Off the Beaten Path (26 page)

Later that day Kristin heard on her office radio that a Porsche 911 had left the interstate at a high rate of speed and rolled over several times before coming to rest on the opposite side of the Interstate. He stomach did a slow roll as she remembered that her date from Friday night drove a Porsche 911 and he had not been at the Gym this morning.

Kristin thought back to earlier in the day, she had actually been looking forward to seeing him this morning, she had found herself a little disappointed when he hadn't shown up. She switched on her office T.V. and found a local station playing back the footage of this morning’s double accident. The on the scene reporter was interviewing a nice young woman who was on the verge of tears telling the reporter than the man driving the car was a hero for avoiding crashing into her car with her baby in the back seat. When the camera panned left over the woman's shoulder and zoomed in on the twisted sports car on the other side of the Interstate she came out of her chair. The paramedics were just putting the man they extricated from the car on a stretcher and strapping him down, they did not pull the cover up over his head. Kristin could not see the man’s face and the hospital had not released his name yet but the stark happenstance was just a little too unnerving.

She picked up the phone and dialed the hospital where the reporter said that the unidentified man had been taken. The hospital receptionist heard the fear and concern in Kristin's voice when she
asked if she could get an update on her friend that had been brought in this morning. The fact that Kristin gave the name of the man that was still in surgery to the receptionist convinced the pleasant woman that Kristin was entitled to at least the confirmation that it was in fact the guy she had gone out with last Friday night.

Kristin sat back down in her chair and wondered if what had happened this morning was truly and accident. She suspected that her soon to be ex-husband was probably having her followed. She knew that Clarence was capable of violence. She just couldn't believe that Clarence was responsible for such a horrible chain of events. Events that had landed someone she had gone out with only once in an emergency room fighting for his life. Her doubts were shattered thirty minutes later when a rather expensive bouquet of flowers arrived at her office. Marcy signed for the flowers and brought them up to her office. As Marcy turned to leave Kristin dug the small white envelope out of the middle of the flowers, opened the card and read the short note. The next thing Marcy heard was the tearing of paper and a single word command,

“Dumpster.” Marcy didn't say a word, she retrieved the flowers off the desk and headed back down the stairs and straight to the outdoor dumpster. The people in the building that had watched the flowers being delivered to Kristin's office and then come back down the stairs thirty seconds later did not wonder what was happening. They had all witnessed this phenomenon at least twice before. They didn't know what had been written on the note but they knew who it was from.

Kristin sat back down at her desk and shuttered as a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach eased its way up her spine and became a stabbing pain in her temples. The pain spilled out of her eyes in the form of cold tears. The realization that by simply going out on a single date someone they might lose their life or be permanently injured made her feel more trapped than she had ever felt before.

There was nothing on the card that even came close to evidence or proof that Clarence was responsible for what happened this morning. The short note on the shredded card now lying at the bottom of the garbage can might even be interpreted as thoughtful and sympathetic to most anyone that read it. The Card had simply said,

“Sorry to hear about your friend.”

C.

Kristin knew what it meant and worst of all she knew who had sent it.

Over the next few weeks Kristin did her best to keep track of how her one time date was progressing in his recovery. She found out that he had a shattered right leg, a broken left arm, a ruptured spleen, a punctured lung, and a two or three hundred stitches from the left side of his head down across his entire body. She was not sure if he would ever fully recover and she couldn't take a chance on going to see him. The message had been delivered loud and clear, stay away from other men. O.J. Simpson had nothing on her soon to be ex-husband.

She also discovered that the stock firm the injured man worked for had set up a fund to help with his recovery. Kristin donated a generous amount to the fund, anonymously.

The light disappeared from the upstairs window and Gerard snapped to attention like a buck private coming face to face with a four star general. He stood up and stretched his cold muscles then he walked as quietly across the gravel to the lush green lawn that encircled the house. Gerard followed close to the fence line of the corral so he would not be left out in the middle of the yard without any protection, he could slip through the fence and into the smelly horse corral if he needed to. As he passed by the two horses standing stiffly inside the corral one of the horses pawed at the dirt and gave a braying noise that sounded part nervous and part warning. He stopped for a second to see if any lights came on in the house, none came on.

When he reached the back of the house he saw something that made him smile with delight. The corner of the log house had been constructed so that the logs that met at the corners overlapped and extended out form the corner a good eight inches. The old fashion design created a permanent ladder straight up to the second floor balcony. If everything went as smooth as this he would be out of this God awful state by sunrise.

Gerard slowly eased his way up the corner of the house and over the balcony railing. He pressed his back against the cool logs and listened for any sign that he had been heard coming up and over the wooden railing. He forced his heart rate down and slowed his breathing back to near normal. When he was positive that he had not been detected he
slid the silenced twenty caliber pistol out of his shoulder holster and let it hang loosely at his side.

Sam crawled forward on the floor and slid out from under Kristin's head like she was trying not to disturb her, Kristin sat bolt upright as her throat tightened. Sam rose slowly into what only could be considered an attack position and crossed the wooden floor soundlessly until she had her wet nose pressed against the sliding glass door that led out onto the balcony. Kristin watched intently, she could see that her protector’s entire body was shaking with anticipation. Kristin was absolutely sure that whoever was outside the house was now on the balcony. The only thing between her and a nameless danger was a pane of glass and a forty pound golden retriever that she was sure had never faced anything more threatening than a cotton tail rabbit. Kristin was sweating from every pore in her body and she was light-headed from taking shallow quick breaths, she reminded herself to take a couple slow deep breaths and the vertigo subsided a little. She suddenly realized that she was sitting in the middle of the floor between the only two ways in and out of the bedroom, not to mention the beam of moonlight that was shining down from the skylight like the fifty thousand watt spotlight.

