“He was so good to me. And he had such . . . such power! He understood me. I knew it from the first time I saw him watching the house — before that night Jason told you about. I saw him. I was the only one who had ever been smart enough to see him before he knew he was being watched. No one had ever been able to sneak up on him. He was impressed.”
“Mmmaaah,” he said again.
“He was ready to make his move to fame. I helped him. It was exciting.”
All day, in my thoughts of her, I had tried to see her as she was, not the way I wanted her to be. Not to see her as the victim she had been in my mind for so many years, but as the killer’s helper. “How could she lend her aid to him?” I had asked myself again and again, thinking of Parrish’s victims, their grieving families and friends — not just her own mother, but her younger brother among them. That she had been abused might explain her anger toward Julia and a great deal more, but with that one phrase, “it was exciting,” she once again became alien to me. Whatever pity I felt for the child she had been, the young woman was someone I could not begin to truly understand.
I stepped back from her.
“How did you help him?” I asked.
“I told him where she was going that afternoon.”
“And you were there when he killed her?”
She shook her head. “He wouldn’t let me watch that one. But he showed me photos, later, after he saw that I was worthy.”
“Worthy?” She didn’t seem to hear or care about my revulsion.
“He’s never had another disciple,” she said proudly. “I’m the first. I told him I would make sure the world would know about him.”
“With my unwitting help,” I said bitterly.
“He made the plans, of course, but who would have known about him without me? I was the one who kept everyone afraid, who made them want to go to the mountains.”
“So that we could see the trophies of his kills.”
“You never would have known about him if we hadn’t planned for you to write about my mother’s death, would you?”
“Maybe not,” I said, suddenly tired.
“That’s why he buried her in her own place. I’ve seen it.”
“What on earth would attract you to someone like him? Knowing what he was capable of doing—”
“Exactly! I knew what he was capable of. I could see his power. Even now — can’t you see? He will get stronger. He’ll be back. That’s what he’s trying to tell me. That I’m his moth, that the flame still burns.”
“You’re a moth? I guess you are. Moths are blinded by their fascinations, right? They fly too close to the flame, right? You’re burning now and you can’t even smell the smoke on your wings.”
“You’ll regret saying that someday,” she said.
“He’s not going to get better, Gillian. That was a lie. He’s going to spend the rest of his life like this.”
“No! You’re lying now!”
“I think you know I’m not. Look at him. He’s empty,” I said. “Just like you are.”
She stared at him in horror.
“You can’t empathize with anyone, can you? Of all the things your mother destroyed in you—”
“Who cares?” she said. “I take care of myself.”
“All that time, I thought you were being stoic — you aren’t stoic, you’re heartless.”
“Whatever.” She lowered her head on to her hands. “You’re giving me a headache.”
“You can’t pity anyone, can you? Not even him.”
She bent over, and I thought perhaps she really wasn’t feeling well. But then she calmly reached beneath her skirt in a most unladylike fashion and removed a revolver. She stood as she pointed it straight at me. If she heard the commotion outside the room, where one gun after another was suddenly being trained on her, she gave no sign of it.
“Am I the one who misled you?” I asked. “Or did the all-powerful Nicky?”
“Mmmaah!”
She spun toward Parrish. I tackled her from behind. We went sprawling onto the floor, crashing into chairs. The gun went off, a deafening sound that kept me from hearing anything for a moment.
We were in a dog pile within seconds — and someone in a uniform had wrestled the gun away from her.
The air was full of the smell of gunpowder, and I felt a strong pair of hands helping me to my feet.
“Are you all right?” Frank asked.
“Yes.”
I heard someone reading her rights to her. I turned to look. As they marched her off to the elevator, she looked back at me. She gave me that same pleading stare that had haunted me for four years.
