Darker Than Night

17

Marcy Graham woke again from the dream she’d been having lately. Someone would be in the room with her and Ron, standing at the foot of the bed, watching them sleep. She would drift nearer and nearer to consciousness, then come all the way awake with a start.

And there would be no one there.

Again! So real!

She sat up in bed and looked around in the dimness, then relaxed and lay back, noticing her sheet and pillow were damp with perspiration though the room was cool. Ron stirred beside her, then sighed and rolled over onto his side, facing away from her. She took comfort in his bulk, in his nearness.

Yet she couldn’t return to sleep, so real was that dream. More real than at other times, she realized. She could almost recall the man’s dark form, the silent, motionless way he stood and stared.

But it didn’t make sense, any of it. What kind of maniac would want to simply watch other people while they slept?

Unless he wasn’t simply watching. Maybe he was making sure they were asleep so he could…do what? Something else? Something more? Knowing he wouldn’t be disturbed.

Marcy flung herself onto her side and fluffed her pillow so violently she woke up Ron. He rolled onto his back and looked over at her.

“Somethin’ wrong?” His voice was slurred by sleep.

“I can’t sleep.”

“Yeah. I gathered s’much. Wha’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“Fine.”

“Something!”

“What?”

“I don’t know.”

He breathed in deeply and sighed. “An’ you want me to find out.”

“Would you?”

Instead of answering, he sat up and opened the drawer of the nightstand on his side of the bed. She knew he kept a souvenir baseball bat there, but while it was a miniature bat, bearing Sammy Sosa’s signature, it made a handy club about the size of a policeman’s nightstick.

She watched his muscular, slope-shouldered form, dressed in white undershorts and sleeveless undershirt, cross the room and go into the hall, saw the hall brighten as lights in the living room came on. She could hear him moving around out there, checking things, looking where someone might hide, opening closet doors. Master of his domain, stalking a possible enemy who’d gotten through the defenses.

Suddenly uncomfortable alone in the dim room, Marcy climbed out of bed and went to join him. Besides, if by some remote chance an intruder was in the apartment, two against one would be better than just Ron—though Marcy sure didn’t want to put that to the test.

Ron was standing in the middle of the living room, the miniature bat held low in his right hand.

He looked over at her, hair tousled, eyes sleepy. “Nothing. The door’s still locked, everything looks normal, nobody hiding anywhere in here.”

“Did you look in the kitchen?”

“Sure. Normal. Everything’s okay, Marcy.”

“The bedroom.”

“Huh? We just left the bedroom.”

“There are places to hide there.”

“Sure, I guess there are.”

She smiled at him. He’d been brave for her. Now he was humoring her. But that meant he was thinking of her, showing his love.

“You wait here while I go check.”

He trod barefoot back into the bedroom, looking forward to going back to sleep. But why not give Marcy her way? He was too tired to argue. And he’d been revved up a few minutes ago, thinking maybe she had heard something or knew somehow there was someone in the apartment.

Damn, he’d been revved up!

Calmer now, reassured, he entered the dim bedroom and didn’t bother turning on the light. As he moved toward the closet door, he held the bat higher. Anything’s possible.

“Don’t forget to look under the bed,” Marcy called from the living room.

Ron paused and lowered the bat.

The man lying flat on his stomach beneath the bed switched the long-bladed knife to his other hand, on the side of the bed where he could see Ron Graham’s bare feet. Watching the feet gave him some idea of where Graham’s face and vulnerable throat might appear any second if he peered beneath the bed. Using the knife might be awkward. It was all a question of body position. Graham would be surprised and horrified and frozen for a second, allowing the opportunity for a quick body shift and a slash with the knife. But the bare feet were so important, where they were, where the toes were pointed. The man with the knife lay very still, his upper body an inch off the floor, watching the pale bare feet, watching….

Ron walked close to the bed and sat down on it. He sure didn’t feel like bending over and checking for monsters. He would humor Marcy only so far.

“Nobody under there!” he called to her. “Just a few dust bunnies.”

He rose and went to the closet, quickly opened the door, felt afraid as he inserted an arm and parted the clothes to make sure no one was hiding back there in the darkness.

Then he caught himself. He’d bought into Marcy’s delusions.

What the hell am I doing?

Feeling foolish, he grinned and stepped back, closing the door. Shaking his head, he returned to the living room.

“All clear,” he told Marcy, who was standing near the sofa looking worried.

She let out a long breath, then hugged him tightly.

He kissed her cool but damp forehead. “Can we go back to bed now?”

“Yeah. I’m sorry. It’s just that I’ve been worried lately and having the damnedest dreams.”

“Dreams can’t hurt you.” He put his arm around her waist and led her back toward the bedroom.

“They can sure as hell scare you.”

When they were back in bed, he moved close to her. “Since we’re awake…,” he said.

She felt her nightgown being tugged and worked upward, and she dug her heels into the mattress and raised her back until her breasts were no longer constrained by the taut material. His fingertips and then his lips were light on her right nipple. Desire moved at the core of her and she raked her fingers through his damp hair. Still she was outside of herself, of what was happening. She wanted to do this, but it was too soon after being so frightened.

He was toying with her left nipple now, not going to stop. She knew him so well. He wasn’t going to be talked out of this. And she didn’t really want to talk him out of it.

“Can I use my vibrator?” she asked. “I need to relax, and I’m still pretty shook up.”

“You’ll be shook up in a different way soon,” he reassured her.

“Ron…”

He raised his head. “Okay.” He kissed her between the breasts, using his tongue on her bare flesh, then shifted his weight and stood up. The vibrator was fine with him, anyway. He’d tell her where and how to use it, then let her decide she was ready, then—

“Hurry, please!” she said behind him as he opened the closet door to get the vibrator down from the top shelf. He smiled and didn’t answer.

And gasped when he saw the face and eyes staring out at him, felt the cold blade slice in and up toward his heart. Everything was devoured by the searing pain…his world, his loss, his love, his hope…. All of it fell away and he dropped swiftly and breathlessly in a dark elevator plunging toward blackness.

He tried to say Marcy’s name, as if it were the magic that might somehow stop the fall and save him, but that, too, died in darkness.

Marcy, lying back with her eyes closed and massaging her nipples with her fingertips, sensed something was wrong. Then she heard the funny, gasping sound Ron made and sat up in bed as suddenly as if a puppeteer had yanked her strings.

She saw Ron standing against the black background beyond the open closet door, then watched him sink to the floor.

Marcy tried to call to him but made only a strangled, cawing sound.

And out of the closet stepped her nightmare.

Half an hour later, while walking away from the Grahams’ apartment building, their killer decided this had been much better than his last late-night encounter.

It was because of the knife.

He’d left his gun in Martin Elzner’s hand. The police could do wonders with their ballistics tests, and they could connect gun to crime, therefore he could no longer have it in his possession. It was simply too risky, and he’d learned not to take unnecessary risks within the larger risks that he must take. So, as planned, the gun made a convincing prop.

But it should have been a knife to begin with. Always a knife.

So he’d left the gun, wiped clean of fingerprints other than those of Elzner’s dead hand. The silencer, too, was of no further use, so he’d disposed of it by tossing it in a Dumpster. Surely by now it was lost in a vast landfill.

Two days later, at a flea market on the West Side, he’d bought a produce knife, the sort used by warehousemen and shippers of fruits and vegetables. It was a long folding knife, slender, with a bone handle and a high-quality steel blade that would hold an edge.

When he’d bought the knife, he was sure it would do what he needed, and now it had.