Night Prey

by Carol Davis Luce

  Roberta stood on the deck, facing the lake. Jake hoisted himself up on the railing, then pulled Robbi in between his legs. She wrapped her arms around his waist.

  “I’m scared,” she said.

  “If you want to move on, just say the word.” Jake gently lifted a long strand of her hair that had caught on her eyelashes and brushed it back.

  “I’m so tired.”

  “We’ll stay the night, then.”

  “Jake, do you think Carl found Maggie’s killer? Or that the killer found Carl?”

  “I don’t know, hon.”

  Roberta covered Jake’s hand. She felt a raised ridge on his palm. She turned his hand over and gingerly ran her finger over the scar. “What happened here?”

  “Someone I once loved cut me.”

  “Tell me,” she said quietly.

  Jake absently rubbed the scar as he told Roberta about meeting Susan Calla and the chaotic relationship that followed. Then: “After nearly two years of being subjected to her psychosis, I begged her to get counseling. She refused. Out of desperation I threatened to have her committed. It was nothing more than an idle threat, but I hoped it would push her in the right direction. In a blind rage she attacked me with a boning knife.”

  “What happened to her?”

  Jake swallowed, rubbed hard at his palm. “She killed herself... used the same knife. She bled ...” His words trailed off.

  She kissed him, light, tender.

  They held each other, said nothing for the longest time.

  Then, gazing into her eyes, Jake said softly, “I love you.”

  “Jake ...”

  “So much it hurts.”

  “That’s good.” She embraced him tightly. “I hate to love alone.”

  Avondale crossed the street to a pay phone. Time to check in with his partner.

  Clark came on the line. “We got fingerprints, all kinds of fingerprints. We got blood, two different sources, so one specimen probably belongs to the perp.”

  “Yeah, makes sense. The bullet wound from the Lerner killing. As far as we know, he never had it medically treated,” Avondale said. An involuntary shiver seized him. “Jesus, this guy’s something. He’s no longer being cautious. He must want this Paxton woman pretty bad.”

  “Where are you?” Clark asked.

  “Incline. I just talked to Paxton and the doctor.”

  “She have anything to add?”

  “Yeah, only she didn’t know it. She had no contact with this guy in the usual psychic way. But she dreamed about a tornado and a dead boy.”

  After a long pause, Clark said, “Scary shit. We’re checking with hospitals in at least six states.”

  “Hospitals?”

  “Mental hospitals. With those seizures, our guy could be certified.”

  The news did nothing to lighten Avondale’s dark spirit. A mental case. The worst kind to deal with.

  “I’m going to hang around here a little longer in case she tries to run. I’ll check back with you in a couple of hours.”

  Three hours later Avondale again crossed the street and made a call to his partner. An excited Clark got on the line. “Eureka, we made him!”

  “No shit?” Avondale said, his own voice high and excited. “Give it to me.”

  “Joseph Eckker,” Clark said. “We’re still waiting for the DNA results, but the fingerprints paid off. No aliases. Thirty-five. Felon. Four years ago he scaled the fence at the Lompoc Federal Penitentiary.”

  “Escaped?” Avondale said incredulously, patting his empty breast pocket. Right now he’d kill for a cigarette. “That’s fucking maximum security.”

  “He had another con cut themselves out, then took a walk on a foggy night. The other one got caught right away. Eckker had a habit of going on the lam. Five other times from various prisons and correctional institutions. I’m looking at a picture of him right now. Came over the fax. Big dude. And not real pretty.”

  “Any relatives?”

  “Father unknown. Mother murdered by a boyfriend or a John when he was just a kid. After her death he was raised by grandparents on a farm in northern California.”

  “What would bring Eckker to these parts?”

  “I’ve been asking myself that.”

  “You have a file on him?”

  “A thick one.”

  Avondale looked around him. The sun had set, yet complete darkness was a ways off. He wanted to know everything there was to know about Joseph Eckker.

  “Brief me.”

