“I won’t hold it against you.”
There was a long look between them, and Harrison, seeing his opening, slid off his bar stool and stretched, just to make it look good. “I think I’d better get going.”
“The hell with that,” Geena told him.
“You and Alonzo can sort out the world’s problems without me.” He leaned in to give her a friendly pat on the shoulder, but she grabbed him and pulled him close.
“One more drink,” she said.
He laughed. “Gotta go.”
“I might need a designator driver . . . designated driver.”
“You might,” he agreed, but he was still determined to split.
“One more,” she said. “Then I’m done. I promise.”
Harrison glanced at Alonzo, who said, “I can’t help you. I’m here till one thirty. I’m off tomorrow, though.” He gazed meaningfully at Geena.
But Geena had switched from Alonzo back to Harrison. “Please?”
“Make it a quick one, Geena.” With an inward sigh, he perched back on his bar stool.
Laura realized she was being an idiot.
There was no reason to stay in the kitchen, as if she were afraid to go through the rest of the house. It wasn’t even that big a place. Two bedrooms and a bath on the main level with the kitchen and living room.
No big deal.
But her skin prickled despite her big talk to herself.
There was a basement to the place, and just thinking of that dark, unfinished area sent a shiver scampering up her spine. Fortunately, the only access to the basement was by an outside stairwell. No way to get in here from the basement unless you went outside first.
She was nuts to be so worried. Why now?
Nervously, she glanced at her cell phone and wished Harrison would call her back. Fingering the keypad, she almost dialed him a second time. Thought better of it.
The old clock mounted over the arch to the living room counted off the seconds.
Maybe she should leave. Just go out for a while. She wasn’t due at work until tomorrow afternoon, so there was no reason to stay here. Despite her earlier bravado, the night was getting to her and she felt as if unseen eyes could watch her through the windows.
Telling herself to just get on with her life and quit being a scared little ninny, she forced herself to walk toward the living room. She hit the lights in the short hallway and flooded the room with illumination. Leaving them on, she walked to the bathroom, then peeked into each bedroom, her pulse accelerating each time.
She thought she heard the softest of sounds. . . . Someone breathing? A stifled sigh? The hairs at the back of her neck lifted. Oh, dear God.
She stared at the closet in her bedroom. Closed tight. The doors latched. She should just open them and . . .
Again she heard an almost inaudible sound. . . . A hiss?
Her heart slammed inside her chest, and she backed up, one hand on the wall, fingers sliding along the textured surface. The creaky floorboard in the hall groaned against her weight, and she nearly jumped out of her skin.
This is ridiculous! But she couldn’t convince herself to let out her breath.
She needed a weapon.
If only for her own peace of mind.
She stepped back to the kitchen and reached for a knife from the rack but stopped, her hand poised over the hilts.
One knife was missing.
An empty slot in the magnetic holder.
Oh, sweet Jesus.
The blood in her veins froze.
She whipped around, breath coming fast. Ears straining. Muscles poised.
He was here!
Where?
She nearly screamed.
Clamped her jaw shut.
Her phone was still in her hand; she’d taken it with her like a security blanket. Now she gave it a glance. Nine-one-one. She should call 911!
Except. . .
Was a knife missing?
Had there been a space on the end of the rack already . . . maybe . . . ?
Her heartbeat out of control, she glanced at the sink, where the dishes were piled. No butcher knife visible. She felt faint. Close to collapse.
What was wrong with her? Was it really all in her head?
The door to the basement was by the back steps, set into a bump-out from the house and facing the steps and driveway at a right angle. She walked to the kitchen back door. Its window was a black square into the night. She peered out cautiously. She could just make out the basement door, about ten feet away. It was closed. Locked. Accessible only by a steep concrete staircase that led to an equally concrete area with posts supporting the back of the house above and very little headroom.
She was safe inside.
Still . . .
