“Fine. Screw you,” she heard Clay say in the kitchen. “I’ll get someone else to help me.”
Finally, she heard the sirens in the distance. Clay called to her, thinking she was Amelia. “Are you okay in there, pumpkin? You asleep?”
She didn’t answer. She listened to the sirens getting louder and louder. Shaking, Annabelle moved to the window. She hadn’t even gone outside yet, and already she was cold. Peering over the ledge, she thought she might hurt herself crawling out there.
Clay came to the bedroom doorway. “Amelia?”
Wincing, Annabelle jumped out the window and hit the ground. She could hardly breathe, and yet, somehow, she forced out a scream. She saw the police cars with their lights flashing. They pulled up in front of Clay’s house. Then she saw her father marching toward the front door with his hunting rifle.
Annabelle let out another shriek and started running toward the police cars, until she heard the loud bang.
She swiveled around at the edge of the front yard. Clay must have come out the front door to chase after her. But now he lay sprawled on the ground, with blood all over his shirt and his long black hair in his face.
At first, Annabelle was horrified. But then she thought about how her twin sister had abandoned her, and run to this man for protection. He was going to help Amelia, and didn’t even mention helping
Suddenly, she liked that he was dead. It felt good.
After that, things between her and Amelia were never quite the same. Amelia was different, withdrawn, and acting crazy most of the time. Her parents finally sent her away to live with another family.
Then they moved to the ranch in Salem, without Amelia.
While Annabelle endured her father’s abuse and those awful nights she was forced to help him with his
What happened was Amelia had decided to forget about her.
Annabelle never really forgave her for that.
She knew her sister was adopted by the Faradays. She still had a glimpse into Amelia’s sweet, privileged life with them, but she didn’t get to be a part of it. As far as her lucky sister was concerned, she didn’t exist, and never had.
After her mother had killed herself, her father and Uncle Duane kept grilling Annabelle about where Amelia was. They knew she’d had a special connection with her twin. Though Annabelle knew her sister’s last name was now Faraday, she didn’t tell them a thing. She somehow sensed they wanted Amelia dead. And Annabelle was still very protective of her sister, even though she didn’t deserve it.
Later, Annabelle figured it out. Her father and Uncle Duane had planned to do away with Amelia shortly after Clay had been killed. In a rare moment of clarity, Annabelle’s mother intervened. She persuaded her husband to put the problem child into foster care.
When she was a teenager, Annabelle found some documents tucked away in her father’s desk drawer. Shortly before the move to Salem, her mother and father had signed papers completely relinquishing parenthood of Amelia.
But once her mother was dead, Annabelle’s father and her uncle were desperate to track down Amelia. They wanted to kill her, because of what she knew and what she might tell. They had no idea Amelia had forgotten all about them.
Stupid Duane had killed those people at the adoption place and gotten himself killed for nothing.
She didn’t talk about Amelia with anyone until later in high school. Annabelle thought it might make her more interesting to people if she’d had a twin who died. But it didn’t make her popular. And all the while, she had a window into her sister’s life. Annabelle had her nose pressed up against that window. She knew Amelia Faraday had a kid brother and parents who loved her. She lived in a beautiful house with a dock and a lake in the backyard. They had a weekend home, not far from another lake.
The closest Amelia Faraday ever came to true misery and pain was when Annabelle experienced it firsthand. Even then, Amelia had no idea where the sensations and visions came from.
It hurt Annabelle to be disregarded like that. It hurt more than all the physical pain and horror she’d endured growing up on that ranch with her awful father.
Now Amelia was beginning to feel some of that pain firsthand. First her brother, then her parents and her aunt, her boyfriend. One by one, the people Amelia loved weren’t there anymore. Within an hour, her therapist- along with her uncle and her cousins-would all be dead, too.
Amelia would have nobody, except the sister she’d chosen to forget.
Huddled inside the phone booth in front of Danny’s Diner, Annabelle listened to the rain beating on the roof. She made another call. It rang twice before he picked up. “Yeah?”
“Hi, babe. How’s everything there?”
“Fine,” he said, “except we got one down.”
Annabelle frowned a bit. “Already? Was it one of the kids?”
“No, a snoopy old bitch of a neighbor. But I have it under control. I asked the housekeeper, and she said the lady lived alone. So nobody’s going to come looking for her. In fact, I’m tempted to check across the street and see if she has anything in the house worth taking. Bet she has a shitload of jewelry.”
“Now, don’t get greedy,” Annabelle said. “Stay put. I don’t want any of the other neighbors to see you going over there. They might call the cops. You could screw this whole thing up. You’ve collected a car full of crap from Uncle George’s. That’s enough. What’s the latest on Uncle George, anyway?”
“The last time he talked to fatso, he said to expect him around nine o’clock.”
“Good. Well, be careful, babe. I got these vibes from Karen that they suspect something. So, if you get nervous, or things don’t seem right to you, then just abort. Shoot the maid and the kids, and get the hell out of there. We’ll worry about the uncle later.”
“I won’t get nervous,” he said.
“Well, once you’ve finished them all off, hurry here, baby. I need you.”
“Huh,” he grunted. “You just want me to help you escape.”
“Well, you promised,” she said. “You’re going to help me get away, and we’ll start new someplace else. See you at the lake house around midnight.”
Annabelle hung up the phone, and stepped out of the booth. She walked through the cool night rain back to Karen’s car in the parking lot of Danny’s Diner. She glanced over the swaying treetops in the general direction of the lake house.
Once she’d killed Karen, she’d wait for Blade. He was in love with her-at least he thought he was. He would be easy to kill.
She had a two-gallon tote container of gasoline in the trunk of Karen’s car. That would be enough to set the lake house on fire. The cops would find two burnt bodies in there, Karen and Blade. She knew what she was doing. She’d pulled it off without a hitch three years ago. Funny, she’d pretty much told Sandra the same thing she’d told Blade moments ago: “You’re going to help me get away, and we’ll start new someplace else.”
When she’d said
But she wasn’t thinking of him at all.
His hands taut on the steering wheel, George studied the road ahead. He’d made it to the city of Jefferson in less than twenty minutes. Speeding along I-5, he’d kept his eyes peeled for patrol cars.
While in the cybercafe, he’d checked MapQuest for directions to Coupland Aeronautics, so he knew the helicopter place was only about a mile ahead in this industrial area. George passed several warehouses, a railroad and container yard, and a chemical plant.
He’d just talked with Karen, who was on her way to meet Amelia at the restaurant near the Lake Wenatchee house. Apparently, Amelia didn’t have any premonitions about the kids or Jessie being in trouble-not yet, at least. Karen said she’d call again from the pay phone when she got to the restaurant. George couldn’t help remembering the last time someone had promised to call him from that place. It had been Ina, the day of her murder.