  Eckker sat parked on the other side of the lane on Lake Shore Drive, in the opposite direction of the Hyatt Regency Hotel, where the cop had positioned himself. He smiled. At a point in the middle sat his prey, waiting for him.

  It had been so easy. He had broken the window and entered the house of the woman with the noisy car. From her bedroom he’d heard the cop at the door say he wanted to talk to Roberta Paxton in person. He had only to follow the cop.

  She was just down that short, narrow lane. Soon he’d pay her a visit.

  Avondale clutched the receiver. Clark’s information had the hair on the back of his neck rising.

  Avondale caught a flash of a white car as it turned the corner at the intersection and disappeared behind a Trailways bus. He whipped around, clanking the receiver against the metal hood of the phone booth. Were they running? Jesus, he couldn’t lose them.

  The car reappeared in front of the bus and Avondale was relieved to see it wasn’t Dr. Reynolds’ classic T-bird.

  “I’m going back to talk to Paxton. Check with you later.”

  The bright flashing lights of the hotel casino across the street seemed at odds with the peaceful pine-dotted splendor of the mountain on which it stood. It was fully dark now.

  Avondale went into a convenience store and bought two packs of Pall Malls.

  FORTY-FIVE

  Jake walked up from the dock in the dark. A hundred yards from the house he looked up to see Roberta at the bay window, watching him approach.

  He gripped the flare gun he’d retrieved from his boat. He’d had to resort to a flare gun, but it was better than no gun at all. For the first time in his life he wished he had an honest-to-God gun, something big and powerful like the cannon Dirty Harry carried. Or a sawed-off shotgun, or one of those outlawed assault rifles. Right now nothing could be too big or too commanding.

  As he neared the deck, Jake thought he heard the purring sound of an idling car. He slowed, slipping his finger into the trigger guard of the flare gun.

  The sound died suddenly. Jake paused, listened, hearing only the water lapping at the boat and dock pilings. He veered off the road and slipped into the woods. With a pounding heart he moved furtively from tree to tree. Midway down the road, parked fully on the shoulder, was a light green car, whipcord antenna catching the light from a house across the way.

  The beating of Jake’s heart steadied. He felt his muscles relax and he smiled. Avondale. He should have known. He was either staking out the place or making sure they didn’t hit the road without a forwarding address. The detective’s presence was okay by Jake. At least Avondale had a gun with real bullets and knew how to use it.

  Jake turned and, as quietly as he could, made his way back to the house.

  The utter silence unnerved Avondale. He had cut his engine, and except for the diffused lights of a house in the woods off to his right, it was dark and quiet.

  Only a moment before he thought he’d seen someone wandering around in the dark. The sound of a branch snapping to his left had goose bumps popping out along his arms. Another crack, then steps, slow and deliberate. Avondale mashed his cigarette out in the ashtray and pulled his .45 from the halter holster. He opened the door and slipped out, closing the door without latching it.

  Someone or something was out there in the trees. Man or beast? As he neared the doctor’s house, twigs snapped sharply under his feet. A frog croaked a moment later, and he welcomed the sound. Shadows stood like black giants, crisscrossing one ano
ther. Spiked fingers plucked his shirt-sleeves and ruffled his hair.

  He stopped, listened, then moved on. The outline of the house and dock materialized through the tall ponderosa pines. He hadn’t run into anyone, nor had he heard movement other than his own since he left his car. Probably deer or, with his rotten luck, it’d be a rabid skunk, both ends ready to rip.

  Within a hundred feet of the house, still in the shadow of the trees, he looked up to see a light in the living room go on. Roberta Paxton stood at the window looking out. A man came up behind her, his arms reaching around to envelop her. She closed her eyes and leaned into him trustfully.

  Avondale watched, feeling guilty about his unintended voyeurism, yet powerless to move. The doctor, his arms crossed at her breasts, nuzzled her neck and kissed her jaw and throat. She turned her head until their lips met.

