by Lisa Jackson
“Just try it,” she muttered, turning on the wipers as the mist thickened.
What she didn’t need was a man-any man-complicating things. Her emotions were twisted enough as it was with her attraction to Zachary. She cringed when she thought how close she’d come to making love to him. How much she’d wanted him.
She’d even told herself that she’d just been overreacting because of the stalker, but it was more than that. Much more, and dangerously unthinkable.
Her headache throbbed when she considered what might have happened, would have happened, if he hadn’t come to his senses and broken off the embrace.
“Idiot,” she muttered, and she didn’t know if she was talking about him or herself. “Pull yourself together.”
As she rounded a final corner just outside of the Estacada city limits, she saw the sign for the Fir Glen Motel flickering in green neon. Pink letters announced that there was a vacancy at the little motel.
Zach’s Jeep wasn’t parked in its usual spot and her heart dropped. Which was just plain stupid. Yes, it was reassuring that he was just next door, but more than that, she was starting to rely on him, to care about him, to think of him in terms that crossed all sorts of barriers. Sometimes she wished she wasn’t London. That would solve some problems.
But it still wouldn’t resolve whatever feelings he still harbored for Kat. Once in a while Adria would catch him staring at her and she was certain he didn’t see her at all, but was caught up in memories of another woman, the woman she thought was her mother.
What a mess! She pulled into the bumpy lot and settled for a parking spot not far from the front door of her sorry little unit. The drab motel was L-shaped, a single door and window for each unit facing the parking lot. Most of the windows were dark, only a few boasting slivers of light visible through the drawn shades.
She cut the engine and stepped outside, where the mountain air was damp and heavy against her skin as she locked her car and headed toward her motel room.
Home sweet home, she thought as the wind caught in her hair and a rattling truck rumbled past. Again she felt as if she were being observed, that someone was lurking in the shadows, unseen eyes ever vigilant. Her skin crawled and she turned quickly, half expecting someone to jump out of the darkness.
But no one appeared.
And aside from the occasional car on the road, the night was still, the mist thick.
“Get a grip,” she muttered, but before she walked into her unit, she swept her gaze over the parking lot. Nothing was amiss. She recognized the owner’s battered Chevy Suburban and saw the bluish glow of a television in the window of the office. The few other vehicles looked deserted for the night.
She took a step toward her door and heard no heavy breathing or footsteps scraping behind her. She was alone. Unnerved, but alone.
She thought about the package she’d received. The dead rat with her own locket wrapped around its throat.
She thought about the hotel room at the Orion with its mutilated picture of her and smeared blood.
She thought about the fact that the Polidoris, Zach, and the police knew where she was staying.
Slowly, her nerves tight as piano wires, she pushed her key into its lock and swung the door open. It creaked and banged against the far wall.
She stepped inside and reached for the light switch.
Click.
Nothing happened.
The room was still dark as night.
Every hair on her arms stood straight on end. “What the-?”
She heard it then, the sound of heavy breathing, laborious breathing. She turned, but it was too late. She saw a shadow, a dark figure raise its hand. She feinted right and something hard slammed down on her head.
Crack!
For a second the world went black. Pain blasted through her skull. Her knees wobbled and she fell against the door frame. She tried to scream but a hand was on her throat, cutting off her air, forcing her downward to slither down the wall. She kicked and clawed, gasping, trying to scream, attempting to fight.
“You never learn, do you, bitch?” her attacker growled as Adria swung hard with her fist, flailing in the direction of the sound, all the while trying to drag in air, her lungs on fire. She saw only a glimpse of a face, hidden by a mask, as her attacker struck again, pounding the side of her head. “Leave before it’s too late,” the voice-a voice she’d heard before, she thought weakly-warned before raising the heavy object again.
