No One Will Hear You

Chapter Thirty-six

When the helicopter descended into the parking lot of the Whittwood Mall, Harrow could see Choi’s BMW M6 convertible, top down, tearing through the lot. The copter touched pavement as Choi and Chase screeched to a stop. Harrow and Anna climbed from the chopper, its churning blades whipping up wind and a deafening din.

The pilot yelled, “Happy hunting,” as the craft lifted while Harrow and Anna ran to the convertible, and piled over the sides in the back.

The copter was still close enough that Anna had to scream the address, but Choi merely nodded.

As they approached the mall stoplight, the copter noise already distant, Choi said, “You’re gonna have to guide me.”

Anna said, “No problem. Run the light and take a left.”

Choi did, then said, “I’m not a cop anymore. No siren or rollers.”

“I got a badge,” Anna said. “Break all the laws you want.”

“Came to the right guy.”

The convertible tore down the street toward Vince Clay’s neighborhood, weaving in and around startled traffic.

In the back, Harrow thought, Hang on, Carmen, hang on, even as he hung on himself, Choi swerving around a car whose occupants didn’t have time to swear at them before the BMW rocketed round the next corner.

Vince Clay led Carmen Garcia into a dimly lit room with a big brass bed, a mirror on the wall to its left, and a nightstand with a vase of a dozen roses.

Her first thought was: How romantic.

Her second thought was: Black Pearl roses!

Even in the vague light of a shaded table lamp, Carmen recognized the distinctive flowers, and all wooziness drained away as the pieces fell in place and she only hoped the sirens screaming in her brain didn’t show in her expression.

“What’s the matter?” Vince asked.

What’s the matter? I’m standing here in my panties with a serial killer at my side!

“Nothing,” she said, and in that moment she had a choice — going into full-on panic or survival mode.

She kissed him. She put all the acting skills she’d developed over the last year as an on-air personality and forced passion and love into it, though she knew she was kissing a monster, knew she had been a fool but also that she couldn’t afford to be a fool any longer...

He walked her gently to the brass bed, gestured for her to recline, and she did.

She’d seen this bed. In the Don Juan videos. How many women had died on this goddamn bed?

He stripped to his silk briefs, letting the clothes drop, then positioned himself on the bed next to her and stroked her breasts, kissed her neck, her cheeks, her mouth.

She moaned as if with pleasure and kissed him back like her life depended on it. Which of course it did, as until she could see an opportunity to make a break for it, or somehow put this bastard out of commission, she had to play along, kissing a killer. The adrenalin rush had passed and a certain grogginess tried to crawl back, her muscles aching, as if a bad case of the flu had just set in.

“You are so lovely,” he said.

“We waited a long time,” she said. “I’m glad we waited. This has to be just right.”

“I know. I know, my darling...”

He seemed about to mount her when she touched his chest gently and said, “I hate to spoil the moment, but... I need to use the restroom before we go on.”

“Oh. Well, sure. It’s right there...”

He pointed to a door that might have been a closet but wasn’t.

She slipped off the bed, trotted over without seeming too hurried about it, and shut herself in.

The bathroom was small and white and hospital clean. The pebble-glass window looked just big enough for her to climb out, but when she unlocked it and tried to slide it open it, the thing wouldn’t budge — maybe painted or nailed shut...

She quickly searched the cubicle for anything she might use as a weapon — maybe a safety razor, so she’d have a nice sharp blade to slash this bastard...

No — no razor at all! What the hell?

She tried the medicine cabinet — seeking a glass bottle, of medicine or aftershave maybe, that she could smash into shards or give a jagged neck to, while she ran water to cover the sound...

... only all the bottles — aspirin, aftershave, tubes of theatrical makeup, contact lens solution — were plastic.

Choi parked a hundred yards short of Clay’s house. There were few neighbors, the nearest a good fifty yards. Woods rose behind and came around one side of Clay’s place.

As they approached, guns drawn, using the trees for cover, the house was mostly dark.

