by Bess McBride
Kevin turned right toward the town center and turned left again a few minutes later onto Fort Morgan Highway. Penny had driven down the long stretch of road to tour Fort Morgan at the end of the peninsula--a fort used during the Civil War to guard Mobile Bay from the Union Navy. The road also led to the Bon Secour Natonal Wildlife Sanctuary--an uninhabited marshy nesting of trees, alligators and birds which spanned a several-mile width between the highway and the shoreline.
“Where are you going?” She shifted again. Her tied hands had mercifully gone numb from lack of circulation.
Kevin shot her a quick glance and flashed his once charming smile. The grin looked the same but held a new terror for her now.
“To a special place, Penny, where you and I can be alone.”
His honeyed voice made her skin crawl.
“Why are you doing this, Kevin?” She heard the squeak in her voice and cursed herself for revealing her fear. She needed to stay strong. He was feeding off her fear. She was sure of it.
He slid his eyes in her direction once again. “You know? That’s what I love about all of this. You have no idea why I’m doing this. With all your education...all your fancy degrees in psychology, you have no earthly idea what’s going on. Don’t you think that’s funny?”
“W-what?” she stuttered. His words made no sense. They sounded as bizarre as the words of the man who’d been calling her.
Penny gasped. Her stomach lurched, and she broke out into a cold sweat. She didn’t think it possible to feel any more fear than she already did, but the hairs on her head stood painfully on end.
“It was you! You’re the one who’s been calling me!”
Kevin threw her a quick grin...a horrifyingly pleasant expression featuring a charming tilt to the corner of his lips.
“Aw, shucks, how did you finally guess? I didn’t think you’d ever figure it out.”
“Why, Kevin, why?” Penny heard the pathetic plea in her voice and swallowed hard against it. Don’t give in. Don’t give him what he wants.
“I suppose you broke into my car, didn’t you?”
Kevin gave a short laugh. “Yeah, that was kind of pointless. I didn’t find anything of interest really. Although I did find your address book.”
Penny jerked.
“Gave your mom a call, just to see if she sounded like you...or maybe to practice calling. But I got shy, and couldn’t talk.”
“Don’t you dare. Don’t you dare mess with my family, Kevin. I’m warning you,” Penny ground out through clenched teeth.
The blow, when it came, shocked her. She felt no pain at first when her head hit the head rest. Then a sharp prickling sensation spread across her left cheek, and her nose began to burn. Was it broken?
“Don’t talk to me like that, Penny. Who do you think is in charge here, Miss High and Mighty Therapist? It sure isn’t you.”
Penny kept her face averted to the right, too shocked even to cry in pain.
“A penny for your thoughts.”
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him lean forward to look at her face.
“No thoughts, Penny? Okay, well, like I was saying, I didn’t get a chance to chat with your Mom. I just choked up. I’d like to meet her someday though. My own Mom... Well, she was--” He gave a short laugh. “Well, you just didn’t talk to her, not if you knew what was good for you, if you know what I mean. So, I figured all mothers were like her.”
Penny’s nose began to run. Was it bleeding?
“I tried to call you today...several times, but you didn’t answer your phone.” His voice carried a bizarre pouting sound.
Penny remained mute.
Kevin leaned forward to look at her again. She kept her face averted, and he laughed.
“Did I tell you I stopped by your apartment a few times? You weren’t there, so I went in anyway.”
Penny shivered. He’d been in her apartment? When?
“I spent quite a bit of time in there. I like it. It felt comfortable. Smelled nice, too, especially the clothes in your closet.” Kevin chuckled. “One night when you were sleeping, I couldn’t decide if I was going to hug you or kill you, but then the phone rang and I had to skedaddle.”
Penny began to shake uncontrollably. He had been in her apartment when she was there...when she slept.
“Then you had that deadbolt installed. That really made me mad, Penny.” His conversational tone terrified her more than his anger. “At any rate, I think you might have something I want, so we’re going to have a heart to heart tonight, and you can tell me where it is.”
