Creep - Jennifer Hillier [61]
“Welcome to my workroom.” His lips were at her ear. “This is where I get rid of the mess.”
Sheila tried to speak, but no words came.
“That’s Marie.” Ethan looked directly at the concrete wall. “Say hello, Marie.”
Only two of them were in the room.
“Who’s Marie?” Sheila whispered, dazed.
He took a few steps forward, gesturing with the gun for Sheila to follow. He stared at the wall, eye level. “If you look close enough, you can see part of her hand.”
Sheila followed his gaze to the plastic covering the concrete. What the hell was he talking about?
Then, suddenly, like one of those 3-D stereogram pictures you had to stare at cross-eyed for the image to appear, she saw it.
A hand. Small, with long fingernails, clearly belonging to a woman. The fingertips jutted out about an inch from the concrete, brushing up against the plastic covering. The skin had a bluish tint.
With her eyes now knowing what to look for, the scene in front of her unfolded all at once.
She saw a foot. Several feet actually, spread out over the wall. Pink toenail polish. Gold toenail polish. Blue toenail polish.
A hand with short red fingernails. An elbow. A knee.
A swatch of brown hair.
It was a wall full of dead bodies.
“Guess the evil spirits thing doesn’t work after all.” Ethan’s voice was detached.
She hadn’t noticed that he was behind her once again.
“It didn’t work for Marie, and you’re wearing her amulet. Do you see them, Sheila?”
She managed to nod.
“You asked me if I was jealous. That, my darling, that isn’t jealousy.” She felt his hot breath on her cheek. “That’s rage. That’s what I’ve been filled with every day, since the day you ended it with me.” He pointed to the wall. “And that, my love, is what you have to look forward to.”
His fingers touched her throat, and the last thing Sheila heard before she passed out was the sound of her own screaming.
CHAPTER : 20
Sheila was really gone.
She wasn’t returning his calls. She wasn’t at home. She wasn’t at work. Morris had staked out every place he could think of and there was no sign of her. She had meant every word in that awful message she’d left.
He’d never gotten the chance to tell her what he’d decided. Or to wish her well. Or to say good-bye. Now she was out there somewhere, trying to get better, with no idea that he still loved her and wanted to make it work. She was all alone, probably terrified, and whatever she’d done, she didn’t deserve that.
It was all his fault. If he hadn’t been so goddamned judgmental . . .
He sat in his office, staring at a dark computer screen, his door shut tight. He was finally back at Bindle after taking a day off, but he couldn’t seem to remember his user name or password to log on to his computer. All he could think about was the locked drawer in his desk where a brand-new bottle of Johnnie Walker Red was hiding. He’d sneaked it in that morning, which hadn’t been too difficult—everybody was avoiding him thanks to Darcy’s strict instructions to the staff not to mention the canceled wedding.
He could only imagine the rumors swirling around the office like a flu virus. After all, it wasn’t every day that a senior partner got dumped a week before his own wedding. Hell, if this hadn’t been his life, he’d be titillated by it, too.
His gaze shifted to the framed photograph sitting beside his computer. The picture had been taken the night he proposed, at the restaurant at the top of the Space Needle. Sheila in a low-cut black dress, red velvet lips, gorgeous and glowing; he in his favorite pin-striped suit and the tie Sheila had picked out.
He touched the glass. She looked beautiful and he looked happy.
Someone cleared a throat discreetly. Morris looked up to see Trevor Baker standing there, one of his many account managers. Goddammit, he’d forgotten to lock the door.
“Good morning, Trevor.” His usually hearty voice sounded flat and deflated even to him. “What can I do for you?”
Trevor stood staring at his boss, not bothering to hide the shock on his angular face. It wasn’t hard to guess what the younger man was thinking—Morris knew