Sleep No More

“Oh no-” She scrabbled to her feet and ran into the bathroom, where she dropped over the commode and began to retch. Waters knelt beside her and held her convulsing body.

“Take it easy. Get your breath back.”

She planted both elbows on the toilet seat and raised her head. Her face was wet and blotchy red. When Waters took her arms to lift her, she didn’t resist, and when she got her feet beneath her, she went to the bed and sat on her side of it.

“What can I do?” he asked.

She looked up, her eyes hollow and exhausted. “Am I myself now?”

“Yes.”

“But if what you told me is true-if Mallory is inside me-where is she now?”

Relief cascaded through him with the force of a religious epiphany. After days of isolation and ridicule, someone else believed. “She’s inside Cole now.”

“Cole Smith?”

“Yes.”

“And she was in me before that?”

He nodded.

“But that means…” Lily closed her eyes, then went deathly white.

“Don’t think about it, Lily.”

“Cole and me.”

“I’m sorry.”

She raised a quivering hand to her face. “I can’t take this, John. I can’t listen to this.”

“I won’t say any more.”

“Did I really threaten Annelise with a butcher knife?”

“That wasn’t you. It was Mallory.”

“This is madness!”

“I know it seems that way.” Desperate to pull her back to the present, he followed a perverse instinct. He got to his knees before her and spoke softly. “Lily, tell me something. I promise I won’t get upset by your answer. Did you sleep with Cole during college?”

Her eyes instantly locked onto his, and he saw a different kind of fear in them.

“It’s all right if you did,” he assured her. “I just…Mallory told me that you did, and I wanted to know if she was making it up.”

Lily’s chin started to quiver. She bit her lip and looked away from him. “I did. I slept with Cole at Ole Miss.”

The stark admission from her own lips hurt him more than he had expected, but it had the intended effect. By putting Lily in a position where she felt momentary guilt, he knew her desire to console him would overpower the shock of the situation.

“I know you must have imagined all kinds of terrible things about why I didn’t tell you,” she said. “The truth is, I hardly remember being with him. I certainly don’t remember what it felt like.”

He shook his head. “It’s all right. You don’t have to make excuses.”

“But I want you to know why I kept it from you. When I came back to Natchez after SMU, and you and I went out on our first date, I really fell for you. I mean, I knew then-right then-that you were the man I’d been searching for all my life. On that same night, I found out Cole was your partner. I couldn’t believe it. I wasn’t about to bring up something like that on our first date, and by the time we were close enough to talk about it, I felt too awkward to do it. I was afraid you’d be so disappointed that you’d leave me. I was petrified Cole would say something to you. You know how guys are. But one day I came by your office when you weren’t there, and he brought it up. He was a real gentleman about it. He said, ‘Look, John’s my buddy, he’s a great guy, and he really cares about you. As far as I’m concerned, what happened between us never happened.’ I almost cried, I was so relieved. Neither of us ever wanted you to think it had been more than it was, which was nothing.”

“I understand,” he said. “Really.”

Lily slid down off the bed and hugged him, and he felt tears soaking his shirt.

“Listen,” he said, holding her to him. “Do you really believe the things I told you? Do you believe Mallory is alive?”

Her reply was a warm vibration against his chest. “If you hadn’t shown me that tape, I wouldn’t have. But yes, I believe it.” She looked up at him, her eyes alive with terror. “She wants you, John. And I don’t see a way to stop her.”

“I do. I’ve thought about nothing else from the moment she went into you.”

“How? It seems impossible.”

He took Lily by the shoulders and held her away from him. “We have to kill her.”

Lily blinked. “But…you said she can’t be killed without killing whoever she’s inside. Didn’t you?”

“That’s right.”

He could see the thoughts spinning behind her bloodshot eyes. “You mean commit murder,” she said. “Cold- blooded murder. Kill someone like…”

“Cole,” Waters finished.

Her lips parted slightly. “Do you mean that?”

“Yes.”

She looked into his eyes for a long time, then walked back to the bed. “There have to be other options.”

“I don’t think you’ll like them.”

“What are they?”

“We could run. Mallory actually suggested that, but for a different reason. To escape the murder charge.”

“Run where?”

“Central America, maybe. Costa Rica. Find a place without U.S. extradition. We’d have to leave everything behind. Change our names. I’d be a fugitive because of Eve’s murder. Running would make me look guilty, and the DNA match would prove it.”

Lily’s mouth opened, but no sound emerged for several moments. “So…even if we manage to get rid of Mallory, that DNA test could put you in prison for life.”

“Don’t think about that right now. We have to focus on one problem at a time. Do you want to take Annelise and leave the country forever? She might never see your mother again. You’d never be Lily Waters again.”

Lily looked around the room as though seeing it for the first time. “Before today, I’d have told you those weren’t the important things. Things like names and where we live. What job you have. What school Annelise goes to. But they are important. Those details are what make up our lives. I think if we throw all that away to run like criminals, then we’ll lose part of ourselves.”

“I think so too.”

“What other option is there?”

“I could plead guilty to Eve’s murder. You and Annelise would be safe then. And maybe Mallory would get tired of waiting for me.”

“That’s not an option,” Lily said forcefully. “You are not going to prison.”

Waters sighed. “I don’t think it would stop Mallory anyway. She’s already been in prison once. She’d find some way to get in and get close to me.” He sat beside Lily on the bed. “I honestly don’t think there’s any option but to destroy her. And to do that, we have to kill an innocent person.”

“Can you kill Cole in cold blood? You’ve been friends since you were little boys.”

Waters thought of Cole knowingly yielding to “Lily’s” seduction only hours ago. That was affecting his judgment, but he saw nothing to be gained by reminding Lily of the event. “I said someone like Cole. It doesn’t have to be him.”

“Who, then?”

“Remember my deal with Mallory? I promised her that if she went into another woman-a woman chosen by me-I would leave you and Annelise to be with her.”

Lily closed her eyes and wavered on the bed. He reached out and steadied her.

“I’m all right,” she said. She stood up and looked him full in the face. “Who would it be? The woman? Who