At this, Penny did turn toward him. The lights of the console glowed eerily on his face while he kept his eyes on the road. Her instinct was to scream “What?” but her throat seemed momentarily frozen. What did he want?
The headlights of the car shone on the sign for the wildlife refuge as they drove past.
“We’re almost there.” Kevin made a sudden left hand turn off the highway onto a small lane which glowed in the dark with white sand, an indication they were near the beach. He drove slowly down the lane past a grove of indistinct dark trees and thick bushes until he came to a clearing dominated by a small structure that stood on stilts--a house. Penny had seen little traffic on the road, and she suspected many of the houses along this strip of land were boarded up and closed for the winter. She imagined she could scream and scream and no one would hear her on this thinly populated end of the highway.
“We’re here.” The enthusiastic childlike quality of his voice made her shudder.
Kevin jumped out of the driver’s seat and came around to the passenger’s side. He pulled open the door, and the smell of salty sea air assaulted Penny’s bruised nostrils. He hauled her out by her right arm. She lost her balance and fell against him. When he pulled her to her feet, the faint sheen of moonlight glinted of the knife in his left hand. Despite the pounding in her heart, Penny heard the sound of waves crashing against a nearby beach. A small measure of relief swept over her. As long as she was near the beach, she could find her way home. All she had to do was turn left toward the east and follow the shoreline...if she ever got away.
Kevin pushed her ahead of him toward the small building which appeared to be a beach bungalow. He shoved her awkwardly up the wooden stairs to a deck. Penny turned to scan the horizon. From the faint specter of the breakers, they seemed to be only a short distance from the beach. The house was well hidden from the highway by trees. Kevin reached for the door and pushed it open. He stepped in and pulled Penny in behind him. They entered a sparsely furnished living room. The house smelled moldy and damp. He flicked on a light switch, and the room came into view.
A simple dark blue vinyl couch and matching easy chair rested at an angle in front of a plain wooden veneer coffee table. An old concave screen television set with rabbit ears nestled on a portable stand against one corner of the room. A large picture window framed the front of the room which appeared to face out onto the sea, though it was too dark to see. To the left of the entrance, a small kitchen lay in darkness.
“Whose house is this? Is this yours?” Penny wondered if she could shout for help. Were any neighbors nearby?
“Shut up! I warn you if I have to listen to one more of your stupid questions...”
Penny did as she was told. Her cheek still throbbed.
Kevin pushed her down a hallway and through an open door on the right at the end of the hall. From the faint reflected light of the living room, Penny saw it was a small bedroom, devoid of furniture except a twin bed covered with an old olive green Army-style blanket.
Penny tried to dig in her heels. She’d begun to believe that rape was not his intention, but now she wasn’t so certain.
“Get over there,” he barked as he threw her onto the small bed. Penny landed on her stomach but quickly flipped over to face her attacker. She pulled her knees to her chest and stared at him belligerently. She was going to fight.
“Don’t get yourself in a tizzy, Penny. If I wanted to rape
you, I would have already.” Kevin leaned against the doorsill and crossed his arms, appearing as if he were having a casual conversation with a friend. “I’ll admit you’re a nice looking woman, but you turned me down for that lover of yours, Chief Williams. So, I don’t owe you anything, do I?” The faint moonlight coming through the window cast his face in a ghostly grimace. “You aren’t the first woman who’s let me down. That’s for sure.” He rubbed his jaw, almost thoughtfully. “No, what I wanted from you was what you seem to give your clients. A friendly face, a shoulder to cry on...you know...all the things a therapist is paid to do.” He snorted. “Like the therapist I had once when I was a teenager. She was great!” He grinned. “I could tell her anything. And I know she liked me, too. A guy knows stuff.” His face hardened. “But then she got rid of me...transferred me to someone else...an old man. I hated him.”
“What do you want with me?”
Kevin blinked...as if he’d forgotten she was there. He moved quickly toward the bed and grabbed the back of her hair.
Penny cried out.
