Oh, Lord, he’d tied the rope around her leg, just like he’d done to those other women…. Those other dead women…
The reality that she was going to die at this man’s hands hit Jess like a fist to the stomach.
At least he doesn’t know that Kelsey’s here.
Please, don’t let him know that Kelsey’s here.
“I don’t know,” Frank mused. In the darkness, she heard his voice move from the floor to above her head. He was standing up. “Do you think it’s tight enough?”
Without warning, Frank yanked the rope. The slipknot tightened, and Jess was jerked off her feet. She hit the floor, hard.
“Yeah, I think it’s probably tight enough,” Frank said.
The rope had already taken off the top layer of skin around Jess’s ankle, but she didn’t say a word. She scrambled back, as far away from him as the rope would allow. Her breath was coming in sobs, and it was all she could do to calm herself down. Don’t give in to the fear, she commanded herself. Fear won’t help you….
But it didn’t stop there.
He jerked her back to him, like a fish on a line. When she was in reach, he wrapped the rope around her neck, pulling it tight, so tight that she couldn’t breathe.
And he hauled her back into the bedroom.
Jess clawed at the rope, needing a breath, choking, dying….
“Say you’re sorry,” Frank demanded.
There was a roaring in her ears, but somehow she understood him. She couldn’t speak, she could only move her lips. I’m sorry.
He released her.
With a shuddering gasp, Jess drew air, precious air, into her lungs. Her eyes were watering, and her entire body shook.
He had almost killed her. He was going to kill her.
Fear gripped her, blacking out the world for a moment. She lost her balance, pressing her head into the carpet until the room stopped spinning.
At least he doesn’t know Kelsey’s here.
He tossed her purse down next to her head.
“Well, what are you waiting for?” he said. “Put on your makeup.”
He laughed, and the anger came back then, cutting through the fear.
Dammit. Damn him.
Frank was taking off his clothes, and she closed her eyes, not wanting to look at him. He tied the other end of the rope to his own ankle, an ankle that was scarred from countless other rope burns.
She wiped her face with her arm, willing the tears to stop. He wanted her to cry, he wanted her to be consumed by the fear.
Over my dead body, Jess thought.
ROB RODE in the back seat of the patrol car, his hands cuffed behind him.
“Can’t you make this thing go any faster?” he shouted at Elliot through the metal cage, over the roar of the overextended engine.
“The roads are flooding,” Elliot shouted back. “I’m already hydroplaning. We won’t do Jess any good if we don’t make it there in one piece.”
Trying to stay calm, Rob looked out the window, trying to gauge how far they’d come, how much farther they had to go. Ten minutes, he thought. It’s going to take us ten more minutes.
At least.
AT LEAST he doesn’t know Kelsey’s here.
Jess knelt in front of the floor-length mirror that was on her closet door, putting on thick black eye liner. He’d let her take the candle over with her, and it flickered slightly in the breeze from the window that he’d opened.
He liked to smell the fresh night air, he said. It made him feel healthy, yes, sir.
He’d been talking pretty steadily for about five minutes, as he watched her put blush on her cheeks and eye shadow on her eyes. He told her specifically what he was going to do with her, the rope and his knife. His voice was chantlike, monotonous.
It was enough to give her nightmares for the rest of her life. Except it really looked as if her life were going to end very soon. All she had left to put on was her lipstick.
But at least he didn’t know Kelsey was here.
After her lipstick was on, he was going to kill her. He had already told her that. Over and over.
And even if she dug around for the lipstick in the bottom of her purse for a while, even if she put it on one lip at a time, very, very slowly, there was simply no way it would take longer than five minutes.
Five minutes left to live, and she was still praying for a miracle, still praying for him to make a mistake.
She fumbled for the hard plastic cylinder of lipstick. It was too dark, even with the candlelight, to be able to see down to the bottom of her purse. Her hand closed on something round and smooth—a roll of Life Savers.
