She shook her head.
“I believe Mr. McMahon's gone off to Charlotte. Haven't seen Mr. Ryan all day. Everyone else has checked out.”
Again, I heard barking.
“Has Boyd been a nuisance?”
“Dog's been ornery today. Needs exercising.” She brushed her skirt. “I'm off to church. Shall I bring dinner before I leave?”
“Please.”
Ruby's roast pork and yam pudding had a calming effect. As I ate, the panic that had sent me racing through the twilight gave way to a dismal loneliness.
I remembered the woman on Pete's phone, wondered why hearing her voice felt like a kick in the gut. I know postcoital somnolence when I hear it, but so what? Pete and I were both adults. I'd left him. He was free to see whomever he pleased.
Condemn not and ye shall rock.
I wondered how I really felt about Ryan. I knew he was a bastard, but at least he was a winsome bastard, though I could do without his smoking. He was smart. He was funny. He was dizzyingly handsome, but completely unaware of his effect on women. And he cared about people.
Lots of people.
Like Danielle.
So why had Ryan's number been one of the first I'd started to dial? Was it just that he was nearby, or was he more than a colleague, a person I would think of for protection or comfort?
I remembered Primrose and was again flattened with remorse. I'd involved my friend and now she was dead. I'd gotten her killed. The guilt was crushing, and I was sure it would follow me the rest of my life.
Enough. Read the letter Ruby brought. It will thank you for the lecture and say it was splendid.
It did. The envelope also contained a copy of the student newsletter with its photo of me and Simon Midkiff. To say I looked tense would be like saying Olive Oyl was on the thin side.
But Simon Midkiff took best of show. I studied his face, wondering what had been in his mind that day. Had he been sent to pump me for information? Had he come on his own? My scientific colleagues often attend one another's lectures. Was it he who had faxed me the code name list? If so, why would he divulge his complicity?
My musings were interrupted by a sharp yip, followed by another.
Poor Boyd. He was the only being on the planet whose loyalty never wavered, and I ignored him. I checked my watch. Eight-twenty. Time for a quick run before Crowe arrived at nine.
I locked my computer and briefcase in the wardrobe in case Eli decided on a return engagement. Then I threw on my jacket, grabbed flashlight and leash, and headed downstairs.
Night had taken full control, ushering in a zillion stars but no moon. The porch lights did little to dispel the darkness. As I crossed the lawn, my limbic system began firing questions.
What if someone is watching?
Like Eli the Avenging Adolescent?
What if the call was not a prank?
Don't be melodramatic, I reasoned. It's the weekend after Halloween, and kids are kicking up their heels. You left messages with McMahon and Crowe.
What if they don't check?
The sheriff will be here in forty minutes.
A stalker might be out there right now.
What could happen in the company of a seventy-pound chow?
That seventy-pound chow yipped again, and I sprinted the last few yards to his pen. Hearing footsteps, he placed forepaws on the chain-linking and raised himself to a bipedal stance.
When he recognized me, Boyd went ballistic, pushing back, bounding forward, jumping up, and pushing off the fence again. He repeated the cycle several times, like a hamster on a wheel, then stood again on hind feet, threw back his head, and barked steadily.
Saying doggy things, I ruffled his ears and clipped on the leash. He nearly dragged me chowside in his lunge toward the gate.
“We're only going to the end of the property,” I warned, leveling a finger at his nose.
He cocked his head, twirled the brows, and yipped once. When I lifted the latch, he bounded out and raced in circles, nearly toppling me.
“I envy your energy, Boyd.”
He lapped my face as I disentangled the leash from between his legs, then we started up the road. Light from the porch barely reached the edge of the lawn, and within ten yards I clicked on my flash. Boyd stopped and growled.
“It's a flashlight, boy.”
I reached down and patted his shoulder. He rotated his head and licked my hand, then doubled back, did a little dance, and pressed his body against my legs.
