She put the bundle on the sofa and headed to the kitchen to make coffee. An idea to try to make him a quick breakfast led her to look over the contents of her refrigerator.
“Kacy?” Gulliver’s voice floated to her fifteen minutes later.
“In the kitchen,” she answered.
“Hey, the door was unlocked.” He walked over and wound his arms around her waist as she stood at the stove. “What are you making?”
“Your breakfast, and I considered locking the door. Only then you wouldn’t have been able to let yourself in.”
“I have just enough time for coffee.” He kissed her cheek and fetched the mug he’d used the night before out of the sink.
“You’re a fast food guy, right?” She smiled and held the homemade egg and sausage biscuit up to his mouth. “What do you think? Good enough for the guy on the go.”
“Perfect.” He took a bite and put it next to his coffee on the counter. “You’re going to be all right?”
She shook her head and gave him a smile. “But I’ll go on pretending I am. I’ve gotten pretty good at it.” She leaned against him, liking the familiarity of his body against hers.
“All the same, I’ll come home early, honey.” He kissed her forehead and she offered up her mouth.
It was heaven, the way she floated. On a wonderful cloud of euphoria, she reached higher with her heart and her arms. His tongue slipped between her parted lips and infused her with the flavor of his breakfast. The moan escaping him matched hers. He had called her “honey”, and it felt glorious. Inside her thoughts, she heard the endearment over and over.
“Gulliver you need to go to work.” She fingered his shower-dampened black hair.
“I’m going.” He picked up the coffee and the breakfast sandwich, and gave her one last kiss. “I’ll be here at two when your other boyfriend comes. I’d like to see more of what I’m up against.”
She smiled and watched him go. For the moment, she felt cured of all ills. His joke alone was nothing, but the inference that he might consider himself her boyfriend made her hopes swell.
* * *
Kacy chose to make her first stop at the drycleaner’s. She drove the few blocks and turned the corner to park along the curb. A light blue car had followed closely the whole way. While she didn’t want to be afraid, she took a long time getting out. The man did the same. He appeared to talk on a cell phone, yet her imagination deemed it a ploy. How easy it would be to pretend to have a conversation until he could get to her.
Caution had become a way of life by necessity. Slowly, she opened her door and stood, keeping a sharp eye on her surroundings.
Her first few steps were without problem and then he spoke. “Miss?”
His shout made her move faster.
“Miss, wait!”
Kacy didn’t run, however her long, quick steps got her inside the drycleaner’s swiftly.
“Good day, Miss Carwell,” the short woman behind the counter said.
“I need this cleaned.” Kacy watched the man coming toward the store.
“Does it have any major stains?”
“Grass stains. It has a few grass stains on it.” She took another quick glance at the small woman, knowing she’d be no help in a struggle.
The man stopped and bent over for something on the sidewalk. Kacy raced out of the store toward her car. She couldn’t let him trap her inside the building.
“Miss, you—”
Blinded by fear, Kacy rushed her car like a madwoman. Each step she took seemed to be fraught with hazards. She stumbled over a crack in the sidewalk and twisted her ankle slipping off the curb.
The man went in the drycleaner’s, then came out almost immediately and stood in front of the shop, staring at her. Kacy had never seen him before—but he had all the right physical characteristics of her attacker.
She drove away with the intent of going home and locking herself in the house so he wouldn’t find her. Except the car bumped over the edge of the curb as she tried turning around in front of the gas station, and she slammed on the brake. She glanced at her gas gauge. A quarter tank. If she felt safe with the amount of gas in her car, she’d go home. Anything less than a half tank could not get her as far as she might need to drive in a panic. Easing off the pedal, the car inched forward and she let it roll alongside the gas pumps.
Kacy sat debating—for how long, she didn’t know. However, she figured it must have been too long when a car beeped its horn from behind. She looked back at the white vehicle. They honked again.
She got out and scanned the street for the man in the blue car.
“Come on, lady, hurry up,” a teenage girl yelled.
Kacy ignored her and swiped her debit card through the slot on the machine. She opened the tank, picked up the nozzle and poked it at the hole. The first attempt banged the side, chipping the paint as she blindly tried to manage the chore while keeping an eye on her surroundings.
The horn beeped again. The nerves on the surface of her skin jumped. The pump clicked off and she hadn’t heard it. Her gaze dropped to the hose and she jerked it free quickly as the horn blared at her. It didn’t seem as if she had made the chore any longer than usual.
The receipt spit slowly from the machine and she snatched it. With barely a glance at the small slip of paper, she saw the large printed words “FREE CARWASH WITH FILL-UP”.
Kacy located the carwash building and then looked at the code on the paper. “Touchless” captivated her scheming brain and she got in her car. She would drive into the cement block structure and have her car washed. No one would see her and no one could touch her.
The plan worked perfectly, right up until she swung her vehicle around the circle that led to the carwash. Another car had beaten her to the entrance, leaving her outside her imagined fortress.
