Watching Their Steps

by Alana Terry

  The killer twisted the doorknob both directions, but the lock held. Neither of us breathed as we waited to see what he would do next. A heavy force hit the outside of the door, and the wood split from the top of the door to the lock. Jace screamed.

  He hit the door again, and a chunk of wood splintered from the frame and fell on the floor. If he hit the door again, it would give. God, please . . . help us. He slammed into the door again, but it didn’t break under his weight.

  “You can’t hide forever, Holly,” the man on the other side of the door said. His voice sent a chill twisting down my spine.

  Sam. I had tried to call Marx, but I hadn’t tried calling Sam. I scrambled out of the shower and over to the window, nearly pulling Jace with me when she refused to relinquish her grip on my hand. I unlocked the window with clumsy fingers and shoved it up.

  I had done this before . . .

  I fumbled the old lock open with slick fingers and grunted as I pushed up the heavy window. A rush of cold, autumn scented air swirled around me, and I shivered in my Hello Kitty nightgown.

  “Go, baby, run,” a man’s quiet voice urged. There was love and despair and desperation all rolled up in that voice.

  The creak of floorboards echoed in the hallway, and I froze in terror as I gripped the edge of the window. I looked back at the bedroom door, expecting to see the monster, but no one stood there.

  “Run, Holly,” the man urged again. “Don’t stop running until you get to his house, do you hear me?” I glanced at the patch of darkness where the voice came from, and nodded numbly.

  The sound of a girl crying in the hallway made me hesitate. I didn’t want to leave her, but he’d told me to go. The sound of heavy footsteps sent me scrambling out the window. He was coming back. My feet landed on the cold tiles of the porch roof, and I shuffled quickly to the edge where the flower trellis was bolted to the side. I climbed down as I had done so many times before, but my fingers were wet. I slipped and fell the last three feet to the ground.

  I landed hard on my back and coughed as I tried to recapture my breath. I froze when I heard a strange man’s voice in the bedroom upstairs: “Where’s the other one? Where’s Holly?”

  My heart pounded through my chest, and I climbed to my feet. I caught a glimpse of a dark figure leaning out of the second-story window as I darted through the dew-dampened grass toward the trees.

  “Holly!” Jace’s frantic voice ripped me out of the terrifying memory, and I glanced back at the bathroom door. It was falling to pieces, and it was all that stood between us and a killer.

  I leaned out the window and looked down—ten dizzying stories to the ground. Even if there had been a trellis, Jace would never be able to climb down it, and I wouldn’t leave her. Neither of us would survive the drop to the ground.

  “Sam!” I screamed, and my voice pierced the quiet night like a knife. I hoped he could hear me wherever he’d gone.

  A figure sprinted around the outside of the building, gun still drawn, and hesitated for the briefest moment as he looked up at me. Something hit the door again, and I ducked reflexively as Jace let out another petrified scream.

  Sam tore across the grass and back into the building. I turned my back to the window and gripped the scissors tightly in front of me. The tip of a knife was lodged in the bathroom door. I kept my eyes on the door as I backed into the shower and angled myself in front of Jace, desperate to keep her safe.

  We listened with bated breath for the next blow that would level the door. The minutes seemed like hours as we shivered in the shower, waiting.

  We both let out a shriek of terror when something smacked the outside of the door. “Holly, Jace?” a familiar voice called.

  “Ssssam.” Jace gasped through chattering teeth.

  “Are you both okay?” he asked. He sounded as rattled as we felt.

  I stepped out of the shower on shaking legs and unlocked the door. More splinters of wood rained down on the floor as I pulled it open. Sam stood just outside the door, one hand bracing the door frame and the other holding his gun.

  There was a light sheen of sweat on his skin from sprinting up so many flights of steps. His dark eyes scanned me for injuries and then moved over my shoulder to Jace, who was still hiding in the shower with her can of hair spray. I dropped the scissors on the floor in relief and sagged back against the bathroom counter.

