She was free!
For a minute, she couldn’t remember where she parked her car. Not that there were any other vehicles, except Rebecca’s, but there were two lots she could have parked in.
Think, Holly, think.
A chimpanzee slammed against the fence behind her, causing her to jump. She held her ears as she ran, trying to block out the screeching from the animals.
She debated whether to go to the office first and get her cell phone or keep heading toward her car. She stopped briefly to pull on her pants, thankful that she wasn’t a girly-girl type who carried a purse. Her car keys and wallet were in one of the many pockets in her cargo pants.
“Hollyyyyy.”
She turned and, for the first time, she saw the man. He was running after her, but his huge lumbering gait couldn’t match hers. She pushed the button on her key fob to unlock the car doors.
Panting, crying, laughing, she opened the car door, slammed it shut, and locked it. She rested her forehead on the steering wheel.
“Hollyyyyy.”
Terror seized her heart.
He was at her window.
Chapter 9
Her head jerked up, and she was face to face with the monster with only a pane of glass between them. He moved his flashlight underneath his chin and grinned at her. “Remember me, Hollyyyyyy?”
Her shaking hands fumbled to insert the keys into the ignition, now slippery with her sweat, and get the hell away. She took a deep breath.
Stop, Holly, pull yourself together. You can do this.
Unfortunately, her shaking hands didn’t get the message, and she dropped the keys. Swearing at herself, she used the latch alongside the seat to move the seat back and began to pat the floor with her hands in search of the keys. She didn’t dare take her eyes off Albert, who continued to grin at her.
She jumped and screamed as shattered glass covered her hair, chest and lap. Albert had smashed the window with a rock and reached in, then unlocked and opened the door. He grabbed her ponytail.
“No. No, get away.” She pounded on him with her fists as he dragged her from the car.
“But Hollyyyyy. Why are you upset? You knew I would come back for you.” He shook her head where he gripped her ponytail, the pain bringing tears to her eyes. With her hands and feet free, she beat him on the chest and tried desperately to kick him in the groin.
He moved back and continued to drag her back to the zoo. “I changed my mind about my apartment. We have to finish this here, Hollyyyyyy. At the zoo. Where it started, where you hurt me, then betrayed me.” He shook her again, and she swore her hair was going to come out of her head.
“I didn’t betray you. You were harassing me.”
“Tsk, tsk. You filed a complaint with HR. They fired me.” He shook his head again. “Did you hear me, Hollyyyyyy? They fired me. I have no income. My rent is due.”
“I’m sorry for that, Albert, but you wouldn’t leave me alone.” As she talked, she tried desperately to ignore the pain in her head from where he gripped her hair and slid her hand down and unclipped her radio.
“But you’re mine, Hollyyyyy. Mine. Not your loser husband’s—who I will take care of next—but mine.”
She gripped the radio tightly in her hand, knowing she only had one chance. He’d dragged her back into the zoo, which would help once she—hopefully—got away. “I told you to leave my husband alone.”
It was now or never. She swung toward his head with all her strength and smacked him in the face with the radio.
Chapter 10
The alarm went off at four o’clock, and Brad McCabe arose from his bed almost as tired as he’d been when he hit his pillow a few hours before. Yawning and rubbing the stubble on this face, he lumbered to the kitchen and made a cup of coffee. As was his routine, he took a sip of the hot brew and pressed the button on his cell phone to call Holly.
No answer. He dropped the phone on his desk and pulled out his law book on appeals, flipped to the correct page, and, yawning once more, began to read.
The bitch hit him! She fucking hit him! Without thinking, Albert let her go and grabbed his face. Warm blood dripped between his fingers, running down his arm to gather under the sleeve of his shirt, stopping at his elbow.
He growled and swiped the sticky mess from his face, watching Holly race back into the zoo. He swore and sped after her, not wanting her to get to the employee office where her cell phone was. When he was there earlier, stealing a radio, he should have taken the cell phone. Too late now.
The sound of the chimps going wild at their freedom resonated around the zoo. Holly had almost reached the office door when she stumbled and smacked her head against a pole. He was close enough to reach her when she jumped up and threw a rock in his direction.
The rock slammed into his eye and, when he stopped, she veered away from the office door and disappeared into the darkness.
He leaned against the wall of the Guest Services building to catch his breath. Holly wasn’t getting away from him. His only concern was the chimps getting to her before he did.
They wouldn’t. She was his.
Only his.
Chapter 11
Holly could not believe she’d actually gotten away from Albert. She’d used all her might to smack him in the face with the radio and apparently it had worked, since she was covered with his blood that had spurted from his nose. Hopefully, she broke it.
She raced toward the office to see two chimps cavorting and screeching between her and the door. At the last minute, she swerved to the right and leapt over the turnstile and dashed past the restrooms, guest services, and the zoo gift store. As soon as she could, she ran into a heavily wooded area.
“I’ll get you for this, bitch!” His footsteps somewhere behind her on the pavement told her he was no longer using the cart. They were both on foot now.
