TICK TOCK RUN (Romantic Mystery Suspense) (43 page)

A potent few seconds passed.  I sensed Paul’s eyes burning into me. 

“I’ve just got to… do something,” Laura said, her voice coloured with despair.  She slipped out from under Paul’s meaty arm and entered the hall.

I blotted my palms on my jeans and waited, hankering for Paul to go back into the lounge so we could barricade him in and have a fighting chance of getting all the girls out.  If we ran for it now, he’d grab some of us, and most of our friends were probably too drunk to fight him off.

During the fadeout of a song, Paul’s footsteps scuffed the floor behind me.  A mix of bile and warm Champagne began rising up my throat and into my mouth.  I had my back to the most terrifying man I’d ever encountered. 

“Thanks for the heads up, partner.”  Paul’s voice was a sinister tease blowing warm breath into my ear.  He pressed something into my back.  A finger?  And then he dragged it slowly, ever so slowly, up my spine to the dint at the back of my neck. 

A shot of coldness raced around my body.

“I got your text.  You’ve been busy.”  Then he whipped Laura’s knickers from my back jean pocket, dangled them in front of my face. 

I stared at them, stiffened then shook.

“Don’t go anywhere.”  There was a cold edge to his voice.  “I’ll be back for you very soon.”

I squeezed my hand into a fist, twisted and swung. 

Paul raced out of the kitchen shouting Laura’s name as he left.

My fist swiped air.  I slipped off the stool, and fell on the floor. 

He slammed the door behind him, blocking my view of the hall. 

“Laura!” I yelled.

“Chelsea?”  Megan said.  “You okay down there?”

I jumped to my feet.  “Get out, everyone.  Quick!  Paul killed Lee’s brother.  He’s a murderer!”

“What?” high-pitched voices answered.  “What are you talking about, Chelsea?”

Jayne choked out her drink.  “Check your calendar, girl.  It ain’t April fool’s day.” 

I slapped the worktop.  “We’re in real trouble.  Get that back door open.  Right now.”  I bolted to the hall door to go after Laura.

Jayne giggled.  “Sure thing, Chelsea.  How much champagne have you downed?” 

I yanked, but the hall door wouldn’t open.  “No.  God, no!”

“This is a prank, right?” Emma asked, a chuckle in her tone.  “Are you filming us?”

When I spun around, Emma was practically standing on my toes.  Her gaze fixed on my face.  I traded a stare with her and didn’t even blink.  “This is what that email is about.  I lied to you.  I did get more of them.  So did Laura.”

“You’re joking?” she said, staggering and looking drunk.

“You know me, Emma.  Do I look like I’m joking?  Paul sent them.  They’re death threats because Laura had an affair with Lee’s brother.”  It pained me to say, “Paul’s gonna kill us all!” 

Emma giggled. 

I stared harder, eyes narrower. 

Her giggling stopped.  She stepped closer, clamped my face between her palms and studied my expression.  “You’re serious, aren’t you?  You’re actually shaking.”

I nodded.

“Flippin’ heck!  Let’s get out of here.”  Emma turned on her heels and bolted to the back door.  “Shit!  It’s locked.”

“Find the key.  Look in those drawers,” I said, pointing.  “Don’t just stand there, you lot.  Move!” 

Jayne charged to the back door next to Emma, crashed against it, yanked at the handle and kicked. 

“Quietly,” I whispered. 

But there was no need now.

An argument erupted behind the hall door as I reached to grip the handle. 

“Paul!  I can’t believe you’ve done this,” Laura shouted.  “You’re a sick maniac.  Don’t touch me!  Ouch.  That hurts.” 

Paul’s voice drowned hers out.  “You’re a filthy, bed-hopping whore.”  Paul’s once friendly groom-to-be persona got stripped further away with every venom-filled word.  “Cheating, lying bitch!” 

I tried to wrench the door open.

Claire’s screeching voice sliced at my ears from the other side of the door.  “What’s going on?  Paul!  Get your hands off her, you hear me?” 

Fast footsteps pounded up the stairs. 

“Run!”

“Get back here,” Paul yelled.  “No one makes a fool out of me.”

“What’s going on?” Jess yelped.

“Claire run, run.  Go!” Laura roared, her voice choked with panic.

Jess screamed.

But then, after a series of thumps, more shouting and the shattering of glass, all went silent.

“Where the hell does she keep the key?” Jayne said from behind me.  “Will someone let me out of this goddamned house?”  She kicked and punched the back door.

Screams came from the hall.  I jumped back.

The girls darted frantically around the kitchen.  They kicked doors, crashed into each other, banged on the window shouting, “We have to get out.”  The four of us, trapped in the kitchen, were loose ends.  Paul, no doubt, wouldn’t want any.

With a sickening riot in my stomach, I yanked on the door again.  “Laura!  Claire!  Open this door!”  The few metres between Laura in the hall, and me in the kitchen, seemed to be further than the moon.

Emma ran to me.  “I’ll help.”  She placed her hands over mine on the door knob, and tugged with her foot pushing against the frame.  It took all our strength but the door only wiggled and rattled.

