Beverly nodded, returned the receiver to the cradle. "I've always loved this house. Did you know Justin practically built it himself?"
Alex shook her head. "This is my first time here."
"Yeah?" Beverly stood up slowly and stretched. Her full breasts strained the sheer fabric of her blouse. "C'mon, I'll show you around.”
Alex stood. What the hell, there was nothing to do anyway. She had beaten Capucci at gin. The policewoman seemed to have lost her enthusiasm for the game. Now Capucci obviously wanted to establish her territorial rights. But Alex was curious. Justin hadn't had time to give her a tour before he'd had to leave for the airport.
Beverly took her through the house. Each room was clean but charmingly cluttered. Alex loved it. Large and sprawling, the ranch-type home was open and spacious. Spread out for miles, through the picture windows set along the south and east walls of the living and dining rooms, was a panoramic view of farms, ranches, pastures, and mountain ranges.
"This is the master bedroom," Beverly said, strolling in and flopping on the king-size brass water bed. Alex wondered what the odds were of a lightning bolt coming through the window and striking the water bed, frying Beverly Capucci on the spot.
The lights flickered again, went off completely for several seconds, then came back on, dimmer.
"We'd better prepare for a blackout,” Alex said, turning and leaving the room. "Think I saw a hurricane lamp on the mantel."
In the living room, she took down the lamp. It was full of kerosene.
"I'll get matches. I saw some by the stove." Beverly walked into the kitchen.
The lights dimmed, brightened, then went out, plunging the house into darkness.
"Whoooeee," Beverly wailed eerily from the kitchen. "'Friday the Thirteenth' part ten. Isn't this when the crazed killer makes his appearance? Can you hear him, Alex, scratching against the house, trying to get in. Whooowee—haah."
Through an icy terror, Alex heard a crack. Then a thud.
"Beverly?"
The only sound was the wind howling outside and that awful scratching. The tumbleweeds?
Alex moved to the wall.
"Bev? Beverly?”
Silence.
"Beverly, this isn't funny." She felt her way along the wall to the kitchen. Was Capucci just having a good time with her? Hoping to scare her? Rubbing her sweaty palms on her corduroy pants, she stepped into the kitchen. She opened her eyes wider, trying to see in the dark. Her throat tightened. "Beverly?" It was a frightened whisper. Damn it, she thought in anger, Capucci is probably about to split a gut from holding back her laughter.
Alex crossed cautiously to the stove. She expected that at any moment Capucci would jump out at her, hollering Boo or Got'cha or something equally infantile. She'd get the matches and ignore her.
Alex's foot touched something soft and yielding. She bent down, waving her hand slowly back and forth in front of her. She felt cotton material. Her hand moved along the shirt, touched curly hair. Touched something wet. Wet and warm and sticky.
Panic was no stranger to Alex, but as she rubbed the stuff on her fingers together, she felt a panic so devastating it literally rocked her on her feet. Oh no. Oh God, no.
Alex cried out, whirled around, and made it as far as the kitchen door before the blow on her back knocked the wind out of her. The blow to the base of her skull made the darkness a relief.
Chapter 21
Alex opened her eyes. Through a hazy veil punctuated by pain, a black and white photograph on the dresser slowly came into focus. In the picture were two adults and a young boy. The boy sat atop a large spotted horse. Had to be Justin and his parents, Alex reasoned, before the pain wiped out further speculation.
The heat from Justin's water bed had a soothing effect on her tight muscles. Turning her head slightly, she saw a painting on the wall directly across from the bed. With a tugging in her stomach, Alex recognized it as her own. The nightscape, titled Depth. So it was Justin who had bought it. Bought it the day after they had made love for the first time. After she had thrown him out of the house. Oh, Justin . . . hurry.
A warm yellow light floated toward her. The light made her head hurt. She closed her eyes. She detected movement. The soft swish-swish of shoes dragging on thick carpet.
A floorboard creaked.
