While She Was Sleeping

by Diane Pershing

  The smile stayed on his face, but his eyes glazed over as he seemed to turn inward. Again, Carly perceived that edge of violence in him.

  And madness.

  She felt closed in, trapped. Her heart thumped loudly in her chest.

  No, she told herself. You may not panic. You must keep your wits about you.

  “She was much more an Amanda than a Nina,” Eddie said, leaning in until his face was an inch from hers. “Am I right?”

  Bile rose in her throat. Swallowing hard, she nodded. She tried to swallow again, but wound up coughing. The sound of choking got Eddie’s attention. With one swift movement, he ripped the tape off. She muffled a scream of pain. After a moment the stinging sensation was bearable and she whispered, “Thank you.”

  He stared hard at her, his mouth open slightly. “Just then, you sounded like her, like Amanda.”

  That’s it, Carly thought. That’s how she would keep herself alive. “We were sisters,” she said quickly, careful to keep her voice pitched low. “We were a lot alike. Now, tell me more.” Her hands were still imprisoned behind her back, her neck and shoulders hurt. But maybe, just maybe, she’d found some kind of handle. “Tell me all about your Amanda.”

  “Where the hell is he?” Nick said.

  “They’ll get him,” Dom replied, roaring onto the Santa Monica Freeway. “It’s only a matter of time.”

  Dom might have been trying to calm him down, but he drove like a man possessed, so Nick knew he felt more personally involved than he usually allowed himself to. To Dom’s credit, not once since they’d left the snitch and begun to cruise the streets had he said, “Told you so.” And he could have, with ease.

  If Nick hadn’t given Carly her twenty-four-hour reprieve. If he’d been more tuned into her this morning, cut her some slack instead of blowing up at her. If his knee hadn’t given out. If the APB had turned up Monk’s car before he snatched Carly. If, if, if...

  He’d told Carly to trust him, that he would take care of her. But he’d failed to do that, and the sense of helplessness—and guilt—was overwhelming. What if they didn’t find her? They had not one single clue to where he might have taken her. Not the yacht, not his place. The snitch had referred to a cave. What cave? Where could Nick even begin to look for her?

  Carly was being held by a killer. Maybe she was dead already. Dear God, he thought. Please no. Keeping an eye on every passing car, he said, “You’re sure you guys found nothing at Monk’s apartment?”

  “I told you already, Nick. We broke in, the place was cleaned out. We thought he’d gone to Boston, remember, so it made sense.”

  Knowing he had to do something before he exploded, he faced Dom. “I want to see for myself. I want to go to Monk’s place.”

  “I already told you—”

  “I know,” he interrupted abruptly, “and I’m probably nuts. But I’m asking.”

  His face set with his own tension, Dom glanced over at Nick. Then he shrugged. “Okay, we go to Monk’s place.”

  With the plain unit’s portable red light flashing and occasional use of the siren, he covered the fifteen miles to West Hollywood in ten minutes.

  Nick and Dom walked around the one-bedroom place. Beds lay stripped, drawers hung open, old milk stank up the refrigerator; all the signs were there of a tenant moving out. A large plastic garbage bag stood in a corner of the bedroom. Nick knew it had already been searched, but he poked around in there anyway. Torn-up papers, socks with holes. Something sharp—a rectangle of metal.

  He withdrew it and stared at a framed photo of a large, Spanish-style house with mountains in the background. In the corner of the picture someone had tacked up an embossed invitation to a party given several years earlier by Mr. and Mrs. Peter Demeter.

  As Nick stared at the invitation, he flashed on the information Bobbie Kim had supplied. This would be the Silver Lake mansion that had been destroyed by an earthquake. Which meant, if it hadn’t already been torn down, it was, at the least, condemned. Which meant it was deserted.

  A perfect place to take a kidnap victim.

  It was a long shot, but what did he have to lose? “Let’s go,” he told Dom, heading for the front door.

  “He killed her,” Eddie said. “Demeter. He was driving the car. He got out with a couple of scratches, but she was smashed all to pieces.”

