“Ooo…” she fake fusses at him like an ornery little tot.
And I’ve had it.
“Good, so try that,” I say, yanking up my slicker hood, pocketing my phone. “Drive away - and if you change your mind, Chrissy, turn around and come back. Sound good?”
“Yes.” She looks heartened, and tries to smile. “Thanks for understanding, and thanks too for the talk. It means the world…”
“One thing at a time,” I repeat, and open the door. The night blasts in.
Rafe starts to get out with his umbrella. I tell him no don’t, thanks, I’ll be fine…and slide out quickly.
Wind whips and the night glistens. I cringe in a gust and peer back at the car. Through the tinted, dripping glass, Chrissy’s face looks up at me like a sad child.
I wave. She waves back like a child.
They drive off, and I run for my stoop.
Moments later I’m hanging my dripping slicker over the back of a kitchen chair, starting to get out my phone, and the doorbell rings. My bell, not the buzzer from downstairs.
Odd.
Chrissy?
I frown that way, wondering if the first floor couple left the foyer door open again. But five minutes ago their apartment was dark.
Have they come back? Is there a problem? No, it must be Chrissy….
My heart clenches, as if warning.
I go to the door, open it to the extent of its short chain, and look out.
Nick Jakes is there, glaring, his hair wet and plastered to his brow. “Hello, Ava,” he sneers.
44
Shock.
I try to slam the door. Metal scrapes and wood rips as he heaves it open and shoves me backward, gasping.
I stumble, right myself; hear my phone clatter away and quick-glance, try to see where.
He moves closer. His windbreaker is soaked, his pants look like he’s been standing in a bathtub. He’s wearing black gloves.
My heart rockets.
His face twists in a nasty grin. “Sorry for…” – his arm sweeps back to the door – “that.”
My splintered door hangs at an angle. He’s weaving, reeks of booze.
“Didn’t I tell you?” he sneers, stepping toward me. His black gloves are clenched. “Did I not make it clear that you should stay away?”
I move back, shaking violently; think of my knives in their block, just a sprint to the kitchen. No, it’s too far. He’s too close. He’ll lunge.
“This is what you do?” I whisper. Can’t breathe. Voice a croak. “You prowl around at night? Follow women?”
He barks laughter. “You!” he says, advancing on me. “Are the stalker.” His fists clench tighter. “I warned you to stay away from my sister. Stay away from all of us.”
I remember my father’s desk, his letter opener. Almost convulsively I move back a step, and another. I see the letter opener’s glint - turn my head fast and seize it, hold it up.
“Oh!” Nick laughs again, stepping closer. “What are you going to do with that?”
“You killed Chloe and Darcy Lund.”
He lunges for me, seizes my wrist, wrenches it with mind-blinding pain until I stop struggling and cry out, drop the letter opener. It clatters to the floor. I start to fall, hit my father’s chair. It topples, makes him stumble. I twist away and he lunges again for me, grabs my throat, slams me backward so I hit the wall, my head cracking hard. My vision blurs, darkens. I slide to the floor; feel him seize my throat again, his fingers squeezing, pushing me onto my back. “You’re the sick one,” he rages, “not me.”
His knee is on me; his booze breath flames my face. “You’re a joke. The cops know you climb fire escapes, snoop where you don’t belong.” His hands squeeze my throat harder. I’m gagging. My hands claw at his fingers, dig my nails into his wrists.
“Have I made myself clear? Can you hear me now, ha?”
I can’t scream, can’t breathe. Vision’s going darker. Tears burn my cheeks.
A moment passes.
He lets go of my neck.
I feel his knee lift off. I heave my shoulders for air. My eyes flutter, see two of him tower over me.
“Stay away or else,” he glowers, panting.
Silence. The house is like a tomb. I’m so dizzy: the floor beneath me swings, turns on its axis.
I hear him go back to the door, slam splintered wood. His footsteps pound down the stairs.
Breath is back, and I’m sobbing.
Then new terror hits.
He could come back. He came back for Chloe.
