long, long tunnel. The Zone loomed up beside her, a yawning black mouth. And on the other side, the Voice had come to life.
“I can't!” she cried.
“DO IT!”
The fear was like a softball in her throat, closing off her air, gagging her, choking her.
“You love me, Michele,” she mewed, not sure if she had spoken the words aloud or if they existed only in her head.
“DO IT!”
She stared down at Kate.
The Zone moved over her. She could feel the hot breath of it. She could fall into it and never come out. She would be safe.
She would be alone. Forever.
“DO IT!”
Her whole body was shaking.
“You can save Michele, Angie. Do this for Michele.”
She looked down at Kate, at the place on her chest where she was supposed to stick the knife. Just as Michele had. She'd seen her sister do it.
He hurt her. She hated him. Michele loved him. She loved Michele.
That was all she'd ever wanted, someone to care about her, someone to keep her from being alone. All she'd ever gotten was use and abuse. Even from Michele, who had kept her from being alone. But Michele loved her. Love and hate. Love and hate. Lovehate, lovehate, lovehate. There was no line between them for her. She loved Michele, wanted to save her. Michele was all she had.
“DO IT! KILL HER! KILL HER!”
She looked down at Kate, straining against the ties, terror in her face.
“I'm sorry,” she whimpered.
“Angie, don't!”
“Stab her. Now!”
The pressure inside her was tremendous. The pressure from outside was more. She felt as if her bones would collapse and the weight of it would crush her, and the Zone would suck up the mess and she would be gone forever.
Maybe that would be just as well. At least then she wouldn't hurt anymore.
“Do it or I let your fucking cunt sister die!” he shouted. “Do it or I'll finish Michele in front of you! DO IT!”
She loved her sister. She could save her sister. She raised the knife.
“NO!”
Kate sucked in a breath and braced herself, never taking her eyes off Angie.
The girl let out an unearthly shriek as she raised the butcher knife with both hands above her head, then twisted her body and plunged the knife into Rob Marshall's neck.
Blood sprayed in a geyser as she jerked the blade out. Blood on the wall, on the bed, on Kate, spraying like a loose fire hose. Rob jerked back, astonished, grabbing at the wound, blood gushing through his fingers.
Angie went on screaming, plunging the knife again, stabbing his hand, stabbing his chest. She followed him as he staggered backward, trying to escape. He tried to call out for help or for mercy and choked on his own blood, the sound gurgling in his throat. His knees buckled, and he fell against the clothes drier, knocking the candelabrum to the floor.
Angie stepped back then and stared at him for a moment, as if she had no idea who he was or how he had come to fall to the floor with the last of his life's blood pumping out of him as he gurgled and gagged. Then she looked at the knife, dripping blood, her hands covered and sticky with it, and slowly she turned toward Kate.
QUINN DROVE WITH no regard for the laws of the road or of physics, driven himself by a growing sense of panic in his gut. Kovac hung on, braced himself, screamed more than once as Quinn swept the Caprice around and between cars.
“If he's smart, he's already blown town,” Kovac said.
“Smart's got nothing to do with it,” Quinn said above the roar of the engine. “He brought Kate on the case as part of his game. He killed Melanie Hessler because she was Kate's client. He left a calling card in Kate's garage the other night. He won't leave town without finishing the thing between them.”
He could see the hall light on as the car skidded to a stop in front of Kate's house. The light glowed through the sheers at the goddamn sidelights she should have known better than to have. Quinn slammed the Caprice into park before it fully stopped, and the transmission made an ominous sound. He was out of the car before it could stop rocking, running for the house as a pair of radio cars screamed up the street. He thundered onto the porch and pounded on the door, tried the handle. Locked.
“Kate! Kate!”
He pressed his face to the glass of one sidelight. The hall table sat askew. Things had tumbled over on it and off it. The rug was cockeyed.
“Kate!”
The shout that came from somewhere in the house went through him like steel. “No!”
Quinn grabbed the mailbox, ripped it off the wall, and smashed out the sidelight just as Kovac ran up onto the porch. Another few seconds and they were in. His eyes went to a smear of blood on the wall near the den.
“Kate!”
Her cry came from somewhere deep in the house. “Angie! NO!”
ANGIE TURNED THE knife in her bloody hands, staring at the blade. She let the tip of it kiss the fragile skin of her wrist.
“Angie, no!” Kate shouted, straining against the ties. “Don't do it! Please don't do it! Come cut me loose. Then we'll get you some help.”
She couldn't see Rob, but knew he lay crumpled on the floor near the drier. She could hear gurgling sounds coming from his throat. He had knocked the candelabrum over as he crashed, and the flames had found some of the lighter fluid he must have poured around while Kate had been unconscious. It ignited with a
The flames would follow the trail of fuel in search of more fuel. The basement was crammed with posibilities—boxes of junk her parents had saved and abandoned, stuff she'd been meaning to throw out but hadn't gotten to, the obligatory half-empty cans of paint and other hazardous chemicals.
“Angie. Angie!” Kate said, trying to pull the girl's focus to her. Angie, who stood looking into the face of her own death.
“Michele won't love me,” the girl murmured, looking at the man she had just killed. She sounded disappointed in herself, like a small child who had written on the wall in crayon, then realized there would be a bad consequence.
“Kate!” Quinn's bellow sounded above.
Angie seemed not to hear the shouts or the thunder of big male feet. She pressed the blade of the knife lengthwise against the shadow of a vein in her wrist.
“Kate!”
