The tune in Gregory’s head reached a crescendo, the pain causing his eyes to turn bloodshot and his nose to bleed. The shadowy figure brightened and began to take on substance. His eyes widened but his trademark grin never wavered. Mariah Carpenter was no longer a vision. His worst nightmare was as solid as the ground he stood on.
Then Sinclair laughed, a chuckle wet with derision and rancor.
“I’m honored. At last I am in the presence of the great goody-two-shoes who finds abducted children,” he said. “How delightful. Where’s your white steed, your shining halo, your angel’s wings?
“You’re nothing but a silly disappointment. You had the unprecedented opportunity to destroy those depraved child molesters, and what did you do? Nothing. They’ll all be back on the street after the court slaps them on the wrists.
“But the Canadian ... Malchelosse? Finally, I thought, surely she’s not going to let him get away with it. I would have split his head right down the middle, or maybe given him an aneurism. But you? You gave him a fucking headache.”
Mariah was speechless. She had never been in the presence of anything so evil, so deranged. His words hammered at her head, stabbing at her heart. She realized it was the insanity that had not only given his latent psychic talents the ability to block her from invading his mind, but also to peruse her memories. And he had found her civility, her humanity, a joke.
His voice sounded oily, hoarse with derision. “Then you got another shot. Everett Hinckley. I was so sure you had learned from your previous mistake and was going to rip his heart out. You wanted to, I know you did. But nature intervened at the last moment with that miserable turd of a blood clot. Saved you from proving again that you’re nothing but chicken shit.
“You’re pathetic, pitiful, nothing but a goddamn punk.” The more Gregory talked, the cockier he became. “And to think for a minute that I was actually afraid of you.
“And your last embarrassment: Anthony Santatoro. He really pissed you off. You wanted his death in the worst way. And you were soooo close. I felt that righteous rage building inside you. Even though he was ten times worse than all the child molesters put together, you still let him live.”
He threw his head back theatrically and laughed before taking a step in her direction. “I’ll never stand trial, you fucking bitch. I’m a rich man and can afford the sleaziest lawyers money can buy. But it doesn’t matter. Nothing will bring back the twenty-four people I killed. If the Cooleys had just stayed dead, I wouldn’t have needed to keep hunting them down.
“Just step aside, loser, and let me make it twenty-six. You don’t have the guts to stop me.” He grinned, his eyes as dead as a corpse.
Her stomach churned with acidic bile. Everything he said was the truth. Ingrained morality and a predilection toward obeying authority had stopped her from doing what she had really wanted to do.
He took another step toward her, his eyes locked onto hers. In the dark of the early morning, with her mind clouded with doubts, Mariah never saw his hand slide into his pocket.
Between one heartbeat and the next, he thumbed the stopper off the tube of ricin and threw the entire contents into Mariah’s face.