Possess by Gretchen McNeil

Author:Gretchen McNeil
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: HarperCollins

Nineteen

RULE NUMBER FIVE: THEY LIE.

It was about the millionth time she’d reminded herself in the past week. Still, the message delivered by Penemuel haunted her, creeping up at odd moments of the day. She tried to fight it back, to remind herself that you couldn’t trust the demons, but it didn’t matter. Again and again she heard Penemuel’s words in her mind:

Me-yer. Un-der. Un-der. Me-yer.

Again and again, over and over until she thought she would lose it. And every time her mind would drift to a mental hospital in Sonoma County, where an insane killer was locked away for the murder of Dr. David Liu.

With a heavy sigh, she leaned closer to the bathroom mirror and ran a wand of liquid eyeliner over her lid, ending with a tiny swoop at the corner. The freckles on her nose and cheeks still peeped through the layers of foundation, powder, and blush, but there wasn’t much she could do about them. She was already wearing more makeup than she’d applied since her mom let her quit Irish step dancing, and short of spackle, those annoying freckles would just have to stay. This was definitely the most effort she’d put into her appearance since before her dad died.

Bridget squeezed her eyes shut, so tight she thought her eyeballs might pop out the back of her head. She’d done a relatively good job of forcing the memories of the trial from her mind, but in the last few days they’d come rushing back with renewed force. Undermeyer at the defense table, twitchy and erratic. The insanity plea and the parade of mental health professionals who attested to a level of paranoid schizophrenia heretofore unseen in a patient. And, of course, Sergeant Quinn’s testimony. How he’d brought Milton Undermeyer to see Dr. Liu for a series of psychiatric evaluations after his arrest. How two men had gone into Dr. Liu’s office that day. How an hour later Undermeyer was found in the office alone, the body of Dr. Liu lying in a massive pool of his own blood, his throat sliced from ear to ear.

She’d never seen the crime scene photos of her dad’s murder, but she didn’t need to. The image of her dad’s mangled body was burned into her brain forever. Her imagination was way worse than reality. Panic swept over her. Her heart raced and her chest broke out in a damp sweat. She gripped the St. Benedict’s medal on her bracelet and held her breath.

She forced her eyes open and stared at herself in the mirror. “Breathe, Bridge,” she said out loud. “Breathe.”

She locked eyes with herself and practically willed her body into submission. Calm. Calm. Her breaths came slower; her heart rate receded to normal, nonfrantic levels.

Nothing made sense anymore. If Penemuel was lying to her, trying to lead her astray, why tell her to go talk to her dad’s killer? It wasn’t logical.

With a sigh, Bridget picked up a creased piece of white paper and reread Father Santos’s Xeroxed notes.

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