No Sanctuary (13 page)

The crime books in the den were sophisticated literary endeavors compared to these rags.

Who reads this shit? she wondered.

Fredrick Holden, for one.

He’s starting to look like a real sicko.

Gillian lifted more magazines out of the drawer. More of the same.

Then she came to the sex magazines.

“Surprise,” she muttered.

Already feeling disoriented and revolted by the crime magazines, Gillian could only stand to look at a few of these. The photos didn’t depict beautiful women in seductive poses.

The last magazine Gillian inspected dealt with bondage and sado-masochism. Then men and women pictured wore chains and leather. Some wore black leather masks that made them look like medieval executioners. The victims were tied spread-eagled to a bed or shackled to a wall or suspended from a ceiling beam. Gillian flipped the magazine shut. She dosed her eyes and took deep breaths.

She felt as if she had descended into a dark world of perversity.

A world in which Fredrick Holden loved to wallow.

Any more nasty little secrets? Gillian wondered. She bent over the drawer and glanced at the covers of the remaining magazines. Most of those near the bottom of the drawer appeared to be S&M. She left them there.

She spread half a dozen of the crime magazines on the bed and took a photograph. She did the same with several of the sex magazines. After putting them back in the draw she returned to the bathroom and once again scrubbed her hands.

Enough goddamn exploration for one afternoon, she thought.

Keep it up, you might find something really nasty.

She gave a sour laugh. In the mirror above the sink, her face looked a little bloodless, her eyes glassy. There were specks of sweat above her lip. She hadn’t taken pictures of the S&M stuff at the bottom of the drawer. Hadn’t wanted to.

She felt nauseous. Needed fresh air.

Gillian changed into her damp bikini, grabbed a bath towel, and went to the den. She took a beer from the refrigerator behind the bar.

The hot concrete sundeck hurt her feet as she turned toward the spa. Setting her beer and towel aside, she started to remove the cover.

She hesitated.

So you really want to go in this guy’s hot tub? Especially after that dream ... God only knows what’s gone on in it ... who might be in the water.

Yuck.

She picked up the cold bottle of beer and took a drink.

Maybe I should get the hell away from here, she thought, while the getting is good.

“Hey there!”

Gillian whirled around.

“Why don’t we take a breather?” Rick suggested.

Bert grinned along with her frown. “You can’t be pooped again already ... a strong fellow like you.”

“Must be the aldtude.”

“Okay. Five minutes.”

He stepped backward to a waist-high boulder, eased his pack down, and sighed as the straps went loose on his shoulders. The sigh was for Bert’s sake. He’d found the hike rather easy so far and his occasional pleas for rest stops had nothing to do with the effort of lugging his pack up the trail. His only motive was to slow their progress, to avoid overtaking Jase, Luke, and Wally.

So far, fine. He hadn’t seen them since that morning.

The boys had had a fifteen-minute lead by the time the tent was rolled, the packs were ready, and they started out. Fifteen minutes, Rick quickly realized, was too short a gap. Bert didn’t hike with a leisurely stroll; she took long, sure strides that ate up the trail. Though Jase and Luke might be fast on their feet, Wally had seemed like the type who would hold them back. Rick felt sure that, without the frequent stops, they would’ve caught up with the boys by now.

There was also the possibility that the boys would take it slow or even stop and wait to make sure of another encounter with Bert. If that was their game, Rick’s delays would only postpone the meeting, not prevent it.

Rick opened a side pocket of his pack and took out his plastic water bottle. He unscrewed the cap and took a drink, then passed it to Bert. The shadow of her bush hat left her face as she tipped back her head. She shut her eyes and drank.

“I’m wondering if we really want to go over Dead Mule Pass,” he said. “Are we locked into that?”

“It’s the route I planned,” she said, and returned the bottle to him. “That’s how we’ll make a circle and get back to the car without backtracking. What’ve you got against Dead Mule Pass other than its name?”

“Sounds like a tough climb.”

“That’s a good one. All of a sudden you’re pooped at every turn and worried about a little climb. Aren’t you the same guy who did a lOK run last month?”

“That was different.”

She lifted an eyebrow. “I am onto you, y’know. You don’t have to pretend with me. Took a while, but I figured it out after about the third rest stop. You just don’t want us running into our friendly neighborhood teen trio.”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe, my ass.”

