Perfect Nightmare (8 page)

With sudden, horrifying certainty she knew, and all her terror came crashing back in on her.

He was in her room.

Now.

Under her bed—the bed that had always been her final refuge, the one place where she felt utterly safe.

And he was there.

Waiting.

Paralyzed, Lindsay knew she had to move, knew she had to scream, to run, to get out.

Get out!

Now she could hear him breathing.

Her heart pounded so hard, she thought it was going to explode, and her mind raced. But panic was already overwhelming reason, and her terror seemed to have utterly sapped her of the ability to move or even cry out. . . .

Chapter Sixteen

“I
liked the place on West Eighty-eighth,” Kara said as Steve pulled onto Route 25A and headed out to the north shore of the Island.

“What wasn’t to like?” Steve asked, turning on the windshield wipers as rain began to dribble from the clouds that had been gathering. When the wipers did little more than smear the city grime across the windshield, he sprayed them with cleaner, which barely helped. “Except that we can’t afford it,” he sighed.

“I know, but—”

“No buts, Kara.” He glanced over at her. “I knew we shouldn’t even have looked at that one. It’s out of our price range, and I don’t see the advantage in trading one bad situation for another.”

“You got a raise,” Kara argued, but Steve could hear more hope than certainty in her voice. “If we get a good price for the house and give up your city apartment, I don’t see why—”

“Maybe after a year or so,” Steve interrupted. “Maybe after I see how my promotion works out, and get another raise, and we’re back on our feet again.”

“After a year?” Kara echoed. “What would be the point? By then Lindsay will be off to college and we won’t need anything that big. And the way prices are going in Manhattan, we could sell it at a big enough profit to buy ourselves something really terrific!”

Steve sighed. He’d liked the apartment, too. It was big and bright and airy and had everything they’d hoped to find. But it was a quarter of a million more than the absolute outside limit of what they’d agreed they could afford. “I just don’t see it. I mean, it’s perfect, but so what? We just don’t have the money.”

“But it has granite countertops in the kitchen—” Kara began.

“Granite countertops—or the lack of them—aren’t going to make the difference in our
family
! Besides, we’ve already had those, we’ll have them again. Just not right now, okay?”

Kara sighed in defeat and closed her eyes. She had a headache from looking at too many apartments that were just too small, too dark, too old-fashioned, too modern . . . too . . .

Too
not
their house on Long Island.

Steve slammed on the brakes and her eyes snapped open again. A river of red taillights flashed ahead of them, reflected on the wet pavement, and a hand with an uplifted middle finger was waving at them from the small sports car that had cut in just ahead of them, forcing Steve to dodge to avoid rearending it.

And now the jerk was flipping
them
off!

“This commute is something I’m not going to miss,” Steve said through clenched teeth. “It’s a wonder more people don’t get killed out here.” He glanced at Kara, then reached over and patted her knee reassuringly. “Hey, things are going to be okay—we’ll find the right place, and we didn’t get killed just now, and in the end everything’s going to be fine.” When Kara made no response, he squeezed her leg, then returned his hand to the steering wheel. “Why don’t you give Lindsay a call?” he suggested. “Tell her we’ll be home in another half hour or so.”

Kara dialed Lindsay’s cell phone, but all she got was Lindsay’s voice mail. “Hi, honey,” Kara said, leaving a message. “It’s nine-twenty and we’re on our way home. We should be there around ten.” After a slight hesitation, she added, “Call my cell when you get this, okay?” She clicked off.

Steve, frowning, looked at her. “Isn’t she supposed to keep her cell phone on?” Kara nodded, but Steve wasn’t sure she’d heard him. “That was the deal, right?” he pressed. “We’d pay for the phone if she’d leave it on so we could reach her?”

Kara chewed at her lower lip, then pressed the speed dial digit that would connect her to their home phone.

On the fourth ring the answering machine picked up, and she pressed in the code that would let her listen to any messages that might have been left.

