I didn’t hear anything, so I took another step. Then another. The door was closer. I focused on it. I didn’t dare look over my shoulder. If I did, Matt would be there. One more step closer. I stretched out my arm. I was almost at the door.
“Katy?” His voice sounded like a rusty car door opening. “Where do you think you are going?”
I was paralyzed. It was as if I’d been turned to stone by the sound of his voice. My mouth was completely dry, and the Vicoden that had given me such a warm feeling had been chased away by the bombardment of adrenaline.
“Come here, Katy,” he ordered.
I couldn’t move. My mind wouldn’t think. Everything had come into sharp focus. The edges of the table. The frame of the door. Each fiber in the carpet beneath my feet. But not a single idea would come to mind. I began to tremble.
“Come here!” he shouted, making me jump. “I saw what you were doing. You are a dirty, dirty girl. You got a taste of it last night. Now you’re nothing more than a slut. It’s a shame so many girls turn to them.”
I was sure I was going to throw up.
“But we can fix it. I’ll fix it for you, Katy,” he spat. “I just need you to come here!”
I slowly began to turn my body. When I saw him, I felt repulsed like I did when I saw a nest of snakes as a kid. They were writhing and glistening, wrapping grotesquely around each other. But somewhere deep down I felt a shard of steel begin to grow. I turned slowly, slowly, then burst toward the door, flipping all the locks with lightning speed and yanking the door open.
“Help me!” I screamed over and over. One foot was on the cool cement. The air wrapped tightly around my legs, squeezing up goose bumps. I didn’t care. “Help me! Please!” I screamed as loud as I could. I was going to make it. I was going to get away. “Help!”
But before I could be seen by anyone, I felt the snake wrap around my waist and squeeze tightly. At least one rib snapped, choking off my breath as I was hauled back inside the house and tossed on the floor. I squinted as the pain radiated from my chest, making it impossible to move. My legs, panties, and half my stomach were exposed.
Matt slammed the door shut. It was like the lid of a coffin being closed on me. Clutching my side, I managed to get up on my feet. I limped toward the bedroom as I heard each of the locks being slid back into place. What was supposed to be my fortress had turned into my tomb. Or it would if I didn’t think of something.
I saw his shadow approaching me. The pain was blinding. I was sure I was going to pass out.
But I stumbled into the bedroom and managed to teeter into the bathroom, slamming the door shut behind me and locking it.
Matt banged on the door. It was like cannon blows in my ears.
“Katy! Open this door!”I shook my head as if he could see me.
“I’ll go easy on you, Katy, if you open this door.”
I looked around the bathroom, pulling open the drawers and medicine cabinet, looking for anything I could use to defend myself, but there was nothing. I had trapped myself.
“Not that you like that. From the sound of it and what I just saw, you really don’t want that, do you.”
He let loose with a string of obscenities that nearly made me sick. He was mad. Crazy. And no door was going to keep him from me.
“I always knew you were a whore. I knew it. I knew it. So why didn’t you give it to me? That’s all I wanted,” he babbled on he fumbled with the doorknob. Soon it would look like the one in my apartment, and he will have gotten in. Gotten me. “You were teasing me just now. You knew I was there, loving every second I watched you. Did you like the present I left in your apartment? So you know that I stroke off to you, too. I knew you’d like it.”
He kept rambling on and on, making each comment more graphic and disgusting from the last. Still, he kept hammering away at the door. I could tell it was getting ready to give. What was I going to do? My ribs throbbed with every movement. Tears burned my eyes.
I wasn’t going to be the hero. Not today.
Chapter Twenty
Zac
While I cursed the traffic in front of me, I looked at my watch and couldn’t believe how early it was. Barely nine o’clock. I was still hitting the tail end of rush hour.
“This is a freaking mess,” I mumbled as I turned up my police radio. Normally when I listened to the dispatch operators, I felt calm. I knew where the other units were. The codes and unit replies were like a totally different language, one that I was fluent in.
“Units in the vicinity of 3141 Locust Lane. A neighbor reported a 415 across the street. He said he heard a woman screaming.”
