Out Of Her League (14 page)

He slapped something wide and sticky over her mouth, and she wrenched her head back and forth trying and dislodge it. Duct tape. She could hardly breathe, sucking in gulps of air through her nose. Panic gave way to hysteria, making the world tilt as her vision blurred. Her voice was hoarse from the bloodcurdling cries tearing out of her, only to be muffled by her gag. After the rip of more tape being peeled off, her limbs were immobilized. Trussed and helpless, she struggled against her bonds as he dragged her through the yard and the open gate into the alley, muscling her toward a vehicle.

Don't let him get me in the car
, she prayed, twisting and thrashing, rolling her eyes back toward the house. No one had heard her scream. No one would be coming to help.

Please God, don't let him get me into that car
.

Nate's words swam through her terror-numbed brain. If he got her into that vehicle, she was as good as dead.
Do whatever you can to disable him long enough to get away
. Rayne's words.

With all her strength she threw her head back, and he grunted as her skull smashed into his chin. His grip loosened and even as she fell she rolled away. Cruel fingers wrenched her backward, digging with bruising force into her skin.

“Bitch,” he snarled, jerking the car door wide and yanking her upright before throwing her straining body onto the floor beneath the back seat. He pinned her to the stale carpet with his weight and tied her with a rope to the front seat, then locked the rear doors.

Choking on her fear, she struggled to lift her legs high enough to kick at the windows with her bound feet, hoping someone would hear or see her.

“Go ahead and kick,” he taunted, gunning the engine.

The gag distorted her gurgle into a muffled moan.
I don't want to die... I don't want to die...

Streetlights cast alternating light and shadow over the car's interior as he drove. Where were they going? Would he stab her? Strangle her? Rape her? Tears streamed down her face, the sobs making it even harder to breathe.

“You threw away my rose.”

The chill in his voice sent another shockwave through her.
Oh, God
. She'd wanted him to see her ripping his flower apart and tossing it over the balcony, but she'd never dreamed she would provoke him to this extent.

“I know you've been talking to the cops,” he continued, cocking his head as they sped onward. “Don't you think that was a little over the top? I was only being friendly. I'm your biggest fan. Not that it matters now.” He stopped at a traffic light.

She raised her chin and met his gray stare in the rearview mirror. Her breath was coming in rasps and her body wouldn't stop shaking. Her heart slammed so hard against her ribs she was sure he could hear it. Where was he taking her? The minutes ticked by before he slowed and made another turn before stopping and killing the engine.

“Here we are. Home sweet home.”

Her house? He would carry out whatever he had planned inside her own home, where no one would hear her scream.

Unless she could trigger her security system. A spurt of hope surged within her.

She jerked away from his hands hauling her from the vehicle, straining from his touch as he manhandled her through the back gate, closing it behind them, and dropped her by the door. Lying on her side, she lifted her head as he jimmied the locks, reached up and punched in her alarm code. How had he known her password?

“You really should invest in a better security system. This one isn't very safe.”

He yanked her to her feet and shoved her ahead of him, then secured the door behind them. She yelped when he ripped the tape off her mouth, wincing at the sting. He shoved her facedown on the floor and fumbled with the tape on her wrists and ankles. Why bother? Was he playing with her? Making her think she had a chance at escaping? Icy panic crept up her spine.

“Scream all you like,” he whispered. “There's no one to hear you.”

Nausea roiled in her stomach. She craned her neck around for a weapon, trying to come up with a plan. The cordless phone was ten feet away, sitting on the kitchen counter. Maybe she could bash him in the head with it and race out the back door, then use it to call the cops.

As soon as he freed her feet she leapt up, tearing herself from his grasp. Throat clogging, she bolted for the phone. His arms wrenched her backward, and she landed a blow to his face using her elbow, producing a satisfying crunch. He howled and released her, and she grabbed her chance to make a run for the door. She was quick and agile, and if she could only get outside she could sprint to her neighbor's house.

