LITMIR.BIZ

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that had killed their mother. Nodding slowly, she understood. “He’s a good man. He’s always been.”

      “I can see that. I was so surprised when I saw this on the news and realized he was part of your family. You must be so proud of him.”

      Marie wasn’t proud of him. Not really. After all, she’d had no hand in making him the great person he was. “His mother probably is.”

      “Oh? His mother’s still living?”

      Marie nodded.

      “Close to him, I hope? He lives in...Binghamton, right?”

      “Castle Creek,” Marie said, remembering the farmhouse and wondering if her boys were happy there. Probably. They loved their uncle so much. Maybe more than they loved her. Especially after what she’d done. “His mother’s in Whitney Point. Near Rachel.”

      “Rachel? Who’s she?”

      “His girlfriend, I guess. She’s a writer.” Something buzzed deep in Marie’s mind, a little trill of awareness that told her it was odd for a nurse to be asking about her family. “Why do you want to know?”

      The nurse smiled, shrugged, lowered her head, blushed a little. “I don’t know. I guess I’m just impressed with him. To think we have a hero like that around. They don’t make men like that anymore, you know?”

      “Oh.”

      “What’s he like?”

       She’s up to something. Look at her eyes.

      Marie blinked. It had been so long since she’d heard her dead husband’s voice in her head. Oh, she knew the doctors kept telling her it wasn’t really his voice. It was her own subconscious, speaking to her in his voice in order to get her attention. And because she had a mental illness, she must not trust the things her subconscious said to her in the voice of her dead husband.

      But she furrowed her brows and stared deep into the nurse’s eyes anyway. There was a fire in there. It was deep, but it was there, swirling and sparking, but hidden very well behind a facade that was blank. False. Empty. She’d seen that look before. She’d seen it in Eric’s eyes. It was the plastic mask of a killer.

      “He’s nice,” she said softly, cautiously.

      “He has your kids, doesn’t he?”

      “How do you know that?” Marie asked.

       Dangerous. She’s dangerous.

      “I looked at your file.”

      Marie’s eyes widened. “You stay away from him. You stay away from him and my boys.”

      “Me?” The nurse got up from her chair, one hand fluttering to her chest, her eyes pretending to be offended and surprised. But she didn’t feel those things. Marie could tell. She was mimicking real emotions, the way Marie herself tried to do during every session with her shrink, in hopes of someday convincing him that she was well and could go home.

      “My goodness, Marie, what are you talking about?”

      “Stay away from them,” Marie said again.

      The nurse smiled. And for just a moment she let the mask slip. There was evil in that smile. Evil. She was a demon, and the fire in her eyes was a window directly into hell.

      Marie reached out and snatched the name tag from the nurse’s chest, tearing her dress in the process. She stared at the name, saying it aloud, over and over and over as the nurse jumped back with a squeak of alarm and then pressed a button in her pocket.

      Orderlies came running out the door, crossing the yard toward them.

      Marie was up on her feet. “You’re evil. What do you want with my family? You stay away from them. You stay away!”

      Then the strong young men in white took her arms, and another nurse, a regular, jabbed her in the ass with a needle. Marie went out with the demon nurse’s name on her lips.

      Gretchen Young.

       3

      “So when are you going to tell me what’s wrong?”

      Mason sat in the passenger side of Rachel’s hot little yellow T-Bird while she drove him home from his endless stay in the hospital. The top was down, and her hair was whipping like a flag in a hurricane. She drove way above the speed limit, despite the fact that her passenger was a cop. Driving usually had her smiling from ear to ear. Not so today. Today she was all nervous and jerky.

      She glanced sideways at him. “You’re almost as good at it as I am, you know.”

      “What? Reading people?” He shook his head. “Only criminals and you, babe.”

      She crooked one brow at him but kept her focus on the road as she zigged into the fast lane to pass a jacked-out Mustang, then zagged back in front of it again. She didn’t even taunt the driver with a wink or flip him off or give him a cutesy little wave. Something was definitely wrong with her, he thought.

      “So what is it?”

      “Nothing. I just... Okay, there’s something.” She drew a deep breath, and her shoulders rose with it. He knew that look. She was preparing to blurt it out, whatever it was. He braced himself.

      “Why don’t you stay at my place for a while?”

      And there it was. He watched her face closely. She didn’t have the same opportunity to watch his, but he didn’t figure she needed to. The stuff she “got” didn’t come from anything she could see with her eyes. In fact, most of the time when she was trying to read people she had to close those gorgeous baby blues.

      “You want me to stay with you,” he repeated without inflection.

      “Yeah. I mean, why not? The boys are already there, and it really hasn’t been as bad as I expected it to be.” She bit her lip on one side, glanced sideways at him. “I mean, it’s been great.”

      “You mean not as bad as you expected.”

      “Which is great.”

      “I think you need to look up the word great in the dictionary. Aren’t you supposed to be a writer or something?”

      She shrugged. “Look, you need to take it easy, and you can’t run a houseful of boys and take it easy at the same time. Come to my place. Just for a couple of weeks, until you get your strength back.”

      He tried to weigh his words before speaking them. He did not want to screw things up with her, but her invitation was weak. Or maybe he was just still stinging from that unrequited “I love you” he’d dropped on her a few weeks ago. She hadn’t said it back. And he hadn’t said it again. If she wasn’t ready for serious feelings, she sure as hell wasn’t ready for cohabitation.

      “Well?” she asked. “What do you think?”

      “I think,” he said, slowly and carefully, “that if we ever decide to...live together, I’d just as soon it not be because I’m too weak to be on my own.”

      She looked disappointed. “Oh.”

      “Jeremy and Josh will be a ton of help. My mother will probably want to move in. And there will be a home care nurse.”

      She nodded. “Yeah. Sure, okay.”

      “And you. You’ll be in and out all the time, too.”

      “Sure,” she said again.

      He was quiet for a long moment. She was upset. Dammit, she’d asked him in a way that was a lot like a person pulling off a Band-Aid. Grit your teeth, close your eyes and get it over with. He didn’t think she’d really been hoping he would say yes.

      “I just don’t

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