Kill Her Again (A Thriller) (14 page)

A pink My Little Pony.

Just like the ones on Kimberly’s bedspread.

Anna knew it could have been dropped by almost anyone over the last several days, but she didn’t think so—and a renewed sense of dread washed through her as she thought about the significance of the toy.

Had it been placed here for her to discover?

Was the man in the red baseball cap telling her that he had—

“Chavi?”

The voice rose from the shadows behind her.

Startled, Anna jumped to her feet and spun, ripping her Glock from its holster again, pointing it toward a patch of darkness near one of the food booths.

Was he in there?

“FBI,” she said, trying to keep her voice steady. “Come out. Slowly. Hands raised.”

“Is it you, Chavi?”

The voice had a vaguely European lilt. English was not his first language.

“I’m not gonna ask again,” Anna told him. “You’re interfering with a federal investigation. Show yourself.”

No response. Not even a hint of movement.

Then, from off to her right: “I’ve made mistakes, Chavi. Many mistakes. More than I can count.”

Anna jerked toward sound of the voice, pointing her weapon at the Tilt-A-Whirl. It seemed to be coming from one of the cars now.

“But in the end, I always find you. I always will.”

Suddenly feeling very vulnerable, she stepped backwards, retreating into the shadows near the carousel.

“Who are you?”

“You don’t know me? You don’t remember?”

“Cut the bullshit. Where’s Kimmie? What did you do with her?”

“Ahhh,” the voice said. “She was another mistake. And after all the trouble I went through to find her. All the blood I shed. That poor mother fought quite hard to protect her child.”

Anna stepped forward again, straining to see him, her finger brushing the trigger.

“But not to worry. Each mistake I make brings me closer to the one I seek.” A pause. “Am I closer now?”

“Just tell me what you did with Kimmie, you freak. Where
is
she?”

“Where they all are, of course. With the angels.”

The voice came from the left this time, near the Ferris wheel. Disoriented, Anna turned again, trying to pin him down. “What are you telling me? You killed her, too?”

“Freed her,” he said. “I freed them all.” Another pause. “But what about you, Chavi? Are you a mistake?”

“Why do you keep calling me that? Who’s Chavi?”

There was a long moment of silence. Then:

“The girl who stole my soul.”

The voice was directly behind her now. Something touched the left side of Anna’s rib cage and a jolt of pain ripped through her. Losing her grip on the Glock, she fell to the ground, her body spasming violently.

Stun gun. She’d been hit by a stun gun.

The man in the red baseball cap stepped out of the shadows and stood over her, his face obscured by the bill of the cap.

Crouching beside her, he reached out and touched her head. Smoothed her hair.

His breath stank of cigarettes.

“Is it really you, Chavi? Have I found you again?”

And all Anna could see was his crooked yellow smile.

1
7

T
HEY WERE NEARING
the Ludlow off-ramp when Evan had another seizure.

Except for the occasional murmur about red hats, he’d slept quietly for most of the ride. Pope had spent their short time on the road wondering if the boy’s mutterings had come from something more than a simple nightmare.

But what else could it possibly be?

In the end, it didn’t really matter. Pope had more pressing things to think about.

Like staying alive.

He checked his rearview mirror for what must have been the hundredth time in the last few minutes. He half-expected to see Arturo and crew blasting toward him on the highway, but the road looked empty. No sign of headlights except for the big rig and the motor home he’d passed a few moments ago.

Pope figured his best bet was to get Evan back to Jake, who could make sure that he was properly taken care of. Hanging out with a fugitive from the fuckup factory was probably not the best place for a kid to be. Pope still wasn’t quite sure why he had agreed to watch him in the first place.

Or was he?

No matter how much he tried to deny it, there was something about Evan that brought out Pope’s paternal instincts. Instincts he thought had died along with Ben.

They were about a mile out of Ludlow when Evan twisted in his seat and started murmuring again.

“. . . Chavi . . . ,” he said.

Pope glanced at him, saw that he was still asleep, his brow furrowed as if he were concentrating heavily.

“. . . Is it you, Chavi?”

Pope frowned. What the hell was going on in this kid’s head?

Evan was quiet for another long moment. Spotting the Ludlow off-ramp ahead, Pope pointed the nose of the Tercel toward it and accelerated, wondering what his next step would be.

Should he ignore Sharkey’s request and tell Jake what had happened? Or was it possible that Jake already knew about Troy and Sharkey?

No, if Sharkey was involved in a long-term undercover operation, Pope doubted some dirt-water sheriff’s deputy would be in the loop. And maybe it was best to leave it that way. Whatever Sharkey was up to, it wouldn’t be good for Troy—and that was just fine with Pope. Multimillionaire or not, the guy was almost certainly a psychopath, and Pope didn’t relish being on his hit list.

They were nearing the off-ramp when Evan let out a small cry of pain. Pope spun his head toward him, and saw his body stiffen, and knew immediately what was coming next.

Then Evan started convulsing, his eyes flying open, rolling back in his head until only the whites were visible.

Holy shit.

Pope jerked the wheel and hit the brakes, skidding to a halt in the gravel beside the road. Reaching over, he quickly unfastened Evan’s seat belt as the boy bucked and kicked, his head rolling from side to side.

“Easy,” Pope told him, trying to calm himself as much as Evan, knowing he was probably speaking to deaf ears. “You’ll be fine, son. You’ll be fine in just a minute.”

