Nightwatcher (38 page)

She was older, and easy, when he met her. Like most boys his age, he had one thing on his mind. When she said she was pregnant, he didn’t believe the baby was his—and even if it was, he didn’t want any part of it. Especially after he found out she was expecting twins—even though he knew twins ran in his family. His own father was a twin.

He was batshit crazy, too. Tried to kill his own kid.

They say mental illness runs in families, too. Just like twins.

He never wanted to believe that, either, though.

Anyway, when he saw those kids, there was no doubt in his mind that they were his. The boy, Jerry, looked just like him. Acted like him, too. He was a real hellion, back then, before the injury changed him. He bonded with his mother’s “friend Sam” right away, almost as if he somehow sensed the connection.

The girl—Jamie—she was different. Quiet. Cold. Looked different, too—she had long auburn hair with bangs and big black eyes, the spitting image of Lenore the last time he saw her as a teenager.

Jamie spent a lot of time watching him, looking from him to Jerry, and it gave him the creeps. He got the idea that she, too, knew what was up. Knew he was her daddy.

He sure as hell didn’t want Lenore back in his life. She was mean, and bitter, and crazy, and she looked like shit. But he wanted them. His daughter, his son . . . especially his son.

He figured there was no way Lenore was going to let him have even just one kid. He thought about taking him—taking both of them, even, because they were twins. They should probably be together.

But if he got caught, he’d go back to prison, and he’d had enough of that. Had enough of running, too.

He remembered what the counselor back at the prison had told him when she was coaching him on how to live an honest life on the outside. So after they’d taken a few pictures, and finished eating the chicken and rice Lenore had fixed for them in a big cast-iron skillet, while the kids were washing the dishes, he asked Lenore if he could speak to her privately, in the bedroom.

She lit up. Yeah, she was thinking she was going to get some, he realized. Not a chance of that.

He closed the door behind them, turned to her, and saw that she was starting to undress.

“Wait, no,” he said. “I need to talk to you.”

“About what?”

“The kids. I want to be a part of their lives.”

She appeared to think about it. Then she shrugged. “Sure. I’ll take you back. We’ll give it a shot. I always loved you—you know that, don’t you?”

“No. You don’t get it. Not
you
.
Them
. I want to be a part of
their
lives. Not yours.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“I don’t want you, Lenore. Okay? I never did.”

“You son of a bitch! Get the hell out of here and don’t you dare ever come back!”

“Those are my kids. I have a right to—”

“Don’t talk to me about rights. You’re a convicted felon. You abandoned me when I was pregnant and you denied they were yours.”

“Because you were a whore who slept with every—”

She cut him off with a slap across the face.

Enraged, he grabbed her. “You don’t ever do that to me, you bitch!” he screamed. “You show me respect, do you hear me?”

Jerry came running and pounced on him, beating at him with his fists.

And then Jamie came, too, screeching “Nooooo!”

She had the cast-iron skillet in her hand.

He thought she was coming after him, but she went straight for her brother.

It happened so quickly. She swung at Jerry with the skillet and he went down, his head split open.

“What the hell did you do?” Lenore screamed.

“He’s our father! Jerry was trying to hurt him and he’s our father!” Jamie shrieked back.

“No, he isn’t. He’s a dirt bag and I want him out of here!” Crying hysterically, Lenore was already dialing 911.

Torn, he looked at Jerry, bleeding and unconscious on the floor. He knew he had to go before the cops showed up. He was on probation. He’d just served ten years. No one would ever believe that he wasn’t the one who’d bashed in the kid’s head. Like father, like son, they would say.

“No, Daddy, don’t go!” Jamie clutched at his arm. “Please!”

He shook her off and ran. Ran, as always.

He didn’t realize she’d chased him until he was out on the street, tearing off down the block. He heard someone screaming his name, turned back, and there she was.

“Wait! I’m coming with you.”

“You can’t do that.”

“Please!”

“No! You stay here and help your brother!”

