Whispers. Part 35

"It'll be dawn before long," he said.

"Want to sing 'Two Sleepy People' with me?"

"I'm a lousy singer," he said.

"I doubt it." She leaned against him. "Judging from my experience, you're excellent at everything you do."

"Bawdy."

"I try to be."

They kissed again, and then he opened the driver's door for her.

"You're not going to work today?" she asked.

"No. Not after ... Frank. I have to go in and write up a report, but that'll take only an hour or so. I'm taking a few days. I've got a lot of time coming to me."

"I'll call you this afternoon."

"I'll be waiting," he said.

She drove away from there on empty early-morning streets. After she had gone a few blocks, her stomach began to growl with hunger, and she remembered that she didn't have the fixings for breakfast at home. She'd intended to do her grocery shopping after the man from the telephone company had gone, but then she'd heard from Michael Savatino and had rushed to Tony's place. She turned left at the next corner and went to an all-night market to pick up eggs and milk.

Tony figured Hilary wouldn't need any more than ten minutes to get home on the deserted streets, but he waited fifteen minutes before he called to find out if she had made the trip safely. Her phone didn't ring. All he got was a series of computer sounds--the beeps and buzzes that comprised the language of smart machines--then a few clicks and snaps and pops, then the hollow ghostly hissing of a missed connection. He hung up, dialed once more, being careful to get every digit right, but again the phone would not ring.

He was certain that the new unlisted number he had for her was correct. When she had given it to him, he had double-checked to be sure he'd gotten it right. And she read it off a carbon copy of the telephone company work order, which she had in her purse, so there wasn't any chance she was mistaken about it.

He dialed the operator and told her his problem. She tried to ring the number for him, but she couldn't get through, either.

"Is it off the hook?" he asked.

"It doesn't seem to be."

"What can you do?"

"I'll report the number out of order," she said. "Our service department will take care of it."

"When?"

"Does this number belong to either an elderly person or an invalid?"

"No," he said.

"Then it falls under normal service procedures," she said. "One of our servicemen will look into it sometime after eight o'clock this morning."

"Thank you."

He put down the receiver. He was sitting on the edge of the bed. He stared pensively at the rumpled sheets where Hilary had lain, looked at the slip of paper on which her new number was written.

Out of order?

He supposed it was possible that the serviceman had made a mistake when he'd switched Hilary's phones yesterday afternoon. Possible. But not probable. Not very likely at all.

Suddenly, he thought of the anonymous caller who had been bothering her. A man who did that sort of thing was usually weak, ineffectual, s.e.xually stunted; almost without exception, he was incapable of having a normal relations.h.i.+p with a woman, and he was generally too introverted and frightened to attempt rape. Usually. Almost without exception. Generally. But was it conceivable that this crank was the one out of a thousand who was dangerous?

Tony put one hand on his stomach. He was beginning to feel queasy.

If bookmakers in Las Vegas had been taking bets on the likelihood of Hilary Thomas becoming the target of two unconnected homicidal maniacs in less than a week, the odds against would have been astronomical. On the other hand, during his years with the Los Angeles Police Department, Tony had seen the improbable happen again and again; and long ago he had learned to expect the unexpected.

He thought of Bobby Valdez. Naked. Crawling out of that small kitchen cabinet. Eyes wild. The pistol in his hand.

Outside the bedroom window, even though first light still had not touched the eastern sky, a bird cried. It was a shrill cry, rising and falling and rising again as the bird swooped from tree to tree in the courtyard; it sounded as if it was being pursued by something very fast and very hungry and relentless.

Sweat broke out on Tony's brow.

He got up from the bed.

Something was happening at Hilary's place. Something was wrong. Terribly wrong.

Because she stopped at the all-night market to buy milk, eggs, b.u.t.ter, and a few other items, Hilary didn't get home until more than half an hour after she left Tony's apartment. She was hungry and pleasantly weary. She was looking forward to a cheese omelet with a lot of finely chopped parsley--and then at least six uninterrupted hours of deep, deep sleep. She was far too tired to bother putting the Mercedes in the garage: she parked in the circular driveway.

The automatic lawn sprinklers sprayed water over the dark gra.s.s, making a cool hissing-whistling sound. A breeze rustled the palm fronds overhead.

She let herself into the house by the front entrance. The living room was pitch-black. But having antic.i.p.ated a late return, she had left the foyer light burning when she'd gone out. Inside, she held the bag of groceries in one arm, closed and double-locked the door.

