At Risk

by Judith E. French

  Jack grabbed Liz and pulled her out of the line of fire.

  “Sue away,” Rick answered, “but if the cops come, you’ll get your third DUI, and I’ll press charges for assault and attempted robbery!”

  “R-Robbery? Wh-What did I s-steal?”

  “I’ll think of something,” Rick said, breaking open the shotgun and shoving in another shell.

  “You s-son of a—”

  The twelve-gauge roared again, destroying the truck’s left headlight and blowing a hole in one tire. “Get your trashy ass out of here,” Rick warned. “I got plenty more shells.”

  Speechless, Liz watched as the three bullies piled into the cab, Randy started the engine, and the truck wobbled onto the main road with the left front tire rim grating on the blacktop.

  “H-How the h-hell we s-supposed to see to d-drive?” Sonny shouted out the window.

  “Beats me,” Rick replied. “Come back here again, and I’ll take out the rear tires.” He looked at Jack. “You all right? Need the E.M.T.’s?”

  “We’re good,” Jack answered. “Thanks for the help.”

  Liz’s hands were trembling so badly that she couldn’t fasten the straps on her helmet.

  “Let me do that,” Jack said.

  “You’re hurt.”

  He rubbed his jaw. “Nothing a little ice won’t fix. I’m sorry about this, Lizzy. I never meant—”

  “You never do,” she said softly. “But it wasn’t your fault. You did your best to talk your way out of it.”

  “I never meant to put you in danger.”

  “Maybe it was a mistake for me to come back to Delaware. Things like this never happened in California.”

  “No?”

  She realized how foolish that sounded. “Well, it never happened to me. Not in my world, Jack. No fistfights. No crazy vigilante bartenders with shotguns.”

  “Just college girls getting their throats cut?”

  “That’s not fair,” she protested.

  “No, it isn’t,” he said. “But shit happens. And when it does, you’ve either got to be strong enough and smart enough to save yourself, or you end up like Tracy. Which are you, Lizzy?”

  It was a little after two a.m. when they arrived back at Clarke’s Purchase. Despite her insistence that no intruders could be in the house because of the guard dog, Jack stood firm on personally inspecting every room, checking every door and window, before leaving. He’d made sure that the interior door that led to the basement, and the closed stairway to the attic, were locked securely.

  Caller ID on the upstairs bedroom phone had registered two calls, the one she’d received just after nine from her stalker, listed as a blocked number, plus a second that Liz recognized as Amelia’s.

  “I’ll stay the night if you want,” Jack offered.

  “No, I’ll be fine,” she answered. Their impulsive sex at the restaurant and the incident in the parking lot had shaken her, making her wonder if this whole thing with Jack was a huge mistake. “You said you have a charter tomorrow. You’d better go back to the boat and get as much sleep as you can before dawn.”

  “I can cancel the charter. Or Dad can take it. Mom can handle Dad’s regular head-boat run.”

  “No. I don’t need a babysitter. I can take care of myself.”

  “I said I was sorry. I didn’t know we’d run into Sonny or the Hurd brothers. Or that the idiots would be drunk enough to—”

  “Just go, Jack. Please. I’m tired.”

  “I’ll call you.”

  “Let’s take it slow, shall we? A lot has happened, and—”

  “Right.” His face hardened. “You call me when you’ve got a mind to go slumming.”

  “Jack, don’t—”

  “Good night, Lizzy. It’s been”—he shrugged—“almost like old times.”

  “Not quite. It was me with you tonight, not Crystal.”

  “Low,” he said. “Low and dirty.”

  Apprehensively she watched the lights of his motorcycle grow smaller and smaller as he pulled away down the lane. Calling the dog to come upstairs with her, Liz showered and then climbed into bed, exhausted and certain that she would fall asleep in minutes.

  The Game Master shuddered with pleasure as he brought up image after image of his past adventures on his laptop. The sophomore’s photos were particularly enjoyable. The colors on his new digital camera were fantastic. Looking at the spreading pool of blood on the professor’s office rug, he could almost taste the sweet, salty tang on his tongue.

  Idly he fingered a small leather pouch.

