Or was he just staring? Perhaps he was getting ready. Pulling out his weapon, deciding where to begin. Her facial muscles stiffened. The urge to see, to know, to be prepared, was nearly impossible to ignore.
He slapped her across the left cheek. “Wake up, bitch!”
Her head snapped away from the blow. Sharp shards of pain exploded through her cheekbone. Duct tape muffled her grunt of pain. Stinging tears blurred her vision.
She rolled her head so she could look up at him.
Smiling, he grabbed her chin and stroked it. “I want your eyes wide-open. I want you to see everything I’m going to do to you.”
He shrugged out of his shirt. “I’ve waited a long time for this.” Folding it, he placed it on the corner of the dresser. In the dim illumination that spilled in from the hall fixture, his chest appeared pasty, but massive, with bulging muscles and the defined cut of a jail yard bodybuilder.
How could she possibly hope to overpower him? Without a weapon?
But she had to try. She refused to simply lie here and die.
Katie moved as subtly as she could, and, in halting, wriggling inches, she made it to the edge of the mattress closest to the door, when Sekorra noticed. Still opening drawers as if he were looking for something, he smiled at her.
“Katydid. You should save some of that energy. You’re going to need it when we start. I’ll want you to writhe for me then. When I can watch and enjoy.”
After pulling the drapes closed, he prowled around the room some more before coming back to where she lay. He turned on the bedside lamp and then squatted next to the side of the bed. Reaching out, he ran a thick finger across her black and blue cheek, smoothing back a section of hair that was caught on it, his fingers gentle.
She refused to look at him.
Like a cat, intent of torturing its prey, he continued to brush his finger over her face. “You know what I want more than anything?” he asked. He reached down between his legs. “What’s guaranteed to give me a real hard-on?”
He leaned in closer still. “Besides getting between those firm thighs of yours?” He leaned down and licked her cheek. “I’ve been saving up, Katydid. Seven long years without.” He reached down and rubbed himself again. His eyes glazed over. “Karen liked it hot and raunchy.” He opened Katie’s blouse and ran his hand over bare skin. “It’ll almost be like doing it with a dead woman.
“But to make it perfect…” He ripped the duct tape off her mouth. “I’m going to need to hear you scream.”
He dug a box cutter from his pocket. Flicking the short but lethal blade from the handle, he held it up for her to see.
“Nothing fancy,” he said, tilting it in the lamplight so that they both could admire it. “And yet strangely effective. In fact, it has some real advantages. No chance of getting carried away and going too deep, too soon. Ending the fun even before it’s begun.”
Panic broke free inside her. She was breathing too fast, but she couldn’t seem to slow it. Don’t hyperventilate. If she passed out now, she might not ever wake up. But no, that wasn’t really true. Sekorra wouldn’t let her die quickly, unconscious. He wanted her to suffer. He planned to enjoy her pain.
Her heart slammed against her ribs. She had to find some way… For Alec. For her parents. For herself. She wanted so much to live.
With a deliberate sawing motion, Sekorra hacked off her jeans by slitting them from ankle to hip. She could feel the trembling start deep inside her, heavy, involuntary tremors of primal fear.
He retracted the blade with a satisfied snap.
“Before I’m done with you,” he said, “You will beg me to kill you.” He trailed his fingers up her leg and across her belly. “And I always give ladies what they want. Karen could have told you that.”
She couldn’t control the way her shoulders jerked and her lungs deflated.
An hour ago, it would have been enough just to escape him. Not now.
Now she hated as he did.
Hated enough to kill.
Tears welled up in he eyes, not just of fear, but also of determination. He was stronger than she was, but he wasn’t any more resolved. And perhaps he had a weakness, after all. Perhaps he was a little too confident. He expected her to go meekly to her death, paralyzed by fear. And she wouldn’t. If she didn’t survive, at least she would force him into killing her quickly. He’d never see her cower and beg. She’d cheat him of that, at least.
Leaning over her, he wiped her tears away. “You’re just like your sister, aren’t you? Gutless when it counts.”
