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It exploded in her mind, jolting alarm through her rattled system. The cab driver, from the Shaversham Point train station. What in the hell was he…oh. Oh, God. Oh,shit.
And this was Nina’s apartment. Not even her own place. So how did they…how could they…her mind couldn’t even embrace it.
How had he known where she was?
She looked at the cell phone in her hand, heard the tinny warbling still coming from it. Dr. Stark was continuing his rant, but she no longer heard him. She had bigger problems now. Much bigger.
Her heart thudded. Her eyes locked with his and stuck there.
He took a step towards her. “Can I have a word with you, please?”
The scrape of a door, sliding open behind her. It was a big SUV, humming on the curb. It all came together. The prickles on her neck, Howard’s garbled confession, his impossible suicide.
And now, this guy with the blank, empty smile advancing on her from above, and the open SUV yawning behind—
Fuck this.She flashed the guy her most blinding bimbo bombshell smile. “Oh, my God! You’re the cabbie, right? The guy from Shaversham Point?” Her voice sounded high and thin and stupid. “Look, I’m, like, so sorry about standing you up, for that cab ride, but things got really crazy for me today! But I do owe you that fare, and a tip, so let me just get that for ya right now, ‘kay?” She beamed, reached in her purse—
Whipped out the Mace can.Squirt.Sucker-punched.
The man reeled back, clawing at his eyes. She twirled to meet the other guy, heaving her computer bag in an arc into his face. He whipped his arm up to block it. She used that split second to zap a front kick to his crotch. He stumbled back with a grunt of outrage.
She recognized the other guy, as his leg snapped up and his boot heel cracked agonizingly against her wrist. The Mace can flew, bounced, rolled. She scrambled back into a cluster of garbage cans. Kicked one into his path. He bounded over it, blade glinting, slashing down—
Thud, she ran backwards into a parked car, did a flying flip-n-roll over the hood, and hit the street at a dead run. She darted between cars, heedless of braying horns, squealing brakes. Guy Number Two was another cabbie from Shaversham Point. Normal reality had ripped open, releasing demons from hell.Busy street. She needed an Avenue block, a subway stop. Witnesses. She groped for her phone. Gone.
Her legs pumped, past the Indian restaurant, the sushi bar, the laundromat, the clothing boutique, the florist. No one in those places could defend her against knife-wielding demons while she called 911 and waited for the cops to sort it out. She’d be meat. So would they.
She peeked over her shoulder andshit,he was gaining. Subway stairs. She flew down the steps, praying that it was a turnstile one, not the revolving cage with no farebooth. It had turnstiles, thank God, but the farebooth was closed, just an automated machine. No one to see her plight, call the cops. A train pulled in, squealing. She leaped the turnstile like a jackrabbit, sped towards the train on the tracks, its doors agape.Ping,the doors were closing. She dove for it.
Crunch, the closing doors stuck on her shoulders and gnawed at her, burping and hiccupping in their efforts to close around her body. Pinned. She could only twist her head, and watch death pounding down the stairs, straight towards her. The door lurched open. She tumbled inside, scrambled like a crab on the floor to the middle of the car. Her legs shook too much to get up. He was going to make it inside, too.
Whoosh,the doors slid closed in his face.Thunk, her attacker slammed into the train. He tried to pry his fingers into the rubberized closure, scrabbling. The train took off, smoothly gaining speed.
The guy jogged alongside, shouting something unintelligible. He bared his teeth, mouthed something vicious, grabbed at his crotch.
Lily huddled on the floor, breath rasping in and out. There was almost no one in the subway car. A teenage girl with earbuds, rocking out to the music on her phone, eyes shut. A homeless man, fast asleep and taking up a row of seats. An exhausted middle-aged woman, looking carefully away, wanting only to get home from work and put her butt into a chair.
Something warm and wet, on her hand. Blood, dripping from a slash on her forearm. Heavy drops pattered onto the floor.
Wow. He’d cut her, outside of Nina’s apartment. She hadn’t even noticed, she’d been so frantic. She stared at it stupidly for a moment, then pulled off her hoodie, wadded up the cloth of her sleeve, and applied direct pressure. She was chilly without the sweatshirt. Tremors racked her. She couldn’t tell if it was shock or cold. Both, probably.
Outside Nina’s apartment.How in the hell had they known she wasn’t going straight home? She’d made her evening plans with Nina via cell phone, during the train ride. They were spying on her phone?
Or worse, they were spying on Nina’s phone. That unleashed an even deeper, nastier thrill of dread. The killers knew all about her. They knew about her best friend. They probably knew everyone in the world she might call on for help. God knows, it was a short list, at this point.
She couldn’t even call Nina, make sure she was OK. Any contact would put her friend in more danger. The blood on the floor made her think of Howard’s shard of glass, and the anger and shock all were sucked into the deeper, wider well of agonizing sadness.
When she came to her senses, she was huddled up, gasping for air. Rocking, like Howard before a suicidal pill binge. So this was why he did it. This was how it had felt, to him.
She didn’t know which direction the train was going. People got on and off, stepping around her. She wanted to get up, but her muscles wouldn’t move. Fear had frozen her stiff.
She used to scold Howard for that obsessive rocking. It had infuriated her. It came across as so childish, so self-indulgent.
But he’d never been able to stop, once he’d started.
Now she knew why. Oh, Dad. Finally, she got it.
CHAPTER4