  This, his newest challenge, promised to be the most rewarding. The professor was tough and resilient, a worthy opponent. The Crow Indians believed that a man could be judged by the quality of his enemies. He agreed with that. The professor was the finest quarry he’d ever stalked, and he was convinced that she was also the most dangerous.

  He undid the knot on the drawstring and removed a plastic bag. Opening it, he sniffed the shriveled finger. How fragile it was. It might have been a child’s digit, if it weren’t for the bright cherry nail polish. Sadly, the polish was chipped. The sophomore hadn’t been as careful about her appearance as she should have. He wondered if the remaining flesh would attract crabs. Maybe he’d try an experiment when he was finished with the professor. There wasn’t enough of the sophomore to go around, and he wasn’t willing to give up his only souvenir.

  Still, it was time to turn up the heat on his current interest. Once she was irrevocably his, he could take his time disposing of her. He inhaled slowly as he thought of the hours . . . days, perhaps even weeks that she would be his to enjoy. But then, as he gazed at the sophomore’s pale and lifeless body, his joy faded, to be gradually replaced by a deep and gnawing hunger.

  He knew the familiar feeling. Hadn’t he lived with it for years? Soon he would be unable to sleep, to take pleasure in his trophies, or in food or drink. All too soon, the need to possess her would become the most important thing in his world. It was a need that must be satisfied before it consumed him utterly and destroyed him as surely as he destroyed his victims.

  Liz’s night was far from restful. The wind rose and rattled the windows, and a thunderstorm blew in from the west. Sheets of rain slanted against the bull’s-eye glass panes. The electricity flickered off and on, causing Liz’s bedside clock to lose power and revert to a flashing 12:00 p.m. several times. Outside, tree branches swayed and brushed against the second story, and above her the attic floors creaked and thumped. Liz’s dreams were troubled by a girl’s voice—a voice that sounded much like Tracy’s—and the faint ring of an imaginary telephone. Twice, Liz started awake to Heidi’s shrill barking from downstairs. Both times, she got up, took her flashlight, and went down to investigate. And each time, the dog had stopped barking by the time she got there. Liz slept fitfully and woke red-eyed and tired to face a gray and foggy dawn.

  She rose and went to the window, staring out over the bleak marsh. Her barn, dock, and outbuildings were swathed in mist. She could see only portions of her back yard, the grass sodden and green. The lonely cry of a single Canada goose seeped through the glass, and Liz raised the window.

  Despite the fog, the familiar lapping of the waves against the dock and the rustling sighs of the tall phragmites were reassuring. Not a single car horn honked, no rush of traffic or wail of sirens marred the peace of the morning.

  But there was something . . . something she couldn’t quite place, a scrape, scrape, scrape sound of wood against wood. Curious, Liz pulled on a pair of jean cutoffs, a bra, and a blue T-shirt bearing the image of the great pyramids at Giza that she’d bought at the Met last fall. Barefoot, she hurried down the kitchen stairs to find Heidi pacing by the back door.

  Liz undid the lock and opened the Dutch door for the dog, then followed her outside. The noise was louder in the back yard. She crossed the wet lawn to the dock and stopped short. Rocking against the Sampson post on the far side was a rotting, flat-bottomed rowboat.

  Liz’
s breath caught in her throat as she stared at the waterlogged craft. Decaying fish heads, a single worm-infested oar, and a rusty fishing pole littered the bottom. And piled haphazardly in the bow of the nightmare boat was a heap of rusty traps, some holding the decaying corpses of muskrats.

  Liz clamped her hand over her mouth, but the unspoken name screamed in her head. Buck. Buck Juney. She groaned and backed away.

  On the wet dock, muddy footprints led from the place where the boat was tied to within two yards of where she stood . . . led and stopped as completely as if the owner had vanished into thin air.

  Chapter Eight

  Liz shook her head. Fear made her giddy.

  Rational. She had to be rational. She was an educated woman; she’d earned a doctorate. She wasn’t a ditz. She didn’t believe in ghosts, and she wouldn’t allow a dead crazy man to terrify her. This had to be some bizarre coincidence.

