Close Encounters

by Kitt, Sandra

  “I know,” she murmured. She looked thoughtfully at Carol. “Miss Taggart, I don’t mind that he likes you. I like you a lot better than the other one.”

  Carol smiled at the irony of Lee’s daughter granting her and Lee permission to care for each other.

  “Are you mad at him?” Erica asked suddenly.

  Carol shook her head. “No, I’m not mad at him,” she confessed. At the moment she couldn’t think why she should be. “But let’s get back to your work. So you really want to become an architect? Maybe you can design a house for me.”

  Carol managed to keep the conversation on subjects relating directly to Erica until the lunch break was over and the students regrouped. They proceeded to the Met, their next and final destination for the day. Carol led the class to a fairly empty gallery and gave them an easy assignment to start with—find a painting or sculpture within the gallery and copy it.

  Carol found that she was not able to concentrate, so she gave up her own efforts to draw. Her lunchtime conversation with Erica had clarified something she’d been considering ever since she’d learned from Matt that Lee had been suspended. It wasn’t fair to blame Lee for her own insecurities, to jump to conclusions and give credence to his ex-lover’s speculations. What Karen had suggested was certainly possible—Lee might have orchestrated his attentions to her to protect himself and the department. But she didn’t believe he would make his daughter part of the deception. Given all that had happened between her and Lee, was there any room for forgiveness? For reconciliation?

  It was almost two o’clock when Carol ended the class. The students’ attention had begun to wander, and she knew they were ready to stop for the day. On the front steps of the museum she said good-bye and watched them disperse. Only Erica lingered. Carol turned to her.

  “Where are you headed now?”

  “Back home, I guess,” Erica said. “How about you?”

  Carol grinned and shrugged. “Back home, I guess. How are you going?”

  “Subway.”

  “Fine. There’s an entrance a few blocks from here.”

  Together they walked toward the station.

  “How do you get home from here?” Carol asked as they entered the station at Seventy-seventh Street and paid their fare.

  “I change to the number seven at Grand Central. It’s an easy trip.”

  Together they descended the stairs to the downtown platform.

  “Thanks for letting me take the class, Ms. Taggart.”

  “You’re welcome.” Carol smiled at her. “I hope you enjoyed it.”

  “Oh, yeah. It was cool.”

  “Would you like to come again? Next week we’re going to meet at the Cloisters. Ever been there?” Erica shook her head. “It’s in a great part of northern Manhattan overlooking the Hudson River.”

  “Just like my dad’s apartment,” Erica observed.

  “Think about it,” Carol said. “You can call me at my school if you decide to come.”

  She recited a phone number and Erica scribbled it on the cover of her sketch pad.

  The platform became crowded with people, and finally the low rumble of the approaching train could be heard. The crowd shifted in anticipation of its arrival.

  The roar of the train drowned out other sound. Carol and Erica were surrounded by people jostling for position near where the train doors would open. Suddenly Carol felt her body being propelled forward by a hard push from behind. Everything in her hands fell as she automatically reached out to grab for something to break her momentum.

  It seemed to all happen in slow motion. Astonished gasps and exclamations rose from the people behind her. She was cognizant of Erica screaming her name in horror. Her heart beat in thunderous panic at the sheer inevitability of what was about to happen.

  Then she felt hands grab her. Someone took firm hold of her coat, her arm, and she was yanked backward. Suddenly she was falling the other way, into the crowd, bringing down at least three other people as she landed on the platform.

  The roar seemed deafening as the train rushed in and screeched to a stop. People crowded around, bending over her, but Carol was too stunned to do more than gasp for air under the painful thumping of her heart.

  Everyone was asking questions at once and helping her to stand, expressing horror and shock. There was another commotion as several people shouted at a man who was trying to flee, shoving his way through the crowd. People reached for him, trying to stop him.

  “Er—Erica…” Carol attempted to call. She tried louder. “Erica…”

  “Ms. Taggart! Ms. Taggart!”

  Erica, who had been separated from Carol in the chaos, finally pushed her way through to her side.

  A woman was screaming for someone to call the police.

  Carol found her voice. Her tote bag was handed back to her. “Thank you. I’m… okay,” she said breathlessly, thanking those around her who had come to her aid. Her hands were trembling.

  “I saw him,” Erica said excitedly. “I saw him. It was the same man who was watching you in the park.”

  Carol saw that Erica’s eyes were filled with terror. She grabbed the girl’s hand and held it tightly. Then, despite the objections of all those around her, who were urging her to wait until the police arrived, she insisted on leaving. She didn’t want to wait to be interviewed by the police again. She wanted to get Erica away from there, and she wanted to go home.

  She suddenly remembered her out-of-body experience the morning she’d been shot, the sensation that she was hanging between life and death. There were no guarantees in life—she, like everyone else, was here on a pass. This was her life, and she was responsible for it.

  By the time the commotion died down, another train was arriving in the station. Again Carol declined any further help, and she and Erica boarded the train. Her first concern was to get the girl to safety as quickly as possible.

  They traveled toward Grand Central Station in shocked silence. At one point Erica began to cry quietly. Carol put an arm around her shoulder, trying to soothe her in a low, gentle voice.