Did I just hear that right? Nate lived at 3138 Locust Lane. It couldn’t be. What were the chances there would be a disturbance called in on that street just as soon as I left?
I could ignore the call. But I was closest. I just had to turn around in this mess and go back about five blocks. That was it. Even though it couldn’t be Katy. No one knew she was at Nate’s place but me. How could he have found her so fast? Unless he followed us. He had to be watching the apartment every single minute. We left early. I’d bet the guy didn’t get a wink of sleep. So he was not only crazy but strung out.
“No. No one was following us. I would have noticed.”
Would you? Maybe you were so concerned, so distracted they the possibility of there being a break in Melissa’s case that you weren’t as cautious as you usually are. Could that be it? Couldn’t that be a possibility?
I was second-guessing myself. I couldn’t take the risk.
I slapped on the red dome, hit the siren, and drove along the emergency lane. Cars slowly meandered out of my way like stubborn cattle. Finally, I saw a NO U-TURN sign. Without hesitation, I swung my car around. In doing so, I drove over a deep pothole. It rocked my car, and the trunk popped open.
“What the hell?” I barked as I saw it in the rear-view mirror.
He’d been in the trunk. Matt Beabe had been in the trunk the whole time. When Katy and I got out of the car, he climbed out. But he couldn’t slam the trunk shut or else we might have heard him. For fuck’s sake. I drove him right to her.
I pushed the gas pedal all the way to the floor, leaning on the car horn when I thought people weren’t moving fast enough with the siren. Everything seemed to be moving in slow motion. I know the clock on the dashboard said only two minutes ticked by, but it felt like at least fifteen.
I didn’t bother to respond to dispatch. Another cruiser was en route to the location. I’d be there before them. I had the feeling I’d need backup. My hands were sweating. My heart was pounding so hard it was the only thing I could hear.
“If you touch her… if you do anything to her, I’ll kill you with my bare hands. I swear to God I will,” I hissed between clenched teeth. When I got closer, I snapped off the siren. I didn’t want that SOB to know I was coming. I parked the car two doors down and pulled my revolver from the glove compartment. It was loaded.
I wondered why Matt didn’t bother to take the gun. If he had gotten into my car and popped the trunk, why didn’t he take the gun from the glove compartment? I’d be sure to ask him once I had him in custody. Once he regained consciousness.
Stuffing the pistol in the back of my pants, I got out of the car and approached Nate’s house. Everything was still. I had closed all the windows and made sure they were locked. As I went to the front door, I slowly tried the knob. It was locked.
“You know, there are other neighbors across the street from 3141.” I shook my head. “It could have been the guy to the left or the guy to the right.”
Was this really happening? Was I so worried about Katy that I was imagining things? Had the specter of Matt gotten inside my head, too? Would I see him in every shadow or hear him in every scrambled phone call?
“No. Walk around the house. Treat it like you would any other call.” I walked around the back of the house. All the windows were closed. Of course, they were. I closed them.
“Katy is goin
g to see your shadow and have a complete meltdown. Like she hasn’t been through enough without you scaring the heck out of her.” I ran my hand through my hair as I decided this was a false alarm. As I turned to leave, I saw the broken window. My first thought was to tell Nate he better get that fixed.
It was the window to his guest room. I looked at the ground. There was no glass. Whoever broke it was getting inside. The break was small. Like someone had thrown a baseball through it. But whoever did it reached inside and undid the latch. The broken window caught my eye. I barely realized that the window had been slid open far enough for a grown man to slip inside.
That was when I heard the pounding. It didn’t register that it was coming from inside the house. It was a dull thud sound. Like someone trying to get out. I wanted to panic. This wasn’t just a run-of-the-mill 415 disturbance. This was Katy. I had to focus. Losing my cool in a scene was not something I did.
