Beachcomber (11 page)

The million-dollar question was, would her makeshift barrier hold? She had a horrible, sinking feeling that she just might not want to find out the answer.

The knob moved again, rattled.

“Christy?”

The weirdly high-pitched voice made her skin crawl. Even more horrifying was the realization that he
knew her name. She backed up until her spine and both hands were pressed flat against the wall.

“I know you’re in there. Open the door.”

A stray glance in the mirror told her that her face was white as death. Her eyes were huge, shiny black, terrified. Her lips were parted and colorless as she all but panted with fear.

Click.
The button lock popped open.

For an instant, no longer, she was frozen in place, staring at the knob in horror. Then with a choked cry she lunged for the lock, pushed it in, and held it down hard, her heart jumping like a kid on a pogo stick as she focused on the unpainted wood panel right in front of her nose. The thought that he was there on the other side, just inches away, made her want to scream. But screaming was probably the worst thing she could do under the circumstances, she told herself.
Don’t let him know you’re scared!
What she needed to do was stay calm and think.

“I called the police on my cell phone. They’re on their way!” she cried. It was a lie, but he had no way of knowing that. Her stomach cramped with fear as the knob jerked beneath her hands.

“You’re going to be sorry you put me to this much trouble,” the weird, high-pitched voice said.

Despite her best efforts the lock popped out again. He shoved the door hard and it moved, springing toward her without warning. Christy shrieked and stumbled back as the door hit the étagère, sending it scraping across the floor. She came up hard against the toilet as the wastebasket slammed into the wall with a
metallic clang. An inch or so of space opened between the jamb and the door. Bathed in cold sweat, breathing like she had been running for miles, hanging on to the back of the toilet for support, Christy stared into that dark slit and felt as if she were looking into the jaws of hell.

It was dark in the bedroom, and the gap in the door was not wide enough for her to see his face. She could make out no individual feature, nothing more, really, than his approximate height. And yet … and yet …

“Hi, Christy.”

She might not be able to see him, but he could see her. Oh God, he could see her. She took a quick, terrorized step to the left, out of his line of sight.

“I told you, the police are on their way! They’ll be here any minute! They’ll arrest you! You’d better leave right now!”

“How much you want to bet I can get to you before they get to me?”

He slammed against the door again. The wastebasket crashed into the wall. The étagère shook. The puny door shivered. To heck with staying calm: Christy screamed and dove for the Mace. But the barrier held. Clutching the can to her chest with both hands, dizzy with fear and horror, Christy grappled with the knowledge that she had maybe a matter of minutes before he broke through. Oh God, what to do? If he got through that door, she might be able to aim right for his eyes and disable him with the Mace. But that wasn’t good enough to gamble her life on. Her frantic gaze lit on the phone. Snatching it up, she juggled it and the Mace and
tried information—411—instead. It cost to use information. There were always operators on hand there.

His fingers slid through the opening. He was wearing black leather gloves. Christy watched, petrified with fear, as his hand closed around the edge of the door.

Ring.

“I’m coming in now, Christy. Then we’re going to play.”

Ring.

“The police are on their way! I’ve got the dispatcher on the phone right now! They’ll be here any second!” She swallowed in a futile attempt to combat her suddenly dry throat. Then, lying as convincingly as she could, she yelled into the still-ringing phone, “This is 29 Ocean Road. I’m trapped in my bathroom with a man breaking down the door. I need help
now!”
Split second pause in which she pretended to listen. “They’re almost here?” She looked toward the door. “Did you hear what I said? The police are almost here!”

His shoulder thudding into the door was his only reply. Screams ripped from her throat of their own volition as he slammed into the door again and again and again, in a series of quick, violent onslaughts. The wastebasket started to flatten. Shampoo leaked from the bottom of her toiletry kit. The flimsy wicker groaned. The barrier she’d thrown together was not going to hold much longer, she knew. Staring helplessly into the dark gap that he was slowly making wider, Christy caught the gleam of his eyes. A predator’s cold and merciless eyes …

The gap was now about four inches wide. Still holding on to the edge of the door, he slid his bent arm inside. His shoulder was next …

Cold sweat drenched her as she realized that in the next few minutes she was probably going to die.

“No!” Christy howled. Dropping the phone, she leaped toward the opening, aimed the Mace and pressed the button. Spray shot through the gap in a thick white stream. The sizzling sound, the sharp acidic smell, made her think of liquid fire. “Take that, you asshole!”

He screamed, and his arm disappeared through the gap.

“Goddamn motherfucking
bitch!”

Bingo.
Yes.

Pumped now, driven by a terror-fueled rush of hormones, Christy dropped the empty can, threw her body against the door, slammed it closed, and pressed home the lock.

“I’m going to cut your fucking head off!”

Without warning the edge of a small hatchet ripped through the wood, its wickedly sharp tip slicing into the top of her shoulder. Screaming, she jumped back, clamping a hand to the wound. There was no pain; instead what she felt was shock, followed by a kind of icy numbness as she lifted her bloodied hand to stare with stunned disbelief at the blood welling up through the cut.

“Got ya!” He cackled with triumph. The wood creaked as the hatchet was yanked from view.

“Go
away!”
Christy yelled despairingly.

The door shook as he chopped at it again, then subjected it to what sounded like a full body slam. Forget being injured: her life was at stake. Christy flew back to hold the door, hold the lock. The hatchet hacked through the wood again, barely missing her face. Screaming with enough volume to take the roof off the house now, Christy dodged and held fast, reinforcing the étagère with her weight, holding down the lock with both hands. The spray had hit him, she knew it had, but it must have been a glancing blow that had angered rather than incapacitated him. She could hear him cursing, hear his harsh, rasping breaths. He wasn’t bothering to try to unlock the door anymore; in his fury, he was trying to smash right through it.

