Chapelwood (The Borden Dispatches #2)(85)



I liked that thought. It felt good between my ears, and made me think that maybe everyone on earth wasn’t against me.

(Of course it isn’t everyone on earth, and it never has been. There’s the inspector, and Lizbeth, and Pedro, and Chief Eagan, and all the people who care about any of them, I expect. That’s more than a few good souls right there. But they were in the fishbowl with me, so that wasn’t quite the same.)

I took the trolley, and then I walked. The whole time I was out there, wandering around in the sunshine, I felt downright normal—wearing a sundress and a shawl, with my button heels on. The weather was nice, and I was on my way to get some chocolates and a drink right out of the icebox Mr. Cowan keeps beside the front door.

Really, I should’ve known better.

I guess I’m not allowed to be normal anymore, at least not in Birmingham. Like as not, it doesn’t matter if I’m in Birmingham or Boston, because there’s no place far enough to run when you don’t even know what you’re trying to get away from—and all you know is that it can find you if it wants to. And whatever it is, it’s probably dead. So it’s not like you can kill it and be finished.

I had just lifted the lid on the icebox and stuck my hand inside for a chilly bottle of something I don’t get to drink every day. The coldness inside the box startled me, and it chased me, sort of like the awful black shadow does when it creeps up around my ankles and starts climbing.

I was mad and I was confused, because this wasn’t that, not at all. Was it? No, this was just a whisper of ice, fogging inside the big metal bin with the sodas and lemonades clinking together—that’s what I told myself. That’s what it felt like, and that’s what it must be.

But I’m a liar, to myself and the rest of God’s green earth. I’ve even lied to you.

I knew better than that when it wrapped itself around my wrist—and that was a first, because usually it started at the ground and worked its way up. This one began at my hand instead, and when I tried to draw it back and slam the icebox lid shut, the cold grip wouldn’t let me. It held me fast, and kept on crawling, and this time it wasn’t just a fog—it was fingers, strong and long, clenching and squeezing; and around the edge of my vision, I could see the darkness slipping in.

I think I fell to my knees, but I’m not sure. I don’t remember that part. It only took a few seconds for the blackness of the spell to fall over me like a blanket, like that starless sky I’ve seen once or twice and been so afraid I couldn’t breathe. This particular spell was like the one in the courtroom. It came upon me and I was a million, billion miles away—moving past the stars, running past the planets and moons and a thousand suns until I was so far away that I’d never find my way home, not this time.

I didn’t stop until there was no light left at all, no stars, no suns, no comets.

There was nothing except for me, sitting in an empty room with all the lights turned out. All alone except for a shuddering blob of light that eventually, given another half minute to make up its mind, took the shape of a man.

He wore a white shirt with a vest, and nice gray pants with shiny shoes, and his hair was combed and oiled so not a single strand was out of place. He was clean-shaved, and his nails were clean and filed, and his clothes were pressed, and even his eyebrows looked like someone had taken a pair of trimming scissors to them. I wondered if he ever really looked like that at all, or if this was just how he thought of himself, whoever he was.

Once he was all there, so solid-looking I might’ve been able to touch him, and maybe hit him upside the head for doing this to me . . . he lit up with delight, but his smile faded off to fear real fast.

“There you are,” he said. His voice was higher than I would’ve expected, and it didn’t sound far away like yours did, when you visited me like this. We might’ve been in the same room, sitting across a table from each other.

“Who are you?” I asked this man, only halfway wondering what I looked like to the real world, a million billion miles (or years?) behind me. Was I collapsed on the ground? My eyes rolled back in my head, while people hovered around me, trying to get my attention. Were they calling for an ambulance? Had I swallowed my tongue? Did I look dead?

“My name is Leonard, and I must speak with you. I’ve gone to great trouble, so please . . . a moment of your time?”

Like there was anything I could do to chase him off. Or if there was, I didn’t know about it. “All right, say your piece.”

“I killed those people with an axe, and I would’ve killed you, too. Not because I wanted to, but because I was trying to help.”

I was so stunned I could hardly pretend I wasn’t, but I did a decent job of staying calm when I asked, “So why would you want to kill me? Hell, why didn’t you—if that’s what this is about?”

“I didn’t want to kill you. I never wanted to kill anyone, and I didn’t kill you because it wouldn’t have helped. Your marriage and subsequent departure changed the equation,” he said, like that just explained everything. “Or I thought it did, but now the numbers have shifted again—they’re slippery, they are. You aren’t the victim Chapelwood expected, but you’re the one it wants after all.”

“I’m nobody’s victim!”

“That isn’t true. Or it’s only temporarily true, if you don’t listen to me.”

Cherie Priest's Books