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CHAPTER 13
Mary’s journal lay unopened on Catherine’s nightstand, next to the oil lamp with its soft, shimmering flame. Knowing she would be drawn into Mary’s world as soon as she opened its leather cover, Catherine walked into her bedroom but refused to look at it, just as she had refused to look at it every other time she’d entered the room. Yes, she needed to read it. Yes, she believed it held some of the keys to what had happened to her sister. And yes, there were bound to be clues to the past, the pieces that Catherine did not know herself, the ones Mary had deliberately hidden from her.
But there were also bound to be references to the things Catherine did know about . . . things she would sooner forget.
Still, she was only putting off the inevitable. She’d asked Detective Dunbar for a DNA test on the knife, hoping there would be some sign of the killer.
Yet she thought she might know who he was.
Her jaw clenched, and she forcibly relaxed it. He was like Justice. Determined and driven and filled with genetic anomalies that as often as not turned him into an evil monster incapable of living within social boundaries.
She needed to find the adoption records.
“Aunt Catherine?”
She nearly jumped out of her skin as she turned swiftly to the open door of her bedroom. Cassandra stood there, her eyes glimmering in the faint light.
“You scared me!” Catherine exclaimed, one hand over her chest. Her heart was thudding erratically.
“I think he’s done something really bad.”
“Who?” she asked automatically.
“The man from the bones.”
“Cassandra . . .”
“He went to her,” Cassandra whispered urgently.
Catherine walked over and put her arms around Cassandra, holding her tightly, knowing how much her visions scared her. “What did he do?”
“Can you see it?”
“No, I—” Catherine paused, momentarily seeing a heavy block of wood.
“He killed her.” Cassandra hesitated a moment, her body quivering, and then she added in a voice so soft Catherine could scarcely hear it, even though her lips weren’t far from her ear, “And then he watched her die, and . . . he liked the way it felt. He says it’s . . . better than sex.”
Nothing is better than sex, Mary said, eyeing her sister with that cat-and-cream smile.
“Who did he kill, Cassandra?” Catherine made herself ask, her throat tight.
The girl slowly pulled away from her, and she came back to herself, as if waking from a dream. She looked slightly confused. “Our mother?” she asked, as if Catherine held the answer. Then, “No, it was a different woman.” As if suddenly alarmed at bei
ng too near to Mary, she added, “And it’s Maggie. My name is Maggie.”
She left the room in a rush, legs flying beneath her long skirts, as if she wanted nothing more to do with either Catherine or the visions that had plagued her—her gift—since she was young.
Catherine thought about Cassandra’s vision. About the man from the bones. Forcing herself to the nightstand, she picked up the small volume and started at the beginning, but Mary’s young girl ramblings held little interest for her. Thus she opened the book and held it flat, letting the pages fall to their natural breaking point.
With dread she read the passage.
Cathy thinks she’s in love with a prince, but he’s just like the rest of them. It’s so easy to have any of them, it’s laughable. I lean in and envelop them, and they’re mine. I thought she was going to cry when she asked me, “Is it a scent?” She kept pestering me, and I told her, “It’s just something you don’t have. Sorryyy . . .” Should I let her have him, or put him in the trophy case?
Catherine slammed the book shut, only to open it again to a later page, a well-thumbed section, one that Mary had apparently gone back to time and again.
I saved Cathy from that rapist, but I wouldn’t let her have happiness. That’s what she says to me all the time. “You won’t let me be happy.” There is no happiness. There’s only conquest. I took him from her, and I’m not sorry. It’s for her own good. She wasn’t meant to have him.
They’re all mine. From Parnell to Seamus to the devil who gave me D. The rapist. Back from the dead, but dead again.