She opened her eyes again and watched as he put the kerosene lamp on the night stand. The subdued light, casting shadows on his face, seemed to make the scars more pronounced. Looking at him, Alex thought of a clay sculpture. A bust that the artist had grown to hate and, through frustration, had dug fingers into, pulling soft clay downward, gouging deep furrows. Clay could be remodeled — the face before her would always remain the same.
He turned to her, staring at her curiously. And then he smiled. Alex's insides froze.
She had seen him before. Without the scars. But where? When? Her mind was a blank. Her head and neck hurt. She wondered if he had killed Capucci. She knew for a fact he was going to kill her
"You're scared, aren't you?" he said. "That's good. That's part of the punishment. I'm going to kill your lover tonight. And if you're still conscious, you can watch."
The gun. Had he noticed Capucci's gun on the table? she wondered. If she could get to it . . .
Reacting suddenly, Alex sat upright and tried to scoot off the bed. Her corduroy pants meshed to the bedspread like sticky Velcro tape, and the water-filled mattress fought her, sucking her down like a spongy adversary.
He slapped her, open-handed, across the face.
She rolled then. Rolled over and over until she dropped off the far side of the bed. Risking a glance at him, she was surprised to see he hadn't moved. He stood there, hands behind his back, a wily smile on his face.
Alex bolted for the door. The gun. She hoped to God he hadn't seen the gun.
Her shoulder glanced off the door frame. She groaned, not wanting to cry out. He'd like that, a voice in the back of her brain said, he'd like to hear you cry and plead.
She pushed through the doorway, and looked down the hall. The hallway seemed to go on and on, into a dark void. The light behind her vanished. She was back in that dream again, the dream in which she had moved warily down the dark passage to the eerie light at the end. Only this time there was no light to guide her. It was pitch black. She felt that familiar, suffocating fear rise. Her heart banged. Her blood rushed through her veins, roaring in her ears. She couldn't breathe.
Not now, she said to herself. Don't panic now. Just get outside and hide until Justin comes.
Alex moved forward slowly, trying to remember the layout of the house. And after what seemed an eternity, she bumped into something. Reaching down, she ran a trembling hand over the coarse wood and touched the apothecary jar. She recalled the table had been to the left of the hallway. She was certain she had veered right — toward the front door. Waving her hand back and forth, she felt for the recliner that had been beside the table. There was nothing there.
Breathing harder now, she cautiously stepped forward. One step. Something soft touched her face. She put a hand up, felt material. Gasped, swung her fists. Her knuckles rapped against wood. She realized then that what had touched her face was a man's felt hat she'd seen hanging on the rack in the entry hall. She knew she was not in the entry hall now. Two steps more, to her right, she met the ottoman. With her arms outstretched, feet shuffling along the carpet, she kept going. Three steps. She found the recliner. Her body came up against the back of it. How could that be, she wondered? She had to be in the middle of the living room. The recliner, she remembered clearly, had sat against the wall by the fireplace. Fireplace? Before she had been struck down, logs had been burning in it. There was no fire now. She strained her eyes, looking for glowing embers. Where was she? She didn't know anymore. She had lost all sense of direction.
"Alex? Ready or not, here I come."
Apparently he had set up the playground. His rules applied. She wanted to scream and run. But that was just w
hat he wanted her to do. He wanted her to stumble about frantically in the maze he had created. If he had gone to this much trouble to prolong her agony, he had surely found the gun.
But it was still her only chance.
She worked her way around the recliner. Three small steps and she was at a wall. Wall. Which wall? Which way was she going?
Why was the room so dark? Where were the windows? If she could just find the windows, she'd have some idea where she was.
"Al-lex I can hear you,” he said. "If I can hear you, you're not hi-ding."
This time she listened intently to the sound of his voice. It was coming from her right. A way off from her. If he was in the hallway, and she felt he was, then she was in the center of the main part of the house. The dining-room should be along this wall, to her right. The gun had been on the dining-room table.