“It’s your ass I’m worried about,” he said, forcing a smile. “And other nearby areas.”

“You still think they want to jump my bones.”

“You think it hasn’t crossed their minds?”

Bert shrugged. “I suppose it probably has. That hardly means they’ll try it, though. There’s an enormous gap between wanting something like that and actually trying it.”

“Maybe. I just think we’re better off avoiding those guys. I mean, we’re out here in the middle of nowhere and they’ve got us out-numbered. Why tempt fate?”

“Rick, they’re three guys on a camping trip. They seemed perfectly normal to me.”

“Even Jase?”

She hesitated. Frowning, she said, “Jase I could do without. If I were alone out here and he showed up, I might be a little concerned. But you’re with me, and Jase has Burgher and Wally in tow. Those two guys wouldn’t try anything.”

“If they thought they could get away with it, they might.”

“Would you? Suppose the situation were reversed, and you’re out here with a couple of buddies and run into someone like me? Would you and your pals try to rape me?”

“Of course not.”

She put a hand on his thigh. “Sure about that? You’re talking as if it’s inevitable that all guys would try it in a situation like this.”

“It would occur to most guys. It would occur to me, I’m sure. But I wouldn’t do it.”

“Why not?”

Rick shrugged. “Aside from being a decent guy with moral scruples, I suppose I’d be chicken.”

“Afraid the cops’d get you?”

“That’d be a major deterrent. Thing is, and why I’m so worried, this area isn’t exactly teeming with fuzz. We’re pretty much beyond the reach of the law out here. A guy could get away with most anything.” Rick went cold inside. “Especially if he didn’t leave witnesses.”

“Plot thickens,” Bert said. “Now we’re talking murder.”

“You rape someone, you don’t want a prison stretch, nobody knows you did it except you and the victim. Even if you’re not a cold-blooded killer, you’re scared. The thrill is over and you realize what you’ve done—the consequences if you get caught.”

Bert’s fingers tightened on his thigh.

“You take these three,” he went on. “Jase wouldn’t kill us out of panic. He’d be more likely to do it for kicks, or just to be on the safe side, or just for the hell of it.”

“You don’t even know the guy,” Bert muttered.

“I know his type. Burgher, he seemed aloof. The rational sort. He’d see the logic of eliminating us and that might override his qualms about it. Wally, he’d panic. He’d no sooner get his pants up than he’d start seeing himself getting gangraped in prison.”

Bert looked into his eyes. “You’re scaring me,” she said.

“I just think we need to realize the—”

“I mean you’re scaring me. What the hell is going on inside your head? We meet three guys who don’t give us any trouble at all. Next thing you know, you’ve got them raping me. Jase kills us for kicks, Burgher kills us because it makes good sense, and Wally kills us so he won’t get sodomized in prison. My Christ! Your imagination is revolting.”

“I read the newspapers,” he muttered, stunned by her reaction.

“Sounds to me like you’re projecting your own fantasies onto those guys.”

“My fears,” he said.

Her eyes seemed to soften. “Oh, Rick.” Her hand lifted to his face, gently stroked his cheek. “I shouldn’t have dragged you out here, should I?”

“I was doing all right till those three came along.”

“Doing all right? That’s why you got yourself shit-faced last night?” Her tone was sympathetic, not accusing.

“I didn’t get shit-faced.”

“Maybe we’d better hike on back to the car and get out of here.”

“Hell,” he muttered.

“It’s no good if you’re a basket-case the whole time. It isn’t fair to you.”

“I’m sorry. I promised myself that I wouldn’t ruin things. But I won’t get this stuff out of my head.”

“I’m the one who pushed you into this. I knew you hated the idea.” A comer of her mouth curled up. “Guess we should’ve gone to Maui after all.”

“I’d feel awful if we quit,” he said.

“You’d feel worse if we stayed. Besides, you might be right about those guys. I mean, I don’t really expect them to attack us or anything, but just the fact that they’re around—truth is, I’ve had some of the same thoughts as you.”

“Really?”

She nodded. “My thoughts didn’t go quite as far as yours. But it crossed my mind that Jase might talk the others into jumping us.” Her smile widened. “In my version, they thumped you on the head with a rock, but I fended them off with my knife.”

