The Killer Inside Read Online Free Page A

powder that coats everything in this place. A room I thought I would never enter again. A box I thought had been locked, in my mind, at least.
    I switch off the kitchen light, plunging me into a near darkness only illuminated by the table lamp in the lounge next to the leather snuggler chair I share with nobody and thetall oak block I add a new wine ring to every night. It’s peaceful in the lounge and safe. Unlike the bedroom upstairs, which smells like Audrey. Still.
    He waits.
    Upstairs where the scent of patchouli and sandalwood reminds me of betrayal. Where one side of the bed is always cold.
    That is where he waits for me. Preparing himself for my entrance. Setting everything up for my capture.
    I take a large gulp of red wine, tilting my head back against the leather sofa cushion, staring at the ceiling, I think about returning to work. I think about that file in the top drawer of my desk that holds all the information on the case of my missing sister. There is a comfortable alcoholic buzz from the wine and I feel more in control, I can focus.
    Meanwhile, a man I have not seen in years, a seven-foot-tall spectre, is straightening that single chair and taking six steps back from it. He stands perfectly still. His head tilted forward so that his chin almost touches his chest. His yellow, protruding eyes gazing down at the dust between his feet.
    The fifth step creaks as I make my way up the stairs. Blue TV screen light pushes out of a neighbour’s window and eases my darkened journey to the bedroom where everything is about to change. Again.
    And he waits. Motionless.
    I forego the ritual of brushing my teeth before bed because the Malbec has laminated the inside of mouth with its blackcurrant and raisin flavour and I don’t want to pollute the taste with mint.
    I strip down completely and wrap the cool covers tightly over my shoulders before closing my eyes.
    He lifts his head now to reveal a grin that seems to take up half of his face. The enamel of his teeth is as tarnished as the whites of his eyes.
    In a few minutes, I will be asleep. That is when The Smiling Man will strike.
    That is the moment he will inform me that Eames is back.
    Another girl will die.
    And I have been so incredibly wrong this entire time.

Eames
    November 2009
    Crowthorne, Berkshire
    Today, it all stops.
    The pretence. The game. The verbal sparring with a Lord that left me by the roadside at birth. The fluffing of the bored housewife’s ego. The convincing insincerity with a doctor who is too afraid to admit that I am smarter than she is. The sit-ups, the push-ups and the mental conditioning. My preparation is complete.
    When a magician tells you to ‘Pick a card, any card’, when you remember the number and the suit, when you place it back within the deck, when you shuffle and hand them back and he informs you of your choice without even looking through the cards, it is because he knows that deck, the way it moves, the motion of one card as it glides across the top of another: he is prepared for all eventualities.
    When he tells you to look inside your shirt pocket, when you produce the card that you had picked out, the one you thought you had put back and obscured with other cards, you tell yourself that you are wondering how he did that when his hands are clasped so tightly together that they may as well be tied behind his back. But you know that you have been holding that card the entire time.
    You knew it wasn’t the end of the trick.
    There had to be more.
    Time is up, Detective Inspector January David. Tomorrow, when you wake, I will be the first thing you think of. You will ask yourself whether I got out, whether there is a double or a trapdoor or mirrors, or if the smoke is diverting your attention from the wires.
    You will wonder how I have managed to kill Kerry Ross. You will know that it was me, because you’ve seen it before. I am giving you the answer you refuse to accept.
    Girl 8 is on her way to see me, expecting a new