She worked her way down the wall, hands flat against the textured paint. Suddenly she ran out of wall.
"Alex?"
His voice was closer now. He was in the same room with her.
She lunged forward in the direction she hoped the dining room lay. Her hands touched a wooden chair. It was chest high to her. Feeling blindly up along the legs of the chair, she felt another set of legs. Christ. He had stacked the four dining-room chairs one on top the other.
One part of her wanted to give up. Surrender. Get it over with. Another part of her felt compelled to fight. To go out clawing and biting. She was going to die anyway. And if he has his way, she thought, it won't be a quick death.
"Do you need some light, Alex?" His voice was coming from across the room. "Is it too dark for you?"
A loud clattering noise filled her head. She jumped. Gray light diluted the darkness. He had yanked up the blinds.
All, the furniture had been pushed into the middle of the room. She stood in the dining room, inches from the table.
Incredibly, Capucci's gun was still lying on the table, exactly where she had left it.
Alex grabbed it, swung around, pointed it at him.
He was holding a gun on her.
"What do we do now, Alex? Count to ten? Take positions behind the furniture? What, Alex? What do we do now?"
Alex pulled the trigger.
The hammer struck against an empty chamber. She cocked the gun again. Pulled the trigger. Another empty chamber.
"It doesn't work without ammunition." He held out his hand. Five bullets rolled around in his palm. "Come and get them, Allie."
She squeezed the trigger four more times. Then in anger and frustration, she hurled the gun at him. It broke through the window with a resounding crash.
He laughed. "Your boyfriend isn't going to be happy about that."
Alex looked around. The front door had been barricaded by the long couch. In the kitchen she could see Capucci, on the floor, blocking the back door. At least she's alive, Alex thought, as she listened to Capucci's soft moans.
He stepped up to Alex. The gun pressed against her throat. He took her elbow, as one would take the arm of an elderly person, and pulled her to him. "This game is over. You're 'it.' Don't try anything stupid," he said, leveling the gun at her head. "I wouldn't want everything to end so soon. I don't imagine you would either."
He led her back to the bedroom, pushed her down on the bed. Then he backed up to the wall-length closet, fumbled around inside and drew out a dark leather belt. All the while his eyes and the hole of the muzzle were fixed on her face.
He was going to beat her.
And then he was going to put a bullet into her head.
Without expression, he sauntered back to the bed, swinging the belt as he came toward her. Alex raised her arm to ward off a blow. He caught her hand in a viselike grip and jerked her across the rough bedspread. With her free hand, she made a feeble attempt to push him away. He quickly joined her hands together, wrapped the belt around her wrists, and pulled the length of it through the buckle. Then he tied the end of the belt to the bedpost.
At the exact moment Justin hurried from the plane, brusquely pushing knots of people aside as he moved to the pay telephone, Alex's hands were being tied together by one of his own belts. Alex was in trouble. Justin was sure of it. It was as strong as the feeling he'd had nine years ago, working undercover as a narc, when he'd realized he'd been set up on a drug deal and, in all probability, was going to die. Five men, armed to the eyeballs, surrounded his car in a remote area along the Truckee river. Justin's partner and the backup unit, with no time to spare, had saved his hide.
He shoved coins in the slot and dialed his own number. Busy. He hung up, ignored the money dropped in the coin return, fed in more coins, and dialed again. Busy. He called the station, spoke to the dispatcher.
He ran through the terminal, into the parking lot to his pickup. He was sorry now he hadn't driven the Corvette to the airport. A hundred and thirty and she'd still have passing power.
It was a twenty-minute drive from the airport to his house. If he floored it he could make it in fifteen, possibly thirteen.
William Hunter stood over her. "You were jealous of me because I was a boy. You didn't want to share him with anyone . .. especially not a boy. Were you his little baby? Was that it, huh, Alex?" He reached both hands to the metal waist button of his Levi's. Whose baby are you?"
She stared at his hands.
