She snapped a few silent photos of him, ducking back behind the house every time — but she needn’t have worried. He was so focused on the door — or whatever strange thoughts were rampaging through his mind — that she could have ridden an elephant through the yard without disturbing him. Eventually, he took a few steps forward and started trying to force the door open. Helen got a photo of that, too, for good measure — but enough was enough. She had the evidence she needed. Time to scare this guy off.
She stepped around the house and cleared her throat. That got his attention — he whipped his head around, his bloodshot eyes wide with shock.
“Who the hell are you?” he demanded, his eyes narrowing as he squared up to face her. “What are you doing in my backyard?”
“It’s not your backyard, Paul, we both know that, so cut the bullshit, hey?” she suggested levelly, feeling a pang of disgust at the lie. How dare he claim to still live here — when he’d given his ex-wife nothing but trouble their whole married life together?
“What the hell do you know about it?” He took a few menacing steps toward her.
She didn’t flinch. Her training had taught her that much — intimidation was all about attitude. If she stood like he wasn’t a threat, he wouldn’t be a threat. Simple as that. All she had to do was keep calm and quietly talk him out of this yard.
“Your ex-wife hired me to keep an eye on the place,” she said levelly, not interested in disclosing the actual nature of her profession unless she absolutely had to. “Imagine my surprise when I see someone who’s not allowed within two hundred feet of the place casually letting himself in.”
“I don’t believe you,” he snarled. Bluffing.
“That’s fine, it doesn’t matter to me whether you believe me or not.” She shrugged, lifting the camera in her hands. “Got some pretty good shots of you climbing the fence and trying to break into the back door, though. Mine’s the little black car parked across the street — good vantage point. I’d imagine there’s a judge or two who’d be quite interested in the shots I got. Do you want to see?”
“Give me that camera,” Paul said, his voice suddenly cold and ugly.
He was advancing on her — surprising. Given his profile, she’d have expected him to beg instead. He lifted his fists… and she felt a burst of quiet gratitude for the very discrete body camera she was wearing. All of this footage would be useful in getting rid of this guy for good.
“Give me the camera and I’ll let you get out of here alive.”
“Are you threatening me?” she asked for the camera’s benefit.
“Sure as hell aren’t asking you to dance, am I? Now give me that thing before I make you —”
And he lunged at her. Too slow, she thought dismissively as her body sprang automatically into action. He’d been drinking — his reflexes were dull, his tells as clear as anything. A fist came swinging toward her and she caught it, performing a deft little maneuver that threw him off-balance… then it was the work of a moment to pull him into a judo hold that would stop him from striking at her.
He yelled in surprise — but Helen was distracted by the clatter of something heavy and metallic hitting the tiled courtyard beneath their feet. Her eyes widened as she looked down — a handgun had fallen out of his jacket. From the looks of it, it was a Glock G43 — a common model, but that didn’t make it any less dangerous in the hands of a guy like this. And the hold wouldn’t last forever — she could feel him struggling against her already. Thinking fast, she kicked it hard — and grinned in satisfaction as she heard the dull splash of the gun sinking to the depths of the swimming pool. Threat neutralized, she hoped. There weren’t many handguns that would survive a dip in a pool and still be in working condition, unfortunately the Glock G43 wasn’t one of them, so she hoped he wouldn’t try to dive into the pool for it. She heard him groan when he realized what had happened.
“Trespassing on your ex-wife’s property against the terms of your restraining order — carrying a deadly weapon? You’re coming with me, buddy,” Helen said firmly, reaching down to grab the pair of handcuffs she carried for situations like this one. She’d performed plenty of citizen’s arrests in her time, and with the evidence she had against him now, delivering him straight to the police station was the best way to go about it to keep Sarah safe. But she wasn’t ready for his next move — she felt him pull away from her, and suddenly all she was holding was his jacket, and he was bolting for the side of the house.
