Mortal Crimes: 7 Novels of Suspense (121 page)

Robbi closed her eyes. Her thumb rubbed across the webbed glass. She felt something. Her fingers tingled, as if they had fallen asleep and were just awakening.

Outside she heard the muted sounds of traffic, of kids laughing in the neighborhood. Ice settling in her glass was the only sound in the still room.

________

In the dark, airless space of the stairwell, just outside the small door, sweat gathered on Eckker’s body, soaking the coarse hair on his chest and back. An acrid taste filled his mouth. He felt an ache low in his gut, moving lower. His need grew.

She was only feet away, inches actually. The key to the dead bolt felt icy in his hot, trembling fingers. He turned it in the lock, heard the tumblers clunking softly. He wiped sweaty palms on the legs of his pants, opened the door, and stepped inside.

She sat on the cot, her back pressed into the corner, a rigid ball of white and gold.

He had to take the hanging light bulb away to teach her a lesson in conservation. But he had left her the flashlight—the light now anemic from constant use. It glowed from her hands, pointing upward and casting long, broad shadows. The flashlight beam listlessly floated across the carpeted ceiling and walls to center on his face.

He smiled.

She seemed to bury herself deeper into the wall. The beam of light moved down the front of his body. It stopped at his lower torso where, beneath the khaki fabric of his pants, she saw his need.

A look of horror marred the pretty features of her face.

He took a step forward and reached out for her.

She whispered, “No.”

He took her arm and gently but firmly pulled her from the cot. Her body resisted, but she was feather light as he backed out of the room with her. She kept whispering no over and over.

A static excitement raced through his body. The strange odor came and suddenly he was confused. Shimmering waves of light filled the closed-in stairwell.
Not now,
he begged to himself,
not now!
Any moment now he would lose it entirely. The seizure full-blown.

Agitated, unable to control himself, he ruthlessly shoved Maggie back into her tiny room and slammed the door shut. Through the closed door he heard her sobbing, then he heard only the roaring in his head as he gave himself up to the convulsions.

________

One moment Roberta was staring at the watch in her hands and the next moment wild images flashed behind her eyes. A bright kaleidoscope of colors and shapes whirled through her mind in hysterical animation. A rushing filled her ears. Roberta felt as if she were being sucked into a vortex, whirling helplessly, gaining velocity, the dazzling impressions growing brighter, louder until she wanted to scream. Hysteria. Chaos.
Stop! Stop!

Everything stopped.

Black. Silent.

No perception of time, space, direction.

No feeling, senses dead.

A vacuum without sound or movement.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Roberta was paralyzed with fear. Where was this place? Why was she here? Would she ever get out?

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

It was pitch-black. Joseph Eckker pulled himself up from the dirt-packed floor, his weak, sweat-drenched body still a prisoner of the violent muscle spasms. He leaned against the small door in the stairwell.

When he was again able to think rationally, he was relieved that Maggie was in the safe room. She wouldn’t have known what to do for him. It would’ve scared her to see him like that. All his life people had shied away from him because of the fits. Kids in school and at the state detention had teased him, until he got too big to be teased. No one teased him now.

________

Roberta endured. The vacuum remained absolute. The blackness reminded her of her blindness. Time did not stand still, but seemed to crawl slowly, endlessly. She wondered how long she had been frozen in this empty space; when she finally returned to her physical self, would she be surprised to discover that only a few minutes had elapsed?

If
she returned to her physical self.

Soon she felt a vibration, a tingling. Though she was unable to see it, she sensed, by a sensory mechanism in her mind, that her arm was pushing through the oppressive void. A hand took hers.

Roberta tried to pull herself forward. A rushing sound. She felt motion again. She had a strong feeling of falling, then she slammed into the body pulling on her hand. Masculine arms held her securely.

She opened her eyes to find herself standing and in the muscled arms of Carl Masser.

She moaned. She felt dizzy, sick to her stomach.

Carl lowered her into the chair. He knelt in front of her, an odd expression on his face.

“How long?” she managed to say through an incredibly dry throat.

“Thirty, forty minutes. It seemed like a lifetime.”

Robbi looked at the clock. Six past nine. They had begun the experiment at eight-thirty.

“What happened?” he asked. “What did you see?”

“Time in a bottle. Like the Jim Croce song.”

He looked confused. “Did you see Maggie?”

