Acts of Malice

by Perri O'shaughnessy

  Nothing, no one, just his bare bed. Into the kitchen, bumping into things, the light—

  And then she saw a note on the kitchen table.

  ‘‘Hi, Mom. Aunt Andrea picked me up so I wouldn’t be alone. Come over if you want, she says.’’

  A heart drawn hastily at the bottom. He was all right! She sat down at the kitchen table, and sobbed with relief. A few minutes passed before the flood receded.

  Finally, feeling very shaky, she got up to get the fire going. Damn! Only one small log. She was going to have to go outside to get more wood. She closed her eyes for a minute, steeling herself, then put her coat and dripping boots back on. Grabbing the flashlight, she opened the door.

  The wind hit her in the face, nearly knocking her over. It must be a front for a hell of a storm. She would lock the place up tight, call Andrea, drink some whiskey, and go to bed. The panic attack had left her so weary . . . she didn’t want to go to Matt’s tonight. When she woke in the early morning, she didn’t want them all to hear the sound of her grieving.

  As she bent down to fill her arms with logs, she thought she saw something moving in the trees on the edge of the yard. It reminded her of the day at Paradise with Philip Strong when he talked about seeing Alex around every corner. She peered into the howling wind for a long moment, and the creepy feeling of menace returned. Would it always be there? How could she stand it? Quickly, she gathered the wood and went back inside, slamming the door and locking and bolting it as soon as she could.

  She had thought she smelled almonds. She was imagining things.

  Stacking the wood by the fireplace, she crumpled some newspaper and lit the fire. The bright color and heat made her feel better. Then she went into the kitchen and put on the teapot. She dug around in the front closet for her mukluks and pulled out an afghan at the same time, returning to the kitchen just as the kettle began to whine.

  Pouring the hot water over some Swiss Miss chocolate, she added a shot of Old Bushmills to the mix, turned on the stereo to the oldies channel, and sat before the fire, arranging the red blanket around her. The one Collier had put over her legs that night . . .

  Then she called Bob on the cordless phone, and talked to Andrea who said Bob was fine and who urged her to come over. ‘‘Not tonight,’’ Nina said. ‘‘I’d rather be home.’’

  ‘‘Call if you need us,’’ Andrea said. ‘‘Matt will come get you, you know that.’’

  ‘‘No. Thanks for taking Bob.’’

  ‘‘I don’t feel right letting you stay alone.’’

  ‘‘I have to get used to it.’’

  She hung up and sat huddled in the blanket. The fire slowly warmed the cabin, even as the wind roared into the fireplace flue, until finally she stopped trembling. She drank the chocolate slowly, the mug warming her hands.

  At last the taut, frightened muscles surrendered one by one to the warmth of the blanket and the drink, and all the horror of the last month dulled for a few minutes. Safe, she thought. He’s long gone. Bob is safe. I’m safe and sound and home.

  The wind clattered against the locked cabin. Nina hugged the blanket to her. Exhausted, she fell asleep.

  I’ll make you pay, bitch.

  I’ll make you beg me to kill you.

  Hooded in his parka, hands in thick ski gloves, Jim watched the house. He watched the smoke billowing out of the chimney against a black sky, imagining her inside. The kid had been driving away with a woman just as he arrived, and the woman had looked back at his car just once, but he was wearing his parka and drove right by the house.

  When the two of them were gone, he had parked the car up a street called Hunkpapa and pushed his way through the blasts of wind back to the back yard. And waited.

  Bad weather didn’t bother him. He found it invigorating.

  He hadn’t quite paid her back for pulling that trick in court. The enormity of her betrayal had taken time to sink in. She was the worst traitor of them all, worse than Heidi, worse than his father. She had even thought she could fool him. As if he couldn’t read her.

  None of it was his fault.

  They had all left him now, and he had nothing but an empty gnawing hole in his soul. Hole in my soul, he repeated to himself, hole in my soul, slayer of betrayers, take the one you love the most and take you besides . . .

  The gnawing was in his gut right now, cramping and tightening and making him sick. Christ, he was being eaten alive!

