The Devil's bed

“Are you saying the First Lady has been his target all along?”

“He probably wants both of them dead. Look, Chris, he bought a lot of surveillance equipment in the last month. I think he may have bugged Wildwood.”

On his end of the line, Manning was quiet for a moment. “We never ran a sweep.”

“I recommend you put additional agents on the First Lady, and you do it now.”

Bo heard Manning talking to Adam Foster. “Thorsen, I’m staring at the perimeter screen, following the dots that are your agents patrolling out there. Everybody’s moving. We’ve had no indication of a breach. So we seem to be fine at the moment. I’m heading out to talk to Jake Russell right now. I’ll have him put additional people in the orchard. Then I’ll stand post in the main house myself.”

“All right, Chris. I’m on my way.”

Bo looked at his watch. Another five minutes and he’d be at Wildwood. He bore down on the accelerator.

Nightmare held the gun to her head as he guided the First Lady down the stairs. She hesitated and audibly caught her breath when she saw the agent lying on the floor inside the kitchen doorway.

“Step over the body.” Nightmare pushed her forward. “Mind the blood.”

He led her to the back door, opened it, and forced her outside.

“Oh, God,” she said, catching sight of the agent on the ground at the foot of the ladder.

“Don’t waste pity on the dead,” he advised.

“He had a family,” she shot back.

“Then he should have been an accountant. Into the orchard.”

They hadn’t taken a step when Nightmare heard the distant shutting of the door to the guesthouse. He shoved the First Lady against the wall, face first, muzzle of the silencer pressed hard against the back of her head. “Not a sound,” he whispered.

He peered around the corner of the house and watched the agent walking in the glare of the yard light. The agent was headed for the front door of the main house but saw the ladder and changed direction, coming straight toward the shadows where Nightmare waited. As soon as the agent spotted the body and reached for his weapon, Nightmare pulled the muzzle of the silencer away from its kiss of the First Lady. He dropped the agent with one shot in the chest.

“Please, God,” the First Lady whispered, “this can’t be happening.”

“It takes a while to adjust to hell,” he said, and he yanked her toward the orchard.

They moved rapidly. Nightmare saw clearly the sweep of the limbs that hung in their way, but the woman kept getting caught in the low branches, slowing them down. She tried to talk as they walked.

“Why?” she asked.

“I told you.” He jerked her down to keep her from smacking another limb.

“I don’t believe you. That was more than twenty years ago.”

“There are no statutes of limitation on murder.”

“Murder? What are you talking about?”

“You ended a boy’s life.”

“But you’re alive.”

He stopped and turned her harshly so that she had to look into his face. He moved near enough so that even in the dark she could see him clearly. “What I am is not alive. I am Death walking.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Do you remember our last time here together?”

She hesitated, and he knew she was trying to read him. What kind of answer did he want?

“August twenty-eighth,” he went on. “The moon rose at ten-o-nine, a day past full. You wore jean cutoffs, a sleeveless white blouse. Your feet were bare. You said you liked the way the orchard grass tickled your soles.”

“David-”

“We talked about the year ahead. I tried to kiss you. My first kiss. You pulled away. Repulsed.”

“No, David, not repulsed. I do remember. I was surprised, that was all. I hadn’t expected it.”

“Your father came then, interrupted us. He walked you back to the house. I told you I was going home.”

“On your motorbike, the one you built,” she said, with a little note of hope, as if remembering that small detail might save her.

“I parked it in the orchard on the way out, then came back and watched your room.”

“I found out you’d often watched.” It sounded like an accusation.

“I loved you,” he said coldly. “Then I saw you leave the house, and he followed. When I reached the bluff, he had you in his arms. You were fighting him.”

“He wasn’t there, David. I swear to you.”

“You tried to push him off you. That’s when I yelled and rushed to stop him.”

“It wasn’t like that-”

“Three years ago, I was sitting in my own filth in a jungle prison. Open sores over most of my body, waiting to die. I realized my life had been nothing but one betrayal after another.”

“Please, David, listen to me-”

“I decided I wasn’t going to die there, forgotten, without purpose, in all that stink. I decided if I was going to die, it would be while trying to remove from this world as many of the liars and betrayers as I could. Know this: After I do you, I’ll kill your father.”

“We don’t always see things the way they are.” Her words tumbled fast, her voice desperately pitched. “We deceive ourselves. It’s human. What you saw that night-”

“I know what I saw.”