She Can Scream (2 page)

A few gurgles later, she quieted, eyes bulging, breaths rasping, limbs quivering. He removed his hands from her neck. A silver earring caught on his glove. He ripped it and its mate from her ears. Maddie whimpered as he shoved them into his pocket and dug for the plastic ties in his jacket.

Better. Much better. This was just the way he liked them.

Scared and submissive.

Her mouth opened. A shrill cry blasted out, loud as an air horn in the thin autumn night. He cocked a fist and punched her in the face. Her cheek split at impact. The sight of blood and her high-pitched cry of pain whipped his excitement higher. It blasted through his veins, eager to be unleashed.

Maddie was going to learn the hard way.

He raised his hand.

6:30 p.m., Coopersfield Community Center

“This was my roommate, Karen.” Brooke tapped the touchpad on her laptop and forwarded to the next slide in her PowerPoint presentation. She paused for a minute and stared at the picture. A young woman with clear blue eyes and long, shining brown hair laughed at the camera. Brooke had given this speech hundreds of times over the years, but the image never failed to squeeze her heart. She blinked a tear away.

Tap.

The next slide was a one-story brick elementary school in a northern suburb of Philadelphia, just a ninety-minute drive south on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. “Karen and I were both just out of school and had brand-new teaching jobs.”

She changed slides. An apartment complex appeared on the screen. Exterior staircases on cement pads separated two-story buildings covered with gray aluminum siding. “We shared a two-bedroom apartment about a mile from the school. It was a nice neighborhood with lots of families and kids. Not far from the park. Karen minored in photography and always had a camera in her hand. She drove her red Trans Am with a heavy foot. Her favorite color was purple, and she had a weakness for macaroons.”

Tap.

Brooke swallowed and studied the next slide. God, he’d been handsome. Short blond hair, blue eyes, and a killer smile beamed
from the screen. “This was Karen’s boyfriend, David Flanagan. They’d been dating for about six months when Karen decided to break it off with him. He was too clingy, too demanding with her time. She was only twenty-two and not ready to settle down yet.”

Tap.

A dingy basement. On the left were locked storage units, one for each apartment. To the right, rusted washers and dryers sat on stained concrete.

“It was a warm October evening. A little after eleven, Karen went down to the basement to do some laundry. In our apartment building, there were only two washers and two dryers for a dozen units. Karen liked to do her laundry late at night when the machines would usually be empty.”

Brooke paused and scanned the room. Nineteen college-age women sat on the waxed linoleum floor of the Coopersfield Community Center, their attention riveted to the screen. Cell phones were silent. No one texted. Even the first-timers sensed what was coming.

Tap.

A close-up of a dirty corner. Cobwebs spanned the angle from wall to wall. Dust and dryer lint coated the cinder blocks in bluish-gray. A dark stain blotched the cracked concrete like an ink blot test.

Brooke sipped water from a bottle. She swallowed the bitter clog of grief rising into her throat. “Her body was found here, behind the dryer, covered with the sheets she’d brought down to wash. She’d been raped, beaten, and strangled. There were no signs of a break-in. The police said he entered through an open basement window.”

The picture on the screen switched back to the original photo and the flirty smile no one would ever see again.

“David and Karen had had an argument earlier that evening. He was angry that she’d dumped him. He said he was home alone when the murder occurred, but traces of Karen’s blood were found in his car and condo. He was arrested and convicted of her murder.”

Brooke told Karen’s story to each group of girls she taught. It was the most effective means of punctuating her lecture on safe behavior. It was also her way of making sure Karen’s death had meaning and that Brooke never forgot her friend.

Brooke stood. She motioned to a girl by the door. Fluorescent lights brightened the room. Everyone blinked.

“OK. We’ve been talking about staying safe and practicing basic self-defense for the last hour. When was the last time you heard about a group of girls being abducted?”

A tall brunette, Natalie, raised her hand. “Um, never?” On her left, her identical twin sister, Gabrielle, nodded.

“Exactly.” Brooke let her safety-in-numbers point sink in for a few seconds. A wave of guilt doused her. If Karen hadn’t gone into the basement alone that night, if Brooke had gone with her, Karen would still be alive today. But Brooke’s secret was worse than that. Much worse. Luckily, the wound was old, the skin over it thick as scar tissue, and Brooke had years of practice containing her grief.

