Greg Iles - Sleep No More

“What the hell are you doing, Lily?” Cole asked.

Lily’s throat locked shut.

“Do you think you’re invisible back there?”

As she stared up in shock, Cole began to laugh, a dark, deranged sound that stopped the blood in her veins.

Oh God, she screamed silently, thinking of John and his mission in Sybil’s little house. Oh, no…

Cole’s laughter went on and on.

Waters pushed the shaking gun into the pillow resting against Sybil’s head. She opened her mouth, and he knew from the smell that she had not brushed her teeth. As his finger tightened, she suddenly rolled away from him, groaned, and started to get out of bed. Waters stood silent as a tree as she walked to the door, crossed the landing, and went into the bathroom. The sound of urination reached him, and in his mind he saw his own wife as he had a hundred times, sitting sleepily on the commode, oblivious to the world, utterly and pathetically human.

I can’t do this, he thought. Walk in there and fire a bullet into her face?

As the sound slowed to a trickle, he darted onto the landing and rushed down the stairs.

“Hello?” Sybil called drowsily. “Cole?”

Waters froze on the ground floor. Why did she call out for Cole? Mallory would have said, “Johnny?” Maybe Sybil was stronger than Lily or Cole. Maybe Mallory couldn’t control her as easily-

“Is someone there?”

As footsteps descended the stairs, he folded his body and clambered through the window, then sprinted for the truck, pulling off the gloves as he ran.

He saw the shadow of Lily waiting in the backseat and wondered if Annelise had awakened. Lily would be angry, but she’d have to understand. They’d have to find another way, that was all. He opened the door and jumped into the driver’s seat.

“I knew you couldn’t do it,” Cole said, popping up from the floor of the passenger seat.

Waters tried to bring up his gun, but Cole’s big hand was already pointing a pistol over the seat at Lily and Annelise.

“You could make me kill two babies,” Cole said, “but you can’t kill a secretary that’s too stupid to live. Give me that fucking gun.”

Waters handed it over.

The fury and hurt in Cole’s eyes made him sick with fear.

“You felt pity for Sybil?” Cole said in a cracked voice. “I know it wasn’t for me. If you’d thought it was just me in there, you’d have pulled the trigger without a thought.”

“Mallory-”

Holding Waters at bay with his own pistol, Cole aimed his.357 at Annelise’s head. “I should kill her. It’s only fair, after what you made me do. Besides, you two need to learn a lesson.”

Lily began to cry. Waters wished he had shot Cole that afternoon.

“Shut up! You simpering little nothing. What good are you? You hardly gave him one child. You can’t even make love with him like a woman.”

Lily covered Annelise like a blanket, her face empty of anything but terror.

“Don’t do it!” Waters begged.

“Tell me why I shouldn’t.”

“The Mallory Candler I loved would never do that.”

Cole shuddered. “What?”

“The Mallory I knew would never be that cruel. I hurt her terribly, yes. She was heartbroken. But she never really hurt someone physically. You say you’re Mallory Candler. You may have started as Mallory…but in the ten years you’ve been like this, you’ve changed. Something’s twisted you. Mallory loved me. You don’t love me.”

Fury contorted Cole’s face into something horrible. “I love you more than anyone possibly could!”

“No. You want to own me. That’s not love. You don’t want to make me happy. You want me to make you happy. But I can’t. Because you’ll never feel loved enough.”

Cole’s lips quivered.

“Yes, I was going to kill you,” Waters said. “I honestly thought you would be better off dead. At peace. God forgive me, but you were meant to die ten years ago. Something allowed you to survive…like this. But it’s not natural. It’s not fair for you to steal someone else’s body, someone else’s life, to live out what you think is the life you deserved.”

A tear streaked Cole’s face. “It wasn’t fair for that man to rape me!” As he wiped away the tear, a savage light came into Cole’s eyes. “Who are you to tell me what I deserve? You gave me children and then took them away. You left me an empty shell.”

The gun shook against Annelise’s head.

“For God’s sake, no!” Lily pleaded. “She’s just a child!”

Waters closed his eyes. “I loved you once,” he said quietly. “Show me you’re worth loving again.”

Cole gasped, and his eyes locked on to Waters’s face. “You think I want to hurt her? You’re making me do this! You were going to kill me.”

“What choice did you give me!”

Cole’s left hand rose to his neck as if to twist a lock of hair around his finger, but there was no hair there. He seemed suddenly purposeless, disoriented. Waters was about to speak when Cole jerked the gun away from Annelise’s head and leaped out of the truck.

Lily began to sob in the backseat. Waters cranked the engine and threw the truck into gear, roaring out of the little driveway like a man fleeing the scene of a murder.

When they pulled up to Linton Hill, Lily was still crying. Waters had not dumped the pickup as planned; he didn’t think Lily could handle the logistics in her state. He parked the old Ford behind the house and lifted Annelise into his arms.

“Open the back door,” he told Lily. “Go up and get her bed ready.”

Lily ran to the door and opened it with her key, then disappeared into the house. Carrying Annelise up the stairs winded him, more from his nerves than her weight. As he pulled the covers up over her chest, Lily pulled him toward the door.

“What are we going to do? What can we do?”

Before he could answer, the downstairs phone rang. He bounded down the steps and checked the caller ID on the den telephone: UNKNOWN NUMBER. At 1:20 A.M.

He picked up the receiver but said nothing.

“John?” said a familiar voice. “John? It’s Penn Cage.”

“Penn! What’s going on?”

“I’m sorry to call so late. I’ve been calling for the past hour. I was about to get in my car and drive over there.”

Waters didn’t think it was possible to be more stressed than he was already, but the edge in his lawyer’s voice did the trick.

“What’s happened?”

“Are you on a land line?”

“Yes.”

“The police have a search warrant for your house. I’d expect them there by six a.m.”

Waters felt dizzy. “Why a search all of a sudden?”

“They may have new evidence. There’s just no way to know.”

“Okay,” Waters said, not at all sure what he should do.

“I’m telling you this,” Penn said carefully, “because people often have things inside their homes they’d rather not see made public. Pornography. Recreational drugs. Sexual paraphernalia. Diaries or journals…”

Evidence of murder, Waters thought. “I hear you. I appreciate the heads-up.”

“It won’t do any real good for me to be there during the search, but call me as soon as it’s over. You’re liable to be taken in for questioning again. Things could go south very quickly from here, but stay calm.”

“Yeah. Thanks.” Waters hung up.

“That was Penn?” Lily asked from behind him. “What did he say?”

She had wiped away her tears, but she looked as though she might collapse at any moment. He wished he could spare her the truth, but she had to know.

“The police are going to search this house in four hours.”