I pulled my legs back as suits slid along the few inches of free territory, grazing my knees as they shuffled around looking for vacant space on the train. A man dressed in jeans, a T-shirt, and a Yankees cap sat opposite me with his legs splaying wide to discourage anyone from taking the spot next to his. My eyes lowered when he caught me looking at him, an age-old thought working its way to the surface of his face.
“Hey, baby.” I turned to my left and came face to face with the man in the seat next to mine. His clothes hadn’t seen the inside of a washing machine for a long time, and judging by his smell, the skin underneath them wasn’t any cleaner. “You got a few bucks I can borrow?” He flashed a set of yellow teeth, and a combination of nicotine and sour bacteria hit my nose, causing me to recoil against the steel pole at the end of the seat row. If there’d been a seat to my right I’d have been in someone’s lap. His breath was enough to compel anyone to hand over their hard-earned cash, but it was the way he asked that offended me. If you’re going to ask a stranger for money, you’d better be polite about it. I could respect that.
“I’m not your baby.” My chilly glare must have worked, because he glanced at the pole behind me and then backed off.
“Bitch,” he muttered.
Before I could fuel the fire, he got up and walked to the back of the train.
The Yankees cap sitting across the aisle watched with a smirk on his face.
Aren’t you a gentleman.
He sank back into the seat he was teetering on.
I’d been on edge since leaving the hotel. Something had my adrenaline creeping up the back of my throat. My eyes darted up and down the aisle, checking each passenger for signs of anything out of the ordinary. Maybe it was nothing, but I was damn sure going to be ready if Mr. Nothing came looking for me.
Lights flickered up and down the car as the train passed through the Seventy-Ninth Street station. We were on the express, so the train didn’t stop as it sailed by the passenger platform. As soon as we hit the tunnel, the lights flickered again and the train went black. The Yankees cap was still leering at me from across the aisle. Even in the dark I could feel his eyes on me.
Something moved on my right. From the corner of my eye, I saw the shadow of a man standing next to me. He was close enough that the static electricity from his coat reacted with mine through the gap between the poles bordering the right side of my seat. A smell hit my nose and I recognized it as cedar. An odd smell for a cologne. Maybe he worked in a lumber yard. Right, and maybe Paul Bunyan would be getting on at the next stop.
Whoever he was, he was in my space, making every hair on my body stand on end. Even with the distance between his shoulders and mine, I could hear him breathing and feel his eyes looking down at me.
Get it together, I said to myself as I gained control one logical thought at a time. My mind stopped racing as I began to relax and rely on the fact that even though the lights were out, we were in a packed subway car. That reasonableness disappeared as I sensed something tracing along the edge of my hair. A spider was descending a thread from its web, dropping in increments until it reached the expanse between my chin and scarf. But those were no tiny feet crawling along the surface of my skin. The pressure deepened as a fingertip stroked down my neck.
I catapulted from my seat toward the opposite wall of the train, almost hitting the man in the Yankees cap. “Get. Your. Hands. Off!” I yelled in a voice I barely recognized. My head cocked in the direction of the shadow, as the lights flashed back on and revealed an empty spot where the man had been standing a few seconds earlier. Not a single passenger asked me if I was okay. Instead, they shot nervous glances at each other, silently discussing the crazy girl standing in the middle of the aisle.
They think I’m nuts!
The doors opened at Eighty-Sixth Street. I bolted from the train and scanned the people getting off the adjacent cars. I didn’t know whom I was looking for, but I had a feeling he’d be looking for me if he got off the train. But all I saw were passengers moving out of the path of the crazy girl.
Like cattle in a chute, the crowd moved toward the subway exit and ascended the stairs toward the street. Queasy from the adrenaline pumping through my bloodstream, I pushed through the horde to get to the open air. When I got to the top step, I glanced at my cell phone and silently cursed the numbers on the clock.
