Page 40 of Cut Off from Sky and Earth

Thirty-Seven

Alex

A crash sounds from above. I can’t tell if it’s thunder, a tree branch splitting, or the attacker in my attic.

My throat closes. I need to hurry. Through sheets of icy rain, I drag myself toward my front steps, my useless right arm trailing in mud.

Each movement sends fresh agony through my shoulder, but I keep going.

I have to. Emily is trapped up there with—someone.

The same someone who hurt her before? The same someone who hurt me? Tate.

The cold rain soaks through my clothes, and another memory emerges. I’m not in North Carolina.

I’m in Maine, in my apartment lying on my floor, my body broken and battered.

The storm lashes through my shattered slider door, and Tate Weakes stands over me with a hunting knife.

Hot blood—my blood—drips from the blade onto my exposed collarbone.

His expression hovers somewhere between pleasure and disgust .

I gasp at the strength of the memory, then turn and retch into the mud. When I finish and wipe my mouth with the back of my hand, the scene is still spooling out in my mind.

Tate’s not looking down at me, he’s staring out my window, his eyes locked on something. No, someone. I can’t turn my head or lift myself to see what he’s looking at, but I know. It’s his father. Tom was watching.

Sharp pebbles of gravel from the driveway bite into my palm as I pull myself forward. Twenty feet to the steps. Might as well be twenty miles. But I won’t stop. Won’t give up. Won’t be helpless again.

I grit my teeth and dig my fingers deeper into the earth. Fifteen feet now. Fire radiates from my useless shoulder, and my ankle throbs with each bump against the ground, but the pain pushes me forward.

A scream pierces the storm’s howl.

Emily.

I force myself to move faster, ignoring the grinding in my shoulder. If I can just make it to the guest room. To the locked box in the closet. To the weapon inside.

Emily

Dr. Wilde steps over the splintered wood into the attic and his homicidal mask melts away. He looks the way I remember him. Kind, serious, attentive. For a fleeting moment, I feel safe, relieved.

I shove the emotion away. I’m not safe. I have to remember that. I can’t allow him to lull me into a feeling of false security.

“What … why are you here?” My voice shakes. I let it.

“I need to finish this.”

I swallow, my eyes locked on his. “Finish what?”

He pauses, considering his answer. He takes a step toward me.

I force myself to stand still—as if I’ve frozen.

We’ve been over fight, flight, fawn, freeze dozens of times in our sessions. He knows my trauma response as well as I do. I freeze.

The only way out is to let him think I’m paralyzed with fear—and then fight. It’s the only chance I have.

He takes note of my stiff posture and a hint of a cruel smile flashes across his mouth before he answers.

“Your husband has been protecting you,” Dr. Wilde says in the same measured tone he uses in our counseling sessions. “From his brother. From himself. From the truth. From your destiny, Emily.”

“My destiny?” I croak.

“Yes. You have to die.”

He says it without emotion—like it’s just a fact.

“Why?”

“To close the circle.”

“I don’t understand.”

I don’t actually care what reasoning his diseased brain has latched onto, but I need to keep him occupied while I use my peripheral vision to scan the attic for a weapon.

The poker and knife rest against the wall near the window, tantalizingly out of easy reach—I’d have to dart past him to get to them.

There’s a framed print resting against a chest, a box labeled ornaments, and a stack of bins.

Nothing that will protect me from the blow of an axe, if that’s his plan.

Involuntarily, my gaze falls on the axe.

He looks down at the tool in his hands as if he’s surprised to find it there.

Then he gestures with it, carving an arc through the air. “I’ve been treating Tristan.”

I stare at him. “My Tristan?”

He nods. “For years. For as long as I’ve been treating you.”

For a long moment, I consider this, then I shake my head. He has to be lying. “That’s not possible. Isn’t that?—?”

“A conflict of interest. It would’ve been if I’d known, but he lied to me. He told me his name was Tate Weakes. For years, I didn’t realize you were married to him. He used his brother’s name, but his own story. I was helping him work through his guilt and trauma.”

Heat surges through my chilled body, and my vision swims, as I try to process what he’s telling me. “What trauma—his dad’s death?”

“In a way, yes. But more than that, the fact Tristan knew, or at least, suspected that his brother had … urges. That knowledge shaped the trajectory of your husband’s life.”

As curious as I am about this statement about Tristan, I focus on the urges.

“Urges? Tate attacked Alex, didn’t he?” I venture.

He nods. “Yes, Lexi was his first attempt. It’s not unusual for a killer to botch the first attack. After that, he honed his methods. He practiced and improved for seven years before his second attempt, which was successful.”

