"Noah?"
No answer, then, in the distance,
"Hello? Who's there?"
She gripped the telephone and took
a slow, steady breath. Just the wind.
Noah came back on the line. "Sorry
about that."
"What's going on there?"
"Nothing. I'm just a little
jumpy is all." But an undertone of worry gave
the lie to his words.
"I'll call the—"
"No! Don't call the police.
If this stuff is for real, some of them are dirty."
"But what if someone—"
,p."Paul Murphy's got his cell phone with him.
I'll call him out, just to be safe."
"I'll be there in a few minutes,"
she said.
Freemont suddenly felt like a frightening
place. She needed to see what Grandpa had sent. If
they had to, they could both leave tonight.
"I'll be waiting. See you in
about ten minutes." He hung up before she could
say another word.
Sable replaced the receiver and watched the recording
device stop. Noah lived four miles outside of town,
in an old, rambling farmhouse. She'd better hurry.
She grabbed her car keys from the
kitchen counter, pulled on her coat, and shoved her
billfold into the deep right pocket. She ran out of
the apartment, locking the door behind her. Automatically,
her hand went up to the old pocket watch she kept
on a chain around her neck. An enigmatic Christmas
gift from Grandpa.
Ever since he'd given her the watch,
he'd become jumpy, snappy, and especially secretive.
He'd also become more adamant about her getting her
Missouri medical license. Then, three weeks ago, he
had told her, "Darlin', if anything happens to
me, I want you to get out of Oklahoma. Don't look
back. This isn't any kind of town for a young lady
like you."
She jumped into her Camaro and backed
out of the driveway. Soon, maybe this nightmare would
be over.
Or maybe it had just begun.
* * * * *
The sudden brilliance of a flash of lightning shocked
Sable to a halt at the gate to Noah Erwin's front
yard. The storm split the clouds with its violence.
She peered through the broken darkness at the outline
of her friend's unkempt home.
She had to will away a cowardly shiver.
Why hadn't Noah left any lights on in the house? Why
hadn't he come out onto the front porch to greet her,
the way he always did?
She unlatched the gate and pulled
it open, wincing at the rusty creak of hinges. "Noah,
I'm here!" she called with false bravado, stepping
carefully along the flagstone path. Maybe the lightning
had knocked out the power, the way it usually did
out here when there was a storm.
"Noah!"
She stopped as another crack of lightning
illumined the top step of the porch and the wide-open
doorway. In that instant she felt a blast of shock
at the sight of a human-shaped shadow. The elderly
man lay sprawled across the threshold, his body blocking
the heavy oak door.
Sable froze in horror. She forgot
to breathe.
She clutched the side of the wooden
structure for support. "Noah!"
The darkness threatened to overtake
her as nausea and weakness caught her in their grip.
She forced herself forward; there was no time for
the luxury of emotion. Another flash illuminated the
blood that had trickled from a hole in her friend's
temple. His glazed, open eyes held the blank stare
of death.
Swallowing hard, she sank to her
knees and felt for a pulse at his throat, though it
wasn't necessary. Whoever shot him had taken measures
to complete the job. Noah's head fell sideways, revealing
a mass of blood at the back of his skull.
"No!" She froze there,
paralyzed by the sudden loss-and by the implications.
She leaned against the doorframe for support.
Unwanted tears welled in her eyes in spite of her
resolve to remain strong. The icy wind whipped her
hair across her face in a blinding curtain. She brushed
it back and stood up to peer into the living room
beyond the doorway. Shadows lurked and jumped in every
corner of the huge room as flicks of lightning outlined
the sofa and chairs and Noah's old desk in sharp relief.
Sable tuned her ears to the slightest sound, but the
storm effectively drowned out any noise.
Scattered papers drifted across the
foyer, blown by the wind from the open doorway.
The wind died down for a moment.
A footfall echoed from the darkness near the kitchen
door.
A movement! A black form separated
itself from the shadows and lunged across the living
room floor, stumbling over a footstool as the lightning
revealed a human shape. Vestiges of Sable's nightmare
returned as she screamed and skittered backwards over
Noah's body. She fell on her side, then scrambled
to her feet and raced down the porch steps.
The intruder, in hot pursuit, reached
out a hand to snag the sleeve of her jacket. She screamed
and yanked away, darting out onto the front lawn,
past the bushes toward her car.
Heavy rasps of breath harmonized
with the thud of running feet across the porch, down
the steps, too close…coming too close!
Breaking her line of motion in order
to gain ground, she dove sideways into a shadowed
hedgerow prickly with thorns that scraped her exposed
hands. She fought her way through the brambles that
clung to her clothes with a vengeance, as if eager
to assist her assailant.
She broke free just as the man who
was chasing her reached the yard side of the thorny
hedge. Angry, muttered curses informed her when the
man followed in her wake through the thorn patch.
She pivoted back through another
break in the hedgerow, but her right foot caught on
a root, and she fell to her knees. The man grasped
her sleeve again. She swung around to claw at his
face…but he had no face! Then the lightning revealed
what she should have expected—he was wearing
a ski mask.
A sudden flash of headlights pierced
the night, etching the outline of her attacker through
the spiny branches of the shrubs. The rumbling power
of an approaching SUV terrified her, but it also startled
her attacker. He released her abruptly, swung away,
stumbled, broke back through the hedgerow, and disappeared
into the darkness.
Sable froze like a deer in the glare
of the headlights for what seemed like an eternity,
heart pounding in rhythm of the engine, breath coming
in hard rasps. As soon as the vehicle passed, she
turned and ran toward her car.
When she reached the Camaro, she
yanked open the door, then looked back to find the
SUV circling in behind her, pinning her in the glare
of lights, blocking her escape. With a cry of fright
she plunged into the blackness beyond the driveway.
Hey.
Sable ran faster, tripping over the uneven ground
in Noah's garden. Again, she heard the sound of pursuing
footsteps, but these were swifter and heavier. In
a burst of desperate speed, she reached the level
ground beyond the garden and raced toward the tool
shed. There might be a weapon of some sort among the
garden tools, maybe a hoe.
Large, strong hands gripped her shoulders
and spun her around against the wall of the looming
shed.
"No!" she screamed, jerking
her knee upward until it hit something solid. "Get
away!"
The man grunted, but he didn't release
her.
"Let me go!" She raked
her nails down the side of his neck, kicked at his
legs. "Let go of me!"
________
ABOUT