Listen to the Shadows (27 page)

Twisting her arm painfully behind her back, Drake marched her ahead of him, the knife point prodding her forward in a near run. The hard, frosty ground burned her bare feet.

And then she was standing amidst a semi-circle of shadowy trees staring down in horror at the black water that glistened like oil at the bottom of the grave Drake had dug. Above her the moon slipped in and out of darkness, and the cold night air bit into her near nakedness with cruel and savage teeth.

Drake’s hands gripped her shoulders and he pushed her forward. Closer and closer to the edge of the deep, rectangular hole in the earth he nudged, teasing her. Katie screamed, kept screaming, her hands flailing wildly at empty air, finally managing to clutch onto the rough fabric of his jacket. He drew her back, held her gently against his chest, murmured soothing words while she sobbed in terror.

***

Her screams tore the silence, echoed horribly, accusingly inside Jonathan’s mind. The dream he’d had rushed back to him, the dream of her falling—falling, tumbling over and over like a rag doll spinning through space, lost to him forever. Tears and sweat blinded him, burned his eyes as he worked frantically at the ropes binding his wrists. You can’t fail again, a voice screamed within him. You can’t.

At another scream from Katie, the tiny shard of glass slipped from his grasp, shattered on the cement floor. There was a moment of utter disbelief, and then nausea gripped him as he felt along the floor. At last, he touched a sliver of glass, tried to trap it between his fingers.

But it was too fragile and crushed like salt, embedding itself in his skin, leaving the tips of his fingers wet with blood.

He began to weep.

***

Drake tried to pull her to him again. Katie’s hand shot out, found flesh, and she raked his face, feeling triumphant when some of his skin came away beneath her fingernails.

He let out a yelp, his hand leaping to his face. Katie seized the moment to drop to her knees on the ground, just inches from the open grave, and scramble away from him. And then she was on her feet, running as fast as her legs would carry her, in the direction of the house. Close, too close, his boots thumped the ground behind her, his raspy breathing amplified in the crisp night air.

Oblivious now to stones and twigs that cut into the soles of her feet, and even to the cold, Katie ran with everything that was in her.

And then she was taking the back steps by twos—was inside the house. Her fingers were clumsy and numb with cold and terror, refusing to obey, but at last she’d managed to lock the doors behind her and draw the drapes. Crossing the floor in the darkness, she picked up the receiver and dialed zero.

“Operator,” came the sing-song voice over the line. “What number please?” the voice said in maddening monotone.

Feet pounding up the back steps, the door rattling violently, then, suddenly, an explosion of glass.

At the sight of his hand worming through the hole in the glass,

Katie dropped the phone. His fingers were groping for the lock. Could she get out the front door and make it down to the car? Was there time? Even if there was, he would immediately kill Jonathan in his rage. Why hadn’t she looked for the gun, learned how to use it? She would have shot him without hesitation. But it was too late now—too late. All this ran through her mind in a matter of seconds, until she heard the door lock click into release.

Grabbing up the stove poker, Katie slipped behind the cot, crouched low, trying to still her tortured breathing.

The door opened slowly, sending a draft of icy air swirling about her bare legs. She tightened her grip on the poker and made herself as small as possible. The cot was kitty-corner, and she could see through the space between it and the wall. Drake’s boots, then the knife, leaped into view, so close she could reach out and touch him. He closed the door behind him, shutting out all light.

Silence.

Katie’s heart was pounding so hard she was sure he must be able to hear it. Then, softly, he said, “I know you’re here, Katie. We were coming up here, anyway, remember? I told you that. Oh, Katie, I’m so pleased you’re as eager for me as I am for you,” he mocked.

She heard him begin to move about the room, heard the desk slide out from the wall.

“Not he-ere,” he sang, as though they were playing a child’s game. “Now let me see—where could she be hiding?” He crossed the floor heavily. “Not under the table. Oh, Katie, I like this game. I’m so glad you thought of it.”

