by Rachel Brady
I didn’t see a gun.
Scrambling up, I re-oriented and bolted for the alley, trying to ignore the pain.
“You’re fooling yourself, honey,” he yelled. “Papa’s got the good doctor’s keys.”
I tried to control my rising panic. If he’d dead-bolted the exit, running to the lounge would leave me cornered. But he might have been bluffing.
I doubted it.
Ahead, the hallway ended in a T—weight room to the left, locker room to the right. The weight room was another dead-end, so I veered right, remembering that the locker area connected to the indoor pool, which in turn opened to the lobby. I silently slipped into the locker room’s darkness and tried to steady my breathing. My purse was gone, probably lost when I’d crashed on the lobby floor, and that meant I had no phone.
No matter where I hid, Burke would find me eventually. He had all night and I couldn’t leave. My only chance for survival was to get help to come to me.
I squeezed back into the hallway and ran for the short corridor Kendra had shown me. A fire alarm box had been by the water fountains.
I dashed for it and broke the glass. Bell-style clanging erupted throughout the building and didn’t stop. I scooped a shard from the floor and barely registered the sting when it cut me. I stood and turned back for the lockers and Burke was right there watching me. He reached into his pocket.
I didn’t wait to find out why.
Barreling through the serpentine halls, my left knee and hip throbbed and it felt like my lungs were on fire. With the alarm, I couldn’t hear him behind me and I knew better than to look back. The corridor dumped me in the lobby, right next to the natatorium, and I heaved open a glass door and hurried toward the corner of the pool. Burke entered as I reached the first turn and paused as if calculating his next move. I rounded the second corner and didn’t stop until I was exactly opposite him. Four pool lanes separated us.
We stared at each other across the lane ropes, both breathing hard. Burke pushed hair from his forehead and said something that I couldn’t hear over the alarm.
He reached into his pocket and withdrew a metallic object. In the half-light, I couldn’t see what it was. He raised his hand and pointed it at me. A stiletto blade sprung out and I knew—just knew—he’d slit my throat if I let him get close enough.
I glanced at the far end of the pool, gauging the distance to the locker rooms. As if reading my mind, he produced a set of keys, spun them around a finger and laughed. He moved to the exit behind him, took his time to find the right key, and locked the door. Then he tested it to make sure.
Ignoring me, he moved to the far end of the pool toward the locker rooms. I shuffled painfully sideways to keep directly opposite him across the water.
Burke disappeared behind a partition that led to the changing areas, and then quickly reappeared. I was locked in, no doubt. The switchblade was gone, I assumed replaced in his pocket, and even from twenty-five yards away, his cold, tired stare bored into me. I mirrored his movement as he paced the perimeter of the pool, never looking away from him. He glanced at me only occasionally and seemed to be talking to himself. It went on like this, in a clockwise pattern, him walking and talking and me limping opposite him on my increasingly painful left leg, until we’d changed places and I was in front of the glass lobby door.
I pushed the handle and it was locked, as expected.
I looked around, desperate for something to break the glass. Working through the pain, I balanced on my left leg and kicked the door with my right foot. The glass cracked, but didn’t give, and when I turned around, Burke was headed toward me in a full sprint.
I ran away from him as hard as I could, around the short end of the pool. Already short of breath and with my hip and knee smarting with every step, I wasn’t sure how long I could keep the pace. The pool deck was slick, and I lost speed in the turns. By degrees I knew Burke was gaining. He was charged, jacked on adrenaline, and got closer on the second lap.
Finally, I turned a corner and he wasn’t in my periphery.
It was the upstairs track all over again; I’d have to jump or be slashed.
I leaped wide and landed on the nearest lane rope, immediately maneuvering backward in the splash because I knew Burke would come right behind me. He pushed off the deck with the power of a cheetah and landed on top of me. I swiped at him with the glass shard and caught his cheek below the eye. A thin red line discolored the water streaming down his face. I tried again and caught his shoulder, but the glass also sliced my palm. Reflexively, I let go and the shard splashed in the water between us.
