Read A Reason to Believe Online
Authors: Diana Copland
single tear slipped from beneath his lashes, sliding
down his pale cheek. It left a glistening silver
streak on his skin.
“Kiernan,” Matt said. His nerves thrummed with
foreboding.
“He says he won’t hurt me, but I don’t believe
him,” Kiernan went on in the whispered voice.
“His voice sounds funny. All…” Kiernan made a
gesture with his hand, and it was shaking. “I don’t
know, but it doesn’t sound right. There are bad
men. My mommy told me, and this is a bad man. I
know it.” He paused, his nose wrinkling. “He’s
shoving something in my mouth. He says it’s just a
cookie, but it tastes so nasty. When I try to spit it
out, he puts his hand over my mouth again.” There
was a hiccupping little sob. “I don’t like this. I
want my mommy.”
Kiernan jerked his head, and it looked as if he
was being restrained. “I don’t want it!” he said
firmly. His shoulders began to tremble. “He tells
me if I eat it, he’ll let me go, but he’s lying. I try to
stop him, but he shoves it in my mouth…”
Kiernan’s voice stalled on a strangled gagging
sound, and he grimaced. Another tear slipped
down his cheek, and Matt’s uneasiness intensified.
“He keeps holding my mouth shut. I swallowed, I
want to tell him, but he won’t let me go…”
There was a long moment of silence. Perhaps it
was over. Abby had been drugged. Maybe that was
as far as her sentience had gone. But a sound came
from low in Kiernan’s throat, and Matt’s body
tightened. It sounded the way he imagined a
wounded dove might sound—lost, desolate,
hitching on broken little hiccups.
This needed to stop. Matt was more convinced
than he’d ever been of anything.
“Kiernan, enough.”
He breathed a sigh of relief when Kiernan rose
from the floor, but Matt knew he’d misread the
situation immediately when he turned. His eyes
were unnaturally wide, the pupils blown. He
staggered, his arms stiff as if someone was holding
him against his will.
“I don’t feel good,” he whimpered. “I feel like
I’m going to throw up.”
“Kiernan,” Matt said again, his voice louder.
“Enough, now.”
“He tied my hands, put tape around my head,”
Kiernan went on, clearly not hearing Matt at all.
“It’s pulling my hair and it hurts. I’m scared. I’m
so scared. Mommy…” Fresh tears spilled down
his cheeks. “Mommy, please…”
Matt didn’t think he could bear any more. It was
like watching the child go to her death. He reached
out to grab Kiernan’s arm, but suddenly there was
clarity in his eyes, and a raw intensity. “Don’t
touch her!” Kiernan hissed, his voice a low growl.
“You won’t get this chance again.”
Matt jerked his hand back. As quickly as it had
come, the lucidity in the blue eyes was gone, and
now in its place was a half-lidded, drugged
expression. The transition was terrifying.
Kiernan stumbled out of the room and down the
hall, away from the main staircase. His arms
remained stiffly at his back, his steps sluggish.
Matt followed closely, every instinct he had
screaming that he needed to stop it, stop him, but
not sure how. When Kiernan lurched around a
bend in the hallway and stopped at a shadowy
door, Matt bit back a startled gasp.
The police knew the killer had taken the child
down the servant’s stairs. The investigating
officers had found threads from her gown caught in
the splintered edges of the steps, but it was just
one of a number of details they hadn’t released to
the media. How could Kiernan know, unless…
The narrow door flew open untouched, and Matt
jerked back, gasping. He stared at it, eyes wide,
heart pounding.
Kiernan staggered down the stairs, slipping
twice, somehow miraculously not falling. Matt
followed him closely. When they got to the kitchen
door, it flew open too, stopping just short of
bouncing off the wall, where it seemed to vibrate
in an unseen grip. Now Kiernan did fall, going
down hard on one knee on the tiled kitchen floor.
He cried out, his voice still high and childlike.
“Kiernan?” A voice called from the living
room.
Matt felt a rush of relief. “Aidan, could you
come here for a moment, please?” he called, his
eyes fixed on Kiernan’s half-open eyes, and the
fearful shallowness of his breathing. Two sets of
footsteps approached, one in heels. “Mrs.
Reynolds, please go back to the living room,” he
added firmly. There was no way in hell he wanted
Abby’s mother to see this. “Please. I’m going to
have to insist. I’ll explain later.”
One approach hesitated and then stopped, and
Aidan Fitzpatrick entered the kitchen alone. She
looked at her brother as he swayed unsteadily on
his feet. Her eyes widened.
“What did he do?” she asked hurriedly, her
voice hushed, moving close but not touching him.
“He said she wanted to show him, not tell him,”
Matt answered quickly. She hissed between her
teeth. “What does it mean?”
“He’s in her head.” She came to his side
cautiously. “He’s in her head, and he’s too damned
tired for this. He knows better.”
“He said it just took more energy,” Matt said,
feeling as if he’d missed something important.
“It does.” She eyed her brother with concern.
“Among other things.”
Abruptly, Kiernan lurched forward, and the
door to the basement swung open the way the other
two had. Matt wasn’t reassured when Aidan
squeaked in alarm.
“Oh, my God!” she muttered, staring at the
quivering door.
“What do we do?” Matt asked as Kiernan
started down the narrow staircase.
“Follow him.” She rushed after him with Matt
right behind her.
Aidan cried out when Kiernan fell down the last
three stairs into the gloomy basement. Matt
reached out to grab him, but she intercepted his
arm, her fingers like talons.
“Don’t touch him!” she ordered. “Pulling him
out can be as dangerous as wherever he is.”
