Everett struggled to move. If he could just push Keith away, he might be able to make a run for it. “Please. You don’t have to do this.”
His arm twitched, but that was all he could coax from it.
“Yes, I do. If you were sane, you’d see that.”
“You’re the one who’s insane.”
A bright, cold light spilled from Keith’s eyes. “I’m saving you, and you thank me by insulting me? How dare you?”
Keith looped the fabric belt around Everett’s neck and tied it. “You’re ungrateful. Just like the rest.”
Tears slid down Everett’s face. “I want to live.”
Keith jerked the belt tight, cutting off Everett’s air. Through the thin mask, he could see the determination harden Keith’s features. “No, you don’t. You’re just afraid to die. You’re a coward.”
Keith lifted his hand and sprayed another dose of that stuff in Everett’s face. His body went limp. Numb. He couldn’t seem to pull in enough air.
“But don’t worry. I’ll help you. You’re my brother. I love you too much not to.”
CHAPTER TEN
Isabelle shifted uncomfortably in the bucket seat, trying not to abrade her raw back. It had taken two hours for the police to finish their questions and let them go, and she was barely holding herself upright against the heavy fatigue that weighed down on her.
Since he’d gotten in the car, Grant had been silent. He gripped the steering wheel until his knuckles turned bone white. Tension radiated from his body until she was sure the air around him was vibrating with it.
He wasn’t just angry. He was furious.
Isabelle had seen him like this only once before. On the night he’d killed Edgar Lavine.
He navigated the nearly empty highway, putting all his focus on the road.
Grant pulled in behind Dale’s car. The light in his room was off, so he was probably already asleep. At least he wouldn’t miss the takeout that was now splattered somewhere on the restaurant’s parking lot.
Isabelle stifled a sigh. Dale had been working too hard lately, but until his SATs were conquered, she didn’t see any hope of him relaxing. Then again, until the police caught whoever was killing people in her life, she wasn’t going to find much downtime, either.
Grant got out of the car without a word.
Isabelle rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands. Things were getting too big and heavy, and something was going to have to give. What she wouldn’t have given for the time to take a vacation—get her and Dale away from everything for a while.
Grant opened her car door and stared down at her with a hard, almost fierce frown. He reached out and offered her his hand up.
Isabelle took it, not because she needed the help, but because she thought it might make him feel better to give it.
As she moved, the skin on her back stretched and she barely hid a wince of pain.
They went in through the back door, and Isabelle tossed her purse on the counter. Grant didn’t seem to be in the mood for company or conversation, so she told him, “I’m going to check on Dale and hit the sack.”
He gave her a silent nod and watched as she went up the stairs. She knocked lightly on Dale’s door, and when he didn’t answer, she peeked in. He was sprawled in bed, asleep with one long arm hanging off the side.
She had a sudden flashback to last night when she found him missing and stood there for a moment, watching him, thankful he was safe and sound.
His radio switched songs and started playing a new alternative rock song quietly in the background. A deep bass rhythm thrummed out of the speakers, but Dale didn’t even shift.
Isabelle never would have been able to sleep with the noise, but Dale said it helped him sleep, so she let it go. She figured he’d probably used the sound to mask the noise of his parents fighting when he was younger.
When she came back downstairs, Grant was waiting for her in the living room. The cut on his cheek had been taped closed by the paramedic, and a bruise was already starting to form around it. His feet were braced apart and he had the strangest look on his face—like he was preparing to do battle with her.
A sliver of worry wormed its way into her, because this was not right. This was not the Grant she knew.
Grant watched as fear made Isabelle’s face go pale.
Guilt twisted inside him at the thought that he was scaring her, and he tried to say something reassuring, something light, but nothing came out. The frenetic rage that had threatened to engulf him since the moment he’d heard her pained cry tonight was still rampaging through him. It took every ounce of concentration he had just to appear civilized.
Not killing the bastard who’d touched her had burned off all of his reserves of willpower and goodwill, and there was simply none left in him.
He hadn’t felt this way since the night he’d caught Lavine in her bed, holding her down as she fought against him. She’d been small for her age, weak. If Grant hadn’t been trying to sneak out of the house that night, he never would have passed by her door and heard her muffled, panicked cries. He never would have seen Lavine on top of her and gone into a blinding rage that ended only when the last breath had been choked from that bastard’s lungs.
Grant had always hoped the uncontrollable need for violence that had led him to kill Lavine that night had simply been a case of excess teenage hormones flooding his system. He’d killed since then out of duty or self-defense, but it had never once felt the same. It had never felt quite as personal. Or satisfying.
But after tonight, he knew teenage hormones weren’t to blame. The sound of Isabelle crying out in pain had brought all of that rage back, though he had no idea why.