In her mind’s eye, she saw him, the hatred twisting his handsome features, the carnage of dead bodies, mutilated . . . the joy he found in the slaughter. Oh, dear God, she’d unleashed the monster. No, Laura, you didn’t unleash him. He escaped . . . remember?
Oh, she remembered. And she recalled distinctly how she’d taunted him, challenged him.
Just like when they were children.
She pulled a utility knife with a five-inch blade off the rack, then stood silently, counting her racing heartbeats.
You’re doing this to yourself! Pull yourself together, Laura. Don’t freak. Do not freak!
She drew in a long, calming breath, her heart slowing a bit, her skin relaxing over her muscles. After a few moments in the blazingly bright kitchen, her ears registering the silence of the house, she thought very clearly, very condemningly: Now what? Television? A book? No way.
Slowly, she sat down once more at the table, the café chair squeaking protestingly beneath her weight. She set her cell phone onto the tabletop and looked at the knife in her right hand.
“Get a grip!” she said in a harsh whisper.
She thought about putting the knife back. Almost did. But didn’t.
Couldn’t.
A moment passed.
The clock ticked loudly, and in an instant, she felt him. Heard him. Warning bells clanged through her mind, and her gaze jerked to the back window.
Justice Turnbull was standing right outside.
Staring at her through the glass with his damning pale eyes.
The butcher knife clenched in his right hand.
Harrison gazed down at the illuminated screen of his phone. Laura had tried to call him. Didn’t look like she’d left a message, but he checked his voice mail, anyway, thinking about the time. She’d phoned about thirty minutes earlier, probably when she was getting off work or maybe even walking through her bungalow’s door.
Geena had slowed down on the alcohol, but she was feeling no pain. “Okay, who is she?” she asked with a theatrical sigh. “Come on. You’re seeing one some . . . someone . . . or something. . . .” She laughed and shook her head. “Whew. I’m close to really, really wasted. You could get lucky, if you tried.”
Harrison wondered if he should call Laura back. Was it urgent? Was she in trouble? More than likely she was just checking in. They’d gotten to that place in their “relationship” already. But she’d contacted Justice, mentally, if that was even possible, and he kinda half thought, believed, it was . . . maybe . . . whatever, the guy was a psycho and he could be tracking her, ’cause that was what he did.
Alonzo, the bartender, was hanging back, assessing whether to throw his hat in the ring with Geena or if she was just playing a game and using him as a pawn. Harrison read the guy’s mind; he’d been there before. Maybe that was what Laura’s thing was with Justice, a kind of understanding rather than actual mind reading, or in her case, mind talking. Maybe it was a whole load of bullshit, but it hardly mattered because Justice was a dangerous threat, and that was what counted.
“I gotta call somebody back,” he said.
“It’s her, isn’t it?” Geena looked over at Alonzo and nodded. “Told ya,” she said to the room at large.
Ignor
ing her, Harrison held the cell phone tight to his ear.
The phone buzzed on the table at the same moment Laura opened her mouth to shriek. The ring caught her attention, and she glanced away for a split second. One nanomoment.
When Laura looked back at the window, Justice had disappeared.
As if she’d conjured him up, as if her fear had created his image.
Crash!!!
Glass splintered. Shards flew into the room. Spraying in an earsplitting explosion. She threw her hands up to protect her face and saw his arm snake through the broken pane, fingers scrabbling for the back door handle.
“No!”
Grabbing the knife, she flung herself toward the door. The phone rang on and on, but she couldn’t stop. She jabbed the sharp blade into the back of Justice’s hand, and he snarled in pain.
Oh, God, oh, God! She stabbed his hand for all she was worth, pulling the bloody blade out and slamming it back. She caught the fleshy part beneath his little finger before he yanked it free with a howl of pain and fury. Blood splattered over her, over the floor, into the shimmering glass upon the floor.
She screamed and turned to the phone, flinging herself to the table.
Bam!
Wood splintered in the door.