  He’d begged Heidi to come back to him, but she wouldn’t understand. He hadn’t wanted to use the knife on her. It was his father’s fault.

  He’d have to get out after he killed Nina, but he wasn’t finished. Next year for Kelly, who had testified against him. And of course, his father.

  No one would escape. And the night-gnawing would end.

  An hour or so went by while he froze outside her house. Enough time had passed for her to put on her robe, sit down for a meal, do whatever she was going to do, just so her guard was down.

  He was sensitive to women. He had a feeling she was asleep.

  He moved silently through the trees near the wood-pile, then stopped there under cover of blowing blackness. The snowfield next door reflected just enough starlight. Goddamn cold! He looked for a way into the house.

  She made it so simple, he almost felt insulted. She had forgotten to bolt the back door. Noiselessly, methodically, he jimmied the lock. What a cinch.

  Prepare to die, bitch, he thought. His rage surged up in him again, warming him.

  She would beg, damn her.

  He turned the knob.

  Something hard and sharp struck him on the base of his spine through the parka. He figured a branch had blown into him, but as his hand tightened on the knob he felt the sharpness deepen, taking his breath away. Turning his head just far enough to see behind him, he saw a stranger, a big blond man, his head ringed with stars, his face terrible. He tried to scream but no sound came out. The man had clamped a hand like iron over his mouth. And then, incredibly, he felt another, crushing pain, like a spear, like an arrow, like a dagger. He felt appalling pain as a blade drove into his body, into his spine, and tears in his eyes, and the cold, my God, the cold—

  ‘‘Rhapsody on a windy night, motherfucker,’’ the man whispered. ‘‘The last twist of the knife.’’

  He felt the pain tear him apart, and he wanted to scream but he had no breath left. He wanted to end the agony that corkscrewed through him but there was no way back to the wind and the stars and the night.

  ‘‘Ah—!’’

  He was sucked down to the still and silent hell that awaited him.

  The phone jangled Nina back to the firelit living room. Still dazed from her deep sleep, she put it to her ear.

  ‘‘Hi. It’s Paul. I wanted to let you know I was thinking of you.’’

  Paul’s voice was so reassuring. She started jabbering, telling him things. Paul listened patiently on the line.

  ‘‘I know, honey, I know,’’ he kept saying.

  ‘‘They say—the police are sure Jim’s gone. There hasn’t been a trace of him. But I’m still—I had a real panic attack tonight on the way home. I thought Bob might be in trouble and he’s fine. I keep doing that, going along and then—it’s just—’’

  There was a silence on the other end. Then Paul said, ‘‘Don’t worry about him anymore, Nina.’’

  ‘‘But I can’t be sure. I don’t know if I can live with this fear, Paul. I can live with the grief, but not constant fear. I don’t know what to do.’’

  ‘‘He won’t be back, Nina. I guarantee it.’’

  She didn’t answer him. She thought, I want to believe that, but how can I?

  ‘‘Listen to me, Nina,’’ Paul said in a peculiar, insistent way. ‘‘You’ll never see or hear from him again.’’

  ‘‘You sound so sure,’’ Nina said. ‘‘Do you know where he is?’’

  The line crackled, and she thought how far away Paul was, on the other side of the country, and how she miss
ed him terribly.

  ‘‘Paul? Are you still there?’’

  ‘‘Yeah, I’m here.’’

  ‘‘Do you know where he is?’’

  ‘‘I’ll be damned if I know,’’ said Paul.

  And that night, alone in her bed in the cabin, Nina turned her head on her wet pillow.

  Perhaps her heart couldn’t take any more pain. Perhaps the mountain god had finally taken her into its arms, soothing her, sending her back to a moment long ago when she had been happy.

  In her dream she was a child again, running in the Pacific surf on a sunny day, her parents behind her. She was a little girl full of joy, a joy which had come before and which would come again, in time.