Swearing under her breath, she pursued him, remembering with dismay that she’d left the gate unlocked — sure enough, he was bolting through it. For an older guy, he had quite a turn of speed on him, and she gritted her teeth as she dug her heels in. Good thing she was in good shape — but he knew the neighborhood better than her. She chased him a few blocks, but at some point he managed to disappear on her where a number of winding paths branched. Out of breath and frustrated, she leaned on her knees for a minute, catching her breath — this was a hilly area, and though she was in good shape, hill sprints took it out of anyone. But she refused to let herself get frustrated. Gritting her teeth, she set about conducting a thorough search of the area, working back toward Sarah’s house. She’d already sent the woman a message letting her know her ex-husband was in the area and in a potentially dangerous frame of mind — with any luck, the lawyer would take the hint to stay locked up safely inside. She considered calling the cops — but they were overworked as it was. For now, she could handle this guy on her own.
It was almost dusk by the time she found her way back to her car — and still no sign of Paul. She was about to give up the search entirely, to rely on what she’d gotten already to get the guy put away for good, when she felt a sudden impulse to check the cars along the street. Sure enough, there was a beat-up old truck a few cars behind hers that looked a little out of place… and she grinned in triumph as she approached it, seeing even before she’d reached the side of it that Paul was inside, trying to hide in the back seat.
She heard him swear and lunge across the seat toward the far door — but she was too fast. Ducking around the car, she intercepted him on his way out, using a Judo maneuver to trip him and bring him crashing down to the sidewalk with her close behind. It was the work of a moment to lock the cuffs around his wrists and haul him back to his feet.
“You have no right to do any of this,” he spat at her, his face twisted in fury. “Some upstart little bitch with no badge —"
“I’m performing a citizen’s arrest,” she cut him off, not letting her irritation color her voice at all. “You’re coming with me to the police station, where you’re more than welcome to explain to the officers why it was that you were lurking around your ex-wife’s house with a gun. It’s still in the pool, after all… unless you were stupid enough to go back and get it? Is that why you came back here? Would’ve been smarter to stay hidden until I drove away.”
“Shut up, you stupid bitch,” he snarled.
And she decided to tune out the rest. A guy like this had nothing valuable to say.
Chapter 3
He was easy enough to drag toward her car… but there was an odd reluctance in his face when she pushed him into the back seat, and suddenly she heard his tone of voice change.
“No — no, listen, you have no right to put me in your shitty car, I’m not going with you. Let me go. Come on. Let me —" He was yanking at the handcuffs, but they were solid steel — he was more likely to injure himself than to escape from them.
She shut the door behind him, already thinking ahead to the police station she was taking him to. Hopefully the officers would be glad to accept the collar from her — some guys got resentful about citizen’s arrests, seeing it as an encroachment onto their territory, but others appreciated the help with keeping the streets safe. She put on the radio, pleased by the way it drowned out her prisoner’s begging. It felt good to have finished a job like this one — she’d been worried about Sarah coming to harm.
“Seriou
sly! What about my truck? We can’t just leave it here, someone will steal it — why don’t we take my truck? Seriously. You can drive —”
“You must think I’m stupid,” she remarked, amused, as she flicked her indicator on and turned out onto the road. It was a steep drive up the side of a mountain to Sarah’s neighborhood, and Helen gave idle thought to taking a few of the turns nice and sharply to knock her passenger around a little, remind him who was in charge.
But something was wrong. As she made the first turn, she pressed on the brake pedal… and felt it give way with no resistance at all. No resistance… and no slowing of the car’s descent, either. Frowning, she pressed the brake pedal a few more times, panic beginning to rise as the car continued to pick up speed. The man in the seat behind her was frantically pulling at the locked doors of the car, and with a dizzying lurch, she felt a suspicion form as to why he’d been so unwilling to get into the back of her car.