“It won’t budge!” she yelled.  “He’s wedged it!” 

Thump.  Thump.  We kicked it.

The screams weakened, ending in an eerie silence.

“Smash the window,” Jayne hollered from behind.  “Swing this.”

I heard a clattering noise behind me like something bounced off glass.  I turned and saw the window had spiderwebbed.

I heard scraping noises then a single thud.  I looked back at the hall door and saw the handle wiggle a fraction. 

“Who’s that?” I asked.  “Laura?  Jess?”  If it was one of the girls they would have answered, screamed or something.

Flinching as the door knob turned to the left, I stared down at my empty hands.  I’d wasted time and didn’t have a weapon.  I hurled myself at the door, rammed it shut with my weight and tried to stop the handle from turning any further.  “Help me!”

Emma pushed against the door with her shoulder. 

The door jerked.  I felt the jolts and bounce of it pushing my body as it inched open and closed, repeatedly.

“Open this door!” Paul commanded.

“Press harder, Emma.  Don’t let him in.”  The more I pushed, the lower down the door I slid.

The pressure suddenly stopped. 

I glanced at Emma.  “What’s he up to?”  Before I realised what was happening, he rammed against the door.  Feeling like a truck had driven into me, the powerful jolt of the door flinging open sent both of us skidding across the tiles.  

Something like a stampede began punching from inside my chest as I regained balance.  I looked ahead.  The once bright, friendly eyes of Paul were missing their softness completely.  And I was staring directly at the enraged face of a madman whose secret was out. 

CHAPTER 33

A
new track kicked in on the CD player, an uplifting tune in no way reflecting the sorry room.

Paul stood tall, blocking the kitchen doorway.  Hair in disarray.  Mark’s beige leather gloves were on his hands.  Red scratches ran from his right eye down his cheek.  It was satisfying to see his own blood dripping down his face.  He took on barbaric eyes, directed his menacing glare around the room, and stepped inside.  There was something sinister about the way he moved.  For a second, it paralysed me.  A predator moving slowly so as not to alarm his prey.

But I was alarmed.  And one glimpse over his shoulder was all I needed.  I gasped.  A motionless female, with black hair, lay sprawled on the hall floor.  Laura.  “You bastard!”

Paul kick-slammed the door shut, blocking the extent of destruction from my view. 

Charged with rage, I hurtled myself on Paul and pummelled his chest with my fists.  “What have you done to Laura?  What have you done?”

Paul grabbed my shoulders, stared into my eyes and winked.  “I’m saving you for last, Chelsea, sweetheart.”

His brick of a fist slammed into my chest, pushing all the air out of my lungs.  Winded, I looked up.  “Throw something at him.”

Emma ran to the other girls, grabbed a vase of flowers from the worktop and hurled it at Paul’s head.  He ducked, kicked a stool and advanced towards them.  The vase shattered on the kitchen island spraying water everywhere.  Screams filled the room.  Paul’s fists mowed through the line of my tipsy friends.  They ducked, dodging his random blows, then tried to flee.  He knocked Megan to the floor and she didn’t get back up.  He kicked Jayne, then grabbed Emma by the hair.  He slapped her face and shook her violently before throwing her against the kitchen cabinets. 

I threw a shoe at Paul, staggered to my feet and darted over to Megan.  I grabbed her top by the shoulders, and tried to drag her away.  Her eyes rolled up behind her eyelids.  Her flimsy top tore in my hands and she slipped from my grasp, dropping face down on the tiles.  Dead weight. 

“I’m sorry,” I cried, and left her.

I barrelled to the hall door to get help.  Just as I touched the handle with my fingertips, gloved hands clapped my shoulders and gripped tight.  I screamed. 

“I’m not done with you.”  Paul pulled me backwards and thrust me across the room.  I slammed into a wall and slid down to the floor.  Pain sliced through my right arm.  Shaken, woozy, I had to get to my feet. 

“Help, help,” the girls yelled.

Emma rose from the adjacent corner.  Blood trickled out of her nose.  Then Jayne rose.  Her small frame shook and appeared unsteady. 

Paul faced the woozy girls. 

Shielded only by the granite island in the centre, Jayne and Emma stood squashing shoulders, forming a defensive line. 

Putting my fist to Paul’s rock body would have been as useless as knuckles punching concrete. 

I needed... a knife. 

I focused on the cutlery drawer and slid closer to it.  Paul had his back to me, but my attempts at moving stealthily failed.  He must have caught my reflection in the glossy cabinet doors. 

Fast and heavy footsteps came up behind me.  “Oh, no you don’t!” Paul growled.

Petrified, I dropped to the ground on my back as fast as if it had disappeared beneath me.

Paul towered over me like a giant.  His eyes were narrowed to slits, and flinty - the killer look I’d, at one time, tried to find in Lee. 

His large gloved hand swooped down toward my face.  He hooked my chin and squashed my nose.  Then, Emma kicked him in the face.

“Ow! You little…” Paul snarled, and released me. 

I slid beneath Paul's legs.

The cutlery drawer rattled.