Blind Pursuit

by Michael Prescott

  She was stretched on her back at the bottom of an arroyo, arms over her head, wrists pinned together.

  Her abductor knelt at her feet, swinging a mallet, driving a metal post into the ground. She tried to move her legs, couldn’t; rope lashed her ankles to the post.

  He was staking her out like Marilyn Vaccaro, like Sharon Lane, like Deborah Collins.

  Panic struck her like a fist. All breath and heat left her body in a rush, and abruptly she was winded and clammy and more afraid than she had been in her life, more afraid than she had been as a small child in a blazing house, more afraid than she had been in the rear compartment of the van last night.

  In her mind she could hear it—the crackle of flame, the hiss of steam, the slow crisping and peeling of her own flesh.

  No. No. No.

  Had to stop him. Had to.

  Her one hope was to communicate, find a way to make contact, get in touch with the nascent conscience deep within him that understood remorse.

  But she couldn’t speak. Something was wedged in her mouth, a scrap of cloth, secured with another strip of fabric wound around her head.

  The noise she made was a whimper, a beaten-dog sound.

  “Awake, Doc?” He swung the mallet again, and the stake descended another half inch. “Good.”

  She whipped her head from side to side, fighting to loosen the gag. Words, eloquent words, words that could save her life, bumped up against the wadded obstruction between her teeth and died there unexpressed.

  The gag would not come free. He had knotted it tight.

  Don’t let him do this, make him change his mind, I’m scared, oh, Jesus Christ, I’m so scared ...

  He put down the mallet, stood up slowly. The moon had set, and only strong starlight illuminated his face. She saw a smoky suggestion of a flat nose and receding chin. His big hands flexed at his sides.

  “You’ve been a bad girl, Doc. I’m extremely disappointed in you.”

  Her choked groan was the feeble protest of an animal in a trap.

  Flashback: the bedroom of her parents’ house, Annie shrieking, smoke everywhere, red glow in the stairwell, and the pungent smell of gasoline—

  She would smell it again when he soaked her in gas.

  Not fire. Anything else, the gun, a knife, a noose—but not fire, not fire!

  He crouched near her. Laced his fingers in her hair. His touch was tender, but the expression on his face was a twisted caricature of self-torture, a ham actor’s exaggerated display. Eyes narrowed in a painful squint. Lower lip thrust out like a pouting child’s. Stripes of wetness banding his cheeks.

  She stared up at him, pleading with her gaze. Could he read her thoughts in her eyes, and would it matter if he did?

  “God damn you.” His breath, coming fast and shallow, was hot on her face. “I came back to finish our session. Thought you’d be able to help me.”

  But she could. She wanted to scream the message at him. If he would just give her another chance, she would help him, treat him, do whatever he wanted.

  He stood. Oddly he seemed to have heard the words she could not speak. He answered her with a slow shake of his head.

  “I’m sorry, Doc. I wish this hadn’t become necessary. But it has.”

  She watched through a prism of tears as he trudged toward the embankment.

  When he returned, he would have the gasoline with him, and then there would be only the final moments of helpless, racking terror as he drenched her with it and lit the match.

  She hadn’t known her heart could work so hard, hadn’t known it was possible for each separate beat to shake her like an inner explosion, hadn’t known a human being could endure this extremity of fear.

  He reached the embankment and started to climb.

  Desperately she pulled at the ropes, knowing her efforts were wasted, knowing it was over for her, everything was over, and she would never see Annie again, or a blue sky, or her own face in a mirror.

  Useless to resist. Death by fire was her destiny. As a child she had cheated fate, but not this time.

  This time—she moaned again, pressing her cheek to the dry earth—this time she would burn.

  30

  Sunrise brightened the windows of Annie’s living room, spreading a limpid film of light over the glass. She sat up on the sofa and rubbed her bleary eyes.

  Last night she had snatched less than four hours’ sleep. A nightmare had shocked her awake—some confused memory of the fire in her parents’ house, as usual. This version of the event, however, had been strangely different from her previous dreams in two respects.