Nothing.

“She’s probably in the shower,” Steve said. “Or maybe she left us a note.”

“Maybe,” Kara agreed, but she didn’t believe it. In fact, she had a feeling that something was wrong. “Maybe I ought to call Dawn's,” she said, as much to herself as to Steve.

He glanced over at her again, hearing the worry in her voice. “Hey, come on, honey—nothing’s wrong.”

“She’s not home, and her cell phone’s not on,” Kara replied. “That means—”

“That means she’s seventeen,” Steve broke in, hearing a note of panic creep into his wife’s voice. “She could be at Dawn's, or she could have gone to a movie, or she could be any number of other places. Her phone might even be on but she’s just in some dead spot—God knows, half the time I can’t get any reception at all in Camden Green.”

And I know when something’s wrong,
Kara told herself.
I always have.
As traffic thinned and they picked up speed, she looked out into the dark countryside, rain sliding past the window, and tried to tell herself she was wrong, that it was just the cumulative discouragement of the entire day that was getting to her. And it wasn’t just the apartment hunting, either. It was the prospect of having to turn into an urban corporate wife, spending more and more time with people like the Bennetts, who had managed to make even a dinner at Café des Artistes a miserable experience. Maybe she was just tired, and upset with everything that was going on in their lives, and there was nothing wrong at all.

She closed her eyes and tried to quiet her mind.

But it didn’t work.

Something was wrong.

Something was terribly wrong.

Suddenly all she wanted was to be home.

Home with Lindsay.

Chapter Seventeen

I
must write down every detail of what happened, lest I forget even the tiniest fragment of this perfect day.

My planning was flawless, of course. The spot I’d found for the car was as secluded as I’d remembered, and as deserted as the rest of the area. People are so predictable.

When I entered the house, it was also exactly as I had anticipated. People were wandering through every room, thinking they were seeing everything, but in actuality seeing nothing. When I first entered, I saw the agent in charge standing on the stairs, talking to two people who were of absolutely no interest to me—too young to have children yet not old enough for any other role. The agent looked right at me, but I knew even as his eyes scanned me that he was dismissing me.

As they always dismissed me.

If he held any memory of me at all from that disinterested glance, it has long since faded utterly away.

Perfect.

I drifted invisibly through the house, awaiting my opportunity, and when I finally came to her room, it was empty. It was less than a second before I had slipped under the bed.

Under the bed!

It is such a cliché that I knew the moment I saw the huge old-fashioned mahogany four-poster on Wednesday, it would make the perfect hiding place.

The trick, I had been afraid, would be to stay awake as I lay waiting for her, but as I smelled her delicate fragrance, I could almost feel her all around me, and it was enough.

I knew I would not sleep.

And it was marvelous, hiding under her bed. Marvelous to lie hidden only inches away as people wandered through the room. I watched their feet and listened to them talk about the house and the family who lived there. I was particularly thrilled when someone mentioned her—talked about how well she kept her room, how pretty she was in her photographs. It was exactly as people described the others, thinking they were perfect when I knew what they really were.

I found one of her bedroom slippers. Pink, it was, and well-worn. I held it to my cheek, feeling the softness of its silk, and filled myself with the scent of her feet.

And as I pictured her perfectly formed foot nestling into that glove-soft slipper, I crushed the slipper in anticipation of crushing the foot itself, just as I crushed her panties on Wednesday last.

And heat poured through me.

As the hours passed, I fantasized that she was sleeping in the bed above me, mere inches away, with no idea how close I was.

And then at last the house fell silent, and I was alone.

Alone with my passion and my fantasy, and the knowledge that soon the fantasy would become reality.

I’m not sure how long it was before I finally heard the front door close, but the moment it did, my heart began to pound so hard that I found it hard to breathe.

She turned on the television.

I don’t like that.

I felt my groin begin to ache as I heard her slowly come up the stairs, and as I watched her feet as she padded into the bedroom, opened a drawer, and sighed, I felt myself begin to harden. . . .