Matt growled, raking his hands through his hair.
His helplessness was infuriating. Kiernan took
another few steps before he fell to his knees on the
concrete floor. Whimpering, he lay down and
curled on his side in a fetal position. His breathing
was muted, as if it were being blocked by
something.
The tape, Matt realized, feeling colder than he
could ever remember being. The duct tape around
her head and covering her mouth.
Aidan went to his side, close but not touching
him. “Kiernan, it’s time to come back, now. Come
back. Don’t go any further. You’ve seen what you
need to.”
It made no difference. The terrified, tortured
breathing went on, the drugged eyes half-lidded.
“Kiernan, come on,” his sister almost begged.
“It’s enough.”
A terrible thought occurred to Matt, and he took
a step closer. “She was drugged,” he said, his
voice tight.
Aidan’s eyes found his, widened in her pretty
face. For the first time, she looked genuinely
frightened.
“She was drugged,” he repeated.
“Shit.” Her eyes went back to her brother’s
waxy face.
“What?” Matt closed the space between them.
She looked up at him, twisting her fingers
together as if to keep herself from touching
Kiernan. “How compromised was she?”
“She wouldn’t have been able to fight it at all.”
“Shit,” Aidan repeated, her hands reaching out,
hovering over her brother’s twitching form without
touching him.
“What?” Matt insisted.
Aidan looked up at him, her eyes desperate.
Anything she might have been going to say was cut
off when Kiernan lurched violently to his back, his
body arching, his spine stiffening. His eyes went
wide in his colorless face, and the most horrifying
sound Matt had ever heard slipped from between
his tight lips. He sounded as if he were gagging. Or
being choked.
“Kier,” Aidan cried, tears filling her eyes.
“Kier, stop now. Come back. Come back, damn it.
Kier!”
The sound of her voice was almost as terrifying
as the sounds coming from Kiernan’s throat. Tears
slid back into his hair. His legs thrashed and then
stopped, as though someone had caught and held
them down. There had been bruises on Abby’s
shins, as if someone heavy had sat on them.
Another detail the police hadn’t reported to the
media…
Matt’s pulse started to race in horror as
Kiernan’s movements grew more sluggish, and his
eyes rolled back in his head. The electrical charge
in the air deepened.
“Oh, God,” Aidan cried, her hand still hovering
over his chest. “Kier, stop! Stop!”
His slender frame shuddered, the horrible
gurgling sounds continuing, and suddenly Matt
couldn’t stand it. He went to his knees and shoved
Aidan out of the way, his hands curling around
Kiernan’s upper arms.
“Don’t touch him!” Aidan wailed, but Matt was
done listening. He lifted Kiernan’s shoulders from
the floor and shook him, hard.
“Kiernan, stop!” he ordered, but nothing
happened. Kiernan’s eyes were terrifyingly blank
between his black lashes, and his body remained
stiff under Matt’s hands. Matt drew in a harsh
breath, staring into the whitened face. He wouldn’t
give up. He couldn’t. It was like watching Abby
Reynolds die, and he couldn’t stand it. Then it hit
him.
Abby.
“Abby, let him go,” he said harshly. “Pull back.
You’re hurting him, Abby. Let him go!”
Kiernan jerked and inhaled harshly, eyes
snapping to Matt’s face in sudden comprehension.
It was so silent all Matt could hear was the
pounding of his own heart.
Slowly, the corner of Kiernan’s full lips pulled
up in a shadow of a smile. When he spoke, his low
voice sounded raw.
“Nice save, Matthew,” he muttered.
His eyes closed as he went completely limp.
Chapter Six
Matt caught Kiernan Fitzpatrick’s limp body in his
arms, just saving his head from connecting with the
concrete floor. Staring down at the suddenly
lifeless face, Matt was frightened. Kiernan’s lips
were slightly parted, so pale they looked
bloodless. His cheekbones were stark and sharp,
and there were bluish bruises under his eyes. Matt
curled his arm around his shoulders and was
reaching for his neck to check for a pulse when
Aidan’s voice finally registered.
“Detective, listen to me!”
He jerked his head up. She’d been talking but he
hadn’t heard her above the roaring in his own ears.
“We need to get him out of here,” she said. “Can
you carry him? I don’t want him coming to in this
basement, just in case he’s still too open.” He
stared at her in incomprehension, and she yanked
on his sleeve. “It isn’t safe for him. Something
opportunistic could get through. He can’t protect
himself. Help me get him out of here,” she ordered,
her fear finally registering in his mind. “Please!”
His arms underneath Kiernan, Matt surged to his
feet and hurried up the shadowy staircase. He burst
through the kitchen door only to find Karen
Reynolds waiting, her eyes wide and her hands
clenched in front of her.
“Oh, God,” she cried. “What’s happened?”
Matt pushed past her, barely registering the
reassuring sounds Aidan was making behind him.
He got as far as the massive front door and then
had to wait until Aidan caught up.
“I promise, we’ll be in touch, Karen,” she said.
“He’s just tired from the end of a long tour, and the
session was a bit overwhelming. He fainted, that’s
all. He’ll be fine, I promise.”
“I’ll be waiting to hear…”
Aidan opened the large door, and whatever else
Karen Reynolds might have said was lost in the
crunch of his feet on snow as Matt walked quickly
to the Bronco. Fluffy flakes fell onto Kiernan’s
upturned face, caught in his hair and his lashes.
Matt lifted him closer to his chest and cradled him,
and felt the sigh that moved through Kiernan’s
body. The dark head rolled, and his face pressed