No Sanctuary (38 page)

Rick rolled over. As he struggled to raise himself, the man’s right hand flew up, releasing Bert’s wrist. She wasn’t quick enough to block the punch. It crashed against her cheek. Her head snapped to the side. Her body went limp.

The man jerked his knife out of the ground.

He scooted backward, his blood spilling a trail onto her chest and belly and shorts. Then he was sitting on her knees. He slipped the broad blade down the front of her shorts and ripped. The edge came up through her waistband, severed her belt, slit open the tan fabric down her left thigh and parted the small cuff.

Rick forced himself up to his knees while he watched.

What is this man!

Face torn from forehead to chin, eye split open, a bone-deep stab wound in his left calf—and he’s stripping her!!

He clawed Bert’s pants open like a flap, baring her left leg, her groin. He tugged at the other side so hard that her breasts shook. The shorts slid out from under her and down to her knees.

Rick’s knife flew end over end.

Jose threw a knife at me last night, he remembered.

Hit me bandk-first.

This one better do the job.

It flashed past the back of the man’s head, missing by more than an inch.

The man didn’t even seem to notice.

He was working Bert’s pants farther down her legs.

“NO!” Rick yelled.

He turned toward Rick, stared at him with one eye, and spat blood. His red penis was standing rigid and thick.

Rick shoved himself up, took a wobbly step forward, and fell.

The man turned again to Bert. He got his knees between her legs. With the dull edge of his knife, he shoved her left leg aside.

Rick crawled toward him.

He had no weapon and the man had the knife. He didn’t care....

“I’LL KILL YOU!” he yelled.

The man ignored him.

Then there was someone else.

For a moment, Rick thought it was one of the girls. It was a girl and she was naked and torn and bloody, but not mutilated like Andrea or Bonnie, not a butchered carcass, not dead.

She ducked as she ran, and swept Rick’s knife off the ground where it had landed after his throw.

She ran straight toward the man.

His head turned.

She leaped, twisting herself in midair, coming down behind him, between Bert’s spread feet. She grabbed the man’s hair. Her right knee buckled. She dropped to her rump and threw herself backward, still clutching the man’s hair.

He flopped on top of her, head between her breasts.

For an instant, two knives waved above his squirming body.

The knife in the girl’s hand flashed down and ripped across his throat.

Blood erupted.

The man flapped his arms, his knife slashing through the red curtain rising from his neck. He kicked his feet high.

Rick thought vaguely that he hoped the bastard wouldn’t kick Bert in the face.

The shower of blood diminished, then stopped, as if a faucet had been turned off.

The man lay sprawled motionless on top of Bert and the stranger.

Nobody moved.

Thursday June 26

“Police today received a package containing a scrapbook allegedly belonging to Fredrick James Holden, who was slain Monday during a killing spree that left two hikers dead in the Sierra wilderness.

“The scrapbook, which contained newspaper clippings related to disappearances and killings of an undisclosed number of young women in several different states, was accompanied by an anonymous note which read, ‘I found this in Holden’s house. He murdered these people.’

“This latest revelation only deepens the puzzle of Fredrick James Holden, the orphan who was taken into the home of his aunt at the age of four and inherited her wealth twelve years later when she was raped and viciously murdered in her bed, along with the celebrated fashion designer Harriet Woodall. In light of the recent developments, authorities now speculate that the double homicide may have been the work of the same man responsible for Monday’s killing rampage.

“The scrapbook, received today by the police opens the possibility that Fredrick James Holden may have been involved in a nationwide string of sex slayings. But was the scrapbook the property of this man? And who mailed it to the authorities? How much might this person know about the trail of killings revealed in the pages of the scrapbook? With more on this story, we take you live to Henry Gonzalez.”

“Thank you, Laura. I’m coming to you live from the Encino home of Dr. Richard Wainwright, the prominent ophthalmologist who, along with his fiancee Bert Lindsey, was assaulted by Fredrick James Holden shortly after Monday’s double-homicide.

“Dr. Wainwright, is it your opinion that Holden’s scrapbook was sent to the police by the woman who called herself Mary Smith?”

“I have no idea. It wouldn’t surprise me, though.”

“Miss Lindsey?”

“We’ve talked about it. We both think she may have sent it. She had something to hide, we’re sure of that.”

“Could you tell us more about her?”

“She was eighteen or twenty, blond, very attractive ...”

“She was very beaten up. She’d been cut with a knife, and sustained a lot of superficial injuries while she was escaping from the bas—killer.”

“We bathed in the stream after ... after he was dead. All of us were bloody. Then we patched up some of her wounds with my first aid kit.”

“She didn’t say much.”

“None of us did. I think we were all in a state of shock.”

“She did tell us that her name was Mary Smith, and she’d been abducted the night before. Holden brought her out to the mountains in the trunk of his car. She said he’d intended to kill her ‘like the others.’ ”

“That’s one reason we think she might be the one who sent the scrapbook. She seemed to have knowledge of other murders.”

“Also the fact that she skipped out on us.”

“Wearing my clothes. Not that I resent that. Hell, she saved us. She came out of nowhere like some kind of crazed, avenging angel and slit the throat of that animal.”

“But you say, Dr. Wainwright, that she skipped out.”

“We took Holden’s car. It was on a dirt road about an hour’s hike away. She drove until we found my car, which was on a different road about ten miles off. Bert and I took my car, and she followed us. She was supposed to follow us till we found a police or sheriff’s station, but she took off.”

“She was right behind us one minute. Then she was gone.”