  First, in the nightmare she and Erin had been not children but adults, planted incongruously in the bedroom they’d shared as young girls. Second, while Annie had escaped, somehow Erin had been left behind in the infernal smoke and heat.

  And she had burned.

  Annie shuddered, reliving the nightmare for the hundredth time since waking. The image that haunted her was vivid and surreal, some detail out of Dali or Bosch. Irrationally she shut her eyes to block out the sight—a useless defense when the vision was imprinted not on her retinas but on her brain.

  It was Erin she saw, Erin clothed in flame, hair writhing, skin blistering, limbs thrashing, mouth stretched wide in an endless scream.

  That terrible fantasy lingered in her mind as she took her morning shower. She stood under the hot spray for many long minutes, letting the needles of water numb her, until the nightmare finally had been banished.

  Then she changed into clean clothes and ate breakfast, barely noticing the taste. Stink received a saucer of milk, in which he displayed his usual perfunctory interest.

  Already the day was getting warm. The announcer on the news-talk station predicted unseasonably high temperatures for the rest of the week.

  Twice Annie phoned Erin’s apartment from her living room. She no longer expected her sister to answer. The calls were a senseless ritual now.

  It didn’t occur to her to check her own message machine in the study until after eight o’clock. The red LED was flashing excitedly—three bursts, endlessly repeated—three messages.

  Had Erin called?

  Annie fumbled with the controls, rewound the tape, listened to the playback. Slowly her hopes dimmed, then finally died.

  None of the messages was from Erin. All three were from friends Annie had phoned yesterday afternoon, when she’d been trying to track down her sister.

  “Jeez, Annie, hope I didn’t wake you—this is Darlene—I’m awfully worried ...”

  “Sorry to call so early, but Greg and I wanted to know if there’s been any word ...”

  “Did you find her? Oh, sorry, uh, this is Rhonda, it’s about seven. So did you? Call if there’s any news, or if you want to talk ...”

  All of them must have phoned while she was in the shower, letting the water wash away the sleepless night.

  She would have to return these calls and update some of her other friends also. No doubt most of them were equally concerned but had wanted to keep the line clear.

  Well, she could call from work. No chance she was going to be able to concentrate on selling flowers today, anyhow.

  There was a time when running her shop had seemed important to her—exciting and even glamorous. Was it as recently as yesterday morning she’d felt that way?

  Now the shop was only a distraction. Still, even a distraction would be welcome in the absence of any productive avenue of inquiry she could pursue.

  At eight-fifteen she raised the garage door with her remote control and backed the red Miata into the driveway, blinking at the bright sunshine. Under other circumstances she would have thought it was a beautiful day. Dark-boled mesquite trees and slender, pale eucalyptus rustled their tresses of leaves, green against the deep blue of the sky.

  At the end of the driveway, she stopped the car opposite the mailbox. It hadn’t occurred to her to check her mail yesterday. She got out and lowered the lid.

  Bank statement, cre
dit card bill, news magazine, advertising circular, and a business-size envelope.

  Her breath stopped, heart froze. For a baffled instant, she didn’t know why.

  Then her conscious mind registered what her subconscious already had identified.

  The envelope was made out in Erin’s handwriting.

  “Oh, God,” she whispered.

  Embossed on the envelope was Erin’s return address. But there was no postmark, no stamp. Her sister must have personally delivered the letter.

  With shaking hands she opened the envelope and extracted a single sheet of pale olive paper.

  Dear Annie,

  I need some time to myself, so I’ve decided to go away for a while.

  Don’t worry about me. Everything is fine.

  Take care, Erin

  Annie stared at the letter for a long time. She read it more than once, read it until the simple message had been committed to heart.

  Then she replaced the other items—bank statement, credit card bill, magazine, circular—and shut the mailbox lid. She slipped into the car again, holding the letter and envelope, and then she just sat there, gazing at the words her sister had written, her vision muddy with tears.