Two steps away from freedom, he managed to snag the end of her braid, snapping back her head like a flower on a broken stem. Reeling, she hit the floor, the breath whooshing out of her as his weight crushed her into the hardwood. His hands flipped her over and she stared up at him, into those frigid gray eyes, trying with all her might to shove him off, to wrench her hands free to jab at the corners of his eyes with her fingers. As Rayne had taught her.

“I warned you.” His face was white with rage, a trickle of blood leaking from one nostril.

“G-get
off
me,” she mumbled.

He smiled. An evil, cruel smile she had come to know too well. “I always hoped it would come to this.” He wrenched her arms above her, ignoring her cries, her crazed strength.

The blow came from nowhere, her head cracking to one side with the impact of his fist. Gasping, she lay there, trembling all over.

“I'm going to leave you with something to remember me by.”

When she dared open her eyes, he was holding another length of rope. The ball of ice congealed in her stomach.

He tied the loops around her wrists, her resistance futile against his strength. Then he hauled her up by her braid, one hand manacling her as he heaved her up the stairs, panting at the effort it took him to subdue her. She managed to reach up and claw him across the face but he merely jerked on her braid and kept moving.

From the landing he pulled her writhing form into her bedroom and shoved her face down on her antique quilt. He climbed on top of her, jamming a knee into the small of her back and securing her left wrist to the brass headboard. Afraid she might pass out with terror, she fought as hard as she could to keep her other hand free. A raw, half-mad growling noise issued from deep in her throat, a primitive sound of rage and denial. He seized her right arm, squeezing the wrist and lashing it to the bedstead. She stifled a sob.

She tried to twist away, but even in her adrenaline-fuelled state, her body was weakening. He kept his knee pressed hard into her spine and leaned back to tie her kicking legs at the ankles, spreading her thighs apart.

Bile rose and she gagged, shaking so hard the bed trembled as he reached past her to set something on the nightstand. A picture of her and Rayne.

“Now your boyfriend can have a front-row seat to watch the main event.”

Christa was so numb she couldn't even shake her head. “He's not— not my boyfriend.”

“Don't lie to me.” He wrapped his hands around her throat and squeezed, choking her until black spots swirled. “Don't you
dare
lie to me.” When she went dead still he finally let go and she heaved in a breath, coughing as her airway reopened.

He moved off her so she could see him, poised there beside her. “I brought something to show you,” he said, and her eyes focused on the gleaming silver of a knife. The iron taste of fear returned, filling her mouth, burning her throat as she fought against the ropes scraping and gouging her wrists. He laughed and leaned closer, his gray eyes as cruel and bright as the blade he moved toward her shrinking flesh.

Her screams echoed through the empty house.

Patrick Flannery loved and cherished all God's creatures, to the point of transferring lost spiders out of his house into the yard where they would be safe from his wife and the spider-sucking attachment of her vacuum. He fancied he might have been St. Francis of Assisi in a former life, if it weren't for his distaste of chickens. He stared hard at the chicken coop, as a man who was facing a mortal enemy might, held his breath and went in.

He swore loudly, flapping his arms about his head as the smelly beasts stirred up a cloud of dust and foul feathers thick enough to choke him. Lord Jesus, but what did a man have to do to gather his eggs? With the one lungful of air he grabbed as many as he could and retreated into the moonlight. In his basket he saw nine dirty little eggs. Well now. Nine was plenty, wasn't it, though? Tomorrow morning he'd fry himself an omelet and make one for the missus.

“Patrick Flannery, did you find us some vittles or not?” his wife yelled out their bedroom window. She looked a picture this fine evening, standing there with her hair up in curlers and the blue robe he'd given her for Christmas wrapped around her.

Patrick brandished the basket. “'Course I did, me darlin'. Nine of the little beggars.”

Her mouth formed an ‘O'. “Your lungs must be gettin’ bigger, don't you think so?”

“Aye, I do. Will you be wantin’ an omelet with me in the mornin', then?”

She flapped a hand. “Not likely. They've too much cholesterol and fat for a woman my age. Why don't you go and see if Christa will take some?” She shut the window and disappeared from view.