For several minutes there was only the sound of his breathing, and then he was walking again—but away from her. She heard the French doors open, and his footsteps become muffled, and she knew he’d stepped into the carpeted dining room. She waited a few more minutes to be sure he was really gone, and then, remembering the pair of scissors in the desk drawer, she crept from her hiding place, moving quickly but cautiously, afraid of knocking against something in the darkness. But the room was her own and familiar, and in seconds she was easing the desk drawer open. She would slip down the back stairs and cut Jonathan free with the scissors. Drake had forgotten to lock the cellar door when he forced her outside. Or perhaps, believing that

Jonathan was unconscious, felt there was no need. She sifted quickly through sheets of paper, found a ball of twine, a bunch of elastics, paperclips—but no scissors. She must have put them somewhere else. A sense of hopelessness threatened to overwhelm her. Sudden light danced on the wall in front of her. Her heart constricted, her body momentarily paralyzed. Then, slowly, she turned. Drake stood before her, a benign smile on his face, holding the lamp in one hand, the knife in the other. “It’s over, Katie. All over. I found you. I won the game.”

In her moment of blind terror, she had forgotten about the poker she clutched in her hand; now, remembering, fight returned and she raised it, struck out at Drake, but she was too close to get any real leverage, and the poker glanced off his shoulder. He let out a curse and twisted it from her grasp, tossed it on the floor behind him. His eyes riveted on her face, he set the lamp on the desk.

As he made a move toward her, Katie tried to duck past him, get to the door, but his hand caught in her hair, closed and forced her back.

He dragged her down on the floor, straddled her, pinning her solidly beneath his weight.

“No. No, please don’t…”

His face moved close to hers, his breath hot and sour. His wet, open mouth sought hers. Katie twisted her head wildly, trying to escape it, but he only gripped her hair more savagely. She was sure he would rip it from her scalp. For a moment, she thought she might pass out. But she mustn’t let herself. She mustn’t.

Time held little meaning. It might have been hours or mere minutes that they struggled there on the floor. From time to time, weakness swept over her, exhaustion threatened to betray her. Drake was so strong, yet her own renewed bursts of energy, born of desperation and fury, allowed her to hold him off. But for how long?

Near collapse, she saw the knife. It seemed to have come out of nowhere. She had forgotten about it. Now, like a snake, it hovered above her, poised to strike. He lowered the cold steel, his labored breathing matching her own. The point of the blade touched the hollow of her throat.

Her mouth went dust-dry.

“I don’t want to make you ugly, Katie. Don’t make me.”

She prayed for a miracle, knowing the pleasure he would take in carving her up. Even if she did give in to Drake, she knew he would kill her afterward. She was certain of that. Raping her would not be enough. He had not dug that grave with a view to letting her live.

Hadn’t he already told her his plan? But right now—right this minute, you are still alive. She forced herself to go limp.

“That’s a good girl,” he crooned, praising her as one might an obedient child. “I won’t cut you unless you fight me. You won’t fight me, will you?”

“No,” she choked out. “No, I won’t fight you anymore. Please, don’t hurt me.”

He weighed her promise in his mind, then, seeming satisfied, set the knife on the floor beside him. He shifted his weight so that he was on his knees in front of her. “I might even let you live,” he said, but they both knew he wouldn’t.

He worked at his belt buckle. His tongue flicked obscenely over his lower lip as if already tasting victory. He’d stalked his prey and now he was going to collect the spoils. And this is the miracle, Katie told herself. This is all the miracle you’re going to get. Now! And in that split second, while Drake was preoccupied with unbuckling his pants, Katie drew her knees up tight to her body, and with every ounce of strength left in her, slammed both feet into his chest. The impact drove him backward, and Katie heard him grunt as his head hit the floor with a sickening thud.

She waited, surprised that it had worked, her body heaving with each labored breath.

No sound from him.