“I want you to give me Jerry’s keys.”
“What?” Penny stared at his face, older and harder than she’d seen it before. Jerry?
“Jerry’s keys, the ones he always wore on his belt. I know you have them. They weren’t in his apartment. Where are they?”
“In my purse,” she answered automatically, too stunned to understand what was happening.
His grip on her hair loosened, and he grinned--that charming lopsided smile that once reminded her of Travis. He lowered himself to his knees in front of the bed, his face near hers.
“See? Now that wasn’t so hard, was it? Maybe I should just have asked you in the beginning instead of making all those calls, but I was pretty mad at you.”
Penny shuddered at his close proximity. Her brain whirled, and she simply couldn’t think straight.
“Jerry?” she whispered. She pulled her knees up closer to her chest.
“Jerry! Yeah, Jerry. Don’t you know who I am? Haven’t you figured it out yet?”
Penny wanted to close her eyes to gather her befuddled thoughts, but she dared not blink in case he made a move. She shook her head.
“You don’t remember telling Jerry that he needed to ‘let me go,’ is how I think you worded it?” His grip on her hair tightened and he pulled her head back to face him.
Penny’s mouth went dry. “David. You’re David.”
“That’s right. I’m the guy you screwed out of a pretty comfortable existence. You sure had some hold over Jerry, I’ll give you that. Of course, I know therapists can do that.” He gave her hair a vicious twist, making her cry out, and then he rose to tower over her. Penny tried to struggle to her knees. The rope around her wrists burned savagely.
“Where’s your purse?”
“In my car...in the parking lot at the parade.”
“The parking lot?”
Kevin stared at her for a moment, and she thought he was going to strike her again. She ducked her head to the side. He flung away from her. A jarring musical tune suddenly filled the tense air, and Kevin pulled his cell phone out of his pocket. His face contorted into harsh lines as he squinted at the instrument.
“What does he--” Kevin glared at Penny and spun around to head for the door. “Stay here. Don’t try to run. There’s nowhere to hide. I’ll find you.” He threw the words carelessly over his shoulder.
Penny opened her mouth to protest, but he strode out of the room and slammed the door shut behind him. She heard the lock click. She jumped up awkwardly and surveyed the room, wondering why it was so sparsely furnished. It seemed likely that she was safe from rape. She knew a second of relief until she remembered who he was.
He appeared to be a sociopath, and she knew she was in trouble. There were things worse than rape. He seemed to alternate between transferring his feelings for his first therapist onto her, yet hating her for turning Jerry against him.
Was Kevin capable of killing? Penny shuddered. She didn’t know, but the unpredictability of his actions frightened her. One minute, he was charming. The next, he was violent. Her face ached.
Where was she? She choked down the hysteria which threatened to overwhelm her and moved toward the bed once again. A small window above it must have looked out over the beach, but she could see nothing in the darkness.
Penny debated banging her head against the window glass to break it in a grand escape attempt, but the image made her snort. Not only would she possibly knock herself out and probably bleed to death from a glass cut, she would most certainly fall to her death up here on the hurricane stilts.
She lowered herself to the bed and sat for a moment. Her hands, no longer mercifully numb, tingled painfully from lack of circulation.
What did Kevin want with Jerry’s keys? What did the keys go to? She tried to remember the details of the calls, searching for a clue, but he hadn’t mentioned the keys. The threats had been personal...directed at her. Footsteps approached the door, and she froze. She heard Kevin’s voice on the other side.
“You can talk to her for about five seconds. That’s it! And make sure you say goodbye. You’re not going to be seeing her again!”
The door flew open, and Kevin stormed into the room. He smacked the phone against Penny’s ear.
“Talk!” he barked.
“Penny! Penny? Are you there? It’s Cliff.”
Chapter Sixteen
Penny stared at Kevin for a confused instant before throwing her face against the phone.
“Cliff? Cliff? What’s going on?” she whispered with her raw throat. “What can I do?”
