Fade To Midnight (40 page)

“Don't do that again!” She wagged her finger at him, and he would have laughed, if he could. As if he chose this crazy shit. He was driven by a herd of buffalo, all running off a sheer cliff. Story of his life.

Cheung slammed that truck into his brain again…oh,
fuck
…

It was all different now. He was naked in there now. He'd blown his protective mechanism all to shit. And now she had him. Her claws sank deep, into nerves, will. She made him move, jerking against his restraints. The harder he fought, the greater her control. She grinned, gleefully. Her teeth were blood streaked.

“That's better,” she panted. “Now we're talking.”

He couldn't fight. He was a shambles, and she was loving it. Touching him from within, moving him, making the muscles in his groin clench and tighten against his will, as if he were aroused.

And he was. It was true. She really could make him hard, and he hated himself for it. His heart raced, his dick tingled and throbbed.

She reached down to pet it, well pleased. “Ready now, Kev?” she taunted. “Yuliyah is waiting.” She petted his penis, her hand lingering, squeezing. “Nice. I see why Edie's so taken with you.”

Mentioning Edie stung him, sharpened him. Rage stabbed deep, dragging him into focus. His passive defense was no longer operational. She'd backed him into a corner. All that was left was offense.

That heinous bitch was going down.

He held Edie's image in his mind, in case it was the last thing he ever thought of. Her shining body like a candle flame.

And stopped all resistance.

Cheung faltered at the sudden lack of purchase as he sagged in her mind, the mental equivalent of dead weight, and in that instant of disorientation, he leaped at her.

Ava flinched. She'd never been challenged by a slave-crowned subject. He followed up, drove her backward into her own self. No idea what the fuck he was doing, or how. Just clawing onward.

Her eyes bugged out. He was inside. Controlling her. The contact felt hideous, unclean, and horribly easy, too. She'd been groomed for years by Osterman for submission to mental dominance.

He felt echos of what she felt. Her self-loathing, which was so normal, so everyday, she no longer even perceived it. The distortion of the world seen through her mind; full of spite and danger. Stinking with corruption. Everything ugly, hated, despised, mistrusted.

It was like having his head in a vise. He forced her to move her arms, her legs. She was toppling. He forced her to catch herself.

There was a pair of clippers on the table next to the syringes. He forced Ava to stumble, stiff legged, to the table. To pick up the clippers.

She dropped them. He made her pick them up.

It took eight tries. Finally, she got a grip, lurched toward him. Her eyes darted crazily. Her mouth hung open, bloody mucus hanging off her slack lips.

First, the throat band, or he'd hang himself. He compelled her to lift the clippers to the plastic that bound his throat. He missed. Tried again. Missed again. Overshooting. Then he almost made her stab him in the throat. Narrow miss. Wouldn't that just be as ironic as all hell.

Got it.
He forced the muscles in her hands to contract.
Snip.
His head sagged forward, limp, but he could swallow again, and gasp in air.

Then the hands. He had to do it blind, because his head was hanging down on his chest, but he finally got the blades around the plastic cuffs that held one of his hands. Squeeze.
Snip.

One hand flopped down like dead meat, swinging uselessly. He wished he could jerk the clippers out of her hand and snip the last cuff himself, but Ava's arms were the only ones around here that worked.

Another long struggle, and
Snip,
his second hand fell free.

He fell, crashing full length, rigid as a toppling fir tree. He hit, bounced, teeth jarring, helpless and stiff, muscles rigid. He could see Ava out of the corner of his eye. Table. Syringes. With his last bit of strength, he forced her to pick up the syringe. Her hand. So clumsy, so numb. They fumbled, struggled, to get the device into position.

He/she stabbed it down into her thigh. Shoved in the plunger with her thumb. He could feel the echoes of the icy cold burn through her. Screaming despair, tearing her mind apart.

He stayed conscious, until he felt her fall, right on top of him.

Darkness closed in around a shrinking fading circle of light, until it was a shining pinprick—and then it winked out altogether.

