Unplugged (10 page)

My gaze fell automatically to his underwear drawer. I winced, but I was already trudging through the ankle-deep carpet to his dresser.

He wore whitey tighties. I grimaced, pushed a pile aside, then another, and there, hidden against the back of the drawer, was a CD.

I pulled it slowly into the light and stared at it. Scrawled in bloodred on the silvery disk was the word “Combot.”

Well, the tricky little—

My thoughts crashed to a halt in mid-insult.

Had I heard a noise?

I froze like a startled bunny. Fumbling the disk into my purse, I cut my eyes toward the hallway.

Had I locked the front door?

Of course I had. Only a moron would break into someone’s house and forget to lock the door.

Damn it! I’d forgotten to lock the door.

Down on the first floor, something creaked.

I almost screamed as I jerked toward the hall. I could see the opposite wall of the lower level, but not much more.

I heard an object click against something solid. A gun barrel against a wall? A knife blade against a banister? A grenade against . . . ?

My imaginings shrieked to a halt. I didn’t have to analyze the situation. I had to hide. But where? I looked around, taking in the possible options. Behind the curtains. Beside the door. Under the bed!

I bolted across the floor and dove beneath the mattress. It didn’t occur to me until that moment that I was absolutely, certifiably insane. Under the bed? Why under the bed? The closet was bigger. And if the intruder turned out to be Solberg, returning home from a fortnight of debauchery, I could simply pop out and scare him to death instead of beating him senseless as I had planned. Or—

I heard what sounded like footsteps squishing quietly on tile. Was he in the kitchen? That would mean he was nearly at the staircase.

I glanced wildly toward the door, hit my head on the mattress boards, then wriggled madly out from under the bed, dragging my purse behind me.

I goose-stepped across the floor. I had left the folding closet doors partway open. I dove inside. The strap of my purse caught on the door handle and my heart thumped like a gavel against my ribs. I jerked my gaze to the doorway. Nothing. One yank. My handbag fell into the closet with enough commotion to wake the dead. I held my breath.
Don’t think about death. Don’t think about . . .

I knew the moment he entered the room. Some people say they feel things in their bones. I feel them in my feet. A tingling along the arch. I curled my toes and held my breath. There was a rustle of noise, like fabric against an immobile object.

Time hung like a scythe over my head.

And then I heard the sounds of domestic satisfaction. A sigh. A shuffle. The jingle of keys being tossed onto the nightstand.

Holy crap. It
was
Solberg. I felt myself go limp, too limp to even consider the trouncing I had planned. Shimmying sideways, I prepared to reveal myself, but when my gaze skimmed the edge of the door, the first thing I noticed was a pair of endless shoulders. The second was the back of a full head of dark hair.

I jerked into the closet. That wasn’t Solberg. Solberg didn’t have shoulders,
or
hair.

I held my breath, waiting to be discovered. Nothing happened, except I think I might have wet my pants a little.

I covered my mouth with my hand, took a careful breath, and tried to think.

Okay, what did I know? Not much. The man with whom I shared the room was a big guy with . . . Salvaging every bit of courage I could muster, I leaned forward a scant inch and peeked through the space between the folding doors.

The only thing I saw was a gun.

Sweet Jesus.

Surely there was a logical explanation for this. After all, this was real life.
My
life. Christina McMullen, Ph.D. Four months ago, the most exciting thing that had ever happened to me had taken place in the back of Jimmy Magda’s Corvette. He’d been a world-class kisser, and . . .

A loud click brought me back to my new reality with a snap. Through the narrow opening in the closet door, I could see the intruder standing near the deck. Looking out. Why the hell hadn’t I gone onto the deck? Did he know he wasn’t alone? Had he seen me come in?

No. He couldn’t have.

This was all ridiculous. Some sort of unfortunate misunderstanding.

He was probably a friend of Solberg’s. It probably wasn’t a real gun.

Of course. That’s it, Chrissy.
The Geek God had a six-foot-two friend with shoulders like a running back, who, on occasion, crept into his house in the middle of the night carrying a gigantic water pistol and searching the rooms for inhabitants. It was just something he did when he was bored.

What the hell had I gotten myself into?

I remembered how to pray then, with sincerity and piety, promising to floss after each meal and throw out the cigarettes I’d stashed in my purse and . . .

The mace! Did I still have a can of mace in my purse?

Much as I believed in prayer, I thought there might be a more direct means of intervention. I snapped my handbag to my chest.

My hands were shaking. Lip balm, checkbook, notepad, a half-eaten Snickers. Nothing. Unless I wanted to bribe him with a check and stick him in the eye with a pen, I was out of—

My cell phone!

It winked at me from the bottom of my purse. My mind scrabbled for possibilities.

I could throw it at him. Or . . . even better, I could call the police.

But he would hear me if I spoke, haul me out by the hair, and—I’d just gotten it colored, a rich mahogany that enhanced my eyes and—

He muttered something. I swallowed, mind scrambling as I tried to think of plan B.

The phone was in my hand. And then it came to me. I could call Solberg’s home phone. Wouldn’t the hairy gunman be curious who was calling at 3:07 in the morning? Wouldn’t he, ergo, trot downstairs to check the answering machine in the office?

Wouldn’t I die if I guessed wrong? Literally.

I opened the phone. What if my call didn’t go through? Sometimes they didn’t. The digits glowed blue. I jerked my gaze up, certain the numbers were shining through the open door like a newly discovered star. Maybe I could blind him with it.

