Кей Хупер - Whisper of Evil

"And?"

"And Ethan talked to each of the murdered men the day before that man was murdered. What are the odds of that happening, Justin?"

"Long," he said slowly. "Very long."

"Oh, my God," Hailey whispered, for once clearly shocked. Seeing the image of her sister — and Nell had no idea how she appeared but guessed she looked ghostly — watching what was an intimate and disturbing argument between Hailey and a lover had to be a deeply unsettling experience, especially since Nell had been gone more than ten years at that time.

What could Hailey have thought then? That she was experiencing something fairly common in the annals of the paranormal, a visitation from a recently deceased family member? Had she thought Nell had come to her at the moment of her death, to say good-bye?

Part of Nell wanted to try to say something to Hailey, to assure her that she was not dead, merely — what? Merely visiting from the future?

It lasted only a moment, because even in her hesitation Nell was too shocked not to instinctively draw back, to fight to get herself out of the vision and back to the present. What she saw dimmed almost immediately, Hailey's shocked face vanishing in a darkening haze that grew darker and darker, and for a scary, seemingly infinite period of time Nell felt herself swallowed up by something black and immense.

Something that wasn't as empty as it should have been, because she wasn't alone there. Someone… something… was nearby, watching, nearly touching her… reaching for her…

Desperate, driven by an overwhelming certainty that if it touched her she would die, Nell fought to wrench herself free of the smothering darkness. It seemed to take every ounce of will and energy she possessed, the way an extreme physical effort demanded that the very fibers of muscles tear themselves apart in the struggle to do what was demanded of them.

And then she was free of the darkness, the past, back in the present with a suddenness that was almost as frightening as the vision itself had been. A blinding pain exploded in her head and she heard herself cry out.

She had never in her life had a headache like this one. The pain was incredible, as if something was trying to bore its way into her brain or out of it, something hot and ominous —

"Nell."

"Evil," she murmured as she opened her eyes. At first, all she saw was darkness, but it lightened rapidly until she was staring at a dark blue shirt and black leather jacket.

"Nell, for Christ's sake —"

She could dimly feel Max's hands gripping her upper arms, and when she looked up at him she saw that he was pale and grim-eyed. It wasn't until he reached to grasp her wrists that she realized both her own hands were pressed to either side of her face, hard, almost as if she were trying to… keep something in.

"It's not a blackout this time, is it?" Max asked, gently pulling her hands away from her face.

"Umm… no," she said finally, her voice hardly more than a whisper, because anything louder hurt. "Dizzy. I think… I think I'd better sit down for a minute."

Max guided her a few steps to a bench at the foot of the Lynches' bed. It was only then that she saw Ethan, leaning back against the dresser with his arms crossed over his chest- He was expressionless, but he was also a bit pale, just as Max was.

Nell managed a shaky laugh. "I guess I put on quite a show, huh?" She kept her voice quiet.

"Well, you could use some glitter or neon lights to jazz things up, but the dead silence and thousand-yard stare were pretty goddamned effective." Ethan looked at his watch. "Twenty minutes you were a zombie."

"What?"

Max sat down beside her. "I've been trying for the last ten to bring you out of it."

"I suggested a slap," Ethan offered, "but Max said no."

"Why were you in so deep?" Max asked Neil, ignoring the other man's comment.

The dizziness had passed, but Nell's head still hurt and it was difficult to think clearly. "It… I… I wasn't here."

"Funny, it looked like you were."

"Ethan, shut the hell up, will you please? Nell, what are you talking about? If you weren't here, then where?"

"Yeah, tell us where," Ethan invited.

If she had been granted a few minutes of peace and quiet in which to think, Nell might have made a different choice. But with Max's insistence and Ethan's rather mocking attitude added to the throbbing pain in her head, she acted on impulse.

"I'll be happy to tell you where," she said, staring straight at the sheriff. "As soon as you tell us how long your affair with Hailey lasted."

The silence was acute and went on for several beats, with Ethan staring back at her without a blink. Then finally, slowly, he said, "She told you."

"I haven't communicated in any way with my sister for nearly twelve years, Ethan. And nobody else knew, did they? Hailey insisted on secrecy."

"I sure as hell didn't know," Max murmured.

Ethan glanced at him, then returned his gaze to Nell. "Yeah, she insisted on secrecy. Never would tell me why. No reason for us to hide it, after all. We were both over twenty-one and free. My marriage was over by then, and she wasn't seeing anybody else. At least not publicly. And it only lasted a couple of months."

"So how did you find out about her and Peter Lynch?" Nell asked. At first, she didn't think he was going to answer, but finally he did.

"I think she wanted me to find out. We were at my place and she needed something from her purse, I forget what. Asked me to get it for her. The purse had a zippered inner pocket that was open, with a photograph sticking up out of it. It was a shot of her and Peter." His face twisted slightly. "They were playing some kind of sex game. She was dressed up to look like — a schoolgirl. I guess because he liked them young."

Nell had seen too much of Hailey's sexual exploits by now to be much shocked, but she did feel a jab of pain for her sister. Something about the way Ethan spoke of her said it could have been a serious relationship with him, maybe even a lasting relationship. Nell wondered if Hailey had known that, if she had deliberately destroyed what might have been.

And if so, why? Because she felt undeserving? Because by that point there had already been far too many scars on her body and soul from the games of sadistic men? Or because she had known that any real relationship was impossible while Adam Gallagher lived?

Steadily, Nell said to Ethan, "How long have you known that Hailey is the common factor in these murders?"

"I don't know it's true even now," he said immediately. "As far as I know, she was never involved with George Caldwell."

"But the others? Lynch, Ferrier, Patterson. You knew she had been involved with each of them."

He hesitated. "Like I said, I found out about Lynch long before he was killed. Long before Hailey left. As for the other two… Ferrier got drunk and bragged to me once that he'd had a few enjoyable nights with Hailey over the years. Not an affair, apparently, just sex now and then, whenever neither of them was involved with anybody else."

"And Patterson?"

Ethan shrugged. "Once I saw all that shit in his basement, I knew Hailey had probably been involved with him."

"Because of her scars? The whip marks, the cigarette burns?"

He flinched. "Yeah."

Even with her head pounding, Nell was focused very intently on the sheriff, trying to get a sense of him that would tell her, once and for all, if she could trust him, could eliminate him as a suspect. His involvement with Hailey made him even more of a suspect, at least on the face of it and assuming Hailey was indeed the common factor in the murders, but Nell had a hunch it was a lot more complicated than that.

She didn't like exposing his private life to others, even to Max — who, for all his anger and the longstanding bitterness between him and Ethan, would never pass judgment on his stepbrother's life or choices — but she didn't feel she could back off, not now. She had to know.