A moment later she sat on the bed, and the mattress sagged and touched my chest. It was incredible—I could almost imagine it was her fingers themselves touching me. Then a shoe dropped, and then the other, falling to the floor with a carelessness that I like no more than the sound of the television. Once her shoes were off, she stood up, turned on her music and danced a few steps, her naked feet only inches from my face.

I could have reached out and taken her then.

Next her blouse dropped to the floor right before my eyes, and then her shorts as well!

It was as if she knew I was there, and doing what she’s always done.

There she was, only inches away, and clad in nothing more than her bra and panties.

Thin, light green bikini panties, I imagined. Or perhaps the ones with butterflies on them that I’d seen in her drawer on Wednesday.

As I watched, she slid one of her feet into a slipper and put the other foot under the bed, feeling for the second slipper. I wanted to touch her foot so badly I could barely rein in the urge, but I held fast!

Patience! That is the key to everything.

A moment later her hand came snaking under the bed, and for an instant it seemed she was reaching out for me.

I shrank away, of course. The moment of capture was not yet at hand, and I was about to nudge the slipper closer to her grasp when the telephone rang.

In an instant her hand vanished and the mattress sagged above me once more.

As she talked with her friend, I felt the moment draw closer and knew I wouldn’t have to wait much longer.

Though the torture had been sublime, it was time to take her home.

I began to slip out from beneath the bed, and knew the exact moment when she became aware of my presence.

It was a moment we shared together—the first of what I know will be a lifetime of such moments.

Before she could even speak, I seized her, my fingers closing on her ankles. If she screamed, I have no memory of it.

Perhaps she didn’t scream at all.

Or perhaps the music drowned out her scream.

Certainly, any scream she might have made would have been like music to my ears.

Would have been, and will be for a very long time to come . . .

I held her tightly, covering her body with my own.

Then I covered her lips with mine, and this is when I nearly lost control in the feel of her skin against my body, in the smell of her that filled my nose.

And in the terror I saw in her eyes.

I wanted to lie atop her for hours, feeling her submitting to my power, but the glue on my fingertips—the glue that saved me from leaving my fingerprints anywhere in this house—now prevented me from touching her cheek or her lips or her eyes the way I wished.

Once again I drew upon my patience; there would be time for all of that later. But first there were chores to be done.

Chores must always be done before pleasures are to be taken.

Just after the sun set, I took her home. Everything about that brief trip was entrancing—not just the fear I felt from her, but everything else as well.

Her ineffectual struggle against the bindings on her hands and feet—a silent struggle, given the gag in her mouth. But the struggles won’t last long. Certainly no longer than my own.

Soon.

Soon she’ll submit to me, just as I submitted to her.

As she struggled and trembled, I wrapped her snugly in a blanket from her bed and kissed her forehead.

Then I carried her home so that we may begin.

All will be once more as it was the last time we were together.

But it will be different, too. Oh yes! This time it will be different.

This time I’ll be saved.

Chapter Eighteen

T
he house was ablaze with light as Steve and Kara pulled into the drive. “See?” Steve said. “She’s home.”

Kara remembered turning all the lights on in the house when she had been a nervous teen left home alone for the first time, but also knew that it didn’t mean anything.

Lights on didn’t mean anyone was at home.

She jumped out of the car before Steve even turned the engine off. “Lindsay?” she yelled as she burst through the door from the garage into the kitchen.

In the living room, the television was blaring, and she switched it off, then went through every room, turning off half the lights even though she was barely aware she was doing it. “Lindsay?” she called out again when she came to the bottom of the stairs.

Now Steve was in the house, too, standing in the dining room holding the note Mark Acton had left on the table. “Well, this looks good,” he said. “Seems like there were a couple of dozen people here today, and this guy Acton seems to think he might have an offer by tomorrow!”

Kara ignored him, heading upstairs, but even as she approached Lindsay’s room, and heard no music drifting from her daughter’s open door, she was all but certain what she would find.