Movement behind her vehicle made her glance in the rearview mirror. Her gaze locked onto the blue car. The man inside stared at her. She couldn’t pull away from his intense glare. The nightmare unfolded, and she wanted to wake up. She needed to escape, to avoid capture, but she was cornered.
The man got out of the car and she became the obnoxious person beeping her horn. She laid a hand on center of the steering wheel and blasted a sound to make the world come running. Only no one moved, no one cared, no one would know she was about to be abducted.
Kacy jumped out of the car and ran to the gas station’s convenience store.
“Hey,” the man yelled.
She didn’t look back. If she did, he’d catch her. He’d knock her down on the pavement and drag her off to a dark place. Once there, out of sight of the world, he would torture her with his demented mood swings.
She had betrayed him. He said if she didn’t cooperate, he’d kill her. He told her there were other women he pleasured and killed before he found her. She was not his first victim and she’d not be his last.
“Stop,” he yelled again.
The fear, the panic and the power to defeat were hers to control.
“Lady?” A hand grabbed her and she swung around to hit him.
It connected only to his arm. That wasn’t enough to stop anybody.
Chapter Nine
Kacy stood in surprise and looked at the tall, lean man with scruffy beard and shabby clothes. It wasn’t the man who had been following her.
“What are you, crazy?” The man backed away.
She sprinted into the building.
“Call the police,” she shouted, once inside the store. “There’s a man trying to kidnap me.”
The pimply-faced boy behind the counter picked up the phone and dialed nine-one-one. Kacy watched the man outside at the carwash center. He got in his car and backed up to pull away from the line.
“Yeah, she’s standing right here,” the boy said into the phone.
Kacy’s gaze would not leave the fleeing blue car. Her triumph came mixed with defeat—she’d gotten away, but so did he.
“The police are on the way.” The boy came
from behind the counter. “They told me to lock the door and you’re to stay inside.”
She nodded and followed him to the large glass entrance. She watched every move he made in latching the top of one door and turning the key in the other. Then she stood sentry. She watched the traffic and the people fueling. It wasn’t busy, yet everyone seemed hurried.
A man came to the door. When it wouldn’t budge to his tug, he glared at her.
“Hey, open up.”
She shook her head, giving him an apologetic expression.
“Open the door.” He pounded on the glass, not understanding why she wouldn’t let him in. “Come on, lady, what are you doing?”
His surly attitude frightened her. She shook her head more adamantly. Others gathered. People complained about everything from not being able to buy antacid to not being able to pay for their gas. Then she saw the lights of a patrol car. The officers got out and came to the door. Relief still didn’t come when the pimply-faced boy let them in.
“Ma’am, are you the one someone tried to kidnap?” one officer asked.
“Yes.”
She looked nervously at the increasing crowd peering through the windows cluttered with product advertisements.
Another officer stood guard, not allowing anybody to enter.
“Is he out there?” the officer continued.
“No. He’s driving a light blue car and he got away when I came in here.” Panic rioted within her limbs and she wrung her hands together.
“Do you know him?”
“No…yes…he’s the man that attacked me two years ago and he’s back to kill me.” She swallowed past the dryness in her throat.
The officer didn’t believe her. She saw it in his face. The next question proved it.
“Ma’am, are you on medication?”
“Yes, but what’s that got to do with anything?” Her mood swerved sharply toward anger.
“How about we take you down to the police department where you can give us a nice description of the man you think wanted to kill you.” His condescending tone strengthened her dislike of the police.
Kacy felt her mind slipping from its tenuous hold on sanity.
“I don’t think I can,” she replied in a small, frightened voice.
“Come along ma’am.” He gripped her forearm lightly.
“No! Don’t touch me.”
“Ma’am, I’m just trying to help.” His other hand swept around her middle to hold on tighter.
She struggled against him. “Let me go.”
“Let her go,” a familiar voice resounded in the empty store.
Kacy peered around the officer.
“Gulliver!”
“Let her go,” Gulliver repeated and took hold of her himself.
She clung to him, closer than sap to a tree. She’d never been so happy to see anyone.
“Gulliver, the man that’s after me, I saw him. I know what he looks like. He followed me from the drycleaner’s to here. He kept calling to me but I didn’t let him get me,” she panted, out of breath.
“You did real well, honey.”
“You know this woman?
Gulliver kept his arm around her waist and she squeezed into the niche he made available against his side. He had called her “honey” again and that rush of warmth made her edge tighter into his jacket.
“Yes. Could you wait outside a minute?”
The officer left and Gulliver turned to her. He held her upper arms and then stroked calmly up and down over them.
“I have to talk to the officers. Stay here where it’s safe and I’ll be right back.”
“Gulliver, they don’t believe me.”
“I figured as much, that’s why I have to convince them to let me take you home instead of the station.”
She nodded. She didn’t trust the police. She hadn’t trusted them two years ago when they did nothing. Now they thought she was a lunatic. To be home with Gulliver was all she needed. He was smart and he’d figure out some way to keep her safe.
