“But what?”
“As it happens, I’m seeing one...right now.”
“Well, that’s interesting,” Sean said. “Especially the timing.”
“I’d say too interesting...and too neat, as well.” The excitement in Garrett’s voice had turned to concern.
And now Sean was getting worried. “What are you getting at?”
“This patient came with a referral, but when I checked with my colleague, he wasn’t familiar with the case, possibly because the person who came to see me was an alter-personality with his own name, his own history. I kept seeing him because he presented such an interesting case. But now I’m wondering if he sought me out for a specific reason.”
“It was a setup,” Sean said, feeling himself in familiar territory now. He knew nothing about psychoanalysis, but he could usually spot a con a mile off. “And it leads straight back to Sarah. This guy knew she was a patient of yours. That’s why he sought you out.”
“I’m beginning to think so,” Garrett said. “But what would a deception like that gain him? Unless I somehow figure into his plan for her.”
“His plan?”
“This isn’t a random thing. It’s like you said, everything is connected to Sarah. Why, we don’t know. But for whatever reason, she’s become very important to Jude.”
At Garrett’s words, uneasiness settled over Sean, bringing with it a sense of urgency. “Does he have a last name?”
“Cole.”
Sean took out his notebook and jotted it down. “How long have you been seeing him?”
“Only for a few sessions.”
Sean glanced up. “He came before the killings started, then. Does that make sense to you?”
Garrett had grown silent again. “It would if one of the alters somehow feels threatened by Sarah. Jude claims he’s the protector.”
“The protector of what?” Sean asked impatiently.
“DID usually develops out of an abusive situation, one that almost always starts in childhood. A person with DID can have many kinds of personalities of different ages, sexes, even nationalities. But certain types of personalities are almost always present. The protector, for instance, is the one that surfaces during the abuse and is crucial to the child or host’s survival. The persecutor holds the child’s rage. He’s the keeper of the secrets and silence that surround the past abuse, and he can become quite volatile if he feels too much information is being revealed. Typically, the host has no knowledge of these other personalities, but they’re often aware of him and each other. They interact and collaborate in their own world, which is why the host will often complain of hearing voices in his head.”
“How would a whacko like this exist in real life and not reveal himself?” Sean said.
“People with this disorder can function very well, and they often lead creative and productive lives. But that’s not to say they don’t have problems. Nightmares, flashbacks, memory loss. These symptoms can create a chaotic existence, and DID sufferers tend to self-medicate.”
“You mean like Sarah,” Sean said slowly.
“Sarah has certainly experienced many of these symptoms, but she doesn’t have DID. And the disorder in the individual we’re talking about is so extreme that he may not be able to function well even under the slightest stress. In fact, I’d say he’s beginning to lose control. Impulsivity is a characteristic of a disintegrating personality. I should have realized this earlier, when you described the crime scenes...the first one organized to the point of overkill, as you put it, the second one falling apart. And now he is, too.”
Sean wanted to feel relieved that Sarah was in the clear, but at that moment all he could think about was how alone she was in that big house. “We have to find this guy,” he said. “Does he have another appointment scheduled?”
Garrett nodded. “Yes, but not until next week. I can give you his information, but I don’t think that’ll be of much help. You’re not going to find any record of a Jude Cole.”
“Give it to me anyway,” Sean said. “I’ll put out a BOLO. Would you recognize a picture of him?”
“Yes, if it was taken while in protector mode. The disorder can be so extreme, physical appearances can actually change. In fact, the way he mutilates his victims’ faces is probably a direct result of his own distorted self-image.”
“The first thing we have to do is get you to a police artist,” Sean said. “We need to know what this guy looks like. Without a face, we’re searching for nothing but a ghost.”
* * *
By the time Esme went home that night, Sarah was exhausted. She wandered through the house, wineglass in one hand, the .38 Special in the other, and the Xanax she’d taken after Lukas dropped her off mellowing out the rough edges.
Earlier in the week, she’d had all the locks changed and a metal grid fastened over the window in the attic. No one could get in now without going to a great deal of trouble.
But now, Sarah was preoccupied with an even darker history. She couldn’t walk past Rachel’s room without shuddering violently. She couldn’t think about what had been done to her sister without feeling sick to her stomach.
Why had no one stopped him? Not Esme, not her mother, not even Curtis. And not Sarah.
Now that the funeral was over, she couldn’t wait to get out of here. She had no idea what was happening with the investigation, but she couldn’t be expected to stay in town indefinitely. She had a life, such as it was, to get back to. Any place was better than here.
But going back to New Orleans presented yet another worry. Sean had found bloodstains in her bedroom, two women from her past had been murdered and her ex-lover’s wife was missing. Everything was connected to her, Sean had said. She was the key.
She dropped her gaze to the drawings she’d made of the inkblot tattoos. Two faces. One light, one dark. One good, one evil. A mirror image. Two sides of the same person.
A dark self.
Sarah’s deepest fear.
There was a reason why she couldn’t remember what had happened the night her sister was murdered. A reason why she’d been found covered in Rachel’s blood. The answer had eluded her all these years, but the possibility, that terrible fear, had never stopped tormenting her.
Sarah stared at the images for so long the inkblots began to blur. She lifted the sketches from the desk to help her focus, and the light shining down through the paper made it transparent. The lines from the bottom drawing bled through to the top, creating the impression of a single image. A single face.
Sarah caught her breath as she angled the light up so that it shone directly through the paper. The hair on the back of her neck lifted when she realized what she was looking at.
The inkblots were made to go together. The message from the killer could only be interpreted when the images were viewed together, one on top of the other.
The blood in Sarah’s veins was suddenly ice-cold. Her hands trembled as she stared down into the face of the killer.
And she knew that face. She’d drawn it before.
Ashe Cain.
