The Evil Inside. Heather Graham

       www.mirabooks.co.uk

      For Lisa Manetti, Corinne De Winter, Brent Chapman, Juan Roca, Dennis Pozzessere, Jason Pozzessere, Dennis Cummins, and all our group, and the amazing scares and laughs we all shared at the Lizzie Borden House. (And thanks to the house’s beautiful current owner!)

      In memory of my in-laws, Angelina Mero and Alphonso Pozzessere; I can’t think of Massachusetts without thinking about them, and smiling.

      And in memory of Alice Pozzessere Crosbie and “Uncle Buppy,” and for the Crosbie clan, Steven, Ginger, Linda, Tommy, Billy, and Mary, and their families.

      And for the great, diverse state of Massachusetts. Especially Gloucester, and Hammond Castle, where Derek and Zhenia had the most beautiful wedding ever.

      Prologue

      The boy stood naked in the middle of the road.

      Sam Hall’s headlights caught him there, frozen in position, like a deer. He was covered in something slick, and it dripped down his flesh. It looked reddish, like blood, as if the kid had run off the set of a horror movie after being drenched in buckets of the stuff.

      Sam slammed his foot on the brake pedal, grateful for once that his years with Mahon, Mero and Malone had given him the ability to afford the new Jaguar with the stop-on-a-dime brakes.

      Even then, the car pulled to a halt just inches before the boy.

      Swearing softly beneath his breath and puzzled beyond measure, Sam jumped out of the car. “Hey, what the hell are you doing there, son?”

      The boy didn’t move, didn’t seem to realize that he’d nearly been roadkill. He just shook as he stood there. Summer had recently turned to fall, and the air had a sharp nip, typical for Massachusetts at this time of year. Tree-laden tracts lined the road; the old oaks seemed to bend and moan with the breeze, while multicolored leaves danced on the road and swept around the scene as if they, too, were deeply disturbed.

      The boy didn’t acknowledge Sam or look at him.

      Again Sam swore softly. There was obviously something really wrong, though this kid couldn’t have been injured severely and still be able to stand as he was.

       He couldn’t have lost that amount of blood and still be conscious.

       Was it really blood … couldn’t be.

      Either way, Sam couldn’t leave him in the middle of the road.

      He looked at the new Jag he really loved, with the leather seats he also loved, and walked around to his trunk and found the beach blanket he’d picked up on his recent drive to the Florida Keys. It was sandy, but it would warm the kid.

      He returned quickly, but the kid hadn’t run off, much less moved. “Are you hurt?” he asked quietly.

      He received no response.

      “Here, here, you’re going to have to get into my car,” Sam said, approaching the boy with the blanket. “We’ll get you to a hospital.”

      Sam wrapped the blanket around him. “Sorry about the sand,” he said.

      The kid looked to be somewhere between fifteen and seventeen, but underdeveloped. He was painfully thin. His eyes were huge and brown in the lean contours of his face. His chest was devoid of hair, so most of the blood had slid down his chest.

      The temperature seemed to be around forty degrees Fahrenheit. It wasn’t freezing, but the kid shouldn’t be exposed to this long.

      Sam intended to get him into the car. And yet, as he stood there, trying to be compassionate while saving his wool coat from the sticky red substance that looked like blood, he suddenly froze.

      It didn’t just look like blood—it was blood.

      Denial rushed through his mind.

      But it was blood, no denying it.

      Pig’s blood, cow’s blood … hell, rabbit’s blood.

      But something told Sam that it was not.

      He drew the blanket off the boy and turned him around, seeking an injury that might have caused that amount of blood.

      But he didn’t find any. If he had, the boy wouldn’t have been standing upright. He wouldn’t have been breathing. He’d have been dead from a wound like that.

      He’d already wrapped the blanket around the kid. No undoing that.

       And if he could, would he leave the kid there shivering with nothing?

      Still standing in front of the boy, who didn’t even reach up to hold the blanket in place, he fumbled in his pocket for his cell phone and hit 911. An operator with a droning voice asked him what his emergency was.

      “My name is Samuel Hall. I was driving into Salem when I nearly hit a young man in the road. He’s covered in blood. It doesn’t appear to be his blood, but I can’t be certain that he isn’t injured. He’s standing on his own, and doesn’t seem in any way to be too weak to do so, but he’s nonresponsive. He may be in shock. Can you get someone out here—fast?” He looked around and quickly gave his position as best he could. Hell, it was a quiet backwoods road. He’d opted to take IA north from Boston, but had turned off early. The dark, quiet road through the trees had seemed a soothing path for his first visit home in a long time.

      “Stay calm now, Mr. Hall,” the operator told him. “I’ll have a car out to your position immediately. Patrolmen are in the vicinity. It won’t be long. You’re sure the young man isn’t bleeding? If so, you must stanch the flow of blood. Stay calm. Are you doing all right?”

      He hesitated for the fraction of a second, staring at the phone, his mind racing.