by D. D. Ayres
James looked back from the door.
She nodded. “It would ruin me if it got out I knew anything about her being harassed by an ex-con.”
“You’re still thinking of yourself.” That much he believed.
* * *
“Fuck!” James punched “end call” on his screen. Of all the times for Shay to pull mad girlfriend on him. She wasn’t answering her phone. He doubted she had listened to his messages since she hadn’t responded. He would pull over and text her again but he didn’t want to waste the time.
As he left Jaylynn’s drive, he had called in to his department in Charlotte. He wanted them to get Jaylynn on record while she was still scared. But he had an even more important reason for calling. “Get me someone in the Raleigh police department. I have reason to believe a woman there is in imminent danger.”
He used his emergency lights and a very heavy foot from Charlotte all the way to the city limits of Raleigh.
All he’d been able to think about on the drive was that he was responsible for the mess Shay was in, and that she had no idea how bad it was.
Worse yet, she couldn’t protect against what she couldn’t see coming.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Shay pulled up the hood of her heavy sweatshirt as she slipped out from behind the wheel. Being on the lake dropped the normal November evening temperature of the surroundings by several degrees. A damp breeze chafed her cheeks. Her cowboy boots made crunchy sounds on the gravel as she walked around to the rear of her car.
She gathered her grocery bags by their handles to haul them out of the trunk. Four bags’ worth was probably too much for a weekend. But she couldn’t decide what she wanted to cook for James. There were T-bone steaks, a fillet of salmon, sweet potatoes, greens for salad, fruit, eggs and bacon because she was pretty sure James was the kind of man who would want meat with his homemade waffles. On top were a couple of big doggy bones that the butcher had promised wouldn’t splinter and harm Bogart.
Yes, she’d spent too much of her final Halifax check on food but she didn’t care. Next week, probably, would be a different story.
She slammed the trunk and turned toward the cabin, still preoccupied with menus. How funny was that? She’d never thought of herself as the domestic type. She could cook, sure, yet longing to impress a man with her kitchen skills seemed so old-fashioned and subservient, until now. Now, she wanted all the schlocky moonlight and madness of a real romance. Go figure.
She was still mad as hell at James, sure. But after storming around the cabin for an hour, she had realized that he had been fighting back when she told him to get lost. He said he wanted this relationship. He said they were in this together.
That was a part of the argument that she hadn’t considered the first hundred times she refought their phone call in her thoughts. He thought there was a “them.”
She might not have a lot of experience with men in relationships but she had instincts. Her intuition told her that James was willing to fight for her, and that was worth something.
That didn’t mean she was going to let him off easy. She wasn’t going to text him or tell him where she was. He’d have to figure that out. He’d have to go into Raleigh, realize that she wasn’t home, and then figure out where she went to shelter when her world collapsed, as it seemed to be doing on a regular basis these days.
Shay smiled to herself as she climbed the two shallow stairs to the porch. With all her problems unsolved, and worried as she was about the rent, at the moment there was only one thing on her mind. She expected to be pursued.
James would pursue her. She had no doubt. He wouldn’t expect her to make it easy. That’s why she had taken Perry’s offer to leave at lunchtime, citing a lack of work for her. James might be furious that she was making him jump through hoops to prove his interest. But she needed him to make this final jump so that she’d know he meant what he’d said. They were worth fighting for.
When he arrived, and they had fought it out all over again, she would reward him with smiles and food, and love.
Shay bit her lip. Too soon to use that word. She didn’t want to come off all needy. It was another of those milestones in her life she had never before reached: the possibility of loving.
Maybe she was being foolish. Or maybe she was suffering from a new form of dissociative behavior. Whatever. The feelings inside her were a welcome alternative to fear and anxiety.
As she put down her bags to search for her key, light from the NightWatcher on the post near the front door fell across the bag nearest her. There was microwave popcorn and salsa and chips, and chocolate-covered raisins in that one. All the things she could think of that she liked but would never buy to eat alone. It was single-girl loser food. But not when shared with a boyfriend.