The sketch she’d done of him must still be somewhere in the house. And it would be proof, at least for her, that he really existed. Proof that he—not Sarah—had killed her sister and her father, those two poor women in New Orleans. He was responsible for the cloven footprints. Not Sarah. Not the devil.
Ashe Cain.
He was back. Those messages at the crime scenes, the face in the inkblots had all been left for her.
I am you.
We’re the same, Sarah. Our souls our mirror images.
“Fucking psycho,” she muttered as she pawed frantically through the desk drawers looking for her old drawing books. She tore through the closet, the dresser, underneath the bed. And then she remembered that she and Esme had gone through her things before she’d left for boarding school. She hadn’t been able to take all the books with her—she’d had dozens—so she and Esme had boxed some of them up and Esme had put them up in the attic.
The attic.
Sarah sat down heavily at the desk and took a drink of wine as she contemplated going up there to look for the drawing books. Maybe it would be better to wait until morning. Esme could go up there with her then and show her where they were stored.
But Sarah didn’t want to wait until morning. She wanted to see that drawing tonight. It might well be the key to her vaulted memories. It could be the key to everything.
She took another drink of wine for courage and fingered the gun on the desk.
It wouldn’t take long. Rush up there, find the box, rush right back. Three, four minutes tops.
Taking another sip of wine, she picked up the gun as she got up from the desk, then hurried down the hall. Up the stairs and through the attic door, heart pounding all the way. She flipped the switch, and the shadows cast by the harsh light from the bare bulb caused her to jump and clutch the gun frantically in front of her.
Quickly, she scanned the space. It was a typical attic, stuffed to the rafters with furniture, boxes and discarded toys. She even saw one of her old bicycles leaning against the wall and an assortment of sports equipment, long since abandoned.
The grid over the window was firmly in place. Good.
Sarah slid the gun into the waistband of her jeans and began searching through the boxes. They were all labeled and she had no trouble locating the ones marked with her name. Taking quick peeks under the lids until she found the one she wanted, she hefted the carton into her arms, turned off the light and hurried back to her room.
Once inside, she dropped the box on the floor and sneezed as a dust cloud exploded.
Then she stood frozen, gripped by nervous anticipation and an eerie dread. The cobwebs clinging to her hair and the spider that crawled from underneath the lid did nothing to alleviate her jitters.
With a shudder, she flicked the spider away and opened the box. There were dozens and dozens of books filled with her sketches and very few of them flattering. As Curtis had said, she’d once had a penchant for giving her classmates—especially those who had tormented her—macabre and distorted features, but the faces were always recognizable. That was what made them so creepy. With the aid of her trusty pencil, Sarah could transform even beauty queens into something hideous and grotesque. It seemed a little sick now, but at one time it had been her way of getting revenge.
“Better than murder,” she muttered.
She thumbed through all the books, until she found the drawing she’d been looking for. As she stared down at his face, she half expected the page to erupt in flames. But Ashe Cain wasn’t a demon. He didn’t possess supernatural powers, just a sick and twisted mind.
The sketch had been meant as a Christmas gift, but Sarah had never gotten the chance to give it to him once she’d finished it. And now, here it was. His face staring up at her. That pale, terrifying visage that had crept through her nightmares for years.
She’d drawn him exactly as she saw him. No need to embellish features that had already been made eerie and surreal by the Goth makeup.
Sarah had never seen him without that makeup. She had no idea what he looked like underneath. But the set of his jaw, the shape of his face...that couldn’t be changed by makeup.
She studied that face for the longest time.
Think, Sarah, think.
Did she recognize those eyes, the nose, the line of his jaw?
Warily, she lifted her gaze to the mirror, then let out a breath. Whoever Ashe Cain was, he was not her alter, although she reluctantly admitted that the drawing alone didn’t prove much. He could still be a product of her imagination.
She took another sip of wine to wash the dust from her throat as she flipped through the journal. She saw a lot of familiar faces within those pages. Her mother, father and sister. Esme and Curtis.
Sifting through all those old memories was making her a bit light-headed, Sarah thought. Or maybe it was the dust. She got up to splash cold water on her face, but a wave of dizziness washed over her and she staggered back against the bed.
She sat down on the edge, placing her hands on either side to try and make the room stop spinning.
Any idiot knew enough not to mix pills and booze, she thought. She’d been asking for trouble for a long time now. But a little wine had never been a problem for her. Maybe tonight, though, she’d had more than a little wine.
She’d be all right. Just needed to lie down for a moment. Just needed to close her eyes.
* * *
Sarah opened her eyes. She had no idea how long she’d been out. Judging by the sour taste in her mouth, it might have been hours. But she could see the moon out her window. The soft glow spilled into her room, creating strange silhouettes. She lay still for a moment as she tried to orient herself, but her head felt full of cobwebs.
Wait a minute, she thought as she glanced around. Why was it dark in her room? She hadn’t turned the light off before she lay down, had she?
And what was that strange scent? It smelled like...damp earth.
Her hands felt dry and crusty, and she lifted them in front of her, saw something dark all the way up to her elbows.
God, what was that?
Sarah swung her legs over the side of the bed and sat with her hands in front of her. She smelled like soil, as if she’d been out digging in the flower beds in the middle of the night. In the middle of winter.
Her brain still half-frozen, she stumbled to the bathroom and turned on the light. She was covered in dirt. It was all over her hands and arms, caked beneath her nails, matted on the knees of her jeans.
What the hell had she been trying to dig up?
Suddenly frantic to get it off, she turned on the water and started scrubbing. Then it hit her again about that light. She must have turned it off when she left the room because obviously she’d gone outside at some point.
Grabbing a towel, she went back into the bedroom and turned on the light to have a look around. She didn’t notice it at first. She wasn’t looking for anything like that.