  Carly was still standing next to the photograph of Nina, her knees quivering with the effort to keep her voice friendly and interested. She nodded understandingly. “So, he had to be punished.”

  He rewarded her with a smirk both arrogant and sneaky at the same time, like a child who’d set a cherry bomb but wouldn’t say where. “Yeah. But not just taken out, that would be way too easy. He had to suffer.” As the smile left his face, anger distorted his features. “It had to be agonizing.”

  “So you came up with a plan,” she said soothingly. “Will you tell me about it? May I sit down?” She eased her way over toward a chair.

  As she lowered herself onto the seat, Eddie watched her carefully. “You’re doing a number on me, aren’t you? Stalling for time.”

  Had she gone too far? “No, I promise. I was just thinking that I understood why Amanda cared about you and, well—” she shrugged shyly “—I feel the same.”

  He seemed to wage an inner battle between doubting her and preening at her attentions. His ego won out, and he smiled smugly. “Sure, why not.”

  Alternating between pacing restlessly around the small room and stopping to worship at various pictures of Amanda, he told her all about it. About how Pete had been in rough shape since Amanda’s death, tormented by memories of her, until he imagined her ghost had come back to haunt him. Eddie remembered Amanda had told him about her kid sister, and how much they looked alike. He traced Carly, watched her as she left her office one day. More digging turned up Richard’s gambling habit, and Eddie bought up his markers. Now all the elements were in place for his plan...

  Carly, made up as Amanda, would be found sitting on Pete’s yacht, in the living area, when he got up on Saturday morning. Pete would think his dead wife had actually come back to life. Eddie would stay hidden and watch them. Pete would begin to make love to his “wife.” Eddie would wait till consummation was near, then would interrupt, tie Pete up and force him to watch while Eddie took over with “Amanda.” Then Eddie would kill him. The last picture Pete would see would be his wife and Eddie Monk making it.

  Payback.

  Eddie had even been prepared in case Carly wasn’t willing. “There’s this drug ‘cocktail’ they use in some Asian countries,” he told her proudly, “when they’re taking those little farm girls off to the city, you know, where they promise them good-paying jobs then sell them to the slavers. Works great. It’s a combination of Chinese herbs, roofies and Ecstasy. You heard of that? Where you have great sex?” The drug combination would induce a complete memory blackout for hours, and would also make sure Carly was sexually voracious. “It all woulda worked perfectly, except for your stupid Richard.”

  Monk glared at Carly accusingly. “Once we got to the yacht, he was supposed to get lost till it was over. Instead, he was breathing down my neck the whole time. ‘Don’t hurt her,’ he kept saying. ‘That’s not part of the deal. Only Demeter, you promised.”’ Eddie sneered. “Give me a break.”

  “How did I get here? To L.A.?”

  It was the first time Carly had spoken since Monk had begun his story and he seemed startled to hear her voice, as though, again, he’d completely forgotten she was there. She held her breath, hoping she hadn’t made another tactical error.

  Then he offered his sly, half-lidded, I’ve-got-a-secret smile again. “Demeter’s private jet. Nice touch, huh? On the plane, we made you over, me and your punk husband, to look like Amanda. Dyed your hair, put in extensions, put on her makeup, her perfume, her dress. I know all about that stuff—I used to be in the business,” he said self-importantly.

  It should have worked perfectly. Pete never left the yacht,
never. Except this one time. When they got there, no one was on board. Carly was given more drugs and they waited—Carly unconscious, Richard becoming more and more a nuisance.

  “Finally,” Eddie went on, “it’s dark when Pete comes up the gangplank with his two bodyguards—they’d decided to take a drive, can you believe it? I tell Pete I got a surprise for him down below. He heads down the stairs. Sam and Fast Frankie never take me seriously, so I have no trouble knocking them out, then making sure they stay knocked out. I sneak downstairs and I watch. You, sitting on that chair like a queen, looking just like Amanda.”

  He licked around his mouth, and Carly had to swallow down her revulsion again. “It was going to be perfect,” Eddie said. At his sudden look of pure venom, Carly shrank back in her chair. “Except—” he spat the word at her “—you were coming out of it.”

