Rising Heat (101 page)

I felt my chest hitch in fear as he walked toward me. Before he got to the table, he glanced at the floor, looked around, and then stooped down and picked up the knife I’d kicked off the table. He held it in front of him as he approached.

“You were awfully brave a moment ago, shooting off your mouth. Is there anything else you would like to say?”

He held the tip of the knife against my throat.

“Leave her alone, you bastard.”

Hawk’s voice was muffled, not surprising because of his split lips and the beating he’d just taken.

The killer ignored him. “I repeat, is there anything else you want to say?”

How could anyone endure so much fear without having a heart attack? With every breath I took, I wondered if it would be my last. How long was he going to toy with me? With Hawk? When was he just going to get it over with and do it? For a brief second, I almost wished he would. I didn’t want to die, don’t get me wrong, but how long could I take this without going stark raving mad?

Now I understood what that meant. Stark raving mad. I always thought it was a cliché, but as far as I was concerned at this moment, it was entirely possible. Was that what he wanted? For me to go stark raving mad? Would I? I had no idea. I was surprised I hadn’t fainted, even though I had never fainted before in my life.

I had never been so terrified either. All the times I’d found one of his taunting messages, I thought that I was as afraid as I could get, but I had been mistaken. Seriously mistaken. From the moment I’d woken up and found myself on the table, I had experienced terror like I never knew before. And it hadn’t ended, hadn’t eased or ebbed, not one bit. How long could my heart keep up with the adrenaline pumping through my veins?

I almost wished that I
would
faint from fear so that I could escape the uncertainty of my fate making its way through every cell in my body. How could this be happening to me? I was a website designer for God’s sake! Now it looked like I was going to end up as a statistic. A brief mention in a write-up in the newspaper about a serial killer’s trail of destruction and death. Talked about for a few days maybe and then forgotten. Oh sure, my mother and sister and maybe even my brother-in-law would grieve for me, but they would go on with life.

I realized I was succumbing to my fear, but what else was I supposed to do? How else was I supposed to react? I turned toward Hawk and saw him watching me. Then, to my dismay, and through the eye that wasn’t swelling shut, he winked and offered an encouraging nod. I wanted to cry at that moment. A surge of emotion bubbled up within me, an emotion filled with affection and regret at the same time.

If I hadn’t gotten involved with Hawk, he wouldn’t be here. Then again, if I hadn’t gotten involved with Hawk, I would never have known the feelings I was experiencing at that second. That little gesture on his part filled me and gave me strength. I had to fight, had to fight to stay alive. If I was going to die, I determined then and there that I wasn’t going to die easy.

N
othing happened for several moments. It was as if the killer was trying to figure out what he wanted to do next. Who he wanted to hurt the most. And then he was moving toward the table again, his decision made.

In the next instant, he cut the ties holding my left hand. I wanted to reach out, to grab the knife, to defend myself, but I couldn’t make my arm move. He leaned over me and repeated the process with my right hand. I was free. No bonds held me down to the table, but I couldn’t do anything. I tried to move my legs, but the pain that shot through my right thigh pulled another gasp from my throat.

In one swift move, the killer yanked me off the table. I think I landed on my feet for all of two seconds before he crouched down, one arm wrapped around my waist. Before I knew it, I was dangling over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. Pain shot through me. He headed for the stairs.

Hawk was trying to taunt him again, calling him every name in the book, encouraging him to come back and finish what he’d started. Hawk’s voice was tinged with fury, but something else. For the first time I heard fear. He was worried about me. For my part, I tried to pound against the killer’s torso but my weak efforts were ineffective. I think my fists landed on his ass.

Then he was taking the stairs, one at a time. I tried to reach my good hand down his back and between his legs, to grab his balls, wishing I had the strength to squeeze the living daylights out of them. Before he had gone two steps, I felt the knife against my back.

“You try that one more time and you’ll die right here.”

I froze.

I couldn’t see much, but as we topped the stairs, I noticed that the room we entered was half-wreathed in shadows. A low-watt light in a corner dimly illuminated the room. It was nighttime, although I had no idea if it was just after sunset, the middle of the night, or if dawn would soon lighten the eastern sky.