I was about to move on when I felt him tense. His head dropped, his breathing changed, and a low rumble rose from his throat. He did not respond to my touch.
“What is it, boy?”
More rumbling.
“Not another dead squirrel.”
I reached out to stroke him and felt hackles. Not good. I tugged the leash.
“Come on, boy, we're turning back.”
He would not move.
“Boyd.”
The growl grew deeper, more savage.
I aimed my light where Boyd was staring. The beam crawled over tree trunks and was sucked into dead zones of blackness between.
I yanked the leash harder. Boyd whipped left and barked. I swept my light in that direction.
“This isn't funny, dog.”
Then my eyes made out a form. Or had it been a trick of shadow? In the moment I glanced down at Boyd, what I thought I'd seen vanished. Or had it been there at all?
“Who's there?” Fear crimped my voice.
Nothing but crickets and frogs. A fallen tree lodged against one still standing groaned and creaked in the air.
Suddenly I heard movement behind me. Footfalls. The rustling of leaves.
Boyd turned and snapped, lunging as far as the leash would allow.
“Who's there?” I repeated.
A silhouette emerged from the trees, denser than the surrounding night. Boyd snarled and tore at the leash. The dark shape moved toward us.
“Who is it?”
No answer.
I thrust the flashlight and leash into one hand and reached for my cell phone with the other. Before I could autodial, it slipped from my shaking fingers.
“Stay back!” It was almost a shriek.
I raised the light to shoulder level. As I was readjusting the leash for better control, about to reach for the phone, my grip loosened. Boyd broke free and charged, teeth gleaming, a fierce growl rumbling from his throat.
In an instant the silhouette altered shape. An arm uncurled.
Boyd leaped.
A flash. A deafening crack.
The dog bounced off the silhouette, dropped to the ground, whimpered, and lay still.
“Boyd!”
Tears ran down my cheeks. I wanted to tell him I'd take care of him. Tell him he'd be all right, but my body was paralyzed with fear, and no words came from my mouth.
The form moved swiftly toward me now. I turned to run. Hands grabbed me. I twisted, wrenched free. The shadow coalesced into a man.
He hit me with his full weight, his shoulder beneath my armpit. The shock of the impact sent me falling sideways.
The last thing I remembered was breath on my face, sprawling. Then the crack of my skull against igneous rock.
The dream was frightening. An airless place. I couldn't move. I couldn't see. Then something stroked my cheek.
I opened my eyes to a reality more hellish than any nightmare.
My mouth was stuffed and wrapped with tape. I was blindfolded.
My heart shrank in my chest.
I can't breathe!
I tried raising a hand to my face. My wrists were tied over my chest.
The rag filled my mouth with an acrid taste. A tremor began below my tongue.
I'm going to vomit! I'm going to choke!
I felt panic, began to shake.
Move!
I tried shifting, and a cocoon of fabric moved with me. I smelled dust and mildew and spoiled vegetation.
I kicked out, thrust
with my head.
The movement shot arrows through my brain. I lay still, waiting for the pain to subside.
Breathe through your nose. In. Out. In. Out.
The throbbing lessened slightly.
Think!
I was imprisoned in some sort of bag. My hands and feet were bound. But where was I? How had I gotten here?
Disjointed memories. The morgue. The empty county road. Ruby's troubled face. Primrose Hobbs.
Boyd!
Oh, dear God. Not Boyd! Had I killed the dog, too?
In. Out.
I rolled my head and felt a lump the size of a plum. Another wave of nausea.
In. Out.
More synapses.
The attack. The faceless form.
Simon Midkiff? Frank Battle? Could my captor be the moron magistrate?
I twisted my wrists, trying to loosen the tape. More nausea.
Clamping my teeth, I rolled onto my side. If I did vomit, I didn't want to aspirate the contents.
The movement made my stomach heave. I filled my lungs and the contractions receded.