  Just as Pete discovered “Amanda,” Carly woke up and started to protest. Eddie was forced to kill Pete right then. Quickly, he switched to plan B, intending to place the blame on Carly, but Richard wouldn’t go along. So she escaped while Eddie fought Richard for the gun.

  He killed him, then took off after Carly. He followed her to the bar, then to Nick’s. Trailed her all of Sunday, almost got her at the airport, but beat it when she pulled her little stunt with the maintenance vehicle. Eddie was at Nick’s condo when she returned there, followed them the next day, then decided to lie low after Nick spotted him. He arranged to have it look as though he’d left for Boston, then waited outside Nick’s place, hoping he’d get another chance at Carly.

  A chance for what? she wondered.

  As though answering her unspoken question, Eddie pulled out his gun again. Cradling it in his hand, he seemed to study it. “And so,” he said almost dreamily, “here you are. Nowhere to go. End of the line.”

  He was going to do it. He was going to kill her. Terror gripped her, but so did the urge to live. She had to think fast. “But, Eddie—”

  “Huh?” He looked up from the gun.

  “I thought you were going to—” she shrugged suggestively “—you know, be with me, before you killed Pete. You never got the chance. I thought you and I... well, I thought it might happen now, with me.”

  It was a desperate gamble, but it was the only way she could think of to keep him from pulling the trigger and ending her life right there. Maybe if she got his mind off the gun and onto having sex with her, she might find a way to escape.

  Calculation entered his expression, followed by the sly smile. Setting the gun down on the table, he pulled open a small drawer. “Yeah. I have this other little pill, been meaning to try it out on someone, and it might as well be you.” He fished around in the drawer as he spoke. “If it works, it’ll be a big seller, because the woman who gets it is so on fire, she can’t sit still.”

  “Why do I need a pill?”

  He didn’t answer right away, then retorted, “Because all of you, all you women, you need all the help you can get.”

  Again, more clicked into place. Eddie needed a woman to be under the influence of some kind of drug before he was able to perform. If even then.

  She had to keep him from forcing the drug on her. Her hands were useless but she still had her feet. Her glance darted around the room, looking for something she could shove at him, anything. But before she found a weapon, he had produced two small blue capsules. “Yeah, take these.” A smirk. “Sorry, no water.”

  “I don’t need anything,” she purred.

  “Take them, I said.”

  Shaking her head, Carly clamped her mouth shut. If she had to die, it would not be while at a madman’s drug-induced mercy. Cursing, Eddie shoved two fingers in her mouth and tried to pry it open. She bit down, hard.

  “Bitch!” he yelled, withdrawing his fingers. He slapped her across the cheek so hard she felt her brains rattle. Mad rage distorted his face. Carly was gazing on something more evil than her imagination could ever have invented.

  He picked up the gun in his free hand and trained it on her. “I had a dog once,” he said. “When you tried to give him medicine, he’d fight it, so you just opened his jaws, took your finger and pushed it down, way down in back, till he had to swallow it.”

  Shoving the barrel of the gun between her lips, he said, “Come on now. Be a good girl. Open wide and take your medicine.”

  Chapter 12

  Be a good girl.

  The gun pressed against her teeth. Cold metal tore at her lips. The mad, enraged expression on Eddie’s face was now compressed with concentration—he was determined that she do as he say.

  From a voice buried somewhere deep inside her came one word. Enough!

  Enough death.

  Enough of being terrified.

  Enough of being drugged, of being used and ordered around, by everyone.

  Enough of being a good girl!

  Her self-defense class—had she taken it for nothing? Hadn’t she learned anything this year? Of course she had. She could bite, she could scream. And she could use the classic female-confronted-with-aggressive-male maneuver. She could get him where he lived.

  Eddie stood practically straddling her, so intent on giving her his pills he wasn’t paying attention to anything else. Carly brought her knees together and shoved up, as hard as she could, then rolled to her side off the chair.