I have to move…can’t. I’m locked in pain. Shoulders heave, gasping. Desperate seconds pass. He’ll come back, he’ll come back…
Grit teeth, try harder. So dizzy. Adrenalin floods, helps, and I manage to roll over.
Start to crawl, pulse whamming in my ears. My phone…where? Brain can’t think. Head hurts so bad.
Instinct makes me crawl toward the kitchen. I struggle forward, heaving for air. Images flash and whirl, sickening…then the picture clears.
Rain slicker on chair, phone in pocket.
On my belly I cover a foot, maybe two…
Then my body slumps.
Kitchen too far.
I lay my head down on carpet, feel myself blacking out, close my eyes.
Moments pass. Adrenalin prods, fights for me, stabs harder. Vision clears a little.
He’s coming back.
I breathe faster, cry out a thin whimper. My hand reaches forward, my fingers grip carpet fringe.
I crawl.
Hall floorboards greet, then the kitchen floor. Those fake bricks never looked so good.
Chair and slicker, miles away…
I drag my body, reach the chair. My hand goes up to my slicker. I grip it and tug.
The chair comes toppling down on me, and the slicker. My fingers shake uncontrollably, scrabble over, under the slicker’s wetness. He’s coming back…
I feel the phone’s solid little rectangle, struggle it out.
Somehow I get it up the vast, shuddering distance; press to call.
“911,” says a female voice. “What is your emergency?”
“Help me,” I whisper. “I’ve been…”
Dizziness returns.
My eyes droop, still seeing the slicker, the toppled chair, the kitchen window beyond.
Then all goes dark.
45
Voices. Noise.
Hands on my face, my arm.
I open my eyes partway, to a din of radios squawking, hurried exchanges. I feel fingers on my eyelids. A flaring comet, pencil thin, tracks over my vision. Through haze I see a uniformed arm switch the light off, agree with someone about my vitals.
“Stable,” a voice says.
I pull in a huge, gasping breath. The floor beneath me is hard, rotates, a nightmare carousel.
From somewhere a man’s voice asks something.
I groan.
A hand touches my arm. The same voice tries again. “Who did this?”
Nick is back. I see him in the room rushing at me, crushing my throat, and I try to bolt up and fight. “Ni…” I croak, falling back again. Hands steady me and I thrash; see a chair leg, wail out to it, “Nick Jakes…killer! Chloe…Darcy…”
I hear them stir. Someone urgently repeats the name Nick Jakes into his crackling radio; someone else says, “Get Kemp.”
The detective from that first night, warning….
They seem to get louder, those squawking, crackling radios. Sirens shrill from outside the window. I open my eyes again and hear thunder, rain strafing the glass. So dizzy. The floor flips and turns.
“C’mon, honey. Let me help you.”
An EMT helps me into a sitting position, leans me against the kitchen counter. My hand goes to my smarting temple, and I whimper. “You’re okay now, it’s all over,” she says gently, her gloved hands easing mine away. “You’re okay,” she says again, swabbing my brow with her gauze pad. I catch my breath as its wet coldness stings, smells
of hospital. I see her gauze come away bloodied; again feel Jakes’s knee on my chest. I swoon in horror as she applies a bandage.
Then inspects the bruises on my neck.
“Son of a bitch,” she whispers.
“Killer,” I manage.
A plainclothes man comes, kneels next to me. He’s young, solemn-eyed, with longish brown hair. “Think we can get you more comfortable?” he asks, touching my arm. His dark jacket is wet from the rain, looks like it never comes off. His I.D. badge hangs from the lanyard around his neck. It’s a blur.
He and a woman in an unzipped navy jacket straighten the chair I toppled, and help me into it. I’m still dizzy. I lay my cheek on my hand, my elbow on the table. Through the hall I see my trashed front door getting dusted for prints. Others move about in there, turning surfaces black.
A wrenching sight. My eyes sting with tears, but I feel fury too. “Nick Jakes…destroyer,” I murmur, feeling my face crumple.
The first detective pulls a chair close to me. His large eyes are amber, probing; the I.D. on his lanyard clears, and reads Detective Hall. “They’ve gone for him,” he says. “Tell us what happened.”
