Darren Shan - Hell's Horizon

Valerie confessed to all three murders — Nic, Ellen, Ziegler. Told the police I had nothing to do with any of them. Made no mention of an accomplice or lover. I didn’t contradict her story. They thought they had their killer, the case was closed. Why piss on their parade?

An eager reporter uncovered the connections between myself and the female victims. For a while I was an outstanding news story, a determined lover who exposed the murderer and handed her over for trial. A public hero, a role model for children everywhere. I was chased by news crews around the city. Bill and Kett kept them off my back, Bill because he cared, Kett for fear I’d implicate him.

Valerie was dead a couple of days after her confession. Hanged herself in her cell. Nobody knew how she got the rope, but the police didn’t care. She’d have gone to the chair in any case — this saved the city time and money.

The media went into a feeding frenzy when Valerie killed herself. It was the perfect end to the story and all they needed to cap it was an interview with me. They hounded me mercilessly till Bill called in a favor from the mayor and he got their editors to call them off.

The days blurred into one another as I sat in my apartment, staring at the walls, thinking about Nic, Ellen, Valerie. I should have been chasing the mystery lover, the man who lured Nic and Ellen to their deaths and inspired Valerie to lie herself to ruin. But I was too tired. A great depression had settled over me. I just wanted to sit in darkness and weep.

Wami and The Cardinal rang to congratulate me. I accepted their praise with barely a murmur, telling neither the truth. They’d have dragged me out of myself if they had known the case was still live.

I stopped washing and shaving. Wore the same clothes day after day. I ate rarely and unhealthily. Lost myself in memories of Ellen. The world made no sense any longer. All that seemed real was Ellen.

Bill and Ali tried to help. They brought fresh food and cleared away the trash. Some mornings I awoke to find one of them had slipped my clothes off while I slept and laundered them. They held one-sided conversations with me, chattering on, pretending all was well. I tried responding — I appreciated the effort they were making — but hadn’t the strength. I was like a lobotomized half-wit who could only stare, drool and nod my head occasionally.

I stayed away from the bottle. Even during my lowest moments, I resisted the temptation. I was a pathetic wreck, but part of me knew I could haul myself out of this wretchedness in time. If I drank, there’d be no coming back. This mess of a life would be for keeps.

In the midst of my sorrow, Priscilla Perdue breezed back into my life. She turned up one day, demurely dressed and smiling uncertainly. “I tried calling,” she said, “but you didn’t answer. I had to come. I’ll leave again if you want me to.”

I said nothing, only ushered her in.

Her nose crinkled when she saw the state of the apartment. Neither Ali nor Bill had been up for a few days and I’d really let things slide. Dirty dinner trays, filthy clothes, overflowing garbage cans.

“Is it the cleaner’s year off?” she quipped.

“If you don’t like it, piss off,” I snarled.

She started for the door.

“Wait,” I called her back. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what I’m saying or thinking half the time. Don’t go. Please. Sit.”

She looked around. “I’d rather stand if it’s all the same.”

I managed a thin smile. “So. Here you are.”

“Here I am,” she agreed.

There was a long silence.

“Anything in particular you wanted to talk about?” I asked.

“Oh, Al.” She threw herself into my arms. I toppled backward onto one of the socks-and-underwear-strewn chairs, dragging her down with me. “What that woman did to your wife was awful. I don’t know how you didn’t rip her throat open. If it was me, I’d have…” She started to cry.

“It’s OK,” I said, stroking her hair, thinking about Ellen’s. “It’s over. She’s dead. There’s no need for tears.”

She wept a while, then looked at me hopefully. “It is over, isn’t it? She did kill them?”

“She confessed, didn’t she?”

“I know, but…” She gulped and sat up straighter. “I can’t stop thinking about that night I went to the Skylight to meet Nic. She definitely said she was bringing a man. I’ve been reading the papers daily. According to them, Valerie acted by herself. The reporters say she was mad.”

“They got that much right.”

“And the rest of it?”

I knew why she cared. If Valerie had been a lone crazy, and the guy Nic brought to the hotel wasn’t involved, it absolved Priscilla. She needn’t feel guilty if it had been a random attack rather than a client of Nic’s who might not have killed her if Priscilla had been there.

I wanted to lie, as I’d lied to the others, so she could sleep easier, free of the demonic imps of guilt that plagued my every moment. But as I stared into her eyes I found myself telling her the worst of all things — the truth. She listened silently, clutching my hands. At the end she said nothing for a while, then finally stuttered, “She could have been lying.”

“She wasn’t.”

“She was an evil, crazy she-devil. She knew the game was up. It might have been one last sly twist of the knife, to leave you wracked with doubt.”

“No,” I sighed. “It wasn’t a trick. I was face-to-face with her. I know.”

“But—,” she began.

“I know !”

“Then the killer’s still out there,” she whispered, shivering.

“Yes.”

“I’m scared, Al.”

“Me too.”

“ Really scared. Ellen was your wife and Nic was your lover. What if this guy’s working his way through every woman you’ve been close to?”

“There are a few old girlfriends whose numbers I wouldn’t mind giving him,” I laughed, but she refused to see the funny side.

“I could be next,” she said.

“Why? There’s been nothing between us.”

“Not yet.” She leaned forward and kissed me. I pushed her away.

“What are you doing?” I snapped. “You just got through telling me I’m a jinx and now you—”

“That’s why I’m scared,” she interrupted, silencing me with a second kiss. “If we’d had something in the past, I could run. But what we’ve got is now and in the future. I can’t run from that.” She kissed me again.

“This shouldn’t be happening,” I sighed, returning her kisses. I felt one of her hands slide into my lap. I ran my fingers through her hair, then down to her breasts. “It’s madness.”

“I don’t care,” she gasped as my fingers tightened on her breasts. “I’ve been so frightened since Nic died, terrified every time a door swings open. When I read about your wife, do you know what my first reaction was? Thank God it wasn’t me.”

She shifted her weight. Undressing and caressing each other, we rolled, so I was underneath and she was on top.

“You could be signing your death warrant,” I said, mouth dry as she peeled off her underwear.

“At least I won’t die alone,” she replied, lowering herself onto me, guiding me with one hand, digging into the flesh of my neck with the fingernails of the other.

There was no more talking for a long time after that.

She moved into my cramped apartment the next day. I wasn’t sure I wanted this — there was something unhealthy about a love affair forged courtesy of a brace of murders — but found myself powerless to resist. As much as Priscilla needed me, I needed her more. I’d been going mad on my own, and without someone to cling to, I was most certainly doomed.