I ran the seven blocks to catch the agent. The five-story building was about as run down as you’d expect for the rent, but that was part of living in Manhattan. The unacceptable by another city’s standards was the norm here. A small pizzeria was to the left of the stairs with a vacant shop to the right. I was about to press the buzzer when I noticed the interior door was open. “So much for security,” I muttered.
The apartment was on the fourth floor. Each step echoed through the stairwell, making sure the entire building was aware of my presence. I guess that was a good thing. When I got to the apartment, the place was empty except for the agent. She glanced up while she stuffed papers into an oversized bag. “You here to see the apartment?”
“Yes. I saw it on your website.”
The place was listed as a spacious one bedroom with a full kitchen. This place couldn’t have been more than six hundred square feet. My eyes were drawn to the steep warp of the living room floor, making me wonder if the previous occupants spent most of their time moving furniture back to the edges of the room. I glanced to the room on my left, and while I understood that New York standards were on the small side, there was no way that closet could have been mistaken for a bedroom.
“Oh, I’m sorry. The apartment was rented this afternoon.”
“Rented? How could the place be rented if you’re still showing it?”
“Most of the applicants were pre-approved. There’s a link on the listing to submit an application. All they had to do was take a look at the place. First one who got out a pen got the lease. We had a lot of takers.” Her mouth was moving, but I was still stuck on the part about the place already being rented. “I’m sorry you came out here for nothing.”
I headed down Ninety-Sixth Street toward Central Park West. My mood had gone to shit, but I refused to let my own stupidity spoil the rest of my day. I had a meeting with Mr. Kennedy that evening and figured a visit to one of the museums might perk me up. I pulled out the visitor’s guide that came with the orientation pack I’d received at the hotel. The Metropolitan was open until nine, so I’d take the bus across the park to Fifth Avenue and walk south to Eighty-Second Street.
When I looked down the street, the bus was already at the stop. I ran for it, waving my arms like a lunatic as it pulled away. I debated waiting for the next one, but it wasn’t that late and I figured I could make it across before it got too dark. Besides, I needed the exercise, and this was New York—people were everywhere.
I crossed over Central Park West and headed toward the entrance.
“Watch out for the crows,” I heard someone say.
An old woman pushed a shopping cart up to one of the benches and proceeded to spread a dirty towel over the bird droppings before sitting down. Her gray hair was partially tucked under a knit cap as the rest fell around her face, framing a set of eyes that looked like cloudy stones nested in crepe paper, and a nose that turned slightly left as it got closer to the tip.
She looked up at the sky as I walked past her. “Park’s not a good place right now.” I thought she was talking to herself, but then I realized the comment was meant for me.
“You don’t seem too concerned for yourself,” I said.
“Too old. The crows fly right over me.” Her hand waved dismissively through the air.
A pair of camouflage boots looked relatively new compared to the rest of her clothing. A dress, faux fur parka, and a pair of discolored knee-high gym socks completed her ensemble. She looked warm and prepared for the onslaught of cold rolling in for the night. In her world, I guess that’s all that mattered.
Quit staring, I told myself. I couldn’
t help it. The woman babbling to me was probably mentally ill. Then again, maybe she wasn’t. For all I knew the woman was perfectly sane. Who the hell was I to judge someone based on the way he or she chose to live? You could tell a lot about a person by the way they treated animals or the less fortunate, and it shamed me to judge her.
Through the entire conversation, the woman never made eye contact with me. She just went about unpacking her things: plastic bags, blankets, gloves, food.
“Thanks for the warning,” I mumbled.
The plan was to take the first walking trail straight across to Fifth Avenue. I headed down West Drive with my face averted from the oncoming pedestrians moving past me. The apartment debacle still had me in a bad mood, and I couldn’t bear the thought of pleasantries with strangers. My eyes lowered to the ground in front of me and landed on a pair of polished black shoes planted directly in my path. I looked up into the large sunglasses of an NYPD officer.
