After Dark (11 page)

When the chill reminded her of the advent of night, Abbie hoisted herself to her feet and climbed the stairs. She walked slowly along the short path through the woods. Something moved deep in the forest and Abbie froze, hoping it was a deer. She had been on edge since the attempted break-in at her house. When Matthew Reynolds commented that Charlie Deems was the type of person who would seek revenge, Abbie remembered that the burglar's physique vaguely resembled Deems's. The thought that a man like Deems might be stalking her was profoundly unsettling.

Abbie waited nervously in the shadows cast by the pines, but the source of the sound remained a mystery. She returned to the cabin, showered, then made a nice dinner, which she ate on the front porch. She sipped a chilled Chardonnay that went well with the trout amandine and saffron rice pilaf. Overhead, the stars were a river of diamonds so sharp they hurt her eyes. They never looked like this in the city.

Abbie loved to cook and usually felt upbeat after consuming one of her creations. Tonight, she was thinking about losing the cabin and she felt logy and maudlin. After dinner, she sipped a mug of coffee, but soon felt her eyelids drag. She emptied the coffee onto the packed earth below the porch rail and went inside.

Abbie sat up in bed, certain she had heard a noise but unable to tell what it was. Her heart was beating so loudly, she had to take deep breaths to calm herself. The moon was only a sliver and the room was pitch black. According to the clock on her nightstand, she had only been asleep for an hour and a half.

Abbie tried to identify the sound that had awakened her, but heard only the waves breaking on the beach. Just as she convinced herself that she was only having a bad dream, a stair creaked and her heart raced again.

Abbie had taken to carrying her handgun since the attempted break-in, but as she reached for it, she remembered that her purse was downstairs.

She had been too exhausted to change her clothes when she went to bed, so Abbie was wearing her tee shirt and panties and had tossed her sneakers, socks and jeans onto the floor next to the bed. She rolled onto the floor and slipped on her jeans and sneakers.

There was a deck outside the bedroom window. Abbie grabbed the doorknob and tried to open the door quietly, but the salt air had warped the wood and the door stuck. Abbie pulled a little harder, afraid that the intruder would hear her if she jerked open the door. It would not move.

Another step creaked and she panicked. The second she wrenched the door open footsteps pounded up the stairs toward her room. Abbie ran onto the deck. She slammed the deck door closed to slow the intruder, then she rolled over the low deck rail just as the door to her bedroom slammed open. For a brief moment, Abbie could see the silhouette of a man in her doorway.

Then she was falling through the air and slamming against hardpacked earth.

The deck door crashed against the outside wall and Abbie was up and running. A dirt trail ran between the woods and the edge of the bluff for a mile until it reached the neighbors' property.

There was no fence and the trail was narrow, but Abbie streaked along it, praying she would not be followed.

A hundred yards in was a footpath that led into the woods.

Abbie's brain was racing as she weighed her choices and decided her chances of survival were better in the woods, where there were more places to hide. She veered to the left and shot down the trail, then moved off it and into the woods as silently as she could.

Abbie crouched behind a tree and strained to hear the man who was chasing her. A second later, footsteps pounded by on the path. Abbie gulped air and tried to calm herself. She decided to move deeper into the woods. She would hide until daylight and hope the man would give up before then. She had almost regained her composure when she heard a sound on her right.

Adrenaline coursed through her and she bolted into the underbrush, making no effort to be quiet. Her feet churned. She surged into the woods and away from the cliff, oblivious to the pain from branches that whipped across her face and ripped her shirt. Then she was airborne.

She tried to cushion her fall but her face took the brunt of it.

Blinding lights flashed behind her eyes.

The air was momentarily crushed from her lungs. She hugged the earth, praying she would be invisible in the dark. Almost immediately, she heard the loud crack of branches breaking and the snap of bushes as they swung back after being pushed apart.

The sound was nearby and there was no way she could run.

On her right was a massive, rotting tree trunk. Abbie burrowed under it, pressing herself into the earth, hoping that the mass of the log would shield her.

