Riptide

twenty-eight

She had no idea how long she was out. She came to without confusion or grogginess-a snap into consciousness and she was back, fully alert, remembering everything except the blow to her head. She knew about that only because the back of her skull still pounded in time with her pulse.

She could see only darkness and a pale horizontal glimmer at the lower periphery of her vision. Blindfolded, a little light seeping in from below.

Bound, too. Her wrists were lashed behind her back with electrical cord. There was something in her mouth, stiff and foul-tasting like a bundle of rags. She might be able to spit it out….

She heard the tread of a step.

He was with her, in a small, enclosed space-she could feel the nearness of the walls. The supply closet.

She wanted to talk to him, but even if she could spit out the gag, she knew he wouldn’t listen. Any words she found would only make him angry.

She heard his low, quick breathing. Smelled his sweat, cloying and close.

He paced before the door. Restless, trying to decide what to do with her. Whether to add her name to the roster of victims.

She remembered feeling sorry for him, wanting to help him, but that was all behind her now, and there was only the furious demand of self-preservation. She would have shot him if she could. Later she might have regretted it, even hated herself, but not now.

She was seated on the floor, her back to a wall, knees drawn up. She tried shifting her legs to prevent a cramp, and her shoe nudged something, a pail or a bucket, which slid with a low grating sound.

Instantly he was crouching beside her, breathing in her ear.

He knew she was awake. And he knew-must know-that she wanted him to speak, to say something. He kept silent, simply to torture her. He was cruel. From what Maura had told her, he had always been cruel. It wasn’t just his illness. It was who he was, and she hadn’t seen it because she hadn’t wanted to see.

Blind. Willfully blind.

Now she was going to die here, in a closet in a public building, a place not so different from the utility room where, years ago, she’d curled up to bleed out from an open wound.

She’d been rescued then. No salvation this time.

The breathing in her ear was fierce, hot, a tiger’s breath. She wanted to scream at him to get it over with, but the gag was still in place and she lacked the strength to work it free.

Then the blindfold was stripped off her face, and she was staring into his eyes from inches away.

It was her brother, but she had never seen him like this. His eyes were wider than she’d thought possible, his mouth twisted in a humorless smile. He was shaking all over as he knelt by her, his face level with hers.

“Stupid bitch.” The breath issuing from between his teeth was foul. “What the hell were you trying to prove?”

A gleam of metal in his hand. She had no chance to see what it was, but she felt it against her neck. The subtlest tickle, the lightest kiss.

A knife, teasing her throat.

The blade passed slowly over her skin, testing its suppleness, pressing down for an instant, then easing up.

Another of his games. She swallowed and felt the knife more keenly against the sudden gulping motion.

“Following me,” he said. “Spying on me. You couldn’t leave me alone.”

She wanted to pivot away from him, protect herself, but she knew it would be no use. He would only grab her by the hair and pull her head back, the better to slice open her neck. He would enjoy the struggle, and she wouldn’t give him that pleasure.

Slowly the knife traveled lower, its tip probing the hollow at the base of her throat. It pushed in deep, pinching like a needle, drawing blood. She bit back a gasp, not of pain but of fear.

It had started. He was cutting her.

He thought he was Jack the Ripper and he would kill her-not in an alley but in a supply closet, where she would be found not by a patrolling constable but by a janitor on the night crew.

“You want me arrested. There’s family loyalty for you. First you steal the house and then you come after me.”

The knife climbed her neck, tracing her jawline, the blade’s touch feather soft. He would open the carotids at the sides of her neck-it wouldn’t be hard-a little nick would do it.

“Should’ve killed you years ago. You’ve always been against me.”

The hiss of his breath, the lilting craziness of his voice.

“And now what’s stopping me? Nothing, that’s what. Nothing can stop me.”

Then do it, she thought with hopeless desperation. Do it already.

“I ought to,” he said as if reading her mind. “I damn well should.”

The knife hesitated, then withdrew.

“But…not yet.”

There it was again, that twisted smile, so much like a wince of pain. There were dark depths in his eyes she’d never seen before. It was like staring into an abyss.

He held her gaze for a breath or two, then sprang to his feet, pocketing the knife. The door shut behind him as he made his exit.

Only when he’d left did she start to shake. A swarm of tremors traveled through her, microcosmic earthquakes shifting her inner landscape. She let the shaking subside in its own time, not fighting it.

He hadn’t killed her. Maybe there was some hope for him, then.

But she knew that was nonsense. There could be no hope, not anymore.

She coughed out the gag. If she yelled for help, someone was sure to hear. But then there would be chaos and wasted time. And it was already too late to apprehend him. He would be long gone.

She set to work wriggling free of the cord that bound her hands. Once untied, she would drive to the police station and file an official report.

Catch me when you can, he’d written.

“I will, Richard,” she whispered. “I promise you, I will.”