“I hate him.” The look in her eyes—it was lethal. It scared the hell out of him.

She’d been wanting to do that, Sam realized, for a long time. She’d been wanting to hurt Jerry. Or maybe just hurt someone, anyone—just for the hell of it.

He knew, because he recognized the look. He’d seen it in his father’s eyes, and he’d seen it in the mirror. The same dark urge had festered inside him for as long as he could remember. But he fought it, because he didn’t want to be like his father.

Hearing sirens, he abruptly turned his back on Jamie and started running again. He never looked back.

Maybe he knew she was following him. Maybe he didn’t.

Whenever he remembers that night, he’s never really sure.

What he does know is that later—much later, maybe the next night—he walked out of a bar, and there she was. Waiting for him. She got in his face, telling him that she needed him, that she wanted to come with him, that she wanted him to take care of her—on and on like that.

She looked and sounded like her mother. In his inebriated confusion, he thought she
was
her mother.

She just wouldn’t let up. Kept talking to him, making accusations and demands, louder and more shrill until he couldn’t take it anymore.

He had a blade in his pocket for protection, as always. He’d never used it, though. Never used anything but his fists. Not until that night.

The next thing he knew, she was dead at his feet with her throat slit, those cold eyes of hers seemingly fixed on his face.

She wasn’t Lenore.

She was Jamie. His own daughter.

He’d killed her—killed a part of himself, really—and the strange thing was, his first thought was that it had felt good. For so long, he’d been wondering what it felt like to take a life. Now he knew.

And he wanted to do it again.

He left her there, on the street.

He started running, and he didn’t look back. He ran away from his dead daughter, and his injured son. He ran away from New York. Hitchhiked out through Jersey, through Pennsylvania. On the Ohio turnpike, a lady trucker picked him up. They drove for a while, until the trucker said something that pissed him off, and he swore he could hear Jamie’s voice in his head, telling him to do something about it.

He tried, when they pulled over at the next truck stop. He pulled a knife on the trucker, tried to use it. Bad idea. Turned out she was a black belt. He regained consciousness to find himself back in police custody.

They never connected him to Lenore, or Jamie, or Jerry . . .

But they sure as hell connected him to his rap sheet.

It was back to prison for him, for years.

And through all those years, Jamie talked to him inside his head.

He gradually came to understand that when he killed her, her spirit left her body and entered his own. Her being melded with his. She was a part of him now, and he was a part of her. Eventually, he let go of Sam and became Jamie.

He didn’t tell anyone about that, though. They would never understand. They would have thought he was crazy, just like his old man. Like father, like son. He probably would have been sent to the psych ward.

All he wanted was to get the hell out of prison; to go find the rest of his family, and make things right.

Finally, this summer, he was free. Free to leave. Free to embrace Jamie on the outside, just as he had within. He had always thought she looked like her mother, but when he put on a woman’s clothes, and the right wig, and looked into the mirror . . . he saw Jamie. It was like she was alive again. A part of him.

She told him what to do about Lenore. She deserved to be punished, Jamie said, for the way she had treated him.

It felt good, so good, to kill Lenore. When it was over, he waited for Jerry to come home. Jamie wanted him to kill Jerry, too.

But when Jerry walked in the door, another voice started speaking inside his head, drowning out Jamie’s. It was his own voice.

He’s your son. Look at him. Don’t do to him what your father wanted to do to you!

“Who are you?” Jerry asked, frightened, bewildered. He was childlike—but there was no hint of the scrappy kid he’d once been.

He’d been robbed of that. Robbed of so many things.

“I’m . . . your sister. Jamie.” The words escaped him before he could think them through, but when he saw Jerry’s face light up, he knew it was for the best.

“I thought you were dead!”

“Well, I’m not. I went away, but now I’m back, and I’m going to take care of you.”

And that’s what I did. It’s what I tried to do, until it all went wrong.

Having arrived at a northbound subway entrance, he decides that it’s time to stop walking.

He turns to look back over his shoulder.

