So why did she still want him so badly that he haunted her dreams?
“He’ll go away,” she promised herself. “And I’ll forget, and I’ll stop dreaming. And maybe someday I will meet a man who loves me, who I can love, who doesn’t mind an instant family….”
She lay awake a long time, dismally accepting the ways of the world—and of nature.
* * *
She must have slept again, because she awoke to hear the phone insistently ringing away. It rang ten times before she made it to the kitchen; she was certain she would answer it just as the caller hung up.
“Hello!” she gasped out breathlessly.
“Bryn Keller?”
“Yes,” she said, a frown creasing her brow as she tried to shake the fog of broken sleep from her mind. The voice sounded like something out of a late-night horror movie. It was a husky whisper—neither masculine nor feminine.
“I want the pictures. Do you hear me?”
“Yes, I hear you.” She definitely heard the voice, but she couldn’t believe the words. This had to be a joke. There was a menacing quality to the voice; it sent chills of fear running along her flesh.
“The pictures, Miss Keller. All of them. The proofs and the negatives. No omissions.”
“Now wait a minute—”
“Do you like living, Miss Keller?”
“I’m going to call the police—”
She broke off as an eerie and ruthless chuckle interrupted her. “Sounds like you have a death wish, pretty lady. I would be real sorry to see you…disfigured. But then, there’s not just you, is there? You wouldn’t want to lose one of those little boys, now would you?”
“No! No!” Bryn shrieked in panic. It wasn’t a joke; she was suddenly certain that it was no joke.
“Then drop the pictures—”
“Wait, oh, please, wait! I haven’t got the pictures. I’ve already—”
“What?”
“I haven’t got the pictures. I’ve already turned them—”
“I don’t believe you.”
“But, I—”
“Shut up and listen to me. I’ll check it out. Start praying if you’ve lied, lady. And pay sharp attention here. Don’t call the police. Or whisper a word of this conversation to anyone. I’ll know. And you’ll be really sorry. Really sorry. Understand? Especially don’t go to Condor. I’ll know. And I’ll check out what you’ve told me.”
“I’m telling you—”
“You’ll be hearing from me.”
“Wait!”
A sharp click and a dull buzz told Bryn that the caller was no longer on the line. She stared at the receiver, numb with fear and incredulity.
“Aunt Bryn?”
She started shaking when Brian’s voice startled her from her state of numbness.
“Aunt Bryn, what’s the matter?”
“Nothing, nothing,” she lied. She started dragging bowls and cereal boxes from the cabinets, but her movements were rough and jerky. “Brian, go get your brothers. Your clothes are laid out on the dresser. Help Adam for me, will you? Then hurry on down. We’re running late this morning.”
As the terror of actually hearing the voice began to fade, Bryn tried to convince herself that it had been a joke after all. The fan who had appeared at her door was trying a scare tactic, that was all. She wasn’t really in any danger. And she didn’t have the pictures anymore. Lee had them. The caller would find that out, and that would be the end of it.
It had to be…it had to be…it had to be…
Somehow she managed to act normal. She hesitated when it was time to open the front door, but Keith bounded on past her and threw it open. A scream rose to her throat as she saw a man on the step again, but it disappeared unvoiced as she realized that today the male on her porch was only Andrew.
“Andrew! What are you doing here?”
He grimaced, lowering his head, then meeting her eyes sheepishly. “I…uh…had a late date. I’m in a state of… uh…mild intoxication. But I recognized your neighborhood and, well, would you give a hitchhiker a lift?”
Under normal circumstances she would have laughed. Andrew, the handsome, sexy, popular rock idol standing on her steps after a clandestine appointment like a delinquent child.
She didn’t laugh. She was too glad to see him. He was flesh and blood and real, and his presence made the nightmare of the whispered voice fade away.
“Of course, Andrew. Hop in!” She pointed to the van.
“Want me to drive?” he queried.
Had he seen her hands shaking? “No, I’m used to the route,” she told him. He laughed with the kids as she ushered them all into the vehicle. He began to talk about music, and Bryn slowly felt herself relax.
But something was troubling her. Andrew was in the back, next to Keith. She glanced at him in the mirror.
He didn’t look like he had been out on a late date last night. He looked extremely well rested. And fastidiously neat. There wasn’t a wrinkle anywhere on his clothing….
Bryn issued a soft sigh. Andrew was always impeccably neat. He probably folded his clothes carefully no matter how intoxicated he was—and she was certain he would shower and shave, even if he had to remove his whiskers with a sharp rock. She sure as hell wasn’t going to worry about his appearance, not when…
No! She didn’t want to think about the phone call. It was a joke; it was all over.
She discreetly started to tease Andrew about his wild night out, telling him that she was glad he had happened to be near her house, that next time he might not be so lucky.
“Oh, I’m a survivor by nature!” he teased back, but something in his eyes was more serious than his tone implied.
* * *
Bryn hadn’t been at the Fulton House for more than an hour before she became fully convinced that Lee Condor was a direct descendant of the Marquis de Sade.
Over and over, over and over…
Every muscle in her body ached. Muscles that she hadn’t known she had—even as a dancer—ached.
