Swim Deep - Page 97

“You’re crazy,” I declared, feeling incredulous, but also oddly fevered and light-headed. I picked up the iced tea and took several swallows, then pressed the cool glass against my cheek. I panted, trying to bring myself under control. I met his manic, electric stare, dread creeping into my awareness when I fully registered what I saw. “God, you are. You’re crazy as a loon. You don’t know anything.”

“You wouldn’t have come here if you thought I didn’t know anything. Tell me why you came here, Anna. Tell me, and if it’s in my power to give you answers, I will.”

“I wanted to meet you myself. I wanted to see if Evan’s hatred of you was justified. To know if he has even a tiny bit of a decent defense for what he’s done to me.”

“You’ve decided that he does?” Madaster said. “But you’ve hardly given me a chance yet to tell my side of the story.”

“You never wanted to defend yourself,” I said with certainty, glancing down at the Analyzer on the table, my lip curling in disgust. “That not why you asked me here.”

“No, you’re correct. It isn’t,” he said, his pleasant manner infuriating me further.

“I want to know what you did with her body. Elizabeth’s. Tell me,” I ordered him. Determinedly, I held his stare, willing him to do it. To confess.

His eyes widened slightly at that. Then he grinned again, pure triumph in his expression. “My God. You are like her. You look so soft, but you could probably have men jumping off cliffs for you, if you put your mind to it. So alike. And to think… you never even knew her. It’s all a matter of genes. Those amazing, perfect genes,” he mused. His avid stare ran over me, making me feel hot. Dizzy.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I told him frankly. I hadn’t expected him to be insane. He was crazier than Lorraine, but in a much more frightening way. Madaster’s lunacy was horrifyingly lucid and focused.

“No, I realize you don’t understand me. But you will. Tell me about your family. They live in Illinois, don’t they?”

I leaned back in the soft chair, trying to still my spinning head. The idea that Noah Madaster knew about my parents and sister, the very thought of his spidery, poisonous reach touching them from so far away, had hit me like a blow.

“How do you know about my family?”

Again, that chafing laugh.

“I had to do my research, Anna. What else was I supposed to do, when I saw you standing there, down at that overlook? It was like seeing Elizabeth sprung to life again. At first, I thought it was her. But no,” he muttered, his expression darkening. “She will not come to me. You were flesh and blood. A living woman, brought here by Evan to torment me.

“Evan hired people in order to find you. He enlisted the help of friends, like Tommy Higoshi, in order to draw you into his plot of revenge. So I hired people, too. I talked to Tommy Higoshi. Rather, I forced Tommy to talk to me, so that I could find out about how you two ended up together.”

“Tommy talked to you?”

Madaster shrugged. “Evan had launched an attack. What else was I supposed to do but launch a counterattack? Evan brought you here to make me crack like an egg in his fist. He thought I was helpless and easy prey, all because he’d learned that these don’t work anymore,” he hissed, viciously slapping at an immobile, atrophied leg. “But he underestimated me, as usual. God, his idea of revenge isn’t only weak and ineffectual, it ended up being the opposite of what he intended. It really is hysterical.”

“Shut up,” I said, because he was laughing again, and his laughter hurt like a fingernail scratching on the same spot on my skin, over and over.

“He intended for you to be his tool of revenge, but you’ve ended up being mine. You’re mine, Anna.”

“Stop it. I’m not your anything,” I seethed. I spun. No, the room did. Noah Madaster’s hateful, leering face swam in my vision. Pain sliced through me. It took a few seconds for me to compute that Madaster had grabbed me. I cried out, trying to pull my hand from his grip. He pressed tightly on the nail bed of my thumb, the pain shockingly precise.

“You have it, too,” he gloated. “I knew you would. They call it the murderer’s thumb, you know. But that’s just an ignorant fortune-tellers’ misnomer. Elizabeth had it on both hands. I have one, too. Right thumb. Just like you.”

“Let go of me,” I yelled, pulling on my hand. Nausea bloomed in my stomach. He applied more pressure on the thumb, and I cried out.

“BDD. Brachydactyly type D. Shortened thumb. Stub thumb, some people call it. It’s a harmless little genetic anomaly. It’s a little ugly, but at least yours is subtler than Elizabeth’s. Yours is barely noticeable. And of course, it causes no dysfunction. Surely you’ve noticed you had one? A stub thumb? This one is two thirds the size of your other one.”

I jerked on my hand, wincing in sharp pain. I barely absorbed what he was saying. All I wanted to do was escape his vise-like grip on me… make the pain and the spinning in my head stop. I had the crazy idea he was transferring his madness to me through his touch.

“I’ll wager your parents don’t have a stub thumb. How did they explain yours to you, Anna?”

“Let go of me, you bastard. Help! Someone help me,” I screamed. My body shook. It seemed to be short-circuiting. I fell on my knees onto the floor, but Madaster refused to relinquish his hold. I clawed at him with my free hand and hit at his arms, but he only squeezed tighter on the nail bed. I dug with my fingers on his forearm. Blood seeped up to the surface of his parchment-like skin. It ran under my fingernails. Madaster appeared not to notice.

“They say it’s common among European royalty, which makes sense, because the Madaster family tree is entwined with that of kings and queens. You should be proud. It’s a sign of superior genes, Anna, that ugly little thumb. It’s the mark of a Madaster.”

I stopped clawing at his arms. I tried to focus on his face, but it was nearly impossible through my vertigo. I vaguely realized that tears ran down my cheeks in a steady stream.

“Madaster?” I muttered.

“Yes,” he said. “You’re Elizabeth’s child. I’m almost certain of it. But we’ll just check to be certain. Ima!”

Tags: Beth Kery Romance
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