Well, wouldn't you know it? Hadn't he built the damn chicken coop because she'd insisted they needed their own, fresher-than-fresh free-run eggs from happy grain-fed hens? Women! He'd almost lost his hands to those pecking, bloodthirsty creatures and for what, might he ask?

He sighed and scratched his head. He was forced to follow every fad diet that came along, even if she found it in the pages of the
Enquirer
or the
Star
. One week they could eat nothing but green things, the next only fruit. Damn woman was going to kill him someday, just see if she didn't. For an instant he thought of keeping the eggs, in case it might be that next week they were to eat nothing
but
eggs. Was it too late to go over to Christa's and give her the rest of them? Maybe
she'd
make him an omelet, right this minute.

But now that he thought about it, he hadn't seen his pretty neighbor all day. Usually he'd spot her loading up her truck with plants and spades, or hauling around a bagful of sporting gear. And this was the second night he'd not seen a light in the house. Had she maybe gone off to one of those ball tournaments she never missed? Except when she did, she usually asked him to look after Jake... now there was something. He'd not seen nor heard Jake either.

Just then headlight beams cut along her driveway, and he chided himself. Here she was after all, heading home. But no, that wasn't her vehicle. In fact, he'd never seen that car before. He hovered, fretful. If he went interfering and she thought he was a daft old coot for worrying about her, well, so be it. She'd have a fit if anything happened to her house. She was a woman living alone and he liked to look out for her.

Still grouching to himself he made his way through the hedges, getting a face full of spider web as he did so. Well, that was gratitude for you. It probably housed one of the spiders he'd rescued from the vacuum cleaner.

Pushing on, he strolled across the fresh cut lawn, saw nothing out of the ordinary. He pushed open the back gate in the picket fence, wandered through the garden and checked the rest of the property. If some dumb teenager fancied to break into the house, they'd have him to deal with. If only Jake were here, Patrick would have known for sure whether something was wrong. He had seen a program on the telly a couple nights before about animals doing things like sensing fires.

He tried the doorknob, but the back door was locked so he fished in his pocket for the spare key Christa had given him for when he came to check on things while she was away. Inside, all was dark. In the empty kitchen he set the eggs on the counter just as a faint sound came from upstairs. A squeak.

A squeak like a mattress moving. Patrick's cheeks heated and he whirled on his heel. What had he gone and walked in on? She must've found herself a new boyfriend, that was all. Not that he'd ever known her to have one, but... Lord, he'd never be able to look her in the eye again.

He was almost out the door when he heard something else. Muffled noises, like growling— he strained to hear— then a sob.

“Christa?” he called. “Are you there?”

As he moved toward the staircase someone coughed. “Hello?” Surely he wasn't hearing things?

A thud. And screams. Lots of them, fearful enough to curdle the eggs for his omelet. Heart thumping, he grabbed a knife from the butcher block and darted up the stairs, sure he was going to have a coronary. “Christa? ‘Tis Patrick. What's wrong?”

He was nearly at the top when a figure shot out of her bedroom and pushed past him, sending him tumbling down the stairs, caught in a tangle of legs. In the weak moonlight filtering into the stairwell, a bald head gleamed. Sure now that he must be hallucinating, Patrick picked himself up and without bothering to check if anything was broken, dashed up to the landing.

He was about to grab her bedroom door handle when she squealed. “N-no! Don't don't come in. J-just call... the police... please.”

What was he to do? Didn't he have to find out if she was all right? Without thinking better of it, he threw the door open. “Christ Jesus!” She wasn't wearing a stitch, tied facedown on her bed, blood on her face and the sheets about her body.

“Nooo!” she wailed, squirming as she tried to cover herself, but she couldn't move.

“Who the hell did this to you?” Keeping his eyes averted he rushed to untie the cruel bonds, revulsion and helplessness almost knobbling his arthritic knees.

“Please, P-Pat. Call them.”

He ran to dial 911.

Rayne's cell phone shrilled from the nightstand, awakening him with a start. “Hello.”

“Hutch. Where are you?” Nate's voice was unusually grim.

“In bed, trying to get some sleep. Why?” His heart leapt to his throat.