She switched on the living room ceiling light and took two steps out of the foyer before she realized that the place had been destroyed. Two table lamps were smashed, the shades torn to shreds. A gla.s.s display case lay in thousands of sharp pieces on the carpet; and the expensive limited-edition porcelains that had been in it were ruined: they were reduced to worthless fragments, thrown down on the stone hearth and ground underfoot. The sofa and armchairs were ripped open; chunks of foam and wads of cotton padding material were scattered all over the floor. Two wooden chairs, which apparently had been smashed repeatedly against one wall, were now only piles of kindling, and the wall was scarred. The legs were broken off the lovely little antique corner desk; all of the drawers were pulled from it and the bottoms knocked out of them. Every painting was still where she'd put it, but each hung in unrepairable ribbons. Ashes had been scooped out of the fireplace and smeared over the beautiful Edward Fields carpet. Not a single piece of furniture or decoration had been overlooked; even the fireplace screen had been kicked apart, and all of the plants had been jerked out of their pots and torn to bits.

Hilary was dazed at first, but then her shock gave way to anger at the vandals. "Son of a b.i.t.c.h," she said between clenched teeth.

She had pa.s.sed many happy hours personally choosing every item in the room. She spent a small fortune on them, but it wasn't the cost of the wreckage that disturbed her; most of it was covered by insurance. However, there was sentimental value that could not be replaced, for these were the first really nice things that she had ever owned, and it hurt to lose them. Tears s.h.i.+mmered at the corners of her eyes.

Numb, disbelieving, she walked farther into the rubble before she realized that she might be in danger. She stopped, listened. The house was silent.

An icy s.h.i.+ver raced up her spine, and for one horrible instant she thought she felt someone's breath against the nape of her neck.

She whirled, looked behind her.

No one was there.

The foyer closet, which had been closed when she'd come into the house, was still closed. For a moment, she stared at it expectantly, afraid that it would open. But if anyone had been hiding in there, waiting for her to arrive, he would have come out by now.

This is absolutely crazy, she thought. It can't happen again. It just can't. That's preposterous. Isn't it?

There was a noise behind her.

With a soft cry of alarm, she turned and threw up her free arm to fend off the attacker.

But there was no attacker. She was still alone in the living room.

Nevertheless, she was convinced that what she had heard was not something so innocent as a naturally settling beam or floorboard. She knew she was not the only person in the house. She sensed another presence.

The noise again.

In the dining room.

A snapping. A tinkling. Like someone taking a step on broken gla.s.s or shattered china.

Then another step.

The dining room lay beyond an archway, twenty feet from Hilary. It was as black as a grave in there.

Another step: tinkle-snap.

She started to back up, cautiously retreating from the source of the noise, edging toward the front door, which now seemed a mile away. She wished she hadn't locked it.

A man moved out of the perfect darkness of the dining room, into the penumbral area beneath the archway, a big man, tall, and broad in the shoulders. He paused in the gloom for a second, then stepped into the brightly lit living room.

"No!" Hilary said.

Stunned, she stopped backing toward the door. Her heart leapt, and her mouth went dry, and she shook her head back and forth, back and forth: no, no, no.

He was holding a large and wickedly sharp knife. He grinned at her. It was Bruno Frye.

Tony was thankful that the streets were empty, for he couldn't have tolerated any delay. He was afraid he was already too late.

He drove hard and fast, north on Santa Monica, then west on Wils.h.i.+re, putting the Jeep up to seventy miles an hour by the time he reached the first downslope just outside the Beverly Hills city limits, engine screaming, windows and loose dashboard k.n.o.bs vibrating tinnily. At the bottom of the hill, the traffic light was red. He didn't brake. He pressed the horn in warning and flew through the intersection. He slammed across a shallow drainage channel in the street, a broad depression that was almost unnoticeable at thirty-five miles an hour, but at his speed it felt like a yawning ditch beneath him; for a fraction of a second he actually was airborne, thumping his head into the roof in spite of the restraining harness that he wore. The Jeep came back to the pavement with a bang, a many-voiced chorus of rattles and clanks, and a sharp bark of tortured rubber. It began to slue to the left, its rear end sliding around with a blood-chilling screech, smoke curling up from the protesting tires. For an electrifying instant, he thought he was going to lose control, but then abruptly the wheel was his again, and he was more than halfway up the next hill without realizing how he'd gotten there.

