“Are you still there with Rachel?”
“Yes...but...her hand feels cold. So cold...” Her voice trembled with tears. “She’s trying to tell me something...” Sarah gasped and drew back, her eyelids fluttering wildly.
“Someone’s there,” she whispered in a strange voice.
“Who’s with you, Sarah?”
“I don’t know. Can’t see...”
“Whoever he is, he can’t hurt you. You’re safe and you can stop anytime you want to. You’re still in control.”
“He’s there! I can hear him breathing.”
“Where is he, Sarah?”
“He’s behind you! He’s right there behind you!”
Michael heard a floorboard creak behind him and he whirled.
* * *
When Sarah opened her eyes, she felt completely relaxed, as if she’d just awakened from a deep, restful sleep. Then she became aware of the unfamiliar surroundings and she sat up.
“Michael?”
No answer.
She went into the kitchen, then came back into the living room and called up the stairs. Parting the blinds at the window, she peered out into the front yard. But she couldn’t tell if his car was still there or not.
Surely, he wouldn’t have left without telling her. Maybe he’d just stepped out for some air.
Opening the front door, she went out on the porch. Someone was coming across the yard toward her. Her breath quickened until she realized who it was. He was hardly more than a silhouette, but she recognized the set of his shoulders, the way he walked.
He opened the screen door and stepped up on the porch.
“You must be wondering what I’m doing here,” Sarah said. Then she saw his face, the look in his eyes.
The blood on his clothes.
Her heart twisted inside her chest. “Lukas?”
“Lukas isn’t here, Sarah. He’s gone away for a while.”
“Then who are you?” she whispered.
He smiled. “I’m Jude Cole.”
Chapter 30
Sarah turned and lunged for the door. She slammed it closed and turned the dead bolt an instant before he put a shoulder to the wood. Screaming in frustration, he banged on the door, then kicked it.
In shock, Sarah backed away, not knowing what to do. Then she thought of her purse. The gun! Where was it? Where had she left it?
She searched frantically, but couldn’t find it. Lukas must have already taken it.
Lukas...but not Lukas. He’d called himself Jude Cole.
Two faces, Sarah thought. One light, one dark. One good, one evil. The clues had all been there. Everything they’d needed to know. Not identical twins as she’d first thought. Multiple identities in one body.
Lukas Clay. Jude Cole...Ashe Cain.
A face suddenly loomed in a side window, and Sarah saw him grin. He was taunting her now. He’d taken her gun, her cell phone. He knew he had her trapped.
“What do you want from me?” she screamed.
The face disappeared.
Fear was an icy chill down her back. She heard a window slide up somewhere in the house, and a moment later, the thud of his footsteps. He was already inside.
“Sarah...” It was a soft, terrifying singsong. “Sarah...”
She was already at the front door, turning the dead bolt. Rushing across the porch, she flung open the screen door and ran down the steps. Across the yard. Toward the barn. To her car.
At the last moment, she realized her keys were in her purse. And she had no idea where that was.
Groaning in frustration, Sarah slid to a stop, then dashed inside the barn.
The moon was up and a soft light filtered in through a high window over the hayloft. But everything below was in deep shadow.
Sarah glanced around in desperation. He had to have tools out here. A hammer, a pitchfork, anything she could use as a weapon.
But the search was taking too long. Any second the door would open and he would step inside.
Move! Get out of sight.
And then she saw it at the back of the barn. A car. An old green sedan.
The vehicle that had been seen in Holly Jessup’s neighborhood before she disappeared. The car that was now hidden inside Lukas Clay’s barn.
He’d killed Holly. He’d killed them all.
And now he’d come back for her.
Sarah’s heart raced, her breath came in shallow gasps as she lifted the handle and opened the door. Sliding behind the wheel, she checked the ignition for keys. Searched over the visor, under the floor mats. Nothing.
Glancing in the back, she saw her purse lying in the seat. As if it had been placed there for her to find, Sarah thought.
She had to check it anyway. If the gun was still inside...