“Cleave,” Frank was saying. “It’s a good word, don’t you think? It means to stick closely to, like, ‘after you put your lipstick on, I will cleave to you.’ It also means to cut or split, like, ‘then I will cleave you with this knife.’”
Jess’s fingers found another hard, smooth, nearly cylindrical object. It wasn’t her lipstick, it wasn’t…
“It’ll be over too soon,” Frank continued sadly. “It always is. But, you know, then I’m going to do the exact same thing with your little girl.”
Jess looked up sharply, meeting his eyes in the mirror. He was still watching her, and he smiled now at the look of horror on her face.
“Yeah, I’m going to kill the little girl, too, Jess. I know she’s sleeping out in your car. You can’t fool me.”
He knew Kelsey was in the car.
Oh, no, Lord, not Kelsey, too…
Jess turned to face him and her purse knocked the candle over and the little light went out, engulfing the room in total darkness.
He pulled hard on the rope, and she was jerked across the dark room toward him. She skidded on the floor, and gasped with shock as she felt the full weight of his body against hers, and the coldness of his knife at her throat.
Not yet, oh, please God, not yet!
ROB PRAYED.
There was nothing else he could do.
Elliot was driving as fast as he could, but the rain just wouldn’t let up, and the roads were flooding and—
“Hang on,” he heard Elliot shout as the car hit a puddle that must’ve been eight inches deep. Hang on with what? His teeth? His hands, still cuffed behind his back reached for something, anything to hold on to, but all he came up with was the smooth vinyl of the seat.
The car began to spin out, and Rob dove down, onto the floor of the car, wedging himself between the front and back seats with his knees. His swollen ankle hit something and he shouted with pain.
The car spun around—it seemed like two complete three-sixties to Rob—and smashed into a telephone pole.
JESS COULDN’T SEE Frank’s face, but she heard the sound of his lips as he smiled.
“But you haven’t got your lipstick on yet,” he said, pulling his knife away from her, lifting his body off of hers.
She could hear her own breath coming in gasps, her heart pounding in her ears. Oh, Lord, he knew Kelsey was here….
Don’t lose it now, girl, she told herself fiercely. Stay alive. Believe you can, and you will…. You have to… Think about what you found in your purse….
“I have to light the candle again,” she managed to say, her voice sounding breathy and high. “I think I have some matches in my purse.”
“Okay,” he said, his voice agreeable, as if she’d suggested coffee after dinner, not light to murder her by.
She found her purse on the floor where she’d dropped it, and she righted the candlestick.
Digging into her purse, she quickly found what she was looking for, and hid it on the floor, under her kneeling legs. The matchbook wasn’t hard to identify either, and with shaking hands she struck a match and lit the candle.
She could see Frank in the mirror, lying back on her pillows again, the hand with the knife resting casually against one of her tall bedposts. He was watching her. His eyes still looked inhuman, and a small smile played about the corners of his mouth.
&
nbsp; She could see the rope in the mirror, connecting them, ankle to ankle. It was about ten feet long. Ten feet.
If he would only make a mistake…
This just might work. God help her, she wasn’t going to die without trying….
ROB PULLED HIMSELF UP, leaning against the wire mesh that separated the front from the back of the patrol car.
Elliot had hit the steering wheel with his face, and his nose was broken and bleeding. He tried to restart the car, but the engine only whined uselessly.
“We’re not that far from her house,” Rob said, his voice hoarse. “We can cut through backyards. I know a shortcut. Unlock the damn doors!”
Elliot popped the locks and Rob backed against his door, unlatching it. He fell out of the car backward and onto the street. Elliot helped him to his feet.
Rob swore savagely as his weight came down on his bad ankle.
“I don’t think you can walk on that,” Elliot said.
The rain was still coming down hard and steady. Rob took off at a sprint. “I’m not going to walk,” he told Elliot. “I’m going to run.”
