No Sanctuary

Chapter Twenty-one

Gillian had thought it wouldn’t last long. Half an hour, maybe. Just long enough for Holden to take her up into the hills, probably somewhere along Mulholland, where he’d find a secluded area and open the trunk and do what he had in mind.

This can’t be happening.

It’s happened to a lot of others. It happens all the time. This time, it’s my turn. I’ll be dead. After he’s done with me. It’s impossible.

Gillian knew it was possible.

Not inevitable, though, she told herself. It’s not over yet. It doesn’t have to turn out that way. Maybe he’ll get a flat, or the cops will stop him, or ...

The wires at her feet.

She explored them with the toes of her right foot—the foot on the bottom. There seemed to be a central cable stretched along the front of the trunk. Small clusters of wires ran off it. These, she thought, must be attached to the car’s right rear lights.

Cops will stop a car with dead lights.

Though her feet were bound together tightly at the ankles, she was able to spread them open as if they were hinged at the heels. She damped the main cable between them. She pulled at it, trying to work the wiring loose without a struggle that might make the rope across her throat go tight.

You’ll never break the connection this way, she realized.

Stop screwing around, this is your life!

She ripped at the cable. Newspapers whispered and crackled beneath her as she slid. Her knees pounded the front of the trunk. The rope dug into her throat. She jammed her hands down to give herself slack, bent forward slightly, felt the rope rub between her legs and buttocks, felt the pressure ease across her throat, and kicked back with both feet. The cable gave. It didn’t flop loose, but Gillian was certain that some of the small wires running off to the lights must’ve popped free. She pictured the car moving along the road, the lights dead on its right rear side.

Now if we just get pulled over, she thought.

They didn’t get pulled over.

And Holden didn’t stop in a secluded place in the Hollywood Hills to finish with her.

They would’ve been there by now.

Hours had seemed to go by after Gillian’s struggle with the wiring.

Lying on her side had become unbearable after a while, so she had experimented with moving and found to her surprise that she could lie on her back. By angling herself across the trunk, she was actually able to stretch her legs out. The rope at her throat seemed more like a nuisance than a threat. She had figured out that it would not choke her so long as she kept her back straight and her arms stretched down. But the rope made it impossible for her to reach the knots and work on them. That’s what it’s for, she knew.

In bits and pieces over the hours, during short periods of time when she could focus her mind, Gillian had assembled the puzzle of what Holden must’ve done after she lost consciousness in his house.

First, he stripped her naked. Probably fooled with her. He would, wouldn’t he? Yeah. Maybe even fucked her, though she had no way of knowing, not after the condition Jerry had left her in. When he finished messing with her, he tied her up. Oh, he must’ve got some extra jollies from that, running the rope down from her hands, centering it so it went right into her, turning her over and pulling it up so tight she could actually feel it against her anus, then looping it around her throat so it would choke her if she struggled. Her arms must’ve been bent just a little while he did all that; otherwise, she would’ve been strangled by now. He probably left some slack on purpose, not wanting to have her die in the trunk and miss the fun. Then he bound her ankles together.

Somehow, he got her to his car. His car hadn’t been in the driveway when Gillian went to his house. Maybe he’d put it into the garage. If that’s where it was, he’d simply carried her out the back door to the garage, opened up the trunk, and dropped her in. Maybe took out the spare tire first to make more room, and spread newspapers on the floor of the trunk before putting her in. Newspapers that could be removed later, and burned to destroy any evidence that might be left behind: blood, semen, hairs, the kind of stuff cops vacuum out of a suspect’s trunk and put under a microscope and use in court. Holden had read a lot of books. He knew about such things.

What had he done with her suitcase and clothes? Probably brought them along. He wouldn’t be stupid enough to leave them in his house. When they got where they were going, he would burn them or bury them or just leave them by her body. Took his scrapbook out of the suitcase, of course. He’d probably searched her suitcase while she was at Jerry’s. Must’ve been a shocker to find the scrapbook and realize she knew his secret. If he’d had any ideas about letting her live, that had put a stop to them. He’d probably had no such ideas, though. How could he pass up a chance like this—to have a victim walk right into his house? Like getting a surprise gift. Which he couldn’t wait to unwrap and try out.

Only try out, though. His own house was no place for really having fun. Not for a careful man like Holden, who traveled out of state to find his victims, who never even killed them in their own homes or apartments but took them out to wild areas where their bodies wouldn’t be found for days or weeks, or at all.

So where’s he taking me? Gillian wondered.

Someplace far away, she thought, or we’d be there by now.

She wondered if it was still night. After sunrise, it wouldn’t matter so much about the dead lights. Maybe she had nailed a brake light, but what good would that do?

Where is he taking me?

From the smooth, steady ride and the engine sounds, she guessed that they were on a freeway—had been on a freeway most of the time.

We’re going very far away, she thought, and then felt herself slip away again.

She woke up gasping with fear and bathed in sweat.

Sweat?

The air in the trunk felt warm. She couldn’t remember it being warm before. She could remember shivering sometimes and wishing she had clothes on, or at least a sheet to cover herself. The warmth meant sunlight.

It’s daytime.

She wondered what time they had left Holden’s house. Maybe three or three-thirty in the morning? There was no way to be sure, since she’d been unconscious, but he’d probably been quick to get on the road. The sun would start heating things up by seven or eight. If it was much later than that, the trunk would probably be a lot hotter.

So we’ve been on the road about four hours, maybe longer.

If he headed south, we’re well into Mexico by now. East, we’re in Arizona.

“Crucify me on a cactus,” she heard herself mumble. “Ha ha.” No joke. She could see herself on one of those saguaros that stood in the desert like a mutant man with upraised arms. She felt nails in her palms, the spines piercing her back and buttocks and legs. The sun seared her bare skin. She heard her skin sizzling like bacon on a skillet. Squinting through the glare of the noon sun, she saw Holden smile and drop to his hands and knees and crawl toward her. Bones littered his way—glaring white skulls, ribcages, parts- of a dozen bodies or twenty. The bones clinked and clattered as Holden scuttled through them. Some dissolved into white powder that puffed, and he was crawling through a cloud of bone dust. When he emerged from the cloud, he was no longer Fredrick Holden. He was a tarantula, fat and furry and half a foot across. And scurrying toward Gillian’s feet. Gasping, she tried to move her feet away from it. Skeleton fingers held her feet to the hot desert ground. She couldn’t move. The spider climbed onto her bare left foot, walked up the skeleton hand at her ankle as if the finger bones were the rungs of a ladder. It moved up her shin. It sat for a moment on her knee as if resting. Then it began crawling up Gillian’s thigh, and she screamed.

The scream snatched her away from the horrors in the desert. She was in the trunk again, panting. When she opened her eyes, they both burned as if someone had flung saltwater into her face. She realized it was sweat.

The trunk was very hot. The black air felt like a heavy blanket pressing down on her, suffocating her.

I won’t suffocate, she told herself. This trunk isn’t airtight. I’ll just cook.

I must’ve been out a while, she thought.

She was drenched. Even lying motionless, she could feel runnels sliding down her body, tickling her. The newspapers felt sodden under her back. She rolled onto her right side. Sweat must have been clinging to her skin in tiny beads like raindrops, standing in pools in the hollows of her throat and navel. It cascaded off her when she rolled. She heard it spill onto the newspapers.

The change of position helped. Much of the paper peeled off her back with the turn. A sheet of it still adhered to her buttocks, but there was nothing she could do. She lay there motionless, her eyes shut tight to keep the sweat from stinging them. The trickles continued. Her legs, pressed together, felt as if they were lathered with hot butter. Only her mouth was dry. Her tongue touched dry flakes along her lips.

The floor of the trunk suddenly tipped beneath her. She flinched and choked herself on the rope and quickly bent her knees, rumpling the papers but stopping her forward roll.

The car’s going uphill, she thought. Up a steep hill.

It had moved up and down many times before, rocking her slightly, but never anything like this.

He’s taking me into the mountains, she thought.

Chapter Twenty-two

Rick jerked awake as something smacked the wall of his tent. He lifted his head. The blue tent was murky inside with daylight. He thought a pine cone must’ve fallen. But then the tent was struck twice more, and other objects, missing, thumped the ground outside.

Bert moved, rubbing him, and he looked down at her. “What’s going on?” she whispered.

“They’re throwing stuff.”

The sleeping bag’s zipper was on the other side of Bert. He couldn’t get to it without crawling over her, so he started to squirm out the top. Bert rolled away from him. He heard the zipper slide with a sound like ripping fabric.

“So long, Rick the Prick!” Jason’s voice. It came from a distance. “So long, cunts!”

Rick was half out of the bag, sitting up, his hand on the knife propped upright inside his hiking boot. Bert had slid out the open side. She was on her elbows. At the sound of Jase’s voice, she stopped trying to get out.

“It hasn’t been nice knowing you!”Luke called.

“FUCK YOU AND THE HORSES YOU RODE IN ON!” That one came from Andrea. From nearby. Her tent?

Bert shook her head.

There was distant, derisive laughter from the boys.

Rick sat motionless, waiting. Bert didn’t move either. She was still stretched out, lying half across her empty sleeping bag, propped up on her elbows, naked to the knees. Her feet were still inside Rick’s bag. Her breasts rose and fell as she breathed.

“I guess they’re gone,” Rick finally said.

“Good riddance to bad rubbish.” Smiling, she lay back and folded her hands behind her head. One of her feet stroked the side of Rick’s leg. “I hope that’s the last of them.”

“We’ll take that other trail.”

“And make sure, first, they’re really going up to Dead Mule Pass.” Bert took her legs out of Rick’s bag and stretched them out on top of it. “It’s hot in here. Must be late.”

He flipped the sleeping bag off his hot legs. The air felt good on them. “When Jase handed the gun to you, it changed everything. That ... I think that pretty much shattered my obsession with Julie and the rest of it.”

“God, if I’d known what you went through. I feel like such a jerk for forcing you into this trip.”

“It was probably good for me. I know you’ve been good for me.”

“We don’t have to go on, though. If we turn around, we could be back at the car this afternoon. Would you rather do that?”

“I don’t know. I think I’ll be all right now. And I’d hate to cheat you out of the rest ...”

“I wouldn’t mind. This hasn’t exactly gone the way I’d hoped, anyway.”

Rick nodded. “Bet you didn’t expect it to be this exciting.”

“Or this crowded.”

“Well, now that Jase and his pals are gone ...”

“That only leaves Andrea and Bonnie.”

“Maybe we ought to split up with them.” That, Rick knew, was what Bert wanted. Strangely, the idea of leaving the girls behind didn’t disturb him. He felt no disappointment. Andrea was a temptation and she had offered herself to him. If she were gone, he could stop struggling against the urge to take her up on it. And he could be alone with Bert.

“They’re nice and everything,” Bert said. “Andrea’s kind of a kick.”

“She’s sure got a mouth,” Rick added.

“But it’s like having guests. Even if you like their company, they’re in the way.”

Rick suddenly had a thought that made his heart quicken. “How about this?” he asked. “We’ll have a leisurely breakfast, tell the girls to go on without us, and then we’ll get all our stuff together. And we’ll hike around the end of the lake to our stream.”

“You mean, stay there?” Her voice was eager, her eyes bright.

“All day. And we’ll pitch our tent down by the inlet and spend the night. Does that sound okay?”

“It sounds perfect. Too good to be true.”

“But true,” Rick said.

Chapter Twenty-three

The ride became a torture as the heat in the trunk grew worse and the car climbed and dropped and made sharp turns, sliding Gillian over the newspapers, trying to throw her forward and back, the rope squeezing her throat each time she flinched at the sudden movements.

It can’t go on much longer, she thought.

We’re in the mountains. We’ll stop soon and he’ll let me out.

Let me out. No! God, what am I going to do!

The car slowed abruptly, throwing Gillian onto her back. Her knees flew up. Her left knee bumped the lid of the trunk before she could straighten her legs.

She felt the car make a sharp turn. Then it began moving forward. It was no longer on pavement. On a dirt road? The floor of the trunk shuddered under her back, shaking her, sometimes bouncing her roughly.

It won’t be long now.

I’m sorry, Jerry, she thought. I shouldn’t have left without you. But then he might’ve gotten you, too, so maybe it’s better this way.

Knowing that she would never see Jerry again, Gillian felt a twist of sorrow and loss.

It’s not over yet, she told herself.

Then the car stopped and the engine went silent.

Gillian felt a change inside herself as if a switch had been thrown. She no longer felt the stifling heat, or the pains of her bound and battered body, the awful fear. Her heartbeat thundered. She shivered. She felt cold. Even her mind felt cold. And sharp.

He’s gonna have to work for it.

The trunk lid swung up. Daylight poured down on Gillian, blinding her. Cool air lapped her burning wet body. The air smelled of pine and damp earth. Squinting, she peered out. The opening was about three feet high. Beyond it, she saw the green of trees and a few pale patches of sky. Fredrick Holden wasn’t there.

He must’ve used a trunk release on his dashboard.

Gillian heard the soft sound of a breeze whispering through the woods. There were birds singing, chirping, squawking. She even heard the flutter of wings. The whiny buzz of a mosquito.

Where is he?

She heard a footstep. It made a quiet crunching sound on the ground. Then there were more footsteps.

He’s coming!

He stood over the trunk and stared down at her.

Didn’t do anything, just stared as if entranced by the look of Gillian stretched out in his trunk, naked and gleaming with sweat, tied up and helpless.

His eyes seemed to bulge. His mouth hung open. Gillian could see his chest move as he breathed rapidly. He closed his mouth, licked his lips and swallowed. Then he rubbed a forearm across his mouth.

“All mine,” he muttered as if to himself. “Allll mine.”

He bent over the trunk. His hands swirled over Gillian’s slick skin as if he were fingerpainting.

Go ahead. Enjoy the hell out of this. I’ll get my turn.

The hands slid on her shoulders, circled and kneaded her breasts, swarmed over her belly and down her thighs, slipped between her thighs and slithered there, delving around the rope. Then they roamed up her body again and lingered on her breasts as if he couldn’t get enough of the slippery way they felt, especially when he squeezed them.

“Untie me,” Gillian said. Her voice came out in a dry, raspy whisper. “I’ll do wonderful things to you.”

He slapped her face hard.

Then he rubbed his hands on his shirt. They left dark stains on the pale fabric. His right hand dropped out of sight below the edge of the trunk. It came back with a knife.

It was a huge knife with a long, broad blade. A bowie knife?

Leaning over the trunk, he cut through the rope around Gillian’s ankles. The edge of the blade scraped lightly along the side of her calf and kept moving higher. Goosebumps crawled over her skin. She tried not to shiver. She couldn’t help it. She wanted to damp her legs together, but that would push the blade into her thigh.

He’s gonna ram it right up into me.

No, he won’t, she thought. He can’t have blood in his trunk. Even the newspapers wouldn’t hold it all. He’s smart enough to know that.

The knife turned. The point lightly traced its way up the hollow where her leg joined her groin, followed it to her hip.

The knife rose above her. Holden kept it in his hand while he wiped his mouth again with his forearm. Then it came down slowly and Gillian thought he was going to free her hands. The blade pressed, instead, against her pubic mound. She saw his arm make a sawing motion, but she felt no pain. He’s cutting the rope, she realized. That’s all.

That’s all?

She felt the rope part. Her hands were still bound together, but now she would be able to raise them without choking herself.

And my feet are loose, she thought.

He’d take me easily in a fight, but I can make a run for it.

Holden pressed the blade to her throat. With his other hand, he reached behind her neck. He grabbed the rope and yanked it. Gillian felt as if she were being scorched by the streaking rope, but then it was out from under her.

Holden clutched the end of it with his left hand. “Up,” he said, and tugged it like a leash. Gillian sat up. Sweat streamed down her body, dripped off her chin and breasts. Sodden newspapers clung to her back.

With his rope hand, Holden peeled the papers off. “Out,” he said. His command was followed by another tug. Gillian winced.

Bracing herself with forearms on the edge of the trunk, she turned and got to her knees. She had papers on her rump. They stayed stuck to her while she swung a leg out of the trunk. Her knee found the bumper. It slipped off when she put her weight on it. She squirmed on the edge. The rope at her throat was yanked, and she tumbled out, rolling. The bumper hit her side. She bounced off it and slammed the ground ... and reached up and caught the rope and jerked it. Holden yelped. His arm snapped forward. The end of the rope flew from his hand.

Gillian flipped over. She rammed the fists of her tied hands against the ground and thrust herself up, and was almost to her feet when Holden’s kick caught her hip and sent her hurling sideways. She crashed against the rear of the car. It knocked her away. She fell and rolled and tried to keep rolling but Holden pinned her down with a shoe on her belly.

He stared down at her. He was breathing hard. He rubbed his lips again with his forearm.

Then he stomped.

Pain blasted through Gillian.

Wheezing and dazed, she was only vaguely aware of Holden picking up the rope, of how he pulled it and how she crawled, and how he picked her up and braced her against a tree trunk. By the time her mind cleared, it was too late.

Holden no longer held the rope. She couldn’t see where it was, but she felt it around her neck, against her right ear, against the side of her head. Its other end, she knew, must be tied to a branch above her.

She tried to grab for it.

Something stopped her.

She looked down. She was wearing a black leather belt. It was cinched tight around her waist. Her bound hands were lashed to it with rope—probably some of the rope that Holden had cut off her feet.

When did he do that? she wondered.

I must’ve been out for a while.

She looked around. The car was a few yards away, its trunk and driver’s door still open. But she didn’t see Holden anywhere.

Soon, she heard him tramping through the woods.

He came into the clearing. His arms were loaded with twigs and sticks. He gazed at Gillian and walked toward her.

Jesus, be’s gonna burn me at the stake like a witch!

But he dropped the bundle a safe distance away from her. He cleared an area surrounding it. He gathered up all the newspapers from the trunk of his car and stuffed them into the heap of wood. He found the paper that had come out of the trunk on Gillian’s rump. The breeze had tossed it into a bush, where it waited for him, snagged.

He touched a match to the pile.

I knew he’d do this, Gillian thought.

The papers had been spread in the trunk like papers at the bottom of a bird cage—to catch her debris so the cops would have nothing to find if they ever searched. Now, the papers were being burnt.

He won’t be putting me back in the trunk.

I’ll be left here.

Panic blew through Gillian like a frigid wind.

“You can’t do this!” she cried out. “Please!”

“Shut up or I’ll cut your tongue out.”

She snapped her mouth shut. She sucked air through her nostrils. The air was acrid with smoke.

Holden walked slowly to the car. He opened a rear door and pulled out Gillian’s suitcase. He carried it to the fire, set it flat on the ground, and opened it.

On top were the white shorts and plaid blouse she had worn to Jerry’s. Holden held the blouse over the fire until flames started crawling up its tails. Then he dropped it into the blaze. He picked up her shorts and tossed them onto the flames. As the white fabric curled and blackened, he looked over at Gillian. “What were you doing in my house?” he asked.

“You told me not to talk.”