I pushed myself backward across the width of the pool, kicking to keep him at bay whenever I could. But Burke was stronger and taller; the water only came to his chest. It was over my shoulders and I could only move in what felt like slow motion. I angled for the shallow end and ducked under the second rope. Even underwater, I heard the fire alarm’s tireless clang.
I splashed furtively, trying anything to slow him down. I thought I’d gained some distance, but then he surged forward and clenched my hurt right hand.
I pushed off the bottom and caught him with a left hook. He didn’t even flinch. He responded with a back fist I never saw coming and, in the time it took me to reorient, grabbed my hair and forced my face to the water. He was too strong, so I grabbed a big bite of air and knew I’d have to use it wisely.
Underwater, I focused on his jeans. He’d shown me twice now that he carried the knife on his right. My left hand was still free. If only I could close the gap.
Burke pressed harder on my head, his finger span wide enough to cup the entire back of my skull. I grew hungry for air and flashed to Annette. She’d lost her dad to the water and I’d be damned if she’d lose me too. I swam further down, nearly beyond Burke’s reach, and used my feet to push off the bottom toward his hip. My fingers snaked into his front pocket and I groped for the switchblade while he tried to step away. He let go of my head and reached for my hand, but it was too late. I had it.
I wrenched it from his pocket and thumbed the switch. The water resistance prevented a solid drive into his hip, but I dug and twisted its point until the water between us turned pink, then red.
Out of air, I drew an involuntarily breath and choked. At the surface I coughed and gagged and nearly threw up.
Burke still had my right wrist so I twisted away, holding the knife as far from him as I could. I dipped under the third rope and came up with a fast swipe at his arm before turning away again. The blade connected, but he didn’t let go.
We were in the last lane now, an arm’s length from the ladder. If I got an arm through its handrail I’d have leverage. I thrashed again with no effect. Splashing at him would put the knife within his reach, so all I could do was kick. But drag made each attempt slow and ineffective.
I kept my eyes on Burke and tried to shove him off with a foot while I felt behind me for the ladder. Finally the knife scraped against something hard and I took a quick look at the wall. Looping my arm through the metal handrail, I was careful to keep the blade high. Then I shoved my back into the foot rungs, pulled my knees to my chest, and with all my strength, swung my feet above the water’s surface where they met Burke’s face. His neck snapped back and my wrist was finally free.
I turned to the ladder and started to pull myself out, but he lunged toward me. He wrenched down on my collar and slammed my chin into the cement pool deck. My mouth filled with the metallic tang of blood, and I when I tried to move my jaw, my tongue ran over something hard and loose—a broken tooth.
Behind me, Burke angled to push me under again, but it was clear that what he most wanted was the knife. I had no chance against his greater size and leverage, so I made the decision. I’d have to give in.
I let him pry my arm from where it anchored me to the relative security of the handrail. Using all his furious strength, Burke spun me to face him and groped for my left hand to protect himself from the switchblade I’d been holding there.
>
His focus was so intense that he didn’t notice when I moved my other hand underwater and scooped the knife from where I’d placed it on the ladder’s top rung. Clutching the switchblade like the last chance I knew it was, I drove it deep into his shoulder. The crimson rush that followed assured me I’d finally slowed the monster down.
I raised the knife again but my arm was intercepted in mid-swing. Before I knew what was happening, I was hoisted to the deck and dragged backward through the shattered glass door, then pushed forward across the lobby and outside into the sticky night. Red and blue lights flashed everywhere, spotlighting uniforms and glass, and assaulted my eyes, already stinging from the chlorine. Fire trucks and squad cars lined up for blocks, and someone wrapped a blanket around my wet shoulders. Later, Burke was shoved down the stairs past me, his hands shackled. At the bottom step he looked over his bleeding shoulder and spat words I didn’t understand because, thanks to the fire alarm, I couldn’t hear for shit.
Epilogue
“When can I have my own cell phone?”
Annette and I were huddled on our sofa playing checkers on my new iPhone. Richard, feeling guilty about landing me in the E.R. again, and pitying my misfortune with the cell phone upgrade that wasn’t, had sprung for something…less cheap than I’d have ever picked out for myself.