“Y
ou sure about this?” Bruno braked outside the wrought iron gate that marked the entrance to the luxurious Parrish home in Beaverton. He looked uncomfortable. “I'm not. I think this sucks.”

“Completely sure,” she assured him. “I have to go to my sister.”

“You're aware of what this will cost me, right? Kev will redesign my skeleton. I'll be short a head, or missing a couple of limbs the next time you see me. And I loved being bilaterally symmetrical.”

She appreciated his attempt to lighten the moment, but any laughter would tip her down that slippery slope into a hysterical fit. “Don't make me laugh, or I'll freak. I can't cry in front of these people.”

Bruno looked puzzled. “But aren't they family?”

She thought of the embarrassment that had always greeted any displays of emotion in her family. The pills she'd taken over the years, to medicate those embarrassing feelings away.

“No,” she said quietly. “I can't. It's complicated.”

A tall, uniformed black man came to the driver's side of the car. Robert Fraser. She liked him better than any of the others on her father's security staff. He was always courteous to her, in spite of the example set by both his boss and his direct supervisor.

Robert murmured into his walkie-talkie. Bruno rolled his window down. Robert peered in at her. “Miss Parrish? You all right?”

“As far as I can be, under the circumstances,” she replied.

“I'm sorry about your loss,” Robert said.

She nodded. “Thank you.”

Robert scrutinized Bruno. “Who is this person?”

“He's a friend of mine,” she replied. “He gave me a ride home.”

“My name's Bruno Ranieri,” Bruno supplied. “I'm going to put my hand into my coat pocket to get my wallet and show you my ID, OK? So don't get all twitchy and shoot me with that SIG of yours.”

“Do it slowly,” Robert said.

Bruno plucked a wallet out of his pocket. He flipped it open to the license. Robert studied it. “Wait here,” he said.

He muttered into his walkie-talkie, walked to the front of the car, studied the plates, recited them.

Oh, for God's sake. Edie leaned out the window. “Robert, can't he just take me up the drive?”

“He can't go into the house without a body search and a background check,” Robert said.

“He's not staying,” she said. “He won't come inside.”

“I'd be terrified to,” Bruno commented dryly.

“Really, it's OK,” she urged Robert. “He's a friend. He's safe.”

Another muttered exchange, and finally Robert nodded. The gate began to grind open. Robert leaned to the window and met Bruno's eyes. “Do not get out of your car,” he said.

Bruno drove through. “It's like visiting a maximum security prison,” he said. “Where's the razor wire and the control towers?”

In my mind.
She cut the words off. They were only true if she let them be true. She stared at the house as it came into view, chilled by it. It had never been home, like the rambling Victorian in Tacoma where she'd grown up, near Helix's previous headquarters. She'd never bonded with the modern, glassy house her parents had chosen. It seemed cold, lacking in a human dimension.

Maybe that was why her parents had liked it so much.

Guilt stabbed deep, for thinking spiteful, unworthy thoughts at such a time. A suite had been designated as hers, though she'd never slept in it. Her bathroom alone in this house was larger than her entire Flanders Street apartment.

And yet, she felt so cramped here, she could hardly breathe.

Bruno braked when two members of the security personnel stepped out into the road. His brow creased with worry. “You have my number, right? Call me if you have problems.”

Right. What had she ever had but problems with these people? She forced a smile. “Don't worry. Tell Kev I'll be in touch.” Which was an understatement. She was going to have some choice words for Kev Larsen, when he finally crawled out of the woodwork. For not telling her and Bruno he was OK. If he
was
OK. She pushed that thought away, and waved at Bruno as he swung the car around the circle that bounded the big cluster of exotic ornamental shrubs.

He drove away, disappearing around the driveway's curve. She turned to face the house, and whatever she might find there.

Tanya was in the dark, mahogany paneled foyer. Her face looked gray, her eyes pink. Genuine grief sliced through Edie's numbness. Her throat seized up. She hurried towards Tanya, arms out.

Tanya stepped back, chin jerking up.
Don't touch.

Edie let her arms drop, breathing down the sting. So there was to be no coming together in grief, then. Her father had mandated her status as in the doghouse, and that status would endure.

