Sleep No More

Lily went rigid, gooseflesh covering her skin, her eyes and ears alert. Something had snapped outside the truck. She didn’t think an animal had made the sound. A large deer perhaps, but she was downtown, and her senses told her it had taken more weight than that to produce the sound she’d heard. She peered toward the main house, then the apartment, but she saw nothing. What would she say if the owner of the house suddenly appeared at her window with a gun?

Hi, I’m Lily Waters. My husband had to stop off and tell his receptionist something. I hope we didn’t scare you in this awful truck. John had to go out and check a leak at one of his wells on the river…

“That’s exactly what I’ll say,” she whispered.

And if a shot rang out while the owner stood there? What then? Would John have to kill him too?

Yes, said a voice inside her. That’s what happens when you start this kind of madness….

Annelise stirred in the backseat. Lily reached back and rubbed her shoulder, praying she would not wake.

Halfway up Sybil’s stairs, Waters stood motionless against the wall. He had heard something. A groan or a snore, perhaps. But only one. He had to keep moving, yet something held him where he was.

Go, he told himself. Don’t stop.

But his feet remained still. The gun had felt so natural in the truck. Now he wanted to throw it on the floor. He knew what horror awaited him upstairs. That was how he thought of Mallory now-not as a person, but as a thing. There was no human pity in her, no real love. He had no choice but to go on. Yet the image of Sybil smiling in his office today would not leave him. So young, so trusting. She had trusted Cole Smith with her heart, which was the height of lunacy. But she was not the first young woman to do it.

Waters shut his eyes and tried to visualize himself shooting her. If you can’t see it in your mind, you’ll never do it in life. A popular New Age platitude. And why should it be difficult? After all, he’d already killed one woman. At least his hands had killed her. But killing was not a thing of hands. It was a thing of the mind. Killing in cold blood demanded a cold mind. A gun made it easier, a matter of a momentary trigger pull rather than the eternity of crushing hands and bulging eyes it had taken to end Eve Sumner’s life. But for a man with a conscience, a single finger’s pull could be more difficult than lifting a mountain. Would shooting Sybil from behind make it easier? It seemed the act of a coward, but wouldn’t it be better for her if she never saw it coming?

That’s how I’d want it, he thought. None of that life-passing-before- your-eyes bullshit. If you saw it coming, those last seconds could dilate into a lifetime of regret and self-recrimination. But with a bullet through the base of your brain, there would be none of that-no white light or angel choirs either-only instant and utter darkness.

He gritted his teeth and forced himself up to the next step. Then the next. There was a small landing at the top. Two doors led off it. The one on the right led to a bathroom. He saw light reflecting off a stainless-steel leg bracing the sink. The other door, only slightly open, would be her bedroom. Yellow light trickled onto the landing as though in invitation.

Why is she up here? he wondered. Why isn’t she waiting downstairs with a bottle of champagne? Maybe she was sitting naked on the bed in her favorite position, legs crossed yoga-style, silently awaiting the lover she had fought for a decade to reach. But then he remembered Cole, fast asleep at his desk that afternoon. Maybe Mallory was at this moment struggling to take control of Sybil’s sleeping mind. If so, it was the perfect opportunity to destroy her. Before she had a chance to plead for mercy or fight back. Only if she was asleep…how could he be certain Mallory was inside her? He concealed the.38 behind his back and slipped into the bedroom.

Sybil lay on the bed, the covers pulled loosely over her chest, her lower body exposed in the sheer nightgown. But for her curves and pubic hair, she looked like a sleeping child. She still wore her makeup. Maybe she’d passed out from too much alcohol. He knew he should wake her. If she panicked, she was Sybil. If she smiled and pulled him into the bed, she was Mallory. Simple. But he could not find it in himself to touch her.

Do it! Lily shouted in his mind. Hurry!

Waters picked up a throw pillow and held it over the muzzle of the gun, then held the pillow above Sybil’s face. His right hand began to shake. In his mind, he saw her eyes snap open, as ravenously alive as a vampire’s, filled with hatred and fury at his betrayal.

“Come on,” he whispered. “For Annelise…”

He tried to pull the trigger, but his finger would not obey.

Lily lay shivering in the backseat of the truck, trying to cover Annelise’s body with her own. There was someone outside. Close. Moving carefully. She could hear them through the window John had left open. It had taken all her self-restraint not to start the engine and race away, but she couldn’t abandon her husband. She wished she had brought a gun of her own, but there had seemed no reason. Shielding Annelise with her body seemed an ineffectual act, but she might keep Ana alive long enough for John to save her if an attacker came out of the night. If that happened, she would scream through the window and pray that John heard her. She was holding back a scream when a large black figure loomed in the driver’s window.

“What the hell are you doing, Lily?” Cole asked.

Lily’s throat locked shut.

“Do you think you’re invisible back there?”

As she stared up in shock, Cole began to laugh, a dark, deranged sound that stopped the blood in her veins.

Oh God, she screamed silently, thinking of John and his mission in Sybil’s little house. Oh, no…

Cole’s laughter went on and on.

Waters pushed the shaking gun into the pillow resting against Sybil’s head. She opened her mouth, and he knew from the smell that she had not brushed her teeth. As his finger tightened, she suddenly rolled away from him, groaned, and started to get out of bed. Waters stood silent as a tree as she walked to the door, crossed the landing, and went into the bathroom. The sound of urination reached him, and in his mind he saw his own wife as he had a hundred times, sitting sleepily on the commode, oblivious to the world, utterly and pathetically human.

I can’t do this, he thought. Walk in there and fire a bullet into her face?

As the sound slowed to a trickle, he darted onto the landing and rushed down the stairs.

“Hello?” Sybil called drowsily. “Cole?”

Waters froze on the ground floor. Why did she call out for Cole? Mallory would have said, “Johnny?” Maybe Sybil was stronger than Lily or Cole. Maybe Mallory couldn’t control her as easily-

“Is someone there?”

As footsteps descended the stairs, he folded his body and clambered through the window, then sprinted for the truck, pulling off the gloves as he ran.

He saw the shadow of Lily waiting in the backseat and wondered if Annelise had awakened. Lily would be angry, but she’d have to understand. They’d have to find another way, that was all. He opened the door and jumped into the driver’s seat.

“I knew you couldn’t do it,” Cole said, popping up from the floor of the passenger seat.

Waters tried to bring up his gun, but Cole’s big hand was already pointing a pistol over the seat at Lily and Annelise.

“You could make me kill two babies,” Cole said, “but you can’t kill a secretary that’s too stupid to live. Give me that fucking gun.”

Waters handed it over.

The fury and hurt in Cole’s eyes made him sick with fear.

“You felt pity for Sybil?” Cole said in a cracked voice. “I know it wasn’t for me. If you’d thought it was just me in there, you’d have pulled the trigger without a thought.”

“Mallory-”