Nowhere to Hide (25 page)

Not that she’d taken any.

And not that it was the first time he’d ever had to break lousy news to someone. Generally, though, it was to a parent whose kid had wrapped his car around a telephone pole, or OD’d. It was a part of the job every cop dreaded.

This wasn’t New York, but they had their share of crimes just the same, mostly break-ins, assaults, but a few murders over the years. And last spring there was a suicide—a husband and father of two drove out to the edge of town, parked the car and blew his brains out. No one knew why. Mike saw his widow in town from time to time.

Splashing warm water on his face, he toweled it dry, slapped on a little shaving lotion, winced in the mirror. He glanced at his watch. It was 8:25 p.m. He’d been home twenty minutes.

"Angela, honey," he called out. "Give Mrs. Balena a call, will you? I’ve got to go out for a while." To hell with phoning; he’d just drive on out there. Maybe there was some problem with the line.

"No one’s home, Dad," Angela called back after a minute. "Oh, I forgot, she’s at her gourmet cooking class. She always gets home around nine-thirty."

Damn!
Wednesday.
Right.
Well, he’d just have to wait. Maybe he would try her number again.

Mike slipped his slate blue shirt from its hanger on the door-hook and put it on, frowning in the mirror as he buttoned it. Ellen needed to pick up the pieces, go on with her life. But he knew she wouldn’t be able to even begin to do that until her sister’s killer was found.

He prayed for a break that would make it happen.

Evansdale was a decent little town, mostly, nestled on the banks of the Penobscot River, a good place to raise kids, he’d always thought. He’d wanted to keep it that way. He remembered while working for Jack Seeley over on High, pumping gas, just a few months out of high school, how he’d waited on the edge for the letter that would tell him whether or not he was going to be accepted into the police academy. He could have told you the exact number of rust spots on the green mailbox at the end of their driveway.

Would it all be for nothing?

Mike went into the living room. Angela was sprawled on the sofa, talking to one of her friends on the phone. He glanced anxiously at his watch and picked up a magazine.

He’d give her exactly fifteen minutes.

~ * ~

Tossing her coat and bag on the bed, Ellen changed into her jeans and an old shirt she wouldn’t mind getting doused. An icicle from the Christmas tree clung to one leg of the jeans; she plucked it off and dropped it into the wastebasket. These jeans used to be snug, now they hung on her. A dull ache was starting at the back of her head. "It’s been a long day," she sighed aloud, sagging down on the bed.

Her hand went out to absently smooth a wrinkled pillow sham. Through the window sheers, she could see the dark branches of the tree outlined against the darker night. After a moment, she got up and headed for the bathroom, intending to take a couple of aspirin.

The phone rang.

She turned back. Tensing, she picked up the receiver. "Yes."

"Is this Ellen Harris?"

"Yes," she answered warily.

"You don’t know me, Mrs. Harris," the woman said. "My name is Ruth Miller. Cindy Miller was my daughter."

Ellen felt an instant shock of empathy, mingled with resentment. "Oh." She swallowed against a sudden lump in her throat. "I’m so terribly sorry about your tragedy, Mrs. Miller. I think I have some idea what you’re going through."

"I know you do, dear. That’s why you’re the one I wanted to talk to. They told me at the clinic you were taking some time off. I got your number out of the phone book. I hope you don’t mind."

"No, of course not," Ellen lied. Her headache was getting worse.

"I have to talk to someone. I don’t seem to be coping very well. And I must, for the sake of my little grandson, Jody. He keeps asking for his mother, asking when she’s coming home. It just tears at my heart. I know he’s picking up on my own state of mind, too. He cries all the time. He doesn’t sleep or eat. I don’t seem to be able to help him. I can’t help myself." Her voice broke.

"Mrs. Miller, I’m sorry, but I’m not the one to—"

"Oh, please don’t refuse me," she said, sobbing in earnest now. "I know you have your own troubles, dear, and I hate to bother you, but..."

When Ellen hung up, she’d reluctantly agreed to see Ruth Miller the following afternoon. She didn’t have any idea how she was going to help her. To paraphrase Mrs. Miller’s own words, "she couldn’t help herself."

But neither had she been able to bring herself to turn her back on the distraught woman.

Ellen snapped on the bathroom light, understanding for the first time that whatever happened, she wouldn’t be going back to the clinic. Paul had made that impossible, but she couldn’t blame Paul. She knew that it was her own doing that she got involved in the first place.

She stood looking at herself in the mirror. Her eyes looked enormous, her cheekbones too prominent. No wonder Mike had been moved to take her to lunch.

Something drew Ellen’s gaze upward, to the circle of moisture on the mirror. The size of a half-dollar, it was evaporating even as she watched, becoming smaller and smaller. At first, the implication of what she was seeing did not register. And then it did, raising the hairs on the nape of her neck, slamming her heart up into her throat.

Someone had stood in
this very spot just seconds
ago. It was his breath on the glass she was seeing.

Licking suddenly dry lips, Ellen turned her head slowly, and saw what she had failed to see when she’d entered the bathroom.

The shower curtain was fully drawn.

Now she could see the faint silhouette looming behind the beige plastic. Her mind flooded with terror. No—no—mustn’t panic. This was the moment she had waited for, had deliberately brought about.
Except she had planned to have a gun in her hand.
For the first time, it was not within easy reach. It was in her bag, on the bed. She had to get to it! Please, God, let me.

