This last sentence came out thin and hollow, and it took a moment for it to register in Katie’s mind. Then, “You knew—Todd?”
“I was a little worried you might recognize me from the picture.”
“Picture? What picture?” What was he talking about? Jonathan, please, please be all right. Dear God, let him be all right.
“There were four or five of us in one of the snapshots Raynes sent you. I was the one leaning on the rifle.”
Drake was in a picture Todd had sent her? She remembered then
Drake telling her he’d been in Vietnam.
“You were in Todd’s regiment,” she said, a statement, not a question. No. I don’t remember you from any picture Todd sent me.” Drake wanted her to remember, she could tell. His vanity wanted her to remember. It was almost funny, except that she didn’t feel like laughing.
“I would only have been looking at Todd,” she said deliberately.
“Not very flattering.”
Something about Jason came to her then—something Drake told her that didn’t add up. “You said the only time you saw Jason was the night you were leaving this house—I mean, the clothes on that—
Jason’s clothes…”
He smiled easily, smoothed his hair in that way he had, with his left hand, the one not clutching the knife. “I’d already broken into his apartment days before and taken the clothes.”
Drake started up the stairs toward her.
Katie backed up until she was standing with her back pressed against the locked door. There was nowhere to go.
Drake knew it, too. He stopped, in no particular hurry. But she felt the crawling, restless evil in him.
“Katie, don’t you see? I’ve known all about you for some time now—where you worked, what you did, who your friends were. I made it my business.” He put out a hand to her.
Fingers reaching out for her—fingers of a man without heart or soul. She remembered her dream, and the hand of the strawman touching her face.
“Come, Katie. It’s time.”
She cringed at his touch.
“By the way, I don’t really care for the suit. Much too conservative. I have something far more interesting for you to wear. I bought it especially for you. You’ll remember when you see it.”
Suddenly aware of the heft of the lamp in her hand, her grip on it tightened. But her intention to bring it down on Drake’s head must have registered in her face, in the tensing of her muscles, for Drake’s hand clamped down hard on her wrist, nearly knocking the lamp from her grasp, making her cry out with pain.
“Not smart,” he said quietly, and took the lamp from her.
Close to him now, Katie could smell the damp sour earth blending with the musky odor of stale sweat coming off him. “Come,” he said, smiling his death-smile.
The instant Katie stepped off the bottom step into the cellar, she saw Jonathan. He was lying in a crumpled heap on the floor. She tried to wrench herself free, to go to him, but Drake’s powerful grip tightened on her wrist like a steel clamp. Then she felt a sharp sting of the knife-point breaking her skin, felt the warm trickle of blood down her side, erasing any further thought of escape.
“You want to be with your boyfriend, don’t you?” Drake crooned in feigned sympathy. “Well, don’t worry. You will be. Soon. Very soon.”
He was eyeing Jonathan curiously, with something like begrudged respect. “Funny, it never occurred to me this guy was anything other than your doctor. Always room for human error, isn’t there?”
You’re not human, she thought. You’re not…He was taking something from beneath his jacket. He tossed it to her. “Put it on,” he said softly.
She made no move to obey.
She felt the sharp nudge of the knife. Hesitantly, she bent and picked up the filmy negligee. She recognized it as one of those he’d given her in the hospital, one of the gifts she’d returned. Briefly turning her frightened gaze on Jonathan, she saw now that his hands and feet were bound. He was so still, so awfully still.
“I’ll freeze in this,” she said, turning back to Drake.
“Put it on.” His voice left no room for argument. Nor did the knife in his hand.
Hands shaking, she undid the tiny gold buttons of her jacket, slid it off her shoulders. Next her skirt, pulling it down over her hips, painfully aware of every agonizing second of Drake’s eyes on her. Do what he says. Don ’ t antagonize him. Just wait your chance. Oh, God, what chance? What possible chance was there with Jonathan…Why was this happening? Why? She slipped the negligee over her head.