“Always the optimist.”

“That’s me. Anyway, all things considered, I won’t be too disappointed if we leave.”

“I guess we could head over to Lake Tahoe, check into a nice hotel....”

“Nothing to wear.”

“They’ve got stores.”

“Sounds good to—”

Her voice stopped.

Rick heard faint, distant talking. Fear clamped his chest. He handed the water bottle to Bert. Standing, he slipped his arms from the pack straps. He turned to his pack, reached for the side pocket where he’d put his revolver, and pulled at the zipper with trembling fingers. It was half open when he realized that the voices were female.

He glanced at Bert. She was watching him. With a shake of his head as if he were confused, he shut the zipper. He took the water bottle from Bert and slipped it into the other pocket.

“Afraid they’ll try to bum our water?” Bert asked, grinning.

“Exactly. Wouldn’t be sanitary.” He rested against his pack again. He still heard the voices, but he saw nobody on the trail.

“From the sound of them,” Bert said, “they’re either girls or sissies.”

They were girls. They came striding, side by side, around a bend in the trail.

The one on the right looked up, saw them, smiled and said, “Howdy.” The other, flushed and panting, nodded a greeting.

“Hi there,” Bert said.

“Hi,” said Rick.

“Let’s take a load off,” the girl said to her haggard friend. She stepped to the side of the trail across from Rick and Bert, swung her pack down, and boosted herself onto a hip-high shelf of rock. The other girl kept her pack on. It scraped against the vertical block of stone as she sagged. Her rump met the trail and she stretched out her legs. She sighed.

Her slim legs were tanned, her shins mottled with trail dust that had turned dark on her sweaty skin. She wore faded blue gym shorts and a gray T-shirt that read UCSC. Her shirt had a wet V, wide at the crew neck and narrowing as it descended between her breasts. Her chest rose and fell as she fought to catch her breath. The bill of her ballcap was tipped upward. A fringe of blond hair clung to her forehead and glossy wisps curled around her ears. In spite of her grimace and sunglasses, Rick could see that she was a beauty.

“From Santa Cruz?” Bert asked.

“I shoulda boogerin’ stayed there,” said the one on the ground.

The one sitting on the rock laughed. “We just got done with final,” she said.

“Great way to start the summer break.”

“Andrea isn’t used to this sort of thing.”

“Neither am I,” Rick said.

“I love it.” The girl swept off her straw cowboy hat. Her thick, brown hair was pinned up except for bangs that fluttered in the breeze. Unlike Andrea, she looked cool and dry. She wore no sunglasses. Her brows were thick, her eyes bright green. Though she lacked Andrea’s delicate features, she had a fresh, athletic look that Rick found appealing.

She tossed her hat. It landed on her pack, slid off, and dropped onto the trail. Leaning back, she braced herself with straight arms. She was wearing a yellow blouse. The sleeves were cut off, and it was unbuttoned and tied below her breasts. From the yellow cord across the gap, Rick guessed that she was wearing a bikini. Her flat belly was tanned. She wore jeans, the legs cut off so high that the ends of her front pockets hung out white against her thighs.

The way her jeans looked disturbed Rick. For a moment, he didn’t know why. Then he remembered that Julie had worn jeans like these, cut so short the pockets showed. He’d been watching her instead of the trail.

My fault, he thought as a warm wave of shame swept through him. If I hadn’t been trying to see up her pants ...

It’s not my fault, he told himself. She shouldn’t have worn something like that if I wasn’t supposed to look. A guy will look. Any guy will look. It was her fault more than mine.

“... your car we parked next to this morning,” the girl in the cut-offs was saying. Rick realized he had missed some of the conversation.

“A blue Pontiac?” Bert asked.

“Yeah, that’s the one.”

“So you just got in this morning?” Rick asked.

“Seems like a century ago,” Andrea said. Still on the ground, she had slipped out of her pack straps without Rick noticing. Her gray T-shirt was dark around the armpits. She was no longer panting. “Bonnie doesn’t believe in resting. You ask me, I don’t know what’s the big rush.”

“I thought we’d make it over the pass today,” Bonnie said, “but that’s starting to look doubtful. There’s a lake just this side, though. Fern Lake? I suppose we’ll wind up there. What about you?”

Bert shrugged. “We’re not too sure at this point.”