Carefully, I hoisted myself up and inside the window. I knew I was probably disturbing fingerprints and other bits of evidence, but I had to do it. The thudding was coming from the other end of the house. I retrieved my pistol and flipped off the safety. As I made my way to the floor, I tried to remember my training. With the gun pointed in the air in my right hand, I reached for the doorknob with my left and turned it. It didn’t budge. I tried again but nothing. The door was locked from the other side.
“He used a skeleton key.” I clenched my hands and grit my teeth. I had barely any time. I went to jump back out the window and break in through another, but I froze when I head the crack of a doorframe and a scream. Katy was screaming.
Chapter Twenty-One
Katy
I was frozen like I knew I would be. I watched in horror as the doorknob began to loosen with each blow. I didn’t know what Matt was using to hit it, but it was strong and it was working.
I climbed into the tub as if that was somehow helpful. To be away from the door and that pounding and the mumbling that was constant was my goal, but this wasn’t working. Desperately I grabbed one of Nathan’s cologne bottles and held it in my hand, ready to throw it at Matt as soon as he broke it. I wouldn’t have to wait long.
I watched the doorknob clatter loosely in the door before the screws fell apart and each knob fell on the floor, leaving the door to easily swing open. When I saw Matt standing there, I screamed.
He looked like a man who had been on a desert island for ten years and woke up one day to find a woman was now there, too. His eyes were red around the rims like he hadn’t slept. His hair was matted and greasy. His clothes were wrinkled, and I could smell his body odor as well as a bit of gasoline. Oh, God. What if he planned on setting me on fire? What if that was his plan?
I was terrified. I threw the bottle at him, and it hit the doorframe, shattering into a hundred shards of glass. The movement of my arm caused my ribs to scream in agony. The smell of the cologne was overwhelming. I grabbed anything I could get my hands on—shaving cream, a bar of soap, a Gillette razor—and threw them at Matt. I don’t know what I expected to happen.
But before I could do anything else, he grabbed me by the wrist and yanked me out of the tub. I fell to the floor, the smell of cologne stinging my eyes and getting all over me as my breath was cut off from the pain in my ribs.
“It’s okay, Katy. You don’t need to get up.”
He dragged me from the bathroom. I tried to scream again. I kicked and bucked, no longer concerned about my nakedness. But it seemed to make Matt all the more excited.
He grabbed my hair with his other hand. I tried to pry his fingers from my wrist and scratched at his skin. Something must have hurt because he yelped, let go of my wrist, and slapped me across the face. I fell to my knees. The world began to spin at ten times the speed. I tried to crawl away, but there was a kick in my gut that sent me into the wall. I hit my head. Everything went black except for one tiny pinpoint.
I could hear him talking. Always talking. He never shut up. He was in the blackness. If I didn’t claw my way to that tiny pinpoint of light, I would be consumed. His voice would haunt me in the grave. His hands would torment my body for eternity.
“You bitch,” I heard him hissing as I swam toward the light. He was tugging at my shirt, at my panties. My head felt so heavy, I could just go to sleep. I could just fade away and never know what he did or for how long. I could just fall into the darkness.
But then I heard Zac’s voice. I don’t know if it was real or imagined. But I remembered his face. I saw it at that point of light. I wanted to be there. I fought with rubbery muscles through the blackness. Like I was swimming in glue, I saw the light getting bigger and bigger. I was in the hallway again. The bathroom door hung open lazily. The carpet itched beneath me. The pain of my ribs, my head, and my right eye sobered me up. As long as I could feel, I was still alive. I tried to push myself away from him. He was hovering over me getting ready to do God only knew what.
That was when I felt it. The sweet pain of victory. A shard of glass from the broken cologne bottle sunk into my hand. I made a fist, feeling the empowering pain.
“Just remember,” Matt said as he kicked my legs apart and leaned over my face. He gripped his hands around my throat and began to squeeze. “You asked for this.”
I brought my hand up. In one swipe I let the point of glass sticking out of my hand graze across Matt’s left eye. I watched him with fascination as the delayed pain and blood finally surfaced.
He began to scream like a girl. His voice was high and trembling. It was almost comical. Blood began to ooze from the wound and down his face.
