Too Close to Home (20 page)

I made it out of the bathroom.

Two steps down the hall.

Four steps from my bedroom door.

That was when the kitchen door flew open, its flimsy latch torn away by the force of a shoulder against the door.

He lurched forward into the room, surveyed the kitchen.

Hector Townsend.
Wearing tight jeans, leather chaps and heavy boots. The bulging muscles on his upper torso exposed by a black, sleeveless athletic shirt.

“Jackie!” Hector roared. “I know you’re here. One of your new friends called me. Told me how to get here. You can’t trust them. Come on out. I promise I’ll take care of you!”

I flattened myself against the wall, knowing that even the most casual glance down the hall would betray my position. Then I took a step sideways, toward the bedroom.

The floor creaked.

And he saw me.

“Where’s Jackie?” he bellowed as I dove for my bedroom door.

Hector’s heavy footsteps stormed down the hall.

I slid across my bed, losing my towel as I stretched out, grabbing for the gun box on the lower shelf of my night stand.

My fingers touched it.

I keyed in the three-digit number.

Almost had it open.

Too late.

Hector grabbed my feet, dragged me back away from the edge of the bed. And then he was on top of me. Crushing me. Scrabbling upward over my body to grab my hands, capture my wrists.

He was a big man. Massive.

I knew I couldn’t fight him. Not from this position.

I went limp instead.

That’s when he rolled me over. Held my arms over my head as he straddled my hips. Pinning me to the bed.

I prayed for an opening. Any opening.

He used his free hand to slap me. Hard.

“Where’s Jackie?”

I tasted blood in my mouth. From the inside of my cheek. And I recalled too vividly how Jackie’s face had looked when he’d finished with her.

I tried to buy myself some time.

“Please,” I cried, “I don’t know any Jackie.”

The grip of his massive left hand around my wrists tightened. He slapped me again with his right, then curled his fingers into a fist that he swept just inches from my face. Threatening.

Then he thought of something better.

He shifted slightly, settling his mass onto my thighs.

“I know you’re hiding her,” he said.

He spread his fingers wide, dragged his hand downward past my breasts, down across my belly.

“I’ve really missed Jackie,” he said. “Understand, bitch?”

I ignored the movement of his hand.

Stared up into his violent, evil face.

Then I turned my head, closed my eyes, blinding myself to this human monster as I fought the hysteria that was making it difficult to think.

No matter what was happening, I had to think clearly.

Just like Gran had taught me.

That’s when I heard the high-pitched whine, the sound of Highball’s nails against the uncarpeted floor of the hallway. He was pacing, agitated by a human behavior he didn’t understand.

I made it clear to him.

I screamed, long and loud.

One of Highball’s paws scraped across my trapped legs as
he leaped onto the bed. He lunged for Hector’s arm, bit down hard. And held on.

Hector yelled out. Surprised. Terrified. Swung himself off of the bed. Off of me. Moved toward the door as he attempted to escape Highball’s teeth.

I grabbed my gun.

Aimed past my now-empty bed just as Hector shook my dog loose.

Highball landed in a heap on the floor, then sprung back onto all four feet. Growling. Circling in close. Limping, but intent on keeping a predator at bay.

Hector lifted his booted foot, a prelude to kicking my dog.

“Freeze!” I shouted to get Hector’s attention.

He glanced away from Highball, saw the gun, realized that I was a greater threat than the dog. He put his foot down, then stood very still, moving only to follow my unspoken command. The quick upward movement of the tip of my gun prompted him to raise his hands above his head. After that, the only thing that moved was his chest, which heaved up and down, and the thin line of blood that dribbled slowly from the bite mark on his bare shoulder.

Only then did I call Highball over to my side, where he stood with his soft, furry shoulder pressed against my leg. Obedient to my command, but still growling deep in his throat, his tawny-brown eyes fixed on Hector.

I used my free hand to pat my dog’s head as I considered what to do with the man in front of me. Arresting him, charging him with assault and attempted rape, facing him in court…all of that risked exposing the Underground.

Then I thought about shooting him. Point blank.

