Sacrificial Muse (A Sabrina Vaughn Novel) (5 page)

ELEVEN

Sabrina knocked on the
door and waited. She had no idea why she was here, she just knew she couldn’t be at home. The front curtain twitched seconds before the porch light snapped on. She took a buffering step backward and held onto her bag—nothing more
than the change of clothes and extra toothbrush she carried to
work in case of emergencies. The door opened and she smiled, pulling her jacket closed on impulse. She didn’t want the gun on her hip deterring the old lady from letting her inside.

“Can I help you, dear?” Miss Ettie said, the perplexed smile on her face diffused by the screen door that still stood between them.

She smiled back. “Hi, do you remember me?” This was stupid. She shouldn’t have come here. But where else could she go?

Before she had a chance to change her mind, Miss Ettie laughed and unlatched the screen door, pushing it open. “Of course I do, dear. You’re Michael’s friend. Come in,” she said, holding the door for her.

Crossing the threshold, Sabrina stood, waiting awkwardly for Miss Ettie to close the door and lock it. The layout of the house was similar to hers: the large foyer breaking off into a front parlor to one side and a formal dining room to the other. The main staircase wound its way upward between the two, leading toward guest rooms. Like with her own home, the kitchen was in the back with another set of smaller stairs leading to the second floor.

It sounded quiet. Like there was no one else here. The feeling that this was a bad idea intensified. “You know, I probably shouldn’t have—”

“Nonsense, dear. Now, tell me what brings you.” Miss Ettie gave her a smile that was all at once familiar and heartbreaking. For a moment, Sabrina was a little girl again, clamoring for her grandmother’s love and attention. Thinking of Lucy, she felt the heavy weight of grief settle in her chest.

She cleared her throat and forced a smile, hoping it looked natural and not at all like she was crazy. “I was hoping you had a room available.” That was it. No explanation, no excuse. She didn’t have one. What was there to say?
I ran away from home, can you hide me
?

“Oh, I have a whole house available … no one’s due for another week or so,” Miss Ettie said. She produced a silver key from the pocket of her paisley housedress and used it to open a cabinet mounted to the wall. Inside were a number of keys, all hanging in a neat row from tiny brass hooks. She chose one and relocked the cabinet. “Here you go, dear.” She pressed the key into Sabrina’s hand. “Are you hungry? Can I make you something to eat?” Miss Ettie let her gaze drift down her frame, a slight frown adding to the multitude of wrinkles on her face.

“No. No, I’m fine. I’d just like to go to sleep,” she said. The lie was second nature now, one she told people when she wanted to be left alone.

If she knew she was being lied to, Miss Ettie didn’t seem to mind. “Well, if you’re sure … I’m going back to my program, but if you want something later, there’s chicken and dumplings in the refrigerator,” she said, patting her knobby fingers against the back of Sabrina’s hand. “I put you in his room. There are clean towels under the sink.”

She waited for Miss Ettie to disappear into the kitchen before she glanced down at the key in her hand. The keychain attached to it had the number 5 engraved into it.

His room
.

She didn’t even have to ask. Miss Ettie was talking about Michael. Sabrina turned toward the stairs and started the climb. She opened the door to number 5 and let herself in, locking it behind her. Leaning against the door, she let her eyes adjust to the dark.

Same large, four-poster bed across from the window. Same leather chair tucked into the corner, next to the fireplace. Same dresser beside the bathroom door. She’d only been here once, but she remembered it like it was yesterday. Sitting in that chair, watching Michael take off his shirt, listening to him catalog every scar she saw.

Her hand found her stomach, her fingertips playing across the smattering of scars that marred it.

He stabbed me fourteen times. They spell out the word
MINE
.

She could still see the look on his face when she’d ran his fingers across it. It’d gone quiet, the soft gray of his eyes looking nearly black in the dim light of the bedside lamp. Even then, she’d recognized that look for what it was: rage. He hadn’t felt sorry for her or pitied her. He’d been enraged over what had been done to her. To the girl she’d once been.

That had been it. The precise moment she’d fallen in love with Michael, and it was a pit she’d been trying to claw her way out of ever since.

Her phone buzzed in her back pocket and she pulled it out to glance at the screen, prepared to send the call to voicemail. It was Liam.

“Hello,” she said, already regretting her decision to answer the call.

“Hi,” he said. “I know I’m pushing it with twice in one night … I just wanted to make sure you got home okay. When you left the station, it kinda looked like someone was following you.”

Her mind immediately went to the card stuffed in her pocket and the word written on it.
Soon.

“Sabrina? Is everything okay?” Liam said when she didn’t answer him right away.

She shook her head to clear out some of the cobwebs, but they were sticky, clinging to everything they touched. “Yeah, I’m fine. Probably just a reporter … matter of fact, there was one waiting for me when I got home.” It was a plausible explanation … only it couldn’t have been Croft who’d followed her home. He’d been too busy carrying groceries and eating cake to follow her anywhere. Still, he wasn’t the only reporter out there who had their nose in her business.

“Oh … okay. I just wanted to make sure.” He sounded lost, like he had something else to say but didn’t know how to make the jump.