Something was wrong—she could feel it. And the feeling hadn’t started in the car when Lindsay didn’t answer the phone. No, she’d first felt it at dinner, but told herself it was nothing—that there was no reason to think Lindsay wasn’t exactly where she’d said she’d be—first at cheerleading practice, then at Dawn's. She should have called then—she should have excused herself from the Bennetts’ less than scintillating company, gone to the ladies’ lounge and called her daughter.

Instead she’d ignored her feeling and finished her meal.

And now, if Lindsay really was in trouble, Kara knew she would never forgive herself.

“Lindsay?” she called yet again.

No answer.

Feeling her panic rising, Kara stepped into Lindsay’s room, found it as empty as she’d known it would be, then quickly searched the rest of the upstairs—her own bedroom, the bathrooms, the guest room, even the office that doubled as a sewing room, which Lindsay had always hated because it meant mending clothes she’d rather replace.

No Lindsay.

“She’s not here,” she called down to Steve. “I’m going to call the police.”

“The police?” Steve echoed, emerging from the kitchen with a drink in his hand to peer up the stairs at his wife, whose face looked ashen. “Why? What’s going on?” He hurried up to Kara’s side.

“I’m telling you,” she said, her voice trembling, “she’s not here, and something’s wrong.”

With Kara behind him, Steve went into Lindsay’s room. To his eye, everything looked perfectly normal, but when he turned back to Kara, she was biting at a fingernail, something she only did when she was extremely upset.

“Honey, what’s going on?” Steve asked. “She probably just went over to Dawn's, like she said—”

“I’m telling you,” Kara cut in, “something’s wrong.” She opened the laundry hamper and pulled out shorts and a T-shirt. “Look! These are what she wore to practice today.”

Steve shrugged. “So she came home—it’s obvious she came home. She turned on the TV and every light in the house. And there’s her cell phone.”

“So where is she?” Kara demanded. “If she came home, where is she?”

“Call Dawn,” Steve sighed, wishing now he’d let her do it from the car. “That’s where she’s got to be.”

They went back to the kitchen, where Kara pulled the address book from the drawer. But even as she looked for the number, she knew Lindsay wasn’t at Dawn's.

No, something had happened.

Something bad.

And every second they delayed in calling the police was only going to worsen whatever danger Lindsay was in. Now Kara was furious at herself for having ignored Lindsay’s fears about coming home after the open house.

As she dialed Dawn’s number, Steve moved quickly through the house, intending to check the doors and windows, more to put Kara’s mind at ease than because he expected to find anything amiss.

And nothing was.

All the doors and windows were locked.

Going back to the kitchen, he turned on the patio lights and looked out into the yard.

No Lindsay, but nothing else, either.

Everything was perfectly normal.

“She’s not at Dawn's,” Kara said as she hung up. “Phyllis said that Dawn told her Lindsay was upset after practice today, but that she came home because Dawn was going to her father’s house.”

“Upset about what?” Steve asked. He picked up his drink, started to take a sip, then thought better of it. After they found out exactly where Lindsay was, there’d be plenty of time for a drink.

For him, and for Kara, too.

“Upset about the move, of course,” Kara said as she picked up the phone again. “And probably about coming home alone after an open house.” She looked away from Steve as someone answered at Dawn’s father’s house. “This is Kara Marshall. May I speak with Dawn, please?” She talked for a moment, then hung up and faced Steve again. “She was here. Dawn talked to her, but only for a minute.” Kara’s voice began to rise. “But she did come home, and now she’s not here! I’m telling you, something’s wrong!”

“Settle down,” Steve said. “Let’s reason this out.”

“We need to call the police,” Kara said, reaching for the phone once more. “Something has happened.”

“Nothing has happened,” Steve said, trying to stop her hand before she could pick up the receiver.