“No!” The word snapped like a whip. “Everything. Take off everything.” Slowly, deliberately, he began to caress the knife blade, sliding the flat of it back and forth between his thumb and forefinger.
A moment later she stood naked before him, writhing inwardly beneath his scalding, vile scrutiny. The pores of her skin tightened against the penetrating cold of the cellar—against him. Her fingers clumsy, she quickly put on the negligee, sliding the flimsy straps over her shoulders, feeling the skirt like spider webbing against her bare ankles.
“Now, get down on the floor.”
She did as he said. The cement was rough and needle-cold against her flesh.
His eyes moved over her. He smiled—a slow smile. “Nice,” he said. “Very nice.”
Was he going to rape her now? Was it all part of some sick ritual he’d planned for revenge? Revenge for what? Please, God help me.
She hated the tears that blinded her eyes. She hated her helplessness.
He knelt down, but other than to tie her hands and feet, he made no attempt to touch her. A reprieve? She allowed herself a faint ray of hope. Jonathan was tied up, too. There would have been no need for Drake to tie him up if he were already dead.
Maybe if she started Drake talking, stalled for time, she would think of something—something to do. It worked in the movies. She shivered. She was so cold. She ached with it. Why don’t the police come? Aren’t they supposed to be watching the house? Maybe Jonathan will wake up. And do what, Katie? His hands and feet are bound.
“You said you wanted revenge,” she said, trying to keep her voice steady. “Why, Drake? Was it because I couldn’t love you?” She knew, of course, it was something far more complex than that. Hadn’t Drake said he’d been searching for her for a long time? He’d known all about her—even that she’d once lived in Lennoxvillle. And he was in the war with Todd. But it was the only thing she could think of to get him talking.
He grunted as he gave the rope about her right wrist an extra turn. She winced, feeling it cut into her flesh. “Don’t flatter yourself,” he spat out. His pale eyes bored into hers. It was all she could do not to look away. “It’s Raynes I want revenge against. You’re nothing more than the means.”
“But Todd—Todd’s dead.” Wasn’t he?
“I know that,” he said, standing now to appraise his work. He looked pleased with himself. “I took your picture off his body. It was in his wallet along with your address.”
His tone was so off-hand that for a moment Katie couldn’t comprehend the words. She did understand that Drake put that picture in Jason’s hand, which of course was the sole reason he’d gone to the funeral parlor. But why? Why did he take that picture from Todd. And why was Todd’s body never found?
Keep him talking. That’s your only hope now. Jonathan’s only hope. Fortunately, he seemed to need little prodding. She could sense him wanting to talk—wanting to spew out all the deep, dark secrets worming around inside of him. But not from any feelings of guilt. Oh, no, not guilt. Never guilt. Rage was what she felt from him. That, and a need to brag.
“Tell me, Drake,” she said in the way of a sympathetic friend. “Tell me what happened.”
He gave her a long, hard look, as though deciding something about her. Then, when her gaze didn’t waver, his own eyes shifted to a spot just above her head, becoming gradually veiled as if he were seeing something in the distance—something from som
e other time and place.
He began suddenly to pace the brief expanse of cement floor, his movements jerky, erratic.
His words began falteringly. “We—uh, were on our bellies crawling through the hot, stinking jungle. Everything was quiet—quiet, like death. There was just me and Raynes by that time. The rest of them—gone—blown away.” He caught her in the grip of his stare.
But Katie wasn’t sure he saw her. She didn’t move her head.
He turned from her, bent and picked up the lamp from the floor and positioned it on the sawhorse near the small, dirt-smeared window.
In the lamplight, his face was an evil mask.
“Only me and Raynes left,” he mumbled, almost to himself. His eyes darted back to her, seeing her now. No doubt of that. “I itched,” he blurted, and chuckled low in his throat. “Now isn’t that the damnedest thing to remember? Just between my shoulder blades, I itched. It was making me crazy. My hair under my cap felt like one giant, squirming insect. I was filthy and sweating, and it was so damned hot—and the bugs—the sweat running into my eyes, half-blinding me. But I didn’t dare move a muscle—not one hair—and then I heard something.