“Jakes tried to kill me.”
“Can you give more details? Tell us why?”
The female detective stands over us with her notebook. The badge on her lanyard reads Detective Weber. She’s small, dark-haired.
Haltingly, in a pained whisper, I describe Jakes crashing through the door, warning me to stay away from Chrissy, throwing me down, strangling me.
New alarm makes me sit straighter. They’ve gone for him….
“But have they arrested him?” I ask feebly.
“They will,” Hall says. “They’re on the way.”
“To Fifth where he lives with his sister?”
“Yes.”
“What if he isn’t there?” The busy room clears and I breathe faster. “Or if he is - he’s insane…she’s afraid of him.” I peer around. “Where’s my phone?”
Someone hands it to me. In reassuring tones Hall repeats that they’re almost there, and asks how Jakes knew me.
“I was at their apartment visiting Chrissy Greer.”
“Why?”
Seconds tick by. I grip my phone; in few, stammered words, I rush through the story. Both detectives hear the name Peter Greer, and look harder at me.
“I was already thinking he wasn’t the killer,” I finish, getting more anxious, feeling doubt build that they’re going to find Jakes. “As of tonight, I’m sure.”
And Nick’s on the rampage.
Weber scribbles. Hall frowns and asks, “Has Jakes threatened you before?”
“Subtly.” My heart clenches. “That day I went to visit, nothing like tonight. Excuse me, I have to make a call-”
My phone chirps in my hand.
It’s Chrissy. I turn on the speaker for Hall and Weber.
She’s shaky-voiced. “My God, I just heard. What happened?”
“Your brother tried to kill me.”
She bursts into tears. “The police are here,” she spews. “To arrest him but he isn’t here! I tried to call him, he doesn’t pick up.”
Weber turns urgently away to someone. Hall stays, listening. Thunder booms, shakes the house. Radios crackle the news to police all over the city: Nick Jakes is at large.
And from my phone the room hears Chrissy weep. The police are asking where she thinks Nick might be – but how could she possibly know? He’s been so mysterious lately!
A shock of adrenalin clears cobwebs. “Chrissy,” I interrupt. “Does Nick know Peter’s alarm code?”
It takes her a moment. “I don’t think so,” she sniffles. “J-just Mary and I have it…I’m not sure-”
“Gotta go,” I say. “Hang tight, try to calm.”
I disconnect and call Peter.
“Nick just tried to kill me,” I tell him, watching Weber come back, listen with Hall. “The police are here.”
Soft, from the other end: “My God.”
“That whole night you were there he was in the kitchen, drinking and hating you; could have gone down those back stairs.” My words tumble. “The cops can’t find him and he could be gunning for you.”
“Are you alright?” Peter’s voice is grim.
“Bruises. My place is trashed.”
“I’ll come for you.”
“No, don’t go out! I’ll go to a hotel.”
“Hotels aren’t safe and I have a gun, remember? I’m leaving now. Wait for me.”
46
Wobbly, I make it to the front room, sidestepping fingerprint people, a woman taking photographs, a crime scene tech pointing out their perimeter. Weber has helped me stuff some of my things in a duffle, has carried it for me to the front where she put it on the window seat. She and Hall are done with me, for now. They’re conferring with David Kemp, who arrived soon after my call to Peter, and is hearing the story I told them.
Before them, my smashed door hangs at an angle. Beyond that wreckage, the hall is full of uniforms and their radio racket. Other uniforms barrel up and down the stairs.
Kemp looks over to me, sympathetic. He shakes his head.
I look away, out the window, and worry.
Rain blasts the glass, wind whips nearly bare branches. Emergency vehicles are below, glistening, their red-blue lights strobing the gloom. They’re in the wrong place, I fret. I picture a figure, drunk and seething, waiting in Peter’s dark service alley. He should have stayed put; I should have insisted on a hotel! That small garage of his under the terrace…he’ll be an easy target unless he barrels out fast so a bullet would just hit his windshield or side door or…
I breathe shallowly. My whole body aches, and my head. Peripherally, I see Hall and Weber go out, talk to uniforms, head down the stairs.