“Evening,” I said.
The officer’s head tilted mechanically in my direction as his lenses turned shiny from the angle of the streetlights flicking on around the park. I was acknowledged, not with words, but with a flash of teeth that lit up the dim space between us. He continued penetrating me with his invisible eyes and Cheshire cat grin, inciting an uneasy feeling in my gut with each uncomfortable second that passed. I did a double take when his head jerked in an almost indiscernible movement, beckoning me in the direction of the park’s center.
“Did you just—”
His head snapped back around, and his shiny black shades glared at me like the eyes of a giant insect. For a servant of the people he was more unsettling than reassuring, but I guess a creepy officer of the law was better than none.
I moved around him and smiled politely as I cleared his shadow and continued down the road. The good news was there were lots of people walking on West Drive, none of which appeared to be rapists or serial killers. Ted Bundy didn’t look like a serial killer either. Caucasian male, twenty-five to thirty-five, high IQ—the classic profile that could fit any of the men walking next to me.
My hands stung from the wind whipping through the park. “Damn it. Why didn’t I wear my gloves?”
I cut over to the jogging trail at the bottom of the reservoir and headed toward the lights coming from the east side. Ten, maybe fifteen minutes, that’s all it would take. Most people would have waited for that bus, but I was too deep in the weeds to turn back now.
As I walked down the compacted path, the wind coming off the water pushed the cold air over my exposed skin, causing my muscles to tighten from the constriction of blood vessels. My breath left a trail a foot long with each exhale, which only exaggerated the eeriness of the park as the people disappeared and I found myself alone in the quietest part of Manhattan. How could it be so damn quiet in the middle of eight million people? I could still see the lights from the other side, but without sound they seemed to be an ocean away.
My constricted blood vessels opened back up when I heard footsteps coming down the trail. The sound was getting louder, the pace quickening as each step seemed aimed at me. My flight instinct kicked in, but the act was in direct conflict with the dark stretch of path ahead of me. I couldn’t have staged the crime scene any better.
“Weapon. Weapon. Weapon,” I kept repeating in a low mantra. Verbalizing the word seemed to make it more attainable as I darted my head around looking for one. I searched the ground, but a fistful of dirt wasn’t going to help.
Time was up. I looked over my shoulder and saw a large figure moving toward me. I thought I might actually pass out from the pain of my heart slamming against my ribcage. The urge to vomit on an empty stomach resulted in a single dry heave. I braced myself for the cracking pain of a fist smashing against my head or a knife piercing my skin. All of it seemed to intensify tenfold in that last few seconds before I made my next decision.
“What do you want!” I yelled, turning on the last word.
The figure charged, his shadow rolling over me as the pungent smell of sweat and endorphins blew past me. A pair of Nikes kicked up a trail of dust as my attacker grazed my arm and continued down the trail, looking back at me with twisted brows and a half formed thought on his tongue.
“Dear God.” My knees nearly gave out as he disappeared into the darkness. “Are you kidding me?”
I regained the use of my legs and took one step in the same direction as the runner. A stretch of trees and bushes lined the path straight ahead that looked more like a sinister black void than the harmless green structures of daytime. I guess the runner was good for something. He was my canary in the mine. If something was in there, he’d get it first. Served him right for sneaking up on a woman in the dark.
He disappeared down the trail. I heard no screams or blood-curdling sounds, so I assumed it was reasonably safe. Maybe that was foolish, but I was halfway so my odds were about dead even if I continued or turned back. “Everything’s fine,” I repeated several times as my eyes bounced erratically around the perimeter of the trail. But the hairs on the back of my neck told me something still wasn’t quite right, and without thinking about why, my legs started to move faster. Before I knew it, I was in a dead run. My brain picked up on a new threat coming down the trail before my ears did, but this time it wasn’t the steady pounding of running shoes. These steps were slow and controlled, like the person making them didn’t care if he was heard. I was the mouse, and whoever was coming toward me was the cat, and the name of the game was make the mouse run.
