Der Schädelring: Thriller (German Edition)

always-perfect hair now stood like a shock of dark cornstalks in a field. He rubbed his face in his hands.
    "Is that all you ever wanted, you bastard?" she said.
    A tremor ran through Mitchell's muscular shoulders, and she was afraid he was going to renew his attack. Julia thumped the base of the lamp against the mattress, her force punctuating the pain she was ready to deliver. The wood was heavy enough to break bone. She grinned at the thought, and perhaps that scared Mitchell more than the weapon.
    When he finally spoke, it was as if he were addressing someone outside the room, some all-hearing ear, though his words were cat quick and mouse quiet. "I just . . . I can't afford to lose you."
    Julia made no attempt to cover herself. "You’d rather keep me broken?”
    "I'm sorry," Mitchell said, keeping his gaze on his feet. "After yesterday . . . "
    Julia glanced at the floor. The contents of her purse had spilled across the carpet. The wooden box was plainly visible, the carving of the pentagram delivering a hundred and ten volts to the chest.
    The skull ring.
    Mitchell's voice rose, the quick mood shift catching Julia by surprise. "Why did you have to go out there? Why the hell can't you just forget it all? You're mine , Julia. You belong to me, not the past and those damned hooded people."
    He lifted his face. Tears welled in the corners of his eyes. But Julia felt no sympathy, only a shudder of revulsion that she had ever let this pathetic specimen of the male gender hold and kiss her. To think that she had nearly married this creature and spent a life with him.
    "I'll never be yours," Julia said, surprised by the chilly strength of her words. "Do you want to know why?"
    Mitchell looked like his own evil twin, hair wild, fly open, eyes red. Or was this the real Mitchell Austin? The one that hid inside the power suits and lurked behind the smug mask of self-righteousness, a control freak who couldn't even control himself?
    His lips moved like those of a hooked fish gasping on a riverbank. Finally, he managed to answer. "Why not?"
    "Because there's no room inside your house, Mitchell."
    His mouth fell open. He didn't speak, but his eyes said, "What the hell?"
    Julia got to her feet, pulled her blouse closed and smoothed down her skirt. "You've got your house stuffed so full of yourself, there's no room for anyone else. And I'm not going to live in anybody's basement."
    Except my own. In that place where bones are buried. But that has nothing to do with this jerk.
    Mitchell backed away as if she were the Creep. He zipped himself and tried to gather his slick judicial composure. "Listen, you're not to going to press charges, are you? I've got a lot of friends in the D.A.'s office. You'll be smeared until you won't even be able to recognize yourself in the mirror."
    Julia pictured herself filing a report, talking to the police. Sure, she had physical evidence of an assault. Bruises, torn clothing, maybe some DNA evidence under her fingernails. But assault cases where the rapist was engaged to the victim, where the pair had a long sexual history together, were practically impossible to prosecute.
    Her word against his.
    Mitchell looked her fully in the eyes and gave a smile that would chill a cobra's blood.
    Because they both knew the truth. Julia's behavioral disorder would end up on trial, not Mitchell. He could afford the best in criminal defense, and in the end, Mitchell would walk out of the courtroom laughing while Julia dripped into a black puddle of miserable self-loathing. The defense would have its psychological "experts" prod and poke her brain until she finally convinced herself that the attack was her fault, that she'd staged the whole thing because everybody knew that crazy people did crazy things.
    Of course. What jury would convict an upstanding, respectable citizen solely on the wild accusations of a person known to be unstable? She could picture the defense attorney now, giving a sermon during closing arguments, the High Church of Reason against the damned and doomed who had the temerity to be less than perfect, those oddities who "saw psychologists," who "received therapy," who "had been diagnosed."
    Oh, yes. She would be crucified, her own fears used as the nails, her own frail attempts at recovery serving as the wood.
    And Mitchell would be not only her Judas and her Pilate, he would also be the Roman soldier with the hammer.
    She brushed past him, stooped, and gathered the box and her purse. "Get