It took her a while to turn three keys in three locks but the knob turned easily enough. She picked up her bags. One shove and she was through.
Standing by her cozy chair near the fireplace with her only bottle of liquor, a cheap tequila, gripped in his fist was a man. He was big. Not tall but solid. Built like a cement block on end, balanced on a pair of hams.
She saw how he’d gotten in. Through the entrance to the kitchen she could see the battered back door leaning open and off one hinge. So much for locks and keys.
Her gaze came back very unwillingly to him. Homeless? Druggie?
He must have seen her gaze slip sideways or her right foot begin an instinctive back step because he raised the barrel of a gun he’d been holding at his side until it came to a stop aimed at her midsection. “Get the fuck in here.”
Shay froze. That voice. She knew it from the phone calls.
Her stalker. The man who’d carved that ugly word into her car door. The man who’d tossed a cat under her wheels. The man Eric had sent here to—what?
A fist of fear closed over her stomach. She moved backward automatically.
“Stop!”
Her feet stopped their backward motion.
Grinning, he waved her in with the barrel. “I said get in here.”
She thought of running anyway, but she knew the instant she saw him that this man would use his gun.
“Who are you and what are you doing here?” Useless questions but they were all that came to mind.
He looked at her as if she’d spoken to him in a language he didn’t understand. Finally he shrugged and set the tequila bottle down by the chair. “Stupid bitch.”
This time he beckoned to her with his free hand. “And shut the door,” he added as she hesitated.
Shay pushed it to with her foot, wondering what time James would show up. She had no doubt now. He and Bogart would show up. They had to. Tonight. She just had to stay alive until then.
She walked over to the living room table on legs that had gone stiff as a pair of chopsticks, and placed her canvas grocery bags down. She had reached for the lemon sorbet ice cream to put it away, buying a moment to collect herself, before she realized she was testing the patience of a man with a gun. She turned around slowly.
He was still there, only he was no longer by the easy chair. He was much closer.
Fear set fire to her senses. Unlike when James had burst in on her, and she could see nothing but gun, this time her senses bombarded her with vivid detail. The red-and-black plaid shirt over a greasy tee, the jeans, the sneakers that were much more expensive than anything else he wore and, finally, his face. It was big and round and red with a fringe of black stubble, like a beet that had just been dug up. Black hair sprouted from his scalp like monkey grass. Eyes black and intense as a hawk’s sat above a squashed nose. And then there was the gun.
She didn’t know guns but she thought fleetingly that this one had had a hard life. Compared to those on TV, so shiny they vibrate with light. The one he fisted was dull and grazed with use. It seemed deadlier.
She chased around in her head looking for an attitude to adopt. Because it was all she really had, she chose pissed off. “You’re making a mistake. I
know who sent you.”
“You don’t know shit.” He moved toward her, but not too close. “I been watching you all week. You didn’t know that, did you? Stupid bitch! Watched you go to work and come home. Lucky thing I showed up in time to follow you out here. Saved me trying to snatch you.”
Several responses whip-snaked through her thoughts but only one seemed pertinent. “If you’ve been stalking me then you know my boyfriend is a cop.”
He grinned. It revealed a shantytown of bad teeth. “You like to fuck?”
She didn’t shrink back in revulsion but beneath her sweatshirt her muscles contracted, ready to fight for her life. Her phone was in her purse. Impossible inches away.
She strained to keep her gaze from shifting toward it. Even so, he seemed to know what she was thinking. He waved her away from the table. “Over there, by the chair.”
She moved in a half-circle around him to reach the oversized stuffed chair he pointed to.
As she moved, her overstimulated gaze raked every inch of their surroundings for weapons. Logs stacked by the fireplace. The poker leaning against the hearth. The kerosene lamp on the mantel. The tequila bottle by the chair. She would have to be fast to grab any one of them. And then what? None of them were more dangerous than a loaded gun.