  Sam pushed the bathroom door the rest of the way inward and looked at the knife embedded in the wood. My gaze lifted to the picture the killer had pinned to the door with a knife: it was a profile shot taken last night when I was sitting on the steps next to Marx, and the blade was pierced through his head. Written in blood-red marker across the bottom was a message: See you soon, Holly.

  Chapter 21

  I SAT ON JACE’S COUCH with a blanket wrapped snugly around my shoulders and stared at the broken front door. It was fractured into kindling.

  Jace’s hand slid slowly under the edge of the blanket and came to rest on my socked foot. She was leaning forward in her wheelchair to touch me, reminding herself we were both all right, and her right hand was holding a mug of lavender tea in a white-knuckled grip.

  I shifted so I could touch her hand, and her wide, shimmering blue eyes lifted from the mug of tea to my face.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered, guilt stripping all strength from my voice. “I’m sorry I brought him here.”

  Jace turned her hand so that she could squeeze my fingers. “You didn’t bring him here,” she said with equal softness. “He came to hurt us. That’s not your fault.”

  Marx’s furious voice drew our attention to the hallway. “I didn’t send you this text! Why is my name on it?”

  Although I hadn’t been able to figure out what happened at the time, I knew Marx would never leave us unprotected.

  “I don’t know,” Sam offered meekly. “I got the text, I told the girls to lock the door, and I came to help. I thought if he was outside and you had eyes on him, they would be fine. I didn’t know it was . . . I didn’t know.”

  “It’s called SMS spoofing.” To my surprise, it was Jace who offered that tidbit of information.

  She dragged her eyes from the depths of her tea to the fuming detective who stepped into the doorway. Sam lingered behind his shoulder with an unhappy look on his face.

  “It’s called what?” Marx asked tightly.

  “SMS spoofing,” Jace repeated, a little more firmly this time. “There’s an app that allows you to disguise your number as someone else’s, and you can send a text without the recipient knowing you’re someone other than who they think you are. The . . .” Jace hesitated as a small spark of fear flashed in her eyes.

  “Killer,” Sam offered after a moment.

  Jace squeezed my fingers for strength. “The killer disguised his number as yours because he wanted Sam to believe you sent him the text so he would . . . leave us.” There was a world of questions in those last two words as she looked past Marx at Sam. She had never expected him to just disappear and leave us on our own.

  He dropped his eyes.

  Marx blinked as he tried to absorb what she was saying. His face darkened with anger and frustration, and I leaned a little closer to Jace, bracing for the explosion. She looked a little worried too.

  Marx sucked in a deep breath and checked himself before he started shouting. He slammed the phone back into Sam’s hand and said, “No more texts. If you don’t hear my voice, it’s not me.”

  He disappeared from view, and we could hear him swearing and grumbling up and down the hall. He was livid. I was amazed he didn’t rip Sam to pieces.

  Sam looked at the broken door with a mixture of guilt and confusion. I knew exactly how he felt. I had brought the monster to the door, and he’d left it unguarded.

  His eyes moved to us, and he said softly, “I’m sorry.”

  “Sorry?” Jace repeated bitterly.

  “Jace . . .” I began.

  “No,” she snapped. “He left us. Marx didn�
��t answer his phone.” That fact hurt me too. He’d promised he would do everything in his power to keep me safe, but he hadn’t answered his phone when I desperately needed him. If it had just been my life on the line, I might not have been angry at all, but Jace had needed him too. “Now my front door is firewood, my bathroom door, what’s left of it, has been shish-kebabbed with a knife and a creepy stalker picture. There was a killer in my apartment, and I had to hide in my shower with a can of hair spray. And all this with your promises of protection. What good are you people?”

  She slammed her mug of tea on the coffee table and wheeled into her bedroom. The door closed hard enough to make the wall vibrate. I cringed as a picture fell to the floor and shattered.

  “She’s right,” Sam conceded as he leaned against the door frame. “That’s twice this guy has gotten close to you on my watch: once outside your window, and now this. What’s gonna happen next time?”