She sat up slowly, at the same time sliding backward, toward the door, away from him. His boots, with their mud-caked soles, splayed in front of her. Her eyes traveled warily over his still form, not yet trusting. His eyes were open, staring blankly at her. Was he dead? Or was it just another game?

Katie stood on rubbery legs. Was it over? Unable to take her eyes from him, she reached behind her, felt for the doorknob, found it. Spotting the knife on the floor, she hesitated, thinking she should take it to cut Jonathan free. But it was too close to him, nearly touching his leg, and she couldn’t bring herself to go closer to pick it up.

Even in death, he terrified her.

At last, she opened the door and slipped outside. Holding tightly to the handrail for support, she started down the stairs. She was no longer able to run, barely able to walk—but she was free. The monster was dead. Her tears came faster, mingling with the perspiration that bathed her face, becoming quickly chilled in the cold air.

“Jonathan,” she whimpered. “Jonathan.”

Just as she stepped off the bottom step, a hand closed around the back of her neck.

Chapter 27

Half-carrying, half-dragging Katie toward the tall, shadowy trees, his voice shook with rage and pain. “You’ve ruined everything.

You’ve ruined the plan.”

She’d hurt him, she knew. But he hadn’t struck his head as she’d first thought. Perhaps a knee or an elbow, but not hard enough. Never hard enough. She was going to die, after all.

She saw with a wave of fresh terror that they were at the edge of the grave. There was no hint of playfulness in Drake now, and without a moment’s warning, he gave her a powerful shove that sent her tumbling into the black, murky hole. Her body struck hard, knocking the wind from her, leaving her momentarily stunned. And then she was sobbing, struggling to get to her feet as the icy dark water bubbled up over her ankles.

She lifted pleading eyes to Drake. “Please, not like this. Kill me first.”

Above her, his face was that of a crazed animal—eyes wild, his mouth an evil slit in his grinning face—a face devoid of mercy.

She clawed at the wall of moist earth, but it was no use. Again, she begged him to let her up, promising to do whatever he wanted, but his expression now reflected disinterest, even boredom. He raised the shovel, and would have brought it viciously down on Katie’s hands had she not jerked them out of the way. As she did, she fell to her hands and knees.

Something squiggled against the flat of her palm, and she cried out. The first mound of earth came down on her. She breathed it, tasted its black sourness. Gagging, she tried again to stand, but it was no use.

Another shovel full slammed into the back of her head, knocking her face-down in the foul-smelling water. She crawled about like a frenzied thing, one hand pulling at the hair now plastered against her face.

More earth fell on top of her and she began to pray—a prayer she had said many times as a child. It came back to comfort her like an old and trusted friend. “Now I lay me down to sleep…”

The earth rose rapidly, the water fast disappearing, becoming hard mud casts trapping her feet and legs. She raised her eyes to the upturned bowl of sky, to the moon that exploded into fragments of itself through her blurred vision, and knew it was the last of life that she would see…

“If I die before I wake…” Words said through trembling lips, faint and desperate, but as she prayed, a strange calm began to descend upon her.

***

Drake Devlin stopped working to lean on his shovel. He looked down at her. Fight, bitch! Fight to your last damn breath. Can you see, Raynes? Can you see what I’m doing to your sweet, precious Katie?

His work took on a more fevered pace.

***

Wood clattered to the floor as Jonathan, fingers outstretched behind him as far as they would go, felt along the pile for an axe. Hands and feet still bound, he’d managed to stand by backing against a wall and sliding up it. Then he’d hopped to the woodpile, driven by this new inspiration. There had to be an axe, didn’t there? You had to have an axe to chop wood. Unless Charlie Black brought his own axe with him, a favorite axe.

Jonathan’s arms ached with the strain, and he forced them to relax. He let himself sag against the woodpile. His breathing was labored, his clothes drenched with perspiration. He had to think. He couldn’t panic again. After he’d dropped the glass, and the smaller fragment had crushed between his fingers, he’d lost it completely. It was only by telling himself over and over that Drake Devlin wouldn’t overtake Katherine easily, she was a fighter, that he’d finally managed to calm himself. And her screams, however much they tore at his mind and soul, meant that she was still alive.