The admiration in his voice turns my stomach. Bile rises in my throat and I force it back down.

“I don’t understand. If you thought Tristan was Tate, how do you know what the real Tate did?”

He smiles. “Tate was smart. Smarter than anyone gave him credit for. He knew what Tristan was doing—not with me, not at first. But with you.”

“Me?” I squeak.

He nods. “We’ll get to that. After all, you’re at the center of it all.” He gestures again with the axe.

I really wish he’d stop that.

“What is Tristan doing with me?”

“I told you, he’s protecting you.”

“From what? He doesn’t know about Cassie, or my anxiety. He doesn’t know any of it,” I insist.

He paints me with a pitying look, as if he hates to be the one to break it to me. “He does, Emily. He’s known from the beginning. He knows everything—more than you do.”

“No.” I shake my head.

“Yes. As soon as he heard about Cassie’s murder, he suspected Tate killed her.” His eyes gleam. “And he knew you were the intended victim.” He gestures to my hair. “You fit the type—not her. And he always thought Tate would return to finish the job.”

“He knew ?” My mind spins. My knees threaten to buckle. I’m sweating and on the verge of hyperventilating.

“I … have to sit.” I sink to my knees.

Dr. Wilde nods. “It’s a lot to process, I know. Your marriage, your life together, is built on a foundation of lies. To be fair, though, you’ve withheld your truth from him, too.”

His words barely register. But something else breaks through the noise buzzing in my head. Not about Tristan, about Tate.

I look up at Dr. Wilde. “You talk about Tate in the past tense.”

He tuts. “It couldn’t be avoided.”

Fear twists my gut. “What couldn’t?”

“I had to keep him quiet so I could finish my work.”

“Your work?”

“He tracked me down, and at first, I genuinely thought I could help him understand his compulsions. I was so sure I could ...” He trails off, then shakes his head. “I was arrogant. I thought I was studying him, analyzing him. But he was studying me. He used me, Emily, and I failed to see it.”

My chest tightens. I thought I was frightened by his rage when he broke down the door. But the clinical detachment in his voice terrifies me.

Finally, I squeak out, “What did you do?”

“What he couldn’t do himself anymore. What he’d been grooming me to do.

” His professional mask slips, revealing something lost and confused underneath.

“I didn’t understand at first, why he chose me.

But he knew. He saw how fascinated I was by you, by Tristan, and, of course, by him.

He used my interest to pull me in. By the time I realized what was happening, I’d already helped him plan Giselle’s death. ” He gestures helplessly with the axe.

The impulse to freeze for real is almost too much for me to fight. I’m numb. I can just sit here. Let whatever’s going to happen, happen.

What am I fighting for, anyway? My marriage is a lie. And I’ve already lived a longer life than I deserve. I should have died seven years ago.

A sob rises in my throat. “You helped him?”

“Not directly. I thought he was telling me about his past crimes. But he was planning his future crimes.” Dr. Wilde’s voice is almost reverent.

“There was an art to it, you know. How he selected his victims. The red hair, the timing, the storms, the brutality of the attack. There’s a pattern, a methodology. His work deserves to be understood.”

I want to keep him talking, but I’m suddenly incapable of forming words. I make a noise that could mean anything. It does the trick.

He runs his hand along the axe handle. “But Tate became unstable. Giselle fit the pattern, but she wasn’t the goal. She was a means to an end, a way to frame Tristan so he could get to you. I couldn’t let him do that.”

Maybe there’s hope. “Because you wanted to protect me?”

Please say yes. Please, dear God, let him say yes.

“No.” He laughs derisively, scoffing. “Because he was going to expose himself before I completed my study of his pathology.”

“So you killed him.” My voice is high, strained. I don’t recognize it.

“I didn’t mean to. Why would I? My only goal is to preserve his legacy. To make it mean something.” He searches my face, his tone pleading for approval. “You understand about legacy, don’t you, Emily? That’s what your book is about, after all—making sense of trauma, finding meaning in pain.”

This son of a bitch. How dare he compare my work to murder. A hot flame of anger licks at my belly. I grab hold of it, hang on to the fire. I need it.

“So, what? You argued and somehow you came out on top in a fight with a serial killer?” I lace my words with disbelief, hoping to rattle him even a fraction as much as he’s unmoored me.

He eyes me impassively. “I knew how to use his base impulses against him. He may have been an artist, but I’m a scientist—precise and accurate.”

I suppress a shiver.