“Was there something else?” she said, taking pity on him.

“I’d like to take you to dinner tomorrow night,” he said in a rush. “No ambush this time.”

She thought about Nickels, sent in to babysit her, and Michael, who no longer seemed to care. “Yeah, okay. Sounds good—pick me up at eight?”

Liam sat quiet for a second before he blew out what she recognized as a relieved sigh. “Great. Eight o’clock … I’ll see you then. Good night, Sabrina.”

“G’night,” she said into the phone before ending the call. She took off her jacket, tossing it on the chair as she crossed the room. Pulling her SIG off her hip, she laid it on the nightstand before sitting on the edge of the bed.

Reaching for her back pocket, she pulled out the note card and turned it over in her hands. The blood red of it looked almost black, the outline of the name,
Calliope
, all but disappearing into the dark. It didn’t even have her name on it, so how did it end up in the bag in Mathews’s office? How did the desk sergeant even know it was supposed to go to her? No address. No postmark. It must’ve been hand delivered … like the roses.

She stood and made her way to the window. Looking out she could see faint shadows dancing around the back of her house, just the hint of movement from room to room. She imagined Val washing the dinner dishes. Riley talking on the phone. Jason working on the science project she’d promised to help him with. Guilt, her most constant companion, started to put the squeeze on her, but she pushed it away. Focused instead on the puzzle at hand. Returning to the bed, she sat on its edge.

The mysterious voice on the phone came back to her. Nothing had been said that couldn’t have been read in one of Croft’s infuriatingly intrusive articles, but there had been something about it—a note of familiarity. Like he knew her … but they all thought they knew her. Shared a bond with her that no one else did. That she understood them. She’d killed Wade, only to have him replaced by a hundred more …

Ever wonder what it is about you that attracted me to you in the first place?

Wade’s voice filled her head. For a second, Sabrina was suddenly sure that if she looked, she’d see him sitting in the chair across from her. She made herself look, feeling crazy that she was compelled to check the room for her dead half-brother. What’s next? Looking under the bed and jamming the desk chair under the closet knob like when she’d been a kid? It was her imagination. She was tired, hungry. The only thing she’d put in her stomach all day besides coffee were a couple saltines and a few bites of pizza. She needed sleep. Food could wait until morning.

It was your eyes. Not the color so much, but what was behind them. A knowing. Like you saw what I really was and didn’t mind.

Val was right. Things were worse than before. After she’d killed Wade, there’d been a lull. A quiet that made her think her nightmare was over. That she was finally free. In a way, it
was
over. She was no longer afraid; but it wasn’t fear that ate at her, kept her awake at night, pushing her to her physical and emotional limits.

It was guilt.

How many girls did I kill, trying to find that look in their eyes? Trying to find you …

She ran the names of the dead through her head, starting with the first girl Wade took after her. Lisa Pruitt. She’d been the first taken but the seventh set of remains to be found. Her body had been dragged deep into the woods and left, almost like she’d been banished. Like she’d failed somehow.

That’s because she did. She was a failure—they all were. None of them could give me what I needed, because none of them were you.

“Shut up.” She said it out loud. It didn’t matter. No one could hear her. No one was here to tell her how crazy she was for talking to her dead, psychotic half-brother. “Just … shut the fuck up.”

You’re as much to blame as I am, you know? None of them had to die. If you’d stayed with me, they’d still be here.

“Stop talking or I’ll make you stop,” she said quietly, squeezing her eyes shut. She was tumbling down the rabbit hole, falling farther and farther …

You can’t get rid of me, Melissa. Killing me didn’t stop me. It just brought us closer together. I’m inside you now, closer than ever—

She clamped her hands around her thigh and squeezed, viciously pushing her thumbs into the puckered flesh of her scar so hard she was sure she’d break the skin. When Wade shot her, it’d been at close range with a hollow-point bullet. The bullet shattered in her leg, some fragments exiting the back of her thigh while others scattered throughout her leg, from hip to knee. The doctors removed the fragments that threatened her femoral artery, but the others were still there. She could feel their sharp angles dig into her muscle. Pain ripped through her, so bright and loud it drowned out everything else. She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think past the screaming throb in her leg. Every sound, every thought faded into the hum—bleached white, until pain was all that was left.

TWELVE

Sabrina woke, hands still
resting on her thigh. She lay still for a moment, listening. The voice of her dead brother was gone, replaced by the quiet creaks and sighs of an unfamiliar house. She pulled her hands from her leg and rolled onto her side.

In the beginning, she’d thought the same as Val—that killing Wade was supposed to be the end of it. That putting him in the ground would free her of him and the horrible things he’d done to her. She’d been wrong. Killing him had only given him a way inside.

Of course, when she thought about it rationally, she knew the truth. She was suffering from survivor’s guilt—that’s what the department therapist had called it. Her grief at losing her grandmother, coupled with blaming herself for her murder and the murders of so many others, made her see and hear things that weren’t really there, and since she refused to talk about it, it was eating her alive.

