Shadow Play by Iris Johansen Page B

take the skull out to the fire and get ready to toss it.
    He grabbed the box, got out of the car, and strode over to the fire.
    The flames were leaping high, the fiery shadows reflecting off the leaves of the surrounding trees.
    One more minute and you burn, bitch.
    He grabbed the skull and pulled it out of the box and held it high so that he could look at it.
    Only it wasn’t a skull.
    It was her .
    He felt as if he’d been kicked in the stomach.
    Same pointed chin, same winged eyebrows.
    And those green eyes, blazing at him, as bold as they had been the night he had put her in that grave. She had been afraid, he’d known she was afraid, and yet she wouldn’t admit it to him. That night was suddenly right here before him.
    *   *   *
    â€œYou’re going to die, little girl.” He cradled his bleeding hand where the little viper had bitten him. “ Die, then I’m going to throw you in the ground where no one will ever find you. ”
    â€œ They’ll find me. ” Her eyes were glittering in her pale face. “ Because you’re stupid and cruel, and they’ll want to take you and throw you in a jail where they put people like you. ”
    â€œStupid?” He lifted his hand and struck her in the face. Her head jerked back from the blow, but when she lifted it, there was still no fear in her eyes. It filled him with rage. “ You bit my hand. Let’s see how you like to have your hands hurt.”
    Fear. For the first time he saw fear in her. “ Not my hands. I can’t let you— ” She lifted her chin defiantly, and the fear was gone. “ It won’t matter. They’ll fix them. ”
    â€œ They won’t bother. You’ll be dead. ” He took her hand and bent back the first finger. “ Tell me what I want to know. Tell me where they are. If you do, I’ll stop the pain. ” He pressed the finger back until he knew it was agony. “ Tell me. ”
    She whimpered.
    Why didn’t she scream?
    She had never screamed.
    Not even when he’d lost his temper and taken the crowbar and struck her on the temple.
    *   *   *
    He couldn’t see that wound on her temple on this damn reconstruction now. Duncan had carefully erased it. He held the skull higher.
    It was as if the blow had never happened.
    And those green eyes were blazing with defiance at him as they had when he’d broken her fingers.
    No, they weren’t. Glass eyes. They were only glass eyes. But how had Duncan known that little girl had green eyes? How had she known about that pointed chin, those eyebrows?
    Guess work. It was only a lucky guess.
    And in another moment, all her work would be devoured in these flames.
    â€œ No, they won’t. I won’t let you. ”
    He froze.
    Her voice.
    His eyes widened in shock, his gaze locked with the green eyes of the skull’s reconstruction.
    Ignore it.
    He was hearing things.
    He had been concentrating so hard on that long-ago night that he had only thought he’d heard Jenny speaking to him.
    Hallucination.
    As soon as he got rid of the skull, he’d be fine.
    â€œ No. I told you that you were stupid. You’ll never get rid of me. ”
    The voice wasn’t coming from that skull. It was coming from his left, over in the trees.
    Don’t look.
    â€œ Are you afraid of me? I’m not afraid of you. You can’t do anything to me that you haven’t already done. But I’m only learning everything I can do to you. Look at me, Walsh. ”
    His head slowly turned.
    And then he saw her.
    White dress, black, patent-leather shoes, and those eyes as green as the glass ones in this damn skull.
    Those eyes that had wept but never held fear.
    He could feel his heart pounding and the cold sweat break out. “I’m looking at you, bitch. You’re not real. You’re dead. You’re only a damn hallucination. Once I settle this, I’ll forget