  I shrugged with a nonchalance I didn’t feel. “Maybe next time he’ll succeed and you won’t have to spend all your free time guarding me anymore.”

  Sam’s expression hardened. “That’s not funny, Holly.”

  I wasn’t sure I meant it to be funny. I really didn’t know how I felt at the moment, but funny wasn’t anywhere in there.

  “Why do it?” Sam asked, his expression sour. “Why even take the risk of coming here when he could’ve just left the picture on your apartment door?”

  “You’re asking this about a man who plastered pictures on my window while you were standing there, a man who killed a cop and then hung around to toy with me while reinforcements were on the way,” I reminded him.

  “Right. So he either has no sense of self-preservation or he’s very brave.”

  “He’s cocky,” Marx corrected. He squeezed past Sam into the apartment, stepping carefully over the debris. “There’s a difference. Bravery implies he might fail but he’s willin’ to put forth the effort anyway. Cocky means he honestly doesn’t believe there’s any chance we can stop him, which means it’s no longer a risk.” He sounded more annoyed than angry now, but maybe he was just trying to conceal it for my benefit.

  “So he thinks we’re idiots,” Sam summarized.

  “We haven’t done much to disabuse him of that notion.” Marx pulled on a pair of latex gloves and walked past me to the bathroom door. He pinched the blade of the knife carefully and wrenched it out of the door. The picture dropped into his other hand.

  He carried the knife back to Sam, who silently offered an open evidence bag, and slid the knife carefully inside.

  Sam caught a glimpse of the picture. “I don’t think he likes you very much.”

  “I gathered that, what with the knife through my forehead,” Marx grumbled. He sat down on the edge of the chair across from me and studied the picture. There were a number of places the killer could have put the knife to secure the picture to the door; there was something about Marx that bothered him.

  “Sir,” a woman said as she appeared in the doorway beside Sam.

  “Let me guess,” Marx sighed as he looked in her direction. “You’ve got nothin’.”

  “Yes, sir. I mean . . . no, sir. We checked everywhere, stairwells, elevator. We even knocked on doors. He’s not in the building, and we couldn’t find any trace of him on the grounds. We swept the area around Ms. Smith’s place, but if he’s hiding somewhere nearby, we can’t find him.”

  Marx rubbed the back of his neck wearily and said, “Thank you. Let me know if anythin’ turns up.” He turned his attention back to the photograph.

  A quiet, choked sound drew my attention to Jace’s bedroom. I slid off the couch and padded softly across the room to press my ear against the door. Muffled sobs came from inside the room and my heart twisted. She was crying.

  Was I supposed to go in and hug her? Was I supposed to think up witty jokes that would turn her tears into laughter? Maybe I was just supposed to give her space. I needed a manual for this.

  “Holly,” Marx said, and I glanced at him over my shoulder. “Give her some time. It’s been a stressful day for everybody.” I rested my hand on the door for an indecisive moment and then let it fall back to my side.

  I glanced at Sam, who was staring at Jace’s door with an unreadable expression. I didn’t really understand relationships. My only boyfriend had been a classmate when I was thirteen, and it had been brief. If I wasn’t mistaken, though, there was interest there.

  He caught me watching him, and his lips curled into a ghost of a smile before he disappeared into the hall.

  Hmm.

  “You haven’t said much, Holly,” Marx observed.

  “There’s nothing to say.” I crouched down and started picking up the larger pieces of glass from the broken picture frame

  “Why do I get the feelin’ you’re angry with me?”

  I grunted softly. “There’s that cop intuition again.”

  “Holly.”

  Emotion tightened my throat, and I tried to keep my voice quiet so I didn’t upset Jace any more than she already was. “You didn’t answer.”

  I carried the glass shards to the garbage and grabbed a trash bag from under the sink. I sat down on the floor to collect the chunks of wood from the front door. “I called you three times. He was breaking down the bathroom door and you didn’t answer.”