And Lee seemed exceptionally tense. His eyes, when he looked at her, seemed to burn through her; his hands on her were almost rough.
Once again he wanted to try the fall from another step up. She agreed, simply because he seemed so brooding that she hadn’t the strength to argue with him.
But she was frightened. She had never liked heights. She hated to fly; she hated tall buildings. It wasn’t a neurosis; at least, she didn’t think it was. Being high up just scared her. It made her feel uncomfortable.
“If you can’t do it, Miss Keller…” he began in exasperation, his hands on his hips.
“I can do it,” she replied curtly.
And she did. But her heart thundered a thousand times in the brief seconds as she spun and fell, seconds that seemed like an eternity. But his arms were there. Powerful and secure. Catching her smoothly, except for the sense of…
Tension.
He was always tense. Always radiating energy, always ready to spin and turn and come up behind you with silent agility.
“Ready for a second try?”
“Ready.”
She managed the feat a second time. And a third. And she was so frightened each time she took the fall that she forgot to be frightened of the whisper that had threatened her that morning….
They did break for lunch. Bryn was too nervous to do more than pick at her yogurt. Like a stalked animal, she kept an alert eye out for Lee. And each time she looked for him, she found him watching her.
He approached her as she threw away the half-eaten yogurt. “Is that all you ever eat? No wonder you look like a scared rabbit today.”
“I’m sorry if I resemble a rabbit,” she said briefly.
“What’s wrong with you?”
“Nothing is wrong with me!”
“Do you know, Bryn, the truth sometimes suffices where a lie is ridiculous.”
“There is nothing wrong with me. I’m just a little tired.”
“You should get
more sleep.”
“Yes, I should. But don’t worry, I won’t let my work slip.”
“I wasn’t worried.”
She glanced at him sharply, only to discover that he really wasn’t worried. He wasn’t even looking at her.
He was scanning the room, eyes keenly alert. She had the sudden impression that if she had felt like something hunted, he definitely seemed like a stalking cat. It was all part of that new tension. He was watching, waiting…searching….
For what?
She was being ridiculous.
He was tense because he was always tense. He was always a hard taskmaster. And he seemed like a powerful cat on a stealthy prowl because he was…
Lee Condor.
She was a nervous wreck, and so she was reading ominous signals into everything she saw. She had done it that morning to Andrew, and she was trying to do it now to Lee.
She began to pray for the day to end.
* * *
They were all gone, the dancers, the cameramen, the workers—everyone. Only Lee and the group remained behind.
“I think the police should be called in,” Mick stated flatly.
Lee lifted his hands in an absent gesture, then crossed them over his chest again. “And what am I going to say, Mick? I think my house has been broken into several nights in a row? There won’t be any prints. This guy is good. I never heard anything. I’m going strictly on intuition. Of course it might have been while I was out.”
“But if you report it—” Andrew suggested.
“No,” Lee interrupted, shaking his head. “If I do that, I’ll never know how Bryn is involved. If she is. The car might have just been some guy hoping for a date with a beautiful woman.”
“But you don’t believe that.”
“No, I don’t Perry, it’s your turn to watch her house tonight.”
“No problem,” Perry agreed.
“Yeah, but don’t ask her for a ride in tomorrow morning. I think she was suspicious,” Andrew warned.
“That’s because you didn’t have the sense to mess your clothes up!” Perry teased.
“Hold it!” Lee laughed. “Perry, just disappear into the trees when she gets ready to leave. I’ll pick you up. That will solve that problem.”
“What about your house, Lee?” Andrew asked. “I really think one of us should be with you.”
“Thanks, Andrew, but no. If I’m going to catch a sneak thief, I’m going to have to be a better sneak than he is. That means being alone.”
“Take care,” Andrew advised gruffly. “I mean, I like being a musician. Without you, we might have to start back at the bottom, and I’ve gotten quite fond of an adquate income, you know.”
Lee chuckled. “Don’t worry, Andrew. I’m pretty sure I know what I’m doing—so far, at least.”
“I’m aware you’re no fool, Lee. And that you know how to take care of yourself. Like I said—just take care.”
“I will.”
“Well,” Andrew murmured lightly, “since it seems I’m off for the night, I’m going to go ahead and try to enjoy myself.” He started for the door with the others behind him, then turned back. “I’ll be by my phone, Lee, Perry, if you need me.”
“So will I,” Mick added bluntly.
“Thanks,” Lee told them. He shrugged. “Maybe I am crazy.”
They all shrugged. Not one of them thought so.
* * *
The phone was ringing as she turned the key in the front door.
Bryn felt chills, and her fingers shook. She didn’t want to answer it.
“Hurry, Aunt Bwyn!” Adam said, slurring the r in her name as he sometimes did. “The phone is ringing!”
“I know,” she murmured. The door opened and swung inward. The boys rushed in ahead of her, the older ones tearing toward the phone together.
“Don’t answer it!” she snapped sharply, but too late. Brian was already saying “Hello?”
A wave of cold swept over her as she watched her nephew, a feeling that she would fall…that she would faint….
“It’s Barbara, Aunt Bryn. Something about a picture for the travel agency.”
