Inside Out

27

Thursday morning

Just after Martinez had left her bedroom, Sean saw the first light flares, which would be followed by nausea and blinding, incapacitating pain. She had immediately taken two of her migraine pills, then lay in the darkness waiting for them to work. She had suffered from the headaches since she was a teenager, but as long as she managed her diet and stress, they were infrequent. Since her miracle pills effectively stopped the headaches as they formed, she was never without them.

Sean propped herself up against a stack of pillows, wearing only her robe. She had never felt more angry with herself. If only her mother had still been alive when Dylan came along. Olivia Marks would have sniffed him out for what he was. She had always warned her about making friends too fast with strangers. The rule had always been that they didn't trust anybody but each other. There were things you just didn't share, and she had held to that, even with Dylan. Was it because she never fully trusted him? She wanted to believe it had been that she had sensed she couldn't trust him fully. She hadn't asked enough questions, pushed him for answers to the mystery that was his life before they'd met. He'd been guarded and so had she. She didn't think for a moment that was how normal married people behaved. If she was honest with herself now, she had suffered misgivings from the start.

He had absolutely and completely betrayed her. It was as though the disarming and handsome man she married had been kidnapped while she was in Argentina and switched with his evil twin brother. She despised and feared this alien creature who had murdered twelve people. She wanted to get as far away from him as fast as she could.

She had been in bed for three hours since the marshals left-ransacking her memory for clues she had missed about Dylan's secret life-but there were none to be found. Angela had done her best to comfort her, but Sean had wanted to be alone. Besides, what could she have told Angela that didn't make her look like an idiot, a complete fool?

It was true the marshals hadn't told her anything from the time she was seized from the airport, except that things would be explained to her as soon as she saw her husband and that he was perfectly fine. Perfectly fine how? She had taken as gospel everything Dylan told her after she'd arrived because she had wanted and needed to believe him. And that bastard had known she would.

They had never fought. In fact, she now realized, they had never talked about anything that mattered. He had listened to her opinions without disagreeing. He had always liked what she had, shared her dislikes.

She thought back to the day Dylan had walked into her life-a chance meeting in a South Hampton coffee shop. She had turned from the counter straight into him and doused his expensive suit with her coffee. He had been such a gentleman and was so charming that she had sat and had her coffee with him. That small entree was all he'd needed. In the space of two months, Dylan had gone from being a total stranger to caring sensitive friend to tender lover, and finally to perfect husband. Way too perfect. Dylan Devlin had been everything she had ever wanted in a man, but she was sure now that he had become so by design. He was a consummate actor, a shell filled with lies.

In hindsight, her feelings for him had somehow become diluted during their marriage. While she had been in Argentina looking at the properties Dylan had made a list of, she had felt guilty for not thinking of him more-for not wishing that he had come with her. In fact, she had felt relieved that he wasn't with her. She had relished her privacy. Had she started to question even then, that perhaps there was someone else lurking behind her husband's bright green eyes? She knew she would not miss him, was glad to be rid of him. When Sean was done with a thing, she could walk away without looking back. It was part of her training-her nature.

After all was said and done, the most troubling part of all this was why a sociopath had chosen her out of all of the millions of women out there who were far richer, more beautiful, and more vulnerable than she. Although it was possible, she didn't want to believe he had picked her at random the way a hawk selects a single mouse from the many he watches. She had been vulnerable because she was lonely-because her mother hadn't been there to offer advice.

He's insane, she thought, and shuddered.

She had never been afraid of him before. Now Dylan had drugged marshals and crept into her room while she slept. Had he intended to harm her tonight? Had something interrupted him before he could do anything to her? What did he stand to gain?

Through the shutters she could see the sun rising. She would feel better after she showered and dressed. Getting out of bed, she slid a drawer open to select underwear and a top.

She picked out a sky-blue T-shirt, then opened another drawer for a pair of jeans and was startled to see a towel laid carefully on top of her clothes. Odd.

Puzzled, Sean lifted the towel away.

The thing she saw there, a nightmare lying between the stack of folded pants, made her scream in horror.