Harrow said, “Anna and I’ll take the front, you two take the back.”

Chase and Choi nodded.

Carmen turned back to that bathroom window — she would have to break it.

She lifted the porcelain lid off the toilet tank and swung it into the glass.

It shattered first try.

On the other side of the bathroom door, a muffled voice, female, yelled, “Son of a bitch!”

Don Juan’s partner, Billie Shears! Behind that mirror by the bed? Two-way glass?

No time to waste wondering.

She didn’t know what was outside; she didn’t care. Two killers were inside.

Nicked a dozen times by the window’s teeth, she dropped into a shallow backyard, bleeding and nearly nude, her feet crunching on glass. In a moment her eyes adjusted to the darkness, trees surrounding, thick and tall — if she bothered screaming, no one would hear her.

But she heard a scream, and reflexively swung around to see a bald naked woman framed in the window, a wild-eyed figure baying like a wounded animal...

Carmen knew she’d been roofied — was she hallucinating?

Then the woman was gone.

Not coming out the window through that jagged glass after her, the naked harpy must be heading for a door... giving Carmen time, a little time...

Her bare feet (soles already nicked landing on shards) weren’t on grass, rather hard dirt covered with spiny weeds and God knew what else. Carmen had to run, but barefoot through the woods? Not if she could avoid it.

To her left, up a gentle slope, nestled among the trees, loomed a greenhouse — a place to hide.

She sprinted the short distance, found the door unlocked, slipped in and quietly closed the door behind her.

When Harrow had heard that glass break, followed by the sound of someone wailing in agony, it initially frightened him... Then he thought it through and a tight smile came.

Something had gone wrong, and that meant Carmen was likely still alive.

He fired a round into the front door’s dead bolt, shattering it.

He shouldered his way into the living room, Anna right behind him.

Empty — a dim table lamp let them see as much — and as he swept the barrel of his .38 around, he saw a purse on the floor.

“Carmen’s here,” he said.

Moonlight fingered in through all that glass as Carmen crept down a central aisle. Wooden benches were arrayed with flower pots, Black Pearl roses all around, their rich red looking black by night, highlighted ivory by filtered moon glow.

She was in the midst of a mammoth bouquet of death.

Outside, she heard someone running.

A woman screaming, “You bitch! You ruined everything!”

She was coming, the bald naked woman was coming, and Carmen, in her weakened state, with no clothes on but her panties, not even frigging shoes, knew she had to find a way out of the trap she’d run herself into...

Harrow moved through the living room — the dining room looking empty, as did what he could see of the kitchen beyond, no light on in there. Anna was checking the rest of the house.

He remembered moving through another house in the darkness, only to find his son and his wife murdered.

Not this time. Not this time.

Breathing hard, ignoring her screaming feet and burning bloody cuts, Carmen ran down the aisle to the greenhouse back door.

Padlocked.

Shit!

Trapped...

Choi and Chase entered at the rear into the kitchen and Harrow moved to meet them, his hand finding a wall switch and flooding the white room to expose a bald man in only silk boxers, waving a butcher knife.

Vincent Clay looked like a big, upright, dangerous fetus.

Chase moved toward the hairless figure, her gun in hand lowered, her steps tentative. “Vince... put that down, Vince. It’s over.”

Vince said nothing.

This man who had so craved attention was now frozen at the center of it.

“Vince,” Chase said gently. “Where’s Carmen?”

Vince’s eyes popped and he shrieked like a scared child as he ran right toward that back door where Choi and Chase had just come in.

But there was nothing childlike about that raised butcher knife, and Chase ducked out of the way, while Choi shot him in the head.

Vince didn’t go down at once — he took the shot with a shudder and then teetered there. Behind him, red splashed white cabinets. The knife clattered to the floor, and Clay dropped to his knees, as if praying, but he was already dead.

When Don Juan finally flopped in a heap in front of the man who’d shot him, Choi said, “Prick would get off easy.”

“There are two of them, remember!” Chase said.

