“You will,” she said. She laughed again, more softly this time. “You always are up to it.”
“Bad joke,” he said. “Bad joke.”
“But one of those that just had to be made. So . . . What time can I expect you and the Marvelous Mite?”
Doyle looked at his wristwatch. “It's a quarter of ten now. Give us forty-five minutes for supper . . . We should get to the house around three in the morning, if we don't get too lost.”
She gave him a noisy kiss via telephone. “Until three, darling.”
At eleven o'clock George Leland passed a sign which gave the mileage to San Francisco. He looked down at the speedometer and did some figuring. He was not as quick about it as he once would have been. The numbers were slippery. He could not seem to add with even a third-grader's skill. And he was not as sure of himself as he had once been, either, for he had to refigure the thing three times before he was satisfied with the answer.
He looked at the shimmering golden girl beside him. “We'll reach your place by one o'clock. Maybe one-thirty,” he said.
Saturday
Twenty-one
Courtney gathered up the stacks of trash that had accumulated from moving and taking delivery on new furniture—empty wooden packing crates, cardboard boxes, mounds of shredded newspapers, plastic and paper wrappings, wire, cord, rope—and put it all in the guest bedroom, which had not yet been furnished. It made quite a large, unsightly hill of rubble in the center of the carpet. She stepped into the hall and closed the door on the junk. There. Now they wouldn't have to look at it or think about it until Monday, when it would become necessary to haul the whole lot away somewhere to make room for the guest-room furniture. It was a bit like sweeping dirt under a carpet, she supposed. But as long as no one lifted up the carpet to look, what was wrong with that?
She went back to their bedroom and stood in the doorway, surveying it. The dresser, highboy, nightstands, and bed were all of matching heavy, dark wood which looked as if it had been hand-carved and hand-polished. The carpet was a deep-blue shag. The bedspread and drapes were a rich dark-gold velvet that looked almost as soft and horned as her own skin when she had a good tan. All in all, she thought, it was a damned sexy room.
Of course, the spread didn't hang perfectly even all around. And there was a cluster of perfume and make-up bottles on the dresser. And maybe the full-length mirror needed polishing . . . But all these things were what made it a Courtney Doyle Room. She left her mark of casual, minimal, harmless disarray wherever she lived.
“Remember,” she had warned Alex on the night before their wedding, “you aren't getting a good housekeeper.”
“I don't want to marry a housekeeper,” he said. “Hell, I can hire housekeepers by the dozen!
“And I'm not a really terrific cook.”
“Why did God make restaurants?” he asked.
“And,” she had said, scowling at the thought of her own sloppiness and slothfulness, “I usually let the laundry pile up until I either have to do the wash or buy all new clothes.”
“Courtney, why do you think God invented Chinese for, if not to do laundry? Huh?”
Remembering that exchange, how they had broken into fits of laughter and giggled helplessly, holding each other and rocking on the floor like silly children, she smiled and went over to their new bed and sat down on it, testing the springs.
She actually had tested them before. She had stripped off all her clothes and jumped up and down in the center of the mattress, just as she had told Alex on the telephone. It had seemed a splendid idea at the time. But the exercise and the cool air on her bare skin had given her ideas and an appetite for loving. She could hardly get to sleep that night for wanting him. She kept thinking of Alex, of what it was like with him, kept thinking how perfect they were together and how bedtime with him was unlike anything she had ever known with anyone else.
They were good together in many ways, not just in bed. They liked the same books, the same movies, and usually the same people. If it was true that opposites attract, then duplicates attract even more.
“Do you think we'll ever get bored with each other?” she had asked him toward the end of the first week of their honeymoon.
“Bored?” he had asked, faking an enormous yawn.
“Seriously.”
“We won't be bored for a minute,” he said.
“But we're so similar, so—”
“Only three kinds of people bore me,” he had said. “First: someone who can only talk about himself. And you're not an egomaniac.”
“Second?”
“Someone who can't talk about anything. That kind bores me to tears. But you are an intelligent, active, exciting woman who always has something going. You'll never be without something to say.”
“Third?
“The most boring person of all is the one who doesn't listen when I talk about myself,” Alex said, half serious but trying to get a laugh out of her as well.
“I always listen,” she said. “I like to hear you talk about yourself. You are a fascinating subject.”
Now, sitting on the bed which they would share tonight, she realized that listening to each other was the main thing that made their relationship work so well. She wanted to know him, and he wanted to fully understand her. He wanted to know what she was thinking and doing, and she wanted to be a part of all that concerned him. When you got right down to it, maybe they were not duplicates at all. Maybe, because they listened so well, they came to understand and appreciate each other's tastes and, soon, to share them. They did not duplicate each other so much as they helped each other expand and grow.
The future seemed so promising, and she was so happy that she hugged herself, an unconscious expression of satisfaction and delight which she had unknowingly passed on to Colin.
Downstairs, the doorbell rang.
She looked at the bedside clock: ten minutes past two.