JESS REACHED INTO her purse one last time and pulled out the lipstick. Really Red, it was called.
She was scared. Lord, she was scared. If this failed, she was dead. This time he would kill her, there was no doubt in her mind.
He was talking again, describing the way her blood would spray out from the severed artery in her neck, coating him with a fine, red mist.
She tried not to listen, she couldn’t help listening.
“But I’m really gonna love waking up that little girl of yours.” Frank laughed, watching for Jess’s reaction in the mirror. “I can just imagine what she’s going to say when I bring her in here and she sees her mama lying dead on the floor….”
He.
Made.
His.
Mistake.
Jess felt the anger explode inside her, felt the rage expanding, spreading into every single cell in her body. Even her hair tingled.
She leaned close to the mirror, as if she were taking her time putting the lipstick on, and she looked herself in the eye.
Go on, get mad, she told herself. Forget about being afraid. Just get good and mad. Think about Kelsey. Think about what he said he was going to do to Kelsey. That son of a bitch bastard is not going to touch your child. He will burn in hell first….
Jess could taste the rage, she could feel the adrenaline surging through her body.
Okay, God, she thought, I’m ready whenever you are. Send me all the strength and all the anger of the thousands, the millions of mothers whose children have been brutally murdered by men like this. Give me their strength so this bastard doesn’t have a chance to kill again….
Jess took a deep breath, filling her lungs with air. She moved her leg slightly, reaching down to pick it up….
Now, God! Send it to me now…!
With an unholy scream, Jess launched herself at Frank. He put up his knife, bracing himself for her attack, but she swerved at the last minute, scooping up the rope, and looping it tightly around the tall bedpost at the end of the bed.
He lunged for her, but she had tethered him to the bedpost with only about two feet of slack. He fell with a loud crash onto the hard floor as his feet went out from underneath him. The knife flew from his hand.
She was on him instantly, wrapping the slack from her side of the rope tightly around his neck with her left hand, her right hand slashing down at him with her Swiss army knife’s sharpest blade.
He lashed out at her wildly with his fists, raking her with his sharp fingernails, punching her.
He flipped over, wrestling her back, the weight of his body pressing down on her.
But still she kept the rope tight, choking him. Still she stabbed at him, blind in her fury.
“You are not going to hurt my daughter,” she raged. “I’ll kill you first, you bastard….”
ROB HIT JESS’S front door full force at a dead run, and broke through the frame.
His lip was bleeding, and his shoulder felt smashed, but he climbed back to his feet, inside the living room.
“Jess!” he called out, but there was no answer. The house was silent, and very dark.
“Power’s out,” Elliot said. He had his gun drawn, and he looked around the room carefully.
The flicker of candlelight from the bedroom caught Rob’s eye, and he ran toward the door.
“Oh, God,” he breathed, looking into the room. “I’m too late.”
Jess lay crumpled facedown on the floor in a pool of blood. Frank lay on his back nearby, lifeless eyes staring at the ceiling.
“Get these handcuffs off me,” Rob whispered, his face stony in the flickering light.
Swallowing hard, unable to keep the tears from his eyes, Elliot nodded. This was his fault. It was his responsibility. He was the one who’d ordered Johnson over to Siesta Key. Johnson should have been here, waiting for Jess to come home.
As the cuffs came off him, Rob knelt down next to Jess. He lifted her up, pulling her naked body into his arms, holding her close to him. He closed his eyes, not wanting to see the terrible wound in her throat where her life had seeped away.
God, he’d been too late.
Tears rolled down his cheeks, and he held her tighter. They’d almost made it. Her body was still warm.
He remembered the way she’d held him just hours ago, how fiercely she’d kissed him, her arms tight around his neck.
“Oh, Jess,” he whispered. “Please don’t be dead. I promise I’ll stay with you forever, just don’t be dead.”
“Rob,” she said, her breath hot against his neck. “You came. I knew you’d come….”