Dear God, please save me. Please. I’ll do anything …

Blood was running down her arm in crimson rivulets. She could feel its warmth, feel the slipperiness of the tile beneath her feet as dripping blood rendered the footing treacherous. The cut itself was at the very outer edge of her left shoulder, perhaps three inches long, a neat slice from a sharp blade that, fortunately, was unlikely to prove fatal. Still, glancing at it, she felt nausea roil in her stomach. Her knees threatened to turn to Jell-O. But she couldn’t surrender to hysteria, couldn’t collapse. Not now. If she did she was as good as dead.

“I’m going to carve you up, bitch. I’m going to make you beg.”

His shoulder rammed the door, again and again and again. Heart pounding wildly, screams echoing off the tiled walls, Christy tried to hold the lock and the door.
Then, finally, as he took the hatchet to it, she was forced to jump back out of the way. With the Mace gone, she was all but defenseless. Desperately, she looked around for the phone. It could be anywhere: beneath the towels that littered the floor, behind the toilet.

There was a loud
crack,
and the door shot inward. Leaping back, she all but fell over the toilet.

He’d torn loose a hinge, Christy realized with horror. His hand shot through the gap that was inches wider this time to grip the edge of the door. The étagère shuddered as the door slammed furiously against it. The wicker groaned, and seemed to bend. This was it. The barrier was not going to hold—

Terror spurred her into action. Snatching up her curling iron from the back of the sink, she whacked his fingers with the metal rod. He cursed, and the hand vanished. But before she could slam the door closed again, he hit it hard. Jumping back, she slipped on her own blood and almost went down as the wastebasket crashed into the wall. There was a sharp
crack
as his foot came partway through the door. She could see the toe of a scuffed black work boot through the shards of wood.

“Help!” she screamed despairingly. “I need help!”

Faintly, as if from far away, she heard a muffled, rhythmic banging,
as if someone who wanted in very badly was beating on the patio door.
Probably it was no more than the drumming of her own pulse in her ears, but—

“Do you hear that? The police are here! They’re here!” Shrieking out what she was almost positive was
a lie, she scrambled for the door again. Not that she expected to hold him off for much longer; one or two more solid blows and he would be inside. But as she threw her body against the splintered panel she realized with disbelief that there was no resistance. She could actually almost close the door. He’d broken it so that it no longer fit properly in the frame, or she would have been able to close it all the way.

Was he gone? Impossible to believe that he could actually be gone. Or was it a trap? Was he lying in wait, hoping that she would open the door, ready to grab her if and when she did? Swallowing her screams, she put a cautious ear to the panel and listened intently.

The bedroom light came on. Christy blinked as light shone through the jagged holes the hatchet had left in the door.

“Christy?”

The knob turned beneath her hand, and the door thrust toward her again just as she was moving cautiously to peer out through the gap. Startled almost out of her wits, she screeched and jumped back. A hand curled around the edge of the door. Only this time the hand was tanned skin. No glove.

Thank God, no glove.

“Christy, it’s Luke. Are you okay?”

Luke. Breathing erratically, she looked warily through the gap and met his gaze. He was looking in at her just like the other man had done only moments before. There were differences though, wonderful, reassuring differences that she took several seconds to assimilate: his eyes were higher; his hand, even ungloved,
seemed larger; his voice was different, deep, softly slurred, Southern. The light was on in the bedroom so that she could see him clearly. This was definitely her cat-loving neighbor.

“Oh my God,” she said. As she processed the fact that she was not going to die tonight after all, her knees gave out, and she collapsed in a little heap on the floor.

“Damn it to hell and back. How badly are you hurt?” She could feel his gaze on her. The door rattled as he shook it impatiently. “Christy? Christy, let me in.”

“Be careful. There’s a man in the house. He tried to—kill me.” She managed to get the warning out through teeth that would not stop chattering. She was so cold—freezing cold. And she was bleeding. The cut stung now. There was blood everywhere, running down her arm in a crimson river, smeared on her hands and legs and feet, splattered all over the tile. Curling her legs up beside her, she clenched her teeth to try to control the sound they made and reached for a towel.

“He’s gone. I’ve got a buddy with me, and he’s looking around to make sure, but whoever did this took off when he heard us. You’re safe now, I promise.” His voice had gentled, had gone all soft and soothing as he watched her press the towel to her shoulder. He turned the knob, pushing at the door again. “Christy? Can you let me in?”

She was feeling slightly woozy, not quite on top of her game. Considering, she focused for a long moment on what she could see of him: untidy blond hair finger-combed back from his forehead, a slice of bronzed, handsome face complete with worried frown, large bare
hand, muscular bare knee and calf ending in a sturdy ankle rising above a boat-sized white sneaker: this, clearly, was not her attacker. She was really, truly safe. Relief grew inside her like a huge, expanding bubble.

The knob rattled as he pressed against the door.

“Christy. Let me in.”

It was an order this time, not a request. In her not-quite-all-there state, an order was what she needed. Drawing on the last reserves of her strength, Christy shifted and stretched a leg out to shove the wastebasket out of the way with her foot.

7

L
UKE PUSHED THROUGH THE DOOR,
shot a lightning glance around, and hunkered down in front of her, his eyes filled with concern. They were blue, she registered absently. A bright, vivid, Carolina blue.

“Okay, let me see.”

His hand closed over hers as she held the towel to the cut. Moving her hand out of the way, he gently lifted the stained towel and looked down at her bleeding shoulder. His lips thinned. Replacing the towel and her hand holding it, he met her gaze. Like his mouth, his eyes were harder than before.