  “It’s over, Erica. We’re both okay.”

  “He tried to kill you,” Erica exclaimed.

  “I know.”

  Carol was trying to think. When she reflected on the improbability of so many near misses happening to one person she quickly concluded that more than chance was involved. She remembered Lee telling her when the hang-up phone calls started that he didn’t believe in coincidence. Now she agreed.

  She glanced furtively around the subway car. What if the assailant was here, too? What if he didn’t stop with her but also went after anyone who was with her? Carol squeezed Erica’s shoulder in reassurance as the train pulled into Grand Central, and she started making decisions. She was determined to keep them both alive.

  Carol led them out of the station onto Forty-second Street and over to the taxi stand. She dug in her purse and took out all the money she had on her, about forty dollars. She pressed it into Erica’s hand.

  “What are you going to do?” Erica asked, her voice squeaky with fright.

  “I’m sending you home. I want you to take a cab and go straight home.”

  “I want to call my father,” she protested, on the verge of tears again.

  “Not now, Erica. I want you to get away from me. This man… might try again.”

  “Then we should call the police. They’ll protect us.”

  “I will. Just as soon as I make sure you’re on the way home.”

  “But I can use my cell phone,” Erica insisted. “I have it right here.”

  “Fine. Call as soon as you’re away from here.”

  “But where will you be?”

  “I don’t know yet.”

  The line moved along quickly. When their turn came, Carol made sure that Erica was inside the cab and had given the driver her address in Fresh Meadows, Queens. She instructed him to take Erica straight home.

  “Her father is a police officer, and he’s wa
iting for her,” she added as an extra incentive for the driver not to dawdle. She slammed the door and breathed a sigh of relief as the cab pulled out into traffic.

  Only then did Carol allow the shock to overtake her. Her knees suddenly felt like rubber, and her stomach was queasy. She felt overheated and shaky. She kept swallowing, hoping to dispel the bitter taste of the bile that kept rising in her throat.

  Home. I have to get home.

  There was no place else for her to go.

  Carol approached her apartment building from the far end of the block, walking on the opposite side of the street. She moved quickly but cautiously, looking repeatedly over her shoulder and staying close to the buildings. Now that she’d arrived in her neighborhood by a totally different route than the one she usually took, she felt the utter foolishness of not having called the police immediately. It was a toss-up as to who she stood the better chance with, the police or her assailant, given that both had already come close to killing her. But there was no question that the man now closing in on her meant to finish the job. Why he was after her was hardly an issue. The only place Carol felt she could be safe was in her own apartment.

  If she could get there.

  It was Saturday and thankfully there were a lot of people around. That was good—at least there would be people she could ask for help if needed. It was bad because she wasn’t sure she could trust any of them.

  She made it to her building, rushing in with a young neighbor and her toddler son. They boarded the elevator together, but the woman was only going to the second floor.

  Carol scrambled to get into her apartment, feeling like a maniac for constantly stopping to listen for the sound of anyone approaching from the stairs. As soon as she got inside, she bolted the door, raced to the phone, and called her brother. She wasn’t surprised when she got no answer, but she left a message. She had no home number for Matthew and could only guess at two or three of the clubs where he performed. She called all of them and left more messages. Then she rushed into her bedroom, emptied her wastebasket on the floor, and was relieved when the beeper Lee had given her fell out onto the floor with a thud. She’d thrown it away in a renewed fit of pique just a week ago.

  Carol picked it up and pressed buttons frantically to see if it still worked. It did—a phone number was illuminated on the tiny screen. Lee’s squad number probably from all the attempts to reach her. Carol returned to the living room and dialed it. There was no answer.

  She used her standard phone to dial his beeper and entered her own phone number. Then she sat down in a chair and stared at the apartment door, her initial assurance of safety quickly replaced by fear. What if her assailant had followed her home? She would be cornered. What if he waited until she finally had to leave again… what if he tried to force his way in?

  She began to pace. What could she do if that man reached her and she was still alone?

  When the phone rang, she was so overjoyed that she raced to pick it up on the first ring.

  “Yes, hello?” she said breathlessly.

  There was no response.

  “Hel—” She gave a soft gasp and quickly hung up. “No…” she groaned.

  She called 911.

  A brusque attendant answered, and Carol gave her name and address. She explained that someone had tried to kill her, and she was barricaded in her apartment.

  “Who, ma’am? Is the person nearby at this moment?”

  “I—I don’t know,” Carol confessed.

  “Do you know who this person is?”

  “No. But I made a report several weeks ago when I was attacked in my building. I think it’s the same person. He tried to push me in front of a train just a little while ago.”

  “Did you report all of this to the officers who responded?”

  “I didn’t wait for the police. I came home.”

  Carol could hear a keyboard clicking faintly in the background as her information was recorded.

  “All right, ma’am. I’ll send in your report and get someone over to see you.”

  “When?”

  “I couldn’t say, ma’am, but I’ve put in that you were attacked earlier today.”

  “Thanks,” Carol said, not encouraged. “Could you—could you please tell them to hurry?”