Adria saw the blow coming, lifted an arm, and as the attacker swung, the hand on her throat loosened. Adria screamed and rolled. The object slammed into the wall, crashing through the plaster, then glanced against the side of her head. The room spun and she nearly lost consciousness, but not before she let out another hoarse, painful scream. A gloved hand covered her mouth and a cloyingly sweet smell assailed her nostrils. Adria clamped down hard with her teeth.
Her assailant let out a hiss of pain and let go. Adria was ready. She moved quickly and screamed again for help. She was almost free! Kicking madly, inching toward the door, she yelled just as, from the corner of her eye, she saw it coming. The same dark object aimed at her face. She recoiled, holding her arm over her head.
Smack!
Pain exploded through her skull and she thought she might pass out completely just as she heard the faint, faraway sound of a siren splitting the night.
Faintly, she heard a door open and a man’s’ voice yell, “Hey, what’s going on?”
Her attacker froze. Adria clawed her way to a sitting position. “Help me!”
A kick landed in her chest. Painful and crushing, the blow made her wretch and curl into a protective ball.
“You goddamned bitch!” Breathing hard and limping, the intruder climbed off her and scrambled with an uneven gait through the door. Gasping, the metallic taste of blood in her throat, Adria struggled upright and crawled to the threshold. Just one look, that’s all she needed, and she was sure she could identify the intruder. It was someone she’d met, she was certain of it, but the ache in her gut prevented her from thinking clearly and the edges of her vision blurred as if she might black out. She tried to concentrate, to hold on to consciousness as the attacker fled through the shadows of the huge trees surrounding the motel.
She took in deep breaths and held on to the door casing in a death grip as she squinted into the night. She saw the stars, and lights switching on in nearby units, but her attacker had disappeared. Damn it all, she thought as she spit blood onto the porch. She tried to yell again, but could make no sound.
A second door opened, just two doors down. Light spilled onto the small porch.
“Hey, you! Hey, are you all right?” A male voice. Unfamiliar. She drew in a long, painful breath.
Footsteps. Crunching on gravel. Running in her direction. Ready to kick her again. She cringed. A man loomed over her as the lights in the unit blazed on. Her stomach heaved suddenly and she retched.
“Oh, shit,” he said, looking around the small room before bending on one knee. “Now, don’t move, miss, you’re hurt!” She squinted up at him, but couldn’t make out his features as he turned toward the open door. “Marge!” he bellowed in a voice that pounded through her brain. “Marge, wake up the manager and call 911!”
“What?” a woman’s voice screamed back as doors creaked open and banged closed, rattling the loose windows in their panes. The man knelt beside her again. “Now you just lay still, help’s on its way.”
Voices filtered in through the open door and pierced Adria’s pain-racked brain.
“What the hell’s going on?” a woman asked.
“Hey, shut up! People are trying to sleep over here!” A man this time.
“Holy shit, what’s going on in unit thirteen?” A younger man. “Mary, come look at this, will ya?”
“Don’t get involved.” Mary wasn’t too willing to help out.
Adria blinked and tried to stay conscious. There was something familiar about the attacker, familiar and h
orrible and…it teased the edge of her consciousness. What was it? Who was he?
“Hey, lady, I don’t know what happened here, but it looks bad,” the man who was tending to her said.
She lifted her hand to the back of her head and felt sticky blood matting her hair. Groaning, she pulled herself upright, her eyes squinting, trying to get used to the bright lights. As she did, her heart squeezed in fear. The room had been destroyed. Chairs turned over, the television set smashed, sheets torn and ripped from the bed, as if someone had been in a fury so wild-so blind, he’d needed to lash out at something, anything, to vent his rage. On the mirror over the bureau, scribbled in a grease pen’s bold black letters, was a simple and horrifying message: DEATH TO THE BITCH.
Worse yet, tossed onto the bare mattress was a pair of black panties, the pair she’d had stolen; it was shredded, as if sliced over and over again by a razor.
