She nodded numbly. There were more tears where the first ones came from. “There’s a suitcase in the trunk,” she said. “It has cash in it. He doesn’t think I know about it.”
I’d expected that. Eamon wouldn’t go anywhere without an emergency flight kit. He was too good a criminal. “Are there drugs in it?” She didn’t answer, which was as good as a yes. “Sarah, I want you to promise me that you’ll stop. Take the drugs and pills and flush them. Will you?” I played the only card I had, the guilt card. “For Imara, if you won’t do it for yourself?”
She just stared at me, face gone blank and lifeless with fear and uncertainty. And then she said, “He’ll come after me. Jo, I can’t say no to him. I just can’t.”
“You’ll have to learn.”
“But-”
“Just go.”
Venna turned and watched my sister staggering away. She put her hands primly behind her back and rocked back and forth. “Do you still want her memories?” she asked.
“No.” An image of something from Eamon’s filthy, diseased brain rose up in my head, and I almost gagged. I didn’t want to live that nightmare from my sister’s point of view, too. “You were right. I’ve seen enough for now.”
Venna shrugged and turned toward Eamon, who was stirring where he sat slumped against the rock wall. He didn’t look like a monster. He looked like a nice enough man, attractive if you went in for the lean and hungry look with a bit of scruff thrown in. He’d taken in my sister. He’d even taken me in, for a while, until he wanted me to know his real self.
He was waking up, and I didn’t know if I could face him again.
“Venna,” I said in a normal tone of voice, and set my feet in the sand. “Does he have the keys to the car?”
“Yes.”
“Can you get them?”
She extended her hand, and a set of keys appeared in her tiny palm.
“Can you give them to Sarah?”
She didn’t even have to move to do it, just shrugged and the keys faded out and disappeared. A few seconds later I heard the black car start up with a rumble.
I didn’t turn to watch. I didn’t take my eyes off of Eamon as he moaned, clutched his head, and staggered to his feet. He looked quite mad. His eyes were fiercely bloodshot, and there were trickles of blood coming from his nostrils. I’d done that to him.
The sound of the car faded into the distance before he managed to straighten up. Sarah was gone.
Now it was just the three of us.
Well, two of us, because without warning Venna skipped away, kicking at the sand in her patent-leather shoes, just like a regular kid. I wasn’t dumb enough to think it made any difference in the amount of concentration she had on the situation.
Eamon sniffed, wiped at the blood on his face, and glared at me. “What the hell did you do to me?” he growled.
“You’ll be all right.” I had no idea if he would or not, actually, but right at the moment if his brain exploded like a pumpkin in a microwave, I couldn’t really care. “Don’t.”
He took a couple of steps in my direction. His body language was attack-dog stiff.
“Stop.”
“Where’s Sarah?” he spit at me, all Cockney edges and sharp angles, and I held out my hand toward him, palm out.
A wall of wind hit him and shoved him back, hard. Knocked him on his ass.
He got up and lunged. I knocked him back again, and this time he took out a knife.
“Oh, come on, Eamon, look around!” I said, and jerked my head at the police cars, the firefighters, the onlookers all still staring at the wrecked building. The news crews. “You really want to do this? Here?”
“Where is she?” he yelled, and paced from side to side. His eyes were almost crimson from the burst blood vessels, and the expression in them was just one breath away from complete insanity. He held the knife concealed at his side, but he was clearly on the verge of violence. “You stupid, interfering bitch. Do you think you’re saving her? She’ll kill herself! She’s already tried! I’m trying to save her!”
“You’re the reason she’s dying inside,” I said. “And damned if I’m going to let you do that to her. Sarah’s strong. She’ll be fine.”
“She won’t! For Christ’s sake, woman, who do you think your sister is, exactly? She’s not some helpless, stupid waif! Her ex-husband didn’t get wealthy by keeping his hands clean, and she was neck-deep in it, too. Taking up with me wasn’t a sign of her weakness; it was a sign she recognized an opportunity, that’s all. You think I don’t know that’s wrong? I know what I am!” I didn’t want to buy it, but there was an undeniable desperation to what he was saying. “I did this for her!”
I blinked. “What?” I hadn’t gotten that far in his memories before Venna had yanked me out. Eamon made a raw sound of frustration.
“The building, you twit! Sarah owns it! She’ll be making a fortune from the insurance. This was her idea, you bloody fool.”
I didn’t believe him. I couldn’t. Not…not that. “You’re a lying, crazy bastard.”
“No, I’m a fool. So are you. She used you.”
“You’re a liar. Sarah had nothing to do with any of it.” I was shaking, I was so angry. “I told her to go ahead and spend your suitcase full of money. That’s for being an asshole, Eamon.”
Something flashed in his expression, and I braced myself. “Just one problem, love,” he said. “I don’t have a suitcase of money. Sarah does, and she got it by selling you far, far down the river. She’s driving off with cash and a car, and leaving the two of us to finish each other. Not bad for a helpless little drug-addled waif, eh?”
I felt stunned, and a little sick. The hit man, I thought. The hit man who’d been waiting outside the jail. Was that possible? Would she really sell my life like that? For money?
Eamon took another step toward me, and I snapped my attention back to the present. “Put down the knife, Eamon.”
He looked at it, turning it in his long, sensitive fingers like he’d never seen it before. “Ah,” he said. “But that would mean I wouldn’t have any fun at all. And I’d so hate to disappoint dear Sarah by not living down to her expectations. She does need to understand that there are limits to my patience, and you’re just the way to show her.”
And he lunged for me, knife out.
I blew him backward, and I didn’t even know how I’d done it, except that I’d reached for something, and something had responded.
I didn’t blow him far, and he snarled, and he came back for me, and I knew if he came within slashing distance my ass was dead.
So I made the sand melt under his feet, like the Wardens had done to me when they’d been trying to trap me, and Eamon plunged without a sound below the surface.
Venna, who’d been ignoring me through all this, whirled around, lips parted, eyes blazing. “Look at you,” she said. “Look at you. So pretty. So bright. So strange.”
I had no idea what she was talking about, because I was trying to figure out what I’d done. I’d meant to trap Eamon’s legs, the way I’d been restrained, but instead…Where the hell was he? “Eamon?” I asked, and took a step forward. “Eamon, are you all right?”
The sand eroded under my feet. I yelped and jumped back.
Whatever I’d done, it was still spreading.
The sand sagged where I was standing, and I continued a slow, uncertain retreat. “Um…Venna? What’s happening?”
She was still staring at me, with a light in her eyes that was creepily close to rapture. “It’s you,” she said. “You’re happening.”