In the silent hum, she allowed herself to pretend it didn’t matter. The howling pain in her thigh had mellowed to a whimpering ache. She felt calm. More centered and grounded than she had in weeks. Wade was gone, like he’d never been there. She had no idea how long it would stay that way. A few hours. A few days. She never knew for sure; had just learned to be glad for the silence in between.

Sitting up, she took a glance at the bedside clock—just after five a.m. She stood and didn’t favor her leg on her trip to the bathroom. Each step took the pain in her thigh from dull to sharp as she settled her weight on it.

She showered and changed into fresh clothes before finally turning her phone back on. As soon as she did, it began to chime, signaling voicemail after voicemail. She looked at the call log. Nickels. Val. Strickland. She erased them all without bothering to listen to them. She’d have to deal with it soon enough. Right now she wanted a bit more calm before the storm. And coffee.

She left her room, careful to be as quiet as possible, but when she reached the kitchen, she found Miss Ettie was already up, bent over to pull something warm and sweet from the oven. She turned and fixed Sabrina with a knowing smile. “You need a bit more than coffee to start your day. Sit down,” Miss Ettie said, nodding her into one of the curved-back chairs that sat snug against the kitchen table.

Sabrina sat. That feeling of being a little girl again came over her, and she had a flash of memory—sitting at the kitchen table in Lucy’s kitchen, her little legs dangling from the seat because she was too small to touch the floor. Lucy at the counter, cutting her a slice of cake and pouring her a glass of sweet tea. Renegade tears pricked at the back of her eyes, but she closed them off, refusing to give them a way out. She’d never been good at grieving.

Miss Ettie turned and set a cinnamon roll roughly the size of a steering wheel in front of her.

“Thank you,” she said, a brief smile touching the corner of her mouth.

“You’re wondering how I knew you were an early riser?” Miss Ettie said, busying herself with pouring Sabrina a cup of coffee.

“Yeah, I kind of am.”

Miss Ettie set the cup of coffee next to her plate and sat down. “Because for six weeks, Michael rolled himself out of bed at the most ungodly hours, just to go running with you. By the time I was up to make breakfast, he’d already been out and back and was making me pancakes.” She smiled. “He’s such a sweet boy.”

Sabrina hid a smiled behind her coffee cup. As
El Cartero
, Michael was rumored to be responsible for over twenty contract killings—and those were just the ones he was suspected of. Sweet was the last thing she’d call him. The thought of him flipping pancakes for a little old lady was borderline ridiculous.

“I don’t run anymore.” She had no idea why she said it, why it felt like she was revealing some deep, dark sin. If she found it odd, the old lady didn’t let on, just rolled over her confession like she’d said nothing at all.

“He talks quite a bit about you—of course, I’m usually the one who brings you up, but that’s just because I know how stubborn he can be. He misses you terribly; I can hear it in his voice,” Miss Ettie said, pushing away from the table to fix herself a cup of coffee.

Sabrina picked at the edge of her pastry and had a piece nearly to her mouth before she understood what Miss Ettie was saying. She dropped it and turned in her seat. “You still talk to Michael?”

Miss Ettie nodded. “Every few weeks or so. He calls to check up on me, which is silly—sweet, but silly. He says it’s to make sure I get his checks, but I know the truth. When you get to be my age, people don’t just call you out of the blue to talk about the weather. It’s to make sure you haven’t fallen and broken a hip or up and died.”

Sabrina stared at her, furiously grabbing at words as they rushed past her. “Checks?”

“Mmm, from some foreign bank I’ve never heard of. He keeps his room here—number five—paid up through Kingdom Come. I told him to stop sending them, but like I said, he’s stubborn.” Miss Ettie said, “Eat,” giving her a disapproving look.

“Does he ever use it? Has he been back?” Her head was spinning, but she stuffed a wad of sweet bread into her mouth and chewed—anything to keep the old woman talking.

“Yes … ” Miss Ettie smiled. “Although he’s made it perfectly clear that I’m not supposed to tell anyone. Especially you.”

Sabrina almost choked on the food in her mouth but managed to get it down. “I won’t stay. I really shouldn’t have—”

“Don’t be ridiculous. You can use his room as long as you’d like. He’s on an extended trip overseas. I don’t expect him back anytime soon.” Miss Ettie reached out and patted her hand. “Unless you want me to call him … Are you in trouble, dear?”

Yes. Call Michael. Tell him he needs to come back.
“No. I’m fine. I just needed some peace and quiet.”

Miss Ettie looked far from convinced. “That you’ll get plenty of here, most days are as quiet as a tomb,” she said before she stood. “There’s a spare key in that dish over there. If you’re going to be late getting back, take it with you. I lock up at seven
o
’
clock on the button.”

Sabrina glanced at the Blue Willow bowl on the counter by the back door and frowned. “You shouldn’t keep a key to your house just lying around.”

“Now you sound like Michael.” The old woman laughed and patted her on her shoulder. “I’ll leave you to your breakfast,” Miss Ettie said, dividing a long look between her and the cinnamon roll before she disappeared into a room behind the kitchen.

Sabrina nodded, pulled off another piece, and chewed. She kept at it until the entire thing was gone.