Something wet fell on Abbie's face. It started to move. Tiny legs scrambled across her lips and cheek. An insect! Then another and another. Abbie desperately wanted to scream, but she was afraid the insects would crawl into her mouth. She clamped her jaws shut and took in air through her nose. Every part of her wanted to bolt, but she was sure she would die if she did.

The woods were silent. The man had stopped to reconnoiter.

Abbie brought a hand to her face and brushed off the bugs. She expelled air slowly. Her heart was beating wildly in her ears and she calmed herself so she could hear.

There was cool earth against her cheek and the silhouettes of tall evergreens against the night sky. Suddenly the space between two large trees was filled by the outline of a man. His back was to her, but she was certain he would see her if he turned and looked down. Abbie pressed herself closer to the log, praying that the man would not turn.

He did. Slowly. A few inches more and he would see her. Abbie felt for a rock or a thick tree limb she could use as a weapon, but her hand closed on nothing of substance.

Now the man was facing the log. He started to look directly at Abbie.

Then the sky lit up.

The ringing of the phone wrenched Jack Stamm out of a deep sleep. He groped for the receiver. When he knocked it off the cradle, the ringing mercifully ceased.

District Attorney Stamm?

Stamm squinted at the bright red numerals on his digital alarm clock. It was 4:47 A. M.

"Who's this?"

"Seth Dillard. I'm the sheriff in Seneca County. We met at a law-enforcement conference in Boise two years ago."

"Right," Stamm said, trying to picture the sheriff and coming up blank.

"What couldn't wait until morning?"

"We have one of your people here. Abigail Griffen."

"Is she all right?" Stamm asked, suddenly wide awake.

"Yes, sir, but she's mighty shaken up."

"Why? What happened?"

"She says someone tried to kill her."

Seneca County was two hours west of Portland and it was almost seven-thirty when Jack Stamm stopped beside one of the two county police cars that were parked in front of an A-frame that belonged to Evelyn Wallace, Abbie's neighbor. When Stamm stepped out of his car, he could see the sun through breaks in the trees and heard the dull shoosh of the surf through the woods behind the house.

A Seneca County sheriffs deputy opened the front door and Stamm showed his ID. The A-frame was small. A kitchen and the living room took up the ground floor. Abbie was huddled on the living-room couch wrapped in a blanket and sipping a cup of coffee. Evelyn Wallace, a slender woman in her mid-sixties, sat beside her.

Stamm was shocked by the way Abbie looked. Her hair was uncombed, there were streaks of dirt on her cheeks and her eyes were bloodshot. Stamm also noticed a number of cuts and bruises on her face.

"My God, Abbie. Are you all right?" Stamm asked.

Abbie looked up at the sound of Stamm's voice. At first she did not seem to recognize her boss. Then she mustered the energy for a tired smile.

"I'm exhausted but I'm okay. Thanks for coming."

"Don't be ridiculous. Do you think I'd let you drive yourself to Portland after what the sheriff said."

Before Abbie could answer, the door opened and a tall man with leathery skin and a salt-and-pepper mustache entered. He wore a Stetson and the uniform of the Seneca County sheriffs office.

"Mr. Stamm?" asked the uniformed man.

"Sheriff Dillard?"

"Yes, sir. Thanks for comin'."

The sheriff turned his attention to Abbie.

"Do you think you're up to going back to the cabin? My men are almost through and I'd appreciate it if you could walk me through what happened."

Abbie stood up. The blanket slipped down. She was wearing a tee shirt without abra, jeans and sneakers without socks, and she was covered with caked brown-gray mud from head to toe.

"You're sure you're up to it, dear?" Mrs. Wallace asked.

"I'm fine. Thank you so much, Mrs. Wallace. You've been wonderful."

When Abbie was ready, she got in the sheriffs car. Stamm followed along a short driveway until they reached the highway.

The sheriff turned left and drove for a little over a mile, then turned down the narrow dirt road that led to the Griffen cabin.

Abbie and the sheriff were going inside by the time Stamm parked and climbed the steps to the front porch.

The front door of the Griffen cabin opened into a large living room with a stone fireplace. There were two bedrooms and a kitchen on the first floor and two more bedrooms, plus the deck, upstairs.

