FORGOTTEN VOWS

by Maggie Shayne

  "Then she's still lying to you," Rad grumbled.

  Joey frowned at the earpiece and slowly pressed the phone back to her ear.

  "She almost told me the truth today, Rad. I know she wants to. It's only a matter of time—"

  "You don't have time, pal. Maybe you ought to just tell her you know. Tell her the damned amnesia was a ruse all along, and that you know she's lying about the marriage. Force her to come clean."

  "Rad, I can't—"

  "We're running into a brick wall, Ash. We have to know what she's up to, why she made up this sham marriage and what she knows about the Slasher...."

  The receiver fell from her suddenly numb hand and clattered to the floor. She heard a male voice ask, "What was that?" but ignored it. She turned, stricken, and sank onto the bed, staring into space, seeing nothing, feeling her heart shred to bits.

  She heard Ash swear, then silence buzzed from the fallen receiver. Hurried footsteps on the stairs came next. He stood in the doorway, and she knew he was staring at her, at the receiver on the floor, at her again.

  "Joey?"

  She didn't look at him. She couldn't, or she'd break down. "You knew. You knew all along."

  "Joey, it isn't—"

  "Didn't you?"

  He was silent for a long moment. Then, "Yes."

  "And yet you deceived me. You never had amnesia."

  "I deceived you? Joey, you told me you were my wife."

  "And you pretended to believe me. Why?"

  He came closer, reached out to touch her face, but she ducked away and he let his hand fall to his side. "Because I needed to find out what you were up to. I thought it might have something to do with the murders, and I had to know for sure."

  She nodded stiffly. "For a story. You turned me inside out for a story."

  "Joey, you're twisting this all out of shape. You're the one who started this deception, not me. You going to tell me you had a better reason than I did?''

  Finally she lifted her chin and met his eyes. The tears in her own prevented her from reading whatever emotions might be there. "I know that bastard is going to kill my sister. I saw it. She was lying on the floor, facedown, the back of her T-shirt covered in blood, the ends of her beautiful hair tinged crimson. That dagger on the floor near her. The Slasher standing over her. And I saw you. You are the victim just before Caro. The Slasher will try to kill you before he does her. I had to do something. I had to break the chain, and I sensed I had to break it with you."

  His eyes widened and he searched her face. "You had a vision? You came up with this whole crazy scheme to keep your sister alive?"

  "At first. But almost as soon as I met you it became just as important to me to keep you alive, Ash. You made me feel that way. You let me think...and all the time... God, I made love to you, Ash! How could you let me do that when you knew, when you were only pretending?"

  "Joey, no. I wasn't—"

  "You let me fall in love with you! Damn you. Damn you, Ash!" She got to her feet and started for the door.

  "Wait!"

  She froze, but didn't turn to face him.

  "You...you love me?"

  Her spine stiffened. God, he'd played her well, acting as if he cared when in truth... Tears streamed over her face, but she wouldn't let him see. "Loved, Ash. Past tense." She paused only long enough to tear the fake ring from her finger and throw it to the floor before she raced down the stairs and out the front door, never looking back. She went through the rain to the car, started the motor and took off, spinning the tires on the wet pavement, fishtailing before lurching forward.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Ash picked up the simple gold band, stared at it and pushed a hand through his hair in frustration. Dammit to hell, she was a freaking lunatic! Angry at him for lying to her when she'd told a whopper as big as his, or bigger. Blaming him for letting her fall in love.

  In love.

  My God, she loved him. He stood stock-still in the bedroom and let that information seep into his bones, into his heart. He felt something stir deep inside. That old longing. That little boy he'd tried to lock away, the one that yearned for love more than for air or warmth or even light. The deep pit inside him wasn't so empty anymore. And it shook Ash to realize that it hadn't been for some time. Because even though she hadn't vocalized it, Joey had been steadily filling it up with her words, her touch, her presence. God, her kisses, her body, her very breaths, had all been filling that well inside him. It wasn't empty at all anymore. It was filled to bursting; he was filled to bursting. No wonder he'd had such confusing emotions about Joey. He loved the woman right back.