Pope was reminded of the first time he’d witnessed an epileptic fit. His grandpa Joe—a Vegas real estate broker—convulsing by the pool on a hot Sunday afternoon as Grandma M. stood over him, a glass of iced tea in hand, telling everyone with a tight, embarrassed smile, “Not to worry. He’ll be just fine.”

But Pope
was
worried now. There was something different about Evan’s seizure this time. It was more than your typical grand mal. He was sure of it. The convulsions seemed twice as violent as before, and Evan continued to cry out in pain, hands clutching his chest as if he were having a heart attack.

A hospital. Pope had to get him to a hospital.

Putting the Toyota in gear, he was about to dig out when, all at once, Evan was still, the attack over. Done.

Gripping the wheel as he tried to calm himself, Pope stared at the boy, saw that his eyes were closed, sweat beading on his brow. His breathing was uneven, but was gradually getting steadier.

Heaving a shaky sigh of relief, Pope shoved the gearshift back into park and just sat there a moment, memories of Ben once again forcing their way out of the lockbox he tried so hard to keep them in. But this time he let them come, let the sadness envelop him.

And before he knew it, tears flooded his eyes.

What had he been doing to himself these last two years? Why had he allowed his grief to control him? Allowed himself to fall prey to the cards, the pot, the women—when all he had to do was cry? To release the pain. The toxins. Purge them from his soul.

What he had become did not honor the memory of his son. If Ben could see him now, he’d be ashamed. Mortified, in fact.

Pope blinked away his tears and looked at Evan again. He was about to reach over to wipe the sweat from the boy’s forehead when Evan suddenly bolted upright, showing only the whites of his eyes.

“He’s hurting her. You have to stop him. He’s hurting her!” Pope just stared at him. “What?”

“The man in the red hat. He’s hurting her. He’s hurting my Anna.”

A chill ran through Pope. One so strong that his teeth nearly chattered. Despite his admitted indifference to the idea of unexplained phenomena like ghosts and UFOs and psychic healers and, yes, past lives—looking at Evan, he knew one thing for certain:

This was no fucking nightmare.

“Help her!” Evan cried. “Don’t let him take her away.”

Pope grabbed him by the shoulders. “Where, Evan? Where is he taking her?”

“The house of mirrors. Dr. Demon’s House of Mirrors. Do something.
Now
.”

Pope didn’t need much more of a kick in the ass than that. Quickly pulling Evan’s seat upright, he strapped Evan in again, jammed the Tercel into drive, and hit the accelerator, shooting back onto the off-ramp.

He wasn’t sure what Evan was babbling about, but the bit about the house of mirrors had triggered something in his mind:

The carnival.

The carnival was in town.

Pope had spent part of every summer of his childhood haunting the grounds of Ludlow High, flirting with girls, riding rides, and navigating the maze inside Dr. Demon’s House of a Thousand Mirrors.

Middle of July meant carnival season, and whatever was going on down there did not bode well for Special Agent Anna McBride.

Pointing the Tercel in the direction of the school, he fumbled for his cell phone and hit speed-dial.

Two rings later, Jake was on the line.

1
8

H
E HAD HER
by the collar and was dragging her through the carnival grounds as if she were nothing more than a sack full of old bones.

Every time Anna tried to resist, he hit her with the stun gun again, sending a spark of electricity straight into her central nervous system, dazing her, her heart pounding uncontrollably. Every shock seemed to drive her deeper into her own mind. She felt as if she were floating in and out of darkness, only half-conscious of the world around her.

Then, as she came into the light again, she tried to twist away, grabbing at his hand, feeling the coarse flesh and the hardened bones beneath it—the hand of a working man, a farmer, a peasant—

—a carny?

He was dragging her toward the dark doorway of one of the carnival sideshows—the one from the photograph in Evan and Kimberly’s room—

—Dr. Demon’s House of a Thousand Mirrors.

And as she tried to pry his fingers loose, he brought the stun gun down again, jabbing its probes against her neck for what must have been the fourth or fifth time, sending another jolt through her.

This one drove her so deep into the darkness that she felt as if she were tumbling through a long black tunnel, only to emerge to light on the other side, shadows flickering in it, moving across a surface of some kind.

But what was it?

As her eyes cleared, Anna realized that she was now staring up at the tattered ceiling of a moving car, tree shadows flitting across it as its old engine rumbled and the road bumped beneath her.

But how had she gotten here? Had she lost consciousness long enough for him to hoist her into a car and drive away?

No, something was wrong. Very wrong.

Anna remembered those shadows. Remembered them from one of her visions of the little girl. Had the trauma of what was happening to her brought on another episode?

If so, the experience was no longer the detached, observational view she was accustomed to. No glimpses of mayhem and carnage that faded from the mind almost as quickly as they came.

This time it was happening to
her
.

She
was the little girl.

Anna had somehow inhabited the girl’s mind and body, experiencing every pain, every thought, every fear as if it were her own.

The pungent smell of cigarette smoke filled her nostrils. Something constricted her mouth and she realized it was taped shut. Glancing down, she found that her wrists and ankles were bound—the wrists and ankles of a ten-year-old—duct tape wrapped around them, making it nearly impossible to move.

She was lying on the backseat of the car, and for some reason she kept thinking about someone named Stinky.

Mr.
Stinky, to be more precise, who had been hit by a bus.

Confusion crowded Anna’s brain. Her thoughts seemed to be intermingled with those of her host and she had trouble discerning whose thoughts were whose.