If I dialed 911, county would respond to my call. My cheek was bruised. As were my wrists. And the back door was
broken in. No one would question my decision to defend myself against a rapist. One who targeted a woman living alone in an isolated area, but hadn’t counted on going up against a cop. And her dog.

A tempting solution.

Not a viable one.

I would have unhesitatingly killed Hector to defend Jackie’s life. Or my own. But Jackie was long gone. And I wasn’t a murderer.

That narrowed the options to one.

With Highball as an escort, I walked Hector through the house at gunpoint, angry enough that I didn’t much care that I was still naked. Besides, I didn’t think Hector would stand idly by as I threw on some clothes. I made him open every closet, look under every piece of furniture.

“She’s long gone,” I said finally. “So get over it.”

Then I took him to the back door.

“If I ever see you again, you’re a dead man. Understand?”

He nodded.

I gave him a quick prod with my gun, encouraging him in the direction of the motorcycle I hadn’t heard because I’d been showering.

He ran across the yard, not looking back. Threw a leather-clad leg over his bike. The engine roared to life and gravel scattered as he sped away.

Now shivering from reaction, I stepped back inside. Pushed a kitchen chair beneath the doorknob to secure the back door. Then I knelt down beside my protector, laid my gun down on the kitchen floor and gave him a hug.

I checked him for injuries.

Just bumps and bruises, I thought when I was done. Just like me.

With Highball close at my heels and my gun back in my hand, I walked back down the hall. From now on, I thought, I’d have to watch my back. And keep my gun close at hand. Even in my own home. My own bathroom. Because Hector didn’t strike me as the type who’d just give up.

Neither did my sister.

Jackie didn’t know where I lived. She had no reason to send her abusive husband to my house. But I’d made myself a target for Katie. For Katie’s rage. And I’d become its latest victim.

Easy enough to imagine her wheedling a phone number from Jackie just before she left. All Katie had to do was tell Jackie that she was sending Hector on a wild-goose chase.

A chase that had landed him at her sister’s door.

Had she intended that he murder me? I wondered. Or had she simply intended his visit—his violence—to warn me away from something she thought I knew?

I took another shower, this time with my gun on top of the toilet tank. And Highball sprawled across the doorway. Then I put on my uniform and held an ice pack to my bruised cheek as I ate a bologna sandwich stacked with a tomato for dinner.

I went to deal with the drunk-and-disorderlies on Dunn Street.

A situation I was well equipped to control.

At 2:00 a.m., I drove back home.

I let Possum run loose, knowing he wouldn’t leave the yard while Highball and I were inside the house. Knowing that he would raise an alarm if anyone approached.

Insecurity prompted me to dress for bed in sweatpants and a once-maroon T-shirt that had faded to pink. Then, after popping a couple of aspirins to tone down my aching jaw and wrists, I dragged Highball’s cushion into the bedroom, tucking it between my bed and the doorway. Once he’d gotten
over the excitement of being invited to sleep in the bedroom—a rare treat indeed—he settled happily onto his cushion.

Then I tucked myself into bed and settled my head against the pillows.

Exhausted, I shut my eyes. Drifted.

Back into a locked closet.

Just as the bare bulb burned out.

Impossible now to see the spider that was slowly lowering itself toward us. Supporting all but two of its spindly legs on a thin strand of web.

Those two legs, I knew, were searching the darkness. For children.

Katie’s hand was tight around mine as we sat huddled together.

“Sh-h-h-h,” she whispered. “Be quiet.”

Hector’s footsteps. In the room beyond the closet.

If he found us, he’d do to me what a stranger had done to Katie.

Then I felt the wisp of sticky web fall against my face. And tiny, dry legs rasping across my cheek.

I couldn’t help myself.

I screamed.

Hector wrenched the closet door open, grabbed my wrists.

And I screamed again.

I jolted awake in a quiet room, its peace broken only by the snoring of an old dog on the floor next to the bed. Woke up to the realization that my screams only echoed inside my head.

For a moment, I lay very still, longing for the presence of Chad’s warm body beside me. Remembering how many times I’d awakened from a nightmare and found myself within the protective circle of his arms. Found comfort there no matter
what horrors the too-familiar closet had revealed on that particular night.