When she reached the chair it suddenly seemed like a trap, something that would restrict her ability to move. Instead, she perched on one arm, her body tensed for flight though where or how seemed to face insurmountable obstacles at the moment.
Buy time. Keep the assailant talking. Learn something. Anything. She’d watched crime shows. That’s what all law enforcement professionals told hostages to do.
A shudder rolled through her. “Did Eric send you?”
He snorted, as if she’d said something funny. “Who the fuck is Eric?”
She glanced away in confusion. She had been so cocky, so certain she knew who her enemy was. Had she missed all the signs that it might have been someone else? No, it was Eric. It had to be. Maybe this man didn’t know who’d hired him.
One thought chased another through her overloaded brain. Eric was a dick. But he was no fool. He had hired this man to torment her, to embarrass and frighten her. But he wouldn’t send anyone to kill her. So then, her life was safe. Although she wouldn’t feel safe until James and Bogart arrived. They would come. They had to come.
She looked up and swallowed the burn of acid at the back of her throat. “Why were you hired?”
“You think I’m stupid, don’t you? I ain’t stupid!” He took two steps toward her, staring hard as if he were trying to gauge where to place a shot.
She breathed in through her nose, fighting off panic. Her stomach cramped hard. Angry Shay had deserted her. Whoever was still home was talking.
“What do you want?”
“That, for sure, is a better question.” He did a curious side jerk with his head, like a parrot trying to size up a stranger.
She tensed as his gaze moved from the hood still covering her hair down over her torso. She could feel his eyes pause, greedy for the feminine contours of her breasts. She crossed her arms over them. He continued to ogle her in a familiar way, as if he had done it before and often.
I been watching you all week. Oh God! What had he seen?
“You got any money? And don’t lie. I can tell when I’m being lied to. I don’t like liars.”
Shay looked away, because she couldn’t speak while staring into the abyss of those black eyes. “I wish I did.”
“Then I guess you can pay me another way.”
She felt her face go red as she met his leer. No need to guess what had entered his mind. Keep him talking. “What do you want money for?”
“For me not to kill you, for starters.”
He was looking at her with the blank stare of complete indifference. She was looking into the face of a stone-cold killer.
“You thought I was here to mow your grass for cash?” He grinned for a second then it vanished.
He moved in so close that she could smell the rank pig sweat of a man who hadn’t bothered to change his clothes in days. She looked away as he reached out and jerked back her hood, wincing when he caught some of the hair beneath in his fist. He grabbed her chin and jerked her face up to his.
“Look hard, slut. And think.”
The gun loomed up before her. The most hypnotizing thing on the planet, she realized, was the barrel of a gun.
She kept swallowing, again and again, as he bruised her chin with the clamp of his fingers.
“I figure someone owes me. So here’s what we’re going to do. You can either get me some money or—”
The “or” did it.
She threw up on his expensive sneakers.
“Fucking shit!” He danced out of range in a delicate two-step. “Goddamn it!”
Shay merely shook her head and let the heaves continue, helpless to stop and yet gaining hope that he’d be so grossed out he’d walk away.
Shay stayed doubled over until the heaves subsided and let the awful acid burn in her throat remind her that at least she was still alive and untouched. Then she carefully wiped her mouth and chin with her sleeve. The feeling of relative safety didn’t last long.
He slapped her hard, his palm connecting with the side of her head with shocking force. She bit her tongue and tasted blood. “Don’t do that again.”
He grabbed her by the arm and pulled her upright. “I don’t like hurting women. I like women.” The tenement row flashed between his lips. “But I got needs. And needs require money. So you can do me and you a favor and give me some.”
Shay risked everything by looking directly into his empty eyes. “All I have is in my purse.”