Grabbing her phone, she hit the CALL button, and ran through the house. She tried to dial, but her hand was slippery with blood, his blood. She lost the cell in her fumbling grasp as she slid around the corner toward the front door.
“God . . . damn . . . damn!” she cried. She couldn’t lose the phone, not now!
Crrrraaack!
The back door gave way as she threw herself onto the floor and snatched up the phone again. “My God . . . oh, my God . . .” She scrambled to her feet, heard him tear at the back door as she reached the front. She yanked hard.
It didn’t move. Locked tight. “Hell!” Frantically, her heart racing, she turned the lock. Pulled on the knob again.
The door opened, and she flung herself onto the porch.
She ran across the wet boards, only to slip crazily on the wooden steps. Sliding, half falling. Banging her knee, she caught herself on the railing. “Help!” she cried frantically. “Help me!” But she saw no lights shining in neighboring windows, just the sheer darkness of the foggy night. “Oh, God, please!”
“Sisssterrr . . .”
His voice. Not in her head this time. His real voice. Slithery. Cold. Scraping her spine.
She screamed and glanced at her phone.
Her finger touched the green button. Harrison was the last call. The top of her menu list. Wildly, she hit his number, sliding down the last step on legs that were water.
She managed to stay on her feet and ran. Jerkily. Along the gravel path at the bottom of the front stairs. It twisted through overgrown shrubbery ahead, disappearing into the gloom. “Help!” she cried.
Think, Laura, think! Outwit him. Run to a neighbor’s!
He was close behind her. His breathing loud and labored.
“Witch!” he rasped. “You called me! You called me!”
Oh, no! He was too close. She ran blindly, her feet slipping, her hands in front of her, one clutching the phone, the other protecting her from the branches and fronds that slapped at her face while berry vines swiped at her ankles. Still she ran. Answer, she thought. For God’s sake, Harrison, answer your phone!!!
“I’m here!” Justice taunted. Too close. She was breathing hard, cutting through the brush, heading for the main road.
She felt his breath. Hot. Fetid.
Oh, God, he was barely a step behind her.
She threw herself forward, stumbling.
One huge hand snagged in her hair.
Snapped her head back.
She screamed. The pad of his finger slid down her nape and spine.
She leapt forward, frantic to get away from him. Scorched by his touch. Branded.
Her stomach lurched and the phone jangled in her hand.
Too late!
She hit a button.
“Lorelei?”
Harrison’s voice called to her. Tinny. Distant. From the speaker in her phone.
“He’s here!” she shrieked and felt the monster’s hand clamp over the back of her neck, only to slide away. “Oh, God!” She stumbled over a root or bump or something unseen in the dark. She pitched forward and the ground shifted, gave way. The end of the property. Where it dropped to the highway.
Behind her. Breathing hard. He was right there!
“I will kill you and your filthy incubus!” he roared.
Without a thought to the consequences, Laura leapt from her hands and knees, forward.
Into nothingness.
The phone fell from her fingers.
And she tumbled into darkness.
CHAPTER 28
“He’s here!”
“Where? Where is he? Where are you?” Harrison demanded, jumping to his feet, upending his stool in the process. It clattered to the floor as he yelled into his phone, “Laura! Lorelei! Laura!”
Dead zone. No connection.
He turned and was running for the door in one movement.
“Hey!” Geena called behind him.
“Call a cab! On me!” he yelled over his shoulder and then dropped her from his thoughts in the next moment.
He was at his car in less than seven seconds, yanking open the door. He had no illusions about what Laura meant. The bastard was there. Justice Turnbull had found Laura.
“Damn . . . goddammit . . . damn . . .”
With fumbling fingers he tried to call her. No answer. Tossing his cell phone into the passenger seat, he growled in frustration and fear.
He should have stayed with her. He should have listened to his own inner voice, the one that cautioned him. He should have never left her alone. God, why did he leave her alone? What if something happened to her? What if Justice hurt her . . . or . . . what if he . . . ?
