Into the Fire - Anne Stuart [72]
She started toward the cars parked along the left side of the garage, only to realize that the sound was coming from all around her. More than one car engine was busy pumping carbon monoxide into the room, and it was no wonder she was either going to throw up or faint.
Her best bet was to get the hell out of there before she passed out. She tried to run toward the kitchen door, but it was like running in Jell-O. She stumbled, and her feet got tangled up beneath her, and she went sprawling onto the cement floor.
She tried to push herself up, but her arms were like spaghetti beneath her. She sank back again, her cheek resting against the rough pavement, and she felt her eyes begin to close. If she didn’t get up she was going to die. It was that simple. There was only one person who could have turned on those engines, one person in this big empty building. Dillon must have come back when she wasn’t looking, to finish what he started earlier.
It didn’t make sense. He had no reason to want to kill her. But maybe a man named Killer didn’t need a reason. And maybe he was just tired of having to deal with her.
She tried to move, to drag herself toward the door, but she couldn’t. She tried to open her eyes, and she thought she could see someone standing just inside the closed doorway.
“Help…me….” she said in a croak, but the narrow figure didn’t move. Any why would she think he’d help her, if he was the one who’d done this to her?
Her eyes felt like lead, but she forced them open, staring at the man in the shadows.
And then she knew she was dying, and there was nothing she could do about it. Because Nate was there, standing over her, waiting for her to join him. And she stopped fighting.
He looked down at her with real affection. It didn’t matter that she and Dillon had been going at it like rabbits. She’d always been his little sister, she’d always thought he was wonderful, and he’d liked that uncritical appreciation. Of course, she had no idea who and what he was. Adoration based on ignorance wasn’t worth much in the long run.
Aunt Isobel, on the other hand, knew exactly who he was. And what he’d done. The things he’d keep on doing. And she loved and protected him, anyway. Smothering him with her unquestioning protection. And not just for her dead sister’s sake. She saw him as her real child. She’d married her second cousin to keep the Kincaid line strong, and in the end she’d been unable to conceive. Only Nate was left, and he was the center of her life. Jamie had always been more of an afterthought, at least as far as Isobel was concerned.
Dying had been the best thing that had happened to him in a long time. For the first time he’d been released from Aunt Isobel’s obsessive devotion, and it was enormously freeing. He’d recommend death to almost anyone—his ghostly existence was by far his favorite part of his life so far.
Jamie had passed out completely, and he walked over to her, staring down at her sprawled body. There was a special pleasure in killing someone who loved you—a thrill that couldn’t be found any other way. Jamie had given him that gift, and he felt almost tearful with gratitude. He squatted down, touching the pulse at the side of her neck. Slow. Almost nonexistent. He rolled her onto her back. Dillon had been inside her—he’d watched them. If he screwed her dying body it might almost be like screwing Dillon. Something he’d wanted for a long, long time.
But the room was filled with poison, and he couldn’t linger. Besides, Dillon might come home.
He pulled her loose T-shirt up, took a knife and sliced through her bra. She had marks on her breasts, from Dillon’s mouth, from the roughness of his beard.
The knife was very sharp. He’d cleaned it after he’d finished with Mouser, sharpened it again. He was a man who appreciated his tools and took loving care of them.
Her skin was pale, soft. It shouldn’t just be Dillon’s mark on her flesh. He took the razor sharp tip of the knife and pressed it against Jamie