The barn door opened and he stepped inside. He saw her at once and strode toward the car, eyes forward, head down, arms swinging purposefully at his sides.
Sarah slid out from under the wheel and dove over the backseat. Onto Michael.
He lay facedown on the floor, silent and still.
Dead.
Oh, God.
She grabbed her purse, tumbled out of the car and ran, sobbing, toward the side door.
Something slammed into the back of her skull, and pain exploded behind her eyes.
Sarah stopped, stumbled, then fell face forward onto the floor.
* * *
Wrists and ankles bound tightly with cord, Sean lay on his side on the cold wood floor and tried to focus on the shimmer of moonlight through the grimy window. His vision was blurred, his memory hazy. He had no idea how long he’d been unconscious. He only dimly remembered the chase through the orchard that had ended at the farmhouse, the agonizing jolt of the Taser and then a face staring down at him.
Lukas Clay’s face.
The bastard. It had been him all along. Or one of his personalities. What had Michael Garrett called them? Alters. The protector and the persecutor.
Which one had bashed him on the head and left him for dead?
No, that wasn’t right. He hadn’t been left for dead. For whatever reason, he’d been spared for the time being.
He struggled against the bindings, but that only made his head throb. He could feel the sticky wetness of blood on the side of his face, but he couldn’t tell how badly he was hurt. Head wounds were tricky. Even superficial wounds could bleed for hours. But then sometimes they didn’t bleed at all, and you could feel fine for days, only to drop dead getting up out of bed one morning. But Sean didn’t think he needed to worry about that. Unless he found a way out of his current situation, he might not have days or even hours.
He heard the sound of a car engine, and he listened for a moment, trying to judge the distance, wondering if it was out on the road somewhere. But as the noise grew louder, he realized the vehicle was coming up to the house. He scooted himself inch by agonizing inch across the floor and pushed himself up against the wall until he could see out the window.
An old green sedan bumped along the driveway and pulled to a stop at the edge of the yard. The driver turned off the headlights, then got out and came around to open the back door. The moon was up, and Sean could see who it was.
Every muscle in his body tensed as he watched Lukas Clay lean into the back of the car and pull something out onto the ground. When Clay shifted his position, Sean saw that the lump lying in the weeds was a body, motionless and silent.
Clay grabbed the body beneath the arms and dragged it across the cold ground, up the porch steps and into the house. A moment later, Sean heard a thud against the plank flooring below.
Clay went back out to the car and opened the trunk. He hoisted a second body over his shoulder, and when he turned, Sean could see a woman’s limp arms and the sway of long, dark hair as he carried her across the yard to the porch.
Sean’s heart thudded. It was Sarah. Had to be Sarah.
Was she dead?
No. No. Garrett had said that Jude Cole had some plan for her. She couldn’t be dead yet. Sean could still get her out of here.
Desperation pumped through his veins as he tugged at the bindings around his wrists. The harder he struggled, the deeper the cord bit into his flesh, but he ignored the pain. Ignored the blood that had started to trickle down the side of his face again.
He was breathing so heavily, he almost missed the sound of footsteps. At first he thought someone was coming up the stairs, but then he realized the footsteps were on the porch, just below the window.
Pushing himself back up, he glanced outside as Clay made a third trip to the car. When he closed the trunk lid, he stood for a moment, a shovel in one hand, a hammer in the other as his gaze lifted to the upstairs window.
Sean jerked away and slid down to the floor, his gaze darting about the darkened space for a weapon or a way out.
His gaze lit on the wardrobe across the room, where moonlight glinted on the broken mirror.
* * *
Sarah smelled sulphur. The scent was faint, yet it seemed to be all around her.
She could hear the bells, too. Tolling over the graves. Tolling for the deceased and the doomed.
Was she already gone? All she could see was darkness. All she could feel was cold.
“You need to wake up, Sarah.”
I can’t.
“Can you hear me?”
She opened her eyes. Tried to lift her head, but the effort made the room spin. She squeezed her eyes closed and remained perfectly still until the dizziness subsided.
“Sarah?”