I heard his shoes rapping against tile. He was in the bathroom. I could imagine him glancing about and prayed he would go inside. A shower might be nice. Maybe a Jacuzzi. But his steps didn’t click farther across the tiled floor. There were no clothes sighing as they wafted to the heated floor. No sound of running water or delighted splashing as he prepared to bathe.

In fact, I could almost hear him turn his attention toward the closet. It was now or never. I tightened my grip on the phone until my knuckles ached.

Solberg’s was the last number I had called. I poised my finger over the
SEND
button and froze. Did my phone beep when it dialed? Was I sure I hadn’t called someone else since trying Solberg? Could Hairy hear me hyperventilating in the closet?

Shoving the phone back inside my purse, I hunched over it to muffle the noise, jabbed
SEND
, then jerked my head up to the door crack and held my breath.

All I could see was the corner of the mammoth bed and a stretch of eggshell wall.

But I heard something, some indefinable noise. Had he spoken? Did he curse? Had he heard me? Was he . . . ?

The phone blared in the bedroom. I think I screamed, but maybe I was too terrified to actually make a noise. It took me a couple of lifetimes to realize I was still alive and was cupping my mouth with my hand.

An eternity scraped past, and then I heard Hairy turn. I cringed against the wall, but he didn’t reach in to drag me out by the hair, or even by the ankle. Instead, he strode out the door and down the stairs. A full twenty seconds creaked by before I realized the enormity of the fact that he was gone. Another ten seconds before my bladder was under control. But once I was on my feet, I knew what I had to do. One glance toward the doorway, and then I was off, racing across the bedroom, ripping the drapes aside, yanking open the—

The door to the deck was locked. I jerked around, muscles frozen, sure Hairy was already behind me, but the room was empty.

Noise sounded on the stairs. In my mind, I imagined him bounding up them, three at a time, gun in hand.

My fingers bumbled on metal. I think I was crying. The lock turned. I yanked the door open. I could hear footsteps on the landing in front of the bedroom, but I was already outside, flying across the deck, half falling, half flying down the stairs.

Don’t look back! Don’t look back.
I looked back and shrieked.

He was following me.

I hit the ground running, stumbled to my knees, scrambled to my feet, and sprinted across the dark lawn. A gun exploded. Pain struck me square in the face. I screamed, but my legs were still working and I didn’t dare stop. Veering wildly to the left, I raced toward the Georges’ fence. It loomed above my head. I don’t know how I got over it. One minute I was panting in Solberg’s yard and the next I was over the top and running flat-out.

I heard a grunt behind me and twisted toward the sound. I thought I saw a figure perched atop the fence I’d just cleared. Were there two of them? Was . . . ? But suddenly the earth pitched away beneath me. I fell with a gasp, legs collapsing under my weight.

I was in a hole. A grave! Wild imaginings scrambled through my head. I tried to claw my way out of the abyss. My ankle screamed with pain. And then I heard footsteps thundering over the lawn above my head.

I cowered against the dirt. The footsteps kept running.

Except for the sound of my own breath rattling in and out of my lungs, the world went quiet. I crept up a half an inch.

No one pounced on me from the darkness.

I waited, breath held, trying to peer over the top of the hole. Liquid ran warm and steady into my right eye. I blinked. My vision blurred.

I could see no one, could hear nothing. Weak in the hazy aftermath of fear, I closed my eyes and sunk like a boneless chicken to the bottom of the pit.

7

Sometimes the truth’ll set you free, maybe. But sometimes it’ll get you six months to a year at juvie hall.

—Blair Kase
(Chrissy’s sixth-grade crush), explaining truth, justice, and the American way to Sister Celeste

I
WAS STILL
shaking when I reached my Saturn.

I had remained in the hole for what seemed like forever, and the journey across the Georges’ yard had felt like a death sentence, but I had remained unmolested. Still, unlocking the car was almost more than my wobbly fingers could manage. Once inside, however, I power-locked the doors and sped for home, too scared to take a moment to assess my wounds.

My key bounced erratically in my front door, but I finally managed to shove it into the slot, then pushed inside and locked the door behind me. In a fresh wave of panic, I almost forgot to disarm my security system. It was relatively new, installed after the last attempt on my life. It’s nice to keep things fresh.

The memory made my stomach twist. I switched on the lights. They flared around me like fireworks. I pressed my back against the door and told myself I wasn’t going to cry.

Okay, I wasn’t going to cry
anymore
.

Stumbling into the bathroom, I turned on the light and stared breathlessly at myself in the mirror.

There was no blood. No gushing wounds. Not even a scratch. All my parts seemed to be in place, not misaligned like an inexplicably high-priced Picasso as I’d feared.

I touched my fingertips to my cheek. It was streaked with dust, and in that instant I realized the truth. I hadn’t been shot by some unseen sniper. I’d been struck in the face by a stream of water from Solberg’s sprinkler.

I stroked my face with reverent thanksgiving. Turns out I liked it better than I had realized.

Reality settled in by slow degrees. I was safe. I was home. I took a deep, shuddering breath and considered trying to do something mundane to shore up the feeling of normalcy. I could brush my teeth or clean my toilet. I could take a bath or wash my clothes. I glanced down at them. The mud was starting to dry in sharp clusters. Laundry might be a good idea. But it was almost four o’clock in the morning.

And there’s only one thing that’s truly normal at four o’clock in the morning.

Two minutes later I was fast asleep, the house lit up like Dodger Stadium.

Y
ou okay? You’re acting kinda funny.”

I snapped my attention back to my client. His name was Henry Granger. One did not want to be told one was “acting funny” by Henry Granger.