Kara pulled her hand away. “She never leaves the house without letting us know where she’s going. Never! She’d leave a note or a message on the machine—”

Steve shook his head. “Maybe she left in a hurry—she left all the lights on, the television on. Maybe one of her friends came by and she took off with them.”

Kara nodded and took a deep breath, telling herself that what he said could be true. She stood, opened the address book again, and began to call Lindsay’s friends. Steve watched her, feeling helpless and almost more worried about Kara than Lindsay, and already rehearsing the speech Lindsay would get when she finally showed up.

Kara might ground her for the rest of her life.

But by the sixth call that yielded nothing, Kara was crying, and now Steve, too, was beginning to worry.

“I knew it,” Kara said, struggling against a sob that was threatening to strangle her. “I knew it at the restaurant, Steve. I had a feeling something was wrong.” She glanced around, shivering though there wasn’t the slightest chill in the room. “Someone was in the house, Steve. We should have listened to her. Somebody has her.” Her voice rose. “
Someone has her!
And it’s my fault. It’s all my fault.”

“Now just take it easy,” Steve began. “Let’s—”

“No!” She grabbed Steve’s wrists. “Will you listen to me?” Suddenly, Kara was rigid with a rage born out of the terror that had seized her. “Someone has her! Someone has been in here!
We have to call the police!
”

“I’m not going to call the police,” Steve insisted, making one last attempt to reason with her. “What are they going to do? She’s not even missing—she’s just not home. And it’s barely even ten-thirty!”

“Then
I’m
calling them,” Kara said, brushing his words aside and picking up the phone again. But now she was trembling so badly she wasn’t sure she could dial, and she couldn’t even read the numbers on the phone through the tears flooding her eyes.

Steve tried to take the phone from her hand. “I’ll do it.”

Kara steeled herself and refused to give it up. “No,” she said. “You don’t believe anything’s wrong, so you won’t be able to make them understand.” She wiped the tears from her eyes with the sleeve of her blouse, focused her mind, and dialed 911.

S
ergeant Andrew Grant sat on the Marshalls’ sofa, a clipboard on his knee. His partner, younger and even bigger than Grant, sat next to him. Kara wasn’t sure if it was their no-nonsense, just-the-facts-ma'am attitude or their navy blue uniforms, handcuffs, and guns that had imbued the house more with an aura of danger than of comfort from the moment they walked in. Nor had she taken any comfort from their search, which hadn’t taken more than fifteen minutes, both inside and out.

Then, for fifteen more minutes, Steve—all his lawyerly training coming into play at the moment the officers arrived—had made Grant read every note he made out loud, as if afraid that the officer, if left to his own devices, might skew his report to make Lindsay herself look like a criminal. Now Steve was perched on the arm of Kara’s chair, one arm around her, the other holding one of her hands while the fingers of her other hand twisted a damp handkerchief into a shapeless wad. Every one of her nerves felt as raw as those in her nervously working fingers, and she thought the muted but constant squawk from the officers’ radios might very well elicit a scream of frustration and annoyance from her before their questioning was over.

Seemingly oblivious of Kara’s state of mind, Sergeant Grant glanced over his notes, then shifted his attention back to her. “Does Lindsay have a boyfriend?”

“No,” Steve said before Kara could reply.

Grant’s brow arched skeptically. “She’s a cheerleader and she’s not dating anybody?”

Kara shook her head.

“Could she be dating someone you don’t know about?” Grant pressed.

“No,” Steve said, forcefully enough that Grant’s partner—whose name Kara couldn’t remember—recoiled slightly. “Lindsay’s not the kind of girl who keeps secrets from her parents.” Then, as if to underscore his words: “She’s not the kind who has to.”

“Bad breakup with an old boyfriend?” Grant went on, utterly unfazed by Steve’s words. “Maybe dumped someone recently, or vice versa?”

Kara shook her head, but even as she denied the suggestion implicit in the policeman’s question, she realized that she didn’t know for certain. Lindsay never talked about boys; was it possible she could have a boyfriend, or an ex-boyfriend, whom she knew nothing about?