Her eyes riveted on the shadowy figure behind the curtain, she took silent backward steps, reached behind her for the doorknob, found it. Slowly, she turned it, pulled the door open a few inches. But she was too late. Suddenly, the curtain
whooshed
open, and he was standing there, grinning at her, the steel blade glittering in the bathroom light, poised above his head. "Looking for me?"

She screamed.

With a lightning-quick movement, she was out the door and into the hallway before he could clear the tub. Sam was bounding up the stairs, barking wildly, growling, hackles
raised
.

"No, Sam," she cried out, but even as she said it, Sam had leaped at the throat of the man standing in her bathroom doorway. She could only watch in shocked horror as the knife arched through the air and plunged into Sam’s body. The little dog let out a wail of pain that sounded uncannily human.

Her mind reeling with grief and helpless rage, Ellen watched through blurred vision as the man pulled the bloody knife from Sam. She heard the wet sound it made coming out.

Then he was grinning at her.
A death mask grin.
Cold, cruel eyes.
Narrow lips.
Jagged scar down one side of his face.
You can’t help Sam now. Get the gun. Try to save yourself
.

She bolted for the bedroom, slammed the door shut, but before she could get it locked, he rammed it, and she went flying across the room. She landed hard on the floor. The wind was knocked from her. She couldn’t move.
You have to. Get up, damn you! Get up!
Gasping for breath, she struggled to her feet. Her heart was thumping in her breast like a small, trapped bird.

He was standing between her and the bed—between her and the gun. Mike needn’t have worried about her being capable of killing him. She would shoot this monster before her without batting an eye, except she didn’t think she was going to get the chance. There was no way to get to the gun save going through him, and she’d be joining Sam very quickly if she tried that.

He took a couple of steps toward her, his big boots making small thuds on the wooden floor. He moved with deliberate slowness, his expression mocking her. She was backed against the dresser. Her gaze involuntarily flickered to her bag, on the bed. She looked away, but too late. He’d already seen where she was looking.

Sauntering over to the bed, he picked up the bag, opened it. He turned it upside down, spilling the contents out onto the cream-colored spread.
Smiled.
Palming the gun, he held it out to her. "Is this what you want?" His voice was soft. "Come and get it." He chuckled low in his throat, a mad, thoroughly evil sound that sent ice crystals racing along her spine. It was a laugh she’d heard only once before—over her phone line.

He dropped the gun into the deep pocket of what looked to be army camouflage coveralls.

Standing beside the bed, the light from the lamp on her nightstand cast half his face in shadow, highlighting the side bearing the scar.

A fairly recent scar.
Fragments of skin and blood were found under her fingernails.
Ellen knew intuitively Gail was responsible for the scar. She had clawed his face in her desperate struggle to live.

It was a sign from beyond the grave. She could almost hear her sister’s voice:
Fight him, Ellen! Fight him! Don’t let him win this time.

She reached behind her on the dresser for something to hit him with, her hand fumbling briefly before closing over the handle of the blow dryer. At the very instant he lunged at her, she brought it around with every ounce of strength she had, catching him squarely across the side of the head.

He stopped cold, letting out a grunt of pain and surprise. The knife clattered to the floor as his hand flew to the spot where she’d struck him. Blood was running between his fingers, over the back of his hand. He gave her one crazed look of fury before he staggered, half-falling on the bed.

She glanced at the knife on the floor, but it was too close to him, and he was already getting to his feet. Dropping the blow dryer, she sprinted past him into the hallway, and tried not to look at Sam and down the stairs, sneakered feet flying. She stumbled once, almost hurtling herself the rest of the way, but she managed to clutch onto the banister and regain her balance.

Even before she hit the bottom step, she could hear his boots thumping heavily down the stairs behind her, could hear the string of obscenities defiling the air.

Her eyes focused on the front door directly in her path, but she knew she wouldn’t have time to unlock it. Even if she did, she’d freeze to death without a coat. Running on past, she fled into the kitchen where she yanked open the knife-drawer, inadvertently bringing the whole thing crashing to the floor. She bent to grab a knife, but before she could pick it up, his boot slammed down on her wrist. Ellen cried out as agonizing pain shot up her arm and into her shoulder, buckling her knees. Blackness threatened.
No! You mustn’t faint! You mustn’t. You’ll never waken.

Far away, she could hear a phone ringing.

~ * ~

Mike hung up the phone. He checked his watch for the fifteenth time in twenty minutes. 8:45 p.m. A sense of urgency was growing in his gut.

He paced the living room.
Sat down.
Picked up a magazine.
Tossed it.
Got up again.
Ten minutes later, he called the station. "Did they get that unmarked car back out to Ellen Harris’ place?"

"On its way."

He muttered an oath, hung up. It should have been there hours ago. He checked his watch again. 8:55 p.m.

Angela came into the room. "Daddy,
it’s
okay if you need to go out. You’re real worried about Ellen Harris, aren’t you? You think the bad man will go after her, too?"

He started to lie, changed his mind. "I’m not real easy about it, Angela, to be honest."

"You really like her a lot, don’t you?"

He grinned at her. She looked so serious, so grown up. "Yeah, I guess I
do,
pumpkin."

"Do you love her?"

He tousled her hair. "Don’t be so nosy."

"You do-oo," she sang. "I can tell. Well, you better go, then. I can wait right here until Mrs. Balena gets home. I’ll lock the door and I promise I won’t answer it to anyone. It’s only twenty-five minutes more, for heaven’s sake.
Hardly that, now.
I’m not a baby, Daddy."