“I changed my mind. Talk. What were you doing there?”

“I just break into houses,” Gillian said. “I stay in them when people are away.”

“What for?”

“It’s exciting.”

He laughed. “Real exciting, this time. You must be crazy or something.”

“Look who’s talking.”

“You think I’m crazy?” He looked amused by the idea. “I’m not crazy. I just do what any guy’d do if he had the guts.

“Bullshit.”

“Yeah, you’d be surprised.” He lifted out her tank-top and gym shorts and tossed them into the fire. “Isn’t a man alive doesn’t take one look at a piece like you and want to rip her clothes off and fuck her brains out. They just don’t have the guts or they’d do it. Me, I do it.”

“Then you kill them,” Gillian said.

“Dead girls tell no tales. How long you think I’d last if I let them live?”

“You enjoy killing people—and hurting them?”

He grinned and threw her skirt into the fire. “Just part of the game. Have to break some eggs if you’re gonna make an omelet.”

“You could get any woman you want. You don’t have to do it this way. You’re handsome and rich.”

“Rich, huh? You’re a little snoop, aren’t you?” He tossed her heels into the fire.

My sandals are still at Jerry’s, Gillian thought. So are my panties and bra. All that he’ll find of me when he wakes up.

“You know what they say,” Holden told her. “Money can’t buy happiness.”

“It’ll buy a lot of women.”

“Whores. Riddled with disease. Who wants that? I’m real particular who I touch.” He took a plastic bag out of the suitcase, opened it, and pulled out Gillian’s bikini. The bag shrank on the fire and burst into flames. “What’d you do, use my hot tub?”

Gillian nodded. She couldn’t let him know that she’d been in Jerry’s pool.

“Wore a bikini in the hot tub. That’s a laugh. You’re a very modest young lady.”

“That’s me,” she muttered.

Holden dangled the bikini top over the flames. Steam rose off its damp fabric. He dropped it, then rubbed the pants on his face. “Mmmm, delicious.”

“You’re a pig.”

“Oink oink,” he said, and laughed. The pants fluttered down into the blaze. He took her camera out of the suitcase and held it toward her. “What’s this for?”

“Dental floss.”

“You babes are such a riot. If you aren’t screaming and weeping and pleading, you turn into wise-asses. There oughta be a bounty on you.” He opened the back of the camera and removed the film cartridge. “You got pictures of my place in here?”

“Develop them and find out for yourself.”

“You’re a real prize, you know that? Where do you get off, breaking into a man’s private domain and taking fucking snapshots?”

“Where do you get off, killing people?”

“Right between my legs, hon.” He dropped the film into the fire. “Seriously, you took pictures of my place?”

“I take pictures of all the places I stay. I have albums full of them.”

“No kidding. And you think I’m crazy.”

“Yeah, a madman.”

“Mad is right. But not crazy. If I was crazy, you think I could’ve done thirty-two babes without ever even getting questioned by the cops, much less busted? You think a crazy man would do that?”

“If he’s smart.”

Black, greasy smoke curled off the film.

“At least you’re right about that,” Holden said. “I am smart. Take you, for instance. They find your body out here, if they find it, they aren’t gonna know who the fuck you are, much less where you came from. I mean, they won’t even think of looking in the goddamn San Fernando Valley. Hon, we’re more than three hundred miles away. If they do find you, they’ll think you’re from San Francisco or Sacramento or some damn place. We’re so far away you won’t even turn up in the LA papers.”

“That’ll make it tough to keep your scrapbook current,” Gillian muttered.

He laughed. “Oh, I’ll manage. There’s this news-stand in Hollywood, carries papers from everywhere. What were you gonna do, give my scrapbook to the cops?”

“If you’re so smart, you shouldn’t have kept it around.”

“Shit, it’s not evidence. It sure would’ve made them look at me, though, wouldn’t it? I’m lucky I got back when I did.”

“Who’d you kill this time out?”

“Oh, a real sweetie. Linda Ryan.” He had lifted a handful of socks and panties out of Gillian’s suitcase, but he held onto them and stared past the fire. “A real beauty. Sixteen years old. Spotted her leaving a 7-Eleven and followed her home. That was what, Thursday? Friday night, her folks left her alone. She was a fighter, too. Like you.” He turned his head and smiled at Gillian. “But she cried and pleaded at the end. You will, too.”

He tossed the clothes into the fire, then gazed at Gillian for a long time. He rubbed his forearm across his mouth. “I’m gonna have real fun with you.”

He got off his knees, picked up the suitcase, and dumped the rest of its contents into the fire. For a few seconds, the flames were covered by clothing and her leather toilet kit and handbag. Then they broke through, crackling and blazing high.

He kicked the camera into the fire.

He turned the suitcase in his hand, inspecting it, apparently undecided about its fate. Then he carried it to his car, leaving his knife on the ground by the fire. Gillian quickly jerked up her knees. The rope stopped her, squeezed her throat. She swung, keeping her neck muscles tensed. Blood seemed trapped inside her head. She felt as if her face were swelling up, as if her eyes might pop from their sockets. Shooting her legs down, Gillian stood up straight and gasped for breath. She looked toward the car. Her vision was dark as if clouds had covered the sun.

Holden was swinging her suitcase into the backseat.

He came back to the fire, apparently unaware of Gillian’s attempt.

Squatting, he picked up the enormous knife. He poked the fire with it, shoving some unburnt rags into the leaping flames. Then he used the blade to separate some fiery brands from the main pile. They formed a smaller pyre at his feet. He eased the broad blade into the midst of the flames and rested the handle on the ground.

He left it there.

Oh, Jesus.

Standing up, he faced Gillian.

“Hey,” she gasped. “Come on.”

Grinning, he pulled off his shirt. His torso was lean and tanned and muscular. He tossed his shirt to the ground.

He wore no belt. His belt was strapped around Gillian’s waist.

He unbuttoned his slacks and lowered the zipper and his rigid penis sprang out and someone not very far away yelled, “Pick it up, man. What’s the matter, you got lead in your ass?”

The livid color drained out of Holden’s face. He tucked his penis in. He zipped his pants and buttoned them and whirled around. He grabbed his knife out of the small fire. He snatched up his shirt.

The shirt fluttered, clamped in his teeth, as he ran at Gillian.

He swung the heavy blade. It thunked the branch above her head. The rope dropped in front of her like a dead snake. Holden grabbed it, then let it go. His shoulder rammed Gillian’s belly. She folded over him.

He ran with her.

His shoulder pounded her guts, keeping her breathless and unable to yell for help.

Her face was against his bare back.

She saw the brown wooden grips of a revolver above the waistband of his slacks.

She reached for it with her bound hands.

And almost got it.

Please!

Holden flung her into the trunk of his car and slammed the lid shut.

Chapter Twenty-four

“Let’s take a breather,” Bert said, and sat down on a rock shelf beside the trail.

Rick sat down beside her. When he leaned back, the sloping rock took the weight of the pack off his shoulders.

“Whatever happened to your cigars?” Bert asked.

“Want one?”

“Maybe a puff of yours.”

Rick slipped free of the straps. He stood up, turned around, and opened a side pocket of his pack. The pocket was partly open where he’d kept his revolver. He found matches and the pack of cigars. Sitting down, he unwrapped a cigar and lit it. He took a few puffs, savoring the sweet aroma of the smoke.

Then he passed it to Bert.

She poked it into her mouth and wiggled her eyebrows.

“Hooray for Captain Spalding,” Rick said.

She blew smoke in his face and handed the cigar back.

“Funny,” he said. “You don’t look worn out, weary, exhausted and pooped.”

“I’ve picked up some of your tricks.”

“Isn’t necessary, though. I don’t want to run into the girls anymore than you do.”

“It’s been nice without them.”

“It was even nicer by the stream,” he said.

“Yeah. Can’t win. I feel like we’re getting dumped on right and left.” She leaned back. The rear brim of her Aussie hat bumped her pack. The hat slid down her face. She caught it, held it on her thigh, tilted her face into the sunlight and closed her eyes. “It would’ve been so wonderful.”

“It was for a while.”

“Yeah,” she muttered. “Before a bunch of assorted goons put in their appearance.”

That morning, after dressing, they had left the tent. The girls weren’t up yet. And they still weren’t up when they returned from the stream where they’d washed and brushed their teeth. Back in camp, they built up the fire, made coffee and a fine breakfast of scrambled eggs with chunks whittled off the bacon bar. As they finished eating, Bonnie came out of her tent.

“Andrea’s zonked,” she said. “Didn’t get much sleep last night.”

Rick felt himself blush. I didn’t do anything, he told himself. He wondered if Bonnie had still been awake when Andrea returned to the tent after making her offer. Had Andrea told her about it?

“Just woke up long enough to say goodbye to our friends?” Bert asked.

“That’s about it. I’ll get her up, though. We don’t want to keep you waiting.”

“That’s all right,” Rick said.

“We’re going to head over to a place we found on the other side of the lake,” Bert explained, “and spend the day there.”

“I thought we were going to take the trail that bypasses the mountain.”

“We’ll be staying behind,” Bert said.

Bonnie nodded. Rick thought he caught a brief look of relief on her face. “Well,” she said, “I guess we’ll go on. Andrea might not be too happy about it, but... you two didn’t come out here to have us in your hair.”

“We’ve enjoyed traveling with you,” Bert said.

“Yeah,” Rick said.

“It’s certainly been an adventure,” Bonnie said.

“Sorry about that,” Rick told her.

“Well, I think if you hadn’t been with us, those guys really might’ve started trouble. So thanks.”

They were folding their tent and Bonnie was sipping coffee by the fire when Andrea appeared. She got to her feet in front of her tent and stretched in the sunlight. She wore her faded blue shorts and her gray T-shirt. “You guys look like you’re about ready to hit the trail,” she said.

“They’re not going with us,” Bonnie told her.

Frowning, she walked over to them. “What’s the deal?” she asked.

“Bert and I are planning to camp at a place we found on the other side of the lake,” Rick said.

Andrea looked hurt. “What’s the problem?”

“No problem,” Bert assured her. “The guys are out of the way, and...”

“I thought we’d all stick together. I mean, we’re even parked in the same place.”

“Well,” Rick said, “we want to have some time to ourselves.”

She stared at him.

In the moment that their eyes met, Rick felt as if she were asking if he really wanted to leave her, was this Bert’s idea, did he have to go, did he understand what he would be missing?

“So, it’s adios, huh?” she asked.

“Not for a while,” Bert said.

Andrea returned to the fire. She sat there with Bonnie, sipping coffee and talking quietly while Rick and Bert finished packing.

Shouldering their packs, they went to the girls. “Guess we’ll be on our way,” Bert said.

Bonnie stood up and shook hands with her, then with Rick. “It’s been nice traveling with you.”

“Same here,” Rick said.

Andrea stood u^p. “We don’t even know each other’s full names,” she said. “I’m Andrea Winston, this is Bonnie Jones.”

“I’m Bert Lindsey,” she said, and shook hands.

Andrea offered her hand to Rick. He held it briefly as he introduced himself. “Richard Wainwright.”

“If either of you ever get down to LA,” Bert said, “make sure to look us up. We could get together for dinner or something.”

“We’re in the San Fernando valley,” Rick said.

“And you’re in the phone book?”

“Yep.”

“Well,” Andrea said, “who knows? Maybe we’ll see each other again some time.”

Rick followed Bert to the lakeside trail. There, he looked back and waved. Andrea had a strange look on her face. A knowing smile.

My Christ, Rick thought, she’s going to show up at my door. Maybe next week, maybe next month.

His heart raced with the prospect.

Maybe she’ll forget my name, he told himself.

She won’t.

I’ll just treat her as a friend, and ...

What if it’s over with Bert by then? What if we’ve broken up?

What if we break up and Andrea doesn’t come along?

Her name is Winston. I can always find her through the university at Santa Cruz.

Why am I thinking this nonsense? Everything’s great with Bert.

But you never know.

Bert, ahead of him, looked to the left. Rick saw that they were passing the clearing where Jase, Luke and Wally had camped.

Won’t ever see them again, he thought.

“We forgot to give our names to The Three Thugateers,” he said.

Bert smiled back at him. “What an oversight! How will they ever manage to look us up?”

When she faced away again, Rick looked over at the lake. He pictured himself diving for his revolver. Probably wouldn’t find it, anyway, he told himself. And Bert wouldn’t be too pleased if he tried. He kept walking.

Soon, they rounded the end of the lake and climbed to the top of the rock slope overlooking the stream. “Do you feel like a dip?” Bert asked.

“Do I look like one?”

She laughed. They crossed the stream, hopping from rock to rock, then made their way down to the clearing by the inlet. There, they put down their packs. “This time,” Bert said, “we’ll have towels.”

“And let’s take a sleeping bag with us,” Rick suggested. “That was hard on my elbows and knees yesterday.”

They found their towels and placed them on top of Rick’s sleeping bag roll. Sitting on a rock, Bert took off her boots and socks. She stood up and stepped out of her shorts and panties. She left her shirt on, and Rick stayed in his jockey shorts.

On the way up to the stream, Rick stayed behind her. He watched her long bare legs. He watched the way her shirt-tail swayed and fluttered, giving him glimpses of her shadowed rump. The stolen glances, he realized, were somehow even more enticing than when she was naked.

Just don’t fall and break your leg, he thought. We don’t have the revolver anymore.

He pictured Julie on the ground. He felt a rush of fear.

Isn’t it ever going to end?

Not while we’re in the mountains.

This’ll be great, he told himself. Yesterday over here was great. Nothing to worry about. The guys are gone.

They reached the side of the stream at a place where the water tumbled down off a ledge and formed a pool. Rick turned around slowly, scanning the area.

“Checking for voyeurs?” Bert asked, smiling.

“We’re really out in the open.”

“That’s what’s nice about it. Didn’t bother you yesterday.”

He turned toward the lake. Only patches of blue were visible through the trees. The tops of nearby trees blocked his view of the trail leading up to Dead Mule Pass. The same trees, he supposed, would prevent anyone on the trail from seeing them, even with binoculars.

“Don’t worry about it,” Bert said.

“What, me worry?” Rick spread out the sleeping bag. Bert dropped the towels onto it.

He stood up and went to Bert and kissed her. Her arms went around him.

The feel of Bert soothed his fears, melted his cold tightness.

He stroked her back, slid his hands down and under the draping tails of her shirt. He caressed the smooth mounds of her buttocks. He ran his hands up her back. As he curled them over her shoulders, Bert stretched the front of his elastic waistband and dragged his shorts down around his thighs. He felt her cool, gliding fingers.

Moaning, he lowered his hands. He squeezed her rump, but it slid out of his hands as she crouched. She pulled the shorts down to his ankles and he stepped out of them. He felt a gentle kiss. Her tongue lapped the underside of his shaft. Then her lips opened and slid down him. She was wet and tight and she sucked.

Then she was rising. Rick felt air on his wet penis. He opened her shirt and spread it wide before she squeezed herself against him and her slick mouth joined his lips.

Soon, she eased back a little. She gazed at Rick as he slipped the shirt off her shoulders. She reached back and shook the sleeves down her arms. The movements made her breasts shake slightly. Rick caressed them. He bent down and licked a jutting nipple. He pressed it between his lips. He opened wide and filled his mouth with her breast, tongue swirling over the springy nub. He felt her trembling fingers in his hair. He moved to the other breast and took it in, and as he sucked he put a hand between her legs. She spread her legs to make room for it. He slipped fingers into her. She squirmed and clenched his hair.

She pulled his hair gently and he let his head go back, the breast sliding out of his mouth. His fingers kept stroking. Bert’s hips kept moving in a slow, languid way as she rubbed herself on his hand. Her mouth hung open. Her eyes had a vague look for long seconds, then seemed to focus on Rick’s eyes. She moved his hand away as she lowered herself. He felt the light touch of her fingers on his penis, guiding him. She sank lower, taking him in, sheathing him. He went to his knees. Then he was all the way in, buried in her hugging warmth. She wrapped her arms around him and thrust her tongue into his mouth.

His knees hurt, but he didn’t care. Bert was tight against him. They were locked together in a hard embrace. They were joined by his penis and her tongue. They had made love many times before, but somehow this time was different. He felt the difference. He didn’t think about it, but he knew it was there. She wasn’t his girlfriend or his lover. They were two parts of the same person and he felt a surge of joy that didn’t overwhelm his passion but fired it instead.

Bert gasped into his mouth. Her tongue pushed in more deeply. He pulled at it and clenched her buttocks. She was motionless against him, but inside she clutched and squeezed him and seemed to be sucking him up. He fought to control himself.

She started to whimper. And then she shuddered against him and Rick gave up trying to hold back. He quaked, his penis far up into the center of her, suddenly jerking and pulsing, pumping out his semen, throbbing hard until he was drained.

When it was done, they stayed together, panting for air. Bert rested her chin on his shoulder. Her hair tickled his cheek. Her hands lay on his back, almost heavy, as if she were too spent to lift them. Spent or not, she kept certain muscles contracted to hold him inside her. He caressed her buttocks.

Later, she placed her open hands on the sides of his face and looked him in the eyes. “Could we stay like this forever?” she whispered.

“Maybe.”

“Might be hard on the knees.”

“What knees?”

She laughed, her nipples moving against his chest. Then she kissed him lightly on the mouth. Her vagina tightened, giving him a friendly farewell squeeze that brought a fresh stir of arousal so that he was growing hard again as she slid off him.

Bert duck-walked backward and sat on the sleeping bag. Her knees were red. She brushed them off. The grit left her skin pitted. Rick stood up. One of his knees popped when he straightened it. He bent over and rubbed them.

“We’ve got matching knees,” Bert said.

“Should’ve used the sleeping bag. That’s what it’s here for.”

“Any port in a storm,” Bert said.

Rick limped and sat down beside her. He put an arm around her back.

“When are we going to take that dip?” she asked.

“I think I’d rather rest for a while before I brave the freezing waters.”

“Then rest,” she said. She turned him and guided him. He lay down on the sleeping bag, head on Bert’s lap. Her legs were stretched out. She was leaning back, braced up on her arms. She smiled down at him. “Close your eyes.”

“Are you kidding?” He turned his head and kissed the hot skin below her navel.

Bert stroked his hair.

His gaze roamed up the sleek bare slope of her body, studying her flat belly and the curves of her ribs, lingering on the smooth undersides of her breasts, on the twin rumpled disks of darker skin with jutting posts of flesh in the center of each. He looked up the valley between her breasts, at the hollow of her throat, at the soft sweep of her collar bones, her shoulders, her slender neck. Her face. She was smiling down at him.

“This may be as good as it gets,” he said.

“Oh, I don’t know. As good as it gets was maybe ten minutes ago.”

“Think so?” Rick asked.

She shook her head. “Not really. It’s all part of the same thing, isn’t it.”

His heart suddenly quickened. “I love you, Bert.”

Her smile died. “I love you, too,” she whispered.

She pressed her lips together. Her eyes shimmered ...

“FOULNESS! STENCH!”

