she was in college. It had become manageable at least. But claustrophobia found her again through the dead eyes of Sondra Olsen.

Now whenever Gwen jerked awake, panic waited for her. It scurried from the coal black corners of the room and crawled up her legs and arms. It wrapped itself around her chest. No one is coming. Nobody knows where you are.

Her greatest comfort was also her greatest distress. Mo was obsessed with his sister. He needed Gwen to lure Fiona to the house. But the fact that Gwen wasn't the object of his mania was a small comfort. Mo didn't have anything personal against the other women he murdered. They'd been strangers to him.

She had many hours to wonder what he'd do if Fiona came to the house. How did you unravel a mind as tangled as his? He tore his hair out by the handful and rambled about his sister's unnatural powers one minute, then spoke logically the next. Hot rages erupted from his icy calm. His grip on reality was tenuous. She didn't doubt his plan was to kill both of them. At times, she was terrified Mo wouldn't return, that she'd be left here in the dark. But mostly she was terrified he would.

Thump.

Gwen sat as straight as she could and strained her ears. Had she heard something? She listened so long and hard, the silence became a sound. A high-pitched, monotone whine filled her ears. Long minutes passed. The thin tinnitus became hypnotic. Her head nodded.

Thump. Clack. Clack. Clack.

Gwen's chin shot up. She heard muffled voices. A woman's. No, two women. A man's deep rumble. Laughter. There were people in the house.

Gwen tried to scream through the duct tape on her lips. Only a strangled cry emerged, loud to her ears but not loud enough to carry through the ceiling. The footsteps and voices were directly above her now.

Gwen planted her feet on the floor and began rocking the wooden chair back and forth, back and forth. The legs clattered against the stone. She blasted her humming yells. After several minutes, she stilled. Had they heard her? Was help coming?

Silence.

She heard footsteps again—quiet at first then growing louder. They must be coming from the upper story. The house wasn't in escrow yet. It must be a real estate agent showing the property. She was sure she'd heard the click of high heels.

The steps now resonated from the front of the house. If it was an agent, she might show the basement. It was packed with the refuse of years past, but still, it was a selling point.

The door. Open the cellar door. She willed them to find her.

She felt, more than heard, a sound so soft it may only have been a displacement of air. Hope bubbled into her heart. One of the women's voices broke into the stillness. It echoed through the basement hallway. It came so close Gwen could almost make out the words.

She threw herself into a frenzy of rocking, stomping, and muffled screams, then stopped as quickly as she'd started and listened for the effect.

Nothing.

About to give it one last effort, she heard the voices again. Not close this time but faint and muted.

Another thump. A door? The front door?

Minute after quiet minute passed. A tear slid along Gwen's check and pooled in a pocket of duct tape. The high whine of silence filled her ears again. Panic crept up her legs.





CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO


Art's car made its way, almost of its own accord, into the parking lot of Humboldt Realty. He'd been sitting, staring out the windshield at Gwen's office for at least ten minutes. He was waiting for her to walk through the glass doors embossed with the company logo into the sunshine.

It wouldn't happen. Logically, he knew that. For one thing, her car was missing from the crime scene.