Her Dying Breath (29 page)

Brenda parked at Amelia’s, her conversation with Joe Swoony’s mother reverberating in her head. Joe had appeared normal at birth and for the first two years, yet he’d started regressing around the age of two and a half—after he’d visited the free clinic, where he’d received a series of vaccinations. At the time, no one had suspected they were tainted, that the doctors had created them specifically for the research project to engineer and alter the young persons’ minds.

Brenda’s heart had literally hurt as Mrs. Swoony described the terror and helplessness she’d felt.

And the agony of watching her son deteriorate while other children thrived.

What had she done wrong? Mrs. Swoony had wondered. Had she somehow caused her son’s problems?

And then the cruel taunts and ridicule from other children, from teenagers and insensitive adults.

Even worse were the pitying stares.

Brenda cut the engine in front of Amelia’s, having gained a new respect for the young woman who’d fought her way back from the trauma she’d endured to reclaim her life.

She checked her phone, annoyed that Nick hadn’t called. Obviously he wasn’t concerned about her accident.

Then again, maybe he had new evidence on the case, a lead.

Lamplight glowed in the front, so hopefully Amelia was home.

Brenda grabbed her notepad and mini-recorder, then hurried up the sidewalk. Classical music from another condo drifted in the breeze and the smell of roses blooming from the flower garden scented the air, reminding her of her grandmother’s house.

Odd, but she hadn’t thought about her grandmother in ages. Agnes’s mother had been harsh and rigid the few times she and her mother had visited, so much that finally Agnes had stopped going to see her. Brenda had never understood what she’d done wrong to make the woman dislike her so much, but it was almost as if she couldn’t stand to look at her.

Then she’d discovered the adoption papers and understood. Agnes’s mother couldn’t love a child that wasn’t her real granddaughter.

The sting of her dismissal had hurt so much, though, that for years Brenda had dwelled on trying to earn a place in the older woman’s heart.

Amelia’s wind chimes tinkled, dragging Brenda from her thoughts, and she rang the doorbell. Two doors down, a muscular-looking guy in army fatigues with a black hat tucked low over his head opened the door, then headed toward an old Corvette.

He glanced up at her and frowned, his expression wary as he ducked his head and jumped in a battered old Jeep. Seconds later, he gunned the engine, tires screeching as he roared from the parking lot.

Brenda gripped her shoulder bag tighter, then punched the bell again, but no one answered. The shades to her studio were open, so she peered through the window.

The canvas on Amelia’s easel caught her eye.

A line was drawn in the middle of the canvas, a charcoal sketch of Amelia on one side. Or maybe it was Sadie. Who could tell?

But the other half depicted another woman—or rather, a girl. She had long straight hair and bangs and big, dark, wide-set eyes. Her nose was slightly flat, her lips thick, her angular features stark but attractive, striking even.

A memory tickled at her conscience, a past she’d thought she’d forgotten and would never visit again.

She had seen the girl before.

At the sanitarium.

She closed her eyes as images flooded her. The girl screaming, trying to escape, clawing at a guard and crying that the men there hurt her.

A chill engulfed Brenda, and she staggered sideways, then looked at the picture of the girl again.

She had met her in the sanitarium. She’d even tried to help the girl break out.

But the guards had caught her, and…the memory slipped away as if a vessel had carried it from her mind into a tunnel.

Emotions clogged her throat.

That girl, the one she’d tried to save, was Seven.

But Brenda had failed to help her back then.

Was that the reason she’d contacted her now?

She rolled to her side and lay for a moment, cradled in Ron Stowe’s arms. His dying breath bathed her cheek as she yanked on the piano wire.

Tears rolled down his cheeks as his eyes widened in shock.

She had already killed him twice.

But this time was the last, and he seemed to know it, the fight draining from him, as if he realized that the more he fought, the more she would punish him.

And the more times he would have to die.

It really was a shame. He was so handsome that if she were a normal woman and he hadn’t been…the man he was…she would have let him live.

Regrets and the misery of knowing that she’d never be that normal woman ate at her like a festering sore, and she closed her eyes and draped his arms around her, snuggling into him as if he’d just promised sweet nothings to her and the forever-after she would never have.

Tears blurred her eyes, blinding her.

His cheek still felt warm against hers, and she kissed his jaw, pretending that he loved her and that they were starting a life together.

But the blood from his cheek smeared against her own, and his hand felt cold and was growing stiff, reminding her that forever-after and love and family would never happen for her.

She had been born bad. Hadn’t the Commander pounded that into her brain enough times for her to accept it?