“Maybe when you’re a teenager,” I said. “What would you do with a phone anyway? You haven’t even started school.”
“I could call my friends.”
I nodded.
“And get you unlost when you drive bad.”
I gave her a wry half-smile and shifted her off my swollen side. The bruises were still morphing through all manner of disgusting shades.
“Also I could take pictures and watch movies.”
I brightened. “We can watch movies on this?”
She nodded and opened her hand. “Let me see it.”
I passed her the phone and watched her tiny fingers tap its screen. She was probably only playing, but I felt marginally concerned that she already knew what she was doing.
It was Sunday evening and I’d been unable to find a dentist to see me on the weekend. My broken tooth was so sensitive to air that I didn’t want to talk much, but that worked out fine because Annette picked up my conversational slack.
The only problem was that she did it all with questions.
“Can I see your stitches again?”
I unwrapped the gauze around my palm. The wound was clean; it had taken five sutures.
“Gross. Does it hurt?”
“Not much anymore.”
“I’m glad you were wearing your helmet.”
Saturday, after dropping Jeannie at the airport, I’d retrieved Annette from the Fletchers. Pressed to explain my pronounced limp and bandaged hand, I told them I’d had a bike wreck. Betsy looked at me sideways but didn’t push.
I kissed the top of Annette’s head and pulled the gauze back into place. She raised my good hand to her little mouth and kissed it. “Maybe you should stick with running.”
I had Jeannie and her nosey snooping to thank for my aquatic rescue. She’d used my laptop Friday night to print Saturday’s boarding pass and, as usual, the browser opened up my webmail application by default. Seeing the note from Diana in there, she read it and then mentioned my impromptu meeting with Diana to Richard when he stopped by with a check to reimburse her Tone Zone fees. But Richard had just left Diana at Mick Young’s office, where she’d shared her story about Platt and the reason she’d slipped me his key. Richard put together that Burke had staged another bogus e-mail. He tried to call and stop me from going to the club, but we figured out that, by that time, I’d already jumped the upstairs track railing and lost my phone. When he didn’t reach me, he’d sent the police.
“Hey,” Annette said. “Why are your eyes closed? It’s not dark yet.”
I opened them, unsure whether I’d zoned out for seconds or minutes. She’d started a new game of cell phone checkers.
“Tired, sweetie. Little bit of a headache.”
Annette’s bedtime wasn’t for another hour, but I could have easily called it a day right then.
She regarded me. “What’s a headache?”
I searched for a parallel she’d understand. “Like a belly ache, in your head.”
She giggled. “You’re messing with me.”
“It’s a throbbing, hurting feeling behind my eyes.”
She frowned a little and I wished I’d lied.
“Hm.” A soft, tiny hand smoothed back my hair. “Maybe one of your thoughts went down the wrong pipe.”
I laughed. A wave of cool air rushed over my tooth and made me wish I were dead. Only, not really, because I was totally and completely in love with my child.
“You know, I met a new friend this week,” I told her. “His name is William. He’s unusual because his body is old but his mind seems very young.”
“Like my mind?”
I nodded. “He’s lonely. I thought we could visit him when I’m feeling better.”
“Does he like Legos?”
“I don’t know him well enough to say.”
“Why do you want to be his friend?”
Her question stopped me. Like William, I realized, I still felt in many ways alone, kind of on the outskirts of normalcy, and was unsure how to make life go forward smoothly. That part of him resonated with me.
Annette waited. I knew I’d never find the words to explain what I was thinking, so I changed the subject.
“Hey, let me get your opinion about something. Vince invited us to take a trip with him before you start school next month. He thought maybe you’d like to visit Sea World.”
“What’s that?”
“A giant park with whales and dolphins and lots of fish and things that live in the ocean.”
“Octopuses?”
“Probably.”
“Sting rays?”
“Yeah.”
“Tuna?”
“Anyway.” I sighed. “How does that sound?”
She shrugged. “I’d rather go with just you.”
I pulled her close and squeezed, thankful and happy in our moment, and privately celebrated the best No I’d ever heard.
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