Bert gasped and flinched rigid at the sudden shouts. Rick lurched up. Prancing on a rock slab beside the stream no more than twenty feet above them was Angus, waving a large wooden club overhead.

“FILTH OF SATAN!”

Bert twisted away from the stranger. She flung an arm across her breasts, glanced up at Rick with shocked eyes, and looked back over her shoulder at the wild man.

“Angus...”

Rick sprang to his feet, his heart slamming. He had an urge to laugh—or scream, he didn’t know which. His old buddy, the King of the Wild Frontier. Savior of souls. Christ. What a time to show up. The bastard. That coyote’s head, with its mouth hanging open and those teeth an’ all—no wonder he’d given Bert such a fright.

Rick didn’t believe this was happening to them.

This is mad!

Angus hopped up and down like a crazy thing, shaking his stick, the coyote head bouncing but not falling off.

“MAGGOTS! GET THEE GONE!”

“Get out of here, you damn lunatic!” Rick yelled.

“ANGUS MOUNTAIN KING! GET! NAKED INTERLOPERS! VERMIN! TURDS!”

Angus ducked and skipped aside as a rock shot by, barely missing his head.

Rick looked at Bert. She was on her knees, reaching for another rock. She grabbed one and reared up.

“WHORE!”

“Crazy old fart!” she shouted, and hurled the rock at him. It struck his bare knee, just below the hem of his animal-skin robe.

He scurried backward.

Rick crouched. He picked up some of the chips of rock and joined Bert in throwing them at Angus.

The old man retreated up the slope, shaking his stick and shouting over his shoulder, “SICKNESS! DEFILERS! PUKE AND PISS!”

A rock thrown by Bert skimmed the top of his head. His coyote hat flew off. Suddenly, he looked a sorrowful sight; his straggly gray beard shook and trembled as he mumbled more profanities. He dropped to his hands and knees, grabbed the hat by its snout, scurried up and ran. Soon, he disappeared among the trees near a bend in the stream.

Rick and Bert faced each other. Her face was ashen, her eyes wide. “That, I presume, was Angus the Mountain King. You never did get around to telling me the whole story last night ...”

“Yeah, sorry. I should have prepared you for that. I told you, he’s a maniac, a freak. But, on the whole, probably harmless. Probably gets off on watching folks doin’ what comes naturally...”

Bert was not convinced. She was still pale and Rick could see she was shaking.

“Let’s get out of here.” She hurried into her shirt. She tried to fasten the buttons while Rick put on his shorts. Her hands trembled too much so she gave up.

They rushed down to the clearing. In minutes, they were dressed and packed.

On the shoreline trail, they hiked fast and looked back often. They reached yesterday’s campsite. The girls had already packed up and gone.

Bert stopped by the dead remains of the fire. She was breathing hard. Her shirt was still open. She lifted its front, baring her midriff, and knotted the ends together,. “Should we head for the car?”

“If you want to.”

“Don’t you?”

“It was awfully nice before the Wild Man of the Mountains dropped by.”

“What is he? What really makes him tick? He’s out of it, sure. And gets his kicks spying on other people. Yuck. What a sicko.”

“He’s a hermit, I guess. Mad as a hatter.”

“Don’t mention hats. My God.” She took a deep breath and shook her head.

“I suppose he was probably harmless.”

“A High Sierra shopping cart man,” Bert muttered.

“I wonder if he would’ve bothered us again.”

“What, you want to go back and find out?”

“I hate to leave that place.”

Bert looked into his eyes. “It wasn’t the place, it was us.”

“That’s true. But the place was special, too.”

“He ruined it.”

“Maybe we can find somewhere else.”

Bert raised her eyebrows. “Does that mean you don’t want to leave?”

“I guess that’s what it means. We ought to be able to find another nice, private place.”

“That one didn’t turn out to be so private.”

“It was for a while.”

“What have we got here, a convert?”

“Apparently. Why don’t we take the trail you picked out yesterday?”

“The one the girls are taking?”

“We’ll walk slowly.”

“They can’t be very far ahead of us,” Bert said. “We weren’t gone all that long.”

“If we run into them, we do. But we won’t stay with them. I want to find a place where we can be alone.”

“Pick up where we left off?” Bert asked.

“Before the rude interruption.”

“Fine with me.”

Rick twisted the burning stub of his cigar against the rock by his hip. Then he rolled the remains between his thumb and forefinger, crumpling the cigar to flakes of brown leaf that drifted down onto the trail.

He looked at Bert. She was beside him, leaning back against her pack, her legs stretched down to the trail. Her hat with its one side turned up rested on her thigh, held there by the weight of her curled hand on its brim. Her belly was the color of dry sand. It had light, downy hair that was almost too fine to see. Her shirt was tied below the swell of her breasts. Her mouth was open slightly. Specks of sweat glistened above her lip and below her dosed eyes. The hair across her forehead shone golden in the sunlight and moved as the soft breeze blew through it.

Maybe she was simply resting. Maybe she was asleep.

Rick decided not to disturb her.

There was no reason to hurry.

He felt perfectly content. So far, it had been one helluva trip, he reflected, and in some strange way he was sorry that it was all over. Back in civilization he wondered if they’d still feel the same way about each other. The same way as they did now.

Wide open spaces—and a touch of danger—did funny things to people. Heightened their senses. Made them think things they wouldn’t normally think—or feel. What if... well, suppose Bert didn’t feel the same about him when she hit the real world again.

What if...

He hoped not. He sincerely hoped not.

Meanwhile, he was quite content. He wouldn’t mind sitting here all day, he thought. Just looking at her...

Chapter Twenty-five

It was late when they woke next day. Ten-thirty. No nymphets invaded their space. No teen thugs. No Angus. They were alone. Just as they’d planned from the first, a vacation together, away from it all. Rick lay back and thought how different things would’ve turned out if only it had stayed that way.

No Andrea to disturb his dreams. No Bonnie to give him the snake-eye. Yeah, so they could still have met up with The Three Thugateers. And Angus, the Wild Man of the Mountains. In an ideal world, he supposed he and Bert could have handled all four of those dudes. Could’ve and would’ve, most likely.

With some help from my trusty equalizer...

Rick frowned. Not for the first time did he bitterly regret Bert having tossed his gun into the lake. Oh well, at least we have our knives—and I suppose in an emergency we can hurl a nifty rock or two.

Bonnie’s hatchet would’ve been useful ...

Bert’s eyes were closed, but she was smiling.

“You thinking what I’m thinking, honey?”

“Mmm ... maybe. just depends. What are you thinking?”

“That I could murder a coffee. And a long lazy swim.”

“Oh great!” Rick said. “And bring the wrath of that goddamn Angus down on our heads again!”

Bert faced him and leaned up on an elbow. She was naked, happy and smiling. The forefinger of her free hand traced slow circles on his chest.

“Hey. Ricky baby. Think positive. That’s all over now. This is us, remember? We’re on vacation and having a great time. Come on lazybones, let’s go. Race you to the coffee pot!”

She swung back the flap of her bag and stretched luxuriously. She could afford to—as of right now she had him all to herself. Rick watched her smooth tanned back and the way her arms twisted provocatively above her head as she stretched. He reached out to touch her skin, then gave a sigh of resignation and let his hand drop. Plenty of time for that later.

Sins of the flesh!

Whoa boy, for a moment there you sounded like our lunatic preacher...

“Go on, get the coffee going, woman, and let a man get dressed in peace!”

They were alone now. Together. He savored the thought like a kid with a special Christmas toy. He had this all-over warm feeling because he knew they both cherished the joy of being together—the tenderness of it.

Nothing else mattered.

They’d been through hell and come through the other side okay. From here on in it’s vacation time, folks.

Enjoy!

They heated up and drank what was left of last night’s coffee. It tasted gritty, bitter. Like something from the bottom of a lion’s cage, but hey, what the heck? Right now it was nectar from the gods.

“Let’s just mosey around awhile before we set off back on the trail,” Bert said. “Let’s live a little; enjoy ourselves. Might as well, since we’re here.”

“Suppose we meet up with Angus?”

“Then we’ll turn right around and get back on the trail again. Whatever. C’mon, Rick. We can’t keep saying what if? We’re two responsible people. Innocent people, doing what hundreds of other responsible, innocent people do every year. Hit the trail and enjoy this great big beautiful country of ours!”

He held up his hands and said, “Okay, okay. Let’s do it.”

It was hot on top of the ridge. The blinding sun scorched their heads, despite the hats they wore. Rick checked his wristwatch. Two forty-five, near enough. They’d been on the back-of beyond trail an hour and a quarter. Before that, they’d lingered over coffee, eaten beans and a couple of oaty breakfast bars. Then they’d spent some time in the stream. He sure could use that cool stream water right now. He imagined himself naked, scooping it up in cupped hands. All sparkling and cold. Sluicing down over his head, his shoulders, chest, and trickling all the way to his feet.

“You thinking what I’m thinking?” Bert asked.

“Probably. It’s goddamn hot up here.” He swatted away a bunch of mosquitoes swarming around his head. They parted, and came back for more. Persistent little bastards. Sizing him up for grub. He splatted one on his arm. It squelched red. His blood, he guessed. Or maybe Bert’s. Or...

Bert pointed to a finger of pale gray smoke curling skyward. It came from a cabin, halfway down the other side of the ridge. “Who’d live in a place like that? Kinda isolated don’t you think?”

They stared at the cabin. It was a dilapidated place, sprawling in an untidy heap, part hidden amidst the tall dark pines. It looked like a good place not to visit.

So who suggested it might be an adventure to take a closer look? Rick couldn’t remember. Whatever. At the time, it seemed okay to investigate and discover who needed isolation so desperately as to put up sticks out here in the wilderness.

On the way down Rick decided that it was a bad idea, breaking in on somebody’s solitude like this. But Bert insisted. “It’s an adventure, Rick. We are on vacation after all, aren’t we?” The way she looked at him, all innocent and eager, almost made Rick change his mind. Trying hard to convince himself, he reasoned that, time-wise, a slight detour wouldn’t make a major difference. And they didn’t exactly have a deadline to meet...

They descended at a slow jog, their packs bumping on their backs, propelling them forward.

“Did anybody mention climbing back up the mountain with these packs on our backs?” Rick muttered, under his breath.

The cabin was old; fifty, sixty years old, Rick reckoned. And it was in bad repair. The filthy rag stretched across the front window looked as if it’d hung there since the year dot. A broken-down rocker with a greasy plaid cushion propped up on its seat stood on the rotting porch.

The bad feeling Rick had had before suddenly got worse. He climbed the wooden steps and looked at Bert, poking around, pushing open the cabin door which was already ajar. The door had a small window in it. Its glass was stained with grime. A around hole had been rubbed in the dirt.

A peepho/e.

Bert’s curiosity got the better of her, she was about to step inside.

“Bert...” he began.

A manic whoop cut through the stillness, then tapered off into a coy giggle. The giggle ended in a humorless titter.

Angus.

Who else?

Appearing from the far end of the cabin, making his way slowly along the porch toward them. Head cocked like a wary animal.

Angus with a gun this time. An old hunting rifle held loosely but, Rick saw, with the practiced ease of an expert. It hung cocked in the crook of his arm.

King of the Wild Frontier or Preacher Man. Which is be today? Rick wondered. Whatever, the guy means business...

Bert, taken off guard, backed up against the doorframe. Her face had paled. A look of defiance had the twist of fear that was already teasing her gut.

“Hi Angus,” she managed, cheerfully. “Care to give two weary travelers a drink of water?”

The coyote skins, even in this heat, shook around the preacher’s shoulders. His bony chest was naked. Roughly stitched skin trousers covered his bowed legs. He let out a bark that Bert took to be laughter. She blanched again, hearing the triumphant ring to it.

“Yeah,” Rick bluffed. “We were just passing by and thought you might offer us a drink—then we’ll be on our way... On the other hand, no worries about the drink. We’ll just be on our way. Bert?”

“Why yes,” she chirped. “We’ll be on our way. Er ... have a nice day, Angus!”

Suddenly they were looking down the barrel of the preacher’s gun. His face was screwed up alongside.

Easy does it... Rick’s eyes signaled the message to Bert.

Catching his drift, she nodded imperceptibly.

The gun jerked toward the cabin door.

“Get on it, get on in there, my fine, young travelin’ friends.”

Angus at his most amiable. Most wily.

A bullet clicked home.

Angus at his most persuasive, most lethal, Rick decided.

They turned and trouped in through the doorway.

First thing they noticed was the stench. Rotten food, human smells and something else; gamey, putrid. Couldn’t make out what it was. Angus jostled them to a deal table. It was stained with coffee, food and God knew what else. The surface was cluttered and cracked with age.

Sweeping aside the dirty crocks, stale food and other debris, Angus made one end clear. He jerked the gun again.

They slid out of their packs and sat down.

Taking the rickety spindle-back chairs either side of the table, Bert had her back to the door. Rick faced her. Angus took his place at the head of the table, to the right of Bert, and eased himself into a wooden armchair. The rifle rested across his bony knees.

A moment’s silence. Then Angus snatched off his hat and tossed it to one side. It landed in a mangy heap on the cabin floor. His head was bare, but for a few long gray hairs crawling through patches of thick, yellow scales. Grinning, he made his scraggly beard wiggle at them, and tapped the tabletop with a bony forefinger. Bert stared in disgust at the finger’s long, grimy nail, noting that all of his nails were black—and curved, like the talons of a giant bird of prey.

“Put ‘em down, right here!” he ordered. “That’s it. You heard me right first time. Them huntin’ knives you got tucked away in there.”

They didn’t want to do it, but right at this moment there wasn’t a hope in hell of playing it any other way. Angus held the aces. And the gun.

Slowly, they unfastened their belts and placed the sheathed weapons, and the looped belts, side by side at the center of the table. Angus leaned over, raked them in and dropped them into his lap.

Rick and Bert remained poker-faced. Wouldn’t do to let the bastard see that taking their knives was any major deal.

“Well, now,” Angus smiled craftily, looking from one to the other. “Ain’t this fine an’ dandy. Just the three of us. Sitting here like old friends.” He settled back into the curve of his chair and smiled some more.

Way too big for a skinny runt like him, Bert thought. It’s built for a bigger man ... She glanced around the one room cabin. Seated on her side of the table, she didn’t have to move her head to do it.

A tousled bed with grimy, greasy covers stood in the top right comer. The filthy ticking pillow skewed sideways, half on, half off the mattress. Bert’s eyes followed the pillow downward. To a huddle of dark canvas stashed beneath the bed. A loop or a strap had strayed from the pile. It lay curled like a snake on the worn wood floor.

A breath of fear flicked at her throat.

Over the bfass-knobbed headrail hung a framed picture of Christ on the cross. Bert figured it probably served as a reminder to Angus to keep up the Lord’s good works. She pictured him jumping out at them yesterday. Screaming insults and vile words.

No chance he’d forget, she reckoned.

To the right, sunlight filtered through a dirty rag-draped window. In the comer stood a large store cupboard. Its dark veneer had been polished at some stage of its life, but not anymore. She looked at the dull, wormy wood and reckoned it must be at least a hundred years old. An heirloom.

Like the dresser, with its heavy, carved shelves towering above the good-sized set of storage drawers. The whole thing filled most of the cabin’s facing wall. Religious bric-a-brac and faded sepia photographs in brass frames littered the shelves and top surface of the drawers.

Bert’s eyes lingered on a picture of a small, gentle-looking woman standing by the side of a seated, autocratic man. Both were laced up to the chin in Victorian-style dress.

In particular, she studied a photograph of a young girl with mournful eyes. She wore a crocheted shawl and stood with one arm across the shoulders of a small, pixie-faced boy with blond curls.

Family photos.

Was Angus that small boy?

An old Indian blanket thrown roughly over a wooden rail came next. Bert reckoned it could hide another door. Or a secret store of weapons, maybe. Her mind worked overtime. If Angus got caught off guard, Rick could tackle him. I could rush the blanket, grab a gun or something, and we could shoot our way out...

Yeah. Pigs might fly.

Her eyes slid around to the left, taking in the plastered walls scarred at intervals by brown floral wallpaper. A section of the left-hand wall, the far side of one of the cabin’s three windows, hoasted a rogue’s gallery of faded heads.

Clerics of long ago. Much of a muchness: dog collars, around wide-brimmed hats and pursed, pained expressions. Different images of two men, it appeared. One, the elder, had a full bushy beard and mean eyes. The other had the same mean eyes, but was younger and clean shaven.

Father and son.

To her left, by the remaining window, stood a brownstone sink. Next to it, a lit stove made tiny spitting, crackling noises. It exuded a malodorous stink. The ash can beneath the stove was catching gobs and spills of grease. The falling grease made dark holes in the mounds of fine gray ash.

“You interested in my pictures, whore? Them there’s my daddy an’ my granddaddy. Both good men of the cloth. Preachin’ the Lord’s word all of their lives...

“Yessir ... they wus good men, my daddy and my granddaddy. Men a mother could be proud of. Ridding the world as they did, of SCUM LIKE YOU!”

“You bastards...” Rick caught Bert’s warning look and snapped his mouth shut.

“No offense. No offense ...” Angus said, with a lewd smirk at Bert.

“Gotta keep on doin’ the Lord’s work.”

He carries on like this, I’ll kill him, thought Rick.

Interpreting his thoughts, Bert gave a small frown, and shook her head.

Angus was gone. Oblivious to the mental dialogue of his captives, he nursed his rifle lovingly against his chest, his bony fingers caressing the hard steel. He began rocking to and fro. The knife belts in his lap shifted and chittered. The sound roused him from his reverie and he continued his story.

“My daddy and his daddy afore him were strong Scottish Presbyterian. Ministers of the cloth, both. Back in Perthshire, Scotland, my granddaddy ministered to his flock of good folk ... and kept them free from sin. A-men.

“Jist as the good Lord woulda wished.

“When he died, my daddy took over. But, in a wee while, that same flock turned on my daddy, so they did...”

His attention wandered again. Mumbling to himself, he looked up and stared for a long time at a brass crucifix hanging over the door.

Rick coughed. “And then what, Angus?” He looked at his wristwatch. “Whoa. So late? We really must be moving on. What d’you say, Bert?”

Relieved that Rick had broken the tension, Bert said, “Yes, sure thing. We better get going. Mustn’t keep the girls waiting, must we, Rick? Promised we’d be back before dark.”

In a flash, Angus was on his feet. The knives fell to the floor with a clattering thunk. He gripped his gun and shoved it at them with both hands.

“SIT DOWN, FILTH! I haven’t finished yet. You ain’t goin’ nowhere till I’ve had my say!”

They all sat down. Angus gave them another crafty smile and resumed his story.

“First off, you can’t fool me. Them girls broke camp a while back. They on their way to somewhere else by now. That means you’re on your lonesome. Two lost sheep who’ve gone astray!” He giggled at his own words, then fell silent, his loose, wet lips pulsating gently beneath his beard. Testing the effect of the pun on his audience.

He leered slyly at Bert.