“Oh, God.” She felt suddenly sick again and the room seemed to spin around her. Her nose and mouth tasted foul, and she had to fight against the overwhelming sensation that evil still lurked beneath the bed or behind the curtains.
“What’s going on here?” the man asked. “No-wait. You just lie still. Don’t talk. Save it for the police.”
Footsteps. Shouts. People closing in, some curious, some concerned. She hurt so badly she didn’t care.
“Sumbitch, would you look at that!”
“Did someone call the frickin’ ambulance?”
“Hell, yes, but Jesus H. Christ, it looks like a bear came in here and went on a rampage.”
“Yeah, sure, and now bears cut up underpants.”
“Hang on, miss. Marge-the manager-?”
Headlights flashed against the window and tires crushed the gravel in the lot.
“Adria!” She heard his voice, roaring through the crowd, a lifeline to reach out and cling to.
Zachary! Tears filled her eyes as she tried to scramble to her feet.
“You lie still!” she was ordered.
Zachary broke through the crowd beginning to collect at the door and gathered her into his arms.
“Adria, oh, God, Adria,” he said, holding her as if he could protect her, as if the strength of his body could stave off the pain, the fear. Clinging to him, she fought the horrid sobs that suddenly clogged her throat as relief flooded through her. She was with Zachary and safe. So safe.
“Hey, you, I wouldn’t touch her!” a man advised. “Leave her for the paramedics, they’re on their way. She’s bleedin’, man, no tellin’-hey, are you her old man?”
“What the fuck happened here?” the manager yelled, only casting Adria a cursory glance. “Who did this? Holy Saint Peter, what a mess!”
“Did anyone call the police?” Zach demanded.
“Called 911, you get it all,” the manager said. A short, balding man in boxer shorts and a nightshirt, he swore at the mess. “The insurance company will shit over this one.”
“Don’t worry about it.” Zach kissed her forehead and wrapped her in his strong arms. “You’ll be okay,” he said, as if to convince himself. She shuddered and he pulled her tight against his chest. “You’ll be okay.”
She didn’t believe it for a second.
She doubted he did, either.
Failed.
You failed!
You should have killed the bitch while you had the chance. Now she’s alive, pretending to be London, bringing it all up again!
Adria’s attacker eyed the haggard reflection staring back in the mirror mounted over the hotel sink. The plan had backfired. Because Adria Nash was stronger than expected. She didn’t scare easily and now, it seemed, she wouldn’t die easily, either!
Maybe she is London.
She’ll prove it and the story will surface.
Now that she’s been attacked, the police might be suspicious about Kat’s death, the ruling of suicide reexamined.
Blood could be washed away but memories couldn’t, and the memory of London Danvers just wouldn’t die. It’s as if over the years both she and her damned mother had been elevated to some kind of sainthood. At that thought, agony ripped through the brain of Katherine’s killer, a pain so severe it cut more deeply than the physical wounds Adria Nash had inflicted.
Saints are usually canonized after they’ve died.
So see to it! Take care of Adria Nash.
Don’t let her slip away again!
Every muscle in her body screamed and her head pounded despite the painkillers the doctor had prescribed. Adria stared out the passenger window of Zach’s Jeep and tried to forget the last few hours. But scenes from the Emergency Room kept recurring while a litany of questions she’d been asked-first from the EMTs, then the nurses and finally the police-played through her mind. She was dead-tired, but figured she’d never fall asleep.
“Do you have any idea who would do this to you?”
“You’re the woman claiming to be London Danvers, aren’t you?”
“Are you allergic to any medications?”
“Did you get a look at the guy’s face or see any identifying marks?”
“Do you have an insurance card?”
“You’ve got a report in with the Portland Police Department about a previous attack? What was the name of the detective involved?”
“Does this hurt?”
“Can you give me a time line? About what time did you leave the restaurant and when did you get back to the motel?”
“Is this your husband?”
