Cait’s eyes began to blur, either from pain or shock or the tears welling up in her eyes as a result of the horrible knowledge she had just killed a man. And not just any man, a blood relative. And not just any blood relative, her own brother. Her own twin.
Her vision wavered and she fought to stay awake.
Her arm burned and she fought to stay awake.
The law-enforcement team stood motionless in the doorway, taking in the scene, seemingly shocked into inaction by the devastation in the room. One of the officers spied Cait’s mangled arm, a strip of skin stretching outward from her elbow across the floor, and retched. He clapped a hand to his mouth and looked away.
Cait tried to tell them to get help for Kevin, that he was gravely injured and needed medical attention immediately, and all that came out was a pathetic little croak. She swallowed. Tried unsuccessfully to force some saliva into her throat. Opened her mouth to try again.
At that moment the men in the fatigues and body armor sprang into action, one of them moving quickly to secure the Smith & Wesson, another stepping over the dead cop to assess the condition of Kevin and Victoria, and a third to check Milo’s unmoving body for a pulse. Cait wondered why he would do that; she couldn’t imagine anyone being alive with two bullets fired from almost point-blank range into his head.
The officer who had picked up the gun bent over her. It was the same man who had nearly thrown up at the sight of her arm, and he trained his eyes on hers, steadfastly avoiding looking at the oozing red mess that used to be her forearm.
Cait opened her mouth to say something to him and without warning he disappeared. Everything disappeared. She fell away into a warm, dark hole where it was safe and comfortable and no one tried to peel the skin from her bones with a knife.
CHAPTER 53
The water of Tampa Bay shimmered in the distance, a deep teal blue as sunlight glinted off the tops of the waves. Salsa music drifted across the beach from a radio playing somewhere to Cait’s right, lively and enthusiastic but soft as an afterthought. Cait’s eyes were closed and she felt warm and drowsy, but still she caught bits and pieces of conversations, some in English and some in Spanish, as groups of people passed her beach chair, all chattering and laughing and enjoying the tropical Florida heat.
Her right arm sweated and itched incessantly. Surgeons had performed skin grafts to repair the damage done to the arm and had then covered it in antibiotic dressing before wrapping the whole thing in swaths of bandages, all of which needed to be cleaned and changed daily.
Cait wasn’t about to complain, though. The doctors had said there was no structural damage and thus every reason to believe she would regain full use of the arm, although it would always look a little…off, with discolored skin from the grafts and small scars crisscrossing it like a road map. She considered herself incredibly, unbelievably fortunate not to have died an agonizing death in that tiny house in Everett, Massachusetts.
Every few seconds she opened her eyes, squinting against the hazy brightness, reassuring herself she really was still sitting on the beach in Florida. She reached out to touch her mother’s arm. Received a comforting squeeze in return.
She sighed tiredly. The worst part, now that the ordeal had ended, was her inability to get anything close to a good night’s sleep. Every night was the same: she would begin drifting off to sleep and the crippling fear would strike, the terrifying certainty that Milo Cain was lurking at the foot of her bed, knife in hand, waiting to begin peeling back her skin once more.
The psychologist said it was a natural reaction; that it was to be expected and would begin to fade over time—the trauma was only a couple of weeks old, after all—but Cait wondered whether that was true. The psychologist hadn’t been in that house, hadn’t gone under the knife with no anesthesia. The psychologist didn’t understand. Not really.
But Virginia understood, and that was why, no matter how many times Cait reached over in the warm Tampa sunshine to make physical contact, no matter how many times she started a seemingly normal conversation about the weather, or where to eat lunch, only to dissolve into tears for no apparent reason, her mother never complained. She never told Cait to buck up, or to be strong, or to tough it out because tomorrow was another day; she never once said any of those things.
Because Virginia understood.
Virginia told Cait that watching while her newfound daughter, her own flesh and blood, was carved up by her newfound son, also her own flesh and blood, while bound and helpless, tied to a chair in her own living room, was the worst thing she had ever experienced in a life that had seen more than its share of bad experiences.
Cait reached over once again and stroked her mother’s arm and mumbled, “Tell me again.”
And Virginia understood.
“Well, let’s see,” she said amiably, as if sharing her recipe for lemon meringue pie. “You were conscious when the police SWAT team came charging into the room. That was right after you shot Milo.” She said it matter-of-factly, like it was no big deal. But Cait knew better.
She swallowed hard and nodded. She did not look at her mother or even open her eyes aside from her almost unconscious little blinking motion every few seconds to assure herself she was still on the beach. She didn’t like thinking about that afternoon two weeks ago but couldn’t stop. And hearing her mother tell the story was cathartic. She had asked Virginia to tell it dozens of times over the past two weeks.
“After you passed out,” Virginia continued, “the policemen split up, one checking Milo to be sure he was no longer a threat—as if there could be any doubt, after taking two .38 slugs in the head, one of them through his eye—another freeing me from the chair, and an officer each tending to you and Kevin.”
“Tell me about Kevin,” Cait said, certain Virginia had known the request was coming. It was the same every time.
“Kevin had lost a lot of blood and the stab wound had punctured a lung, the blade passing ever-so-close to his heart. In fact, the young man who checked him out couldn’t find a pulse and told his partners that Kevin was already dead. Needless to say, the medical personnel were inside the house the second the SWAT team radioed that it was clear. They stabilized you and then wheeled everyone out to waiting ambulances. That was the last time I saw Kevin.”
Tears filled Cait’s eyes as they always did at this point in the story. It was like she was watching a horror movie where she knew every plot twist and every line of dialogue by heart, but still could not keep from screaming when the boogeyman jumped out of the closet. She hadn’t even managed to stay conscious to see her fiancé wheeled out on a stretcher after he had sacrificed everything in his failed attempt to save them.
“The last time you saw him,” Cait repeated wonderingly.
“You mean the last time until after the surgery,” a voice boomed from behind them, startling Cait and causing her to jump. She swiveled in her beach chair and drank in the sight of her boyfriend, his chest still swaddled in bandages covered by a light T-shirt. He looked ridiculous among all the tanned, shirtless surfer dudes dotting the beach, but also looked more desirable to Cait than all of them put together.
Kevin took in the look on her face and chuckled. He handed Virginia a lavender-colored frozen drink in a big plastic cup with a tiny umbrella sticking out the top before easing into a beach chair next to Cait with a satisfied sigh. “I’m telling you,” he said to her, “you really need to try these frozen pina coladas. They’re unbelievable.”