  Turn the page for a preview of

  Perri O’Shaughnessy’s

  Nina Reilly novel

  UNFIT TO PRACTICE

  Available from Dell

  Moist night wind swept the skin on her arms and flicked sharp points of hair into her eyes. Pulling her sweatshirt tight against the gusts, Nikki tucked her hair inside the hood and splashed the oars into the deep black water of Lake Tahoe. A hundred years ago, under the same slim crescent moon, a Washoe Indian in a kayak would have known how to dip the oars silently, secretly, but no matter how she tipped them, they sucked water into the air, leaving a trail of sound.

  Silvery snow tipped the mountain peaks that circled like clouds around the lake. She stayed close enough to the shoreline—flat black trees against a glinting navy sky —to track her progress, but far enough out to remain unidentifiable to anyone nosy enough to observe her. She could not be seen. She could not be caught, because tonight . . .

  Tonight, she was going on a raid! And for the first time, she was going alone.

  She felt high on the strength of her arms and the tautness of her legs as she rowed, as high as she had felt on New Year’s Eve when her mom had let her drink champagne. So even though she didn’t like being out here all alone, floating above a deep, dark immensity she didn’t want to think about, she wasn’t about to turn back.

  Scott would have come with her if she had told him about it, but tonight—tonight was personal. She was not just skulking and peeking in windows for a joke, or scrounging a few leftover Heinekens out of an outside cooler. Not that she didn’t miss having him along. She wouldn’t mind a warm body beside her floating into this dark moonlit haze.

  As a steady breeze blew over the lake, the water churned, pushing her out farther than she liked. But it wasn’t far now.

  She knew what she was doing was wrong. But a while back, being bad had stopped feeling bad. Scott had helped her with that. So many rules were stupid. He had shown her a whole new way of thinking. You had to make your own way.

  Tonight was about making something really wrong right again.

  She stretched. Her arms ached. She wasn’t used to rowing so much, but then, her original plans for the year hadn’t included breaking into someone’s house. She hadn’t exactly trained for this. She had been forced into it. Three days before, her mother had received a letter from a law office. That scared her. Her mother wasn’t around, so she’d opened it. A so-far nice day turned real bad right then. The letter said they were about to be evicted. The landlord wanted his money, and he wanted it right now. Only money, right away, could save them.

  When her mom came home Nikki held the letter in her face, making her read it. ‘‘What is this?’’

  ‘‘Don’t worry, honey,’’ Daria had said in that drifty way she had. As if everything took care of itself somehow. As if they weren’t going to have to pack their belongings in boxes in about two weeks and go squat in a condemned building. Nikki sat her down, tried to have a practical conversation with her. Where was her last paycheck?

  Gone. They had a lot of back bills to pay.

  Not worth screaming about. The bills never got paid until the third notice because they weren’t Daria’s priority. At least this time she hadn’t gotten rooked by some guy who was off to make his mark as an artist or a musician in Vegas.

  What about her job? Nikki had asked. Where were the paychecks? Oh, she had lost that job a few weeks ago. She didn’t want Nikki to worry and had planned to tell her just as soon as she had another one, which would be any day now.

  Nikki had decided. They would resort to the unthinkable. They would borrow money, using Grandpa Logan’s land in Nevada for collateral. That was when her mom got nervous and darted around the living room rearranging trinkets.

  Finally, Daria had admitted it. She had sold the land to Nikki’s Uncle Bill for twelve hundred stinkin’ dollars.

  Forty acres!

  Her mom shrugged, saying what was done was done. ‘‘That land is in the middle of nowhere and it’s basically worthless. He did us a favor.’’

  ‘‘Where’s the money?’’ Nikki had asked, guessing the answer but hopeful still. Maybe Grandpa’s land would perform a heroic rescue. Maybe it would save their home. But no. Her mom had already spent that too, paying a few other late bills. The money was gone, just like everything else. Like her dad. Like the security she had once had, that she would have lunch money or new shoes in the fall.

  Her mom had never grown up. She trusted everybody, even Uncle Bill. He had never helped them out before and he hadn’t helped them out this time. Nikki knew darn good and well that land was worth more than he had paid. All you had to do was to check out the Reno Gazette. Land in Nevada was going up, even scrub desert in the foothills. You couldn’t buy land for thirty bucks an acre. You couldn’t buy anything for thirty bucks, period. He had taken advantage of her mom’s totally inept sense of business.

