John, working his fingers in between hers, waited for her to go on.
Regina sipped the brandy. “Do you have any idea what it’s like to witness the slow degeneration of the person you love?” She spoke quietly. “His mind ... brilliant—little by little, like an inch worm nibbling a leaf, was eaten away. He turned hostile and abusive, drawing into himself and shutting us out. We kept him at home as long as we could, until the outbursts began to be a major part of his existence. He was still physically strong. We ... I ... was afraid that he ...” She was unable to go on.
John wrapped his arms around her, holding her tight. “Regina, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize ...” he whispered into her hair.
“I only hope that someday I can remember him as he was before the disease struck him.”
“You will, honey, you will.”
“The man I knew died—for me, anyway—more than two years ago. Sometimes, brief as it was, he’d come back, you see, and be the man I married, and it was those times that made it so hard overall.”
“You feel guilty about his death. Why?”
“Can we change the subject?”
“Maybe you should talk about it. What you went through, how you felt, is only natural. You have no reason to blame yourself or feel guilty—”
“Oh, John, I have every reason to feel guilty. I am guilty.”
“Because you wanted to end his suffering?”
“Because,” she blurted out, “because the night he died I was in the arms of another man.”
She felt his body stiffen.
Pulling away, drawing in her knees, she covered herself with his sweater. She turned her head away. “My husband died alone, without any of the people he loved, and it was my fault.”
John was silent. She wanted him to say something, anything. Regina felt vulnerable, exposed. She hadn’t meant to speak of her dead husband, of her infidelity. What must he think of her? His silence was so damning.
He reached for her at the exact moment she struggled to her feet, his sweater sliding off her shoulders.
“I have to go,” she said, striding across the room.
“Regina, wait--”
In the entry she retrieved her coat and put it on. John stopped her before she could leave.
He held her. No caressing, no kissing. He just held her in a way that made her feel both wonderful and wretched.
“Stay,” he whispered.
She shook her head, biting back the tears. And before she could change her mind, she gently pushed him away and hurried out the door. She felt his eyes on her as she rushed up the stairs.
At the top of the landing, she stopped to catch her breath. Her chest felt tight, constricted. She brushed at the tears on her face, then she continued down the hallway. As she approached her apartment, she was suddenly overcome with a quaking sensation of dread. The door to the storage room was slightly ajar. Through the opening she saw darkness, the dark giving sanctuary to an unknown terror. Had it been open when she left her apartment? She felt a cold numbness in her legs. Hurrying now, she rushed inside her apartment and hastily closed and locked the door. The feeling hung on.
In the entry she hung up the coat, then swooped the towel off the floor and loosely wrapped it around her. The tension that had been building the past twenty-four hours had dissipated with just one hour with John. But now it was back again, along with a sense of loss. She had spoiled everything with her confession.
She wouldn’t blame him if he never wanted to see her again. Why did she have to move into this apartment and meet him? She could have gone the rest of her life without falling in love again. It was the price she had to pay for being unfaithful to a dying man.
She went directly into the bathroom and turned on the shower. Within moments, a steamy vapor filled the stall. She stepped in and let the hot water beat down on her, soothing the taut muscles of her shoulders and thighs. She stood there, her head back, her eyes closed, letting the hot water massage her body.
She heard a noise, thought she saw a movement on the other side of the shower curtain. Her heart began to beat wildly, making her light-headed. She looked out. The room was thick with steam. No one else shared it with her.
She began to wash herself. The lather was slick as she worked it along her arms, breasts, stomach, and thighs. Again she stood still as the water rinsed away the soap.
And as abruptly as she had gone into the shower, she was out.
As she dried herself off, she looked out the small bathroom window to the ground below. She saw light spilling out onto John’s patio. She felt a sense of longing deep inside her.
With the towel wrapped around her like a sarong, she stepped back into the bedroom. Lethargically, Regina bent down and gathered up the clothes on the floor. With the bundle in one arm she went to the closet and, as she reached for the knob, her hand paused in midair. There was something wrong. Very wrong. She reached for the knob again when suddenly she stopped and drew back her hand. A heaviness bore down on her. She stood facing the closet, staring at the rows of slats in the door. The air seemed thick and oppressive.
An icy chill racked her body.
The door, a fold-back louvered type, stood open a crack. The blackness beyond whispered to her to run, to scream, to do anything but open that door. The clothes in her arms fell to the floor. She began to hum softly, backing away, fighting the panic as she gripped the towel around her until it cut into her flesh.
Before she could reach the hallway, she heard the sound of hangers rattling, then the closet door crashed open. A figure in black lunged out, a curse erupting through the black nylon stocking covering its head as the figure lunged for her. She tried to scream but managed only a strangled cry. She ran. The intruder was close enough to rake a hand down her back. Tracks of pain seared along her spine. The towel came away, but she continued on, staggering before regaining her footing. She made it into the bathroom, slamming and locking the door seconds before a body smashed against it. She shot the slide bolt home. She heard footsteps. The other door.
