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As I fling my mental missive, my physical body, zapped of strength, crumples and I knock the stack of letters I’ve written onto the floor. We fall together and the envelopes scatter around my weak, corporeal self.
I have to gather my strength. Slowly, with determination, my body responds again, regains its strength, and I sweep the letters into a pile and carefully stack them all. Now is the time for us. No more waiting.
Get ready, Elizabeth. I’m coming for you.
Chapter 32
Elizabeth suffered through another sleepless night. More nightmares plagued her. The victims who had died that she’d known, all came to her throughout the night. Their faces ran together and she was talking to them. Court in his BMW, Mazie at the office, even Channing Renfro at what appeared to be the gates of hell as flames were drawing nearer, ever nearer. As if in a movie, their faces melted before her eyes.
She tossed and turned, throwing off the covers only to draw them up again, glancing at the clock as she awakened. In the middle of the night, she was caught in yet another dream, but it was different, so real and visceral. She was lying in her bed not alone, but with a naked man whose long sinewy body was stretched over hers. Strong arms held her, warm breath teased the whisper of hair at her temple, and a wet, wicked tongue played at her ear, then slid along her neck and down her breastbone, touching, flicking, tasting and dipping lower as need pulsed within her.
Her blood heating, she was eager to love him, anxious to feel all of him, her skin flushed with perspiration as he toyed with her, causing the blood to rush through her veins, heat and desire swirling inside her. Her toes curled as he touched her, fingers skimming, gooseflesh rising, nipples tightening.
God, how she wanted him, though he was but a stranger, a man she’d just met and whom she already relie
d upon.
Rex, she realized. All she wanted was to make love to him.
Eyes closed, she writhed on the bedsheets. Her entire world centered on what he could give her. “Please,” she moaned as he slid up her body, but then he stopped abruptly. His warm fingers turned to ice. Desire, so recently white hot, chilled.
As he dragged himself upward, his breath turned foul, his fingers skimming her ribs hard and bony, his hands burned and scaly. In the darkness, she saw his face, mangled and bloody, shards of bone poking through flesh where skin had melted off.
She woke on a shriek that echoed in her ears, heart galloping, sweat standing on her skin, another scream dying in her throat. The nightmare had been so real, so terrifying that she could have sworn the monster had been in bed with her. In the dark of her bedroom she waited, listening, willing her pulse to slow. Had she woken Chloe with her screams?
Half-expecting to hear frantic little footsteps charging her way, she let out her breath slowly. The house was silent as a tomb, until the soft rumble of the furnace blowing air throughout the ducts started up, a homey sound. Rolling over, she looked at the bedside clock glowing brightly, affirming the fact that it was three fifty-seven in the morning.
Ugh. Too early to get up, she thought, but climbed out of bed anyway to use the toilet and rinse her hot face with cool water. Grabbing onto her courage, she walked through the house but found nothing out of the ordinary. Thank God.
Before returning to bed, she slipped into Chloe’s room to check on her and found her daughter sleeping soundly, her face down on the mattress, covers pooling onto the floor, pillow pushed aside, one arm flung down the side of the bed. Out of habit, Elizabeth pulled the bedclothes back into position and tucked them around her daughter.
With a sleepy moan, Chloe rolled over and opened an eye. “Mommy?” she said groggily.
“Yes, sweetie, it’s just me. Go back to sleep.”
“I don’t want to die.”
Elizabeth shivered. “You’re not going to die. I’m here.”
Around a yawn, her daughter said, “But I don’t want you to die, either.”
“Of course not.” She patted her daughter’s little shoulder. “I’ll try not to. I think you’ve had a bad dream.” She knew all about bad dreams.
Chloe drifted off to sleep.
Elizabeth took another round through the house, snapping on light after light, opening closet doors, double-checking locks and latches until she was convinced she and Chloe were locked safely away from whatever terrors lived in the rest of the world.
But even as she told herself that they were safe, that nothing could harm them in their home, she experienced a frisson of fear slip down her spine. All that she’d known and trusted had been shattered in the past few weeks and she sensed the horror wasn’t over.
She walked to the living room window and peeked through the blinds. The neighborhood appeared serene and dark, bluish in the filmy glow from the street lamp. Elizabeth’s gaze scraped over the neatly trimmed shrubs, the few cars parked on the street. Her heart lurched painfully when she caught sight of movement, a black shadow in the night, then realized it was only a cat, scurrying across a neighbor’s lawn to disappear into the shrubbery.
“Get over yourself,” she whispered but experienced another little zinging feeling, as if there were a disturbance in the atmosphere, as if someone, hidden in the shadows, was staring back at her. She let go of the blinds with a snap, chiding herself for her fears.
And yet, though the blinds and shades were drawn, the doors shut and locked, she sensed that someone was silently observing her, almost close enough to reach out and touch.
The hairs on the back of her neck lifted and a tremor swept through. She forced herself to open the door that led from the kitchen to the garage and peer inside. Nothing. Her Escape was just where she’d parked it, the garage door down, the room empty.
For the love of God, Elizabeth . . .