"Forensic people through?" Sheriff Dillard asked a lanky deputy who was waiting in the living room holding a Styrofoam cup filled with lukewarm coffee.

"Left a few minutes ago."

"Before you tell us what happened," the sheriff asked Abbie, "can you check to see if anything was stolen?"

Abbie went through the downstairs as quickly as possible, then led everyone upstairs to the bedroom. Her terrifying ordeal had drained her physically and emotionally, and she climbed the stairs slowly. When she reached the bedroom doorway, she paused, as if expecting to find the intruder inside. Then she took a deep breath and entered.

The shades on the big picture window were open and pale morning light filled the room. Only a lamp that lay with its shade askew on the floor next to an oak chest of drawers suggested an intruder, but Abbie could feel a presence in the bedroom that made her skin crawl. She hugged herself and shivered slightly.

She had been scared after the burglary attempt, but the fear passed quickly because she convinced herself that the attempted burglary was a random incident. Now she knew it wasn't.

"Are you all right, Mrs. Griffen?" Sheriff Dillard asked.

"I'm fine, just tired and a little scared."

"It wouldn't be normal if you weren't."

Abbie checked the chest of drawers and her end table. She went through her wallet carefully. Then she looked in the closets.

"As far as I can see, nothing's missing."

"Why don't you come on out to the deck so you can sit down and get some fresh air," the sheriff said solicitously.

Abbie walked out of the room into the bracing salt air and sat on one of the deck chairs. She looked out past the rail and saw the wide blue plain that was the sea.

"Do you think you're up to telling us what happened?" the sheriff asked.

Abbie nodded. She started with the sound she had heard in the woods before dinner and walked Stamm and Sheriff Dillard through the events of the night, stopping occasionally to give them specific details she hoped would prove helpful to the investigation. Remembering what happened was almost more terrifying than experiencing it, because now she had time to think about what would have happened if she hadn't escaped. To her surprise, Abbie found she had to pause on occasion to fight back tears.

When Abbie told the sheriff about seeing the intruder in the doorway, Sheriff Dillard asked her if she could describe the man.

"No," Abbie replied. "I only saw him for a second before I dropped off the deck. I just had an impression of someone dressed in black. I'm certain he wore a ski mask or a stocking over his face, but I saw him for such a short time and it was just before I jumped. I was mostly concentrating on the ground."

"Go on."

"When I hit I rolled and took off. There's a dirt trail along the bluff. I heard the deck door slam. He must have pushed it hard.

Then I was running in the dark. I could hear the ocean and see the whitecaps, but that was it. I was scared I'd go off the trail and fall from the bluff.

"About a hundred yards along the cliff, the trail branches into the woods. I saw a gap in the woods and took the offshoot, hoping the man would go straight. I tried to be quiet. He passed on the trail. I could hear his footsteps and his breathing. I was starting to feel like I'd gotten away when I heard something off to my right."

"What kind of thing?"

"I don't know. Just . . ." Abbie shook her head. "Just something. It spooked me."

"Could there have been a second person?"

"That's what I thought. When I heard the sound, I jumped off the trail and dodged through the undergrowth. I was really scared and not making any effort to be quiet. Just plunging away from the bluff and the place where I'd heard the sound."

Abbie told Stamm and the sheriff about her hiding place under the log.

She remembered the insects and shivered involuntarily.

"For a while it was quiet," she continued. "I hoped the man had gone off. Then a shadow moved between two large trees a short distance from me. I think it was the man I'd seen in the doorway."

"Couldn't you be sure?" the sheriff asked.

"No. He seemed to be the same size and shape, but it was so dark and I only saw the man in my room for a second."

"Go on."

"I knew if he turned and looked down he'd see me. I was certain he could hear me breathing. Suddenly, he did turn and I was sure I'd been discovered. Then the woods lit up."

"Lit up?" Sheriff Dillard repeated.

"There was a brief, but intense flash. It came from the other side of the log."

"Do you know what caused the flash?" the sheriff asked.

"No. I was under the log. I could just see a change in the light."

"Did you recognize the man?" the sheriff asked.