“See, now, where wus I? Yep. Then my daddy heard that there was a need for God’s ministers over here in the United States of America. So we came over in a sailing ship. My daddy, my mammy and Maire and me. We traveled across the seas to this great country and finally dropped anchor, so to speak, in the Tehachapis.

“My daddy preached an’ he preached till he was blue in the face. He loved his flock, oh my, how he loved them people. Mammy would cry and say that there was no need for him to love and care for them so much. ’Specially the young ’uns. She was there, she said—he didn’t need no more love...

“And then he got to lovin’ Maire. The Lord’s wishes, he swore. An’ my Daddy, he allus carried out the good Lord’s wishes. Praise be to the Lord. A-men.”

If I keep him talking, looking my way, Rick thought, Bert could break out before he gets a chance to use his gun. I could overpower him. And we could be on our way.

As if.

“Anyways. One night, them good church folk held a meetin’ and a whole contingent of them marched over to our house and told my daddy to get out. They said he wus evil. Not fit to be a man of the cloth, they said.

“Daddy told them to go away and he closed the door, right in their faces. Went straight in to Maire’s room and loved her some more. I could hear her pleadin’ an’ cryin.’ She wus saying, Daddy please don’t. Don’t Daddy, you’re hurtin’ me...

“When Mammy went in, she found my sister Maire dead in her bed. A seizure, so my mammy said. She ran out into the night a-screaming for help and daddy got his gun, the one that’s setting on my knee this very minute, and shot her dead.

“My daddy and me gathered up a few family treasures, took to the hills, ’n built us this mighty fine cabin, so we did. My daddy told me we were poor wanderers, a-travelin’ the wilderness with only wild things for company. Jist like the Lord Jesus Christ, he said. Only we stayed more ’n forty days an’ forty nights. We stuck it out for much longer. All of my daddy’s natural born life, turned out...

“An’ I been here since my daddy passed on. Lookin’ after God’s creatures and spreadin’ the word. This ’ere mountain country is my home. It gets a bit lonesome sometimes and I don’t have much truck with outsiders... but, it’s my home...”

“That’s it.” Rick stood up. So did Bert. Grabbing their packs, they started for the door.

A gunshot whined and hit the roof.

“No you don’t. Filthy swine! Foul defilers! I’m not yet done with ye. REPENT AND BE SAVED!”

He marched them through the door, out onto the stoop and around to the back of the cabin.

Chapter Twenty-six

Bert’s heart sank when she saw where they were headed.

Toward a cage-like pen made from tough, pine staves about twelve feet high and bound together by stout twine.

Angus danced around them, herding, prodding, maneuvering them together with his rifle. The cage door was open.

“Ready and waiting,” Bert muttered.

An almighty crack descended on Rick’s head and a gasp shot from his lips. He groaned, folded and went down on all fours.

What the...?

All in a day’s work for Angus. Suddenly, he was business-like; prodding Rick with the rifle butt, kicking and pushing him into the cage.

Fuck.

Rick slid along the dirt floor, lurched to his knees and tried to stand. His legs gave and he crashed, face down, into the mat of foul-smelling straw.

Angus darted behind Bert and poked her sharply in the back. She stalled. Another vicious poke sent her sprawling onto the floor of the cage. Angus cackled to himself as he quickly secured the cage door with a strong plait of twine.

“Rest awhile my travelin’ friends!” he simpered. “Rest and repent ye of your sins. Praise the Lord!”

“Shit, shit, shit,” wailed Bert. She stood with her hands rattling the staves in angry frustration.

Rick got to his feet. “Okay,” he panted. “He’s got us for now. But we’ll get out. No sweat.” He wasn’t sure how, but they’d make it. If it was the last thing he ...

This is too ridiculous for words. We’re two intelligent, professional people. Doing nobody any harm. All we ever wanted was to be left alone...

This can’t be happening to us. It can’t. I won’t let it ...

Rick bashed the palings with a clenched fist. All the way down one side of the cage, the staves shook in unison. A blinding pain shot through his skull. And his fist. The pain in his head was bad, but now his fist...

He cursed. They both needed his two hands to be in working order. Trust him to go and get a loused-up fist...

The crack on his head, from the rifle butt had raised a fair-sized lump. He groaned and pictured a bottle of Jim Beam, standing on the bar, back in his apartment. A glass, half filled with sparkling rocks was ready and waiting. The amber fluid glinted seductively, beckoning to him ...

Rick closed his eyes against the screeching pain in his head. Oh, for anything, but anything vaguely alcoholic, preferably straight from the bottle. And aspirin. Got some in my pack.

Angus, would you mind fetching me some water and aspirin? The aspirin’s in my pack, by the way.

Christ, give me strength.

When that fuckin’ turd leaves us alone, we’ll find a way out of his goddamn cage.

“Rick,” Bert said quietly. “Look at this.” She pointed to a heap of canvas humps in the comer of the cage.

“Backpacks. Old backpacks, Rick.” She looked at him and the same thought passed between them.

“Huh. Kids who never got around to repenting...” Rick said.

“Looks that way.”

“Probably butchered and got eaten for breakfast.”

Rick’s watch told him it was six o’clock already. “We rest up till dark. Okay?” he whispered. “Meanwhile, we’ll figure out a way to escape.”

Bert was near to tears. “Oh, sure, Rick. What d’you suggest? Please Angus, let us outa here ’cos we want to go home now?”

Rick hadn’t got an answer. Yet. They couldn’t climb over the staves. Too high, too pointed and far too dangerous. They couldn’t try to shake the staves loose from their moorings either. Angus might be watching.

When it got dark, they’d find a way.

They sat together, their backs leaning against the palings. They felt defeated.

Bert huffed loudly. “I’m so hot and sticky. Can’t take my shirt off, our friendly fuckin’ neighborhood creep’d probably get off on it.”

“Rest while we can, Bert, that’s about all we can do.”

As the shadows lengthened around the cage, they fell silent and dozed a little.

A low, throaty snarl brought Rick to his senses.

He lay stretched out on the floor. Eyes closed.

Christ. His head hurt.

What in the name of Jesus happened to us these last few hours?

He remembered this morning, so long ago now, sitting and staring at Bert, thinking that he could do that all day.

Hell, I shoulda just done it. Stayed there. All day.

Bert?

Where is Bert ...

Rick’s hand shot to his head. It felt like it had been kicked around a baseball pitch, non-stop. He groaned and let his hand drop to his side. Easier that way. Just lying there.

Eyes open now.

Staring at the night sky ...

Another low snarl. More like a warning growl, Rick thought. It was deep, throaty and seemed like it was sending him a message.

Coming to getcha, white man ...

Okay. Here I am .....

He watched the clusters of stars above.

Constellations.

Asteroids.

Planets.

They were all up there, in the yawning blackness.

He moved his head—first to one side, then the other.

The lump on it throbbed like crazy. He lifted his left hand to feel it.

Ouch ... maybe I should have a brain scan...

A gut-wrenching stench brought him to. A den of lions?

He sat up.

Flashes of pain shot fresh stars into the hurt already there. He groped his eyes with a hand and saw more bright lights.

Fuck smars. I got big, blinding asteroids.

Rocking to and fro, he remembered where he was. And why.

Small, stifled sobs caught his attention. They broke off, snagging in their owner’s throat. Sobs and waits of frustration.

Louder this time.

“Bert?”

“Rick...” she sniffed. “Thank God you’re awake. You passed out.”

“Yeah. My head’s killing me.”

“Rick, I’ve not heard Angus for a while. But I’ve heard his playmates...”

A low warning snarl was joined by another. And another. And another in a higher key. Then a sharp yelp as if its owner had received a hefty swipe.

“Yeah. Cougars, Rick. They’re here and they’re dose ...”

Rick staggered to his feet and moved forward, hands held before him. God, it was dark.

And that fuckin’ smell...

His outstretched arms touched palings. Placed about four inches apart. He fingered the twine holding them together at intervals, and tugged at the staves.

God, I need a drink. My mouth’s like the bottom of a lion’s cage.

Nice choice of words, Rick. Go to the top of the class.

The staves had been hammered in firmly. Too firmly. There was no moving them. No tools to loosen them with either. Rick’s heart sank.

“Wooden bars all around and goddamn mountain lions waiting for our skins,” he muttered.

“If we could just loosen the staves, perhaps I could slip through ...” Bert muttered, testing each one to see if she could work it free.

A blinding light slashed through the darkness. Covering their eyes against it, the preacher’s high-pitched giggle rang out.

“Welcome to ‘Braeside’ chapel of rest for all ye who are heavy laden. You’re very welcome indeed to lay down your weary bones and tarry here for a wee while.”

The r’s were strongly pronounced—a bizarre parody of a Scottish accent. A pious greeting you might expect from a preacher’s wife.

Angus stood outlined in the yellow glow from the doorway. A gnome-like figure, hopping from one foot to the other in excitement. He held a lighted candle in one hand.

“So that’s what was hiding behind the blanket,” Bert muttered. “Not weapons. Not stove-wood. Another door.”

Another peephole.

Angus was wearing his coyote hat again. It swung about his shoulders as he giggled. Over his free arm he nursed the old rifle. He still hopped from one leg to the other like a maniac.

Scuttling forward, the flickering flame lit up the dog snout from underneath. His straggly beard was in serious danger of going up in smoke.

Angus glared at his prisoners. His eyes, gleaming through the holes in the coyote head, darted gimlet sparks in their direction. His beard moved up and down as he cackled and jibbered an endless stream of profanities.

“Rick,” Bert whispered. “What is this screwball gonna do with us?”

Angus hurried past their cage. “Here, kitty, kitty, kitty...” he called softly into the darkness.

A volley of mild growls and snarls came back.

The preacher turned to look at Bert over his shoulder. “Does that answer your question, whore?” he simpered, with sneering emphasis on the last word. “My kitties haven’t had a good meal in quite a wee while. Not since the last godless sinners passed this way. Hee, hee ...”

“He’s crazy.”

“Bert, hold on. Don’t say anything to spook the guy.”

Bert’s eyes flashed with impatience. “What d’ya think I’m nuts or something?”

Rick grinned and kept his eyes on Angus.

Yeah. The guy was crazy. But crazy like a fox, and Rick knew he had to be just as clever. Get into his mindset and play him along at his own game.

“He’s got our knives, so we can’t get physical,” he whispered. “Maybe if we talked him into opening the gate to this place, we could rush him.”

Right on cue, Angus set the lighted candle down on the grass. Then, like a magician performing his best trick, he fumbled at the waist of his trousers and with a flourish, produced two knives. Still in their sheaths. He held them by their belts, one in each hand, and jiggled them in the candlelight.

“You’ll not be needing these little beauties. Filth! Defilers!” he taunted, throwing the belts down onto the grass.

“Okay, Rick. Do your stuff. Start talking,” Bert muttered.

The cougars milled around in the background. Getting restless. Snuffling, giving sharp little whines.

Peering through the darkness, Rick and Bert could see them pacing around in their compound—another “cage” of strong, supple staves bound together by twine—about five yards from their own. The cats’ noses pointed skyward. Sniffing out the human scent. Slinking around their pen, one after the other, their powerful tails swinging low and threatening.

The cats were hungry—and impatient. Most of all, hungry.

“He’s out of his gourd,” Rick hissed back. “You can’t reason with a madman. We’ll just have to play it by ear. There’s got to be a chance to break out, somehow.”

He hoped to God there would be. They’d have to make a desperate move soon or they’d wind up dead, for sure. Sweat streamed from his armpits. If it weren’t so damned hot.

And still.

Like the unbearable calm you get before a storm.

The moon was a smooth around disc, hanging high in the soft night sky. Rick watched it and wondered if they’d be around to look at it tomorrow night. He grunted in disgust. Because of that stupid, damnfool idea of theirs, they were here, imprisoned in the preacher’s stinking back yard.

In this clammy, stench-ridden he/l-hole.

“Rick, look at this,” Bert pointed to the ground. A shard of glass, picked out by the moon, glimmered gently in the dark soil.

Rick screened her body with his. Bert bent to pick up the glass. She retrieved it quickly and stood up.

“Probably left by the last weary travelers,” she mouthed.

Wonder what happened to them?

Don’t ask ...

Pressing the piece of glass to her lips, she breathed a silent “thank you” to the last occupants of the cage.

Angus had his back to them, facing the cats, mumbling and whining exaggerated words of endearment. He’d left the candle burning by their cage. He seemed in a world of his own, but his rifle was still cocked and resting on his left arm.

King of the Wild Frontier.

Behind him in the cage, Rick was gripping staves, shaking them back and forth. Looking up now and again to make sure Angus was still talking to the animals.

He was.

No joy with the staves, though.

Firm as rocks.

Bert followed suit and suddenly hit paydirt. One of the staves jiggled about in her hand. They exchanged triumphant glances. Bert bent down to see if she could work another one loose.

Yes.

She began working on the twine with the glass shard.

Rick was having a hard time with his staves. He’d only worked his way through six by the time Angus quit his conversation with the cats.

Shit.

“Not much longer now kitties. Come sun-up, you’ll have the biggest breakfast you’ve eaten in a long, long time. You all, and me both—we’ll have us a mighty toothsome meal!”

Still working on the twine, Bert watched him from behind the bars. From where she was standing, Mr. Preacher-Man looked like he was in serious need of some sleep. He may be a lunatic, but he was old and frail. Should be tucked up in his flea-ridden rags by now.

Sweet dreams, turd bastard ...

She worked on the twine some more.

Yes!

It had come free in her hand. A quick wrench and she’d cleared the stave from its moorings. Adjusting her balance, she held it poised like a spear; threw back her arm and zoomed it through the air, straight at Angus.

His rifle fell to the ground.

“Ha!” he shrieked, clutching his hat and side-stepping out of the way.

“BITCH! WHORE! FILTH! You’ll rue the day you did that ...’

He tailed off as Bert bent down and slid her body easily through the eight-inch gap. With a yell, she bent and grabbed the stave again and thrust it deep into his bare shoulder. Blood spurted and spilled down the fur skins.

Looks like a wounded animal, Bert thought.

But instead of going down, he plucked out the stave, threw it to the ground and kicked it aside, blood still pouring from the gash. He came for her, slowly but surely, his arms spread wide. She caught the evil glint in his sunken eyes. He reminded her of a snake mesmerizing a rabbit.

And for a moment she was mesmerized.

Rick saw what was happening.

Zombie-like, Angus moved forward. Through the gaping holes, his eyes were mean and menacing ...

Feverishly, his bony fingers worked at the front flap of the skin trousers. They fell loose and he shook them down, stepped out of them and kicked them out of the way. His skinny body glistened with blood and sweat. The hole in his shoulder still pumped blood.

His horny erection jerked in anticipation.

Rick found a stave that moved in his grasp. He wrenched it around until it came free. He’d already cut through the twine with the glass shard.

The space between the two poles was too narrow for his body. He pushed. Tried to force his way through but couldn’t quite make it.

Shit!

Bert screamed “Rick!” as Angus knocked her to the ground.

He leapt on top of her, his filthy dog furs swinging over her body. The fur got in his way, so he grabbed his hat by the snout and flung it to the ground. Rick caught sight of the preacher’s pate, gleaming in the moonlight and ludicrously sprouting long gray hairs from its scaly patches.

Blood still ran freely from Angus’s shoulder. It flowed down through Bert’s blue chambray shirt and onto her chest. Her arms were sprayed and spattered with blood as she struggled to free herself.

With rising hysteria, Bert felt the man’s strength. He was thin, old, but wiry and incredibly strong. Tearing open her shorts, he dragged them, and her panties, down her failing legs. Then, like some greedy, parasitic vine, he coiled his own corded, bony ones around her. She struggled violently against his vice-like grip and, still under him, managed to force her knees up against his bony chest.

She screamed again. “Rick, I can’t fight him—he’s so strong! Get him off me! Pleeease!”

Her voice rose hysterically. Through it all, she could hear the cougars mewling and whining with excitement.

The second stave broke free from its moorings. Rick tossed it away and forced himself through the gap. He’d made it! Rushing forward he flung himself at the slobbering, quaking figure jerking up and down on top of Bert. It was shoving, panting, making small whimpering noises.

Rick fought back vomit as he landed on top of them.

God, the bastard’s doing it. He’s raping her.

Rick wrenched the jibbering preacher away from Bert and threw him off her.

Angus’s back hit the ground hard. He grunted and whimpered with the shock of it. Eyes, wide-open, bulged out of his head, and his slack, slobbering mouth worked behind the blood-flecked beard. Rick stared down at the emaciated body. Still writhing in some kind of ecstasy, glistening with the exertion. The wormy penis was a thin, sharp spike, refusing to lie down. A long stream of semen slimed from it to Bert’s bare leg.

“Aaarrgg!”

Released, Bert rolled away from the conflict, tears of revulsion streaming down her cheeks.

The crud tried to fuck me ...

But be didn’t make it in.

Nearly did though.

God. How did me get into this fucking nightmare? Why aren’t we in some expensive hotel in Maui? Why are we here in this... this stinking hell-bole?

The preacher’s breath came shouting out in snarls and pants as Rick slashed him across the face with the back of his damaged hand. White hot pain seared Rick’s knuckles. But he couldn’t stop. Again and again he brought his fist back and forth across the bony skull.

Blood, his and the preacher’s both, clotted the filthy beard and spattered the ground around them.

Slowly, Bert stood up, dragged up her panties and fastened her shorts. Then squirmed as she saw the semen on her legs. Plunging her hand into her shorts pocket, she found a wad of tissue and rubbed vigorously at the mess. First one leg and then the other.

Satisfied she was as clean as she could get, she tossed the soiled paper and turned her attention to Rick.

“He’s gone, Rick. You’re only hurting yourself more. Let’s go. Jesus, Rick, just let’s go.”

She saw tears of rage and revulsion falling down Rick’s face. He looked up at her. “Christ, Bert. We didn’t need this. The sicko tried to fuck you, Bert. I mean, how did this thing HAPPEN?”

Nursing his shattered hand, he rose to his feet. She wrapped an arm around his waist and they turned to go.

Rick staggered and fell from a terrific blow from behind. Bert nearly went with him.

Regaining her balance, she whipped around and came face to face with a cougar. White muzzle, dark mask, pale golden eyes. Up so close she saw the spittle drooling from its teeth and felt the heat of its rancid breath.

Jesus. A big one. Granddaddy of them all.

A group of maybe four tawny bodies milled around the compound. The roughly made barred gate had swung open. The cats saw it and filed through at a trot.

Coming their way.

Rick stayed on his knees. No choice, the cat’s front paws were holding him down. He felt its steaming hot breath in the nape of his neck.

A wet, flashy tongue investigated his ear.

Bert’s heart sank faster and she felt sweat ooze from her armpits. Ob my God, she panicked. What sball I do? I Should know, but I can’t tbinit straigbt ...

Then, like watching an old movie, a childhood memory reeled through her mind. She saw four lions sitting upright on big round drums in a circus ring. A fat ringmaster in red coat and white breeches faced one of the lions. He held a . whip which he kept flicking at the beast. The lion pawed the air, trying to grab the whip ... The other lions grumbled, became restless. Angry roars broke out. She remembered her ten-year-old self thinking what a goddamn stupid thing to do...