Anna was at Harrow’s side. She saw the dead Vince Clay, said nothing about him, just, “No Carmen. Broken bathroom window.”

“Clear the house,” Harrow told Choi and Chase. “Anna, let’s take the yard!”

The greenhouse door slammed open.

Carmen ducked down.

The bald naked woman had a knife, a very big knife whose point caught moonlight and winked at Carmen, though its bearer hadn’t spotted her hunkered next to a bench.

As the naked woman started down the aisle, all those roses her silent cheering section, her prey scrambled under the bottom shelf of that bench, just high enough to accommodate her.

But plenty of room to hide, though hiding wouldn’t be enough. Carmen would have to take advantage of surprise to take that bald bitch down.

What then?

Her pursuer had that knife, and what did Carmen have?

Frantically, but noiselessly, her hands felt around in the darkness. A cardboard box next to her had bulbs in it, useless. Another held bags of something, seed or fertilizer maybe.

Carmen couldn’t see her, but her pursuer must have been stalking down the aisle, looking under the benches, which meant inevitably...

Her hands found a small wooden box containing gardening tools, a blunt trowel, no, a scoop, no, a claw, better, pruning clippers... perfect!

Cowering there on the dirt floor, staying as far back as possible to let the darkness shield her, Carmen watched. Waited. Watched...

Suddenly, the creature was right there, her bare legs coming to a stop, and Carmen held her breath. As the bald woman began to bend down, Carmen shot her hand out, grabbed an ankle, and jerked the woman to the aisle’s hard dirt floor, onto her side, with a hard whump!

The stalker lay motionless for a moment, her bare head making her look like a naked toppled mannequin. Then maniacal eyes popped open, seeking Carmen in the darkness.

Low and lurching forward, the woman wildly poked the knife under the bench, and the blade came within an inch of Carmen’s nose. The next time the knife violated her space, Carmen slashed back with the clippers, gouging the woman’s wrist.

“Ow!” the attacker said, pulling back, trying to get to her feet, but Carmen scrambled out and tackled her, the woman’s knife shocked from her grasp, spinning down the aisle a few feet away.

On top now, Carmen scratched long nails across the woman’s face, drawing blood and an angry scream. The woman grabbed a handful of Carmen’s hair and pulled, yanking so hard it threw Carmen off into the opposite bench, knocking the wind out, the clippers popping from her grasp.

The bald naked woman went after her knife.

Harrow could hear the struggle in the nearby greenhouse, ran to it and threw the door open, Anna just behind.

Carmen found the shears.

She was on her knees when the bald woman turned and ran at her, naked, washed in ivory, surrounded by black roses, beautiful and horrible with the knife raised high, the point aimed down.

Inside the greenhouse now, Harrow saw the bald woman with the knife raised, and drew a bead on her; but he also saw Carmen, on her knees before the woman — at this distance in near darkness, with the two women in such close proximity, did he dare take his shot?

Carmen thrust forward with the pruning clippers tight in her hand, but not in a way that parted the blades, keeping them a single pointed, knifelike double-blade and plunged it into the woman’s belly, aided by the woman running into the thrust, and as she was penetrated, a bizarrely orgasmic expression blossomed on Vince Clay’s sister’s countenance.

But when Carmen released her grasp, the clipper blades stayed behind, to snap open into their V deep within the woman’s flesh, tearing everything in their path. The resulting gurgling scream held no hint of pleasure.

Blood splashed in terrible warmth onto Carmen’s bare skin. Jana Clay fell to one side, knocking hard into a bench but not feeling it. Like the roses around them, the blood on both naked women looked more black than red.

Still on her knees, Carmen slumped and began to cry. Her tears began small, whimpering, but by the time Harrow’s arms were around her, her chest was heaving, sobs wracking her.

Then he was holding her, like a gentle parent, not worried about getting blood on him, just a caring daddy who whispered, “It’s all right, Carmen. It’s all right. They’re both dead, and you’re alive, and it’s over. It’s finally over.”