From this vantage, he can’t see the gaping hole in the skyline, or the smoke rising from the ruins a few miles south. From here, he can see only intact buildings, glittering against the starry night sky.

Time to get out of here; time to go far, far away again.

At least for a while.

But don’t worry
, he tells New York City . . . and Jerry . . . and Allison.

I’ll be back. You can count on that.

“A
llison. Allison . . .”

She opens her eyes to see Mack. “What . . . ? Where . . . ?”

Dazed, she looks around and sees that she’s in her own living room. Faint light falls through the window; it’s dawn.

Emily Reiss is dozing on the couch beside her, and Mack’s sister, Lynn, is in the corner of the room, having a hushed telephone conversation. There’s no sign of Officer Green, but she can hear the crackle of a police radio in the next room.

“Allison, there’s good news,” Mack tells her. “Detective Manzillo just called. They got him.”

“Got who?”

“Jerry. The handyman. He did it. He’s under arrest. It’s over.”

“Jerry?” she echoes, stunned. “But . . . are you sure?”

“He confessed.”

“Are you sure?” she asks again, because it can’t be right.

“Positive.”

Wow. So she was wrong.

She had been so sure Jerry was harmless . . .

Guess I’m not a very good judge of character after all.

“Are you okay?” Mack asks.

“Yes,” she says. “Are you?”

He nods.

She reaches out and squeezes his hand. He squeezes it back.

“Thanks,” he says. “Again. For helping me.”

“You’re welcome. I’m usually around. Whatever you need. Right across the hall.”

He smiles—faintly, but it’s a start. “That’s good to know.”

Keep reading for

an excerpt from

SLEEPWALKER
,

the chilling follow-up to

NIGHTWATCHER

Coming October 2012

from Wendy Corsi Staub

Sunday, September 11, 2011

Glenhaven Park

Westchester County, New York

H
er husband has suffered from insomnia all his life, but tonight, Allison MacKenna is the one who can’t sleep.

Lying on her side of the king-sized bed in their master bedroom, she listens to the quiet rhythm of her own breathing, the summery chatter of crickets and night birds beyond the window screen, and the faint hum of the television in the living room downstairs.

Mack is down there, stretched out on the couch. When she stuck her head in about an hour ago to tell him she was going to bed, he was watching
Animal House
on cable.

“What happened to the Jets game?” she asked.

“They were down fourteen at the half so I turned the channel. Want to watch the movie? It’s just starting.”

“Seen it,” she said dryly. As in,
Who hasn’t?

“Yeah? Is it any good?” he returned, just as dryly.

“As a former fraternity boy, you’ll love it, I’m sure.” She hesitated, wondering if she should tell him.

Might as well: “And you might want to revisit that Jets game.”

“Really? Why’s that?”

“They’re in the middle of a historic comeback. I just read about it online. You should watch.”

“I’m not in the mood. The Giants are my team, not the Jets.”

Determined to make light of it, she said, “Um, excuse me, aren’t you the man who asked my OB-GYN to preschedule a C-section last winter because you were worried I might go into labor while the Jets were playing?”

“That was for the AFC Championship!”

She just shook her head and bent to kiss him in the spot where his dark hair, cut almost buzz-short, has begun the inevitable retreat from his forehead.

When she met Mack, he was in his mid-thirties and looked a decade younger, her own age. Now he owns his forty-four years, with a sprinkling of gray at his temples and wrinkles that frond the corners of his green eyes. His is the rare Irish complexion that tans, rather than burns, thanks to a rumored splash of Mediterranean blood somewhere in his genetic pool. But this summer, his skin has been white as January, and the pallor adds to the overall aura of world-weariness.

Tonight, neither of them was willing to discuss why Mack, a die-hard sports fan, preferred an old movie he’d seen a hundred times to an exciting football game on opening day of the NFL season—which also happens to coincide with the milestone tenth anniversary of the September 11 attacks.

The networks and most of the cable channels have provided a barrage of special programming all weekend. You couldn’t escape it, not even with football.