The sound of her panting as she made her way through the bushes, trees, plants, and other things, trying to stay hidden, matched the screeching coming from the animals they’d disturbed. Hopefully, since Albert no longer seemed to be in the cart, perhaps he no longer had a flashlight either.
The best way to save herself was to circle around, as quietly as she could, and break into the back window of the office. In the meantime, the sound of the chimps terrified her.
Albert was crazy, but the chimps were lethal. Not that Albert wasn’t planning to kill her—after raping her, she was sure—but the idea of having a chimpanzee rip her face off was no more appealing.
She had to find a way to rest for a minute. She was covered in Albert’s blood and her own sweat and she couldn’t catch her breath. At least the sound of the chimps was farther away. With any luck, they would get to Albert before he got to her.
. . .
Brad tossed his cell phone on the desk next to his laptop, frustrated. He’d been calling Holly for more than an hour and kept getting her voice mail. He’d even tried calling the zoo security office phone line to no avail. As stupid as it would sound if he said it out loud, he was concerned. There could be numerous reasons why she wasn’t answering or returning his voice mails and text messages, but he still had a feeling something was wrong.
It was after five in the morning, and he’d almost finished the brief he’d been assigned in one of his classes. With that complete, he would study for an upcoming test before showering, dressing and off to class. He’d been running on only a few hours of sleep a night for much too long now and it was beginning to wear on him.
It had become a habit for him to call Holly when he awoke before working on his assignments. Just to check in to hear how her shift was going. He sat back and tapped a pencil on his desk. Truth be known, he’d never been completely happy with her job.
Once they’d moved in together and then married, he’d spent some time teaching his wife how to defend herself, but it was still just her and another—not too bright—co-worker on the overnight shift. Another annoyance for him was they were not allowed to carry weapons,
although there was a shotgun in the secure room at the back of the zoo security office, but that was more for an uncontrollable animal.
The zoo was near a questionable neighborhood and, across the lake from the zoo, officers had oftentimes been called to clear out drug addicts and prostitutes. Brad would be very happy once they both graduated and Holly could take a daytime with normal hours, a safe job.
He could always swing by the zoo, but since that would cut into his study time, he pushed the idea aside and picked up his cell phone to call her once more. He tried to tell himself he was worrying for nothing and there were plenty of other times when he was unable to reach her.
So why was he worrying so much tonight?
Hi, this is Holly. Sorry I missed your call. Please leave a message, and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can. Unless you’re calling to sell me something, because I’m not buying.
“Call me, Holly.” With knots forming in his stomach, Brad placed the phone on the desk and rubbed his eyes. He would wait another half hour, and if he hadn’t heard from her by then, he would drive out to the zoo.
Most likely to hear Holly laugh at him and remind him she could take care of herself. Yeah, sure.
Chapter 12
It took another forty minutes to continue dodging Albert and the chimps to get her closer to the office. Holly was exhausted and fighting tears. She couldn’t break down and cry because she most likely would never stop. She swallowed convulsively to get herself under control.
She wanted her husband.
Brad’s strong arms holding her, protecting her. Yes, she managed to escape from Albert, but she was growing weary and honestly didn’t know how she could continue running from both him and the chimps.
Her head throbbed from where Albert had pulled her hair. Her hands were scraped from the climb over the barbed-wire fence and when she fell and, although she hadn’t remembered hurting her foot, she had started to limp and a throbbing had begun in her left ankle.
She checked her watch. Five twenty-two. In a little over an hour, the next shift would arrive. If Albert or the chimps hadn’t killed her by then, she would have some help.
The office was within reach. Since she was quite sure Albert would be expecting her to go to the office, she decided to sit and watch the building from where she was.
She jumped at the feel of something alongside her. It was Penny, a friendly cat that roamed the zoo, always looking for scraps that visitors drop. It had been decided among the staff that Penny would most likely not take to living a normal life in a house, so instead of anyone adopting her, they made sure she was spayed, then released her to allow the cat to live her life among the animals.
Holly ran her palm over Penny’s soft orange and white fur, the animal purring with contentment. What she wouldn’t give to be a cat right now. Fast and a good climber. She lifted the cat from her side and placed her on her lap. Just the feel of the warm body calmed Holly a bit.
“Do you want to switch places for a while, Penny?” No, that wasn’t fair. She’d never want to see the zoo pet harmed, and it was up to Holly to get out of this mess.
“Hollyyyyyyy. Just because you don’t have a radio—which you used to smash me in the face—I can still talk to you. Where are you hiding, Hollyyyy? Can you see me? I bet I’ll be able to see you before you can see me.”
Holly froze at the sound of the sing-song voice that would probably plague her dreams for years to come. That was if she lived long enough to have years to come. Her heart pounded. The voice came from the left and far enough away that she didn’t think Albert could see her.
She slowly picked up Penny and placed her carefully on the ground, not wanting her to make any noise. She shifted to her knees and quietly stood, wincing at the pain in her foot.