Harrison slammed the door shut on his worries. No time for that. He had to get to her. He had to find her. Save her from the maniac and kill that son of a bitch, send the psycho to kingdom come.
His hands flexed on the wheel.
If that bastard hurt her . . . if he hurt one hair on her head. . .
He wondered how he’d been so foolish as to put her into danger. By not believing, thinking her “connection” to Turnbull was all in her head. Guilt bored through his soul and panic kept his foot hard on the accelerator as the night, and oncoming cars, rushed by, headlights muted by the fog, their beams arcing through the night to shimmer on the wet ribbon of asphalt that wound through the cliffs to Laura’s cottage.
God be with her.
He floored it around a final corner and drove like a maniac. At the access road that led to her drive, he spun off Highway 101, up the hill, and nearly sideswiped a black SUV in the process. Wrenching the steering wheel, Harrison barely slowed down, bumping and blasting forward. Then, shooting into her driveway, he stood on the brakes, skidding on the wet gravel, his tires whining, tiny rocks spraying wildly as he stopped behind her car, the only vehicle in the driveway.
He threw open his door and jumped out, stumbling a little in his haste. Down on one knee. Staggering. Up again, in control, balanced on the balls of his feet.
Ready.
The lights were blasting inside her house. Illuminating both the back steps and front porch. Darkness crouched behind this bright scene. Quickly he glanced around, then, bending down, reached into the gravel drive, his fingers searching for a larger stone. No luck. But then his hand closed over a laurel branch that felt at least an inch in diameter. Good enough.
Crouched low, he swept around his Impala, then checked Laura’s car. No one. He couldn’t see her in the house, which was now a fishbowl, yellow light shining from every window. Bright, uncurtained, empty rooms. No sign of any life anywhere.
Laura . . . Lorelei . . . ,he thought achingly, fear tearing through him like a brittle cold wind.
Should he go inside? M
ake his presence known? If Justice was still around, he couldn’t have missed his approaching car.
He straightened, listening, the branch clutched in his hand. “Laura!” he said aloud, hearing how sober and serious his tone was. No answer. “Laura!” he yelled louder.
A moan sounded. A mewling sound.
Toward the highway. West.
He turned to it, bent over, scuttling, moving fast. The moan came from somewhere that sounded far away, at the western edge of the property, which faced the highway and, farther out, the ocean. The land at the front of her bungalow sloped slightly downward, then suddenly dropped off. Highway 101 lay about fifteen feet below.
Fingers holding his stick in a death grip, he stole along the gravel path that led from the front door. All his senses were alert. Ready. His muscles flexed, his heart beating a steady, fear-driven beat. If the maniac jumped out at him, the bastard was going to be in for one helluva battle.
“Lorelei,” he called softly again, his voice sounding loud in the covering darkness.
The cry that came back to him was of relief. “Harrison?” Her voice was strangled with emotion. “I’m—I’m down here!”
Thank . . . God . . . !
He leapt forward and skidded to a stop at the edge of the short cliff. He could see her form, huddled in the ditch below that ran along the side of the highway. Ten to fifteen feet down. He glanced around quickly. Where was Justice?
“You okay?” he asked, sinking to his knees, grabbing a hanging limb from a shivering laurel, then stepping toward the edge, aware the limb wouldn’t hold his weight. At that moment, it snapped and split, but Harrison had only partially given it his weight, and he swung and scrabbled downward into the dirt, half rolling to the ground beside Laura, who was sitting up and quivering.
“Harrison . . . ,” she said brokenly. “Harrison.”
He pulled her quaking body close. “Lorelei.”
“I’m okay,” she said through teeth that chattered. “I’m okay.”
He didn’t believe it for an instant. He kissed her head, squeezed her, fought back his own fear at losing her. He ran his hand down the back of her head, entwining her hair in his fingers, wanting to fuse her to him, feeling her heart beating as the cloaked surf pounded the shore somewhere far below them. “Where is he?” he demanded in a cold voice.