  A couple of years ago she had submitted an article to a gardening magazine, a brief, humorous piece on ladybugs. The rejection slip that accompanied her manuscript by return mail had been more heartfelt than this letter in her hand.

  Incredible to think that Erin could treat her this way. I need some time to myself-—what the hell did that mean?

  To abandon her patients, her friends, and Annie herself—and then write a damn letter that didn’t even say why, didn’t say anything ...

  How could Erin do this?

  Abruptly her tears stopped. She lifted her head and gazed out the windshield, striped with morning glare.

  “She couldn’t,” Annie whispered slowly. “That’s how she could do this. She couldn’t.”

  Erin would never, never, never be so thoughtless, so unfeeling, as to write this letter under these circumstances.

  A tortured six-page confession maybe. But not these two paragraphs, these three meaningless sentences, the cheery Take care tacked onto the end like the punch line of a bad joke.

  The letter was a fake.

  Oh, Erin almost surely had written it. The handwriting, unless forged by an expert, was unmistakably hers.

  But she had not composed the letter of her own will. She had been forced.

  The heat of the sun was beginning to bake her in the car. Annie rolled out onto the street and left the complex, heading south on Pontatoc Road, thinking hard.

  At a red traffic signal, she took a second look at the envelope.

  The street address read 505 Calle Saguaro. Annie lived at 509.

  Erin knew the correct address, obviously. She’d made a deliberate error in writing 505.

  Peering closely at the number, Annie saw that the fives were rounded. Erin didn’t normally write that way. Her script was jagged, sharp-edged.

  These fives looked more like letters than numbers.

  Of course. Not 505.

  SOS.

  Behind her, a driver tapped his horn. The light had changed.

  Annie headed east on Sunrise, driving fast.

  Harold Gund’s gray van was parked outside the flower shop when she arrived. She pulled alongside it and saw Harold unlocking the front door, using the set of keys she’d given him yesterday.

  She left the Miata’s engine idling as she ran up to the doorway.

  “I’ve got to go somewhere,” she said breathlessly. “I’m sorry.”

  Concern in his round face, his startling blue eyes. “Something happen?”

  “Letter from Erin.”

  Puzzlement now. “She’s okay, then?”

  Annie shook her head. “No. She’s not okay. I’ll explain later.” She forced herself to focus on work for a moment. “I’ve got two shipments coming in today—Pacific and Green Thumb. You’re authorized to sign for both.... We need roses for the Strepman wedding on Saturday. Call Julio, tell him to send Blue Girls and Caribias, same quantity as our last wedding order. Make sure we get the bulk discount.... We’re running low on gift baskets. Better order a dozen from Marasco’s. Half with dried fruit assortments, half with those fudge things.... And balloons; we need more balloons, assorted colors; at least two bags’ worth. The big bags.”

  “Got it.”

  “Don’t leave the shop to make deliveries. Use the courier service for anything local. Did you get the centerpiece to Antonio’s before seven?”

  “With time to spare. Closed up at six-thirty, and—zoom—I was there.”

  “I owe you some overtime.”

  “It took five minutes. Forget about it.”

  “How’d the centerpiece go over, anyway?”

  “They loved it. Said they may put in another order today.”

  “Great,” she said without enthusiasm. “If they do, I’ll put it together as soon as I get back. If you have a chance, cut some foam for me. The green foam. And soak it.”

  “I know what to do,” he said gently.

  “Right. Sorry. Gotta go.”

  “Good luck, Annie,” he called after her.

  As she pulled out of the parking lot, she saw Harold still standing in the doorway, one arm lifted in a wave.

  31

  Gund watched Annie steer the Miata through a squealing U-turn and race onto Craycroft Road, speeding south.

  The letter hadn’t fooled her, as he’d hoped. If anything, it had reinforced her suspicions.

  But he doubted that the police would view it in the same light. An overworked detective would seize on any plausible excuse to discontinue the preliminary investigation into Erin’s disappearance.