“Did you do something to my brakes?” she demanded — but she didn’t dare take her eyes off the road. They were picking up speed as the hill got steeper, and she knew she didn’t have long before they’d reached a terminal velocity. There was no way she could steer them all the way down the hill before they were dashed to death on the rocks or went flying off the side of the hill… there was only one chance. Her handbrake. Gritting her teeth and saying a quiet prayer to any deity that was listening, she reached down and wrenched the handbrake up…
There was a squeal of metal — she could feel the car protesting furiously as the handbrake engaged. Metal fought gravity and Helen clung hard to the wheel, trying to keep the car from veering to either side… and she screamed as the wheel wrenched itself out of her hands and the car went plunging off the road and down the side of the valley. Trees whipped past the windows and she could hear Paul screaming in the back of the car — she was screaming, too, clutching at the wheel as though that would give her some control over the runaway vehicle. Then they struck a rock and the car was airborne, a sick lurch that pulled the bottom of out of her stomach. She could see the river rushing up to meet them and she screamed as her car rolled, flipped… and crashed straight into the water.
Blackness rushed in, the light rapidly fading as the car sank, and she felt icy dark water rushing in through the smashed windows, soaking her immediately. She reached down frantically to undo the seatbelt, holding her breath as the water enveloped her face, too. Her point of focus narrowed down to survival — she had to get out of this car before it sank to the bottom of the river and took her with it to a watery grave. Paul was trapped in the car, too — she thought of his handcuffs with a stab of dismay, and turned to see if she could unbuckle his seatbelt at least to give him a fighting chance…
But something was wrong. When she turned, she didn’t see her headrest, didn’t see the back seat of the car or the tall, furious man who had been sitting there. All she saw was darkness… darkness, cold water, her hair floating around her head. She turned back toward the front of the car and realized with a shock that it was gone. Gone — or just invisible, eclipsed by darkness? She reached out with one hand to where the windshield should have been, but nothing stopped her hand. She spun again, disoriented, searching for a reference point… but all she could see was darkness. All she could hear was her heartbeat, loud in her ears. No sign of Paul, or the wreckage of her car, or even the waters of the river. It no longer felt like she was suspended in water — it was something else that was around her, supporting her, keeping her in place. Something like water, but not like water… like air, but not quite air. Her hair was floating around her face as though she was underwater, but she couldn’t feel any of the pressure of the water, any of the icy cold that had shocked her system when he car had first crashed into the depths of the river…
But she wasn’t breathing. She couldn’t breathe. There was no air around her — she opened her mouth, desperate to inhale, but unable to. Panic rose up like a dark mist to claim her... something like unconsciousness passed over her, a strange, distorted, half-dreaming state in which she lost contact with her body, lost contact with her mind, floated disembodied and deeply confused for a period of time that could have been seconds or hours or years.
And in the midst of that confusion, she felt soft, warm hands on her body. Gentle hands — she knew instantly that these were the hands of a rescuer. Had someone pulled her out of the river? She fought to open her eyes, but they were so heavy… she managed only a few seconds of half-closed eyes, and the impression she received was so jumbled and confusing that she didn’t try to look at it again. She was still surrounded by darkness… but breaking it up were strange shapes composed of glowing light, shapes that almost resembled humanoid figures. At least six of them, maybe more, standing around her — the perspective was as though she was lying in a bed with the figures standing above her. They were terrifyingly tall, and composed entirely of starlight… but somehow, she didn’t feel afraid of them. In whatever bizarre dream or nightmare she was having, these creatures were benevolent. These creatures were her friends.