I lay rigid, listening. I had no idea how long I'd been unconscious, or how I'd arrived at my present location. Was I still in the woods at High Ridge House? Had I been taken elsewhere? Was my attacker just feet away?
My heart rate slowed by a nanosecond, and cogent thought began to creep back.
It was then the thing crawled across my cheek. I heard dry insect sounds, felt movement in my hair, then the tickle of antennae on my skin.
A scream formed in my throat. I rolled back and forth, batting at my face, my hair. Blinding pain seared my brain, and my innards jammed up against the back of my throat.
Quiet! One functioning brain cell commanded.
Cockroaches! The others shrieked.
I tugged at my jacket, tried to pull it up over my head. It wouldn't go.
Lie still!
My heart hammered the order against my ribs.
Be still. Be still. Be still.
Slowly, I calmed, and reason returned.
Get out.
Run.
But not into another trap.
Think.
Listen.
Bare branches hissing in the wind. A chirp. Leaves skittering across the ground.
Forest sounds.
I peeled back a layer of sound.
Water swirling around rocks.
River sounds.
Another layer.
Far away and barely there, a loonlike wail followed by a strange giggle.
Gooseflesh spread across my arms and up my throat.
I knew where I was.
I STRAINED, BARELY BREATHING. HAD I REALLY HEARD WHAT I thought I had? Minutes crept by. Doubt crept in. Then it sounded again, faint and surreal.
An undulating moan, a high-pitched laugh.
The electric skeleton!
I was not far from the Riverbank Inn. Where Primrose had stayed. Where she had never been seen again.
I pictured Primrose's bloated face, saw the gouges left by underwater feeders.
I lay bound, gagged, and blindfolded in a sack beside the Tuckasegee River!
I had to break free!
My skull pounded from its encounter with the rock. The rag cut off my air, and tasted of garbage and filth. The duct tape burned my cheeks and lips, and fired splinters of light up my optic nerve.
And I could hear the swish of roaches on my nylon jacket, feel their movement in my hair and on my jeans.
My thoughts flew in a thousand directions.
Again, I listened. Hearing no indicators of a human presence, I began manipulating my bindings, breathing steadily through my nose.
My stomach swirled, my mouth grew dry.
Millennia passed. The tape loosened a millimeter.
Tears of frustration welled behind my mashed lids.
No weeping!
I kept at my ankles and wrists, yanking, twisting, tugging, stopping periodically to monitor for sound outside my bag.
Roaches scuttled across my face, their feet feathery on my skin.
Go away! I screamed in my mind. Get the fuck off!
I struggled on. Sweat dampened my hair.
My mind soared like a nocturnal bird, and I looked down on myself, a helpless larva on the forest floor. I pictured the blackness around me and wished for the safety of a familiar night haven.
A twenty-four-hour coffee shop. A tollbooth. A precinct house. A nurses' station in a sleeping ward. An ER.
Then I remembered.
The scalpel!
Could I reach it?
I drew my knees to my chest, scrunching the hem of my jacket as far up as possible. Then I jerked my elbows across the nylon, raising my hips each time. Blindly I inched the pocket forward, gauging its progress by touch.
Reading my clothing like a Braille map, I located the nylon loop attached to the pull tab and grasped it between the fingertips of both hands.
I held my breath, applied downward pressure.
My fingers slid down the nylon and off the end.
Damn!
I tried again, with the same result.
Over and over I repeated the maneuver, fishing, squeezing, pulling, until my hand cramped and I wanted to scream.
New plan.
Pressing the zipper tab to my thigh with the back of my left hand, I bent my right wrist and tried to hook a finger through the loop. The angle was too shallow.
I bent my hand farther. No go.
Using the fingers of my left hand, I placed pressure on my right, increasing the backward angle. Pain screamed up the tendons of my forearm.
As I thought my bones would snap, my index finger found the loop and slipped through. I tugged gently. The tab gave, and my bound wrists followed it down. With the zipper open, it was easy to slide the fingers of one hand into the pocket and withdraw the scalpel.