Gulliver came back in the store after a few minutes of conversation outside. He put an arm around her shoulders.
“Come tell the officers every detail you can remember so they can write it in their report. Then I’ll take you home.”
“Okay.”
Once they were clear of the building, the guarding officer let the patrons back into the store. She tried not to listen to the grumbling. Words like “crazy”, “nutcase” and “freak” drifted over to her anyway.
“Kacy?” Gulliver drew her attention back to him.
“Yes?”
“Tell me about the man. When did you first see him today?”
“On my way to the drycleaner’s. I took the comforter there because we got grass stains on it.”
“He followed you in the car, honey?” Gulliver did a terrific job at smoothing over her anxiety by using the endearment.
“Yes. He was right behind me when I pulled up to the curb. Then he got out of his car the same time I did. I think he may have had a cell phone because he held something up to his ear and talked. Though, at the time, I thought he was pretending.”
“Why do you think that?” the officer who grabbed her earlier asked.
She continued looking at Gulliver. “Because he watched me too closely and when I started to walk away, he stuffed it in his pocket and shouted at me.”
“What’d he shout, Kacy?” He rubbed her arms. “Tell me what he said to you.”
“I don’t know. It sounded like ‘stop’ or ‘drop’, I just don’t know. I was too scared.”
“Then what?” Gulliver prodded for the next detail and she wanted to please him with all the answers.
“I went in the drycleaner’s, gave the comforter to the woman behind the counter, and then I left.”
“With the man still outside?” The officer’s skepticism increased.
“Yes, but he had bent over to get something. I saw it as the best opportunity to escape.”
“He could have been pretending just like with the phone,” the officer argued.
“No…yes…I don’t know. I said I was afraid he’d get me and I didn’t want to be trapped in that tiny little store with him.”
“It’s okay, Kacy. Calm down and tell us what happened next,” Gulliver urged.
She went through every detail as she saw it unfold. She still didn’t think the officers believed her. As for Gulliver, if he didn’t, he never let on and she wanted to thank him for that much.
“Can I go home now?” She put her head against Gulliver’s shoulder.
“That should be enough for now, right, officers?”
“That’s enough,” they answered, and walked away.
“Let’s get you home.” Gulliver guided her toward his car.
“What about my car?” She pointed at the carwash.
“We’ll get it later.”
“No, I should get it now. It has my registration in it. If that man comes back, he’ll find out where I live.” She pushed away from him. “I’ll drive it home.”
“Are you sure?”
“Gulliver, I’d be in a panic every moment at home just thinking he’ll be able to come straight to my house.” She attempted a smile. “I can drive, really. I feel much better since you showed up. You’re like my very own white knight, Mr. Gulliver Knight.”
“Hey, I like that.” He grinned, all cocky and puffed-up.
“I don’t understand one thing.”
“What’s that, honey?”
“How did you know I was in need of rescuing?”
“Police scanner.” He thumbed back toward his car. “You had to have seen it.”
“I thought it was something funky like a CB radio. I was going to even ask you what your handle was.”
“That sounds like trucker talk.” He came forward and put his hands on her hips.
“I’ve only seen it in movies.”
“Well if I’m ever in need of a handle, then can I use ‘White Knight’?”<
br />
“Yes.” She laughed and hugged him. “Thank you for coming for me.”
“Anytime. Now go get in your car and I’ll follow you home.” He spun her away and swatted her on the bottom with a playful pat.
* * *
Kacy parked her car in the driveway and watched Peter hurrying from her front stoop.
“Where have you been?” he asked, upset.
“Oh Peter,” she held her wrist up to look at her watch and saw it was well past two-thirty, “I just had…”
“Him.” He glanced across the lawn at Gulliver pulling his car in front of his own house.
She let his accusatory tone slide.
“I should have guessed.”
“It has nothing to do with him.” She frowned, not liking the change in Peter’s attitude.
He’d always been forgiving, tolerating her about as much as Gulliver did. She didn’t like to think she had misled him so much that he really believed she needed only him in her life.
“How’s it going, Peter?” Gulliver’s arm went to her shoulder and she shrugged it away to go in the house.
“Okay.” Peter gave Gulliver a wary look.
“Excuse me.” Kacy left both men vying for her affection on their own.
The day had started out fantastic and turned to crap. Changing her clothes for something clean, comfortable and different, Kacy didn’t care what Gulliver and Peter talked about. She used to have a goal to make herself unrecognizable by her wardrobe so her attacker could never find her. Sorting through the closet, she saw that everything she owned looked similar. Blouses, skirts and jeans dominated her life. Then, she didn’t really have a life outside of her house. She could have worn a housecoat every day.
Lowering herself on the edge of the bed, she pressed the heel of her palms to her eyes and willed the tears to stay away. She had the strength to get through anything. Hadn’t she proven that when she got away from her attacker?
“Kacy?” Peter tapped on the door.
“Come in.” She smiled. “I was just trying to decide on what to change into.”
A Desperate Longing Page 9