Not important. She was here for her sister. Not comfort, support, or acceptance. The rest of them could go to hell. “Where's Ronnie?” The voice coming out of her was so cool. Remote-controlled robot girl.

“In the solarium. Nice, that you finally decided to show up.”

That didn't even penetrate. Edie walked past her cousin, and toward the solarium, the only room of the house that she liked. It was faced with warm, rosy cedar, and had banks of high windows that let light stream in over plush beige couches, cream wool rugs. Outside was one of the two huge, magnificent spreading oaks that adorned the sloping lawn, carefully pruned to let light into the huge windows.

Ronnie was slumped on a couch, head limp against the cushions. Aunt Evelyn's head turned as Edie walked in. Ronnie's did not.

Edie immediately understood why not, when Dr. Katz stood up. Her belly clenched with instinctive dislike. He'd drugged Ronnie.

The man seemed harmless, with his round face, graying hair, round glasses, impeccable credentials. But he loved to medicate. He was always ready with pills, so that the powerful people that paid him would not be bothered by unpleasantness, like tears, anxiety attacks, depression, psychic episodes, bad grades. Dr. Katz had the solution always ready in his hand. She hated his guts. “How is she?” she asked.

Evelyn's mouth flattened at Edie's hard tone. “She's resting. She couldn't stop crying.”

“I gave her something to help her rest,” Dr. Katz added.

“Of course you did.” Edie walked around to the front of the couch and knelt. Ronnie's tearstained face was pressed against the cushions, her mouth squashed open. She grabbed Ronnie's hands, squeezed.

“Baby?” she whispered. “Are you still awake? I'm here.”

But Ronnie was out. Edie stared at her sister, fighting her anger.

“She kept asking for you,” Aunt Evelyn said.

“I told you I was coming,” Edie replied. “You could have waited.”

“You could have hurried,” Evelyn countered.

“Before letting him bash her over the head with his pharmaceutical baseball bat?”

Evelyn gasped. “Edith!”

“It's all right, Evelyn,” Dr. Katz soothed. “It's normal for her to feel this way. In fact, I expected her to react with hostility. Anger is an integral part of the grieving process. It shouldn't be suppressed, or—”

“Shut up.” Edie chafed Ronnie's cold, clammy hands in her own. “I don't need to hear it. Not from you.”

“Edie, you're shocked and grieving,” Dr. Katz said. “I'm here for you, any time you need to vent. Or cry. Don't be afraid to let it out.”

“Yeah. Right,” she muttered.
Fuck you, too.
She stiffened when he laid his hand on her shoulder.

“Relax,” he soothed. “Let me give you something for the—”

“If you want to keep that hand, get it off my shoulder.” Edie's voice was not loud, but something in it made the room go very silent.

Dr. Katz lifted his hand away, very slowly. “Ah. There's, er, no need for that kind of language.”

“Edith!” Evelyn's voice cracked with horror. “What's gotten into you?”

“Nothing,” she said. “I just no longer give a shit what anyone thinks. I'm here for Ronnie. How long will the junk you gave her last?”

Dr. Katz's chest puffed. “It's hardly junk! Just a mild sedative that will help her to—”

“Just answer my question.”

“An hour and a half to two hours,” he said, tightly.

Edie headed toward the door.

“Where do you think you're going?” Evelyn demanded.

“I don't know,” she said. “To the kitchen, for a glass of water. To the bathroom to pee. I'm improvising, here. Leave me the hell alone.”

She slammed the door behind her on their indignant muttering, and set off, wandering at random until she stopped in front of a family photograph her mother had commissioned many years before.

It was an old-fashioned composition; her father in a chair in the front, as hawk-nosed and patrician as a founding father from an old daguerrotype. Her mother stood at his side with the adorable little baby Ronnie in her arms, looking beautiful and perfect in her pink twin set and pearls, dark hair gleaming in a perfect bob. And Edie, curled up at her father's feet, looking like she wanted to disappear no matter how the photographer had posed her. That had been two years after the Haven. Back when she was horribly convinced that she was going crazy.