Sekorra pulled lengths of surgical tubing from his pocket and tied two strips to the headboard first. As he was attaching the other two to the footboard, his eyes kept flicking up to look at her. She tried to shift her bound hands higher, because with her buttocks resting on them, her naked pelvis was thrust upward.
He chuckled at her helpless motions. “No reason to be shy. I’m going to be seeing a lot more of you real soon.”
She was running out of time. She tried to get enough oxygen to clear her brain. She needed to think quickly and clearly.
She remembered that Alec strapped a weapon to his ankle when he jogged. What about when he slept? Did he keep a gun close? Beneath the mattress? In a bedside drawer?
No. It was no good unless she was sure. She’d have only one chance. She couldn’t waste it on a weapon that might not be there.
As he’d done before, he grabbed one of her legs and tied it to the bed frame. Then he sliced though the zip tie that bound her ankles together. It didn’t take just one hand to get it done. It took two. With her legs splayed apart and tied, he shoved her over onto her side. His knuckles brushed her buttocks as he sawed through the tough nylon tie that held her hands.
Swallowing her fear, she closed her eyes and tried to focus on what was happening behind her back. Timing was everything. She’d need to act fast. Surprise was her biggest weapon. Perhaps her only one.
As soon as he wrapped his fingers around one wrist, she grabbed for his crotch. She clamped down on him, at the same time throwing her upper body up off the mattress and sinking her teeth into his gut.
Cursing, he jerked back, releasing her other hand. But she hadn’t hurt him enough. He immediately retaliated. He slashed at her with the knife. He didn’t seem to realize that the blade wasn’t fully extended, that the wounds to her arms and hands were superficial. Nor had he noticed her hand diving between the mattress and the box spring again and again.
“You’re a dead woman,” he yelled.
Her fingers closed over the cold, hard steel of a gun. Katie jerked it free and, bringing it up, aimed it. She had expected him to back off, but the gun seemed to fuel his fury.
“Bitch!”
She fired once. He faltered. She watched as anger briefly disintegrated into stunned surprise. He looked at her and as he did, smiled. Even if she emptied the gun into him, would it be enough to stop him?
Already on the edge of the bed, she suddenly tumbled backward and onto the wood floor, hitting her head. The surgical tubing tightened like nooses around her ankles. The gun dropped beside her. She scooped it up, but never got the chance to aim it as a second blast propelled his body backward onto the bed.
And then Alec was there. He shoved Sekorra’s limp, bleeding body aside and, scooping Katie into his arms, lifted her onto the bed. As he wrapped his arms around her, the cold steel of his gun pressed against her back. She was bleeding, she was naked, and her ankles were still tied awkwardly to the bedposts, but somehow none of that mattered. She was in his arms, she was safe. They were going to live.
She lifted her face to his, her heart catching at the sight of the grim, dangerous fury etched on his handsome features. Sekorra hadn’t had a chance against this determination.
Except…another few seconds, and Alec would have been too late. Her body quivered as she thought of how close they had come to losing each other. How had he found her? How had he known where to look?
But she could a
sk him all those things later. Other men in uniforms were streaming into the room, and she had something far more important to say in this last private moment. Something she should have said days ago. Something she’d been saying in her heart ever since Sekorra had told her she would die tonight, praying Alec could hear her.
“Hey,” she said softly.
He looked down and touched her bruised cheek with gentle fingers. “Hey,” he said with a jagged breath. She realized there were tears in his eyes.
“I just wanted to say—” She tried to steady her voice, but suddenly she was shaking all over as the incoming waves of relief met the lingering aftershocks of terror. His arms tightened around her, stilling her trembling, shielding her naked body from the other men. Creating a cocoon of safety.
“I just wanted to say I love you.”
Epilogue
With a grin on her face, Katie waded out into the crystalline, seventy-two-degree water of Hidden Spring, one of the more remote springs in the State Park. Turning, she smiled up at Alec.
She’d spent the past hour in front of her easel and he had just finished his usual six-mile run though Deep Water Springs State Park, the last mile of which would have been at a hard sprint.
Using the bottom of his T-shirt, he wiped the sweat from his face. “What are you doing?”