Suddenly, I was flying through the air, or so it seemed to me as he flipped me over his shoulder. I landed on my back on a sofa. I clutched at the fabric. A horrid orange-rust color. At first, it looked and smelled like it was out of the seventies or something. Funny the kind of thoughts that run through your mind, even though you’re scared to death.

I took in the room in a quick glance as the killer stood in front of the sofa over me. I saw wood paneling. It looked decades old. Darker squares on the faded paneling where paintings or photographs had hung. A bookshelf built into one wall, bare of anything but dust.

The room was furnished with the sofa upon which I lay and one avocado green recliner. A split in the middle of the seat cushion exuded dirty stuffing. The wooden handle on the side that lifted the foot rest was worn and faded with use and age. Beside it on the floor, tilting slightly sideways, a lamp with an ugly, stained and threadbare shade. The carpet, an ugly variegated brown shag. Definitely the seventies.

By the time the worst of the pain quit thrumming through my body, I began to feel the adrenaline surging through me again. The fear of uncertainty, the horrible thought of more torture. Was he going to rape me now? An even bigger question. Was I going to fight him, risk an instant plunge of that knife through my chest, or the possibility that I might… just might, escape?

And if I did, then what? I wasn’t sure how severe my injuries were. Yes, they hurt like hell, but I didn’t know if I could even stand on my own, let alone run. All these thoughts raced through my mind in the matter of a second or two. All the while he stared down at me.

“You’re dying to know, aren’t you?”

I looked up at him, tried to contain my fear, but my trembling belied my effort to control my expression. “Know what?”

“Who I am.”

Did it really matter? I wanted to know, but then again, I didn’t. What difference would it make? Would that knowledge save me? No. It would kill me.

My heart continued to pound, my breathing shallow. I tried to lift myself up on the couch, but in the next instant he was on his knees, his forearm pressed down on my chest, just above my breasts. The knife was in front of my face, its tip still glistening with my blood.

“You want to know, don’t you?”

He obviously wanted me to, so I offered a slight nod.

“It all started by mistake, you know.”

I said nothing, but swallowed heavily as he twisted the blade of the knife in front of my face. I wasn’t sure what he was talking about, but his next statement clarified.

“A girl had the audacity to rebuff me, and you know how it is. One thing led to another, and then things got out of hand.”

I still didn’t recognize his voice, muffled as it was behind the mask. He spoke low, deliberately trying to disguise it. Did I know him?
Could
I know him?

“Do you know what?”

Poke.

The tip of the knife touched my cheekbone. I flinched at the sting of pain. Felt a small trickle of warm blood ooze from the cut and make its way slowly down my cheek.

“I found I liked it.”

His eyes seemed riveted to the stream of blood making its way down my face. How could my heart beat so fast and not explode?

“I like to see the blood, to see the fear in their eyes. The power they give me.”

I said nothing. Just stared up into his eyes, trying to remember if I had seen those eyes before. The problem was, they were brown, a nondescript brown. A lot of people had brown eyes. If they’d been Paul Newman blue or Irish green, maybe I would have remembered, but they weren’t. They were typical. Brown. Plain old brown.

Poke.

Another brief flash of pain as he nicked my chin. I felt that ooze of blood, and then I cringed when his hand reached out to grasp my forehead, pressing my head down into the cushions. They stank. And then, to my horror, he lowered his face down toward mine. I hoped to God he wouldn’t kiss me again.

To my surprise and subsequent disgust, his tongue protruded from the oblong hole in the mask around his mouth. He licked my chin, then sucked on it like he was trying to give me a hickey. Sucking the blood from the nick. And then his tongue left my chin and trailed up my cheek, lapping at the stream of blood there.

I made a mewling sound in my throat. I felt the bile rise right behind it. Tried to struggle against him, but he was strong. And as quickly as he was down on his knees in front of me, the pressure was gone and he was standing again, hovering over me.