  Avondale felt a faint stirring. When was the last time he had kissed a woman like that? Or even had the desire to? Two years, five years? Hookers cared nothing for kisses. The last woman he had kissed, really kissed, had been in the evidence room at the station. Officer Cortney had followed him in and, taking his icy hand in her soft warm one, had led him to the back of the room, behind the tall stacks, where she had ...

  Robbi turned in Jake’s embrace, her arms reaching up to weave into the thick hair at the back of his neck. She felt so secure in his arms. Only a few minutes earlier she had watched as he came up the path from the dock, heading for the house, then suddenly he was gone. Panic had seized her. She had wanted to run outside, calling his name. And a few minutes later, when he opened the door and came in, she’d gone weak with relief. Fear, she realized, was making her crazy.

  Now he was holding her, telling her not to be afraid. Telling her that they had police protection whether they wanted it or not and he had a gun of sorts and she didn’t care as long as he was with her and then, against her will, she was pulling away, leaving his warm body, leaving her own body and moving backward, backward, backward, seeing Jake and herself entwined in the living room, their images through the window growing smaller with the distancing.

  She was out in the woods. She saw a man—Avondale, the cresting waves in his hair catching the light in a serpentine pattern—standing in the trees, staring into the house at her and Jake. What was happening?

  Someone else was out there, closing in on the unsuspecting man.

  A metal bar rose above Avondale’s head, then came down just as the detective whirled around. The bar crashed down on his shoulder. He cried out, staggered. His eyes, filled with agony, met the eyes of his attacker. He tried to raise the gun. The bar grazed the side of his head before smashing down on his other shoulder.

  Avondale dropped to his knees, the gun locked in his long, thin fingers. He seemed unsure what it was, or what to do with it. He looked upward again, but did not blink or flinch when the bar came down solidly and with such force that it seemed to disappear into the deep, dark waves of hair. A sickening gurgle came from the dying man. Still on his knees, he fell forward, the gun buried beneath his chest, his forehead resting on the rapidly darkening carpet of pine needles.

  Roberta moaned.

  Jake held her tight. “Robbi?”

  “Avondale,” she whispered hoarsely.

  “He’s down the street in his car. I’ll signal him.”

  “No!” Robbi cried out, grabbing hold of Jake fiercely. “Avondale’s dead. He ... he—oh, God, he just killed him.’’

  “Are you sure?”

  “I saw it.”

  “Then he’s here—right here?”

  “Yes. Hurry, hurry, we have to get out—now.”

  Jake snatched up the phone, slammed it back down. “Dead,” he muttered.

  He doused the lights, grabbed the flare gun, took her hand, and led her to the back door. Before opening the door, he lifted a key from a peg on the wall, pulled Robbi close, and pressed the key into her hand.

  “Run for the dock. He’ll expect us to take the car. Do you know how to run the boat?”

  “I’m not going without you,” she said vehemently.

  “If we get separated, or anything happens to me, get to the boat and get the hell out of here.”

  “Oh, Jake—”

  “Do it,” he growled.

  She nodded.

  Jake quietly unlocked the door. The ensuing silence was nerve-racking. The killer stalked the house. He was out there, very close. What was he waiting for? Would he charge in, crashing through the door like an enraged beast, or was he biding his time, waiting for them to go out to him?

  “Where is he?” her voice near hysteria.

  Jake gave her a brief but meaningful kiss, looked into her eyes. “Ready?”

  She nodded.

  He lifted the flare gun, opened the door, and whispered, “Go!”

  Together they charged out. They ran along the narrow path, looking neither left or right, intent on getting to the boat. At the end of the dock she turned, saw the big man crossing the sandy beach behind them.

  Jake grabbed Robbi’s arm and lowered her down into the speedboat. He threw off the rope, ordered her to start the engine.

  She scrambled over the seat, dropped down behind the wheel, and, with trembling fingers, shoved the key in and turned it. The engine roared.

  Jake had one leg over the dock ladder when the killer reached him, grabbed the back of his neck, and flung him to the dock.

  Jake rolled, the flare gun flew from his hand, then spun along the weathered planks, stopping inches from the edge. Jake leapt for the boat, but a massive arm knocked him back. The giant was on his knees, his long arm stretched out, fingertips brushing at the ends of Robbi’s hair.