IDIOT. This is not a traveling circus.

This is for real. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the hungry way the cat was nuzzling Rick’s neck. Do it, girl.

Do it.

She did it.

Bending quickly, she grabbed the bloodied stave from the ground. Momentarily distracted, the cat growled and lunged for her. But she had the stave now, held like a spear, above her head. She leapt out of the cat’s reach and did a little war dance, to keep it distracted.

She gained its full attention.

The cat reached her easily in a single bound.

As it roared and swiped at her, she thrust the stave deep into its gaping maw. The cat fell back, shaking its head, gurgling blood. Sprays of it spurted from its mouth. Drenching her hair, face, body and legs. As it shook its head, more red spurted onto her—and all over Rick.

The cat pawed the ground, withdrawing from them, padding backward, uttering strangled, whimpering noises. Still shaking its head, trying to free the stave.

Its paws worked at the wood but the stave didn’t budge. With a final roar, the cat twisted over and lay panting on its side. The stave had gone through the throat and was poking out the other side.

“Come on!” Bert shouted.

Momentarily, the other cats had retreated, watching, lynx-eyed, from a distance. But they were really excited now. Creeping forward, they sniffed and butted the head of the fallen cat—then, one by one, smelling fear in the air, their noses lifted. Their interest in Rick and Bert was swift, sudden.

They closed in for the kill ...

Bert gripped Rick’s arm.

“The knives, Bert,” Rick panted. “They’re around here someplace.”

“Oh, leave them, Rick.” Frowning, she looked around in the darkness. By some miracle there they were, close to her feet, belt buckles glinting in the moonlight. Where Angus had thrown them.

She bent down, hooked them up and grabbed Rick’s good hand. Why she snapped her head around at that moment, she couldn’t say. But she did, and saw a head, half buried in the dark clumps of grass. It was a woman’s head with tousled brown hair and an eaten face. Most of the face was gone, but one eye remained. Wide open. It stared at Bert.

Swaying with shock, Bert clung tightly onto Rick’s hand. They both legged it through the cabin door and slammed it shut behind them.

For a moment, they leaned back against the door, acutely aware of the roaring cats on the other side. The door shook as heavy paws pounded and tore at the wood.

Kicking the Indian blanket out of his way, Rick made a grab for one of the wooden chairs and stashed it against the quaking door.

Angus!

Bert reached up for a quick peek through the small window in the door. It was misted with grime but she could still see the preacher.

Alive. Only just.

He was on his back, his bare, spindly legs curling against his chest. His arms were up, vainly shielding his head.

Come sun-up, you’ll have the biggest breakfast you’ve eaten in a long time ...

A strong-looking cat, a young male, was taking powerful swipes at him, rocking his body back and forth, moving him around like a rag doll. The other cats were spiteful, restless; prowling around impatiendy, swiping at each other. A couple pushed their noses in, but instinct kept them from going for the kill. The big male would take his share first.

The cat nosed around the man’s upturned butt and sniffed its way through the slowly cycling legs. Then gave all of its attention to the soft genitals ...

The preacher’s puny erection had died long since.

Piercing screams told them when the cougar made its first strike. The big male dealt with the innards, shaking its head like a cat with a rat, until the bunch of steaming gut stretched like elastic and broke free from its moorings.

Another shake and the cat dragged the bloodied entrails outside of the body, gathering the hot, dripping mess into his powerful maw. It nosed upward, a jaw-full of the dripping trophy glistening yellow in the dawn light.

Gobs of dark blood dripped from the prize, down the cougar’s chops and made slimy trails on the grass. The cat lay down, took the kill between its paws and started to eat.

Curls of warm mist rose up from around the feast.

In seconds, Angus was covered in a roiling mound of tawny bodies, each hungry cat fighting for its share of the kill.

Don’t hurt me, Daddy, please don’t hurt me ...

Too late. Deed’s already done ...

The cats squabbled among themselves, each fighting to tear off its own share of the preacher. One, its nose bloodied from the kill, carried a dark skinny arm between its jaws. It moved away from the others and settled down to devour its trophy.

“Oh, God ...” breathed Bert. “The guy was horrible—sick and mad. But he didn’t deserve to die like this ...”

Rick wanted to vomit, but the carnage happening before them was like a magnet. He couldn’t tear his eyes away.

“Show’s over, Rick,” Bert said. “Let’s go before I barf all over the place.”

“Yeah, you’re right. Let’s get outa here,” he agreed.

They hurried through the cabin, fastening their belts as they went and adjusting their hunting knives. They found their packs where they’d dropped them earlier and thrust their arms through the straps.

It was sun-up by the time they hit the trail again and they didn’t stop until they’d reached the fork in the path. They were exhausted, breathless, but at least they were alive. They had their packs—and their knives.

“I just wish I hadn’t seen that eaten head, Rick. That coulda been us, y’know? Thank God we’re still around to tell the tale,” Bert said.

“You can say that again.” Rick’s injured hand was painful and he wondered how long it’d be before they hit the stream again. He could use some cold water to ease the pain and the swelling.

“... could use a beer, too,” he muttered.

“And me.”

“Yeah, one for the road and how ’bout a nice juicy burger on the side.” He gave a faint grin.

“Christ. Have a heart,” Bert grimaced. “On the other hand, maybe don’t have a heart. Too soon to talk offal after the slaughter-fest down at Chez Angus, don’t you think?”

Gratefully, they looked deep into each other’s eyes and Rick felt a sudden surge of joy. It sure was good to be alive.

“C’mon,” he said. “Let’s put some miles between us and this crazy place.”

Chapter Twenty-seven

After parting company with Rick and Bert, the girls fell quiet. Trudging on in silence, they already felt lonesome. The goddamn emptiness of this whole terrain was getting to them so much, it was scary.

Andrea spoke first. “I don’t know that we did the right thing, Bonnie. Maybe we should have insisted we all stay together.”

“What are you, nuts or something? They practically told us to go our own ways. Or weren’t you listening to those people?”

“Sure, I know that. But I could’ve persuaded Rick. Y’know?”

“Yeah. I bet,” Bonnie sneered. “You made a fool of yourself back there with Rick. You know that, Andrea, don’t you?”

“You mean you were jealous of the way he came onto me?”

“Jealous? You threw yourself at him. Practically handed yourself to him on a plate. I’m surprised Bert didn’t kick up about that. I admire her. She’s got a lotta patience, that woman!”

“Oh yeah? Then how come if he loved her so much he invited himself to my tent? Answer me that, why don’cha?”

“Let’s not go over that particular scenario anymore, Andrea. Prbkane! You’re so hung up on yourself I’m surprised you don’t have an orgasm every time you look in the mirror!”

Andrea plumped herself down on a smooth slab of rock. She edged out of her pack and swung it to the ground.

Holy Moses. Was she pooped!

And what’s more, she didn’t like the way the conversation was headed. She could do without all this shit about her and Rick.

With a sigh, she flipped off her ballcap and wiped her brow with the back of her hand.

“Bonnie Jones. If you don’t stop handing me insults like this, I ain’t goin’ nowhere with you. It’s too darn hot to argue and I don’t know why we’re traveling by ourselves, anyway. We coulda gone on ahead of the others—or trailed behind. We needn’t have gone with them ...”

Andrea was almost whining now. She mopped her brow again.

Then lifted the hem of her gray T-shirt, bent her head down and wiped all of her face with it. It didn’t help much; sweat was still rolling down her cheeks.

Bonnie tried to reason with her. “Okay, okay. But you heard them say they’d rather travel alone. Rick specifically said they wanted some time to themselves.

“And if it helps, I don’t know why we had to come out here into the boonies, anyway. Come to think about it, it was a dumb thing to do. But we did discuss it, Andrea, before we set out. When we had taco and fries and cola at Pepe’s Pits-top, the day you took your social history books back to the library and they were overdue. Remember? We talked it over and agreed that a week’s vacation by ourselves, alone in the Sierras, would clinch it.”

Andrea sniffed at the front of her T-shirt.

God, it stinks. After this is all over, I’m gonna toss this thing, in the trash, no kidding.

She screwed up her eyes and peered at Bonnie, standing before her, hands on hips, with her back to the sun.

“Clinch what?” she asked suspiciously.

“Whether we could make it together, dummy. Christ, Andrea. Don’t make me spell it out.”

Bonnie huffed in frustration and edged her way out of her backpack. Pushing out her chest, she bent at the knees and lowered the bulky pack to the ground. She collapsed on the smooth rock shelf beside Andrea, stretched out her sturdy legs and examined the toes of her boots ...

Okay. Let’s take it slowly. From the top.

With a small sigh of resignation she began, “Look, Andrea, you know how I feel about you. I just hoped that ... you know ... a little time spent together and you’d begin to feel the same about me, too.”

Bonnie warmed to her subject.

“I mean, you seemed to get off on me, at the first. Now you go all girly and start making out with the first goddamn available male you see.”

Andrea sounded repentant. “Sorry, Bonnie. I’ve been a grade-A idiot, I know. But I can’t help myself. Maybe ... well, the thing is, maybe I’m not cut out to be a dyke, after wall.”

She traced circles on her smooth, tanned knee. Bonnie watched her do it and thought how much she’d like to take her in her arms.

I mean, make the sparks fly.

Float her boat until she screams for more.

Hell. She was no fucking expert at dykedom herself.

What experience had she had? She only knew that from age fifteen-ish she’d been significantly different from the other girls in class.

Always awkward around guys, she’d never actually dated one—not that she’d ever been asked. Wouldn’t have gone with one even if she had.

Neither was she in awe of guys. Not like the other bimbos, describing in ecstatic terms how they’d been to the movies/ the game/the beach with this fantastic guy etc. etc ...

Instead, she’d always aimed to come out top. The guys didn’t like that. At college she’d always had to be better than they were. Better at everything, sport, science, cultural studies—all of that ...

And then there was that, well ... call it an exploratory fling, if you like, with Deena Alvarez, her Cultural Studies tutor.

Dark, sensuous Deena.

She of the sensational body, full, voluptuous breasts and nipples like dark, ripe berries.

Okay. She’d been too wary; scared that she wouldn’t make the grade. And in the end she’d come away feeling totally exasperated with herself. Embarrassed. Pissed off. In a nut-shell, she was just too damned inexperienced. The demanding Deena had eventually gotten impatient with her—she, and her fumbling, inadequate responses. Within a week Bonnie had been out on her ear with a bunch of insecurities as high as the Empire State.

And Deena moved onto that total dork; the dumbest of all dumb broads, Caroll Helliman.

Bonnie flushed at the memory of that particular put-down. Yeah. That really had been a swinging blow to her pride and dignity. She knew she was better at most things, including sex, than that slut Caroll, who acted no better than cheap trailer trash, with her minis up to her ass and those fancy low-cut blouses of hers. Plus a gnat-size brain that got no further than the color of her lipstick. Jeez, Deena musta been desperate.

Caroll’s folks were loaded, though. They were in real estate. Had a hunk of their own the size of Disneyland. But, no matter how many sackloads of dough they had, Bonnie decided, it’d never buy “class” for their sleaze of a daughter.

What the hell. She’d bounced back from that and had had a smoldering affair with raven-haired Lindy Carson, nubile daughter of one of the night porters at UCSC.

That went sour when she caught the lovely Lindy naked and cavorting in the shower with half of the college baseball team. From then on in, it had been “no way, Jose” for Bonnie. Sex was off the menu.

Romance was for the birds, so to speak.

Then along came Andrea. Fragile, elegant, graceful Andrea, with her upturned nose, glossy blond hair and slender legs that went on forever. Yeah, Bonnie decided. Andrea was the one for her, all right.

Now, here on vacation in the Sierras, the question had to be asked. Was she the one?

I’ll work on her some more. She doesn’t play ball, I’ll find somebody else who will, thought Bonnie, knowing that if Andrea didn’t come across now, she might as well chuck it in.

Plenty of others out there.

May well be, but there’s only one Andrea.

It’s make or break time.

“Bonnie ...” Andrea twisted her hands, looking slightly embarrassed.

“What is it? You can’t stand the sight of me? You wanna phone home and ask your Mom if it’s okay to be a dyke? What’s the problem, Andrea? Spit it out.”

Andrea spat it out. Slowly and with feeling.

“You know how I get these hunches sometimes ... like premonitions?”

Jesus Christ, that’s all we need ... Three teenage fuckin’ hoods.

Now we get a message from beyond.

“You have mentioned them before. Go on.”

“Well,” Andrea twirled a strand of sweat-damp hair around her finger.

She was obviously ill at ease. Bonnie prepared herself for some bad news.

“What would you say if I said don’t let’s go back by way of Dead Mule Pass?”

Andrea picked at the hem of her T-shirt, uncomfortable, knowing that Bonnie was staring at her, open-mouthed.

“I just get this feeling, Bonnie,” she went on quietly. “It’s a really strong feeling that we should take another route.”

Andrea slipped off the rock and faced Bonnie. Then, reaching out, she caressed Bonnie’s shoulder. The touch was gentle and timid, like the flutter of a small bird. With mounting impatience, Bonnie shrugged it off.

“Please,” Andrea said in a small voice. She knew she would cry in a minute if Bonnie didn’t say something nice to her.

Like, lt’s okay. You’re with me. I’ll look after you. Or, Don’t mind me, I didn’t mean what I said about you and Rick.

Instead she got a gesture of bored resignation from Bonnie and, “Er ... okay. If that’s what you want.”

Bonnie slid off the rock and hunkered down to open her pack.

Pulling out a well-thumbed map of the Sierra Nevada mountains, she spread it on the rock before them and began to trace out another route.

“There isn’t another recognized route to Mulligan Lake,” she announced eventually. “We could go up this ridge, here, and then drop down, by-passing Dead Mule Pass. But it’s out of the way; we’re not likely to meet many other backpackers along there. You get into trouble on the Mulligan Lake Route, and you’d see other hikers and maybe a ranger on patrol to help out.

“Sorry, but the way I see it, Andrea, the main route is the only way to go.”

“Damn.”

“But we’re not likely to hit a problem, are we? I mean, the terrible trio have gone their own way by now. And the mad preacher is probably rounding up repentants somewhere else.”

“PietISt, Bonnie.”

“Hey. Somebody’s gotta act responsible around here. We can’t go wandering off down some lonesome ol’ trail nobody uses. Nobody except those with no business on the official route, that is. Talk sense!”

“Okay,” Andrea lifted her chin defiantly. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

She swung up her pack, shrugged her arms into the straps and adjusted her load. Bonnie followed suit. She glanced sideways at Andrea’s self-righteous expression.

“Okay. Okay,” she said, with a dramatic sigh. “We’ll do it the hard way. Main route to Mulligan Lake, it isn’t. Trail of the lonesome pine, it is.”

Bonnie stomped on ahead. She wasn’t happy about choosing the ridge route. They had their knives, and could throw a mean rock if trouble broke out. And she still had her brother’s hatchet ... But what if one of them broke a leg or fell into a crevasse—anything could happen.

And probably would, she thought, gloomily.

One of them had to stay behind, they could get chomped by a goddamn cougar.

“You’re not happy with this, are you, Bonnie?”

Andrea was striding out, abreast of Bonnie now. She took a peek at Bonnie’s set face.

“The hell I’m not happy with it. But, my mystic munchkin, if you’ve got a funny feeling about reaching Mulligan Lake by the tried and tested, we’ll go the ridge route. No problem. The map says it’s the quickest route anyway, so that’s one consolation. ”

They were climbing now; a cluster of pines up ahead told them that the trail— what trail? —began right here. They kept on trucking. This way, they’d soon get through and back to their vehicle in no time.

Not worth hassling about.

Who needs the main route anyway?

They pressed on up the rough grass track. Then, “Bonnie, are you hearing what I’m hearing?”

Bonnie stopped and listened.

“Yeah, guys’ voices,” she replied.

“What d’you reckon? Men or boys?”

“Haven’t the foggiest. Whatever they are, they sure sound as if they’re whooping it up.”

Andrea stopped, hand on hip, and listened some more. The whoops got louder. Men. A group of men, gotta be backpackers were headed their way. But they sound more like booligans than your average biker, she thought.

More shouts. Bursts of coarse laughter rang out through the trees ahead. The voices:

“Hey, Wilbur. I fancy a bit o’ skirt! How ’bout you?”

“You’ll be lucky ’round these parts! Don’t see no skirt hereabouts. Can you see anything that vaguely looks like a skirt, from where you’re standing, Bud?”

“Not from where he’s standin’, he can’t. He’s busy takin’ a leak!”

“Aw, leave it out, Wilbur. Go get yourself another beer.”

Loud guffaws echoed through the dark trees.

Bonnie and Andrea tensed as they heard footfalls coming toward them on their left, through the forest undergrowth. The footfalls got closer, but they still couldn’t see the guys.

Then, “Shoulda brought that Nicole along. She’d oblige us, all three. Yessirree. An’ then ask for more!”

They heard whoops of laughter, lewd, suggestive. Then it simmered down to muffled, low-key banter.

Andrea and Bonnie couldn’t quite hear what was being said.

The next gust of laughter seemed a helluva lot nearer to where they were standing. Holding their breath, they looked at each other, wondering what to do.

“ ’nother can of beer, Wilbur?”

“Sure, Dean, chuck it across ...”

The slap of a hand catching a beer.

“They’re shit-faced ...” Bonnie whispered. “But it sounds like maybe they’re settling down. Taking a goddamn rest. And we’ve got to walk along the path, right past them—there’s no other way!”

“So what? We just ignore them. Pretend we haven’t seen them and just, well, just walk on by...”

“Oh yeah. Great. Andrea, haven’t you learned your lesson yet? We got rid of The Three Thugateers, now we meet up with a second bunch, with bells on this time. We had enough hassle with the first lot. Now we got these wiseguys who look as if they mean business. Serious business. And sounds like they’re gagging for it, too. And you say walk on by? The $64,000 question is, sweetcakes, will they let us ‘walk on by’? You bet your sweet life they won’t!”

Bonnie fumed under her breath. She snatched off her straw hat and fanned her flushed cheeks with it. Andrea could be a real dork, sometimes.

“Hey! What have we here? Guys, come on over. Think we just found ourselves a coupla playmates!”

The speaker appeared to the left of them. Right out of nowhere. Must’ve been walking through the trees, caught sight of us and then side-stepped out onto the path.

More like they knew we were here and were coming to get us the whole time.

How could they? We haven’t even reached them yet.

The guy leered at the two girls. He was drunk and it showed. His chunky red face creased into an idiot smile as he sized them up. He waved a can of beer in his left hand. A hunting rifle hung loosely in the other. He wore a red check shirt gaping open, one side tucked into blue jean pants. The other side hung down his thigh.

Thick, black hair covered his barrel chest.

Shit-faced, Bonnie muttered to herself.

A hootnanny hillbilly, straight out of Deliverance.

