Greg Iles - Sleep No More

“Come in,” Cole called. “Keep your hands in plain sight.”

Lily stepped into the doorway and froze.

Cole sat with his elbows propped on his desk, both hands gripping a large handgun that was aimed at Lily’s chest. He smiled, and Lily knew from the strange glint in his eye that she was facing Mallory Candler.

“Hello, Lily,” Cole said. “Throw me your purse.”

Lily tossed the purse across the office. It landed in front of the desk. Cole got up and retrieved it, then dumped its contents onto the gleaming wooden desktop.

“Good girl,” he said, finding nothing dangerous. “So why am I talking to you?”

“You think I’m weak, don’t you?”

“I know you are. I’ve been inside you.”

“Are you sure enough to try to prove it?”

Cole’s smile disappeared, replaced by a look of interest. “What do you mean?”

“You want my husband? Give me a fair fight.”

“How do you propose I do that?”

“Come back into me.”

This was clearly the last thing Mallory had expected to hear. “Are you serious?”

“Absolutely.”

“You would let me come back into you.”

“Yes.”

Cole laughed. “I’d destroy you.”

“Maybe.”

“I controlled you from the first day I was inside you.”

“But I had no idea what was going on. I didn’t know my family was at risk.”

“You think that would change anything?”

“Yes.”

Cole’s eyes narrowed. “You’re lying. What have you hatched in that little accountant’s brain of yours? You’re trying to find a way to kill me. Close enough to fuck is close enough to kill.”

Lily had rehearsed her speech during the drive from Linton Hill. “You don’t believe me because you don’t trust anyone. I never really knew you at St. Stephens. You were so beautiful and proud, I couldn’t imagine someone like you being insecure and jealous. But I guess none of us are immune to that.”

Lily took three steps closer to the desk. “I’m insecure about a lot of things. But one thing I’m sure of-my husband’s love. I know John loves me, that he wants to share his whole life with me. He was haunted by your memory for a long time, but that was only guilt, really. Guilt and lust. Those things were enough to make him fall for you in Eve. But they’re gone now. After last night, you know that.”

Cole’s face twisted as if he were trying to say something but not sure what.

“I’m not afraid of you anymore,” Lily went on. “That’s why I’ll take the chance of having you inside my head again. Without John’s love, you’ll eventually wither away and die. Like you should have done ten years ago.”

Cole got to his feet and aimed the shaking gun at Lily’s head. “You don’t know anything. ”

Lily stood her ground as he came around the desk, his face reddening.

“He’s always loved me,” Cole insisted. “ I’ve been in his mind. I know what he feels.”

“If you really believe that,” Lily said calmly, “come back into me and take your chances.”

Cole raised the barrel of the.357 and held it against Lily’s forehead, his finger taut on the trigger. “I think I’d rather kill you.” He dragged the gun barrel down the bridge of her nose and pressed it into her left eye socket. “I can go into Sybil anytime I want. Or anyone else I choose. There are millions of women I can go into. Young, fertile women with their whole lives ahead of them.”

Lily’s bladder was close to letting go. “If you shoot me, Sybil will run in here and see. I doubt she’ll be too wild about having sex with you after that. And by the time you find someone else suitable, John could be in prison. He’s at police headquarters right now. They tore our house apart this morning.”

Cole pressed her head backward with the gun barrel. “ You don’t tell me what to do.”

“If you come into me,” Lily gasped, “everything looks normal. No questions about another killing. And when John gets out on bail, you can fly to South America with him.”

“That’s right, I could,” Cole said. He smiled with secret amusement. “You think you can overpower me, lily-white Lily?”

She swallowed. “I’m willing to try.”

The light in Cole’s eyes danced like little demons. “All right, then. Lock the door.”

Lily hadn’t expected this. “Not here.”

“Why not?”

“I can’t possibly relax enough here to…you know. Peak. It’s going to be hard enough anyway.”

Suspicion suddenly darkened Cole’s eyes. “Where, then?”

“A motel. I’d rather it not be here in town. Everyone knows me. I thought we’d go to Vidalia.”

“Across the river?”

“It’s only a mile from here. Maybe two.”

“No. You’ve set up something. Hired someone to kill me.”

Wound tight as a piano wire inside, Lily found it took all of her effort to laugh. “I would have no idea how to do that. Look, you pick the place. The motel and the room. Just make it across the river, where nobody knows me. Call me on my cell phone, and I’ll come to you.”

Cole kept the gun against her cheek as he mulled the idea over. “I was going to say I’ll regret not being able to kill you. But what I’m going to do to you once I’m inside you is worse. Infinitely worse.”

Lily walked away from the gun, collected her purse and personal things off the desk, and marched to the door.

“I’ll leave my cell on,” she said.

“I think they’re going to arrest you no matter what,” Penn said. “I’m going to tell them to fish or cut bait.”

He and Waters sat alone in the interrogation room, but Waters had no illusions that their conversation was private. He leaned in close to Penn and whispered, “I have to stay free. Unless you can guarantee that I’ll get bail, I don’t want to be arrested.”

“You’ll get bail,” Penn said at normal volume. “You’re a highly respected member of the community. You have no criminal record. They have no eyewitnesses, and no direct evidence that you murdered anybody. You slept with someone who got killed, you’ve cooperated, and you present zero flight risk.”

Good performance, Waters thought. Or maybe Penn really believed he would not run. Surely he sensed that his client’s qualms about pulling up stakes and fleeing the country were rapidly evaporating in the face of mounting evidence.

The door banged open, and Tom Jackson walked in with a manila folder in his hand. His face was tight but unreadable. He sat opposite Waters and removed Mallory Candler’s high school graduation photo from the folder.

“We found about fifty photos of this girl in a folder in your office.”

Waters shrugged. “So?”

“That’s Mallory Candler, right? Miss Mississippi? Graduated from St. Stephens with Penn?”

Penn looked distinctly uncomfortable.

“A year earlier,” Waters said.

Jackson slid another photo of Mallory from the folder. Waters mentally dated it to about the tenth grade.

“We found this in Eve Sumner’s safe deposit box. Along with some jewelry that was stolen from the Candler home about a year ago.”

Waters swallowed but said nothing.

Jackson stared at him with a curious expression. “John, I’m starting to think I’m only seeing the tip of the iceberg here. You want to explain what you and Eve Sumner were doing with photos of Mallory Candler?”

Waters shrugged again. “I can’t. I have no idea why Eve would have those.”

Penn sighed with relief.

“You dated Mallory for a while, didn’t you? In college?”

“Yes. That’s why I have those pictures.”