Кей Хупер - Whisper of Evil

"Our mother didn't go away, Kyle. He killed her. You saw him do it."

Kyle looked at her for an unblinking moment, then smiled. "So did you."

"And you made me forget."

"I had to. With her whorish blood in you, I knew all it would take would be a trigger. Seeing her being punished, hearing her cry and plead and tell him she was really good when it was so obvious she was lying through her whoring teeth — that might have been enough."

Nell felt her stomach heave and fought desperately not to show the reaction. "Why didn't you… try that with Hailey? Why didn't you try to… to cure her sickness that way?"

"She never had the Gallagher gift. Oh, I tried, more than once. To reach her, to touch her mind. Even to go visit her while she was sleeping, the way I could visit you. But it never worked with her. I guess she was already ruined then, even though I didn't want to admit it."

"You visited me? While I was sleeping?"

Kyle smiled again. "All the time, before you ran away from Silence. When you ran away… I don't know. I lost you somehow. I wasn't even sure I could do it again when you came back, but it was really easy. Maybe because I knew you were there in the house. That must have been it, don't you think? That I knew where you were?"

"I… guess so."

"I had no idea I could make you do things. Started small, at first, telling you to turn over in bed. To get up and brush your hair for a while. To go up into the attic and find your doll."

"I wondered how she got onto my pillow," Nell said, forcing her voice to remain calm even though her very skin was crawling.

"You didn't figure it out, honestly? You had no idea it was me?"

Nell shifted her weight slightly, putting both hands on the cushion on either side of her hips as if to brace herself. Quietly, she said, "How could I guess? I didn't know about you. I didn't know I had a brother. And you wouldn't let me remember what you had done for me."

"There was no reason for you to remember." Kyle frowned. "I wonder if that's why you let Max Tanner into your bed, because you remembered you had the blood of a whore in your veins. Was that it?"

She ignored the question. "What was the final straw with Hailey? Why did you begin… punishing the men she'd had sex with? Was it because she ran off with Glen Sabella?"

Kyle laughed. "She never would have run off with him, Nell. She didn't care any more about him than she had any of the others. He just fed her sickness, don't you understand? After Grandmother died, Hailey used her house as a meeting place so they could rut. But that's all she wanted from him."

"You watched them."

"Sure. That last day, they had a fight about something. And he hit her. She just laughed, but… I didn't like it. I didn't like it at all. She always got dressed and left first, so I waited for that. And as soon as she'd gone, I went in. I had my nightstick. He was strong, but I caught him by surprise."

"You —"

"I hadn't really meant to kill him. Just punish him. But he wouldn't stop moving, wouldn't shut up and stop groaning. So I kept hitting him." He sighed. "Hailey had come back for something, I don't know what. She saw me. Saw what I'd done to him. That was when she ran."

"What… did you do with Sabella?"

"Buried him. And it was so easy, so simple. I thought it would feel different, killing someone I knew, but it didn't. It was just the same. Like swatting a fly."

"If he looks out one of the windows," Galen said in a voice hardly above a whisper, "we're screwed. With that huge moon, it's bright as day out here."

"He's not looking," Max said, keeping his voice just as low. "Nell's keeping him talking."

"That direct line you've got is coming in handy," Kelly Rankin said, double-checking her weapon for the third time. "Somebody want to explain that to me?"

"Later," Justin told her. "Max, how much longer can Nell keep him occupied?"

"I don't know. A few minutes, maybe." The past quarter of an hour had provided Max with ample understanding of just why the door Nell had flung open might be better closed most of the time; it was incredibly difficult for him to concentrate on two places at one time, let alone sort through the jumble of thoughts and emotions that were both his and hers.

Nell was trying to help him and he knew it. She was concentrating intently on Kyle Venable and what he was saying, not allowing herself to think too much about what that psychopath was telling her. And she kept her emotions damped down, refusing to give in to the horror and revulsion his revelations created in her.

But it was still distracting and not a little confusing for Max. He expected he'd get better with practice, and he was damned glad that door was open now with Nell in there confronting an insane killer, but he had to admit this could easily be more of a hindrance than a help.

"Just the two doors." Lauren Champagne eased up beside the others where they crouched in the shadows of some farm equipment at the edge of the field. "But there's a window I think I can get open on the other side of the house. That'll give us three ways in. Three chances."

Even with his attention split, Max looked at her and said, "That's your partner in there."

"If you're wondering if I can kill him if I have to, stop wondering." Even in the shadows of the equipment, there was enough light to show that her lovely face was utterly composed. "I have no problem disposing of rabid animals."

"And she's a crack shot," Justin murmured.

Lauren looked at him, one brow rising.

"The shooting range," he explained. "I saw you practicing a few weeks ago."

"Ah."

Galen said, "Max, you're the only one here who isn't a cop. If you've got Nell's gun, hand it over."

"Forget it."

"Max —"

"I'm also a crack shot."

"I don't give a shit," Galen told him politely. "This is potentially messy enough without having a civilian involved in a shoot-out."

"There isn't going to be a shoot-out," Max said. He swore under his breath. "Nell's in there. Do you really think I want bullets flying?"

"We're running out of time," Lauren said.

"And time is the issue," Galen added. "Or timing is. We'll only have one chance to get this right."

Max went still for an instant. "We have to move," he said. "Now."

"Killing… someone you knew? You mean Sabella wasn't the first?"

Kyle shrugged. "He was the first local. But Hailey had gone out of town sometimes, and I couldn't let those filthy bastards off scot-free, could I? They all had to pay. They infected her with more and more sickness, and they had to pay."

Nell, conscious of the clock ticking in her head, shifted slightly on the couch and said, "Which, I guess, brings us to Ethan. Why kill him, Kyle?"

"He's no different from the rest."

"Isn't he?"

"No. He just used her and tossed her aside like the others did. He fed her sickness. I have to punish him, just like I did the others."

"And what about me, Kyle? What did I do?" She kept her gaze steady on his face.

"You let Tanner into your bed. You're infected too, Nell. I thought the Gallagher gift would save you, but it hasn't. Don't you see that the infection is everywhere? I've tried and tried to cure it, and I think — I think the only way to do it is to cut it out."

"You mean to kill me."

"I have to cut out the infection," Kyle said, his tone chillingly reasonable.

"You'll kill me without giving me a chance to… repent? To change?"

For the first time, Kyle looked hesitant. "I don't want to."

"Then don't." Nell rose to her feet, careful to make no sudden movement that might startle him into using the gun he still held in one hand. She managed to turn just far enough so that the fingers of her left hand would be visible to Ethan without Kyle being able to see them move slightly.