Walking After Midnight (14 page)

Summer didn’t dignify that with an answer.

„No spare key hidden under a fake stone in the shrubbery?“

„No.“

„Any unlocked windows?“

„No. I’m very careful about that.“

„Good for you. Any suggestions as to how to get in?“

„Well – my next-door neighbor has a key.“ Summer indicated the house that claimed the lilac.

„Wonderful. All you need to do is go knock on her door – let’s hope she’s an early riser, because it’s not quite dawn – and ask her for your key. Of course, if she’s very observant you’ll need to think up some reason why your blouse is all ripped and you’ve got a bump the size of an egg on your forehead and you’re missing a shoe and – “

„She’s in Florida,“ Summer interrupted, remembering.

„That does a lot of good. Leaving a spare key with a neighbor who’s in Florida.“

„She’s got school-age children and it’s summer break and she and her husband took them to Florida. It’s the first vacation they’ve taken in two years.“

„I’m happy for them. You have any objection to me breaking a window?“

„Under the circumstances? No, of course not.“

„Wait here.“

Before Summer could say aye, yes, or nay, he disappeared around the side of the bush. Actually, waiting while he checked out her house was not a bad idea, especially if there were murderous types lurking about, but the whole chauvinistic bit rankled. Still, if someone had to wind up dead, better him than her, and feminist principles be damned.

She held fast to that notion as she craned her neck around the bush to watch the action at her house.

Only, as minute after minute ticked by, there was no action.
Nada.
Zip. Had he gotten in?
She
could have broken in in the length of time he’d been gone. Surely he was not going to leave her standing out here without a word for the rest of the night!

Her house appeared undisturbed. As far as she could tell, no lights had been turned on inside. The outside looked as deserted as it had when they first drove past.

Where was he?

Maybe he’d tripped over the sprinkler hose; she had left it stretched across the back walk to water the new border of yellow zinnias she’d just planted around the patio. Or maybe he was having trouble fitting through a window. His shoulders were broad, and her windows, conventional double-hungs, weren’t that big.

Maybe he was rifling through her house.

Maybe he was at the wrong house.

Maybe the bad guys had him.

Maybe . . but she could maybe herself to death, Summer decided irritably. She would give him about five more minutes, and then she was heading for the car and Sammy as fast as she could go. If Frankenstein didn’t like it, that was just too bad. His prolonged absence was scaring her.

Goose bumps chased themselves across her arms. The wind blew, the lilac swayed, the cicadas whirred. Frosty moonlight waxed and waned, casting twisty, elongated shadows like reaching fingers over the neat lawns and deserted street and sidewalk. A tune began to intrude on the edges of her consciousness. Summer found herself humming it under her breath, trying in vain to remember the words, the title. When they came to her at last, she smiled wryly at the appropriateness of the song. It was Patsy Cline’s „Walking After Midnight.“

Summer felt as if she were trapped in a bad horror movie complete with mood music. Waiting for the monster to put in an appearance. Which, in a way, she supposed she was. At least she was waiting for Frankenstein.

She didn’t even have time to crack a smile at her own humor before she saw him. Just a glimpse of him, slipping around the far corner of her house. So he had not been able to break in yet. Maybe the glass in her windows was proving more resistant than either of them had given it credit for. Or maybe, as seemed more likely when she thought about it, the last time she redecorated she’d painted the windows shut.

In any case, if he was
still
outside, he definitely needed help.

Summer sidled out from behind the bush and slunk – there was no other word for it – behind her neighbors’ house. Scaling the chain-link fence that enclosed her own backyard was the hardest part. Her sneakered toe fit perfectly in the little diamond-shaped openings, but the bare toes of her other foot hurt like heck when it was their turn to climb.

Unlike her child-oriented neighbors’ lawn, her own was an oasis of velvety-soft fescue and colorful flowers. She spent so many hours laboring on her yard that she didn’t even like to think about what that said about her life. With no husband or children to distract her, and with her social life consisting of occasional evenings out with a small circle of female friends and her less than sizzling relationship with the divorced dentist, she had put a great deal of her spare time and almost all of her passion into her residence. She liked to think it showed.

The thick cushion of grass was cool and soothing beneath her abused foot. Even in the dark, the zinnias’ bright, bobbing heads outlined the patio. Summer eyed them with approval as she stepped carefully over a bank of glossy impatiens, skirted the small water-lily pond that was last summer’s project, and headed toward the far side of the house. On impulse, she yanked a tomato stake out of a raised bed as she passed it. As a weapon, the yard-long stick wouldn’t be worth a whole lot, but still it was better than nothing. Not that she expected to need a weapon, but like the Boy Scouts, she believed in being prepared.

Frankenstein must be trying to break into the window of the spare bedroom, Summer decided. It was just out of her sight, around the corner in the most private part of her yard, where the fence formed a trellis for this summer’s project, her Zephyrine climbing roses.

Summer breathed in their spicy-sweet aroma as she stepped around the side of the house. The delicate pink semi-double blooms with their dark green foliage had flourished under her care, and almost hid the fence from view. She had had such success with these new additions to her garden that next year she meant to plant them all around the fence line. A tingle of anticipation at the thought provided the first pleasurable emotion she’d had for hours.

But at least she had located the source of her dis-pleasurable emotions, she consoled herself as the pleasant sensation died away in the face of stark reality. There he was, peering over the fence, his chest crushing her poor flowers! Too bad they were thornless; he deserved a few wounds for his carelessness. The Zephyrines were delicate!

„Would you get off my roses?“ she hissed at his back, bristling in defense of her darlings. For emphasis, she poked him in the backside with the pointed end of her stick.

„Yeow!“ He clapped a hand to the part she had abused and whirled to face her.