It came down to, should she make a run for it. In retrospect, she was pretty sure she hadn’t locked the office door. She rarely did and she prayed she hadn’t done so tonight.
Taking a deep breath and praying as hard as she ever prayed in her life, she raced toward the office. Her jaw tensed as she ignored the pain in her foot and kept running.
Ten steps away from the office, she saw Albert coming at her from across the pavement. She pushed as hard as she could and made it to the office, barreled through the door, slammed and locked it just as Albert threw himself against the door.
Brad tossed his books into the back seat of his Toyota Camry and slid behind the wheel. It was getting close to the end of Holly’s shift, and she still wasn’t answering either her cell phone or the office phone.
Something in his police officer training and instincts told him Holly was in trouble. It could be as simple as she locked herself out of the office without her phone, but everything inside him screamed she needed him. Desperately.
He wound his way through the apartment complex and turned onto the highway, heading north toward the zoo. He fiddled with the radio station, trying to find music that would calm him down.
Traffic was light this time of the day, a good hour before rush hour would begin. He tried very hard to keep his speed down. The last thing he needed was to be pulled over, wasting time identifying himself to a state trooper.
As he cruised along, he started to second guess himself, thinking he should have called the police station close to the zoo and have them do a welfare check. He would deal with Holly’s humor and/or annoyance at his protective manner if everything was fine.
A flash of red lights in his rear-view mirror had him groaning and taking a quick look at the dashboard. While ruminating on what he should have done, he’d reached ninety miles an hour.
Shit!
He pounded the steering wheel and pulled over.
Albert banged on the door, screaming, “Hollyyyy! Open the door. You know I will get you, but I won’t make it so hard on you if you let me in.”
“You’re crazy, Albert. Do you know that?” She fumbled with her cell phone, dropping it twice from her slippery hands as he continued to pound on the door.
Holly shoved the cell phone into her pocket and headed for the locked security door at the back of the office. She managed to get the door unlocked and herself inside. She should call for help and stay in the locked room, but she was angry.
Very, very angry.
She inserted the key to the small safe in the corner of the room and pulled out the shotgun they used for emergency purposes. As a certified Emergency Response Team member, she had been trained on the use of the weapon.
No waiting in terror anymore for her. She loaded and engaged the shotgun and unlocked the security room door.
Albert had managed to break a window and had crawled through. He stood grinning at her. Dried blood caked his face and fresh blood dripped from his arm where she assumed he’d cut himself crawling through the window.
Holly raised the shotgun. “Get out of the office, Albert.”
“You won’t shoot me, Hollyyyyy. We’re going to be lovers. You will be so happy when I kill your husband so we can be together.”
She shook her head. “You are crazy. Now get out of the office.”
The chimpanzees were outside the building, most likely drawn toward the sound of breaking glass and their shouting. Their screeching rose with excitement as they jumped and banged on the window, but even the animals were too smart to crawl through broken glass.
Albert took a step toward her, and Holly fired.
Chapter 13
Brad rolled the car window down and placed his hands on the top of the steering wheel in plain sight.
The trooper approached the car.
Brad sat very still and looked at the trooper. “I have a gun on me. I am a police officer, and I will gladly step out of the vehicle and show you my identification.”
The trooper placed his hand on his holster and backed up. “Step out and raise your hands.”
Brad did as he was told. “Can I reach for my ID?”
“Yes.”
Brad pulled out his badge, and the trooper
used his flashlight to look at it. “All right, Officer McCabe, do you know how fast you were going?”
“Yes. I did once you pulled me over.” He put his wallet away. “My wife works at the zoo. She has not answered my calls for the past few hours. That is unusual for her. I am concerned something is wrong, and I am headed there to check.”
The trooper hesitated for a moment, then nodded. “I trust police officers’ instincts. I will give you an escort and, in the meantime, I’ll notify station seven near the zoo to do a welfare check.”
“Thank you. I should have done that myself, but I find with this kind of work if someone you love is involved, your actions can get a bit muddled.”
“Agreed.” The trooper returned to his car and pulled in front of Brad.
They raced down the highway, Brad noting they were hitting close to 100. The sun had started to make its presence known with a scant dawn light beginning to erase some of the darkness.
With the speed they were maintaining, they actually pulled into the zoo parking lot in front of two police cars and the EMSA truck.
Brad took quick notice of the smashed window on the driver’s side of Holly’s car. His heart rate kicked up, and he slammed on his brakes and ran to the zoo office. He backed up when two chimpanzees who had been jumping and bouncing in front of the door turned and stared in his direction, screeching at the top of their lungs.
Oh God, he hated to shoot the animals. He tried holding up his hand, talking to them, but they weren’t having it. They jumped up and down and then moved closer to him. He had to get into the building, and as much as it turned his stomach, he pulled out his gun and shot them both.
They fell with a thud, and he stepped over them. Just as he reached the locked door, a shotgun blast rocked the building. “Holly!”
In the Still of the Night Page 3