Could they be here an hour early? Could he have overestimated the length of the drive by that much?
She got off the bed and hurried into the hall, took the stairs two at a time. She was excited at the prospect of seeing them and asking lots of questions about the trip, but . . . At the same time she was a bit angry. Had he just mistaken the length of time they would need to drive in from Reno? Or had he broken all the speed limits getting here? If he did . . . How dare he risk their future only to shave an hour off a five-day trip? By the time she reached the front door, she was almost as angry as she was pleased to know they were finally home.
She pulled off the chain and opened the door.
“Hello, Courtney,” he said, reaching out to gently touch her face.
“George? What are you doing here?”
Twenty-two
Before she could turn and run, before she could even grasp that there was something sinister about his unexpected appearance, he took her arm in a viselike grip and walked her over to the Spanish sofa, sat down with her. He looked around the room and nodded, smiled. “It's nice. I'll like it here.”
“George? What—”
Still gripping her arm in one hand, he touched her face, traced the delicate line of her jaw. “You're so lovely,” he said.
“George, why are you here?” She was somewhat afraid, though not quite terrified. His appearance did not make any sense, but it was no reason for her to go to pieces.
He let his hand slide along her throat, felt her pulse with his fingertips, then dropped the hand and cupped one of her heavy, unrestrained breasts. “Just as lovely as ever,” he said.
“Please. Don't touch me like that,” she said. She tried to pull away from him.
He held her tightly, and his free hand fondled her. He caressed the other breast now. “You said that you'd let me touch you again.
“What do you mean?” His fingers were digging into her arm so deeply that shooting pains exploded in her shoulder.
“You said I could make love to you again.” His voice was low and dreamy. “Like befo
re.”
“No. I never said that.”
“Yes, Courtney. You did.”
She looked into his dark-ringed, bloodshot eyes, into the vaguely unfocused blue circles, and for the first time in her life she experienced the fear which belonged solely to women. She knew he might try to rape her. And she knew that even as gaunt as he was, he would be strong enough to do it . . . But wasn't it ridiculous to fear him this way? Hadn't she been to bed with him dozens of times in the past, before he had started to change? What was there to fear, then? But she knew. It was not the sex that she feared. It was the force involved, the violent potential, the humiliation and the sense of being used. She did not know how he had gotten here or how he had learned their address. She did not know his circumstances or full intentions. But none of that mattered worth a damn. All that mattered right now was whether or not he would rape her. She felt weak, helpless, and oppressed. She was cold and hollow inside, trembling at the prospect of having to accept his forced attentions.
“You better not stay here any longer,” she said, despising herself for the tremor in her voice. “Alex will be here in a few minutes.”
Leland smiled. “Well, of course he will. I know that.”
She could not figure out what he wanted, what he thought he could achieve beyond the brief, vicious taking of her. “Then why are you here?”
“We talked about that before.”
“No. No, we did not.”
“Sure, Courtney. You remember. In the van, we talked. On the way here. You and me. We've talked about it for several days now - how we could take care of them and then be together again.”
She was no longer merely frightened. She was terrified. Finally he had gone over the edge. Whatever was wrong with him-some physical illness or a psychological disease it had at last pushed him beyond sanity. “George, you've got to listen. Are you listening to me?”
“Sure, Courtney. I like your voice.”
She shuddered involuntarily. “George, you are not well. Whatever has been wrong with you for the past two years—”
The smile faded from his face as he interrupted her. “I'm perfectly healthy. Why do you always insist I'm not?”
“Did you ever have those X-rays that the doctor—”
“Shut up!” he said. “I don't want to talk about it.”
“George, if you're sick, maybe there's still something—”
She saw the blow coming, but she could not pull away from it in time. His big cal- I loused hand struck her hard alongside the head. Her teeth rattled. She thought that was an almost funny sound . . .
But then the darkness rushed up at her, and she knew that she was going to faint Unconscious, she would be even more help' less. And she realized, suddenly, that rape might be the least of her worries. He might not rape her at all. He might kill her.
She cried out, or thought that she did, and then she fell away into an inky pool.
Leland went out to the van and got the .32-caliber pistol which he had forgotten to bring with him the first time. He came back into the living room and stood by the sofa, looking down at her, admiring her golden hair and her freckles, the exquisite lines of her face.
Why couldn't she have been nice to him? All the way across the country, she had been nice. When he told her to stop nagging him about something, she had stopped at once. But now she was the bitch again, picking at him, trying to say his mind was going on him. Didn't she know that was impossible? It was his mind that had gotten him all the scholarships, years ago. It was his superb mind which had gotten him off that damn farm, away from the poverty and the Bible-thumping and his father's paddle. So he couldn't be losing his mind. She only said that to frighten him.
He put the pistol barrel in her ear.
But he could not pull the trigger.
“I love you,” he told her, although she could not hear him. He sat down on the floor beside the couch, and he started to cry.