“What does it look like I’m doing?” As she backed away, she released the top few buttons of her blouse. It was a beautiful day, one of those January ones that seemed more spring than winter. The sun hung high in a deep blue Florida sky and a gentle breeze carried the scent of the nearby vegetation and the pristine water.
It had been nearly two months since that night. Nightmares still haunted her, but when she woke up screaming, Alec’s arms were always there to hold and comfort her. Most days she sensed that he had finally made peace with what had happened. Part of him would always mourn Jill’s death and the death of the child she’d been carrying, but he no longer seemed consumed by it. He’d been smiling more. Katie wanted to think she was at least partly responsible.
As for her demons, the most important of them had been laid to rest with Sekorra. Somewhere deep inside Katie—a place where twins were able to communicate with one another no matter what barrier separated them—she knew Karen was finally at peace.
Katie still hadn’t told her parents the whole story. Somehow, it seemed better not to. Two weeks ago, Carlos had suddenly turned up in New Orleans. Her missing paintings had yet to surface. But the paintings were strangely unimportant now. She could always paint more. And her new work was better than the old, as if she knew more about life now, as if she could finally really see that every blade of grass was beautiful, every drop of sunshine precious.
Katie bent forward, dragging the tips of her fingers through the cool water. How many days like this one had she let go by without really experiencing them? How many times had she let herself worry about things that, in the end, meant nothing?
She closed her eyes and just listened. Squirrel chatter. A blue jay’s harsh complaint. The wind touching her cheek. The slow drip as water dribbled from her fingertips. She flexed her toes into the silt bottom. It was unbelievably soft, almost like standing on a cloud.
She opened her eyes, her gaze immediately searching for Alec. He no longer stood at the top of the short embankment, but at the water’s edge.
She flicked water at him. “Coming in?”
“No.”
“I guess I’ll have to do something to change your mind about that.” She pulled off the shirt and threw it at him, laughing now. She’d never felt as exposed as she did at this moment. Standing there naked from the waist up. But it was a good feeling. A freeing one.
Alec shook his head, but he was smiling. “It’s January.”
“And your point is?” She unfastened the front of her jeans and pushed them off her hips and down her legs, enjoying the first stirring of air against more newly exposed skin. Her pulse kicked a bit harder now. With her recklessness. With anticipation.
“You’re going to get us arrested,” he warned as he ripped his T-shirt over his head.
As always, something caught deep inside when he looked at her that way.
“Don’t worry,” she said. She finally managed to get her jeans off and threw them toward him. They fell short and dropped into the water. Covering her mouth, she laughed. “Oops.”
He plucked them out and pitched them over a nearby limb. In almost the same motion, he kicked off his running shoes, and then peeled off his sweats and tossed them with her jeans.
He waded out toward her. She didn’t need to lower her gaze to know how much he wanted her. It was in his eyes as he reached for her. It was in his arms as he pulled her into them. It was in his mouth as he kissed her deeply and thoroughly.
“Hey,” he said when he finally lifted his lips from hers.
She was feeling a little weak in the knees. “Hey,” she answered shakily.
He tilted her head back, so that the dappled sunshine could pour over it. Sunshine, she thought, as its warmth stroked her cheek. Finally sunshine instead of shadows.
“I just wanted to say—” He kissed her neck, and a trembling started deep inside her. “I just wanted to say, I love you.”
I need to thank fellow critique partners Terri Backhus,
Ann Bair and Kathleen Pynn for their unending generosity.
And fellow suspense author Kathy Holzapfel for her devious
mind, quick wit and friendship. Without these four,
writing wouldn’t be nearly the adventure that it is.
And as always, to my very own hero, Bobby Harris.
ISBN: 978-1-4592-2558-9
TARGETED
Copyright © 2006 by Lori L. Harris
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.
All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.
This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
® and TM are trademarks of the publisher. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Trade Marks Office and in other countries.
[http://www.eHarlequin.com] www.eHarlequin.com
Table of Contents
About the Author
Books by Lori L. Harris
Letter to Reader
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Epilogue
Copyright
Targeted Page 21