Back to the hole
…

His voice tore through the haze of her fantasies, and she felt like that little girl who’d wanted dolls and dresses, and to play
with the other little girls when they jumped rope in the street, and to have Christmases with real trees and ornaments and presents and hugs from people who loved you.

But there was no love for girls like her. No forgiveness or holidays or light. Only shadows and punishments and darkness.

Great gulping sobs racked her, the body next to her growing stiffer and colder with every second, just as she imagined her mother’s body had done before she’d left her with the Commander.

But as she purged the grief from her soul, her tears slowly subsided, and disgust at her weakness rose. She looked into Ron Stowe’s handsome face, and hatred mounted.

He could have helped her. Just as Nick and Jake Blackwood and Brenda Banks and all the others who’d stood by and done nothing could have.

Swiping at the infernal tears, she climbed from bed and hurriedly dressed. The lessons she’d learned from the Commander kicked in, and she used the sterile soap to clean Stowe’s body, then rolled him in heavy plastic.

His wide, listless stare met hers, but the fantasy she’d had earlier had vanished, and she saw only the vileness of another man who had betrayed her.

Red Rover, Red Rover

Send Seven right over…

The childhood game replayed in her head as she carved the number three behind his ear and placed the skin she’d drawn from her carving into a baggie.

Then she dragged Stowe out to her SUV and drove to the sanitarium.

She knew the guards’ schedule when they made their rounds. Knew visiting hours had long come and gone. Knew that half the safety lights in the parking lot didn’t work, and that the shift
change for employees was still three hours away. That the security cameras in the south side of the parking lot were broken.

Angry at herself for her emotional outpouring, she made quick work of dumping the naked body. She checked to make sure no one was watching, then propped him against the sign for the hospital.

Let the residents of Slaughter Creek wake and see what their children had become because of them.

B
renda tossed and turned all night, images of the sketch Amelia had drawn of Seven taunting her. She tried to piece together the disjointed memories of her short stay at the sanitarium, but they were clouded with fear.

She hadn’t heard from Nick either.

What was he doing?

The fact that he hadn’t called or checked on her hurt.

Antsy, she pulled up her computer and spent the next hour ironing out the piece on Joe Swoony. When she finished it, she’d talk to Grace Granger’s mother.

She jotted down a few notes on Amelia, but she was going to be the hardest one to capture.

Because she was starting to feel close to her.

Getting close to a subject in an article was dangerous.

She needed to be objective, but how could she be when she connected with the young woman? When she’d seen her troubled mental state and the effects her illness had on the entire family?

When Amelia’s parents and grandfather had been murdered to keep people from learning what had happened at Slaughter Creek Sanitarium.

Maybe Brenda couldn’t be detached, but she would still write Amelia’s story. Helping the town to understand Amelia would soften criticism and prevent more gossip.

She started the piece twice, but couldn’t find the right opening line. Frustrated, she studied the childhood journal of the kids at school that she’d found at her parents’ house.

An opening line teased at her mind—“Who am I?” No. She scratched that out and wrote, “Searching for Amelia.”

The quest for the truth about her identity fit Amelia and the other victims, and it was a topic most individuals could understand.

She certainly could. Hadn’t she been struggling to find her own identity all her life? To feel like she belonged?

Amelia’s psyche had split into three personalities, a manifestation of the abuse the research experiment had inflicted on her. She spent the next half hour writing what she knew of Amelia’s life, then realized she needed to talk to Sadie to verify the details. She also needed her approval, since Sadie guarded Amelia like a mother bear protecting her cub.

If Brenda had a sister, she would protect her, too.

Her cell phone buzzed, and she automatically tensed. It was barely morning. It couldn’t be good.

She reached across the bed and snagged her phone from the nightstand, tensing as she read the text.

There once was a girl who was mad

Because nobody cared she was sad

So she took them to bed

And made them all dead

So everyone would know they were bad
.

Nick’s head had just hit the pillow when his phone trilled. He had set the ringtone to alert him who was calling, and the bluesy jazz tune indicated it was Brenda.

Blues and jazz because the music sounded sultry and sexy, just like her.

He glanced at the clock. Five a.m.

It couldn’t be good news.

The ringtone started again.

Or…maybe she was just pissed that he hadn’t returned her calls. But hell, he was doing his job. And he hadn’t liked the desperate worry that had clawed at his gut when he’d heard about her accident.

Better to distance himself.

The phone trilled again, and he reached for it. “It’s Nick.”

“I just received another text from Seven.”

“What does it say?”

The idea of sleep fled as Brenda read him the limerick.

“It sounds like she’s killed again. But she didn’t tell you where she left the body?”

“No.” Brenda sighed. “Not a clue.”

Nick’s phone beeped that he had another call. “Hang on, Brenda. Jake’s calling.”