She shook her head. “No. I’m sorry, Carl.” That she hadn’t connected with Margaret Winston gave her a sinking feeling. Was Maggie already dead?

“What now?” Carl asked.

She closed her eyes, rubbed her temples. “I don’t know. God, I don’t know.”

“You looked whipped. Listen, you get some sleep. I’ll leave now, get outta your hair.” He headed for the door. “Tomorrow, we’ll get together tomorrow.” Then he was gone.

Exhausted, she went to bed, but sleep was a long time coming. Flickering scenes stole into her head. Superimposed over images of Jake making passionate love to her in a grassy meadow, she saw nightmare pictures of women in long white dresses crawling from a pit, their lost and mournful cries raining down on them.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Eckker had taken Margaret into his woods, careful to stay clear of man-made landmarks. With pride he showed her the wonders of the forest. The creeks, the thimbleberries—ripe and falling from the vines—the delicate ferns, the field of wildflowers. He had found several kinds of mushrooms, explained how to tell the edible from the poisonous. He pointed out the animal burrows, rattlesnake hiding places, tracks of a bear. They had even seen a black bear high atop a rocky plateau. A mere speck without binoculars, but its presence had visibly shaken her.

They headed down the slope as the last trace of twilight brushed the sky. Darkness crept through the trees melding with the shadows. Until the bear sighting, she’d been unimpressed, sulky even. She was still sulky, but fearful now.

He had shown her the beauty all around them. How could she not fall in love with it? Her dislike for his way of life, for the very mountain, made her a bad choice for a companion. And it continued to get worse. Each day she became more sullen, hostile even.

She was such a disappointment.
Like all the others.

It would take a special woman, a woman with grit, a woman who loved the wilderness, a woman not too set in her ways. A much younger woman maybe. The first two had pretended to be happy, but in the end he knew. The third one had cut her own wrists and bled to death in the safe room. And the last one had fought him constantly, making his life a living hell. And now Maggie. Moody Maggie. If only she’d try. There was only one person who loved the mountain as he did. But she was forbidden.

Thinking of Tobie brought on the
need.
He looked at Maggie ahead of him on the path. She was so inferior, but she was all he had.

He put his hand on her shoulder. She turned, saw the lust in his eyes. A look of revulsion flashed across her face.

“Not here…please,” she whined. “It’s dark. I’m afraid.”

“Hurry then.”

It was completely dark when they returned to the church. The starless night, black and solid. Rustling sounds stirred the bushes. A bird screeched. He sensed her fear. She was afraid of the dark, afraid of the wild animals, afraid of everything.

They entered the church, crossed to the rectory. He lifted the trapdoor. Waited. She held back.

“Let me go home,” she said quietly.

“Home?”

“For a visit,” she rushed on. “One day, there and back… please.”

“Why?”

“There are things—personal things I’d like to have. Books, pictures, things like that.”

“I’ll get them for you.”

She seemed to blanch at his suggestion. “No. I’m the only one who can get them. I have to be the one to go.”

“You’ll get your stuff and come right back?”

“Yes. Yes,” she pleaded, then began to cry.

“And when you come back, you’ll stop all this crying?”

“Yes, yes, I swear.”

He stared long and hard at her, then nodded. He ushered her down the steps.

“When?” she asked eagerly.

“In the fall. When I go for winter supplies.”

Her face crumbled. “The
fall?”
She pulled her arm away. A look of sheer hatred on her face. “You’re lying. You don’t intend to take me anywhere. You liar!”

“Quiet.” He pulled her down several more steps.

“You filthy liar!”

He stopped. “Go then,” he said, pointing upward.

She twisted to look up at the opening above. A yearning sprang into her eyes. She looked back at him, wary, mistrustful.

He marched down the steps to the living quarters, leaving her on the stairs. He sank down onto the worn overstuffed chair and waited. The stairs groaned. Above him floorboards creaked. By the squeaks and moans in the weathered wood he was able to follow her path. She had traversed the aisle and was now in the church’s vestibule.

He sat, listened. There was nothing for the longest time.

He heard creaking again. Footsteps. The squeak of a door. She had made a decision and he knew what it was.

He raised his eyes, looked up to the top of the stairs. She stood there, trembling uncontrollably. A moment later she was down the stairs. Without looking at him she rushed across the room, stooped to enter the space under the stairwell, and disappeared. The sound of her wretched sobs filled the barren lodging.

He smiled.

He got to his feet and headed for the stairwell.