  Annie, of course, had failed to think of that. Her mind didn’t work that way. She was not devious. To her, the phoniness of the letter was self-evident; naively she assumed that others would agree.

  She was in for a disappointment. Well, there would be a worse disappointment yet to come. Because Erin was never coming back.

  Gund entered the shop, flicked on the lights. Stuffed animals and garish pinatas peeped at him out of the foliage like huddled creatures in a forest.

  He wondered how Annie would deal with it, how she would react as it became clear to her—clearer each day, each passing week—that her sister was gone forever, her fate a mystery never to be solved.

  The loss would age her, surely. Kill her, even.

  He frowned, lips pursed. No, he decided. It would not kill her. She was strong. As strong as Erin, though she probably didn’t know it.

  She would live through this.

  Unless, of course, Gund should find it necessary to—

  No.

  That never had been part of the plan. Erin’s ... disposal ... always had been an option, albeit one he’d preferred not to exercise. But Annie wasn’t part of this. Annie need not be touched.

  “Need not,” he whispered, rubbing his hands together. “Need not.”

  He set about drawing the blinds, dusting the counter, sorting currency in the cash register. These were things he could do automatically; his mind was still on Annie.

  In her haste and agitation she hadn’t even noticed the damage to his van, though she had parked directly beside it.

  Last night he’d replaced the flat tire with a full-size spare, then hammered the door frame on the driver’s side back into shape so the door would open and shut. The rest of the damage would require the services of an auto-body shop.

  The front quarter panel on the driver’s side had been crushed like a beer can. One headlight was gone. Ugly grooves were etched in the passenger-side panel where Erin’s Taurus had scraped the van in the barn.

  Gund carried no collision insurance. That little bitch had cost him a bundle.

  Well, he’d seen to it that she paid for her disobedience. She would never give him any trouble again.

  He nodded grimly. Never again.
>
  Though he hadn’t heard a weather report, the morning seemed warm, the shop stuffy. He found the thermostat and turned on the air conditioning.

  The sudden whir of the duct fans, a dull, throbbing burr, reminded him of the roar of flames.

  32

  Annie found Walker at a desk in the detective squad room, eating a cruller and sipping black coffee. Crumbs littered his desk blotter.

  He stood, wiping his mouth self-consciously, as she approached him. A smile brightened his face, then faded as he saw her obvious distress.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “I heard from Erin.”

  He remembered courtesy. “Sit down.”

  She seated herself before the desk. Walker took his chair again, then leaned forward and studied her in the wan fluorescent glow.

  “Was it a phone call?” he inquired gently.

  “Letter.” She almost handed it to him, then hesitated. “Do you think it ought to be tested for fingerprints?”

  “Fingerprints? Is it some kind of ransom note?”

  “No, but ...”

  “Don’t worry about prints. Let me see it, please.”

  He read it carefully, taking more time than he needed.

  Other men in suit jackets hurried in and out of the room. It occurred to Annie that all of them, and Walker, too, had guns concealed beneath their jackets, sleek pistols or bulky revolvers. The thought struck her as obvious and, at the same time, somehow bizarre—like a child’s first realization that people were naked under their clothes.

  Finally, Walker put down the letter. “This is your sister’s handwriting?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, then ... it’s good news. Isn’t it?”

  She’d hoped he would see instantly how stilted and unnatural the phrasing was. Now she wondered, with a flutter of doubt, if she could convince him.

  “No,” she replied, speaking carefully. “It’s not good news at all. It’s a trick.”

  “A trick.” Though he said it evenly, not giving the words the inflection of a question, she heard his skepticism.

  She swallowed. “I know it sounds ... far-fetched. But Erin wouldn’t write this. I mean, she wouldn’t write it this way.” Was she making any sense? It had seemed so clear to her on the way over, but now she couldn’t find the words to express her thoughts. “I mean, she’d never be so impersonal and cold. It’s totally out of character for her.”