Alex Kava Bundle - Alex Kava [458]
Kathleen felt the panic twisting in her stomach. Damn it! Why couldn’t they all just go away and leave her. She gripped the blade tighter, felt it against her wrist, the sharp edge promising such warm silence, promising to shut off the throbbing in her head and plug up the hollow place deep inside her.
“Is Maggie here?” she asked, glancing at the door, almost expecting her daughter to come barging in to rescue her once again. Always the savior, pulling her up out of the darkness, even when Kathleen wanted, needed, longed for the darkness.
“No. Maggie’s not here. She’s back in the District.” The woman, this Julia, looked unsure of herself now. Like maybe she shouldn’t have told a truth when a lie would have sufficed. “You know I never got a chance to know my mother,” she said, changing the subject quickly, but with such a smooth, steady voice that Kathleen didn’t mind. She wasn’t stupid. She knew what the woman was doing. But she was better at it than most. Almost as if she had some experience with talking people down off ledges.
Is that what she was doing? Trying to talk her off this ledge? It only worked if the person wanted to be talked down. Kathleen glanced at her wrist and could see blood dripping where she had started to cut. She hadn’t realized she had done that. She certainly hadn’t felt it. It surprised her that it didn’t hurt. Was that a good sign? That it didn’t hurt? When she looked back up she saw the woman had noticed, too, and before Julia Racine could snap back to her professional calm, Kathleen caught a glimpse of something else in the woman’s eyes. Something…maybe doubt, maybe fear. So she wasn’t as cool and calm as she pretended.
“My mom,” the woman continued, “died when I was a little girl. I remember things, you know, pieces of things, really. Like the scent of lavender. I guess it was her favorite perfume. Oh, and her humming. Sometimes I can hear her humming to me. But I never recognize the tune. It’s soothing, though. Kinda like a lullaby.”
She was rambling but still calm. It was distracting and Kathleen knew that was part of the game. It was a game, after all, wasn’t it?
“You know, Maggie’s really concerned about you, Kathleen.”
She stared at her, but the blue eyes were strong, unflinching, no longer playing or maybe just very good at lying.
“She’s so angry with me,” Kathleen found herself saying without really meaning to.
“Just because we get angry with people we love, it doesn’t mean we want them gone forever.”
“She doesn’t love me.” She said this with almost a laugh, as if letting this Racine woman know that she could see through her lies.
“You are her mother. How could she not love you?”
“I’ve made it very easy. Believe me.”
“Okay, so she’s angry with you.”
“It’s more than that.”
“Okay, sometimes she doesn’t even like you very much. Right?”
Now Kathleen did laugh and nodded.
Julia Racine remained serious and said, “It doesn’t mean she wants you gone forever.”
When it looked like that sentimental stuff wouldn’t work, the young woman smiled and added, “Look, Mrs. O’Dell, I’m already in a shitload of trouble with your daughter. How ’bout giving me a break?”
CHAPTER 75
Tully almost stumbled over a jacket.
Jesus! He had already started.
Darkness had just begun to take over, and up here in the trees, it was hard to see. He waited. He tried to slow down his pulse. He needed to give his eyes a chance to adjust. The moon cast some light, but it also added an eerie blue tint to shadows.
Tully held his breath. He got down on his knees. He couldn’t hear with all the noise from below. Did that mean anyone up here couldn’t hear him, either? He couldn’t take any chances. He heard the other agents checking in, whispering their positions into his ear, but he couldn’t answer them. He had to ignore them. But they knew that, and they were still getting into position. It was so quiet. What if he was already too late?
He pulled out his gun and started crawling on hands and knees. That’s when he saw them, only twenty feet away. He saw them on the ground, scuffling.