Relief was almost worse than the fear. Her voice crackled when she took the phone from Brian.
“Hi, Barb, what’s up?”
“Nothing big, honey. I just need another print of the iguana by the cactus. Can you do me an eight by ten tonight?”
“Sure.”
“Great. You can bring it to me tomorrow.”
“Sure.”
“You okay, Bryn?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. Just tired.”
“Umm…even I have to admit that Condor was a devil today. Oh, well, I’ll let you get going.”
“Barbara, wait! I know this sounds a little ridiculous, but could you get those pictures back?”
“Of Lee?” Barbara queried, puzzled.
“Yes.”
“How could I do that? I told you I already turned them over to him. I haven’t got a single proof or a negative. Why?”
“Oh, nothing. Never mind. I had just…ah…wanted to take another look at them.”
“Well, I’m sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“Okay, see you tomorrow.”
Bryn hung up, glad for once that work and the kids kept her so busy. She told the boys to do their homework while she heated up some chili and mentally thanked Clarence Birdseye for packaging a spinach concotion that all three would eat. She tried not to think about anything but pots and pans and the convenience of boil-in bags.
After dinner she switched on the Disney Channel, supplied the kids with crayons and coloring books and warned them to watch out for Adam. “I’ll be in the darkroom, and don’t barge in without knocking unless there’s an emergency, okay? I have to develop a print.”
They all nodded solemnly, then started bickering about the crayons before she unlocked the back door leading to the darkroom. She kept it locked because of the kids. To get in from the back she had to slink around the filing cabinet which almost completely blocked the door.
It took her a moment to squeeze her way in; it would probably have been easier to just go around and unlock the front door but she was accustomed to working in semidarkness, and she wasn’t at all worried as she fumbled around to find the string to the overhead light.
No, she wasn’t worried. She didn’t have the slightest premonition or foreboding.
Which made it all the worse when she found the switch and filled the room with pale, artificial light.
For a moment she was stunned. Too stunned to assimilate all that she saw. And then the cold set in. A wave of icy fear that seemed to begin in the pit of her stomach and spread to paralyze her limbs.
A scream rose in her throat, yet as if in a dream, she found she couldn’t release it. The constriction was horrible; she couldn’t scream, couldn’t breath….
She could only stare at the total destruction within the small room.
Pictures…old pictures, meaningless pictures, new pictures…all joined together in a savage, silent pattern of horror. They were hung from the drying line and spread across the floor. Littered over her desk. All slashed to macabre ribbons.
And her desk! Each drawer had been ripped out, its contents scattered to the far corners. Gallon jugs of developer and chemicals had been emptied and dumped; the destruction was complete.
In a daze, Bryn started to move toward her desk, compelled by a piece of a photo.
She realized that the other pieces of the photo were beside it, purposely set apart in a slashed jigsaw.
She knew the picture, though she hadn’t taken it herself. It was blurred and out of focus, but she had loved it. Barbara had taken it of her with the boys when they had shared a Sunday picnic right after Christmas….
But now the photo was clearly a threat. Adam had been cut out and laid separately aside, as had Brian and Keith.
She was left as the center piece, smiling brilliantly. It had been a nice, laugh
ter filled day. But now her smile mocked her. It seemed grotesque. Her cheap little nail-file letter opener had been slammed into it, angled from her mouth to her throat.
“Oh, God!”
Sound at last tore from her, but it wasn’t a scream. It was a whisper. She grabbed the desk because she was going to fall. She couldn’t hold on to the light; darkness was swamping her….
No joke, no joke, it wasn’t a joke.
Something rose to salvage her consciousness right before the darkness could cover her. It was anger. She had been scared half to death; her things had been ravaged. She had been violated on a very personal level….
“Son of…” she began softly, grating her teeth. She wasn’t going to scream. She wasn’t going to send the boys into a panic. She was going to think, calmly. And then decide what to do.
Just as she came to that determined decision, the phone began to ring.
And ring…
CHAPTER 6
Bryn stumbled through the refuse as she hurried to wedge her way past the file cabinet and back into the house.
“Brian! Keith!” she yelled, grunting as she hurried. “Don’t you dare! Do you hear me? Don’t you dare answer that phone!”
Raw emotion must have given an edge of authority to her voice; when she charged back into the house both boys were standing near the phone, but they were staring at her rather than touching it.
She swept past them and grabbed the receiver, practically shouting into it. “Hello?”
There was a slight hesitation at the other end, then a quiet, masculine voice. “Miss Keller?”
“Yes,” Bryn said nervously.
“This is Mike Winfeld. We met at the Timberlane Country Club the other day.”
“Oh, yes. How are you, Mr. Winfeld?”
She really didn’t give a damn. All she wanted was for the man to get off the phone! Don’t be a fool, Bryn. Be warm, be polite! she warned herself. He might need publicity photos, and he seems to be a very pleasant person.
“Fine. Fine, thank you. But I’ve been thinking about you.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. I know we only met briefly, but I wonder if you wouldn’t consider the possibility of going to dinner with me? I’d like to discuss the possibility of your doing some pictures for me.”
Night Moves (60th Anniversary) Page 10