  Glancing around, Liz drew in a ragged breath. Nothing seemed out of place. Her car was near the back gate where she’d parked it last night. Heidi lay stretched on the damp grass not far away. A mockingbird trilled an elaborate song from a top branch on the Macintosh apple tree.

  Heidi wasn’t barking.

  Dogs possessed keen hearing and a sense of smell hundreds of times greater than humans. Surely, if a stranger were nearby, the German shepherd would have scented him. And this wasn’t just any mutt; she was a trained guard dog. As long as Heidi thought that the premises were safe from trespassers, Liz had no reason to be alarmed.

  Liz swallowed, trying to ease the tightness in her throat. She needed a strong cup of coffee, maybe two. Tracy’s death had affected her far more deeply than she’d realized. Perhaps Amelia was right. Maybe she did need to consult a counselor.

  “I’m not eleven years old anymore.” Hadn’t she told Jack that she could take care of herself? It was useless. No amount of reasoning could prevent the buried memories from seeping back to haunt her.

  How many times during long-ago summers had she been terrified by Buck Juney? He’d been real, and her fears had been real, not the imagination of a hysterical child. Buck had stalked her, like a hunter stalks a deer.

  And no one, not even her father, had believed her.

  Time and time again, Buck Juney’s boat had materialized as silently as a wraith out of the marsh reeds. He’d followed her through the woods as well. Even now, her heartbeat quickened as she remembered the ominous snap of twigs behind her as she fled down the familiar trails and caught glimpses of him through the trees. Once, Buck had startled her by rising from a green brier thicket, almost within arm’s length. And another time, he’d stepped out of the fog almost within reach as she’d walked to the barn with a bucket of water for her pony.

  “Hello, girly,” he would grate slyly before bursting into hollow laughter. His rusty voice had been so much like the one that she’d heard on the phone yesterday that thinking about the prank call made her stomach clench.

  No, rational thought couldn’t erase Liz’s memory of Buck or of the mangy pack of slat-ribbed hounds slinking in his wake. She shuddered, remembering the nights that she’d sat bolt upright in her bed, her sheets tangled and soaked with sweat while eerie howling echoed through the open windows of the farmhouse. She’d wondered then, as she wondered now: Had she heard the baying of flesh-and-blood dogs, or was it the crazy old man?

  But it couldn’t be Buck Juney’s rowboat scraping against her dock. That was impossible. Liz steadied herself on a post at the water’s edge and tried to slow her breathing before she hyperventilated. She needed caffeine, and she needed to talk to someone she trusted. Calling Heidi to follow, she went back inside, made herself presentable, and drove to Michael’s. Usually, Tuesday and Wednesday were his days off. She hoped today wasn’t an exception and that he’d be at home.

  Liz found him planting flowers at the base of the marble angel in the brick-walled graveyard. Michael’s spacious ranch house stood on the site of an eighteenth-century farmhouse. None of the original buildings survived, but the plantation cemetery remained in a grove of cedars a few hundred yards from his back door.

  Michael had told Liz that when he’d purchased the acreage, he’d hired workers to repair the crumbling bricks, clear the area of green briers and saplings, and straighten the sagging tombstones.

  “I never expected to bury Barbara here,” Michael had explained the first time he’d taken her to see the restoration. “But Barbara loved the peacefulness of the old cemetery.” He’d been close to tears that day, as he seemed to be this morning. It was obvious to Liz that Barbara had been the love of his life and that he still mourned his dead wife deeply.

  “I’m sorry to disturb you,” Liz said as she pushed open the elaborate wrought-iron gate. Otto, Michael’s male German shepherd, wagged his tail and frisked around her in what she supposed was a plea for attention or a biscuit. She petted him, amazed as always at how gentle and loving both of the guard dogs could be when they weren’t working.

  Michael glanced up and smiled. “You know better than that. I’m glad for the company.”

  After Barbara’s death, Michael had ordered masons to replace the old oyster-shell walkway with one that he could easily traverse with his wheelchair. A raised bed with a retaining wall provided an area that he could plant with seasonal flowers.

  “I knocked, but when you didn’t answer the door, I thought you might be out here.”