  He heard the car pull away. He couldn't lose her. Not now. He had to make her understand why he'd done what he had. But how?

  He started for the stairway to go after her. Then he realized he couldn't do that. She'd left him without wheels. Think! Hell, he couldn't let her go on another minute believing what she'd just accused him of—that none of this had meant a thing to him, that he'd been playing a role all along. He hadn't been doing that any more than she had.

  He paced some more, then stopped at the telephone still on the floor. He'd call her. He'd talk her into coming back, or just tell her what he had to tell her on the phone. He'd make her listen. God, he was only just beginning to realize why she meant so much to him. She'd done what he'd believed could never be done. She'd healed that child inside him. She'd given him the ability to love. He had to tell her that.

  Her phone rang endlessly, but no one answered. Frustrated, he slammed the receiver down. Okay, she just hadn't had time to get home yet. He'd give her five minutes. Five minutes, no more. Then he'd call again. And if she still didn't pick up, he'd get to her if he had to crawl. And in the meantime, he'd ponder this some more, decide how best to explain this to her, what to say. It would have to be perfect. She was angry.

  He paced the bedroom floor, rehearsing lines, tucking the ring into his pocket

  When he heard the car in the driveway, he stiffened. She was back. His heart skidded to a halt in his chest when he realized it would be now or never. He'd have to make her understand or...

  His heart sank when someone else appeared in the doorway instead of Joey. "Damn. What are you doing here?"

  "Anonymous caller says the Slasher will strike again tonight. Wanted to check up on you. Everything all right?"

  "Nothing's all right."

  The person frowned, then shrugged. "So where's the little woman?"

  "Her house." Ash thrust his hands into the jeans pockets and turned slowly, head low. "She's mad enough to kill..." His words faded as something heavy and hard came smashing down onto his skull. He sank to the floor, and just before darkness descended, he realized what he should have noticed right off. The person was wearing black leather gloves, with two little buttons....

  #

  Joey paced. Then she cried. Then she paced some more. It was nothing. Ash felt nothing for her. He was hard-nosed, stubborn, ready to do anything necessary to get this story. He'd used her all along. God, he'd used her own lie against her, even slept with her. While she'd been losing herself to him, heart and soul, he'd probably been laughing at how far she'd go to carry off her charade. But she hadn't made love to him to convince him the marriage was real. She'd done it because she loved him. She loved him...still.

  She groaned deep in her throat and realized this was going to hurt for a long, long time. Then she stilled as grim laughter filled her mind. Not her own. Nothing this evil could come from her.

  The Slasher.

  The maniac prowled somewhere out there tonight, enveloped in darkness, somewhere out there sheltered by the storm itself.

  Her vision! God, how could she have left Ash alone when she knew he could be next? What if it was too late?

  What if that blade had already ripped across the tight skin of his throat? She ran to the phone, yanked up the receiver. She would call, just to make sure he was okay. Then she would get back to him. She'd...

  No dial ton
e. The phone was dead.

  Okay. It doesn't mean anything. Think! Think of the vision. Try and see the area around Ash, when he's lying on the floor. Could it be Caro's house? Could that be where it happens?

  She strained to conjure the vision in her mind, but instead of Ash's body on the floor, she saw Caro's. She lay facedown, on a brown sculpted carpet. It could have been the carpet in Joey's living room. Her long, multicolored waves were loose and spread over her back. The ends had soaked some of the blood from the back of the oversized gray T-shirt and—

  Joey went perfectly still and her heart seemed to trip to a stop in her chest. The T-shirt in the vision... She glanced down at herself. It was the one she was wearing right now. Again she sought details in the image she'd foreseen. It could be her, not Caro. Their hair was alike. She'd only assumed she saw her sister in the vision because of the signature clothing the woman on the floor wore. But the face hadn't been visible. And Joey was wearing those exact clothes right now.

  And the phone was dead.

  Her heart began functioning again, hammering so hard against her ribs that her body shook with the percussions. She had to get to Ash. The killer would hit him before her. She was certain of that. And she might already be too late.