She couldn’t quite get her mind to obey her… it kept slipping away in an alarming way, disorienting and confusing her. Where was she? What was happening to her? Who were these strange figures surrounding her, tending to her? She had the strangest feeling that she ought to be experiencing terrible pain… but whenever she tried to look down at her body to see what the damage was (hadn’t she crashed her car? Or had that been a dream, too?) she felt her consciousness fade away. Something had to be happening… something was going on… she felt simultaneously as though she was suspended, and hurtling through some kind of fathomless void at a terrific pace…
And then somehow, the sensation of water was back. She could feel it around her body, pressing down on her, stopping her breath in her throat and sending shivers through her spine. Icy, dark water… freezing cold, colder still than the water that had rushed in through her broken windshield… and of course, there was no trace of her car here. No trace of her car, no trace of her passenger, no trace of the river… no trace, even, of the long, glowing figures who had stood over her, healing her wounds… or had they? Or had that also been a dream? Helen felt like she’d been drugged… whenever she fought her way to semi-consciousness, she could only hang onto a few seconds of lucid thinking before everything dissolved again.
But the water wasn’t dissolving. She became aware of kicking, of paddling with her arms, struggling and fighting against the water that had enveloped her. It was for all the world as though she’d fallen into a lake… she could feel the movement of the water, the currents and eddies pushing her this way and that, and as she swam, she had a sense — for the first time in a long time — that she was actually traveling somewhere. But not fast enough. Panic was rising in her chest again, the desperate, clawing need to breathe in ….
And before she could take a gulp of the icy water all around her, to her frustration she felt her consciousness dissolve again, and she was spinning idly through a dreamlike state again, no idea where she was or what was happening, fighting against her own bone-deep exhaustion and confusion. This time, she could feel the sensation of heat piercing the confusion… a kind of dizzy, sick, feverish feeling. She woke a few times, came back to her body to find it desperately weak and racked by coughing fits that left her dizzy and sent her plunging back into unconsciousness. Helen couldn’t work out how much time had passed — couldn’t stay lucid long enough to figure anything out at all. What was dream and what was reality? Had she really lost control of her car and gone plunging into a river? Or had this bizarre dream sequence begun even before that — when she had been chasing her mark through the streets? What had happened to Paul? Was he spinning, lost and confused, through a nightmarish series of visions like this one?
But as before, there were helpful figures, even in the chaos… she felt cool hands on her forehead, strong arms lifting her and turning her over, tucking a blanket around her feverish body, soothing her as she tossed and
turned in the grips of a delirium she couldn’t quite shake. She was totally disoriented, full of fear, unable to figure out where she was or who was caring for her… but she knew that someone was there, keeping watch. Someone who wanted her to be well — someone who was helping her as she tried to recover. And that little point of light in a confusing sea of darkness — that point of reference amidst the chaos — was enough for her to cling to. And slowly but surely, she could feel herself getting better. The brief snatches of lucidity got longer and longer… a few seconds here, a few minutes there. She began to piece together a likely timeline of what had happened… she must have crashed her car, passed out, been pulled from the wreckage with injuries galore, and now she was being cared for in some kind of hospital, presumably. She hoped they’d called her father — she hoped he knew she was safe.
She hoped she was safe, for that matter… that all of this wasn’t some kind of hallucination being experienced in the minutes before her death.
But no… no, she was beginning to get a sense that her body was mending. And finally, she reached a point in the process where she felt strong enough to open her eyes… and actually keep them open. Darkness was replaced for the first time in a long time with an almost overwhelming series of images, and she blinked her eyes hard a few times as she waited for her vision to focus.
A bed, that was the first thing she saw. A long bed, with the shape of her body outlined under a thick layer of blankets that was keeping her warm and cozy. Soft sheets, something rough-hewn about them… and a huge, thick quilt made of colorful patches that was providing a comforting pressure to her body. She blinked a few more times, peering beyond the decidedly unhospital-like bed. A wall of stone, no windows in it… just rough stone walls, surrounding her. In one wall, a little fireplace, where a real fire was crackling — not the artificial fires she was used to seeing in decorative hearths but a real fire, embers and all. An old wooden armchair by the fire, too — it looked like a well-worn antique, carefully polished, clearly well-used. And in the opposite wall, a door — a rough, wooden door that almost looked hand-carved. It was ajar.
Needed By The Highlander: A Scottish Time Travel Romance (Highlander Forever Book 5) Page 2