The guy’s unsteady legs were thrust into tan cowboy boots.

He’d appeared on the path, suddenly, out of the patch of pines. The girls gasped as they saw how near to them he really was. About five yards away and weaving in their direction all the time.

Answering shouts and a couple of disbelieving grunts came from the goon’s buddies.

“You’re shitting us, right?”

“Get your backsides on over here and find out!”

One shouted back that he’d be along when he’d had a pee.

Bonnie grabbed Andrea’s arm.

“Okay, let’s run for it!”

“You bet ...”

Mashing their hats well down onto their heads, they turned tail and ran back past the pines and onward down the grass track. Their packs pounded their backs like lumpy lead weights.

Dead Mule Pass, bere me come!

“Hey, come on back here, now ... We won’t hurt you none. Jest want to be friendly like. Come on back, y’hear?”

The thick voice taunted them over the rapidly growing distance Then, in a sing-song voice that sounded loud and close, “Don’t know what you’re missin’!”

He was on them.

Right behind and closing in.

Must be one of those gun-happy, bit cat killers with nothing better to do, Bonnie thought in disgust. Probably a whole bunch of them back there. Trackin’ down mountain lions, drinkin’ themselves shit-faced first, to get their courage up.

The girls stumbled over the rough grass, regained their footing and picked up speed again.

But the guy was still close enough for them to hear him grunting for breath as he chugged along.

Must be fit. I’ll give him that, Bonnie marveled. Must’ve flown down that track ...

A gunshot cracked overhead.

Then, “Christ Jesus! Aawwgg .”

Bonnie paused and looked back.

Their tormentor lay sprawled headlong on the track.

She saw him wave a fist in their direction, his red, swollen face mouthing obscenities.

She hurried along after Andrea.

The girls got away while the going was good. They reached the rock they’d been sitting on earlier and took the trail to Dead Mule Pass. Andrea seemed to have forgotten her objection to this particular route. They pounded along for a while, then slowed up slightly, figuring they’d cleared enough distance between themselves and the guys on the ridge to make a clean getaway.

Even so, they decided it was better not to linger.

They strode steadily down the track for some twenty minutes before Andrea spoke. She was almost breathless and her words huffed from her lips in short bursts.

“That was a narrow miss ... Couldn’t take anymore hassle from rampant males. Had enough of them to last me a lifetime ... Men are such chauvinistic PIGS. Thinking that every woman is fair game. AND, that no problem at all, women are just standing around WAITING for them to get into their knickers ... God, they’re such SHTT-heads!”

Bonnie slowed down to catch breath. She smiled philosophically.

“Yeah. Carried on past those guys and we’d have been dead meat for sure.”

“Bonnie ...”

“What is it?”

Silence.

Bonnie waited for her to say her piece.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry..” Andrea muttered, shame-faced. “I never get things right, do I?”

“Go on! You’re not doing too badly. You’re a bit of a girl, is all.” Bonnie humped her pack more comfortably on her back and turned to smile at Andrea.

Relieved that their earlier tension seemed to have gone, Andrea responded eagerly. A nice warm feeling passed between them.

Thirty minutes farther down the trail they called a halt.

They were parched and badly needed a reviving sip of water—co! d would have been nice, but they were more than ready to settle for warm. Twisting out of their packs, they dumped them onto the grass and flung themselves down alongside.

Eventually, their breathing became easier, more measured. Lying there together, in silence, they relaxed. The herby fragrance of the warm grass beneath them felt good. Through half-closed eyes they watched the cloudless sky overhead and listened to the distant stream, tumbling and gurgling through the rocks.

The sound reminded them that they hadn’t taken that drink yet. Hadn’t had one since they broke camp this morning. Struggling to a sitting position, they unfastened their packs and brought out their water bottles. Taking long, leisurely swigs, their tension drifted away and they felt, for the first time in hours—days, it seemed—that danger was now way behind them. Andrea yawned and they both stretched out again on the warm, rough grass It smelled sweet and clean.

“Sure you don’t mind coming along this route, after all? In spite of your premonition?” Bonnie asked, chewing on a stalk of grass. “No option, y’know. With those creeps blocking our path.”

“I probably got it wrong way around in the first place,” Andrea replied cheerfully. “My premonition could’ve been warning me against taking the lonesome pine route, not this one. Could’ve misinterpreted the message. In which case, looks like everything’s turned out okay!”

“And what about Rick? Still lusting after him?”

“Goddamn it, Bonnie. Gimme a break. I’m sorry I made a fool of myself, believe me. But Rick’s history. He’s no dif ferent than the rest ... Really.”

She found Bonnie’s hand and gave it a squeeze.

“Could be,” Bonnie murmured, hardly daring to believe the way things were going. “Anyway, don’t you dare say sorry again ...”

Leaning up on her right elbow, Andrea turned to face her. Looking deep into Bonnie’s eyes, she leaned over a little and kissed her gently on the lips.

Then on her cheeks, her forehead, and, as Bonnie closed her eyes, Andrea touched her lids, gently, with her lips. Then her mouth again. She was more demanding this time.

With a faint gasp of delight, Bonnie twisted quickly and came on top of her. Then, shifting her weight off Andrea, she leaned away and lifted up the soft gray T-shirt. She sighed when she saw Andrea’s small, perfectly formed breasts. They were smooth shiny mounds, the color of milky coffee. Her nipples, exposed to the warm, balmy air, grew hard and pert as she looked at them.

Bonnie drew away from Andrea and lay, head resting on one arm, looking at her.

No need for words.

They were together now. That’s all that mattered. Wasn’t this what their vacation had been about? Finding each other?

They’d found each other all right.

Now, all they wanted was to get away from this place ... return to Santa Cruz and get on with their lives. Together.

Bonnie felt the joy grow inside her, it blossomed until she could contain it no longer. Their eyes met, lingered and finally drew apart.

Andrea gave Bonnie a long, slow smile, their hands reached out and, for some time, they lay there. Content to be together. Staring at the hot sky. At a wisp of cloud, which had appeared, it seemed, from nowhere. Andrea watched it move across the broad sweep of blue.

“Bonnie?”

“Uh-huh?”

“Y’know Rick,” Andrea felt awkward about bringing Rick into the equation. Especially just after she and Bonnie had made love for the first time. But she had to get it out of her system, once and for all. She moved her head so she could see Bonnie’s face. Bonnie was suddenly quite still. She kept on staring skyward.

“Well, I didn’t want him and all that stuff. I want you to know that, Bonnie. I was testing myself. Wondering how it would be—y’know? Seeing if I could go through with it. I’m glad he didn’t take me up on it now. Because I know it was you that I really wanted, Bonnie. It was you all the time. Only, I was too scared to admit it ...”

“You’re a dummy. Y’know that, Andrea Winston?”

“You think so?”

“I sure do. You’re such a girl; and I love you for it.” With studied nonchalance, Bonnie still gazed skyward. Andrea grinned, leaned up on an elbow and kissed her full on the mouth. It felt good. She did it again. They both laughed. Bonnie rolled over, quickly, grabbed her by the shoulders and held her down. And kissed her. And for a while they were lost in each other.

Drawn to the heat, a bunch of mosquitoes danced around their faces. Bonnie swore, rolled over and swatted them out of her hair, off her face and arms. Andrea, already sitting up, slapped busily at her legs. Strange how they hadn’t noticed the little bastards before ...

They gave up swatting and, laughing at themselves, fell back onto the soft grass. Their lips still curving with their own secret smiles, they remained in silence for a while longer. Neither wanted to break the spell; their amazing, magical bond that had changed everything for them both.

They grinned and toasted themselves with the last of their water.

Chinking the sun-warmed bottles together, they drained the final dregs.

They sat in silence for a while longer. Then Bonnie looked at her wristwatch. Almost an hour had passed since they’d made love. She said to Andrea, “You okay to carry on? I vote we get moving. Been out here in the wilds, livin’ next to nature, for too long. Kinda gets to you after a while!”

Andrea blushed and smiled. “You’re the boss,” she said.

Feeling hot, happy, and emotionally replete, Bonnie and Andrea both felt a twist of sadness at leaving this, their special spot in the wilderness. They fastened up their packs, shrugged into the straps, adjusted themselves and, hand in hand, continued along the trail toward Mulligan Lake.

Chapter Twenty-eight

The car stopped again.

There was a quiet sound of the latch releasing. The trunk lid started to lift open. Gillian, on her back with the belt and rope clamped in her teeth, bolted up. She grabbed the edge of the trunk, flung a leg over it, and rolled. She dropped. She heard the car door shut. Her side rammed the bumper. She heard rushing footfalls as she hit the ground. Flipping over, she thrust herself up and ran.

• Holden raced at her from behind. His breath came out in snarls. Gillian hissed in pain as something raked her right calf. She kicked the leg forward as fast as she could and heard the rustly sound of a body smashing onto the pine needles that matted the forest floor. Holden gasped out a quick “Awg!”

A glance back. He was skidding on his belly. He must’ve made a dive for her.

The thought flashed through Gillian’s mind that she should whirl around and try to overpower him while he was down. She tore the belt and rope from her teeth and pictured herself beating him with them, but she kept on running, knowing it would’ve been foolish to fight him. This way, at least, she was sure to gain the few moments it would take him to get back onto his feet.

She dashed through the pines. Springy limbs smacked her body and bent away. Others scratched. She leaped over rocks, over barriers of fallen trees. Rocks and twigs and pine cones punished her feet. But all the pain seemed to belong to someone else. She was free. Though Holden was pounding through the woods behind her, she still had her lead, she still had her chance.

I’ll make it.

He won’t get me again!

He’d had her but someone had come along and he’d rushed her into the trunk but with hands still tied to the belt. Untying herself had been easy. She’d been given her chance.

Gillian lunged between two trees The branches tried to hold her back, shoving at her face and chest, but she plowed through. And found herself in a flat, sunlit clearing.

She picked up speed. She tucked her head down and darted her long legs out fast and far. The belt and rope in her right hand flew as she pumped her arms. They lashed her face and shoulder and breast, they whipped her thigh and groin. They scorched her. She wanted to throw them down. But she might need them later. She couldn’t waste time balling them up to stop their flailing. So she ran as hard as she could, bearing the pain, hoping the snapping belt and rope would stay away from her eyes.

The sound of Holden’s crashing feet went silent. “Stop or I’ll shoot!” he shouted.

Gillian sprinted across the clearing. She heard her harsh breathing, the soft crushing noise of her footfalls, the sharp smack of the belt striking her bare skin, the softer whup of the rope’s lash.

She listened for a gunshot.

She could almost feel a slug crashing into her back. Right between the shoulder blades.

He doesn’t want to kill me, she thought. That’d spoil his fun.

He’ll try to go for the legs.

The sound of the gun reached her ears, filled her head. It was a quick metallic clack.

Silencer?

She heard the sound again and realized it was the hammer dropping.

The hammer snapped down fast, again and again. Gillian didn’t try to count the quick hard dada, but they went on and on.

She glanced back.

Holden stood in a shooter’s stance at the edge of the clearing, far behind her. The front of his pale knit shirt had a dark patch of blood on one side a few inches above his waist. He brought the revolver up dose to his face and scowled at it.

That was all Gillian saw before she swung her head forward again.

Empty gun, she thought. What luck!

Then she thought, My good Christ, I’m the one who unloaded it !

It was the revolver she’d found yesterday in his desk. Had to be. She remembered the cartridges tumbling into her palm, how she had dropped them into her shirt pocket and the heavy feel of them against her breast. Then she had put the revolver back into the drawer where it belonged-where Holden must’ve grabbed it before driving her from his home.

I saved my life.

The thought astonished her.

Not only had she rendered the revolver harmless, but it had caused Holden to stop while he took aim and snapped the hammer down on all the empty chambers. Now he was far behind her.

You’re not out of it yet, she warned herself. Don’t let it go to your head. You’ve had a couple of reprieves, that’s all. You’re in the middle of nowhere and he’s not going to give up............

She came to the edge of the clearing, dodged a tree, and dashed into the shadows.

Hide? she wondered.

Not yet. But maybe soon. Duck behind some rocks or something.

He might see you do it. Then he’d have you.

If you’re going to do it, you’d better do it now.

Hide. If you get away with it, you can backtrack to the car. Maybe he left the keys.

Fat chance.

Maybe he did.

If the keys are gone, disable the car. Stay on the dirt road; you’ll get to a real road. Flag down a car ...

I’m naked.

Big fucking deal.

Maybe I can find something in bis car to put on.

Gillian heard him racing through the woods. A long way off. She looked back and couldn’t see him.

Do it! she thought. Hide!

Still running as fast as she could, she swung her head from side to side. The tree trunks looked too skinny to hide behind. There were no clumps of bushes in sight. The few rocks jutting out of the forest floor seemed too small.

Climb?

He’ll see me.

People don’t look up. That’d been a big point in some novel she’d read years ago. The thought had intrigued her at the time, and she’d never forgotten it. People look down and around, but they rarely look up.

Get above Holden, maybe he’ll run right by.

Off to the right, not far ahead, stood a pine that was much bigger than most of the others. Its lower branches drooped to within a yard of the ground. Its upper trunk was completely hidden by the surrounding green of its bushy limbs.

Gillian raced toward it. As she ran, she shoved the belt between her teeth. She balled up the rope and pitched it to her right. It uncoiled in midair, sailed down, and dropped over a sapling about twenty feet away. She wished it had gone farther, but that was good enough. It might throw Holden off her trail.

If he sees it.

She dashed the rest of the way to the tree, dropped to her knees and scurried beneath the umbrella of its foliage. She crawled to the trunk. She stood up. The lowest branch was as high as her shoulders. She wrapped herself around the trunk and began to shin up it. The belt was in her way. A few times, it got caught between her chest and the trunk, and tugged at her jaw. But she kept her grip on the belt, freed it when it snagged, and kept on climbing.

She heard the distant crunch of Holden’s footfalls.

They were coming closer and closer.

She got a knee onto the lowest branch. Reaching up, she clutched a limb. She carefully straightened herself. She raised her left leg, squirmed against the trunk, found a foothold on the other side of the trunk, and thrust herself higher.

Holden sounded very close now. His shoes were thudding on the forest floor. She heard him gasping for breath.

Peering around the trunk, she saw patches of light through the tree’s curtain of foliage. But she couldn’t see Holden.

If I can’t see him, be can’t see me.

She wanted to climb higher.

The branches above her feet looked thick, but not as thick as those she had stepped onto before. If she put her weight on one and it bent even a little bit, a whole section of green on the outside of the tree might shake and give her away.

So she stood motionless, left foot braced on the branch, arms and legs hugging the trunk. Hearing Holden’s approach, she pressed herself more tightly against the trunk. She wished she could sink into it and disappear.

The sounds of the rushing footsteps stopped.

Near the place where the rope had landed?

He knows he’s lost me, Gillian thought. He doesn’t see me anywhere ahead, doesn’t hear me running. He’s starting to suspect I’ve tried to hide on him. He’s trying to figure out where.

Her heart thudded wildly. Calm down, she told herself. Pretend we’re playing hide and seek.

Pretend, hell!

Strange. She’d spoken so fondly of playing hide-and-seek to Jerry. Just yesterday.

And here I am now, playing it for keeps.

She wondered if she had ever tried hiding in trees. And then she remembered that she had—many times. She remembered standing on branches high up, clinging as the tree swayed in the wind, staring down as the kid who was “it” searched the yard and never looked up. The thrill had been like a giggle trapped in her throat.

Had she ever been found when she was hiding in a tree? She didn’t think so. They found her when she hid in bushes, under stairs, in window wells, but not when she climbed trees.

Maybe that’s the real reason she had decided to climb this one.

The forgotten trick of a kid game.

It worked then, she told herself. It’ll work now.

It better.

What’s he doing?

For the past minute—maybe longer—Gittian hadn’t heard a single footstep. He’d been panting for air when he arrived, but that had stopped very quickly.

If he left, she thought, I would’ve heard him. He must just be standing there, looking around, listening, waiting. Maybe he thinks I’ll decide the coast is clear and come out of hiding.

Maybe he did leave.

That’s what he wants me to think.

I’ll stay here all day. All night. Whatever it takes.

Footsteps rushed toward her tree.

Gillian’s heart lurched. She jerked her face back from the trunk and looked down.

Holden scurried under the hanging limbs, stood and gazed up at her.

Her breath blasted out as if she’d been punched in the stomach.

Holden’s knife was lashed to the end of a stick—tied there with the rope she had thrown to lead him astray.

The stick was six feet long.

Before Gillian could move, he jabbed upward with the makeshift spear. Its point sank into her right buttock. Yelping, she reached down for the knife. It pulled out of her and slashed at her hand, but missed.

She tugged the belt from her teeth and twisted herself away from the trunk. She pivoted, her right leg swinging backward through the air, foot kicking at the shaft of Holden’s knife-spear, then finding its way onto the same branch as her left foot.

The maneuver had turned Gillian around. She no longer had her back to Holden. She hugged the trunk with her left arm. Her right arm swung, whipping at the knife with the buckle-end of the belt.

The knife circled on the end of its stick. The lashing belt did little to keep it away. It slashed and thrust. Sometimes it got her. It poked the side of a calf. It nicked a hip. It sliced a thigh. It cut a half-inch slit across the top of her pubic mound.

Gillian knew he was toying with her. If he wanted, he could hack her to pieces or bury the blade in her. Instead, he tortured her with shallow stabs and slices.

He stared up at her with wide, eager eyes. His lips were a straight line. His tongue slid out between them as he made a hard sweeping slash at Gillian’s belly. The blade missed her by no more than an inch. As it passed, she struck it with her belt. The end of the belt wrapped the wooden shaft and she tugged. Holden tugged at the same instant. The belt jerked from her hand. Holden’s lips curled into a smile. He shook his spear. The belt slid down its shaft and dropped to the ground.

Gillian unhooked her arm from the tree trunk. As she sidestepped carefully, Holden jabbed the blade at her face. She flinched and nearly lost her balance. Her right arm waved. Her left hand grabbed an overhead branch. The knife point stung her left armpit, then scraped along the underside of her breast. The blade moved up between her breasts and turned, its edge pressing into her right breast.

She darted her right arm in, grabbed the shaft just below the knife handle, thrust it away from her body and leaped.

Leaped forward, diving, clutching the spear with her other hand as she flew.

Flew over Holden’s head.

Insane, she thought. Like diving into an empty pool.

She kept her grip on the spear as she crashed headfirst through a tangle of limbs that beat against her falling body. A branch pounded her hip, throwing her over. Then her back struck the ground.

She raised her head. Her skin was a maze of welts, scratches, and bleeding cuts. They itched and burned. But she couldn’t worry about that now.

The dive had carried her through the wall of foliage surrounding the pine. The spear was still in her hands. It had snapped in the fall, leaving only a few inches of shaft jutting out below the knife’s handle.

But she had the knife!

Gazing between her feet, she saw Holden scuttling through the shadows under the tree.