  She sat for a moment after hanging up, rigid with frustration. She had no idea when someone would respond to her calls. She was on her own. She stood up, beginning to focus on other things she could do. She stood there in a trance, her heart pounding, her fright turning to fury. She hurried into her kitchen and began opening cabinet doors and closets, searching for anything she might use to protect herself. She was not going to wait to be either attacked again or rescued.

  “I’m not going to put up with this,” she muttered through clenched teeth.

  She had always fought her own battles. And she never backed away from one. If there was one thing she had learned absolutely, it was that fear was not an option.

  Lee came out of the shower, toweling himself off as he strode into his bedroom. Out of habit he automatically checked his beeper, which lay on the bed under the pile of workout clothes he’d worn for the two hours he’d just spent at a local gym. He recognized Ricca’s phone number.

  He decided that calling her back could wait until he’d gotten dressed and eaten something, although he wondered idly if she had made it to Carol Taggart’s art class and if she’d enjoyed it.

  Lee would not acknowledge having had ulterior motives in urging his daughter to attend. He fully expected Erica to return home with her own impressions, observations, and comments about the few hours she’d spent with Carol. He didn’t want to admit that he intended to pump his daughter for information. It would be the closest he’d been able to get to Carol in almost three weeks.

  Lee glanced at the telephone next to his bed and noticed that the message light was flashing. He finished drying off and began to dress. His thoughts of Ricca and Carol segued into wondering what was happening at his precinct.

  Lee was stuffing his gym clothes into the hamper in his closet when his personal phone line rang again. He sat down on the side of the bed to answer, knowing it would be his daughter.

  “Hello.”

  “Dad, why didn’t you call me back?” Erica nearly shouted into the phone.

  “I’m sorry. I wasn’t here. I just got in from—”

  “Dad, you have to help Ms. Taggart!”

  Lee’s body tensed with alarm. “What’s happened?” he demanded.

  “Some—somebody tried to kill her.”

  Lee sat up straight, instantly focused and alert. “Where are you?”

  “I’m home. She sent me home afterward in a cab.”

  “Home from where, Ricca?”

  “From Grand Central Station.”

  “Grand Central.” Lee frowned, confused.

  “Never mind, I’ll explain about that later. But you gotta help her, Daddy. She wouldn’t wait for the police, and I saw the man, and I’ve been trying to reach you—”

  “Ricca, honey, slow down.” He began to pace the room. “I don’t understand—”

  “After the class, Ms. Taggart and I were waiting for the subway. And when it came this man tried to push her in front of it.”

  Lee closed his eyes and gripped the phone tightly. “Oh, Jesus,” he moaned.

  “It was crowded and a lot of people grabbed her and pulled her back. Dad, it was awful. I thought she was going to be killed.”

  “Are you all right? Did he …?”

  “He didn’t do anything to me. Then he ran off. But he was the same man I saw in the park. When we were sketching. He was there watching Ms. Taggart.”

  “What did he look like? Can you describe him?”

  Erica did her best, confirming what Lee had already guessed. He walked into the living room, trying to remember where he’d put his cellular. All the while he spoke to his daughter, getting all the information he could from her. Lee found the unit on the sofa, next to the TV re
mote.

  He turned it on and began punching in a number with his thumb.

  “I called your office, but I forgot you’re off duty for a while,” Erica continued. “A detective said she’d try to find you, too.”

  “What happened to Carol? Where is she now?”

  “I don’t know. She didn’t tell me what she was going to do. Maybe she just went home.”

  Lee knew that was exactly what she would do. Go to the one place she was sure of. Where she would feel safe.

  But she would also be trapped there with no way out.

  Lee quickly got off the phone with Erica and called Barbara.

  Someone else answered the phone at the station.

  “Where’s Detective Peña?”

  “She took off about twenty minutes ago. Said she had a personal crisis to take care of. Can I help, Lieutenant?”

  “No, thanks. Did she happen to say where she was going?”

  “Not specifically. Just someplace on the Lower East Side.”

  Lee hung up as he reached for his jacket. He checked for other items, clipped his automatic to his waist, slipped a backup gun in at the small of his back. On the way out the door he finally made one more call.

  Carol knew someone was outside the door.

  She sat perfectly still and just listened. There was no specific sound, nothing she could positively identify, just the sensation of someone standing there, breathing. He was stealthlike, stalking her with silent cunning. She knew that on the other side of the door he was listening too. Maybe he would decide she wasn’t home and go away.

  But that would only take care of today. There was always tonight and tomorrow. Next week. Sooner or later he would get her.

  She wasn’t going to let him, not if she could help it.

  He probably had a gun. Carol knew she couldn’t outrun a gun. But she could make it difficult for him to use it. The utter absurdity of even going up against someone who wanted to kill her made her feel all the more determined to try.

  She jumped involuntarily when she saw the doorknob turning. The door was double-locked. It was made of metal. But protection against forced entry was not absolute. She knew that.

  She slowly stood up from the chair that she’d positioned directly in front of the door. Her heart began to pound, but she was ready. Suddenly there was a boom and the door shook with the violent impact of something being smashed against it. Everything near the door shook as well.