With a quick shake of my head, I rolled over and dangled my hand off the side of the bed, locating Highball with my searching fingers. Disturbed his sleep by stroking my hand over his thick coat. By telling him that I was a grown-up. That I didn’t need anyone besides him to protect me.

Not Katie.

Not even Chad.

After that, I checked that my loaded gun was still within easy reach, settled my head back down on the pillow, and closed my eyes.

I didn’t object when, a few minutes later, Highball crawled into bed with me.

T
he next morning, the clock radio didn’t awaken me with music or even the throaty drawl of the fellow who did the farm commodities report. Instead, I was pulled from sleep by a meteorologist explaining that a cold front, approaching from the west, was on a collision course with the warm, humid air that had plagued our region for weeks.

“And you all know what that means for Hardin County,” he said, his voice much too cheery for 5:30 a.m. “Severe weather coming our way, folks. Strong thunderstorms. Some with hail and damaging winds. And the possibility of tornadoes.” He lingered over the last phrase, investing it with the kind of orgasmic anticipation that only a weather junkie could manage. “So keep it here on Classic Country. Ninety-five-point-seven FM. Your station for up-to-the-minute weather.”

Though I worked on Saturday, I didn’t usually go on duty until noon—compensation for the late evenings I spent patrol
ling Dunn Street. But this morning, like every other morning, Possum’s barking from outside and Highball’s pacing by the kitchen door made sleeping in an impossibility. Possum was simply hungry for breakfast. But with Highball, it was a little more than that. The old dog needed to go out and, from experience, I knew that I had about ten minutes from the time he began pacing to the moment an accident flooded the linoleum floor.

With that very much on my mind, I hurried out of bed and I went to take care of my dogs.

Minutes later, I was sitting at my kitchen table, still in my sweats and faded T-shirt, eating toast that I’d scorched in the broiler. Feeling—as Gran was fond of saying—like I’d been rode hard and put up wet. A folksy way of describing sore and utterly exhausted.

As a remedy, I’d turned on the radio in the kitchen, hoping for some blood-stirring, toe-tapping music. Something that would energize me and lighten my mood. But today, I quickly discovered, the customary ten-in-a-row music format had been modified. Thanks, in large part, to Chad and me.

“The official body count is now at twenty-five,” the DJ was saying, managing to sound as if he were reporting the winning score at a Friday night high-school football game. “Oh, and someone’s just slipped me a note…. Okay, folks, the sheriff’s office has just called and asked us to remind you all that the road to Camp Cadiz is closed to through-traffic. So don’t waste your gas heading over that way. Why don’t you give me a call instead? Let me know what you think of all this. Our number here is…”

The DJ spun a Garth Brooks tune about a guy in love with rodeo as he waited for the inevitable flood of phone calls from people eager to gossip publicly. I took a bite of toast,
tried to convince myself that the layer of marmalade was enough to disguise the bitter, burned taste of the bread, then followed up with a sip of black coffee.

Breakfast of champions, I thought.
You know you’re a cop if…
Then my mind sheered away from the game and the stab of loneliness it inspired to refocus on talk radio.

The song ended, the DJ plugged a car dealership in Harrisburg owned by a pure-hearted, straight-talking hometown boy, and the calls streamed in. The sheriff’s theory that the killings were mob connected seemed now to be public knowledge. But that didn’t slow speculation about a resident serial killer stalking the streets of some small town in southern Illinois. A place like Maryville, the current caller was saying.

“It’s like I was saying just yesterday, when I called in to the regular afternoon talk show,” he said. “This is why we have to continue fighting for our constitutional right to bear arms. You never know who the enemy might be, when some criminal will invade your home, threaten your family…”

Yeah, I thought cynically, let’s put a loaded gun under every citizen’s pillow. That way, in a moment of fear or anger or stupidity, you can kill a loved one or someone you don’t love anymore or the unlucky cop responding to your 911 call.

Striking a balance between a reasonable level of self-protection and an unreasonable risk to those around you was a topic Chad and I had debated more than once as we’d shared breakfast. And I wondered, now that someone had actually invaded my home—and been stopped because I had a gun and a dog—if my opinion hadn’t shifted ever so slightly to Chad’s point of view.

