Brain Child Page 0,127
should be going at all. To him, Marsh didn’t look much better than Ellen.
“Maybe I’d better stay—”
“No. If Alex comes home, I don’t know what might happen. But I know I’d rather nobody was here. Except them.” He gestured past the patio wall and up the road in the direction of the car Jim knew was still parked there, waiting.
“Okay. But if you need me, call me. All right?”
“All right.” And then, without saying anything more, Marsh closed the door.
Jim Cochran crossed the patio, and let himself out through the gate. As he got into his car, he waved toward the two policemen, and one of them waved back. Finally he started the engine, put the car in gear, and backed out into the street.
Thirty seconds later, as he neared the bottom of the hill, he passed another car going up, but it was too dark for him to see Alex Lonsdale behind its wheel.
Alex pulled the car off the road just before he rounded the last curve. By now, he was sure, they would be looking for him, and they would be watching the house. He checked the breech of the shotgun.
There was one shell left.
It would be all he needed.
He got out of the car and quietly shut the door, then left the road and worked his way up the hillside, circling around to approach the house from the rear. In the dim light of the moon, the old house looked as it had so many years ago, and deep in his memory, the voices—Alejandro’s voices—began whispering to him once more.
He crept down the slope into the shadows of the house itself, and a moment later had scaled the wall and dropped into the patio.
He stood at the front door.
He hesitated, then twisted the handle and pushed the door open. Twenty feet away, in the living room, he saw his father.
Not his father.
Alex Lonsdale’s father.
Alex Lonsdale was dead.
But Ellen Lonsdale was still alive.
“Venganza … venganza …”
Alejandro de Meléndez y Ruiz was dead, as was Raymond Torres.
And yet, they weren’t. They were alive, in Alex Lonsdale’s body, and the remnants of Alex Lonsdale’s brain.
Alex’s father was staring at him.
“Alex?”
He heard the name, as he’d heard it at the Cochrans’ such a short time ago. But it wasn’t his name.
“No. Not Alex,” he whispered. “Someone else.”
He raised the shotgun, and began walking slowly into the living room, where the last of the four women—Alex’s mother—sat on the sofa, staring at him in terror.
Roscoe Finnerty’s entire body twitched, and his eyes jerked open. For just a second he felt disoriented, then his mind focused, and he turned to his partner. “What’s going on?”
“Nothin’,” Jackson replied. “Cochran took off a few minutes ago, and since then, nothing.”
“Unh-unh,” Finnerty growled. “Something woke me up.”
Jackson lifted one eyebrow a fraction of an inch, but he straightened himself in the seat, lit another cigarette, and scanned the scene on Hacienda Drive. Nothing, as far as he could see, had changed.
Still, he’d long since learned that Finnerty sometimes had a sixth sense about things.
And then he remembered.
A few minutes ago, there’d been a glow, as if a car had been coming up the hill, but it had stopped before coming around the last curve.
He’d assumed it had been a neighbor coming home.
“God damn!” he said aloud. He told his partner what had happened, and Finnerty cursed softly, then opened the car door.
“Come on. Let’s take a look.”
Both the officers got out of the car and started down the street.
Ellen’s eyes focused slowly on Alex. It was like a dream, and she was only able to see little bits at a time.
The blood on his forehead, crusting over a deep gash that almost reached his eye.
The eyes themselves, staring at her unblinkingly, empty of all emotion except one.
Deep in his eyes, she thought she could see a smoldering spark of hatred.
The shotgun. Its barrels were enormous—black holes as empty as Alex’s eyes—and they seemed to be staring at her with the same hatred as Alex.
Suddenly Ellen Lonsdale knew she was not looking at her son.
She was looking at someone else, someone who was going to kill her.
“Why?” she whispered. “Why?”
Then, as if her senses were turning on one by one, she heard her husband’s voice.
“What is it, Alex? What’s wrong?”
“Venganza …” she heard Alex whisper.
“Vengeance?” Marsh asked. “Vengeance for what?”
“Ladrones … asesinos …”
“No, Alex,” Marsh said softly. “You’ve got it wrong.” Wildly Marsh searched his mind for something to say, something that would get through to Alex.
Except