He was not Frankenstein! Summer’s eyes rounded and her mouth dropped open as the man brandished his own stick. Then she saw to her horror that it was not a stick at all. It was a rifle – and the business end of it was pointed right at her midsection.

How she had ever made such a mistake she couldn’t fathom. The guy wasn’t even wearing shorts. If she’d taken just a moment to think, she would have realized . .

Chalk up another „if only“ to add to her collection.

„Drop it.“ He indicated her stick with the muzzle of the rifle. Summer didn’t really obey. What happened was that the tomato stake more or less fell from her suddenly nerveless hands.

„Well, well, well,“ he said. The predawn gloom obscured his features, but Summer knew from the tone of his voice that she was in big trouble. „What’ve we got here? Another pretty lady. How about you and me head on inside?“

She assumed that refusing was not an option. Her only hope was to think fast.

„I’m just checking on my neighbor’s house,“ she lied, the words spilling out rapidly as fear settled like a rock in her stomach. „I know you must be the man she hired to watch over the property, but she’s really particular about her roses and…“

„Shut up.“ His voice was brutal. He made a threatening gesture with the rifle. „And turn around. Now.“

Summer opened her mouth, shut it again, and pivoted. Trying to con him into letting her go was clearly a waste of breath. All at once, the heavy perfume of the Zephyrines threatened to choke her. Briefly she toyed with the idea of bolting. Surely he wouldn’t just shoot her in the back, in cold blood? An instant’s reflection answered that question: Of course he would. But was he likely to fire and reveal his clandestine presence in this small enclave of closely packed houses? A gunshot would surely awaken someone, who would – what? Rush to her assistance? Call the police? Maybe just turn over and go back to sleep, putting the sound down to fireworks, or a backfiring car?

Was she willing to take the chance that he wouldn’t pull the trigger?

Even if she bolted, he wouldn’t have to shoot to stop her, she realized suddenly. Her own fence would do that. No way could she get over it before he caught her. Why hadn’t she bordered her yard with hedge roses, as she at first had been inclined to do? Why had she chosen a four-foot chain-link fence, of all things?

To keep the neighbors’ dog out of her flowers, that was why. Her last slim hope of escape was snatched away by the existence of a boisterous mutt that liked to dig.

And the worst part of it was, the dratted animal wasn’t even home to bark and alert his owners to her plight. For the first time ever he was in a kennel while her neighbors vacationed.

To think of the nights she’d been awakened by that howling hound, and now, when she needed him… But that was the story of her life.

„Get a move on.“ Prodding her in the small of the back with the rifle, he herded her toward the sliding glass doors that opened onto the patio. When she stopped, he reached around her to tap on the glass. Nothing happened, and he gave an exasperated grunt. A moment later, he repeated the exercise, keeping the mouth of the rifle nestled against her spine all the while. This time the curtain shifted as someone peeped out. There was the click of the lock being turned, and then the door slid open.

Summer was prodded inside.

Her dining room, onto which the patio door opened, was dark. By the faint glow that filtered in from the kitchen, she saw at a glance that everything was just as she had left it. An oak table and chairs – not antique, but old, and lovingly restored – and a pine china cabinet that she had hand-painted to match the wallpaper made up the room’s furnishings. Nothing had been disturbed, down to the centerpiece of freshly cut daylilies that rested in a fragile glass vase on the table and the two place settings of her good china that she had left ready for her regular after-church lunch with Jim, her dentist friend.

Not that she was likely to keep the date.

„Who’s she?“ The man who had opened the door was shorter than the first man, and his voice had the slurred drawl of the mountains. Definitely a local. Summer didn’t think either was a thug from the funeral home, but in the dark it was hard to be sure.

The man who had brought her in shrugged. „She was poking around outside. She claims she’s a neighbor.“

„Take her downstairs.“

„My husband will be wondering where I am, and…“ Summer tried desperately.

„Shut up and start walking!“ A shove sent her stumbling toward the kitchen. The feel of the rifle in the small of her back kept her moving.

The light from her kitchen was so faint because it was beaming up from the basement through the partly opened door. Summer was forced toward that door by the rifle at her back. Behind her, the two men exchanged low-voiced conversation that she couldn’t quite separate into distinguishable words.

Her basement stairs were gray-stained wood. She had brightened the concrete walls with a coat of white paint. Resting against the far wall were the washer and the dryer, with a basket of folded towels atop it. The other furnishings were an old but still functional TV – turned on mainly when her nieces and nephews came to visit – a rarely used exercise bike, and a couch and two chairs that had been bounced from the living room when she got new ones a year or so back.

Frankenstein sat sprawled on the couch, watching her descend. His hands rested on his lap. His wrists were bound together with gray duct tape. Fresh blood trickled from the corner of his mouth. Over him stood a thug with a pistol, who glanced up as Summer and her entourage appeared.

„Who’s she?“ the thug standing over Frankenstein asked him.

„Never saw her before in my life,“ Frankenstein answered. His glance darted to Summer, daring her to contradict him. He needn’t have worried: she didn’t feel the slightest inclination to do so. Glancing around the basement, she had discovered a tableau as horrifying as it was riveting.

Not far from the stairs but out of Summer’s direct line of vision until she had nearly reached the bottom, a red-haired woman had been hog-tied to a kitchen chair. Summer’s first thought was simply that that chair had no business being in the basement. It was a tall ladderback, purchased unfinished and then painstakingly stained dark green by herself, and it belonged to the set in the kitchen. Then she took a good look at its occupant, and all other concerns vanished from her mind. The woman slumped bonelessly forward, kept from falling only by the bonds that held her to the chair. Her head drooped so that her chin rested on her chest, concealing her face from view. Her tumbling hair was a two-tone sea of dark roots and red waves. The outfit she was wearing was identical to the one Summer had on: a Daisy Fresh uniform.