I ended that thought with a last bite of toast and a refill on my coffee. Then another caller was on the line. She began telling the DJ and a county’s worth of listeners about rumors
she’d heard about a secret organization that had been operated out of Maryville for years and taking women—

My God!

I inhaled my coffee, began choking and fought to listen to the caller’s shrill voice as I tried to clear my airways, thinking that the moment we’d always feared had arrived. The Underground would be publicly exposed.

“—and shipping them to a secret laboratory in Roswell, New Mexico.”

Oxygen and relief arrived at about the same time.

I was merely sputtering when the DJ—who was now as fascinated by the caller as I had been moments earlier—asked a question.

“What do they do with them?”

“They’ve got genetic material they’ve saved from when the flying saucer crashed. The women are going to be incubators for half-alien beings—”

The call abruptly disconnected, but not before the shrill voice cracked, dropped a couple of octaves, and was suddenly, clearly revealed as belonging to an adolescent male. You could hear his buddies’ laughter in the background.

I laughed, too. Relief, I suspected, was making the whole incident seem funnier than it was. Laughter, unfortunately, inspired a bit more choking and sputtering.

The station cut to music, which lasted about as long as it took me to clear the breakfast dishes by tossing the paper plate in the trash and washing the knife I’d used to spread marmalade. When the tune ended, the meteorologist came on again, this time announcing that the National Weather Service out of Lincoln had just placed Hardin County—and, in fact, the station’s entire listening area—under a severe thunderstorm watch. That meant, he reminded listeners, that conditions were
favorable for storms to develop. The front that was now heading our way, he reminded everyone cheerfully, had battered a couple of towns in Missouri with baseball-sized hail. And had spawned a couple of category-two tornadoes in Iowa.

Lovely, I thought as the Dixie Chicks began singing something about a guy named Earl. Just lovely.

I spent a few minutes washing counters that were already clean, then threw on a load of laundry, ran a damp mop over my kitchen floor, and went outside—with my gun at my waist—to clean the kennel area. All in an effort to keep busy and not think too closely about anything that might hurt. And to avoid a tendency to search shadows and corners for an attacker I knew was no longer there.

Finally, I gave up on killing my extra hours of free time.

I put on my uniform as I considered where my on-duty time was best spent. I certainly wasn’t needed at the crime scene, where activity would be in full swing. Then I took a good look at the sky. Thick masses of clouds were already gathering to the west on the distant horizon. Bright white and shaded with gray, they boiled upward against the hazy blue sky, dwarfing the dark green forest below them.

I drove into town.

I headed directly for the marina on Dunn Street, knowing that boat owners—always among the first to react to threatening weather—would soon be speeding down the hazardous roadway, intent on making sure their boats were secure. Familiarity breeds contempt, I thought, especially in drivers with other things on their minds. Like checking their boat’s anchorage and mooring lines. Not worth risking your life. But folks often didn’t consider that until it was too late.

As I turned onto the first sharp curve, my worst fears were
validated by a squeal of brakes and the sound of an impact echoing upward from somewhere on the road in front me. The usual terrifying moment of optical illusion, when my vehicle seemed destined to plunge into the Ohio, passed unnoticed. Now illusion was secondary to the urgency of reaching someone who had just crashed into—or through—the guardrail farther down the winding road.

I rounded the next curve and was abruptly confronted by the scene.

My God.
I recognized the car—a polished yellow Cadillac. And its driver—my old friend, Larry Hayes. But my exclamation was as much a prayer of thanksgiving as an expression of shock. The skid marks and the trail of debris painted an ugly—but amazingly, not a deadly—picture.

He’d obviously lost control of his car, but couldn’t have been going much faster than the speed limit posted at the top of the roadway. The heavy old car had been deflected by the railing rather than ripping right through it. A streak of yellow paint on the railing clearly showed that first point of impact. Skid marks betrayed the path the car took as it left the railing, careening back across the road, and then smashing a fender against a solid wall of limestone. That impact, I suspected, had buckled the hood, but hadn’t stopped the car. It kept moving, finally ending up broadside across the center of the road with the driver’s side facing oncoming traffic.

That was a mighty poor place to be.