His speed was down to forty miles an hour, and he got it back up to sixty. He decided not to push it beyond that. He only had a short distance to go. If he wrapped the Jeep around a streetlamp or rolled it over and killed himself, he wouldn't be able to do Hilary any good.

He was still not obeying the rules of the road. He went much too fast and wide on what few turns there were, swinging out into the east-bound lanes, again thankful that there were no oncoming cars. The traffic signals were all against him, a perverse twist of fate, but he ignored every one of them. He wasn't worried about getting a ticket for speeding or reckless driving. If stopped, he would flash his badge and take the uniformed officers along with him to Hilary's place. But he hoped to G.o.d he wasn't given a chance to pick up those reinforcements, for it would mean stopping, identifying himself, and explaining the emergency. If they pulled him over, he would lose at least a minute.

He had a hunch that a minute might be the difference between life and death for Hilary.

As she watched Bruno Frye coming through the archway, Hilary thought she must be losing her mind. The man was dead. Dead! She had stabbed him twice, had seen his blood. She had seen him in the morgue, too, cold and yellow-gray and lifeless. An autopsy had been performed. A death certificate had been signed. Dead men don't walk. Nevertheless, he was back from the grave, walking out of the dark dining room, the ultimate uninvited guest, a large knife in one gloved hand, eager to finish what he had started last week; and it simply was not possible that he could be there.

Hilary closed her eyes and willed him to be gone. But a second later, when she forced herself to look again, he was still there.

She was unable to move. She wanted to run, but all of her joints--hips, knees, ankles--were rigid, locked, and she didn't have the strength to make them move. She felt weak, as frail as an old, old woman; she was sure that, if she somehow managed to unlock her joints and take a step, she would collapse.

She couldn't speak, but, inside, she was screaming.

Frye stopped less than fifteen feet from her, one foot in a cotton snowdrift of stuffing that had been torn from one of the ruined armchairs. He was pasty-faced, shaking violently, obviously on the edge of hysteria.

Could a dead man be hysterical?

She had to be out of her mind. Had to be. Stark raving mad. But she knew she wasn't.

A ghost? But she didn't believe in ghosts. And besides, wasn't a spirit supposed to be insubstantial, transparent, or at least translucent? Could an apparition be as solid as this walking dead man, as convincingly and terrifyingly real as he was?

"b.i.t.c.h," he said. "You stinking b.i.t.c.h!"

His hard, low-pitched, gravelly voice was unmistakable.

But, Hilary thought crazily, his vocal cords already should have started to rot. His throat should be blocked with putrescence.

She felt high-pitched laughter building in her, and she struggled to control it. If she began to laugh, she might never stop.

"You killed me," he said menacingly, still teetering on the brink of hysteria.

"No," she said. "Oh, no. No."

"You did!" he screamed, brandis.h.i.+ng the knife. "You killed me! Don't lie about it. I know. Don't you think I know? Oh, Jesus! I feel so strange, so alone, all alone, so empty." There was genuine spiritual agony mixed up with his rage. "So empty and scared. And it's all because of you."

He slowly crossed the few yards that separated him from her, stepping carefully through the rubble.

Hilary could see that this dead man's eyes were not blank or filmed with milky cataracts. These eyes were blue-gray and very much alive--and br.i.m.m.i.n.g with cold, cold anger.

"This time you'll stay dead," Frye said as he approached. "You won't come back this time."

She tried to retreat from him, took one hesitant step, and her legs almost buckled. But she didn't fall. She had more strength left than she had thought.

"This time," Frye said, "I'm taking every precaution. I'm not giving you a chance to come back. I'm going to cut your f.u.c.kin' heart out."

She took another step, but it didn't matter; she could not escape. She wouldn't have time to reach the door and throw off both locks. If she tried that, he would be on her in a second, ramming the knife down between her shoulders.

"Pound a stake through your f.u.c.kin' heart."

If she ran for the stairs and tried to get to the pistol in her bedroom, she surely wouldn't be as lucky as she had been the last time. This time he would catch her before she made it to the second floor.

"I'll cut your G.o.dd.a.m.ned head off."

He loomed over her, within arm's reach.

She had nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.

"Gonna cut out your tongue. Stuff your f.u.c.kin' mouth full of garlic. Stuff it full of garlic so you can't sweet-talk your way back from h.e.l.l."

She could hear her own thunderous heartbeat. She couldn't breathe because of the intensity of her fear.

"Cut your f.u.c.kin' eyes out."