“Cut me!” he screamed. “Cut me!” That was when he hit me again and I did fall into the blackness. But not before I heard a voice. His voice.
“Freeze! Police!”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Zac
He was about to take her. That low-life piece of trash had Katy sprawled out on the floor like she was just some rag doll. Her face was covered in blood. My first instinct was to tackle him and beat him to death.
I could hear the sirens from the backup squad cars as they sped to Nate’s house. I could do it. I could shoot him. Kill him right here, right now, and no one would say I was in the wrong.
Holding my gun up, my hands trembled with rage.
“Matt Beabe, you are under arrest for assault, attempted rape, breaking and entering, and anything else I can throw at you,” I hissed.
Matt put his hands up and started laughing. When he turned to me, I saw the gash on his face and smirked. She got him. She got him good. I knew she had it in her. With no training and no firearms, she fought him off. She bought enough time for me to get here. That’s my girl.
“Shut the hell up.” I stomped over to him and grabbed his arm, wrenching it behind his back. I didn’t see the knife in his pocket. Not until he stuck me in the arm with it.
“You son of a bitch!” I cried.
With a grunt he pushed me into the wall, pressing his thumb into the gash, making everything go white with pain. Before I could refocus he had the front door unlocked and was out in the yard.
I looked at Katy and fell to my knees.
Her right eye was purple and nearly swollen shut. I ran into Nate’s bedroom and yanked his comforter off the bed to cover her. There were bruises on her throat and across her rib cage. What had he done to her? In the few minutes it took me to get inside, he’d transformed this beautiful woman into a poster child for domestic abuse.
“I’m so sorry, Katy.” I slipped my arms around her, gently tucking the blanket around her body.
“I knew you’d come,” she mumbled. Her swollen lips made a small smile. I started to cry just as the paramedics swarmed into the house. “He never saw us coming.” One tear escaped down her cheek. I gently wiped it away with my thumb before I leaned down and kissed her forehead.
“Step aside, Detective,” the paramedics ordered. “We’ll take care of her from here.”
I backed up, squared my shoulders, and
headed outside.
It didn’t take long for me to find out what direction Matt went. It was all over the radio by now. He headed south cutting through an empty lot toward VanMartin Street.
I headed off in that direction. The adrenaline pushed my legs. I barely felt like I was running at all. I felt like I was floating. I looked around as I cut through the lot. I spotted the other squad car slowly making its way down one block over. But Matt didn’t go that far. I knew where he went.
The house that sat on the corner of the lot had been empty for years. Plywood covered most of the windows. It was a rehabber’s dream. Nate mentioned more than once that he wanted to buy the place and flip it.
Sure enough, at the back of the house next to a dried-out planter was a fresh speck of blood. There, on the wood next to a tiny gap in the plywood was a bloody fingerprint.
With my gun drawn, I followed Matt inside.
The place smelled of mold. It was cold and damp as the elements came in from several holes in the ceilings and walls. When I looked down, I could see the trail of blood on the floor as well as footprints in the dust.
They led to a door that was cracked open slightly. Inside the room was completely black. It almost looked like it opened to oblivion. Like if I stepped in there I might just fall out of this dimension into a cold, dark place. A place that perpetually smelled like mold and dust. A forgotten place.
I didn’t want to go in. Just because I was pissed and wore a badge didn’t mean I liked going into dark rooms in abandoned houses.
But he’s in there. I know he is.
Slowly I inched my way toward the door. I listened, but all I could hear was the beating of my heart.
Suddenly my police training came back to me. When entering a room with an armed and dangerous suspect, it was important to clear any blind spots first. So I kicked the door open. It flung back but didn’t hit my target.
The room was nothing more than a walk-in closet. Matt wasn’t there even though his footprints indicated he was. Before I could come to any other conclusion, he jumped me from behind. The blade of his knife plunged deep into my shoulder, sending electric pulses of pain through my whole arm. Just a few more inches to the left and he would have hit the vein in my neck. Getting stabbed safely in the shoulder was exactly the kind of luck I was having.
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