  She turned toward the door. Thunder rattled the windows and lightning flashed for an instant. A dark silhouette was framed beyond the curtains of the sliding-glass door. Not Ash, but a large woman, wearing a skirt.

  The Slasher was here already. Finished with Ash. It was Joey's turn now.

  "God, please, no," she whispered, limping slowly on trembling legs toward the stairs. "Please don't let Ash be dead. Please." Maybe he was still alive. Maybe, if she could get help to him in time, he could survive. He'd been lying utterly still in the vision, but that didn't have to mean he was dead. It didn't...it couldn't.

  She found the stairs and climbed them. She walked softly, trying not to make even the tiniest sound, into her bedroom, to the nightstand. Carefully she opened the drawer, pulled out the gun.

  She extracted the clip, made sure it held all the bullets it could hold, then slipped it inside again.

  Glass shattered downstairs. She clapped a hand to her mouth to keep from screaming and tiptoed fast to the bedroom door, closing it and turning the lock. She retreated to the far side of the room and huddled in the comer, gun ready.

  Footsteps sounded on the stairs. Heavy ones. Then they sounded in the hall. They stopped.

  Joey trembled from head to toe as she waited for the knob to jiggle, or for the door to splinter beneath a heavy blow. But nothing came.

  She waited longer, and still nothing. Not a sound, or a step, or anything at all. What was happening? Maybe the killer had given up, or left to search somewhere else. She had to find a way to get to Ash. She couldn't huddle in this comer all night while he might be bleeding to death at her sister's house. She had to help him.

  Slowly, silently, she crept back to the door, the gun held in a two-fisted, white-knuckled grip. She moved closer and closer, ears straining to hear a sound, or movement. She opened her mind and tried to home in on the evil presence that had invaded her home, her very being. But she found nothing there. She bent low, pressing her ear to the door.

  It smashed open suddenly, cracking the side of her head and sending her sprawling. The gun skittered across the floor and under the bed. The door hit the wall behind it. Joey shook her head to clear it and scrambled to her feet.

  The Slasher stood in the doorway, his masculine face grotesquely made up with rouge and shadow and mascara, now running from the rain outside. He even had on lipstick. The damp, blond wig was slightly lopsided. The rain-spattered dress was big and still straining at the seams against broad shoulders and a wide, flat chest. There was a thin layer of dark, curling hairs on muscled arms that ended in fine black gloves of kid leather, with those two tiny buttons she knew so well. And clutched in one of those gloved hands was the double-edged dagger, its jeweled handle glinting in the dim room. The face beneath the garish facade was one she recognized, but still it took a moment to sink in.

  Radley. Radley Ketchum.

  #

  Ash fought his way to consciousness, a single, blood-chilling phrase ringing over and over again in his mind. "Where is the little woman?"

  Joey. The bastard was after Joey, and he'd blurted out where she was. Home. Alone.

  Rad. God, he couldn't believe it was Rad. Ash struggled to roll over, then pulled himself into a sitting position. His head was screaming. He was dizzy. He reached for the phone on the nightstand and brought it to his ear, dialing quickly. He asked the cop who answered at the station to put him through to Beverly, then waited until he heard her voice.

  "Bev...it's Ash."

  "You don't sound too good. Been drinking?"

  He could have yelled at her for that. His voice was slurred, but not from alcohol. "The Slasher...it's Radley."

  Silence.

  "You hear me? It's Radley. He's on his way to Joey's house right now, and she's there alone. Hurry." He slammed the phone down as she began shouting questions. Then he picked it up again and punched Joey's number. It rang endlessly, but no one answered.

  His heart was rapidly turning into a lump of stone in his chest. Either she'd changed her mind and was on her way back, or the storm had knocked the phones out...or he was too late.

  He got to his feet, still unsteady, staggered down the stairs and out into the rain. The car was gone, but in front of the shop beside the house, Ted's pickup sat waiting. Ash loped crookedly to it, yanking open the door.

  No keys.

  Panic was trying to set in, but Ash fought it. He had to get to Joey, and he would, if he had to steal a neighbor's car.