She glanced at her cell phone display. Her class had already run over nearly a half hour due to a mix-up with the room booking. Her kids hadn’t been fed, and she had algebra quizzes that needed grading. A weary ache gathered at the base of her skull. She massaged the back of her neck. In twenty minutes she’d be home in Westbury, the neighboring town where she lived and taught high school math. “That’s it for tonight. Thank you all for coming. Wednesday night is the last class in this unit. There’ll be
a padded attacker for you to practice the techniques on. You don’t want to miss it. Stay together, and stay safe.”

She closed her PowerPoint presentation, and Karen’s picture vanished. There one second, gone the next. Just like Karen.

In two minutes, Brooke had packed her computer and projector into a cardboard box. Hefting it, she followed the girls toward the exit and thought of her dead roommate. She and Karen had been about the same age when it happened. Young, innocent, with endless years of life stretched out before them like an all-you-can-eat buffet.

Until it wasn’t.

With a wave to the elderly night janitor, George, Brooke herded the girls outside. Streetlights cast yellow puddles of illumination in the parking lot. Natalie and Gabrielle folded their long legs into a red Mini Cooper parked next to Brooke’s midsize SUV. They zoomed out of the lot with a short honk and a wave. The rest of the girls followed. Brooke loaded her equipment into her cargo area. She closed the rear hatch, opened the driver’s side door, and tossed her purse onto the passenger seat.

A distant scream cut through her thoughts. Its raw tone and the way it cut off mid-wail disturbed the hair on Brooke’s nape. She scanned the woods behind the center and listened, but all she heard was the muted sound of traffic on the main road and the wind chasing dead leaves across the parking lot. With less than a minute’s hesitation, she grabbed a flashlight and cell phone from her car and popped her head back into the community center.

In the main room, George was clicking off the light switches. “Do you need something?”

“I think I heard someone scream in the woods. I’m going to check it out.”

He pulled a huge ring of keys from his pocket, peered inside the supply closet, and then locked the door. “Lots of feral cats back there. Owls too.”

“I know, but I’ll feel better if I take a look.” She hoped he was right, but to Brooke, the cry had sounded more female than feline.

More prey than predator.

“I’m sorry. I know I’ve already kept you later, but would you please call the police if I’m not back in ten minutes?”

Keys jangling, he crossed the room toward her. He shook his balding, white-rimmed head. “Nonsense. I heard you tell all those girls just a few minutes ago to avoid going places alone, especially at night.” George opened a utility closet in the main hall and grabbed a heavy-duty metal flashlight from a wall hook. “I’m coming with you.”

“Thank you.” The Maglite wasn’t exactly a sword, and George was an unlikely champion. But he was right, and she was grateful.

They rounded the building, waded through a strip of tall weedy grass, and headed into the trees. Despite a Santa belly and an arthritic hitch in his gait, George kept up. The forest was cooler, darker, and damper than open ground. They switched on their flashlights and played the beams on the pine needle carpet. A hundred feet into the forest, they stepped onto a path.

Brooke stopped and listened. George waited patiently beside her. A small animal scurried through the brushwood. Above, branches rustled in the breeze. They walked forward. Dead leaves crunched underfoot. A fresh scream came from the left, cut off abruptly by the
smack
of something striking flesh.

George silenced the keys on his belt with a fist.

“Shut. Up.” A man’s voice, terse and staccato, ordered. “And hold still.”

A shriek, muffled. Another fleshy blow. Then crying.

Brooke dialed 911 and described the situation to the dispatcher in a low voice. Ignoring the operator’s request to stay on the line, she ended the call and ran toward the sounds. George wheezed somewhere behind her.

She rounded a bend in the trail. Fifty feet ahead, shadows moved on the ground. Two figures, struggling. Brooke pointed her flashlight into the darkness. The bright beam spotlighted a masked man sitting on top of a young woman. His hands encircled her throat while the girl thrashed and gasped under him. His head jerked up and swiveled toward Brooke.

“Hey!” Brooke ran forward.