She gasped, rolled over, pushed herself up and whirled around to face him.

He held the rest of the spear—a long crooked pole. The break had left it with a point. He walked toward Gillian, both hands on the pole, shaking it at her. “Gonna shove it up your ass,” he whispered. “Gonna make you a scarecrow.” .

I’ve got the knife, she thought. But his words sent ice through her bones. He seemed so sure.

He lunged forward, driving the pole toward her belly. Gillisn slashed at it. The heavy blade knocked it aside. She threw herself at Holden, swinging the knife in a backhand stroke. He hurled himself out of its path and the blade cut only air. She glimpsed a blur of streaking pole and cried out as a blast of pain shot up her arm. Stunned, she saw the knife fly from her hand.

Holden turned, watching the knife, and started to go after it while it was still falling.

Gillian whirled around and ran.

It’s over, she thought.

Christ, I had the knife.

She sprinted.

It’s over, but I won’t make it easy for him.

Her arm throbbed. Her wounds burned. She felt blood and sweat sliding down her skin. Branches whipped her. Her feet snagged on something and she fell and skidded and scurried up again and kept on running.

In the distance ahead, the forest shadows were broken by brightness.

Another clearing? she wondered.

Maybe a lake!

If it’s a lake up there, I’ll dive in and swim. Maybe Holden can’t swim!

She glanced back.

Holden was racing after her, no more than twenty feet away. He had the pole down at his side, clutched in his left hand. His right hand held the knife.

Gillian dashed out of the trees.

Clear open space ahead.

Rocky ground for a few more yards.

But no lake.

A valley.

Gillian tried to stop.

GOD, NO! was her 6na1 thought before she stumbled off the edge..

Chapter Twenty-nine

This is it, Gillian thought as she plummeted.

Her feet hit rock. Her knees shot up, one striking her chin like a pitched hardball.

She was lying on the beach. She could hear the nearby surf. Her skin was sizzling.

I’m going to have a doozy of a sunburn, she thought.

I’d better roll over.

She couldn’t move. The sun seemed to be pressing down on her, holding her motionless.

If I don’t roll over ...

A kid ran by, kicking up sand. Grains of it flew into Gillian’s open mouth. She started to choke.

Coughing, she raised her head and pushed herself up on her elbows. The sight of her naked, battered body destroyed the dream. She coughed and spat. Blood sprayed her chest. So did bits of something—not sand, though. Chips of broken teeth? Her vision darkened and swam. She twisted quickly onto her side and vomited.

When she was done, she squirmed away from the mess. She rolled onto her back and her right leg slipped into emptiness. With a gasp of alarm, she jerked it up and crossed it over her other leg. Her pounding heart sent waves of pain through her head. She patted the ground and felt an edge of rock no more than two inches from her side.

Carefully, she sat up. She looked around, forcing her head to turn on her tight neck.

She was sitting on a shelf of rock that jutted out no more than five or six feet from the sheer face of the mountain. It was less than four feet wide. The center was depressed slightly, and as sandy as a beach.

She started to look down, felt a swell of panic, and scooted cautiously until her back pressed the solid wall of rock. There, she gripped the edge beside her right hip. She took deep breaths. She shut her eyes, but snapped them open, fearful of falling. Too close to the edge. She eased herself closer to the middle.

What am I doing here?

She tried to think back. Her brain pulsed and burned with the headache. Her memory seemed scattered.

She remembered a fall—from a diving board. At Jerry’s swimming pool. But that was a long time ago.

At least I remembered it, she thought. A place to start.

The board had torn off her bikini pants. Jerry gave her a robe to wear. She wore it next door, to the place she was staying. That was a house she’d broken into. She must’ve been on one of her adventures, her intrusions.

She’d gone back to the house. She remembered opening the drier to put the robe in, and ...

The scrapbook.

Fredrick Holden.

She suddenly remembered. She skipped her mind over the nightmare that started with her capture, touching on bits and pieces of her ordeal, and found the part she needed to remember.

The last seconds.

Holden had been chasing her through the woods. She’d rushed right up to the edge of a cliff, tried to stop, teetered for a moment, then fallen. She’d expected her body to be dashed apart on the rocks far below.

By some miracle, she was still alive.

By the miracle of landing on this, she thought, looking at the small shelf surrounding her.

She couldn’t remember landing. She must’ve been knocked senseless by ...

Holden!

Wincing, she twisted her head and looked up the mountain.

Holden was nowhere in sight.

The wall looming above her was nearly vertical. She couldn’t see the top.

From what Gillian could see, however, she guessed that her perch must be well below the edge.

She realized she would have a better view if she crawled out to the end of the shelf and turned her back to the open space.

No way.

Instead, she raised her knees. Her right knee was stiff and swollen, and hurt when she bent it. But she kept it bent along with her left, to hold her feet away from the edge when she scooted forward. With her back a few inches from the wall, she looked over each shoulder and scanned the area above her.

She still couldn’t see Holden.

Still couldn’t see the top.

But she saw that the rock face was slightly concave. Though the angle was so slight that the mountainside didn’t appear to overhang her, there was enough tilt to prevent Holden from climbing down to her.

Unless he had a good long rope.

There was no mountain climbing rope in the trunk of his car, that she knew. And she would bet he didn’t have one in the front, either.

Only one way he’ll get down here, she thought. The same way I did.

He’s a fucking lunatic, but he’s not suicidal. Nobody would jump off up there on the chance of landing the way I did. Not even me. I would’ve let him catch me before I would’ve jumped. Maybe.

If he tries it, he’ll miss.

If he lands here, I’ll kick him off.

He won’t try it. Not a chance. He cares a hell of a lot for his own hide. Here’s a bastard who goes out ofstate to do his killings, who drove me hundreds of miles just so my body wouldn’t turn up near his neighborhood. He’s a bastard who loves himself and wants to live so he can go on torturing and , murdering. No way is he going to jump off a goddamn cliff.

But he can’t let me live. No way is he going to drive away and leave me breathing.

Gillian slid backward until she was safely against the wall again.

Maybe he thinks I’m dead, she told herself.

He must have gone to the edge of the cliff and looked down. If he did that, he saw me. I was out cold for a while. Was he still looking when I woke up and tossed my cookies?

Maybe, maybe not. Maybe he does think I’m dead.

I must’ve looked dead. Gillian straightened out her legs, moaning at the pain in her knee. Yeah, she thought, I look messed up pretty good.

Her skin was shiny with sweat, glowing from the sun, streaked and smeared with blood and dirt, cross-hatched with fresh welts, scratched and scraped, split in six or eight places from knife wounds that looked raw but no longer bled. There were swollen patches of red, a deeper hue than the sun had caused, that would turn into bruises. There were even purple-gray marks left over from the beating at his house like an undercoating of old hurts. Gillian touched her face. She felt dry, puffy lips, a knot on the point of her chin, a left cheek that seemed like twice its normal size. She could actually see a slope of cheek below her eye.

She ran her tongue gently along the broken edges of her teeth.

And started to weep.

Cut it out, she told herself. I’m alive. •■•■»

My dentist is gonna love me.

Couple months, I’ll look good as new.

If I’m still alive. If I make it out of here.

Holden, he’s not gonna leave till he’s sure I’m dead.

Maybe he does think I’m dead, she told herself again.

A guy like him, how come he didn’t drop some rocks on me? When he saw me down here, he could’ve bombed me till he crushed my head. How come he didn’t?

Maybe he fell.

The thought struck her like a promise of life. She wiped the tears from her eyes.

What if Holden came running out of the trees, full tilt, the same way I did? What if he couldn’t stop in time, either, and went right over the edge?

She whispered, “Jesus,” through her broken lips.

Then she crawled forward on her hands and knees. When • she neared the edge, a falling sensation forced her to lie down flat. She squirmed a few more inches forward, then peered down over the rim.

A short distance below her perch, other rocks protruded from the mountain wall. None were large enough to break a fall. The slope was still nearly vertical for fifty or sixty feet. If Holden went off the cliff, he would’ve dropped that distance, then crashed onto the boulders that were heaped at the foot of the wall.

Gillian didn’t see his body.

Doesn’t prove anything, she told herself. The body , might’ve gone down in between the rocks.

Some were the size of refrigerators, others the size of cars. They were all tilted and tipped every which way, with big shadowy gaps between their edges. A body could fall into one of those crevices, Gillian thought, and never be found.

She felt a trickle of joy.

But over the years she had lived like a thief in sixty-six houses and she had never been caught until this time. Luck, she knew, had been a factor in that. But the main factor was her mind. She’d gotten away with her intrusions because she was smart. She didn’t let herself run on luck, hoping for the best. She studied the possibilities, foresaw the dangers, took precautions, and was always creative and quick enough to keep herself safe.

So now, in spite of her thrill at the thought that Holden lay broken and lifeless among the rocks below, she warned herself not to count on it.

You don’t see his goddamn body. Therefore, he isn’t dead.

If he isn’t dead, what’s he doing?

For some dumb crazy kind of reason—why, at a time like tbis?-she was back in the white stucco house on Silverston. The deco place. If ever she made it back to LA in one piece, which, let’s face it, doesn’t seem too likely, the memory of the hot tub she’d taken that day would live on in her mind forever.

What happened afterward, though, in number 1309, almost put paid to her illustrious career. Of intrusions, house-sittings, that is. ,

Finito. Full stop.

She wished that it had. Then she wouldn’t be here now, halfway up this bastard mountain, bare-ass naked and a murdering psycho after her hide.

Back to the house that time forgot ...

She’d lain there, soaking up the sheer luxury of that tub, breathing in lilac perfume, like she was in some mystical Garden of Allah.

Then the bathroom door blew ajar. That’s right, a puff of wind opened the door.

She remembered thinking, Holy shit ...

And sitting up with a start, arms wrapped around her breasts, shivering in the cold draft. Faint, familiar music wafted through the door. So faint, it was hardly there at all.

Then, the weirdest thing. She’d had this powerful urge to get up out of the tub, wrap herself in one of those thick white towels hanging over the towel rail and walk out the door.

Leaving a trail of wet footprints behind her, she padded across the marble landing. No ideas as to where her feet were taking her. In a kind of dream, she let them have their lead. They took her to a white door which had the name A-L-I-C-E printed on it in silver letters. ALICE?

Alice who?

Looking at those letters made her feel like she’d stumbled across somebody’s private place. Somebody’s very private place.

A special place.

The old familiar buzz tugged at the pit of her stomach. It melded into an ache, setting her mons alight with longing.

“Here goes,” she breathed. She’d invaded a lot of private space in her time. One more wouldn’t hurt.

Her breath came out in huffs, quick and shallow. Not knowing what she would find behind the door, she opened it, slowly, and peeped into a tiny room that was straight from the past.

Chintzy flowered drapes, a doll’s cradle, a rocking chair.

And a big, brown teddy bear sitting in the far corner. The bear wore several bald patches and stared across at her with beady eyes. She imagined it saying, Who are you? You’re an intruder. You don’t belong here.

Her eyes turned to the small single bed. Not much more than a cot, really. Floral drapes were drawn around it. Not knowing why, she knew that she must open them. It was as if she’d come to this house specifically to discover what lay behind the drapes.

Stepping forward, she did just that. Slowly. Drawing back the fabric with tentative fingers. A gasp broke from her lips. Wide-eyed, she stared at a small wizened figure, prostrate on the bed. It was no more than four feet ten at the most.

Little Bo Peep in a long floral dress, matching poke bonnet and a shepherd’s crook by her side. Little Bo Peep with a drunken monkey face and bright rouge spots high on her cheeks. And ludicrously red, cupid bow lips.

The large blue eyes, ringed with thick mascara’d lashes—false, they had to be, they were so long and curly—gazed curiously into Gillian’s face.

She gasped, clamping a hand over her mouth. She felt the warm towel swish down her legs and fall around her ankles.

My GOD!

This is it. Curtains. I’ve been caught out. No more intrusions for this baby. Hello, real world—LAPD here I come ....

“I’m sorry ...” she began. Then clamped her lips together, hard. Something was up. The blue eyes weren’t moving.

Slowly, carefully, Gillian reached out and lifted Little Bo Peep’s thin, blueveined hand. The bony fingers sparkled with clusters of gold and diamond rings. The hand was ice cold. Stiff. Gillian let it fall back onto the white lace bed sheets.

She exhaled slowly, gratefully. A huge feeling of relief built up inside her. The initial shock over, she looked down at the figure on the bed and felt a brief surge of pity.

No more sheep for this Little Bo Peep, she murmured to herself.

Gillian got out of there. Fast. Checking first, making sure she’d left no trace of her presence behind. Nothing that could involve her with Bo Peep’s death. She touched her Minolta, briefly, and grimaced. Yuk. No. No photographs for her files this time.

Anyway. Cases like these, you can’t be too sure. Film could get lost, or stolen. Unless the finder was either a weirdo or somebody seriously interested in nursery rhymes, the film could easily end up in the wrong hands.

For a full three months after that, intrusions were out. Gillian had to admit, though, there were days back there when she’d been sorely tempted. She’d resisted, but it hadn’t been easy. When she’d felt like giving in, she had only to remember that strange shrunken figure lying dead in its cot.

Yeah. The memory of that house on Silverston still haunted her like some terrible dream.

Would’ve made a spooky movie, though.

One day, she reckoned, she was gonna meet up with real trouble. Find herself doing time, no sweat. So she quit. No more house-sitting, she promised herself. That last time at Creepy Hollow had scared the shit clean out of her.

Then the old urge, that all-consuming desire, need, came flooding back. As inviting, as seductive as ever.

Yeah, Mr.-Fat’n’sassy Shrink. I’m hooked on other people’s private places. I coulda told you that ...’n saved myself a whole heap o’ money in the process.

If she’d been into visiting shrinks, that is.

Which she wasn’t.

She rolled onto her shoulder and looked around. The sheer face of the mountain continued for some distance, maybe a few hundred yards. Then it dissolved like a more gradual slope.

A slope that Holden could descend.

He could go down that way, Gillian thought, approach from below, and get to me by climbing up.

She didn’t see him, but the area along the base of the slope was heavily wooded. Holden could be down there, out of sight, making his way through the trees along the edge of the valley.

She spotted a trail among the trees. On the far side of the trail was a stream. It rushed along, shining in the afternoon sunlight. In places, it was white with froth. Gillian could hear the distant sound of it tumbling through the rocks.

She rolled flat again. The trail and stream followed the side of the gulley. Directly below her, the trees opened up. That was good. If Holden descended all the way to the bottom and came through the woods, he’d be in plain sight for a while before reaching the heaped boulders.

Turning her head, Gillian scanned the area to her left. The trail and stream were visible for only a short distance before the clearing. They vanished around the foot of a bluff that was nearly as high as Gillian’s perch. She looked back. A glance at the mountainside was enough to convince her that Holden wouldn’t try to descend on that side. It was steep, and it stayed steep.

So now we know, she thought, which way he’ll come.

If he comes.

If he’s not dead in the rocks down there.

I’ve got two choices, she thought. I can either stay here or climb down.

I’ll have to climb down sooner or later.

But he’d have a hard time getting to me here. He can’t sneak up on me.

Gillian wiped sweat out of her eyes, looked around, and saw plenty of good-sized rocks within reach.

I can bash his brains in before he ever gets near me.

But he’s too smart to make himself a target. As long as I’m here, I’m trapped and he knows where I am. What if he waits for night? What if I fall asleep or pass out, and he makes it up here while I’m zonked?

I can’t last forever up here.

She felt the sun beating down on her, broiling her back. She felt sweat sliding down her skin. Her tongue was a dry slab.

She hadn’t taken a drink since last night. She’d spent hours sweating inside the trunk of Holden’s car.

If I wait too long, she thought, I won’t be able to climb down.

She found herself staring at the stream. She listened to it rushing over the rocks. She could almost taste it.

Through the trees to the left of the clearing, she saw it cascading, white as snow. Straight in front of her, it formed a clear, glinting pool. She pictured herself sliding into the chill water, sucking it into her mouth.

If I start down now, she thought, I’ll be there in half an hour. Maybe less.

If Holden doesn’t get me.

If he shows up, I’ll stone him. Plenty of ammunition.

Gillian squirmed backward away from the edge, then got to her hands and knees. The movement made her head pound. A wave of dizziness washed by. It left her frightened.

If that happens while I’m trying to climb down ...

Get going.

She sat down, then scooted herself toward the right-hand side of the shelf. Her feet went out over the edge. Her calves scraped. Then her feet dropped out of sight and the pain reminded her to be careful of her right knee.

What if it’s too weak to hold me up?

She kept inching forward. Her legs dangled. She clutched the edge of the shelf with both hands and leaned out.

Her toes were nearly touching the next rock down.

She lay backward and rolled over. Then she squirmed on her belly, easing herself off the ledge until her feet found the rock. Carefully, she pushed herself away from the shelf.

She stood on the foothold, still holding the upper ledge with both hands.

So far, she thought, not bad.

She looked down at her destination. The sparkling pool of the stream.

And she saw Holden pass between two trees as he walked along the trail far below. For moments, he was hidden by the woods. Then he appeared against the edge of the clearing. He still carried the broken stick in one hand, his knife in the other. He turned and gazed up at the slope.

His head suddenly snapped to the side.

He shoved the knife blade down a rear pocket of his pants. Gillian looked to the left.

“Oh my Christ,” she muttered.

Just this side of the place where the trail vanished behind the outcropping were two women with backpacks. The one in the lead raised a hand in greeting. Holden waved to her.

He walked toward the women.

“RUN!” Gillian shouted. “GET OUT OF HERE!”

Neither hiker turned a head.

Gillian yelled and yelled as the gap narrowed between the two women and Holden.

It’s the damn stream! she thought.

They were so close to it, the noise of the rushing water was masking her shouts.

She let go of the ledge. Balancing on the rock, she squatted, then she sat down and straddled it. She clawed the slope behind her and pulled loose a chip of stone. She hurled it at the women. It flew out in a high arch, dropped beyond the clustered boulders below, and vanished in undergrowth at the edge of the clearing.

The second hiker glanced toward the place where the stone had landed. But she kept walking. She stopped beside her friend, took off her ballcap, and rubbed a forearm across her brow.

They both faced Holden. He was no more than three feet in front of them. From the gestures, Gillian guessed that they were talking. Holden pointed to the trail behind him. He shrugged. Then his stick whipped through the air. It struck the stout woman across the side of the head. Her straw hat flew off. Her legs folded. Her knees hit the ground and she dropped forward flat on her face.

Gillian heard herself shriek, “NO!”

The other woman spun around and ran up the trail. She flung off her pack. Holden leaped over it. He grabbed the knife out of his rear pocket as he chased her.

She was fast, but Holden gained on her. Reaching out, he grabbed the back of her gray T-shirt. The fabric stretched, tenting out behind her. Then she staggered and danced sideways as if being swung on the end of a rope. Her feet tangled. She went down, tumbling and rolling. Holden pounced on her.

Chapter Thirty

“We could stop anywhere along here,” Rick said.