She spun, ran to the far end of the bathroom, and slid the bolt on that door moments before it banged with a jarring thud. Her attacker was in her bedroom again. Her mind raced. Could she make it out the hallway door and escape from the apartment before he could reach her?
The next thump came from the door in the hall. If she were to go out any door, it would have to be the one into the bedroom. And that was exactly where he wanted her.
A barrage of bangs sounded against the door. Oh my God, she thought, he was going to force his way in. As she frantically looked around for something to use as a weapon, she spotted Kristy’s cotton shortie nightgown draped over the hamper. She grabbed the nightgown and struggled into it.
Through the door she heard his labored breathing, as though his mouth were pressed to the crack. The door banged again. The wood around the slide bolt gave with a creak, but held.
Regina looked around desperately for something to fight back with. The only razors she had were disposable, the blades locked permanently into a cartridge. She pounded at one with a jar of moisturizer, whining in frustration. The razor shattered, but the cartridge held onto the twin blades.
The door banged, the wood screeched, the screws in the bolt inched outward. Another ear-splitting bang. One screw flew out and landed at her feet.
She ran to the window, pulled it open. It was too narrow for her to get through. And even if she could, it was a straight drop down two stories to the brick and concrete of John’s patio.
“John!” she screamed.
With each bang at the door she jumped. When another screw pulled free from the wood, she screamed for John. Backing up into the corner between the tub and basin, Regina crouched down, the broken razor clutched in her hand. She was to be burned like Donna and Corinne. The noise outside the bathroom door intensified. Her attacker was becoming enraged, growling and grunting as he threw himself against the door. Still she screamed, watching the slide bolt as the last t
wo screws worked out of the door.
An instant before the door came crashing open, Regina threw the jar of moisturizer at the overhead light, smashing the bulb and plunging the room into total darkness.
The door slammed into the opposite wall.
She heard her name. Biting down on her lower lip, she crouched into a tight ball, trying not to breathe.
“Regina, damnit, where are you?” Glass crunched underfoot. “Regina?”
She cried out with relief, lunging forward into John’s arms.
They clung to each other, Regina crying, John hushing her as he planted kisses on her tear-drenched face.
“Where is he?” she managed to gasp out.
“Gone.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. He went out a bedroom window and dropped to the ground below. Don’t move, there’s glass on the floor.” John swept her into his arms and carried her into her bedroom, where he placed her on the bed.
“What happened?” he asked.
“He was in the closet. Waiting.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“He jumped out ... and I ran into the bathroom. And then, thank God, you came.”
“I heard banging. I came up, knocked, and when I heard you call out to me, I had to run back down and get the pass key from Aunt Anna. Was it Corde?”
“I don’t know. He was wearing a stocking over his face. His features were distorted. It could’ve been anyone.”
“Size?”
“Average. Five-ten or eleven, a hundred and seventy pounds.”
“Could it have been Corde?”
“Possibly.” She was trembling.
John picked up the phone and began to dial.
“Who are you calling?” she asked.
“The police.”
“Wait.” She grabbed his hand.
He stared at her.
“Not the police. I don’t want the police,” she said.
“Why not, for God’s sake.”
“Even if we know for certain who it is, we don’t have any proof. Do you know what they’ll say when we accuse a superior judge.”
“We won’t tell them who we suspect.”
“Then why call them? John, you might have to go with them.”
“Regina--”
“Right now you’re probably the number one suspect. You said so yourself.”
“Yes, but--”
“If they took you in for questioning, I’d be alone and he’d come back for me.” She realized she sounded paranoid, but she couldn’t help it.
“That’s why we have to call them. You need protection. More than I can give you.”
“They won’t protect me. John, Lillard practically accused me of fabricating a killer to boost ratings for ‘City Gallery’. I don’t want them called,” she said, her nails digging into his arms.
“Regina, I don’t know what to do.”
“Don’t leave me.” She clung to him, crying. “Just don’t leave me.”
He brushed the hair from her face and kissed her. “First thing in the morning I’m calling Wilma.”
“Okay. Okay, good,” she said absently. She folded back the covers. “Stay with me tonight.”
He bent, lifted her in his arms and deposited her under the covers. He touched a spot on her back and she jerked with pain. He looked at her back. Without a word, he went into the bathroom. A moment later he was back with absorbent cotton and hydrogen peroxide. He cleaned the welts carefully, gently. Then he undressed and slid in beside her.
His fingers plucked at a raw edge of the nightgown. “Your nightgown’s on inside out.”
Regina looked down. Not only was it inside out, it was backwards as well. She thought back to when, in the bathroom, she had frantically crawled into it because she didn’t want to die naked. And then she began to laugh. The sexy, melodious quality was still there, but woven in, unmistakably, was an underlying note of hysteria.
When it got to this point he sometimes lost it; lost the control. Things got messy. Perhaps it was just as well the attempt was aborted.
He forced himself to breathe deeply, to regain a degree of discipline.