“Beside me, Raynes whispered, It’s okay, Devlin, they’re on our side. Now, how could he be sure of that? They all looked alike.” He sneered, and Katie saw the terrible cruelty of his mouth. “We’d come upon a small village,” he went on. “I could see an old man working the rice paddy just a ways off.” Drake wiped his forehead with the back of his hand, though there was no warmth in the cellar. “A woman—not a real woman—not like you, Katie…” He crouched down beside her and brushed her cheek with his fingertips. She remained very still. “A hank of hair, and bones was all she was. She was standing in front of this shack calling out to the old man.”
Drake’s face was dangerously close to hers now, his breath warm and moist and vile. His eyes moved from her, fixing on the space of cellar where Jason’s effigy had hung—swaying—creaking—she remembered the feel of a warm breath on her cheek in the darkness.
Straightening, he went on. “Naturally, her speaking in that turkey-talk, I didn’t know what the hell she was saying. And then, suddenly, like a shot, this kid comes running and yelling out of nowhere.”
Drake’s eyes took on a glitter of excitement. “Coming right at us. I cocked my rifle—” He mimed the action. “Aimed…”
“Don’t,” she whispered, unable to stop herself, wanting to shut her eyes and mind to the terrible images. She couldn’t bear to hear more of this horror story, and yet she knew she needed to, needed to hear it all.
“Yeah,” he smiled. “That’s what Raynes said. Only he screamed it. Goddamn bleeding-heart Raynes. Hold your fire, he yelled, but it was too late. I didn’t hear him. I’d already pulled the trigger.”
And something squeezed Katie’s heart.
Drake’s voice lowered. “Or maybe I did hear. And maybe I just said the hell with you, Raynes. I ain’t takin’ no chances on dying for some gook kid.” He gave a harsh laugh. “Well, you don’t ask for an identity card, do you? You by any chance armed?” His fingers dug into Katie’s bare shoulder with savagery. “Do you know what I’m telling you?”
“Yes,” she managed past the taste of bile rising in her throat.
Todd’s face came to her clearly, then, as it had not done in many months, each dear feature of his face, his sensitive brown eyes, his easy grin. Todd would have loathed the sort of man Drake was. Even in the midst of war, Katie had no doubt that Todd would have bled in his soul for the murdered boy.
“You shoot, goddammit! You shoot!” Eyes wild, Drake reminded Katie of a killer dog on a frayed leash.
“How old was the boy?” she asked, a dangerous, futile question, but she was remembering the vision she’d had in the hospital, and it seemed, for some reason, important to know.
Drake didn’t answer right away, then quietly, “Like I said, I didn’t ask. What’s the difference? Six—eight—they weren’t kids. They were goddamned midgets carrying guns and grenades.”
“Was he—the boy…?”
Fury leapt into Drake’s eyes, and for a horrifying instant Katie feared she had gone too far. “No, he wasn’t armed. But how the hell could I know that?” He thrust his face close to hers, his fingers digging ever deeper into her shoulder. “Answer me! How the hell could I know the little bastard wasn’t armed?” His voice was edged with madness, and she sensed the twisted threads of his mind were as precarious as fine wires in a time bomb.
“You c-couldn’t,” she stammered, knowing it wouldn’t have mattered. There was no remorse, no regret in Drake. Only hatred—and blood-lust. Blood-lust as he relived the moment of impact when his bullet struck the boy down.
The phrase “the thrill of the hunt” came to mind, and Katie knew it was that which had made Drake so tenacious, so tireless in his efforts to track her down. But more than that, Drake enjoyed killing. There was no question in her mind about that.
“Raynes came at me like a madman,” Drake was saying, “and he kept coming at me until I…”
At the abrupt distortion of Drake’s features, Katie’s thoughts swept back across time to when she was in the sixth grade. She even remembered the boy’s name—Greg Coombs. He was the school bully.