He snapped back from a daydream and realized that he was undressing her. While his thoughts had been elsewhere, he had pulled off her thin blue sweater, and now he was fumbling at the catch on her jeans. He stopped what he was doing and looked at her. Naked to the waist, she looked like a little girl despite the firm lines of her breasts. She seemed defenseless and weak and in need of protection.
This was not the way.
Leland knew, suddenly, that if he just tied her up and put her on ice until he had dealt with Doyle and the boy, she would be all right. When they were dead, she would realize that Leland was all she had. And then they could be together.
Lifting her as easily as he would have an infant, he carried her upstairs and put her on the bed in the master bedroom. He retrieved her sweater from the living-room floor and somehow slipped it onto her again.
Fifteen minutes later he had tied her hands and feet with rope that he found on the junk heap in the guest bedroom, and he had used a length of adhesive tape to seal her mouth.
He was sitting on the bed beside her, staring into her eyes, when they fluttered open and found him.
“Don't be afraid,” he said.
She cried out behind the gag.
“I won't hurt you,” he said. “I love you.” He touched her long, fine hair. “In a little while everything will be okay. We'll be happy together, because we won't have anyone else in the world but each other.”
Twenty-three
“This is our street?” Colin asked as the Thunderbird labored up the steep lane toward a cluster of lights near the top.
“That's right.”
Beyond an aisle of well-shaped cherry trees, the darkness of Lincoln Park lay on their left. To the right, the land shelved down through more darkness to the city's lights and the glimmering necklace of the harbor and the bay bridge. It was a stunning sight, even at three o'clock in the morning.
“This is some place,” the boy said.
“You like it, huh?”
“It beats Philadelphia.”
Doyle laughed. “It sure does.”
“That our house up there?” Colin asked, pointing toward the only lights ahead of them.
“Yes. And almost three whole acres of land around it.” Coming home to the place for the first time now, he knew that it was worth every penny they had paid for it, though the price had initially seemed exorbitant. He thought of Courtney there, waiting. He remembered the tree outside the bedroom window, and he wondered if they would keep each other awake until dawn, when they could see the morning sun slanting down on the blue bay . . .
“I hope Courtney isn't too mad about the lies we told her,” Colin said, still looking out across the edge of the city toward the dark ocean. “If she was, it would spoil this.”
“She won't be angry,” Doyle said, knowing that she would be, just a little and for just a few minutes. “She'll be glad we're safe and sound.
The house lights were close now, though the outline of the structure was hidden by a wall of deeply shadowed trees that rose behind it.
Doyle slowed down, looking for the entrance to the driveway. He found it and turned in. Thousands of small oval stones crunched under the tires.
He had to drive clear around to the side of the house before he saw the Chevrolet van parked by the garage.
Twenty-four
Doyle got out of the damaged car on the passenger's side, put one hand on Colin's thin shoulder. “You get back in there,” he said. “Stay here. If you see anyone but me come out of the house, leave the car and run to the neighbors. The nearest ones are downhill.”
“Shouldn't we call the cops and—”
“There isn't time for that. He's inside with Courtney.” Alex felt his stomach twist, and he thought he was going to vomit. A bitter fluid touched the back of his throat, but he choked it down.
“Another couple of minutes—”
“Might make all the difference.”
Doyle turned away from the Thunderbird and hurried across the dark lawn toward the front door, which was ajar.
Ho
w was it possible? Who was this man who could follow them wherever they went, who could catch up with them no matter how much they changed their plans? Who in the hell was he that he could drive ahead and wait for them here? He seemed more than maniacal. He was almost superhuman, satanic.
And what had he done to Courtney? If he had hurt her in any way . . . Alex was caught up between rage and terror. It was frightening to realize that even when you had the courage to face up to violence, you could not protect those you loved. More than that, you couldn't know where the danger would come from or in what form.
He reached the front door, pushed it open, and stepped into the house before he thought that he might have walked into a trap. Suddenly he remembered all too clearly the cunning and ferocity which the madman had shown when he had been swinging that ax . . .
Doyle crouched against the wall, sheltering behind a telephone stand, making as small a target of himself as he could. He looked quickly around the front room.
It was deserted.
All the lights were blazing, but no madman-in here. And no Courtney.
The house was very quiet.
Too quiet?
Keeping his back to the wall, he went from the living room to the dining room, the shag carpet absorbing the noise of each footstep. But the dining room was also empty.
In the kitchen, three plates, knives, forks and spoons had been laid out on the butcherblock table along with various other utensils. She had planned a late-night snack for them.
Doyle's heart was pounding painfully. His breathing was so harsh and deep that he felt certain it could be heard from one end of the house to the other.
He kept thinking: Courtney, Courtney, Courtney . . .
The sunken den and the screened-in back porch were also deserted. Everything was neat and orderly—or, rather, as neat and orderly as things could be in Courtney's house. And that must be a good sign. Right? No traces of a struggle, no overturned furniture, no blood . . .