  He crouched down beside me. “I’m sorry. I knew Sam was here with you. You should’ve been safe, and I was on another call. I . . .” Whatever he saw in my face when he looked at me made the rest of his excuse die in his throat, and he closed his eyes. “I’m sorry, Holly.”

  I stared at him. “My friend is crying because a psychopath broke into her apartment tonight, and we had scissors and hair spray to defend ourselves. I don’t know what to do with that. I don’t know how to make it better. But it can’t ever happen again.”

  “I promise you, I’ll answer next time,” he said.

  I nodded, but I wasn’t certain I believed him. If my life relied on him answering his phone sometime in the near future, I wasn’t sure I would bother calling.

  “Jace means a lot to you, doesn’t she?”

  “You have no idea.” I picked up a few more pieces of wood and deposited them into the bag. “Why did he leave that picture?”

  “I expect its meanin’ is three-fold,” he answered as he handed me a piece of wood that had landed behind him. “The clear message at the bottom: ‘See you soon.’ And obviously he wanted to illustrate his dislike of me by puttin’ a knife through my face, but I think the more important message he was tryin’ to convey is the subject we were discussin’ when this picture was taken.”

  “When I told you about my memories? Why is he interested in those?”

  “Because he’s in them.” At my blank expression, he clarified, “I think he’s actually offended you don’t remember him.”

  I made a small noise of uncertainty as I tried to work my mind around that logic. It didn’t make sense that he would want me to remember something that could ultimately lead to his capture or death.

  “You’re thinkin’ of him as a common criminal. A burglar or an alleyway mugger doesn’t wanna be remembered. But a stalker is a whole different breed of monster. He studies every nuance of his target’s daily life, and he sees himself as an important part of it. It’s a relationship. Granted it’s often alarmin’ly twisted and impossible for the healthy human mind to comprehend, but it’s a relationship to him nonetheless. He wants to feel important, recognized, remembered. He wants you to remember him, Holly. The gifts from your past, the little comments he makes—he’s tryin’ to trigger your memories.”

  He offered me the picture and I took it, gazing at the snapshot of our conversation. This man wanted me to remember him so he could finish what he started eighteen years ago. “If he was listening to our conversation when he took this picture, then he knows I’ve started to remember.”

  “But not enough. He wants more. That’s why he said, ‘See you soon.’ He’s not happy wi
th your progress.”

  If the killer had known about the memory that seeped through the cracks of my mental wall tonight, would he have broken through the bathroom door and taken me with him? That door did not withstand his efforts—not a man of his size and determination; the only reason it was still on its hinges was because he let it remain that way.

  I set the picture on the floor and pushed it away from me. “What if I just don’t remember? What if I . . . refuse?”

  “He intends to finish what he started no matter what, and judgin’ by this ‘soon,’”—he tapped the word on the picture—”we don’t have much time. We have until you remember, or he loses patience, and I suspect . . .” He trailed off as he glanced at the remnants of the two doors. “That time is rapidly approachin’.”

  “We just had the conversation about my lost memories yesterday. How could he possibly have known before that?”

  “Who else knows?”

  I sifted through my daily life and my past, trying to create a mental list of who might have known about my memory loss. The list was a lot longer than I had ever really considered, and he could’ve learned about it from anyone. “All my former case managers know, my childhood therapists, doctors who checked for brain trauma, every foster home I ever stayed in. Jace knows, you know, my . . .” I trailed off as my brain threatened to trespass into forbidden territory.

  “Your what?”

  Crap, I didn’t want to talk about them. I stood up and walked to the hall closet to grab the broom and dust pan. I started sweeping up the remaining glass from the floor.

  “Holly, your what?” Marx insisted.

  I let out a flustered breath and leaned on the broom. “My . . . second family. I don’t know what to call them.”

  “Your foster family.”

  I hesitated before saying slowly, “Not . . . exactly. You know how I was a little vague on my first memories?”

  “Mmm hmm.”