A potentially fatal spot if a speeding, careless driver had been the next one around that curve. The first car would have been T-boned and Larry probably killed. To prevent just that, I parked my taller vehicle on the curve, knowing that the flashing lights would be seen soon enough to warn the next vehicle on the road to slow down and stop.

Larry’s passenger was already out of the car.

Marta Moye. His next-door neighbor. Blood was smeared on her right arm, which hung limply at her side, and stained the floral dress she wore. But she wasn’t thinking about her own injuries. Apparently realizing how vulnerable the driver was, she was attempting to help Larry from the car one-handed. Not a great idea.

She turned her head briefly in the direction my SUV.

I opened my door, braced a foot on the running board, stuck my head out above the roof, and waved her away from her own vehicle.

“Leave him be,” I shouted. “I’ll be right there.”

The wind was loud enough that I doubted she could hear me, but the combination of my gestures, the imminent arrival of help and the condition of her arm seemed to be enough to make her stop tugging at him.

I ducked back into the squad car long enough to thumb my mike button, requesting immediate medical assistance and a tow truck. The tow truck, I knew, would probably arrive within minutes. Medical assistance was more problematic.

The fire station, which housed several chartreuse-painted fire trucks and a boxy emergency rescue vehicle, was just blocks away. But Maryville’s firefighters and first responders were all volunteers. They had to leave homes or jobs, get to the fire house, load into the appropriate vehicle, then drive to the accident site. Sometimes that could take twenty minutes. A long time for someone who was badly injured.

I grabbed my first-aid box and jogged down to the curve. My relatively brief stint as Maryville’s entire police force rather than my years of search-and-rescue work had provided most of my practical medical experience. Mostly because drunken brawlers occasionally moved from using
fists to slashing at each other with sharp objects like beer bottles and knives.

When the paramedics arrived at an accident scene, they’d stabilize the victim but usually wouldn’t transport. That was handled by an ambulance dispatched from the nearest hospital, which was north of us in Harrisburg. With sirens, a heavy foot, and a bit of foolhardiness, their drivers could usually make it to Maryville in thirty minutes.

But for the next several minutes, I was the entire response team.

As I slipped on latex gloves, I took a quick look at Larry. Determined that he was conscious and not actively bleeding. In fact, he was coherent enough to start telling me how to do my job. Which mostly involved insisting that I tend to Marta first.

Marta, of course, insisted that I treat Larry first. Because she loved him. And, I half suspected, as a matter of principle. If Larry said one thing, she was obliged to say another.

Of course, my own experience dictated whom I would treat first. And that was Marta because I knew that her normal complexion was not the color of spoiled milk. And I could see that the blood on her dress was from a spot on her forearm where a jagged spur of bone had punctured the flesh. But the blood was oozing, not gushing. A good thing. And she seemed alert and not in too much distress. Physically, at least.

Shock, I thought, was often a blessing at this point. It did a good job of blocking pain receptors.

“Support your arm this way,” I said, showing her how to use her uninjured arm to cradle the broken one.

Then I guided her a few steps to the side of the road where another section of guardrail and six feet of bristling, wind-swept scrub separated her from the drop-off. I hung on to her
as she settled down onto the pavement and leaned back against the railing.

That was when, much to my surprise, a Yorkshire terrier came darting out of a nearby patch of weeds. Landed squarely in its owner’s lap and began bouncing on its short hind legs, intent on reaching her face.

“Oh, Peanut,” Marta wailed as she leaned forward to accommodate the little dog’s tongue. “You bad, bad dog.”

But she didn’t sound at all angry.

I pushed Peanut aside long enough to cover Marta’s wound with a large piece of gauze bandage, using only enough tape to keep the wind and the dog from tearing the sterile covering away. The gauze would keep the wound clean, but mostly it would shield it from the woman’s view, which would keep her calmer.

Then I went to help Larry.

He still had his seat belt on and was leaning back against his seat, his head supported by the headrest. His face, which had undoubtedly struck the steering wheel, was bloodied and I suspected he’d broken his nose.

Still, he managed a smile when I opened the car door and bent over him.

“Hey there, Brooke,” he said, and his voice was nasal and weak. “How’s Marta?”

I smiled back, tried to keep my voice lighthearted as I wrapped a cervical support around his neck.