  His howl of agony was followed by him falling backward onto the floor, then doubling over on his side, knees to chest. His hands, still holding the gun, were between his legs. It was all the time she needed. As she scrambled to her feet, a primal scream tore out of her, from somewhere in her gut. She kicked him in the head and then the ribs, again and again, until he lay still at her feet.

  As she heaved deep breaths, she felt her body quivering. Had she killed him? At that moment, she didn’t know and didn’t care. She had to get away, had to get out of that cellar. She ran up the step to the door, had to turn around to grasp the knob, but she managed it. Then she was outside, running as hard as she could to the front of the house, toward the road.

  As she slipped through the chain-link fence, she heard the sound of tires on gravel followed by the screech of brakes. A car was coming! Without her glasses, she couldn’t make out what kind, or who was driving, but she ran toward it.

  “Help!” she called out. “Help me!”

  “It’s her, Dom,” Nick said. “It’s Carly.”

  Carly ran toward them, her hair wild, her face bruised and dirty, no shoes, no glasses, her hands behind her back. The strongest emotion Nick had ever felt in his life surged up inside his chest. Carly was alive!

  And she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.

  “I’ll call it in, you get her,” Dom said, but Nick didn’t need to be told. The door was flung open and he was out of the car and running before Dom pulled to a stop.

  He saw the joy on her face as she recognized him. “Nick, thank God!” she cried out as he reached her.

  He pulled her to him, cradled her head against his chest. Her breaths came in quick short pants. “Tell me you’re okay,” he said.

  He felt her nodding against his chest. “Yes,” she managed to whisper.

  “Where’s Monk?”

  “Back there, in the cellar. Oh, Nick, I kicked him and kicked him and—”

  “Bitch!”

  The loud, enraged cry came from the house area, but no one was visible.

  Nick’s cop instinct kicked in. He pushed Carly down behind him, kneeled on one knee, whipped his gun out of his holster and aimed at the sound.

  Eddie Monk appeared around a corner, stumbling through the opening in the fence. Blood ran down his face. With one hand between his legs, he cradled himself; in the other hand he held a gun, pointed straight at Nick.

  “Halt,” Nick called out.

  “I’ll get you!” Eddie screamed, and kept coming.

  Aiming at his head, Nick fired. Eddie recoiled, then lurched and stumbled to his left, near the edge of the cliff. He seemed to catch himself and turned
to face Nick again. He stared in disbelief, his mouth open in shock. More blood poured down his face.

  Then he came at them again, the gun still in his hand, still aimed toward them. Nick got off another shot, this one in the chest. Again, Eddie recoiled, again he kept coming.

  A loud boom came from the vicinity of Dom’s car. The shotgun blast blew Eddie backward, setting him down just at the cliff’s edge. His gun flew from his hand, landing several feet away from him, out of his reach. Nick kept his gun trained on him while, for a few frantic seconds, Eddie clawed at the ground, trying to keep himself from going over. Then he seemed to sigh and give up. He slid off the side of the mountain, into the deep gorge Mother Earth had carved out for herself.

  While Dom ran over to check on Monk, Nick kept watch, half expecting Eddie to rise again, like some sort of subhuman monster. But there was nothing but silence from the cliff’s edge. Dom looked down, then turned around and nodded.

  Eddie Monk was dead.

  Nick lowered his gun. Behind him, Carly murmured in a small voice, “Is it over?”

  He whipped around. She was on her knees, her manacled hands behind her, looking for all the world like a prisoner about to be executed. Returning his gun to his holster he squatted then threw his arms around her and held her close. “Yes, it’s over.”

  “Good.” She didn’t cry, just seemed to need to rest against him while she caught her breath. After a while, she mumbled into his chest, “Can you get these handcuffs off me?”

  “I don’t have the key, and Eddie’s pretty far down. It’ll have to wait a few minutes, sorry.”

  “Don’t you carry a hacksaw or something in your trunk?”

  “Sorry, no.”

  “My glasses, they’re back in that—” she shuddered “—room. I need to get them.”

  “We will,” he soothed. “Promise.” Releasing his hold on her, he took her face between his hands and planted kisses all over her skin. “Tell me again you’re all right.”

  “I’m all right.”