He listened to their footsteps overhead, and to the sounds of scuffling that seemed to go on and on until he thought he would go out of his mind. That last time he’d heard her scream, she’d been outside the house and not very far from him. But that was at least ten minutes ago.

There’d been nothing since. Battling the terror that threatened to bring him down, Jonathan thought for the hundredth time: there has to be something in this cellar, something I can cut these ropes with. But it was too dark too see. It came to him suddenly that when Devlin took Katherine away, he hadn’t barred the door after him. He could be wrong about that, of course. It wasn’t the most rational moment he’d ever known, but he was pretty sure he hadn’t heard the bar thud into place.

Would Devlin be so careless? Why not, if he didn’t expect him to regain consciousness. Guided by the meager light from the window, Jonathan hopped across the floor toward the door. Once there, he nudged it with his shoulder, nearly stumbling and falling headlong on the ground when it swung easily open.

Off to his right, a point of light quivered among the trees. He could see Drake’s dark shape. He could see the rise and fall of the shovel in his hand—and his heart lurched painfully. Hysteria gripped him and he nearly screamed at Devlin. Easy, Shea, he told himself. Easy.

Back in the cellar, he scanned the now faintly visible objects. In the corner by the window, a mop, with little left of it but the handle, stood uselessly. Beneath the mop were several cans of paint, a galvanized pail, a broken window frame. Further on, a folded lawn chair, its fabric torn and hanging, stood against the wall. Nothing of any use.

Frustration mounted, but he tried to ignore it, tried not to think of what was going on outside, as he continued to search for something sharp with which to cut himself free.

And then he found himself studying the sawhorse in front of him, remembering that it was where Devlin had set the lamp. He stared at the sawhorse and wondered why the thought was so long in coming, that if there was a sawhorse, maybe…He raised his eyes intuitively, almost afraid to hope.

But there it was. A partly rusted hand-saw hanging from a spike in the wall. Relief filled him, to be replaced in the very next instant by near despair. For the saw was far beyond his reach. And then the answer came to him. Alternating between a hop and a shuffle, Jonathan moved along the wall, past the window, toward the mop in the corner, not quite so useless now. Not useless at all.

***

Only her shoulders and head were free now; she could not feel her arms or legs. A few more lifts of the shovel and it would all be over. She remembered hearing somewhere that people buried alive took a long time to die, and when exhumed, were found in tortured positions, faces contorted in agony, dirt caked beneath fingernails, fingers bent into claws.

The thought broke through the calm her praying had brought, and she cried out – but heard no sound. Why did unconsciousness evade her now when she so begged for it? What great knowledge was to be gained that she must experience these final moments without some blessed anesthetic to ease the horror—the pain of a death by suffocation?

Her eyes shut instinctively against a sudden, glaring light.

“Katherine!”

Someone calling her name—an anguished sound. Jonathan? No, not Jonathan. The voice must be inside her head, a miracle she’d conjured up when all else had failed. She supposed she was quite mad by now, hoping where there was no hope, praying when there was no one to listen.

She felt gentle hands pushing the wet, filthy hair from her face. As if in a dream, she saw him.

“Jonathan,” she whispered. And then, as though his face was swept backward through a long, dark tunnel, it drifted from her, and there was only darkness.

When she came to, she was in Jonathan’s arms. Her confused gaze traveled to Drake who lay on the ground, his arms pinned beneath him. Blood trickled darkly from the corner of his mouth. His pale eyes locked with hers. She stiffened, whimpered like a child.

“It’s all right, honey,” Jonathan said, his own voice breaking in a sob. “It’s all right now. He can’t hurt you anymore. Where he’s going, he won’t be hurting anyone for a long, long time.”

But she barely heard his words of reassurance as she watched Drake’s lips curl into a slow, icy smile.