Kiss the Girls

CHAPTER 17.

No! KATE THOUGHT. This is my home. She almost said it out loud, but she didn't want to make a sound.

There was someone in her apartment! She was still half asleep, but she was almost sure about the intruding noise that woke her up.

Her pulse was already racing. Her heart floated up into her throat. Jesus God, no.

She stayed very still, huddled near the head of her bed. A few more nervous seconds passed slowly, like centuries. Not a move from her.

Not a breath. Bone-white slants of moonlight played across the windowpanes, creating eerie shadows in her bedroom.

She listened to the house, listened with total concentration to every creak and crack the old building made.

She didn't hear anything unusual now. But she was sure she had. The recent murders and the news stories about the kidnappings in the Research Triangle area made her fearful. Don't be gruesome, she thought. Don't get melodramatic.

She sat up slowly in bed and listened. Maybe a window had blown open.

She had better get out of bed and check the windows and doors.

For the first time in four months, she actually missed Peter Mcgrath.

Peter wouldn't have helped, but she would have felt safer. Even with dear old “Peter-out.” Not that she was totally frightened or vulnerable; she could hold her own with most men. She could fight like hell. Peter used to say that he “pitied” the man who messed with her, and he meant it. He had been a little physically afraid of her. Well, prearranged fighting in karate dojos was one thing. This was the real thing.

Kate slipped silently out of bed. Not a sound. She felt the roughness and coolness of the floorboards under her bare feet. It sent a wake-up call to her brain, and she moved into a fighting stance.

Whap! A gloved hand came down hard over her mouth and nose, and she thought she heard cartilage crack in her nose.

Then a large and very strong male body tackled her. All of his weight was pressing her into the cool, hard floorboards, pinning her down.

Athlete. Her brain was computing every bit of information. She tried to stay clear and focused.

Very powerful. Trained! He was cutting off her air supply. He knew precisely what he was doing. Trained! It wasn't a glove that he was wearing, she realized. It was a cloth.

Thick with dampness. It was suffocating her.

Was he using chloroform? No, it was odorless. Maybe ether? Halothane?

Where would he get anesthetic supplies?

Kate's thinking was getting fuzzy, and she was afraid she was going to black out. She had to get him off of her.

Bracing her legs, she twisted her body hard to the left and threw all of her weight away from her attacker, toward the pale, shadowy bedroom wall. Suddenly, she was out of his grasp, free.

“Bad idea, Kate,” he said in the darkness.

He knew her name!