He could be gunning for you, I told Peter; and he said…Are you alright?
That’s something. It fits with him stripping his shirt off, shivering, holding his makeshift ice pack to my brow. I decide…that’s it…not a single doubt left. I love him.
Below on the sidewalk, officers in rain gear turn away gawkers from the yellow tape. Umbrellas bob and jostle, and I blink. It feels unreal…now there’s a yellow tape in front of my brownstone. I close my eyes, seeing horrid yellow tape flapping, glistening, swooping around me in the darkest bad dream.
A sudden gust rattles the window’s glass, and I startle, come back to myself.
I kneel on the window seat, look out the sides of its bay, and keep watching the street.
Headlights sweep through the downpour.
There he is. A dark car with bright beams, pulling up beside two NYPD blue-and-whites, double parking. Yes, it’s him, tall, dark-haired in a dark parka, moving fast past officers who’ve been told he’d be coming.
I breathe in at last…more like a gasp.
I turn, sink down to the window seat, and face the room…an injured heap leaning on my duffle.
Police lamps light and probe as they collect evidence to match Chloe’s murder scene. My front parlor is covered with black dust, as am I. My hands, sweater, and skirt are dark-smeared; my face, too, what a mess. The bandage on my brow looks awful. One glance in the hall mirror showed my black eye, its puffiness beneath turning dark jewel-blue.
Steps on the stairs, and there’s Peter, his hair sparkling with raindrops.
“Ava,” he says solemnly. His parka’s unzipped over a white shirt and jeans.
He follows the crime tech’s perimeter and leans to me, his hand reaching for mine.
I don’t give it. “I’ll get you dirty.”
His face is haggard, but the side of his mouth tips up.
“Funny,” he says, taking my hand and elbow anyway, pulling me up. I groan and fall into the warmth of his chest. He holds me tight for long, shocked seconds, then pulls back enough to stare at my black eye and bandaged brow. His fingertips touch the bruises on my neck.
“I’ll kill him,” he says bitterly; then takes my han
d, presses it to his chest. His face is pale, quietly frantic. I feel his heart thudding.
“The children?” I ask.
“Rafe came back for them, fast; had a police escort. He’ll stay with them on Fifth.”
“Mary?”
“Helping Rafe get them to bed. Rafe told them there’s a gas leak warning in the neighborhood. I promised we’ll bake a ton of cookies.”
“Chrissy?”
“Mary got her to bed, ran back to help Rafe. They’re all safe.”
I see the nightmare yellow tape swoop again, and feel my eyes widen. “What if Nick comes back to Fifth?”
“Rafe is armed. He’d take a bullet for them. They’re okay.”
Some tension lets go in my shoulders, leaving only pain. Peter sees me wince.
“Did you take anything?”
“Advil.”
He sees my gaze go past him, and turns to David Kemp who’s come up.
“Glad you’re here,” the detective says, glancing from Peter to me and back again. “Care to help us with some questions?”
We start to follow him to the kitchen, and I stop; stare at my father’s desk blackened with fingerprint dust. I bring my hands to my face and start to cry again.
“That stuff comes off,” Peter comforts, pulling me back to him. “I’ll help you. Polish takes it right off, okay?”
I nod with my eyes closed, my face buried again against his chest. When I open my eyes, I see his shirt smeared with the dark stuff.
“Look what I did,” I burst out tearfully. The terror, the horrid tension…it all comes crashing down in that instant. I’m aware that I sound semi-hysterical.
“It comes off,” Peter whispers again, his hand cupping my cheek. “For now don’t even think about it.”
I meet his gaze for long, troubled seconds. Then nod again.
He takes my arm, and turns toward the hall.
“Come.”
47
In the kitchen, he helps me sink into the same chair. He takes one next to me and leans to me, grim, elbows on his knees.
Kemp braces his back against the counter, folds his arms. “Jakes and motive,” he says, looking at Peter. “What say you?”
Girl Watching You Page 20