  Jake dove for the gun. The big man threw out an arm, barring his way. He abandoned his pursuit of Robbi and turned back to Jake.

  “Robbi, go!” Jake yelled out. “Dammit, go!”

  The engine roared. The man turned, arms spread out as though to seize both victims. The killer frantically pawed the air over the boat as it pulled away from the pilings.

  Robbi saw Jake’s fingers close around the flare gun a moment before he rolled, toppling over the side of the dock into the water.

  She cleared the dock, sped straight out toward the middle of the lake, then turned the wheel sharply. Jake was in that freezing water, and soon his body would become numb, making it impossible to swim or save himself.

  She looked back to see Jake pulling himself through the water ten feet from the dock, his strokes strong. Her plan had been to circle, come in as close to him as possible, but she’d miscalculated, turned too soon. She realized that the boat, unable to cut sharp enough, would pass within reach of the dock.

  The killer stood midway down the ladder, waiting.

  Robbi hit the throttle full. The boat broadsided a piling with enough force to jar the dock and throw the big man off balance. He threw both arms around the ladder.

  The impact slammed her against the steering wheel, knocking the wind out of her.

  Jake, caught between the boat and the giant, flung an arm over the bow and attempted to pull himself up. Unable to help him, she watched in frozen horror as their attacker, looming over him like a tidal wave, caught hold of his ankle, lifting him up and away.

  Robbi screamed, grabbed Jake’s hand, and held on.

  “Reverse!” Jake called out hoarsely.

  Robbi pulled back the throttle. The boat hit the dock again, causing the killer to loosen his grip just long enough for Jake to hurl himself into the boat. He landed on his back in one of the aft seats. His ankle was seized again, but now Jake had the advantage of leverage. He kicked out, catching the man squarely in the throat with his heel. A low grunt was the only sign that the blow had any effect on him. And now the massive hand that held his ankle was squeezing, twisting it savagely.

  Jake groaned, trying to turn with the force to keep it from snapping in two. His face was contorted with pain, he struggled with the flare gun, finally bringing it up, and, with stiff finger
s, he fired.

  A boom, a whooshing brilliant flash, and flying sparks told her that the projectile had hit its mark. Robbi heard something like a growl, followed by a string of curses. The giant raised a blackened, bloody hand with several digits missing. He stared at the spurting wound. Releasing his hold on Jake’s ankle, he gripped the wrist of this grotesque, defiled appendage.

  Frantically, Robbi thrust the throttle full forward. With a tremendous roar the boat shot away from the dock, leaving behind the howling beast swaying at its side.

  He howled in pain and rage. With his arm between the rungs of the ladder, he grasped his bloody wrist and watched as the boat with its two passengers grew smaller and smaller on the lake’s black surface.

  A moment later he climbed the ladder to the dock. Holding his left wrist tightly to abate the flow of blood, he strode down the dock to the sandy shore. At a point where the sand blended with the mountain soil, he reached down and buried his scorched, mangled hand in the dirt. Two fingers were missing, the little one entirely, and the ring finger at the second joint. After several moments he pulled it out. Powdery dirt and sand thickly caked the flat stumps. He repeated the process until the blood no longer poured from the wound.

  On his way back to his truck he wound around behind the house and stared down at the dead cop.

  He then went through the open back door into the house. He saw little of interest there until he found her purse. That he took with him.

  After docking at the public marina in Kings Beach, Jake, shivering uncontrollably, dropped coins into a pay phone at the 7 Eleven. He placed a call to the Reno PD. Clark, Avondale’s partner, came on the line.

  Jake told him what had happened.

  Clark swore. “You saw him kill Avondale?”

  “No. Robbi saw it clairvoyantly. He had parked midway on the lane. He must’ve walked through the trees to the house. Look, check it out for yourself.”

  There were a few minutes while this information was being assimilated, then passed on. A moment later Clark said solemnly, “Units are on their way now. Where are you?”