  He ran to the shop's door, peered through the glass. Yes. The little key rack had one set dangling from it. Ash made a fist and drove it through the window.

  #

  "Why?" Her entire body quaked in fear as she saw the insanity in Rad Ketchum's eyes. This was not the man she'd met, the man she'd known. "God, Radley, why?"

  "I have to." He spoke softly, almost kindly. "You won't get out of my mind. I can feel you there. You said it yourself, you're the one who'll destroy me. But I can't let it happen. Not until I kill him."

  He advanced. She backed up a step. "Kill who? Ash?"

  "I didn't want to hurt him."

  "But you did, didn't you? Did you kill him? Is Ash dead?" The backs of her legs hit the bed, and she began edging sideways, toward its foot.

  "It's him. Martin. My foster father. He hates me, you know."

  "No. I didn't know that." She didn't want to hear it, either. All she wanted to hear right now was that Ash wasn't dead, or dying. But Radley went on.

  "There were others there. My younger sister. Other girls. But Martin never hurt them. It was only me." He glanced at the dagger in his hand and seemed to remember his mission. He focused on Joey again. "I can't let you stop me until he's dead."

  She recalled the psychiatrist's words, that the killer might be executing the same person over and over again by killing men. But there had been one female victim in Vegas. She watched him come closer and wanted to distract him again. Maybe if she kept him talking. "You don't just kill Martin. You killed a woman in Las Vegas. You want to kill me."

  He stopped, blinking twice. "I had to kill her. She saw me. And you...you won't get out of my mind."

  She shook her head rapidly. "I'm trying. Really I am."

  "No! Every time you look at me I feel those eyes like little drills, digging holes in my brain, trying to find all my secrets. You're a witch!"

  Bad subject, she decided. She was almost to the bathroom door now. Distract him, she thought. Distract him and then run. "Why do you wear a dress, Radley? To make the police think the killer is a woman?"

  His eyes narrowed as if he thought her stupid. "I told you. Martin doesn't hurt the girls. I'm safe this way. And by the time he recognizes me, it's too late." The last three words were accompanied by a slow, e
vil smile. Radley's eyes got a faraway look, and Joey imagined he was remembering one of the murders and getting great pleasure from it. "And then I cut him, and then I watch him die," he whispered.

  Chills raced up her spine and over her nape. Her hand inched toward the door that led to the bathroom. He took another step toward her. His gaze caught the movement of her hand and he lashed out with the blade. She shoved the door open and ducked through it, slamming it behind her just in time. She sprinted across the bathroom, through its other door into the hall and down the stairs. She ran straight through the living room to the sliding-glass doors, shaking hard, her thigh screaming, her blood pounding in her temples, the echo of her pulse deafening in her ears. She bent low and tore the broom handle out of the track, then flicked the lock up, grasping the handle to pull the door open.

  He grabbed her from behind and spun her around so hard her head snapped back as if her neck were made of rubber. One hand caught her hair cruelly, tipping her head to expose her neck. The other lifted, clutching the dagger.

  She brought her knee up for all she was worth, heard the forced expulsion of air from his lungs when it connected, and then the thud of the dagger falling to the carpet. He doubled over. She dropped to her knees, her eyes never leaving Radley, as she patted the carpet in search of the knife. Then her hand closed on the chilled handle.

  Touching the weapon caused myriad faces to appear in her mind, and an instant later she realized they were the faces of his victims. Innocent, frightened, sad faces. She reached behind her for the door. Radley straightened and took a step toward her. She swung the blade in a wide arc, right to left, and felt the resistance of the skin of his chest as she swung again.

  Radley dropped to his knees in front of her, blood spreading over the front of the dress. But he was still conscious, and she couldn't turn her back to try to make it through the door. She darted past him, running for the stairs, hoping to make it to the back door. But before she even reached the kitchen, she felt his arms come around her from behind, in a brutal bear hug. He tackled her, knocking her to the carpet, squeezing the breath from her body, crushing her ribs, his weight adding to the burn in her thigh. She felt the wound tear, felt it bleed.