He had ruined his chance to do what he had gone there to do. He’d had several opportunities to toss the acid, but had hesitated, waiting for the perfect chance. It had come when she stood just inches from him, on the other side of the closet door, her body gleaming with moisture from her shower. He had decided, then and there, with lust barely in check, to have this one before splashing her.
And then she had bolted like a frightened doe.
Now, sitting in his car on a dark street several miles away, he thought about what he would do to her next time, how the acid would look as it ate into her pretty flesh. He smiled, imagining it would be much like the dying snails, only better.
It had begun with the snails. Disgusting creatures. As a child he had delighted in pouring salt on the viscous undersides to watch the slimy bodies foam, wither and dissolve before his eyes. Next to feel his wrath were the small animals, neighborhood pets, then anything or anyone who dared give him trouble.
Of the five finalists, this one, Regina, had given him the most trouble. He was an orderly person and she was throwing everything off. She would pay twofold. Unlike Odett and Lake, Van Raven would have no opportunity to reach water and dilute the acid. Before dousing her face with acid, he would render her immobile. At long last he would have his chance to witness, firsthand, the ravishing effects of the chemical.
CHAPTER 30
Regina slept fitfully. Only when John held her tightly in his arms did she doze.
At seven o’clock she awoke in the circle of those secure arms. Turning her head to look into his face, she saw his eyes were open, watching her. She smiled tentatively. He returned the smile, pulling her closer.
She ran her hand down his side to his hip and then around to his taut belly. His full erection flexed against her hand when she touched it.
She silently rose to her knees and pulled the short gown up her torso and over her head. John rose to his knees facing her. His fingertips moved over her warm, sensitive flesh, caressing. He took her into his arms and kissed her. Within minutes she was lost in an intense pleasure that dulled her awareness of the problems past, present, and future, lost to all but the quiet scream of feelings at the core of her being.
Afterward, lying quietly in each other’s arms, Regina finally spoke.
“John, what did you and Corinne fight about that night? The night she was attacked with the acid?”
“She was angry. Accused me of abandoning her on the most important night of her life. The day of the crowning I got a call that my mother was in trouble. My stepfather was a mean drunk, and when he got tanked up, he took it out on the family. I went to San Jose to bring my mother and sister back to my aunt and uncle’s, then rushed back to the city. I arrived at the hotel just as the ambulance was pulling away.”
Regina said nothing.
“I’ve lived with guilt all these years, blaming myself. If I’d been there, at the coronation, maybe I could have prevented what happened to Corinne.”
“Oh, John, there’s no way you could have known about something like that.”
John rose up on an elbow and stared knowingly at her. “I’ve finally come to realize that,” he said. “Now it’s time for you to do the same.”
She stared at him. Then she nodded, smiling.
At eight o’clock John swept up the glass on the bathroom floor. Then they showered together, soaping, caressing, bringing each other to a breathless climax with nothing beyond an erotic touch.
Back in the kitchen, as Regina poured two mugs of coffee, the phone rang. It was Kristy.
“Did you have a good time?” Regina asked. “Where are you?”
“At Sonya’s. We just rolled in. I’ll be home in a bit.”
“Honey, listen. Can you stay with the Newmans another night or two?”
“Yeah, I guess. Why?”
“Someone br
oke into the apartment last night.”
“What’d they take? Did they get my Walkman?”
“It wasn’t that kind of break-in.”
Silence.
“We think it was the same person who attacked Donna.”
“Are you all right, Mom?”
“Yes. John chased him off.” Regina looked up at John. Their eyes met,
“Did the police come?”
“No. We didn’t call them. Look, Kris--”
“Is John there with you now?”
“Yes.”
“Will he stay with you tonight?”
“Yes, he’ll stay the night.”
A pause. “Okay. Cool.”
“Yeah, cool.” She smiled at John, raised her eyebrows. “If you need to come home for clothes or anything, make sure I’m here. I don’t want you in this apartment alone. You hear?”
“I hear. I won’t need anything for a couple’ days. I can borrow from Sonya, and I have all my makeup and stuff with me.”
“Good.”
“You sure you’re okay, Mom?”
“Honest, honey, I’m fine. Are you working tomorrow?”
“All day.”
“I’ll come down and explain everything. And I think we should discuss your going to San Diego to stay with Grandma and Grandpa.”
“Oh, Mom, I can’t. The pageant awards are this Friday night. Have you forgotten?”
She had. And in remembering, she felt a knot in the pit of her stomach. “We’ll talk about it tomorrow. Bye, Kris.” Regina lowered the receiver.
Looking out the window, she said, “I’m sorry she entered that damn contest. I have a bad feeling about it.”
“If it is judge Corde, why would he do it?” Regina asked John. But before he could answer, she added, “I mean I see a motive for attacking Corinne —to put Amelia closer to the crown —but why Donna, Tammy and me?”
They sipped coffee, facing each other over the breakfast counter.
“Rejection?”
“Twenty years later? It doesn’t make sense.”
“It’s possible something happened to trigger the latest attacks,” John surmised.
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