To my surprise, he reached for the mask covering his features. In the dull glow of the light of the room, I saw that it was attached by a thick elastic strap around the back of his head. I closed my eyes, not wanting to see. I knew that if I saw him, there was no way in hell he’d ever let me go. The longer I could prevent this moment, the greater my chance for survival.

Seconds passed. I opened my eyes. He had dropped his hand, as if he’d had second thoughts. He reached into his back pocket instead, pulled out two more zip ties. Heavy plastic about a quarter inch wide and about eighteen inches long.

“Show me your hands.”

Biting my lip against the pain, I lifted my hands above me, knowing that refusing to do so would only result in more pain, perhaps a beating like he had given Hawk. In a matter of seconds, he’d crossed my wrists and had me zip tied so tightly that my fingers went numb in a matter of seconds. I made a noise in my throat, and then he reached for my ankles. I tried to kick. It was instinctive, really, no conscious decision on my part. My right leg protested the movement, but I tried to ignore it, putting all the force I had into my left leg. I caught him in the chest.

He took a step back from the blow, but with a growl of rage, he grabbed the ankle of my injured leg and jerked. A scream of pain ripped from my throat as I felt the wound stretch, like it was tearing. Fresh blood, warm as it broke open and began to bleed again. His grip on my ankle was so hard it made me wince.

“Do that again and you’ll regret it.”

I already regretted it.

In a matter of seconds, my ankles were also zip tied.

“You move and I’ll go down there and cut his balls off,” he threatened.

I swallowed, so afraid I didn’t have the strength to respond. To my horror, he placed a hand over my left breast. Squeezed. Hard. When I gasped in pain, he laughed.

“You think I want to rape you, don’t you?”

Again, I remained silent.

“Don’t you?” he shouted, spittle landing on my cheek.

“Yes,” I squeaked.

He chuckled. “I have no intention to,” he said. “Not that I can’t, I just don’t want to, at least not yet. I’ll have to think about it. It’s not just about power, you know. The thought is appealing, to a degree, but I don’t much like dipping into waters where that bastard down there has been first.”

“You know him, don’t you?”

He didn’t reply. Once again the knife was in front of my face. He trailed the tip of it from the tip of my chin down the center of my throat, over my shirt and between my breasts. Not hard, not enough to tear the fabric, but enough to know that it was there. He trailed it in a circle between my breasts, as if outlining where he would cut me; where he would open my chest, maybe even remove my heart.

I felt numb. Physically, emotionally, and mentally. It wasn’t like I was giving up, but I was helpless to protect myself. I had a feeling that if I tried to fight him, that he would plunge that blade into my chest or slash my throat in an instant. But I also had a feeling that he wasn’t done playing with me. He wanted to see my fear, feel my terror, but maybe, just maybe, if I tried to control it and contain it, my inevitable demise could be delayed.

The fingertips of his other hand followed the trail of the knife. His touch was gentle, and yet I cringed from it, tried to bury myself deep into the cushions of the sofa beneath me, but I could only go so far. And then the knife was circling my belly button. His other hand stroked along my hip and then ventured inward, toward my groin. I tried to squeeze my legs together, but he shoved his fingers in between them anyway.

I tried not to show my fear, but I’m afraid I failed miserably. Once again he laughed. Then his hand reemerged.

“Like I said, I don’t like sloppy seconds.”

He stared down at me.

“I have to leave for a little while,” he said. “I’ll be back. You’ll wait for me, won’t you?”

He knew I couldn’t go anywhere. I lay on the couch, helpless. I might manage to topple myself over the side and onto the floor, but then what? Caterpillar crawl to the front door? I didn’t even know where the front door was. The door leading down to the cellar was on the other side of the room against the far wall. Had this been an old dining room? A living room? I had no idea and I didn’t much care.

I was afraid he was going to go downstairs again, to beat Hawk once more, or worse, kill him. I wanted to beg him not to, but I knew it wouldn’t do any good. My heart ached and tears flooded my eyes and ran over the edges, trailing down my cheeks toward my ears. I glanced around, trying to find something, anything that I could use to escape, but there was nothing in the room.