Kristin spotted the safest place in the room, in the corner where the outside wall and the bathroom wall connected. She didn't even bother to stand up, she scampered across the floor like a cat after a mouse and melted down into the corner like a piece of the furniture. When she reached her hiding place she saw Sam give her a sideways look that lasted less than a second as if to say, “You’re safe there.” From where
she crouched clutching the pistol Jack had given her she had an unobstructed view of the door to the bedroom and although she couldn't see out onto the balcony she would be able to tell if anyone was trying to get into the room. There was no way of either of them knowing that for some strange reason, both her and Jack were standing in almost the exact same place in both bedrooms.

Jack heard the soft creak of the balcony rail and knew that his uninvited guest was now on the balcony. He thought back over the last thirty minutes since he had first seen Sam alert him to something out of the ordinary. In the flash of moment he went over everything he had done in the last half an hour. Had he done anything that would have tipped off someone that he knew that they were not alone? Jack was starting to have second thoughts about his plan. Maybe he didn't really need to know the reason why someone was trying to kill or capture one or both of them. Maybe he should have just grabbed a double barrel shotgun out of his gun safe and started shooting. Too late for that now, the gun safe was downstairs in his study and the only weapon on the second floor at this moment was thirty feet down the hall in the gentle fingers of a woman who had only had one shooting lesson.

Jack's chest tightened as he heard a slight jiggle of the outside handle on the patio door. He asked himself,

“Should I have left the door unlocked and let the rat into the trap?” Jack's breath caught in his throat when a shadow crossed in front of the glass door. Whoever was out there had moved from one side of the glass door to the other side. A million questions flashed through his mind all at once starting with, what was the intruder doing? Was he seeing if anyone was really in the room? Was he angling for a way to smash the glass with the least amount of effort? Was he waiting for the lights to come back on?

Jack very slowly leaned his head forward less than two inches to see if he could see the intruder. He could not see anyone but he knew that he was out there. He hadn't seen a shadow cross back to the other side of the door, where was he? Jack looked down at the floor of the balcony to see a shadow moving away from the patio door. Then he knew where the intruder was going.

He bolted for the bedroom door in a blind panic but his foot caught on the leg of the nightstand and he crashed headlong into the oak dressing bench at the end of the bed. The impact of his head striking the heavy wooden box rattled his teeth and temporarily disoriented him. He fought to get to his feet knowing that he didn't have a second to waste. All he could focus on was one question,

“Did I lock the Patio door in the guest bedroom?” When he reached the door to the hallway he fumbled with the lock and swung the door open to fast, the door struck the side of his head trying to leave the room before the door was fully open. In his dazed condition he thought to himself with mild amusement, “I'm going to kill myself before anyone else has a chance too.

Kristin heard the commotion down the hall and her heart rate shot back up over one hundred beats per minute. She looked at the bedroom door then she looked down at Sam who's gaze was still fixed on the patio door like the was frozen in place. Kristin was trying to decide what to do when she heard the click of the patio door latch and she watched as Sam slowly backed closer to where Kristin was crouched in the corner. She could hear the sounds of the crickets outside getting louder and she could feel the cool night air rush in as the door slowly slid open. Whoever was coming in through the patio door was doing so without any fear. Why would they be afraid? Thanks to the brilliant moonlight illuminating the room it didn't appear from the outside that there was anyone in the room.

Kristin fought the urge to curl up into even a smaller ball than she already was and hope that whoever was coming in through the patio door would just move through the bedroom and out into the hallway. Out to where she was sure that Jack was ready and waiting.

Then she felt it, the fear inside her exploded. It exploded like a child's balloon that had been filled past the point of where it could take another single drop of air. In one split second the terror that had gripped her like a pair of hands around her throat was gone. The fear that she had lived with for so long slipped off her like a thin piece of silk slipping off her naked body.

As a black pant leg and then a hand holding a gun slowly stepped out of the cool night air and into the bedroom Kristin silently and evenly
rose to her feet. Like a bird spreading her wings both of her arms came up even with her shoulders and her hands folded neatly around the handle of the pistol, her right index finger sliding into the trigger guard and onto the cool metal trigger. Just as the side of a man’s head crossed the threshold of the door Kristin pulled back the hammer on the pistol. She didn't have to utter a word, the sound of a cocking hammer said it all. But, Just to be safe, Sam Punctuated the moment with the same blood curdling growl that she had demonstrated less than an hour ago. The man in the doorway was completely taken by surprise. The combination of the cocking pistol in his left ear and what sounded like a rabid wolf inches from his groin made every muscle in his body tighten like the strings on a guitar just before they snapped.

The crash of splintering wood sounded like a bomb going off in the bedroom. The man coming in through the patio door reacted first, he jumped back just far enough so that the bullet exiting the barrel Kristin's gun barely grazed the top of his left eyebrow. The muzzle flash did more damage, it temporarily blinded him and cinched the hair on the left side of his head. He threw one arm up to shield his eyes and brought the gun he was holding in the other hand. He made a wild shot in the direction of the door crashing open. The bullet ripped through Jack's shirt sleeve and grazed his right shoulder. Jack felt a slight sting which only made him madder and more determined. Jack then reached around behind him and grabbed the item that he had taken from the closet earlier. It was a metal encased, four battery Mag Light that looked more like a Billy Club than a Flash-light. Jack threw the flashlight as hard as he could at the man in the doorway with one arm over his face trying to figure out what had gone wrong with his perfect plan.