“Are you all right? Don’t worry. Matt’s with me. We’re going to get you out--”
Kevin yanked the phone away.
“That’s enough, Cliff. That was just supposed to be a goodbye...cuz we’re almost like family.” He gave a short mirthless laugh. “Not really! I let you talk to her so she’d know that you guys were so close...but too far.”
Kevin grinned at her and strode out of the room, leaving Penny helpless on the bed with a burning throat and hot tears in her eyes.
Did Matt and Cliff know where she was? How could they know? Could they get to her in time? At least Matt knew she hadn’t just left the parade without telling him. He knew... Even in her terror, she couldn’t deny a small ray of joy knowing Matt wouldn’t think she’d walked off.
Penny heard Kevin’s voice raised in anger. Was he still on the phone? With Cliff? Matt? As long as he was on the phone, she would be okay. Revitalized by the call, she wracked her brain for a plan of escape.
Penny tensed and jumped up when she heard footsteps pounding down the hall. The door flew open, and Kevin stormed in. He brandished the knife, the glint of it in the moonlight terrifying.
“Where are the keys to your car? Where are they?”
“In my pocket,” she whispered as she backed up.
He strode toward her and grabbed her arm. His breath blew hot on her face, and she wondered if these were her last moments. He awkwardly tried to dig into her jeans pockets with one hand, but had to shift the knife to his left hand. At the moment of the switch, Penny thrust her right knee into his groin with all her might.
Kevin howled in agony and dropped the knife as he bent over to grab his groin. Penny sidestepped him neatly and ran for the open door. She flew down the hall and flung herself backwards against the front door to twist the knob with her tied hands.
“Come here, you little--” Kevin screamed as he hobbled down the hallway at an alarmingly fast pace.
Penny’s heart pounded in her ears. Her bound and sweaty hands slipped on the knob. Was it locked? She used her whole body to twist the knob and the door opened. Penny rushed through the door and onto the landing. She braced herself against the old wooden railing for balance and sped down the stairs.
Kevin pounded down the stairs behind her cursing, but Penny heard a crash as he stumbled halfway down. She took the last two stairs at a leap and
landed on soft sand. Hoping she’d oriented herself correctly, she turned to the left toward the beach, ran past the house and through the trees.
She guessed right and broke through the trees to find herself on soft sand. With little traction, the sand slowed her progress, and she heard Kevin yelling dangerously close behind her. She dared not turn around to see where he was, and she pushed ahead, her breathing ragged, sobs sucking up what little oxygen she had left. Penny found herself out on the open beach, and she cursed herself for her stupidity. There was nowhere to hide on the deserted expanse of white sand where her dark jeans outlined her form. She couldn’t outrun Kevin...not for long.
Penny stumbled over her own feet and fell to her knees. She struggled to rise, but her bound hands made it difficult. She’d just made it back onto her feet when she heard the soft swish of sand behind her.
“You’re not getting away from me,” Kevin snarled as he grabbed her hair. Penny screamed and jerked away, ripping her hair from his hands. She ignored the searing pain in her head as she cut to the left, running back toward the safety of the tree line. She ran full tilt into an unexpected small sand dune just before the trees. As she awkwardly tried to scramble up the hill, she fell onto her stomach.
Penny heard a thud, and Kevin grabbed her ankle. He wrenched it painfully, and she cried out as he pulled her back down the hill. Penny kicked wildly and must have connected, perhaps with his face. She heard him howl. She struggled to her feet and launched herself forward in a dive to reach the crest of the dune. As she landed with a flurry of sand in her mouth, she rolled over onto the other side of the dune and slid down the embankment. She managed to get to her feet, and took off running into the shelter of the bushes and the trees.
As Penny swerved past dead trunks and stumbled over underbrush, she saw the lights of the high-rise condominiums in the distance to her right. She scanned the area and realized she’d run into the neighboring Bon Secour Wildlife Refuge. The lights of the buildings reflected onto the small lagoon on her right which separated Fort Morgan Highway from the beach.