Carefully cradling my prize, I rolled onto my back and wedged the instrument against my stomach. Then I peeled off the napkin by rolling the scalpel between my hands. Rotating the blade toward my body, I began sawing the tape that bound my wrists. The scalpel was razor sharp.
Easy. Careful. Don't carve your wrist.
In less than a minute my hands were free. I reached up and tore the bindings from my lips. Flames raced across my face.
Don't scream!
I yanked the rag from my mouth, alternately gulped air and spat. Gagging on my own foul saliva, I sliced through the blindfold circling my head and ripped it from my eyes.
Another burst of fire as skin and some eyebrows went with the tape. With shaking hands, I reached down and freed my ankles.
I was slashing at the bag when a sound paralyzed my arm.
The chunk of a car door!
How far away? What to do? Play dead?
My arm flew, a piston driven by a will of its own.
Feet rustled through leaves. My mind calibrated.
Fifty yards.
I jabbed at the canvas. Up, down. Up, down.
The rustling grew louder.
Thirty yards.
I thrust my boots into the opening, thrashed out with all my strength. The tearing sounded like a shriek in the stillness.
The rustling paused, resumed, faster, more reckless.
Twenty yards.
Fifteen.
“Hold it right there.”
I pictured the gun, felt bullets slam into my flesh. It didn't matter. I'd either be dead now or dead later. Better to make a fight of it while there was still the chance to resist.
“Don't move.”
I flipped around, grabbed the edges I'd torn, and pulled with both hands. Then I lunged headfirst through the opening, tumbled facedown, rolled onto my feet, and stood on rubber legs, trying to focus.
“Madam, you are dead.”
I bolted away from the sound of the voice.
Keeping the gurgling of the river to my left, I ran through darkness dense as an endless tunnel, one arm in front of my face. O
bstacles leaped at me without warning, forcing my feet on a zigzag path.
Again and again I stumbled on some form of planetary rubble. A rock older than life itself. A fallen trunk. A dead branch. I kept my balance. Burning fear gave rise to strength and speed.
The things of the night seemed to go silent. I heard no buzzing, no chirping, no padding of feet, just my own rasping breath. Behind me, footfalls, thrashing like some giant woodland beast.
Sweat soaked my clothing. Blood pounded in my ears.
My pursuer stayed with me, neither closing in nor falling back. Was he working a home court advantage? Was he the cat, I his mouse? Was he biding his time, confident the prey would be his?
My lungs burned, unable to take in enough air. A stabbing pain ripped my left side. Still, the blind urge to run.
One minute. Three. An eternity.
Then the muscles of my right thigh cramped. I slowed to a limping lope.
The cat slowed, too.
I tried to push on. It was no good. My legs and arms were going dead.
My pace dropped to a trot. Sweat trickled from my forehead and burned my eyes.
I saw the outline of a dark shape in front of my face. My outstretched hand slammed something solid. My elbow folded, and my cheek hit hard. Pain shot through my wrist. Blood moistened my palm and cheek.
With my good hand, I reached out and explored. Solid rock.
I probed farther.
More rock.
My heart shriveled.
I'd run up against a cliff wall. Water to my left. Dense trees to my right.
The cat knew. I had nowhere to go.
Don't panic!
I pulled out the scalpel and held it behind me. Then I turned, back to the wall, and faced my attacker.
He spoke before I saw him.
“Bad routing.”
He was breathing hard, and I could smell the rancid odor of sweat and rage.
“Stay away from me!” I yelled with more bravado than I felt.
“Why should I do that?” Taunting.
I knew that voice. The caller at the morgue. But I'd also heard it in person. Where?
Crunching, then a black cutout appeared in the darkness.
“Don't take one step closer,” I hissed.
“You're in an odd position to give orders.”
“Come near me and I'll kill you.” I grasped the scalpel like a lifeline.
“The proverbial rock and hard place, I'd call it.”
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