  “Otto’s a good listener, but not much of a conversationalist.” Michael carefully pressed the topsoil around a fragile seedling. “The tulips are about gone. I’ll replace the bulbs in the fall. I’m putting in impatiens and strawflowers for summer.”

  “Survivalist and romantic,” Liz teased. “You really are a Renaissance man.” She sank onto a bench and watched as he finished watering the seedlings.

  “It’s been five years,” he said. “But it seems like yesterday.”

  Liz wondered if anyone would ever love her that much . . . if anyone but Katie would care if she died. “I wish I could have known her. Barbara must have been special.”

  “She was to me.” Michael dusted the dirt off his hands and looked at her. “You lose power last night?”

  She nodded. “Off and on.”

  “I thought so. My clocks and the microwave needed resetting this morning. I heard thunder, but I slept through the rain.” He slid his tools back into a canvas bag and hung the watering can on a hook on the back of his chair. “How’s Heidi working out for you?”

  “She’s good, but . . .”

  Michael’s mouth firmed. “More problems? Come up to the house. I’ll put on a fresh pot.”

  “Lifesaver.” Over a cup of French roast, she told him about the phone call and what she’d found at her dock this morning, carefully omitting any mention of Jack or the fight at Rick’s. “I have to admit, seeing that rowboat scared me.”

  “Did you report the threatening phone call to the police? It could have something to do with Tracy’s murder.”

  Liz grimaced. “You’re not supposed to say that. You’re supposed to tell me that it’s some kid I’m failing in Women and Property Rights in Seventeenth-Century America: Middle Colonies. I was counting on you.”

  “Cops are paid to deal with these things. You aren’t helping yourself if you don’t make a complaint. You don’t have one isolated incident. There’s a pattern.”

  “A pattern. You’re damned right, there’s a pattern, but who’s going to believe me? You should have been there when that trooper came to answer my last complaint. He treated me as though I was a hysterical idiot.”

  “You should have called me. Retired or not, rank still has some pull. You’d never have gotten such a response when I was on the road. These troopers today . . .” He shrugged. “The trouble is, they’ve lowered the standards.”

  She leaned forward. “Chauvinist.”

  “Nothing to do with women or minorities. It’s character, intelligence, and strength. Show me a recruit who can keep cool in an emerg
ency, do the job, and back up his partner, and I couldn’t care less about race, ethnic background, or gender.”

  “I can hardly blame the police. It’s the laws. It’s almost impossible to prove harassment, even when the victim knows her harasser. Some of the women I counseled at my last school went through hell. And when they did get the bastard who abused them into court, the judges would let them off with a slap on the wrist.”

  “Let me reach out, Elizabeth. I still have friends on the force.”

  “My father never trusted the police. If he had trouble, he took care of it himself.”

  Michael grinned. “You don’t know how many times I’ve heard that. But times change, and a woman can be prey to some ugly characters. I promise you that there will be an investigation. From now on, don’t answer the phone. Let voice mail pick it up. Then, if your caller makes threats, the detectives have somewhere to start. And if it continues, we . . . they can put a trace on your line.” He refilled her cup. “Have you given any thought to my other suggestion?”

  “That I learn to use a firearm?”

  “Yes.”

  “It goes against everything I believe.”

  “It may mean the difference between life and death.”

  “I know.”

  “Or moving away from Clarke’s Purchase.”

  “I can’t do that,” she said softly. “You’re right. It’s time I acquired a gun.”

  “You’ll let me instruct you?”

  “If you want.”

  “I taught recruits for three years. I wouldn’t trust anybody else.” Michael moved to a rolltop desk, unlocked it, and produced a small revolver. “I told you I had just the thing for you.”

  She eyed the weapon anxiously. “When do we start?”

  “What’s wrong with this morning?”

  Despite the ear protection Michael had insisted she wear, Liz’s ears rang with the echo of gunshots as she drove into her own yard late that afternoon. She parked the car and walked down to the dock, half expecting the rowboat to be gone. It wasn’t, but Michael had offered to tow it away and anchor it somewhere in the marsh, once the police had taken a look.