Startled, Rob pulled back. Her eyes were open, her throat was…uncut.
“Jess!” he cried. “Oh, my God! You’re alive. She’s alive! Elliot! She’s alive!”
But all that blood…
Quickly he searched her, afraid to find some other fatal, gaping wound. But all he found were scratches on her arms and shoulders, a rope burn around her neck, a horribly abraded ankle.
“I couldn’t let him hurt Kelsey,” she said, and burst into tears. “Please, Rob, can you help me take a shower?”
SELMA FOUND PARKER ELLIOT standing just inside Jess’s open garage door. He was soaking wet, his nose was broken, the front of his shirt was covered with his own blood. And there were tears on his face.
She looked at him quietly for several long moments, then asked, “Where is she?”
“Carpenter’s helping her get cleaned up,” Elliot said, his voice raspy. “He’s going to pack up some of her clothes, some of her kid’s things…. Her daughter’s been asleep in the back of her car all this time, can you believe that? I’m out here to make sure the kid doesn’t wake up and stumble onto that mess in the bedroom.”
He laughed, but there was no humor in it. “Damn, Selma,” he said. “I made a judgment error, and I put that woman through hell. Not only that, but she ends up doing my job for me. If our roles were reversed, I honestly don’t think I could’ve done what she did.”
“She was protecting her daughter. People can do some pretty amazing things for love,” Selma said quietly.
Again, Elliot laughed. “You don’t have to tell me that. Carpenter would have dived headfirst into the bowels of hell to save Jess.” He wiped his eyes and took a deep breath. “God, I’m so envious of them both.”
Selma smiled. “Congratulations, dear. I always knew some day you’d admit you’re human.”
Chapter Twenty
Jess sat on the deck of the beach house, looking out over the ocean.
The late autumn day was chilly, and she was glad for the heavy knit sweater she was wearing.
Kelsey played down on the sand with the neighbors’ children, laughing and shrieking as they chased each other here and there across the wide open beach.
The sound of footsteps on the deck stairs made her jump, and she couldn’t hide the apprehension in her
eyes fast enough when she saw Selma Haverstein’s familiar face.
“I startled you,” Selma said. “I’m sorry, dear.”
Jess shook her head, pushing herself out of the deck chair. She crossed to stand looking over the railing. “That’s okay.”
“I brought some donuts and coffee…”
Jess turned to look at the woman, bemused. After all this time, Selma didn’t seem to realize that she never ate donuts and she didn’t drink coffee—
“And a cup of tea for you, dear.”
“I thought I was beyond these house calls,” Jess said evenly, taking the offered paper cup of tea from Selma’s hand.
“Everyone needs a house call every now and then,” Selma said soothingly as she sat down. “How’s the music going?”
Jess tried to make her shoulders relax. Selma could read something into every little twitch, every little movement. And she was usually right….
“I finished my demo tape,” Jess replied, taking the top off the cup of tea and balancing it on the wooden railing.
“When can I hear it?”
“I’ve got copies. You can take one home.”
“I’d like that,” Selma said. “How about the house? Have they scheduled a closing date?”
Jess nodded. “Next week.” She’d put her house on the market, asking way less than it was worth, and she’d found a buyer almost immediately. She didn’t care about the money. All she knew was that she couldn’t live in that house. Not after what she’d been through there.
Her parents were generously letting her and Kelsey stay in their beach house. They could stay as long as they needed, until they figured out what they were going to do, where they were going to go….
Rob had left her some money. Some money? A lot of money. Nearly fifty thousand dollars. But she didn’t want his money. She wanted him.
“I heard Ian’s out of rehab,” Selma commented.
Jess took a sip of her tea. “He’s been sober for thirty days now,” she said. “I spoke to him on the phone. He sounded…different. Quieter. He apologized for everything, and actually sent me a child support check. He told me he’s in therapy now. He’s got a lot of issues from his childhood to work out, but I think he might actually be okay.”
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