“Internet chat? Does she engage in a lot of that?”

Kara shrugged helplessly, realizing that she had no idea whether Lindsay chatted on the Internet or not, at least with anybody but Dawn D'Angelo, with whom she seemed always to be exchanging instant messages. “I guess I don’t know,” she finally admitted. “She spends a lot of time on the computer, but she gets straight A's, so I’ve always assumed she was doing her homework.”

“Straight A's?” Sergeant Grant said. “That’s a good sign—not consistent with drug use.”

As Grant made a note, Kara’s nervousness morphed into indignation. “Drug use?” she began. “Lindsay would nev—” Before she could finish, Steve squeezed her shoulder gently and she lapsed into silence.

“Anything been bothering her lately?”

Grant looked expectantly at Kara, as if certain she would give him at least three or four things to add to his notes, and though Lindsay’s resistance to the prospect of moving instantly occurred to Kara, she wasn’t about to admit it. Instead, nervousness and frustration welled up inside her and she abruptly brushed Steve’s hand from her shoulder and leaned forward, her eyes fixed on the officer.

“Listen to me,” she began, her voice low and under total control. “I know my daughter. She is a perfect student, has dozens of friends and no enemies—male or female—and has no secret life involving drugs or anything else. She shares things with us—she talks to us. I’d know if she was sneaking around doing things, but she isn’t, hasn’t,
wouldn’t
! Then, last Wednesday, she thought someone had been in her room. Not just going through it the way people do at an open house, but going through her things. And today she’s missing. I didn’t believe her at the time, but now I do, and I’m telling you, someone was in this house, and now he’s taken her.”

As a great wave of emotion began to rise up inside her, her voice trembled, but she steeled herself, and went on. “Someone has taken her,” she said, enunciating her words carefully, lest they begin spilling hysterically from her lips. “And the longer we sit here, the—” Her voice cracked, and she couldn’t bring herself to utter the thought of what might be happening to Lindsay as they sat there talking. She looked at Steve, then took a deep breath. “We need to stop
talking
and start
looking f
or her!”

The policeman offered Kara what she knew was supposed to be a reassuring smile, but it struck her as patronizing. “I’m not discounting any of what you’ve said,” he said in a tone that clearly told her he wasn’t counting it for much, either. “I understand exactly how you feel.” He turned to Steve. “But I still have to ask:
has
something upset her lately?”

As Kara glared at him, willing him not to respond, Steve nodded. “We’re moving to the city,” he said. “That’s where we were all day, apartment hunting. She was at cheerleading practice.”

Now Grant’s brows rose as if he understood everything, and he closed the metal lid on his report. “And she’s just finishing her junior year,” he said, and, when Steve nodded, leaned forward. “I think we’ve just figured out what’s going on here. You’ve got a seventeen-year-old daughter who wants to graduate with her class. Which means she’s pretty upset right now. And when kids that age get upset, they do all kinds of things. Some of them turn to drugs, but, frankly, it doesn’t sound like yours is that kind of kid.” As he began listing all the possible things Lindsay could be doing or places she could have gone, Kara saw what he was leading up to.

He wasn’t going to do anything.

Nothing.

Nothing at all!

And sure enough, just as her fury grew to the point where she was about to demand that he get to the point, he did just that.

“ . . . that’s why we don’t consider them missing for twenty-four hours,” he was saying as she tuned back in to his words. “Mostly, nothing’s happened to them at all—they’ve just taken off for a while.”

“Not Lindsay,” Kara said coldly. “She would have left a note and taken her cell phone.”

“Not necessarily,” Sergeant Grant argued. “Not if she’s feeling like she wants to punish you. It’s the only power they have—get their parents as upset as they are.” He glanced at his watch. “It’s not even midnight, and the odds are good she’ll be home in an hour or two, but frankly, I wouldn’t be surprised if you don’t hear from her until tomorrow.”