I played along and ran down the path at a speed I didn’t know I was capable of. The sky was lit up by a blanket of lights just beyond the edge of the park, shifting into a tumultuous mix of clouds spinning away from each other like the centrifuge of a giant juicer. As fast as it lit up, the sky turned black, leaving me with nothing but a blind man’s guess for a compass. As I ran, my eyes lifted toward the top of the tree line where the darkness faded into muddy gray, revealing the silhouettes of the tops of buildings against the lighter sky—buildings I’d seen before. I was running in the wrong direction. I was channeling Flo-Jo straight back to where I’d started and straight toward my assailant.
Something came into focus ahead of me. A large mass—darker than the blackness surrounding it, as tall as the trees behind it or as small as a child depending on your perspective—stood motionless in the middle of the path. I was heading straight for it with no indication that my feet had any intention of stopping. Those traitors that I called legs were under the direction of something other than my own free will.
The impulse to vomit returned, but then my fear suddenly dispersed, replaced by something I could only describe as weightlessness. All my senses seemed to malfunction as I struggled to form words or control my perception of what was touching me. My arms flailed at the empty space around me. “Easy, kitten,” a voice said, or maybe I imagined it along with that giant hand that was suspending me like a cat scruffed by the neck. And maybe the smell of cedar was also just a figment of my imagination.
The ground was under my feet again, but the hard surface of dirt and grass was replaced by a thick layer of marshmallow—at least, that’s what it felt like. I tumbled forward like I was stepping off a cliff, but somehow I managed not to fall to the ground. The sensation of liquid heat slipped through my veins, quickly incapacitating me as one by one my muscles loosened and I lost control of both my movement and my sense of space. My body lifted off the ground, and then I dropped back down against the grass and found myself staring up at the sky. I knew I was on the grass because I could feel the wet frost against my skin—my bare skin. In a panic, I managed to lift my head and drag my eyes along my exposed arms and legs. I was naked.
The assault unfolded silently. Not a sound entered my ears other than the beating of my own heart as the blood raced back and forth through my arteries. It was like I was being held under water, but I wasn’t drowning. The outline of his head was visible through the imaginary water as it morphed back an
d forth with the waves, but the details of his face were a blur. As he pinned me to the ground, I rolled my head to the side and searched for something. I focused on a large branch lying on the ground a few yards away. It must have come down in a storm, I thought as the distraction insulated my mind.
His hand ran down the inside of my thigh, and even though the strange drug-like effect was paralyzing my body, I managed to get a sound out. “No.” It was a barely audible whisper, but I needed to say it aloud.
A wave of nausea shot from my chest to the center of my forehead as I felt his skin press against mine. I pulled my eyes from the tree branch and turned my head. He’d have to look me in the eyes while he did it. Maybe it would have been smarter not to. Maybe my odds of surviving would have been better if I couldn’t identify him, but the odds of me not being able to live with myself for that were even greater.
I braced myself for the pain, but as he looked back at me through the hallucinatory waves, his skin turned cold and his body went perfectly still. His brown eyes came into focus as his pupils constricted into tiny pinholes, and then he began to pull away. I could feel cold air rush over my skin as he lifted and stood over me like a mountain of black shadows.
The feeling in my limbs began to return, but as my flight instinct kicked in and I tried to push myself off the ground, a swarm of black dots filled my peripheral vision. I fell back down to the cold grass and the world disappeared.
FOUR
I could make out a set of shoulders as I lifted off the ground and slammed against a wall of heat.
“Be still. Fuck,” he said.
“Still?” The word barely made it out of my half-functioning mouth. Every movement was a fight against my own body as pain roared through me like molten steel being fed into my veins.
“Do. Not. Speak.” The voice was dark this time.
The Amulet Thief (The Fitheach Trilogy Book 1) Page 3