He was going to rape her.
Then he was going to put a bullet in her head. "Don't, for God sake . .. don't."
"Shut up," he shouted, shoving the gun inside the waistband of his Levi's. She jumped, setting the bed in motion again. She rose and fell with each swelling ripple. The belt, holding her hands, rubbed abrasively against her wrists. He dropped his hands to his sides, and Alex nearly cried with relief. Then he took a cheap lighter from his pants pocket and flicked it. A low flame appeared. He adjusted the flame, watching mesmerized as it grew, becoming more white than red.
Alex, mesmerized as well, swallowed over the knot in her throat.
He took a cigarette from his shirt pocket and, tipping his head to the side, lit it. The lighter flicked out, then went back into his Levi's.
"For a long time I watched you. Followed you. Observed your every move. I got into your house by picking the lock. I came in whenever I wanted, day or night. When you were asleep I stood by your bed and watched you. Sometimes I looked down on you from the skylight. Like that night when you undressed in front of the mirror, touching yourself. Then later . . ." He dragged on the cigarette, eyes mere slits. "With your man."
Alex's mouth went dry. Her face burned. Insane as it seemed, she had felt his eyes on her that night.
"I watched you sleep and whore. And what I couldn't see or hear, I read in your journal.”
"Why are you doing this to me?" she asked quietly.
He glared at her, his eyes shining and misty with hate. "You denied me—rejected me like a factory second. Like a . . . a black banana, passed over for the perfect, the unspoiled."
“No--”
"Shut your mouth. I don't want to hear your lies. Understand? No more lies. My mother lied to me. For twelve years she lied. She had no choice. I know that now. She had no choice because of him. And because of you."
"Your mother . . . ?" Alex asked, knowing already.
He stared above Alex's head with an eerie, faraway look. Then rose and began to pace the room, flicking ashes on the floor, stopping now and then to touch some article of Justin's. He paused at the open closet and began fingering neckties hanging from a rack. With his back to her now, Alex could see the bloodstain on his left shoulder. She had done that, she realized. She wished to God she had killed him that night.
A dark tie with light colored stripes found its way into his hand. He stared at the tie, then turning it over slowly, traced with his thumb, the pattern along the edge of the label.
Alex's head felt light, her chest constricted. She realized she had been holding her breath through his silence. She exhaled slowly.
He dropped the cigaret
te to the floor, ground it into the carpet with his boot. He stretched the tie out straight, rotated his wrists until the silky fabric wound tightly around each hand and then, by flexing his arms once—twice, he made sharp snapping sounds with it.
Blood pounded in her ears as he returned to the side of the bed with the tie, taut and ominous, in his hands. A sharp cry burst from her throat when he sat down beside her. His hip touched her knees.
He sat there. Not moving. Not talking. Just staring straight ahead.
The heavy air filled her ears, nose, and mouth. Alex thought she could almost smell the dead si- lence . . . taste it . . . feel it against her skin.
He whirled around on the bed, stuck the barrel of the gun to her head, and shouted, "God, how I hate you." He pulled the hammer of the gun back. "All those years . . . all those years of terror, and you could have spared us that suffering. But you . . . you were too selfish, too righteous to share your life with us. Righteous? Hah. You're nothing but a fucking hypocritical whore." The muzzle pressed painfully to Alex's temple. The pain was nothing compared to her fear.
"My mother loved you. She talked about you all the time. Said you were the only chance we had."
"Lora . . ." Alex said quietly.
"She said you would love me." He laughed. "Do you love me, Alex?"
"I didn't know —"
His hand struck her face with such force her teeth bit into her tongue. A metallic taste, like rusty nails, filled her mouth.
"I didn't know where she was,” Alex said quickly before he could hit her again. "She left home when I was fifteen. I never heard from her again."
"You're lying. She wrote to you. She wrote to both of you. He wrote to her once. Once. Then her letters were returned unopened. That was before he died. He was a bad man. Bad. Evil."
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