“You feel, then, that she had some reason to avoid a confrontation with the authorities?”

“Looks that way.”

“But she sent the scrapbook, I’d bet on it.”

“Do you have anything you’d like to say to Mary Smith if she should be watching this broadcast?”

“You bet. Mary Smith, whoever you are, we love you.”

“We’re not interested in revealing your identity to anyone. But we’d like to thank you-in person, if that’s possible. I’m in the phone book, Richard Wainwright.”

“This is Henry Gonzalez for Eyewitness News. Back to you, Laura.”

Gillian pressed the remote button, and the television screen went blank. Leaning back against the bedrest, she sighed.

“They seem like nice people,” Jerry said.

“They are.”

He took hold of her hand. “There’s that old Chinese proverb ... I think it’s supposed to be Chinese.”

“That you’re responsible for people after you save their lives?”

“That’s it.”

“That’s bullshit.”

Jerry laughed softly.

“She said they love me.”

“Yeah.”

“That’s really nice.”

“I don’t think there’s any reason to worry that they’ll tell on you.”

“No.”

“Even if they did, it’s not that big a deal. There’d be publicity, though. And the cops would want to talk to you.” -

The hell they would. Like, bom’s that again? How many times did you say, Miss O’Neill—er, Miss Smith? You broke into sixty-six bonus?

“But you’d be a hero. You already are. Mary Smith is.”

Fuck Mary Smith. And Gillian O’Neill. Time I got myself a new alibi. How about Trisba Scott? Mmmm ... Okay. Try this for size:

Following the outstanding success of “Gone Midnight,” a sequel to this record-breaking blockbuster movie, is now in the pipcline. As we speak, award-winning screenwriter, Trisba Scott, is completing yet another great script.

Our mole at Sierra Studios tells us filming is due to start early next year ...

“Sure. A hero. And I’d probably get prosecuted for violating Holden’s civil rights.”

“Maybe you’d better stay anonymous. But like I said, they won’t tell. How about having them over?”

“Like a dinner party?”

“A swim and a barbecue.”

“That might be nice. But let’s wait a while till it all calms down. And I’d like a chance to heal before anyone sees me in a bikini.”

“Yeah,” Jerry said. “Don’t want to put them off their food.”

Gillian slapped his thigh.

“You look fine,” he told her.

“Sure. Like I went through a garbage disposal.”

And she suddenly pictured the carcasses of the two young women, the way they had looked when she stood above them after crawling out from under Holden. Then she was on her mountainside perch, staring down, and they were still alive and she heard their screams over the rush of the stream as Holden worked on them.

Gillian felt herself shrivel inside, tight and cold. Goosebumps rose on her skin.

“Jerry?”

“Uh-huh?’

“Jery. D’you love me?”

“Do bees like honey? Does night follow day? Did Rhett love Scarlett?” .

“Funneee. I mean it, pal. I need to know if you really love me. Y’know? Really care.”

“As in, follow you to the ends of the earth?”

“You got it.”

“Where’s this leading, Gill? And why so serious, at this hour?”

“Because, dummy, I am about to spill a whole mess o’ beans. Like tell you a story, the like of which you’ve probably never heard before. And all of it is true. It’s about me. So. I need to trust you. I need to know that you love me enough to say, hey, what the heck. It’s you I love, not your goddamn life history.”

Jerry leaned up on an elbow and looked at her. Tears were coursing down her cut and bruised cheeks.

“My God, Gillian. What’s wrong?”

Okay. She’d had a rough time. A terrible time, what with Fredrick Holden an’ all; and he her uncle, too. But he had an overwhelming feeling that there was something else. That something much bigger was on her mind.

“If you love me and we stay together, I want you to know me. The real Gillian O’Neill. No matter how many alibis I have, what I do for a living, what position I sleep in at nights, what brand of coffee I drink ... I just need to come clean, Jerry. And after you’ve heard what I have to say, I want you to be honest. Tell me you love me and that my secrets’ll be safe with you. Or, tell me you don’t want to know, and I’ll just clam up and go to sleep.”

She looked so miserable that he took her in his arms and shushed her, just like a baby. Love, compassion and concern for her welled up inside him. He’d never felt like this about anyone before, in all of his life.

“There, now, my love. No need to worry about a thing. I do love you-believe me, I do. Just the way you are. No frills. No hidden agendas. Just you. If you’re about to tell me that you’re an award-winning scriptwriter, don’t bother. I already know. Anything else, I don’t need to be told.”

Turning to him, she whispered, “Hold me some more.”

He did.

They lay on their sides, wrapped in each other’s arms. Jerry held her gently.

“How come you know I write screenplays?”

“You told me. You said you ‘scribbled.’ Remember? Well, I watched this film a while back. About this diehard female mercenary caught up in some kind of Greek political plot. Good swimmer, too. Swam in mountain lakes, hid out in caves and all that stuff. Come to think of it, just the damn fool sort of thing you’d probably get up to. Caught the name of the screenwriter, too. Matched yours.”

“A regular Perry Mason. You shoulda told me.” She smiled and gave a small yelp.

“What is it ... ?”

“My cut lip just opened up again.”

Jerry held her closer and she snuggled into the curve of his body. He felt warm and smooth. Soon, the gripping chill inside her melted and a wonderful relief flooded her being.

One day, she promised herself, one day, I guess I’ll tell him the full story. Not yet, though: Not tonight.

Gillian tightened her arms around him. She pressed herself hard against him, and the feel of his body on her bruised and wounded skin was as soothing as a kiss.