“I’d rather find a place,” Bert said, “where the stream isn’t so close to the trail. We’d have people hiking right by our camp.”

Rick smiled. “Yeah, this trail is Grand Central Station around here.”

They hadn’t seen anyone except Angus the lunatic since leaving the girls. But Rick agreed with Bert. If they kept going, they might find a good secluded area.

“Why don’t we just give it another hour?” Bert suggested. “It’d be nice to get settled while we have some of the afternoon ahead of us.”

“How far’s Mulligan Lake?”

“More like two hours.”

“Andrea and Bonnie’ll probably be there,” Rick said.

“Well, we won’t go that far.” She looked at him, a corner of her mouth curling up. “Unless you want to.”

“I just want to get someplace where we’ll have plenty of privacy.”

“Me too.”

They walked side by side around a bend in the trail that took them past a stone comer. Rick reached below Bert’s pack and squeezed her rump. “What have you got in mind?” he asked.

She looked at him and raised an eyebrow. “A little of this, a little of that.” Her face turned forward again and she stopped abruptly.

Rick halted beside her.

On the trail at their feet lay a red backpack.

“What the hell?” Rick muttered. “Looks like one of ...”

She grabbed his arm so hard that pain streaked through it. She was gazing past him, to the right.

Rick turned his head.

He thought, It’s another hallucination, has to be, but how can Bert be seeing it?

He stared.

The trail where he stood with Bert was slightly higher than the clearing ahead, and gave him a perfect view.

Can’t be real. Impossible.

It was worse than his daydreams, his visions, worse than anything he had ever imagined. Julie’s death seemed pristine compared to this.

One of the bodies was a naked man. He lay on his back near the sprawled remains of a girl. Rick refused to look straight at the girl, to see what had been done to her. He gazed at the man. The man looked as if he were made of blood, as if his skin had been peeled off.

Rick let his eyes dart past the third body, a twisted, faceless thing.

Strewn about the bodies was clothing: a pair of cut-off jeans with one leg split open; a yellow blouse; a torn rag of panties; faded blue gym shorts; a gray T-shirt sliced down the front, rumpled in such a way that the letters UC showed. Some of the clothes were sprinkled red as if they had been sprayed from a distance, and Rick realized vaguely that the girls must’ve already been naked when the blood began to fly.

The girls.

Andrea and Bonnie.

He couldn’t look at their bodies, but the clothes were enough.

The other clothes belonged to the man: shoes placed neatly together with socks tucked inside, folded trousers, a knit shirt on the ground near the pants.

Who is he? Rick wondered.

Did he do this? Why’s he dead?

Bert, standing at Rick’s side, bent over and heaved. She had her knife clutched in her right hand. It was pressed to the side of her leg, and the blade jerked as spasms shook her body.

Already has her knife out, Rick thought. Got through the shock and saw the danger. Why didn’t I?

If I only had the gun!

Rick drew his own knife from the scabbard on his belt. Then he squirmed out of his shoulder straps. His pack dropped to the trail behind him. He scanned the clearing, the base of the slope a distance to the right, the trees beyond the clearing, the stream to the left and the wooded area on its other side. Saw no one. Imagined Jase and Luke and Wally charging at them from the rear. Whirled around. No one. He raised his eyes. No one scurrying down the rocks.

“RICK!”

He began to turn and everything seemed to be in slow motion. He saw Bert’s pack falling toward the trail behind her legs. Her arm began to move upward, pointing with the knife. He finished his turn. The man of blood was sitting up. His eyes were open. He had a red erection.

Rick grabbed Bert’s shirt and pulled. She twisted slowly toward him, her shirt coming off her shoulder, her right breast exposed, the knotted fabric across her chest slipping apart. “RUN!” he yelled in her face. His voice seemed far away and echoing. He saw her head shake slowly from side to side, her hair swaying out below the edges of her hat. “GO!” he yelled again, and then he released her shirt and started toward the man.

The man, somehow already up, wasn’t coming at them. Instead, he ran away. His back wasn’t red. It had a deep tan except for his white, flexing buttocks. He only ran a few steps. His arms reached out. He grabbed a long stick slanting up out of one of the bodies (a broad-boned body ... Bonnie?). He tugged it out with both hands. It made a sucking sound. He pivoted, swinging it like a baseball bat. Rick, almost upon him, flung up his arms to protect his head. His wrist exploded with pain. But the knife stayed in his numb hand. The man leaped out of his way. Rick couldn’t stop. His forward foot came down on a thigh of the corpse. The body turned under his weight. An outstretched arm flopped up as if reaching for him. He tried to miss it as he stumbled, but the toe of his boot smashed the forearm down and he thought, I’m sorry, as he staggered past the body, trying to stay up.

Something crashed against the back of his head. He slammed the ground and skidded.

He lifted his face out of the grass.

Was I out? What if it’s all over, and Bert ... ?

He looked over his shoulder.

Bert was on her feet, face to face with the man, trying to wrestle the shaft out of his hands. Her knife was clenched in her teeth. She was being twisted and shaken like a doll, no match for the killer.

Rick started to get up.

The pole was snatched from Bert’s grip. She reached for the knife between her teeth. Before she could grab it, the man drove an end of the pole into her belly. Her mouth made a wide O. She stumbled backward, folding, and her rump pounded the ground.

The man left Bert sitting there, turned away, and squatted by the head of the other corpse.

Andrea?

She’d been scalped.

She had a knife in her mouth. But not crossways, pirate fashion, like Bert. The broad handle stuck straight up from her lips. The man clutched it and pulled. Andrea’s raw head lifted as the blade slid out.

A huge blade.

The man’s eyes, bulging white in his red mask, fixed on Rick.

Rick was almost on him.

The man jerked the knife the rest of the way out, ripping through a cheek. The blade swept past Rick’s belly. He felt a hot sting as it nicked his side. As he lunged at the crouching man, he slashed downward. His knife skidded on the man’s forehead, sliced the left eyeball, cut through a nostril, tore a diagonal gash through his lips and chin, swept down and split the back of Rick’s own left hand.

Even as the knife cut his hand, his charging body smashed the man backward. Onto Andrea’s face. Rick, hunched low and off balance, hurled himself over her ravaged body, hit the ground on the other side, and rolled.

He got to his hands and knees. He looked.

The man was scuttling toward him, shrieking, blood spouting from his face. Bert swept by. Flying? She was four feet off the ground, stretched out straight, open shirt flapping behind her like the cape of a super-heroine from a strange, erotic comic book, knife in her right hand. Her bare chest hit the man’s back with a slapping sound. He was smashed flat. Bert’s arms were out past his side. She threw an elbow high and tried to bring her arm down to stab him, but he thrust himself up, twisting and throwing her off.

He got to his knees, swung around and rammed the knife down. It missed Bert. She was rolling. He went after her on his knees.

Rick scurried toward him and drove his knife down. It sank deep into the man’s calf. He yanked it out. His left hand grabbed the man’s hip and pulled. His fingers slipped off the slick skin. Snarling, he threw himself forward. His chest pushed against the man’s buttocks. He raised the knife high, ready to plunge it into the middle of the back, when an elbow crashed against the side of his head.

The blow dazed him, sent him sprawling.

He lay on his back. The few clouds in the pale blue sky were slowly spinning. His ears rang.

“RICK!” Bert’s voice, high and terrified through the ringing.

He lifted his head, turned it.

The ground tilted and tipped, much like the clouds.

Bert was on her back, writhing under the man. He was sitting across her hips, leaning down over her, pinning her wrists to the ground. Blood from his gashed face splashed Bert, rained down on her cheeks and lips, trickled down her chin.

The man’s knife stood up straight, its blade embedded in the ground a few inches above her shoulder.

Rick rolled over. As he struggled to raise himself, the man’s right hand flew up, releasing Bert’s wrist. She wasn’t quick enough to block the punch. It crashed against her cheek. Her head snapped to the side. Her body went limp.

The man jerked his knife out of the ground.

He scooted backward, his blood spilling a trail onto her chest and belly and shorts. Then he was sitting on her knees. He slipped the broad blade down the front of her shorts and ripped. The edge came up through her waistband, severed her belt, slit open the tan fabric down her left thigh and parted the small cuff.

Rick forced himself up to his knees while he watched.

What is this man!

Face torn from forehead to chin, eye split open, a bone-deep stab wound in his left calf—and he’s stripping her!!

He clawed Bert’s pants open like a flap, baring her left leg, her groin. He tugged at the other side so hard that her breasts shook. The shorts slid out from under her and down to her knees.

Rick’s knife flew end over end.

Jose threw a knife at me last night, he remembered.

Hit me bandk-first.

This one better do the job.

It flashed past the back of the man’s head, missing by more than an inch.

The man didn’t even seem to notice.

He was working Bert’s pants farther down her legs.

“NO!” Rick yelled.

He turned toward Rick, stared at him with one eye, and spat blood. His red penis was standing rigid and thick.

Rick shoved himself up, took a wobbly step forward, and fell.

The man turned again to Bert. He got his knees between her legs. With the dull edge of his knife, he shoved her left leg aside.

Rick crawled toward him.

He had no weapon and the man had the knife. He didn’t care....

“I’LL KILL YOU!” he yelled.

The man ignored him.

Then there was someone else.

For a moment, Rick thought it was one of the girls. It was a girl and she was naked and torn and bloody, but not mutilated like Andrea or Bonnie, not a butchered carcass, not dead.

She ducked as she ran, and swept Rick’s knife off the ground where it had landed after his throw.

She ran straight toward the man.

His head turned.

She leaped, twisting herself in midair, coming down behind him, between Bert’s spread feet. She grabbed the man’s hair. Her right knee buckled. She dropped to her rump and threw herself backward, still clutching the man’s hair.

He flopped on top of her, head between her breasts.

For an instant, two knives waved above his squirming body.

The knife in the girl’s hand flashed down and ripped across his throat.

Blood erupted.

The man flapped his arms, his knife slashing through the red curtain rising from his neck. He kicked his feet high.

Rick thought vaguely that he hoped the bastard wouldn’t kick Bert in the face.

The shower of blood diminished, then stopped, as if a faucet had been turned off.

The man lay sprawled motionless on top of Bert and the stranger.

Nobody moved.

Chapter Thirty-one

Thursday June 26

“Police today received a package containing a scrapbook allegedly belonging to Fredrick James Holden, who was slain Monday during a killing spree that left two hikers dead in the Sierra wilderness.

“The scrapbook, which contained newspaper clippings related to disappearances and killings of an undisclosed number of young women in several different states, was accompanied by an anonymous note which read, ‘I found this in Holden’s house. He murdered these people.’

“This latest revelation only deepens the puzzle of Fredrick James Holden, the orphan who was taken into the home of his aunt at the age of four and inherited her wealth twelve years later when she was raped and viciously murdered in her bed, along with the celebrated fashion designer Harriet Woodall. In light of the recent developments, authorities now speculate that the double homicide may have been the work of the same man responsible for Monday’s killing rampage.

“The scrapbook, received today by the police opens the possibility that Fredrick James Holden may have been involved in a nationwide string of sex slayings. But was the scrapbook the property of this man? And who mailed it to the authorities? How much might this person know about the trail of killings revealed in the pages of the scrapbook? With more on this story, we take you live to Henry Gonzalez.”

“Thank you, Laura. I’m coming to you live from the Encino home of Dr. Richard Wainwright, the prominent ophthalmologist who, along with his fiancee Bert Lindsey, was assaulted by Fredrick James Holden shortly after Monday’s double-homicide.

“Dr. Wainwright, is it your opinion that Holden’s scrapbook was sent to the police by the woman who called herself Mary Smith?”

“I have no idea. It wouldn’t surprise me, though.”

“Miss Lindsey?”

“We’ve talked about it. We both think she may have sent it. She had something to hide, we’re sure of that.”

“Could you tell us more about her?”

“She was eighteen or twenty, blond, very attractive ...”

“She was very beaten up. She’d been cut with a knife, and sustained a lot of superficial injuries while she was escaping from the bas—killer.”

“We bathed in the stream after ... after he was dead. All of us were bloody. Then we patched up some of her wounds with my first aid kit.”

“She didn’t say much.”

“None of us did. I think we were all in a state of shock.”

“She did tell us that her name was Mary Smith, and she’d been abducted the night before. Holden brought her out to the mountains in the trunk of his car. She said he’d intended to kill her ‘like the others.’ ”

“That’s one reason we think she might be the one who sent the scrapbook. She seemed to have knowledge of other murders.”

“Also the fact that she skipped out on us.”

“Wearing my clothes. Not that I resent that. Hell, she saved us. She came out of nowhere like some kind of crazed, avenging angel and slit the throat of that animal.”

“But you say, Dr. Wainwright, that she skipped out.”

“We took Holden’s car. It was on a dirt road about an hour’s hike away. She drove until we found my car, which was on a different road about ten miles off. Bert and I took my car, and she followed us. She was supposed to follow us till we found a police or sheriff’s station, but she took off.”

“She was right behind us one minute. Then she was gone.”

“You feel, then, that she had some reason to avoid a confrontation with the authorities?”

“Looks that way.”

“But she sent the scrapbook, I’d bet on it.”

“Do you have anything you’d like to say to Mary Smith if she should be watching this broadcast?”

“You bet. Mary Smith, whoever you are, we love you.”

“We’re not interested in revealing your identity to anyone. But we’d like to thank you-in person, if that’s possible. I’m in the phone book, Richard Wainwright.”

“This is Henry Gonzalez for Eyewitness News. Back to you, Laura.”

Gillian pressed the remote button, and the television screen went blank. Leaning back against the bedrest, she sighed.

“They seem like nice people,” Jerry said.

“They are.”

He took hold of her hand. “There’s that old Chinese proverb ... I think it’s supposed to be Chinese.”

“That you’re responsible for people after you save their lives?”

“That’s it.”

“That’s bullshit.”

Jerry laughed softly.

“She said they love me.”

“Yeah.”

“That’s really nice.”

“I don’t think there’s any reason to worry that they’ll tell on you.”

“No.”

“Even if they did, it’s not that big a deal. There’d be publicity, though. And the cops would want to talk to you.” -

The hell they would. Like, bom’s that again? How many times did you say, Miss O’Neill—er, Miss Smith? You broke into sixty-six bonus?

“But you’d be a hero. You already are. Mary Smith is.”

Fuck Mary Smith. And Gillian O’Neill. Time I got myself a new alibi. How about Trisba Scott? Mmmm ... Okay. Try this for size:

Following the outstanding success of “Gone Midnight,” a sequel to this record-breaking blockbuster movie, is now in the pipcline. As we speak, award-winning screenwriter, Trisba Scott, is completing yet another great script.

Our mole at Sierra Studios tells us filming is due to start early next year ...

“Sure. A hero. And I’d probably get prosecuted for violating Holden’s civil rights.”

“Maybe you’d better stay anonymous. But like I said, they won’t tell. How about having them over?”

“Like a dinner party?”

“A swim and a barbecue.”

“That might be nice. But let’s wait a while till it all calms down. And I’d like a chance to heal before anyone sees me in a bikini.”

“Yeah,” Jerry said. “Don’t want to put them off their food.”

Gillian slapped his thigh.

“You look fine,” he told her.

“Sure. Like I went through a garbage disposal.”

And she suddenly pictured the carcasses of the two young women, the way they had looked when she stood above them after crawling out from under Holden. Then she was on her mountainside perch, staring down, and they were still alive and she heard their screams over the rush of the stream as Holden worked on them.

Gillian felt herself shrivel inside, tight and cold. Goosebumps rose on her skin.

“Jerry?”

“Uh-huh?’

“Jery. D’you love me?”

“Do bees like honey? Does night follow day? Did Rhett love Scarlett?” .

“Funneee. I mean it, pal. I need to know if you really love me. Y’know? Really care.”

“As in, follow you to the ends of the earth?”

“You got it.”

“Where’s this leading, Gill? And why so serious, at this hour?”

“Because, dummy, I am about to spill a whole mess o’ beans. Like tell you a story, the like of which you’ve probably never heard before. And all of it is true. It’s about me. So. I need to trust you. I need to know that you love me enough to say, hey, what the heck. It’s you I love, not your goddamn life history.”

Jerry leaned up on an elbow and looked at her. Tears were coursing down her cut and bruised cheeks.

“My God, Gillian. What’s wrong?”

Okay. She’d had a rough time. A terrible time, what with Fredrick Holden an’ all; and he her uncle, too. But he had an overwhelming feeling that there was something else. That something much bigger was on her mind.

“If you love me and we stay together, I want you to know me. The real Gillian O’Neill. No matter how many alibis I have, what I do for a living, what position I sleep in at nights, what brand of coffee I drink ... I just need to come clean, Jerry. And after you’ve heard what I have to say, I want you to be honest. Tell me you love me and that my secrets’ll be safe with you. Or, tell me you don’t want to know, and I’ll just clam up and go to sleep.”

She looked so miserable that he took her in his arms and shushed her, just like a baby. Love, compassion and concern for her welled up inside him. He’d never felt like this about anyone before, in all of his life.

“There, now, my love. No need to worry about a thing. I do love you-believe me, I do. Just the way you are. No frills. No hidden agendas. Just you. If you’re about to tell me that you’re an award-winning scriptwriter, don’t bother. I already know. Anything else, I don’t need to be told.”

Turning to him, she whispered, “Hold me some more.”

He did.

They lay on their sides, wrapped in each other’s arms. Jerry held her gently.

“How come you know I write screenplays?”

“You told me. You said you ‘scribbled.’ Remember? Well, I watched this film a while back. About this diehard female mercenary caught up in some kind of Greek political plot. Good swimmer, too. Swam in mountain lakes, hid out in caves and all that stuff. Come to think of it, just the damn fool sort of thing you’d probably get up to. Caught the name of the screenwriter, too. Matched yours.”

“A regular Perry Mason. You shoulda told me.” She smiled and gave a small yelp.

“What is it ... ?”

“My cut lip just opened up again.”

Jerry held her closer and she snuggled into the curve of his body. He felt warm and smooth. Soon, the gripping chill inside her melted and a wonderful relief flooded her being.

One day, she promised herself, one day, I guess I’ll tell him the full story. Not yet, though: Not tonight.

Gillian tightened her arms around him. She pressed herself hard against him, and the feel of his body on her bruised and wounded skin was as soothing as a kiss.

RICHARD LAYMON

Richard Laymon is the author of over 30 novels and 65 short stories. Though a native of Illinois and a long-time Californian, his name is more familiar to readers in Great Britain, Australia and New Zealand as well as much of the rest of the world, where he is published in fifteen foreign languages. He has written such acclaimed novels as To mike the Dead, No Sanctuary, Island, Among the Missing. One Rainy Night. In the Dark, and Bite. The Traveling Vampire Show won a Bram Stoker Award for Novel of the Year in 2001. Two of his earlier novels (fresh and Funlund) and a short story collection (A Good, Secret Place) previously had been nominated for Bram Stoker Awards as well.

Check out the Richard Laymon Kills! website at www.rlk.cjb.net.