Blind Pursuit

29

Erin surfaced from unconsciousness to the sound of hammering.

Blinking, she focused her vision. Above her hung a brilliant scatter of stars, bracketed by steep embankments tufted with ocotillo and mesquite.

She was stretched on her back at the bottom of an arroyo, arms over her head, wrists pinned together.

Her abductor knelt at her feet, swinging a mallet, driving a metal post into the ground. She tried to move her legs, couldn’t; rope lashed her ankles to the post.

He was staking her out like Marilyn Vaccaro, like Sharon Lane, like Deborah Collins.

Panic struck her like a fist. All breath and heat left her body in a rush, and abruptly she was winded and clammy and more afraid than she had been in her life, more afraid than she had been as a small child in a blazing house, more afraid than she had been in the rear compartment of the van last night.

In her mind she could hear it-the crackle of flame, the hiss of steam, the slow crisping and peeling of her own flesh.

No. No. No.

Had to stop him. Had to.

Her one hope was to communicate, find a way to make contact, get in touch with the nascent conscience deep within him that understood remorse.

But she couldn’t speak. Something was wedged in her mouth, a scrap of cloth, secured with another strip of fabric wound around her head.

The noise she made was a whimper, a beaten-dog sound.

“Awake, Doc?” He swung the mallet again, and the stake descended another half inch. “Good.”

She whipped her head from side to side, fighting to loosen the gag. Words, eloquent words, words that could save her life, bumped up against the wadded obstruction between her teeth and died there unexpressed.

The gag would not come free. He had knotted it tight.

Don’t let him do this, make him change his mind, I’m scared, oh, Jesus Christ, I’m so scared…

He put down the mallet, stood up slowly. The moon had set, and only strong starlight illuminated his face. She saw a smoky suggestion of a flat nose and receding chin. His big hands flexed at his sides.

“You’ve been a bad girl, Doc. I’m extremely disappointed in you.”

Her choked groan was the feeble protest of an animal in a trap.

Flashback: the bedroom of her parents’ house, Annie shrieking, smoke everywhere, red glow in the stairwell, and the pungent smell of gasoline She would smell it again when he soaked her in gas.

Not fire. Anything else, the gun, a knife, a noose-but not fire, not fire!

He crouched near her. Laced his fingers in her hair. His touch was tender, but the expression on his face was a twisted caricature of self-torture, a ham actor’s exaggerated display. Eyes narrowed in a painful squint. Lower lip thrust out like a pouting child’s. Stripes of wetness banding his cheeks.

She stared up at him, pleading with her gaze. Could he read her thoughts in her eyes, and would it matter if he did?

“God damn you.” His breath, coming fast and shallow, was hot on her face. “I came back to finish our session. Thought you’d be able to help me.”

But she could. She wanted to scream the message at him. If he would just give her another chance, she would help him, treat him, do whatever he wanted.

He stood. Oddly he seemed to have heard the words she could not speak. He answered her with a slow shake of his head.

“I’m sorry, Doc. I wish this hadn’t become necessary. But it has.”

She watched through a prism of tears as he trudged toward the embankment.

When he returned, he would have the gasoline with him, and then there would be only the final moments of helpless, racking terror as he drenched her with it and lit the match.

She hadn’t known her heart could work so hard, hadn’t known it was possible for each separate beat to shake her like an inner explosion, hadn’t known a human being could endure this extremity of fear.

He reached the embankment and started to climb.

Desperately she pulled at the ropes, knowing her efforts were wasted, knowing it was over for her, everything was over, and she would never see Annie again, or a blue sky, or her own face in a mirror.

Useless to resist. Death by fire was her destiny. As a child she had cheated fate, but not this time.

This time-she moaned again, pressing her cheek to the dry earth-this time she would burn.