Adria squeezed her eyes shut. The night had fled by in a whirl, and it seemed that the police agreed with her that someone from the Danvers family could be involved, although there had also been speculation that she’d collected her own special nutcase, someone who had been following the London Danvers story for years.
Adria had tried to answer all the questions that had been hurled at her. She’d even managed a weak smile at the detectives’ jokes, but by the time the ER doctor had released her and Zach had tucked a blanket around her in the Jeep, she’d felt drained. Weary. And though no bones had been broken and she’d even managed to avoid a concussion, she was sore all over.
They’d spent most of the drive back to the motel in silence, both wrapped in their private thoughts, until Zach turned the final corner to the Fir Glen Motel and spied the media circus.
“Great,” he muttered between clenched teeth.
“Guess I’m suddenly popular.”
“Too popular.”
Rather than stop and deal with the press, he cranked on the wheel and turned the Jeep around to head directly east. The road was steep, winding through the snow-dusted mountains that were already gilded with the first rays of the morning sun.
“Where are we going?” she asked, though she really didn’t care as she pulled the blanket higher under her chin and tried to get comfortable. She wanted to stop running, to end this quest, to quiet the questions that raged through her mind.
“My place.”
“Your place?” she repeated as she stared through the windshield. The Jeep was climbing steadily. Snowcapped peaks of the rugged Cascade Mountains loomed ahead. “I didn’t know you had one.”
He slid her a glance-hard and stubborn, yet laced with worry. “We’re going to the ranch.”
“In Bend?” she said, shaking her head before she sucked in her breath through her teeth and winced in pain from the movement. “I can’t go there.”
“Why not?”
“It’s too far away. I’ve got people to see. Meetings in Portland. Interviews and appointments with attorneys and reporters.”
“They’ll wait,” he predicted, his voice stern. He’d been silent through most of the interviews but as she’d explained what had happened, how she’d been with Polidori and come home to be attacked, he’d grown increasingly grim.
“No, Zach, really, I can’t-”
“You were almost killed tonight,” he shouted, clamping her wrist with one strong hand. Steering with the other, he kept an eye on the road as
it wound snakelike through the foothills. “Maybe you don’t take that seriously, but I do. Whoever sent you those warnings has just gotten a little bolder and if he would have hit you a little harder, or in a little different place, we might not even be having this conversation right now.”
Suddenly chilled, she tried to rub her arms, but his hand was digging into her muscles. “But I can’t-”
“Of course you can. You’ve waited nearly twenty years to find out the truth-I think you can wait a few more days.
“Come on, Adria. Give yourself a little time to pull yourself together.”
She wanted to argue, to tell him he couldn’t run her life, but she couldn’t find the words. And she was frightened. More frightened than she’d ever been in her life. “This is just temporary, right?”
A slow, wicked smile spread across his beard-darkened chin. “I’m not holding you hostage, if that’s what you mean.”
Nervously, she licked her lips. “That’s what I mean,” she said.
“You can come and go as you please.”
“But my car-”
“I’ll send for all your things. Including that bucket of bolts you call a car-after I have it checked by my mechanic.”
“It’s fine,” she protested.
“It’s on its last legs.”
“Please, I need the car-”
“It’ll get there. In a couple of days. In the meantime there are plenty of vehicles at the ranch-cars, trucks, hell, we’ve even got a tractor if you get desperate.”
“Very funny.”
“I thought so,” he said, but the laughter faded from his eyes. “Come on, Adria. Give it a rest for a few days.”
She was touched by his kindness and wondered fleetingly if his concern was genuine or if he was just doing his duty, babysitting her and keeping her out of trouble. “You… uh…you don’t have to do this, you know.”
He let go of her wrist and grabbed the wheel. Lines of worry etched across his forehead. “Of course I do.” He didn’t add that he planned to stick to her like glue, that he was afraid for her life, that he felt sick with guilt because he hadn’t followed his gut instincts when he’d known, he’d known, that he should never have let her out of his sight.