But now something else was bothering him. “So…it’s okay if I stay here all that time while he’s gone?”

“Oh, yeah.” She seized the front of his shirt. “That’s not the only thing that’s okay.”

She got to her feet and pulled him out of his chair. She began pulling him toward the living room. Jake stumbled along after her. Some part of him still wanted to stop this. But Kristen was so beautiful. And she so clearly wanted him. There was nothing at all wrong with this. Not really. Kristen tugged him along until they reached the sofa, where he’d seen her sleeping this morning. She shrugged off her blazer, gripped the front of his shirt again, and fell back onto the sofa, pulling him down on top of her. They kissed and writhed on the sofa for a while, dry-humping like teenagers, then she placed her hands on his chest and pushed him back, all the way to the far end of the sofa. She smiled. She lifted her ass off the sofa and began to wriggle out of her slacks. Once they were down around her ankles, she kicked them away. Then she kicked off her shoes, braced the soles of her bare feet on the sofa, and spread her legs like a flower.

She parted the lips of her labia with a thumb and forefinger. She licked her lips. “Taste me, Jake.”

Jake shivered.

He couldn’t believe how brazen she was. It excited him. And it frightened him. His heart hammered in his chest. He knelt between Kristen’s legs, and she propped an ankle over his shoulder. He leaned toward her and began. She groaned, almost growled like an animal, and writhed against the sofa. Listening to her fueled Jake’s excitement, and he began to lose himself in the act, all of his previous inhibitions falling away, sloughing off like a shed skin.

Kristen sat up and gripped his neck. “I want you in me. Hurry.”

All Jake could think of now was Kristen and how good being with her felt. He wanted to get deep inside her and stay there forever, just disappear, fuck the world and his problems away. Of all the ways to escape, what could be better? He pulled his shirt off and cast it aside, then got to his feet and began to push down his jeans.

The phone rang.

The noise broke the spell. Jake’s head turned toward the kitchen. And he remembered what was going on in the world. His mother was in jail and his brother was being interrogated by the police. And what was he doing? He wasn’t looking into his legal obligations. Nor was he doing any of the things a person in his position should be doing. Nope, he was doing what he always did-losing himself in yet another form of intoxication.

Three rings.

Four.

He sighed.

Kristen groaned. “Ignore it.”

Stu’s recorded voice emanated from the answering machine in the kitchen: “You’ve reached the Walker residence. Leave a message at the beep.”

Then the beep, followed by: “Ah…if I have the right number, this message is for Jake McAllister. This is Detective Myers with the Rockville Police Department. I think you should get down here as soon as possible.”

Myers recited his direct line and hung up.

Jake’s shoulders sagged. “Jesus.” He put a hand to his forehead. “What the hell could be wrong now?”

Kristen got to her feet and pressed her body against Jake. She laid her head in the crook of his neck, hooked her hands over his shoulders, and wrapped a leg around him. “Whatever it is, you can handle it.” She stroked his bare chest. “You’re stronger than you think, I bet.”

Jake didn’t reply to that.

The soft tips of her fingers slid down his chest, moved over his deflating cock, and gave it a gentle squeeze. She looked into his eyes. “I’m not through with this.”

Jake made an exasperated sound. “Kristen-”

She shushed him. “Quiet.” She relinquished her hold on him. “You have duty to attend to, I know that.” She smiled. “But I expect you to finish what you started later to night.”

Again, Jake didn’t reply.

The sensation he experienced then was akin to a mental free fall. The world felt shaky beneath his feet. He loved the way this woman’s body felt against his, and he loved being in her arms. She just made him feel good. So why did he have this nagging feeling that plunging headfirst into a sexual relationship with her was a dangerous thing?

He grimaced when she tightened her grip on him and dug her nails into his shoulders.

She drew the nails down his back.

His breath grew shallow as Kristen drew blood.

Trey wanted to die. Through everything, he’d managed to hold on to some shred of sanity by believing he could rescue Myra from whatever horrible force was using her body. But he didn’t believe that anymore. The girl he’d known as a pretty outcast and fellow high school senior had never really existed. Myra was an illusion. A facade. A disguise. Brilliantly conceived and rendered, but a disguise nonetheless. Coming to grips with this should have brought him a mea sure of peace, but it had not. With the well-being of his illusory girlfriend no longer a consideration, his thoughts had initially turned to saving himself. But he knew this wasn’t possible.

So he wanted to die.

He heard it again.

That mad, sadistic laughter inside his head. Her laughter. Wherever she was now-and he’d lost track of her earlier in the day-part of her remained with him. Inside him. She was able to reach into his mind regardless of physical proximity. She was privy to his every thought, his every emotion. It was maddening. And terrifying. It made him want to claw out of his own skin.

The cops thought there was something wrong with him. He could see it in their eyes. And it was evident in the way they flinched every time he reacted to Myra’s mental taunts. That one guy, the detective who dressed like a businessman, had put a halt to the interrogation when Trey had slipped and yelled at Myra to get out of his head. And his court-appointed attorney had said something about an “evaluation.”

Trey knew what that meant. And the prospect of it frightened him almost as much as Myra. They thought he was a head case. So they were gonna lock him up in some padded room, somewhere deep in the bowels of a horror movie madhouse, where he’d spend the rest of his days doped up on tranquilizers, and even that would provide no relief-Myra’s voice would always speak inside his head.

Trey stared at the scratched surface of the interrogation room table. He heard voices in the hallway. One of them was the detective. Myers. His voice was too dim for Trey to distinguish much, but he heard enough to get the gist-Jake was coming back. He still wasn’t sure why his brother had left in the first place. Trey didn’t know the guy very well, but he sensed there was something broken inside him. Not in the usual McAllister way. He was a smart dude. And accomplished. He’d done something with his life. But that sense of something wrong inside him was strong. He didn’t seem able to cope with the harsher side of life. It made Trey sad. If he didn’t get sent to the loony bin, Jake would be expected to take care of him.

Which meant Jake would have to deal with Myra.

And Trey knew his brother would be as powerless against her as anyone else.

Maybe more so.

I can’t let it happen, he thought.

I have to die.

The laughter filled his head again.

And this time Myra spoke: Oh, Trey, such a grandiose sense of importance you have. You were never important, little boy. You were a means to an end. You’ve served your purpose. You want to die? Okay.

Trey frowned.

Maybe Myra was just fucking with him some more, but he didn’t think so. She got off on making him think his torment would be eternal. She reveled in his pain and humiliation. He’d been forced to endure agonizing physical punishments. If the police ever got a look at the welts covering his body, they’d assume the marks were inflicted by Jolene. And he’d been made to do such vile things. Though he hadn’t willfully killed anyone, his body had been used as a killing instrument. Even now, if she wanted to, she could pull his strings from afar, make him do something to himself.