Who’s there? She tried to ask, but no sound came out of her mouth. She licked her dry lips and tried again. “Who...”
“It’s Michael. Can you hear me?”
Michael. He sounded so far away. His voice was muffled and strained.
Maybe he was dead. Maybe she was, too.
“We have to get you out of here before he comes back in.”
And then Sarah remembered everything. It came back in a terrifying rush that left her trembling. Lukas Clay was Ashe Cain, and someone he called Jude Cole. And one or all of his identities had something terrible in store for her.
Sarah’s chin rested on her chest and it took all her strength to lift her head. The room started a slow rotation, and she instinctively tried to steady herself with her hands. Then she realized she was sitting upright in a wooden chair, her arms restrained by a cord that encircled her chest and the back of the chair, her ankles fastened to the legs. She couldn’t move.
She’d been placed in a circle of candles that had just been lit—she could still smell the sulphur from the matches. It was the scent she remembered from fourteen years ago.
There had been candles that night, too. She could see in her mind the way the flames flickered when the door opened. And then Rachel’s terrified warning. He’s right behind you!
Sarah had turned and stared into the palest of faces, the darkest of eyes. And then her gaze had dropped to the knife, still dripping with her sister’s blood.
“Sarah?”
The voice startled her back to the present. “Michael? Where are you?”
“Over here.”
The candlelight threw huge shadows over the walls and ceiling. It took Sarah a moment to find him.
And then nausea swept over her like a giant wave. What she saw...couldn’t be real. None of this could be real.
Michael was sitting on the floor, his back to the wall, his arms spread out and pinned in place by nails through his palms. He had been positioned so that moonlight flooding in through the window on the opposite wall highlighted the macabre tableau.
“Oh, my God,” she breathed.
Michael’s head lolled against the wall. His face was bloody and bruised, but his eyes were open and he was conscious.
“Michael...”
“Just listen to me, Sarah.” His voice was labored, so low she had to strain to hear him even in the silent house. “You have to understand what’s going on here. It’s the only way you’ll be able to save yourself when he comes back. The man who brought us here calls himself Jude Cole. He’s also Ashe Cain.”
“His real name is Lukas Clay,” she whispered.
“We’re dealing with multiple identities. Right now the dominant personality is Jude Cole, and his only purpose is to protect Lukas Clay. All of this...everything he’s done...is a carefully laid plan to protect Lukas...from you.”
“Why?” she said desperately. “Why now, after all these years?”
“Because you came back and started asking questions. The moment you began digging in the past...you became a threat to Lukas. Ashe Cain murdered your sister, but Lukas is the one who would be punished. Jude can’t let that happen.”
“Why didn’t he just kill me?” Sarah asked helplessly. “Why did he have to murder all those other people?”
“Because killing you outright won’t stop the questions. He needs a scapegoat. The past can’t be put to rest unless the killer is revealed. Everything he did was to that end. The tattoos. The satanic symbols. Even the victims were carefully chosen because of their connection to you. He’s making it look as if you’ve lost control...snapped because of what you did to your sister.”
“How do we stop him?”
“Jude is the protector. He’s devious, but he’s not a murderer. To kill, he has to trigger Ashe Cain’s wrath. But Ashe is connected to you, too, Sarah. For whatever reason, he was obsessed with you. He became what you needed in order to get close to you. That fixation...is how you stop him...”
His voice trailed off just as Sarah saw the candle flames flicker. Jude Cole came into the room, a set of wooden poles gripped in each hand. Foot plates and straps had been connected to the shafts, and carved hooves had been attached to the bottoms. As he walked the poles across the floor, the wooden hooves made a loud thump-thump-thump that sent a shiver down Sarah’s spine.
Homemade stilts. That was how he’d been able to make the cloven prints in the ground outside the farmhouse without leaving impressions of his shoes the night he’d killed Rachel.
He set the stilts aside and stood over Sarah as he removed a gun from his jacket and caressed the barrel. When he spoke, the voice that came from his mouth was not that of Lukas Clay. It sounded young and terrifyingly sinister.