She deserves rescue. She deserves love.
And she deserves recognition.
Emma lets out a broken wail, ready to pass out. Can’t get enough air. This is her experience. This is all she has.
Something inside her snaps.
Emma drops her gun arm again, muscles limp. Cries now, loudly sobbing without restraint. Shoulders shaking, hand raised to her face. Part of her knows she should be quiet, but she can’t. She can’t hold back anymore. Tears blinding, racking. Ugly but necessary. A moment of total vulnerability. A final sense of release.
Once the storm dies out, Emma’s rasping breaths hiccup and slow. She feels exhausted. Weakened and gutted, but washed clean. Peculiarly light. She wipes her nose and face on her sleeve. She’s a mess. Her body is trembling. Her eyes are sore, and her knees won’t stay strong.
But there’s something she needs to do. Emma swallows, straightens. Steps forward to the television. Quivering, she reaches up to the videotape player and presses the button markedSTOP/EJECT.
The screen goes black. The top-loading cassette bed lifts high. Emma slides the videotape out.
Behind her head, the ratcheting click of a gun being cocked.
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
The night air feels raw on Kristin’s skin, and all her surfaces are quivering as she stands, twirling gently, under the glow of a streetlight in the middle of Rutherford Avenue, Beechview.
Part of her yearns to be with Simon, who has gone off to explore the house and shed nearby – even this momentary separation from her twin feels hard and wrong. But another, larger part of her is drawn like iron filings to the black FBI Lincoln just ahead. She stops twirling, regards the car. Its metal panels look cold. No light shows inside – only the shadow of a girl. A girl with dark, messy hair. A unique girl: whole and complete and alive.
How astonishing.
Kristin cannot resist. Her shoes crunch on the blacktop as she steps closer, bends like a willow to tap on the front passenger-side window. ‘Hello?’
The girl inside jerks and lets out a small, strangled scream before focusing on Kristin’s face.
‘Oh goodness.’ Kristin smiles. ‘I didn’t mean to startle you. I’m Emma’s friend. Are you Linda?’
‘What?’ The girl is shivering, hard to understand. ‘You’re Emma’s friend? Are the police coming soon?’
‘I’m Kristin.’ This half-heard conversation, muffled by the car window, simply will not do. ‘Let me in,’ Kristin coaxes gently.
Linda looks at her, glances front and back to check the street. Leans over and unlocks the passenger door. It takes a few tries; her fingers are swollen and unsteady. Kristin is finally allowed to open the door and slide inside.
‘Shut the door,’ Linda says. Her voice is quite hoarse up close. ‘Lock it.’
‘Oh, certainly.’ Kristin complies, turns back. At last she can see Linda directly, and it makes her smile in wonder. ‘Goodness. You do look so much like her.’
Linda shudders, clings with both hands to the steering wheel. ‘Are you here with the cops? Did they catch him?’
‘I’m here with my brother.’ Kristin isn’t really following the thread of Linda’s questions; she is much more fascinated by the way the girl’s eyes catch the light in shards of translucent white.
‘Your brother?’
‘He’s gone to help.’ Kristin waves toward the house and shed, then her hand falters.
Will Simon really be helpful? That is not his nature, but she knows he holds Emma in a certain regard. Surely he will be considerate of her, in some small way, now that he is free …
Simon’s arm descending, slashing with the razor. Blood on the walls, cries of terror. The pink, exposed meat of a man’s throat...Kristin has a sudden urge to scream, high and loud. She closes her eyesagainst the barrage of mental images. Pushes in her mind, and it is like pushing against the sea, but finally she folds all the images and thoughts together into a thick black mass.
She ties a red ribbon around the writhing black mass to keep it controlled. Then she thrusts the mass deep into her subconscious – it is like shoving her arm down her own throat, all the way to the elbow.
But now everything is gone.
Kristin swallows, recovers herself. Blinks and looks over. Linda is staring, her eyes wary, the shards in them flashing.
