He put his hand on the doorknob but hesitated, reluctant to leave the
child behind him. She was so exquisite, so vital. He knew the moment
he had pulled her into his arms that she was the caliber of acquisition
that would complete his collection and win him the eternal reward he
sought.
Stifling her cry and cutting off her breathing with one gloved hand, he
had swept her into the closet and crushed her against him with his
strong arms. He had held her so fiercely that she could barely squirm
and couldn’t kick against anything to draw attention to her plight.
When she had passed out in his arms, he had been almost in a swoon and
had been overcome by the urge to kill her right there. In her closet.
Among the soft piles of clothes that had fallen off the hangers above
them.
The scent of freshly laundered cotton and spray starch. The warm
fragrance of wool. And girl. He wanted to wring her neck and feel her
life energy pass through his powerful hands, into him, and through him
to the land of the dead.
He had taken so long to shake off that overpowering desire that he
almost had killed her. She fell silent and still. By the time he
unclamped his hand from her nose and mouth, he thought he had smothered
her. But when he put his ear to her parted lips, he could hear and feel
faint exhalations. A hand against her chest rewarded him with the solid
thud of her slow, strong heartbeat.
Now, looking back at the child, Vassago repressed the need to kill by
promising himself that he would have satisfaction long before dawn.
Meanwhile, he must be a Master. Exercise control.
Control.
He opened the door and studied the second-floor hallway beyond the girls
room. Deserted. A chandelier was aglow at the far end, at the head of
the stairs, in front of the entrance to the master bedroom, producing
too much light for his comfort if he had not had his sunglasses. He
still needed to squint.
He must butcher neither the child nor the mother until he had both of
them in the museum of the dead, where he had killed all the others who
were part of his collection. He knew now why he had been drawn to
Lindsey and Regina. Mother and daughter. Bitch and young-bitch. To
regain his place in Hell, he was expected to commit the same act that
had won him damnation in the first place: the murder of a mother and her
daughter. As his own mother and sister were not available to be killed
again, Lindsey and Regina had been selected.
Standing in the open doorway, he listened to the house. It was silent.
He knew the artist was not the girls birth mother. Earlier, when the
Harrisons were in the dining room and he slipped into the house from the
garage, he’d had time to poke around in Regina’s room. He’d found
mementoes with the orphanage name on them, for the most part cheaply
printed drama programs handed out at holiday plays in which the girl had
held minor roles. Nevertheless, he had been drawn to her and Lindsey,
and his own master apparently judged them to be suitable sacrifices.
The house was so still that he would have to move as quietly as a cat.
He could manage that.
He glanced back at the girl on the bed, able to see her better in the
darkness than he could see most of the details of the too-bright
hallway.
She was still unconscious, one of her own scarves wadded in her mouth
and another tied around her head to keep the gag in place. Strong
lengths of cord, which he had untied from around storage boxes in the
garage attic, tightly bound her wrists and ankles.
Control.
Leaving Regina’s door open behind him he eased along the hallway,
staying close to the wall, where the plywood sub-flooring under the
thick carpet was least likely to creak.
He knew the layout. He had cautiously explored the second floor while
the Harrisons had been finishing dinner.
Beside the girls room was a guest bedroom. It was dark now. He crept