  All of which she had told her mom.

  ‘‘Oh, honey. Your uncle’s a very savvy businessman. Believe me, he knows how much that land is worth.’’

  Duh! He knew, all right, but he was smart enough not to pay it.

  Her next thought was, okay, she would talk to him, maybe just ask him to pay a fairer price for Grandpa’s acres. But that was dreaming. He couldn’t stand her or Daria, because they were poor and he was rich. Sometimes Nikki even thought Uncle Bill was afraid of her, maybe because of her smart mouth.

  But they were really in the pits this time, so she thought, they’d ask him for a loan. But any time she and Daria had been hurting in the past, he had made sure to joke about how stupid it was to loan money to relatives, rubbing his clean surgeon’s hands together and watching to make sure they got it.

  That made up her mind. She would go to his house, find money and take it. She had studied the newspaper classified. She figured the land as, rock-bottom minimum, worth twice what he paid. She was sure he kept cash around the house. She would take no more than what he should have paid them in the first place. Tomorrow, before he had time to call the police or something dumb like that, she would ’fess up.

  Because, let’s face it. He owed them.

  If he got really ugly about it, they could promise to pay him back when they could. He would just have to lump it and accept that the money was gone. Ultra-respectable Uncle Bill would never tell anyone his niece came and had to steal money from him to save herself and her mother from being evicted. He would never allow a public scandal that might reflect badly on him. His surgical practice depended too much on people admiring him and thinking he was so brilliant and such a saint. Nobody wanted a mean, stingy guy cutting them up.

  Did she hear splashing? Turning her head, she looked behind her. If there was another boat or something out here, she couldn’t see it. When she was young, she believed that monsters roamed this lake. Bedtime stories, she knew, but still . . . she was alone, shivering in a new rush of wind. The lake felt powerful and alive under her. For a moment, fear took over. She fought the urge to turn around and go home.

  Tears welled in her eyes. For some reason, her dad’s face, the one in the picture of him and her and her mom, appeared in her mind. Maybe it was a blessing on tonight, him coming around. She was off to fight. He would approve of that, wouldn’t he? Thinking ab
out the wrong that had been done to her and her mom allowed anger to heat her up and burn away the fear.

  ‘‘Payback time,’’ she said to the black sky. She was Mel Gibson in Ransom, out to get even. Her voice sounded high and scared, so she said it again, growling.

  Through a clump of trees she saw a low wood cabin, classic old Tahoe, looking like something tossed together from recycled crates. Rich people had this trick of trying to look poor on the outside so thieves wouldn’t rob them. Scott had taught her about that. But Nikki already knew this place was like a mansion inside and filled with expensive junk. She and her mom had visited there many times.

  Letting the kayak wash in on a miniature wave, she managed to get out without swamping and pulled it behind a bush. Water sloshed around her feet on the brief beach, the wind making the leaves blow and sigh.

  Wishing the wind away, she moved commando-style toward the house, keeping low behind the plants that made a privacy border. He had a swimming pool, she knew. At the same moment she saw the knotty lacework of reflections from the pool water flicker like the light from a TV on the fence. Her first problem was the gate, but it was unlocked, easy. She stopped just inside.

  Four deep breaths, in and out. Her hands came unclenched and she could open her eyes to the surroundings without feeling like a bear might jump out and get her. Nobody should be home. Aunt Beth and Chris were in LA and her mom had mentioned more than once that Saturdays were Uncle Bill’s night to play poker at Caesars.

  Remembering the Washoe, she moved slowly through the bushes near the pool, toward the double glassed-in doors that led to his study. He would keep anything important there.

  No sign of anyone around. She crouched down for a moment, intending to creep out into the open and try the door. Just as she straightened up, the door flew open. Shit! She ducked back fast behind the dense brush, stumbling, holding her hands out to keep the bushes back.

  Uncle Bill stepped out onto the concrete patio, so close to her she could smell the brandy on his breath and soap on his nude skin. So much for freakin’ poker.