The assailant jumped to his feet and faced her. Hatred and hostility reached across the darkness. Brooke stopped. They stood frozen, staring at each other. Brooke’s hearing blocked out everything but the sound of her own breathing and the throb of her pulse echoing in her ears.

The assailant spun and took off down the path.

“Stay with her,” Brooke shouted over her shoulder at George, still a hundred feet away. She sprinted after the black-clad man. The beam of her flashlight arced back and forth on the dark trail as she pumped her arms. With his head start, he pulled away. Though the five-minute mile from her college track days was no more, she kept in shape. She coached the high school track team and ran with the kids a few times a week. Brooke dug her toes into the sandy soil, pushing off with each stride, starting block–style. Her legs responded with a surge of speed. The distance between them closed. One toe caught on something on the dark trail. Her leg buckled, and she went down in a tumble of limbs. Pain, hot and sharp, burst through her knee. Her face struck the ground. Blood flooded her mouth.

She sat up and pointed her light down the path. He was gone.
Damn!
She shined her flashlight behind her. A gnarled tree root bulged out of the dirt.

Her clenched fist smacked the dirt next to her. She climbed to her feet. Her right knee wobbled, and when she tried to put weight on that leg, pain zinged from her toes to her hip. She couldn’t inhale fast enough. Tiny pinpoints of light dotted her vision. She bent over and leaned her hands on her thighs. Her lungs bellowed, and her knee throbbed with each racing beat of her heart. Something gritty crunched between her teeth. She
spat blood and dirt into the underbrush. Wiping her chin, she called 911 and gave them an update.

“He ran toward the Coopersfield reservoir.” Lightheaded, she gasped between harsh intakes of cool air. “Average-size guy, wearing a ski mask, black pants, black windbreaker.”

That’s all she could say about him. Not much of a description. After being assured cars and an ambulance were en route, she ended the call.

The sound of someone crying summoned her. Brooke limped back toward the victim. The young woman was curled on the ground at the base of a tree. George stood a few feet away, shifting his weight from foot to foot. The woman cringed as Brooke’s flashlight illuminated her. Brooke averted the beam, but not before she registered the young woman’s battered condition. The left side of her face was bloody and beaten, her lips split, her eye blackened and swelling. She’d probably been pretty before he got his hands on her. Angry red marks encircled her neck. Pity blunted the ache in Brooke’s leg. She halted and held her hands up. “It’s OK. We’re going to help you.”

The woman held up shaking hands, bound at the wrists. She was trembling so hard Brooke could hear her teeth chattering.

“Here.” Brooke stripped off her jacket and wrapped it around the woman’s shoulders. “The police are on the way. What’s your name?”

The voice was barely a rasp. “Maddie.”

Maddie didn’t look familiar. Since they were in Coopersfield, she’d probably gone to school here rather than at Westbury High where Brooke taught.

“I’m going to look at these ropes, Maddie.” Brooke used her flashlight. Not ropes, but plastic ties encircled Maddie’s wrists. Thin and unyielding, the binds had dug into her tender flesh.
Blood smeared her skin and stained her sleeves. “I’m sorry. These have to be cut, and I don’t have a knife. Hold still so they don’t hurt you anymore.”

Maddie shook harder. Brooke wrapped her arms around the girl and held her tightly against her body. Hot tears soaked through her shirt.

A beam of light bobbed through the trees. George pointed toward the woods. The lights of the community center filtered through the half-bare branches. “Here are the police now.”

An officer rushed in. Behind him, more lights approached. Two more uniforms burst into the clearing. Brooke pointed down the trail. “He ran that way.”

Two cops jogged in the direction she indicated. One stayed behind. Tense and wary, he scanned the dark woods and spoke into a radio on his shoulder. A siren sounded. A few minutes later, two paramedics crashed through the underbrush.

Brooke eased the girl off her chest. “Maddie, I’m going to get out of the way so the paramedics can work.”

Maddie didn’t answer. Brooke leaned back. The girl’s head lolled sideways. Brooke cradled it in one hand, easing it to the ground.

The paramedic knelt and opened his kit. “I’ve got her.”

“Her name is Maddie.” Brooke moved away to give them room.

The remaining cop pulled her aside. He looked to be about Brooke’s age. It was hard to tell in the dark. “Your name, ma’am?”