He’d picked on little Billy Miller the entire year, but on that one day in early June, something snapped in Billy, and he turned on him, beat him until Greg begged him to stop and all the kids were cheering Billy on. She remembered the look on Greg’s face—it was the same expression Drake wore now, and Katie understood more clearly what had happened.
Todd kept coming at you until you begged him to stop, didn’t he, Drake? She was glad, but as on that day in the sixth grade, not brave enough to cheer aloud.
“They watched—women, old men, kids—watched while Raynes made me wrap the kid in an army blanket and dig a grave. He stood over me, arms folded across his chest like some goddamned sentinel while I lifted shovel full after shovel full of stinking, heavy mud. I lifted, while they all watched, wailing the whole time like Christless banshees. Even Raynes—sniveling, wiping his eyes, while I wiped sweat from mine.”
Drake was calmer now, his voice dropping, becoming monotone, almost hypnotic. “After I buried the kid, Raynes turned and walked away—turned his back on me like the fool he was. I picked up the rifle—let him hear me cock it, saw his back stiffen. Someone screamed a warning, but too late. I pumped the life out of that bleeding-heart, left him sprawled right there on that stinking swampland in a pool of his own bleeding-heart blood. And then I buried him.” He smiled. “Do you know what day that was, Katie?”
She could only look at him. My God! Todd was murdered.
Murdered by one of his own men.
“It was November fifth.”
He was waiting for her response, obviously congratulating himself for some touch of irony that was lost on her. The date meant nothing to
Katie. She didn’t receive word that Todd was missing in action until the third of December. Despite her fear, anger boiled in her. Todd might have made it back home.
“There were witnesses,” she said carelessly. Maybe one would be found, and Drake would be made to pay for his crime—if she and
Jonathan ever got out of here.
He grinned. “Not when I left that village.”
He was watching her face, enjoying the impact of his words on her.
Sickened, in a voice devoid of emotion, Katie, said, “Then you had your revenge.”
“Oh, no. It didn’t mean anything. A lot of people died in `Nam. It wasn’t special.” As he picked up the lamp from the sawhorse, his face went eerily in and out of shadow. “There are a few finishing touches I have to take care of,” he said. “I’ll be back.”
And then he was gone, and the wooden bar on the outside cellar door thumped into place. Katie struggled at once to a sitting position.
“Jonathan?” she whispered into the darkness.
Nothing.
Th
e window was low, and Katie began inching her way toward it.
She could make out Drake’s silhouette easily in the moonlight. He stood about forty yards off to her right, among the trees. The lamp was on the ground beside him.
As Katie watched the shovel lift—drop—then lift again, each time imagining the soft thud of upturned earth plopping on the hard ground, her mouth went dry. It was a scene out of a horror film.
Drake was digging a grave.
He turned suddenly, as though sensing her watching him, and leaned on his shovel. Katie could not see his face, but she felt the heat of his stare burning into her, and tore her own eyes away, the heart-stopping knowledge that Drake meant to bury them alive dawning on her in all its horror. Why else would they still be breathing? My God! And all because Todd had humiliated him all those years ago.
Gripped with panic, Katie began working her way along the floor toward where Jonathan lay, her movement agonizingly slow, the cold cement rubbing her flesh raw. Hurry! She commanded herself, terrified that any moment the door would open, and Drake would be standing there. Hurry!
At last she reached Jonathan’s still form.
“Wake up, darling.” How badly was he hurt? Was it possible…?
No, she would not even allow herself to think it. Yet there was no sound from him, no stirring of life to reassure her. Tears of fear and helplessness ran down her cheeks, and she couldn’t even wipe them away. “He’s outside now, Jonathan,” she said. “He’s digging a grave to bury us in.” When still he gave no response, Katie lay her cheek, in near despair, against his hair and felt the sticky wetness matted in the strands. Please, no! She moved her face lower, pressed an ear to his chest to listen. Only when she heard the strong, steady beat of his heart did she let out her own breath.
“Jonathan, please hear me. I need you. We are both going to die if you don’t help me. We are both going to die horribly.”
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