She held his gaze a long time, longer than she thought possible, as her knees loosened and threatened to buckle. She understood that what he did next would be entirely beyond her control.
He dropped her arm. “Might as well check.”
He moved backward until he reached the table where he dumped the contents of her purse. Gaze darting back and forth between her and the things on the table, he quickly sorted them. Finally, he tore four singles from her billfold.
“There’s nothing here!” His face went dark with anger as he came toward her. “You trying to punk me?”
“No! I swear.” She grabbed her middle and faked a couple of heaves. Not surprisingly, he stopped short. Maybe sex in a puddle of vomit didn’t appeal to him. Good.
Shay let out a shaky breath, nothing faked in that.
Her cell rang.
He glanced back at the table. “Who’s that? You expecting the cop?”
Lie! She shook her head ever so slightly. “Probably my girlfriend. She’s coming to spend the weekend with me.” She pointed a very shaky finger at the groceries. “That’s dinner.”
His eyes became slits, narrowed between little pillows of reddened flesh. After a moment he backed up and rifled through the mess he’d made until he found her cell phone. She knew who had called by the way his expression changed when he saw the caller ID. “Fucking bitch!”
She jumped to her feet.
He aimed the gun at her. “You lied to me.”
She looked away, her insides tweaking her even though there was nothing left to come up but her boots.
The sound of an incoming text chimed. He glanced at her phone again. This time he smiled. “Boyfriend says he’s on his way. Twenty minutes.”
He put the phone in his pocket. “You all excited about that? It’s got me excited.” He grabbed his crotch with his free hand. “I won’t need twenty minutes to get you all juicy for him. Move over here and take off all your shit.”
But as he waved her toward him, Shay found her legs wouldn’t work anymore. “I—I can’t.”
He pointed at her left knee with the barrel of his gun. “You can strip or I’ll shoot you and strip you. Nicer if you do it.”
She nodded and reached for the edge of her sweatshirt. If she got a chance to run she
wouldn’t care if she was cold. Cold was better than … so many things.
It was no striptease. Between numbing fear and weakness from nausea, she moved in slow jerky movements. It took her forever to wrestle out of her sweatshirt. Her Henley shirt clung to her arms damp from flop sweat as she peeled it off.
She didn’t look at him. She would have lost the last of her nerve. What next? Not her bra. Her jeans? Keep the boots on! If she got the chance to run she would need her boots.
He is going to kill me. Now. Or later.
The thought struck through her brain like the brilliance of a spotlight. He was on the clock. James was coming. She would be able to identify him. He would not allow that.
Now or later.
She had a choice.
“Fuck this! You’re taking too long!”
He grabbed her by the arm and shoved the small coffee table aside with one foot. It struck the tequila bottle and knocked it over, spilling it on the floor. He jerked her to the center of the rug.
He let her go and then, using the same hand that had dragged her along, he backhanded her across the face.
She wasn’t prepared for the violence. It caught her full force, snapping her chin toward her shoulder as pain ignited from her eye to her jawline. Too shocked to cry out, she reeled backward.
He caught her by her ponytail and jerked her head back against his cinder-block chest. He bent his head toward her. She smelled tequila on his rancid breath.
He tried to kiss her but she opened her mouth and breathed hard into his face.
He recoiled from her vomit breath. “Disgusting!”
She might have smiled if she hadn’t been so scared.
He jerked her hair again, this time pulling some of it out by the roots. She cried out in pain, which seemed to satisfy him.
“Get down!”
She went down on her knees to escape the possibility of another blow that might make her too weak to think. Her thoughts scurried in a frantic circle. Oh please, oh please! Think of something. Anything.
As she slid past his hips she saw the log lighter. It lay on the hearthstone a few feet away.
He grabbed her by the back of her head and jerked her toward the crotch of his jeans. He jammed her face against his groin. She felt his hard-on and the scrape of his zipper as he ground his hips against her cheek. “Show me how the cop likes it.”