The photo had been one of her mother's desperate attempts to sculpt the outward appearance of a perfect family. Often she'd thought that her mother's decision to have another baby was an attempt to, well, just try again, from the top. With fresh materials. Not that it made her love Ronnie any less.

Her younger face in the photo looked pinched, big eyes haunted.

She'd come a long way since the bad old days, she thought. She was making real progress. Just look at her. Threatening Dr. Katz with dismemberment. That had to be a step in the right direction.

Another few steps took her to the door of her father's study, the scene of so many lectures, so many admonitions and ultimatums. All of them useless in the end. They couldn't change who their daughter was.

Nor should they have wanted to. She was fine. She liked herself the way she was. And Kev liked her, too.

Thinking of Kev sent a knee-weakening stab of fear through her. She breathed it down, pushed on the door of the study. Went in.

It was a dark room, wood paneling, leather furniture, teak desk and bookshelves, teak filing cabinets. She wondered at the heavy, nervous feeling, as if she might be caught, scolded, punished. But by who? The only person whose opinion mattered had died that day.

Somehow, his murder had to be related to what was happening to her, and what had happened to Kev. Osterman's lingering legacy.

So why not start looking? What else was she going to do with herself while Ronnie snored away a haze of sedatives? Chat with Aunt Edith? Play Parcheesi with Tanya? She might as well get off her ass.

The computer was on. Edie slid into Dad's leather upholstered desk chair. Some part of her expected at any moment for him to burst in on her, furious at her for invading his privacy.

She clicked on his daily appointment log, scrolling through it.

Wow. For a man who had been discharged from the ICU one day before, he hadn't cut himself much slack. He'd canceled the raquetball match at the health club with one of his colleagues, but that was his one concession. He was booked solid with meetings, from eight o'clock on. At ten-fifteen, he'd typed in DES.

Ten-fifteen? Wasn't that when Des was meeting Kev? And wasn't it…

Oh, God. That was right about when Dad had been killed.

That made it so horribly real. She shuddered, and leaned down onto the desk, trying not to see it in her mind's eye. But she had an excellent capacity to visualize.

Her eye fell on the dagger-shaped letter opener, the one her mother had commissioned from Cartier, for her father's sixtieth birthday. It gleamed in the box. She picked it up, turned it over in her hand. Remembering. Fifty guests, and her parents watching her like a hawk lest she blurt out something shocking and wreck the party.

She pulled herself together, wiped her eyes, and kept poking. Nothing seemed interesting or significant in her father's e-mails of the last couple of weeks. Neither was anything else she clicked on in the desktop. She left the computer, and set to looking at the hard files in the cabinets behind. Helix stuff, Parrish Foundation stuff. Reams of it.

In the Parrish Foundation stuff, she found lots of correspondance generated by her mother. Linda Parrish's graceful, flowing signature made Edie's throat seize up. There was a sheaf of files dedicated to the Osterman scandal. Memos to the Board of Directors of the PF. Many hysterical iterations about the necessity of rigorous control measures in place for every penny of research money to prevent such a disgrace from happening again. All in the months leading up to her mother's death.

Edie's eyes stung as she read them. That was Mom, all over. So rigorous, so upright, so self-righteous. Both her parents had been so proud to be part of a charitable organization that helped the world to combat pain, disability, and disease. They had considered themselves the good guys, the white hats. Crusaders, on a holy quest.

Both of them had been horrified by the Osterman scandal. They had done everything they could to distance themselves from it, to safeguard the Parrish Foundation from future disgrace. Stiff necked as any wild-eyed religious zealot. It was their best quality. And their worst.

Then she found an unlabeled file just stuck into the drawer. It was a sheaf of memos, notes, scraps, business cards, thank-you cards, invitations to events, publicity materials, magazine subscriptions, printed out e-mails. All dated around the time of her mother's death.

Edie leafed through them. This was the result of her mother's secretary going through her boss's desk after the funeral, throwing everything she didn't know what to do with into a catch-all file. Her eye stuck on an e-mail from Des Marr. The text read: