SUSPENSE THRILLERS-A Boxed Set (19 page)

Nick trembled under the force of his brother’s affection. He knew, because he had been told, that he would be protected, though from what or from whom he did not know. It was enough to know he was loved.

"Let’s get some beer," he said, suddenly cheerful again. "'Then let’s go down to Main and find us a girl."

Again he missed Daley’s answer, and wondered if his hearing was failing or the whole conversation they had been having was nothing but a hallucination. But when they stopped at an all-night grocery in Bloomington and got a six-pack of Miller Nick figured things were all right. All the way to Houston he anticipated the cruise down South Main where he would find a pair of silky legs attached to a twenty-dollar piece of heaven.

HELEN MCCOMBIE rolled from the bed, heaving a weary sigh.

Standing next to the bed she said, "Wel1, let’s get to it!" She glared down at the double roll of fat around her plump waist. "One, two, three, four!"

She lasted through ten toe-touches and ten deep knee bends before falling back on the bed, exhausted and huffing.

"Now the shower," she told herself, forcing her bulk upright once more.

Her brow was slightly damp with sweat and already the backs of her legs cramped. After the long shower, she applied revitalizing cream to her face and throat, carefully smoothing it on her round, full features.

"You beautiful thing, you’ll be thin and svelte before you know it," she said to the wall of mirrors behind the sink.

In the adjoining dressing room she slipped on a pale green caftan of pure silk. Along the bordered hem were long-necked pink flamingos that exactly matched the color of Helen’s lipstick.

Fighting and losing the battle of the bulge occupied most of Helen McCombie’s life. If she was not involved in exercise, diets, or positive thinking, she was tinkering with her roses in the heart-shaped garden or trying to make her husband of twenty years confess his disgust with overweight women, something Dr. Mark McCombie would never do. Though Helen did not realize it, she was the most fortunate of women.

Her husband was faithful, considerate, and on his way to taking his place in the Houston medical fraternity beside the famed surgical team, Cooley and DeBakey. Besides the solid marriage that had never depended on her figure for resiliency, Helen was a wealthy woman in her own right. She had a sumptuous River Oaks’ home, a loving husband, good friends, an intelligent daughter at the University of Texas, and every advantage money could buy. But she did not have a Playboy centerfold body, and throughout life it was what she had wanted most.

On the way down the marble stairway Helen did side bends from the waist. Her double chins did a hula when she halted and rolled her head around and around on her shoulders. All the way through the house to the oversized, red-tiled kitchen, she practiced facial exercises that made her look as if she were auditioning for a horror movie.

The house was empty and her footsteps clicked loudly across the polished tile. She touched a control on the wall near the light switch, and from recessed speakers the voice of Aretha Franklin bellowed. Helen smiled and danced with abandon across the width of the kitchen to the refrigerator door. While Aretha belted out "Rock-A-Bye Your Baby with a Dixie Melody," Helen chose one carrot stick, a celery stalk, two Tiny Tom tomatoes, and a ripe peach from the crisper. She ate the breakfast while dancing around the kitchen pretending to be a fairy princess. A very thin, beautiful fairy princess.

When she got to the peach, she was dreaming of peach pie, peach cobbler, peach tarts fried in butter, and the biggest tub of whipped cream ever manufactured.

Outside, the first day of March shone brilliantly. Helen touched the wall control, killing the music, and went to the pantry for her gardening gloves. The nursery had told her if she did not get the five new rosebushes into the ground right away, there would be no hope of them blooming this summer.

She opened the French doors leading onto the back terrace and filled her lungs with fresh air. The rosebushes waited on the bricks at her feet. She stooped and fondled the waxy stem of a rose called Midnight. It was supposed to produce a bloom so red that it was nearly black, and though Helen did not believe it, she felt a flutter of excitement at the thought of raising a rosebush with such a peculiar shade of flower. Then there was Heaven Sent. She caressed a trio of midget green leaves. This one was already trying to grow. It would give bouquets of lavender roses the size of a child’s fist. At least that’s what the nursery guaranteed.

"Lovely, little ones," Helen purred to the potted roses.

She worked diligently in her garden while the quiet morning passed serenely. She was dirtying the silk dress and did not care. She had an entire closetful of caftans, and when she succeeded in ruining them all, she expected to be sixty pounds lighter. Then she would go on an all-day shopping trip to the Galleria for a new wardrobe.

Midnight and Heaven Sent were lovingly planted. Scattered around Helen were her tools: shovel, hoe, a box of rose food, the water hose, a hand trowel, rake, and the three remaining potted bushes. She had almost finished tamping down the earth around Sunset when she had the unpleasant sensation of being watched. Jerking her head up and wiping the perspiration from her face, she looked to the two places where someone might be: the open French doors of the house and the wooden gate leading into the yard. Her gaze stopped at the gate. Her heart pounded fiercely. What was he doing standing there, only his face showing above the gate, watching her work in the garden?

#

The killer recalled a childhood fantasy as he drove around Houston. He and his brother were not the products of a broken home where an inattentive and sexually active mother thought of them as nuisances.

They were children of a powerful, rich family, mother and father both doting, giving their two sons real love and anything else they desired. He had a room of his own with a bed in the shape of a racing car and a big chest of toys. He had a tutor and did not have to go to school. He had friends who never mocked or taunted him, friends who gave lavish birthday swimming-pool parties with things like radios and football gear as door prizes. Every summer his make-believe family went to Europe and every winter they vacationed on the ski slopes of Colorado. He wanted for nothing and in return for this paradise, he was a good boy. A good boy...

Suddenly he knew where he should go. To River Oaks, the Beverly Hills of Houston. He was taking more risks than ever, daring the world to stop him. Murder was not committed in River Oaks. The elite were protected by stone walls, heavy security, sophisticated alarm systems, guard dogs, and their own exalted sense of being untouchable.

The killer drove through white pillars with the legend RIVER OAKS down the front. Not far from the entrance he parked in an empty driveway and waited outside the car for someone to discover him. When no one came out to inquire about him, he started walking down the street, inspecting the mansions. When he saw a security patrol car coming his way, he ducked through a hedged walkway and circled behind a white two-story Italian structure. He had only meant to stay out of sight, but to his surprise he found exactly what he was looking for, waiting innocently behind a high weathered gate.

He stood silently, watching the woman work in the ground. If she had no gardener on duty, did she have a maid inside? It did not matter. He would kill the maid too, no problem.

From his pocket he took a yellow-handled knife and went in search of the phone lines into the house.

His face appeared above the gate, his hand on the latch.

"What is it that you want?" Helen asked, leaning on the shovel and shading her eyes against the sun’s glare. "We don’t allow solicitors here."

"I’m not selling anything," he replied, casually unlatching the gate and wandering onto the brick terrace.

His look took in the chaise lounges, the wrought-iron table and chairs. He listened for someone moving around in the house and readied himself for a shadow emerging from the French doors.

Helen was approaching, shovel in hand.

"I’m looking for the Garsons," he said, the name coming into his head from nowhere. "Do you know where they live?" He smiled automatically.

Helen searched his eyes and knew something was phony. His smile did not reach his eyes. There were not any people in her neighborhood by that name. "I don’t know any Garsons," she said, wishing he would leave. She had work to do, and it was uncouth of this man to invade her property without invitation. Why had security not stopped him?

They were so lax these days.

She had a strange sensation that the stranger was sizing her up. She noticed he was blocking her way to the French doors and the interior of the house. She did not like that and pursed her lips in disapproval. "I’m sorry, but you’ll have to leave. I can’t help you," she said, giving him a scathing look. She didn't like being discourteous, but this man was in her way.

She made a move toward the house as if to dismiss him, but stopped when he stood his ground. Suddenly he took a step toward her, and instinctively Helen took a step back. She hefted the shovel into her plump, bejeweled hands and thought of her husband. Mark had wanted to install a wrought-iron gate with an inside lock because she worked in the garden so often. She wished she had not argued against it so strongly.

Could this young man be a robber? The suspicion made her shiver. Ridiculous. He was simply lost and, Lord knows, River Oaks was a maze to the uninitiated.

"You might ask security, they would know about the family you want," she said.

"Your neighbors aren’t home, are they?" he asked softly.

With the question her hopes began to die. Helen breathed shallowly and measured the distance between them.

"Have you come to rob me?" she asked, wondering how she had the guts to come right out with it. She studied his expression. It had not changed. She had not surprised or insulted him. Something was terribly wrong. "I don’t have much here," she continued when he remained silent. "I have these rings," She proffered a hand to show him a ruby and diamond dinner ring. She stuck out the other hand where a swirl of sapphires sparkled. When he failed to show any interest, her apprehension increased.

"You’re alone and you’re scared," he said without emotion.

Helen found herself leaning forward in order to hear him. She licked her lips and shook the shovel in front of her. "Just tell mè what you want! I don’t understand."

Suddenly he moved swiftly and grabbed her thick upper arms. He stared down into her startled face. For a second his stare faltered as if he were losing concentration and Helen took a chance. She jerked away, stumbling backward. The white stone walls around her were too high to climb. Her neighbors were not at home, and there was no one to hear her scream. Taking a deep breath, she decided to get it over with. She thought she knew what he wanted.

"If it’s sex you want, you don’t want me. You’ve made a mistake. I’m fat! Can’t you see how unappealing I am? Look." She held the shovel to the side and with a free hand gripped the rolled fat around her middle.

"See this? Even my husband finds me unattractive," she lied. Seeing he was unaffected by her dramatics, she lifted the corner of her caftan high above a fleshy, dimpled knee. She glanced down and frowned at the thick, pasty, cratered skin of her bare thighs. "Who would want this?" she asked pitifully, believing it to be true and wanting him to believe it. "You don’t want to rape a woman like me. It's ridiculous."

The self-disparaging remarks brought tears to her eyes. She checked his face to see if she was impressing him. His stare was unreadable. What did he want if not to rob or rape her?

"That’s not what you want?" she asked, suddenly even more fearful.

He shook his head, and Helen felt her heart sink.

“What?" she whispered because she had to know, had to understand what was required of her. Worse than being burglarized was being raped, but beyond rape her imagination refused to function.

With infinite care the man unbuttoned the top button of his shirt and Helen relaxed slightly. He wanted sex after all. His hand went into the space between his shirt and chest. She wondered if he was playing with his own nipple and if that was what rapists did to arouse themselves. But his hand was reappearing, and in it was a--Helen squinted--a wire? A circle of wire? With brown wooden handles. For what purpose, handles?

Helen started backing away from him, seconds before she saw his hands take the handles and stretch the wire until it vibrated like the string of a yo-yo. She recognized the murder in his eyes, watched his broad shoulders tense, his muscles strain against the material of his shirt. He was coming for her.

"Scream," he said. "I want you to scream."

Helen bolted. After a few steps, she turned and threw the shovel as hard as she could. She pivoted and ran for the roses. There she snatched the water hose in one hand and the three-pound box of rose food in the other. She flung the box at her attacker and winced when it hit him in the face. He stopped and shook his head. She squeezed the handle of the hose and sprayed him directly in the eyes while groping for the garden trowel.

He continued to come for her, impervious to the water. There was a furious dark glow in his eyes. Blood dripped from his hairline and caught in the socket of one eye.

"Don’t fight," he commanded. "Just scream for me."

"Damn you! Damn you! Get away from me!"

She dropped the hose and ran through the rose garden. Thorns tore at her hands and arms and snagged in her caftan. She came out from the center of the heart-shaped garden and ran along the flagstone walkway under the oaks. She looked over her shoulder and saw him not far behind. His head was down and he was meticulously extracting a thorn from his wrist. She pressed her back to one of the oak’s far sides and clutched the garden trowel to her heaving bosom. All she could hear was her own breath.

When he passed by the tree, she swung at him with the forked garden instrument. He grabbed her quivering wrist, the trowel inches from his face. She was breathing into his shirt, smelling him, her eyes out of focus.