Actually, it was two shapes.
Two cedar poles, cut to roughly eight feet in length.
She knew she should wait for backup.
But she sensed, with all that she was, that there was no time.
So, with fire in her muscles and her nerves firing on all cylinders, she reached up and grabbed the chain-link fence.
And then she began to climb.
CHAPTER THIRTY THREE
The fence was old and rusted just like everything else on this godforsaken street. She felt the rust cutting into the padding of her finger but at least, because of the rust, the chain-link material made almost no noise as she scaled it. The fence was seven or eight feet tall and soon she reached the top.
She threw one leg over, steadied herself, and then brought the other over.
With a single push away from the fence, she leaped from the top and landed in the yard with a soft thud.
She instantly withdrew her Glock from its holster and crept toward the shed in a crouching position. She made her way to the door and rose up on her legs a bit, trying to find the warped area in the frame that kept the door from shutting all the way. She found it three quarters of the way up the door and peered inside.
She saw the pole right away, standing directly in the center of the shed. A scurrying shadow flew across it, followed by the object that had cast it. She saw the woman first, her legs kicking at the air, and then the man that was holding her from behind. The woman was naked except for a gag around her mouth. A series of muffled cries were coming from behind it as she fought to get away.
The man was wrestling her toward the pole. A strand of rope was wrapped around his shoulder like a limp snake.
Mackenzie, heart slamming so hard she could barely hear, had seen enough. She knew she’d have to act fast; she had to pull the door open and get inside with her gun raised before the creep had any idea what was happening.
This is where it would be easier with help, she thought to herself, suddenly regretting that she had ventured out here alone.
She extended her hand to the door’s rusty handle. When she grasped it, a sickening thought filled her head. What if it’s locked from the inside somehow?
That answer was simple enough. Now that she was inches away from the killer, she was willing to take more risks. If that’s the case, she thought, I’ll shoot through the fucking door.
She gripped the handle and took a deep breath. She held it in and didn’t exhale until she had pulled the door open.
She leaped forward, bringing the Glock up.
“Police! Put the weapon down and your hands – ”
She knew she’d made a mistake the moment she stepped inside. Something under her feet felt odd. And there came a noise, something that made no sense.
Mackenzie looked down for a split second, her eyes leaving the shape of the man in front of her, and saw the plastic sheeting that covered the floor. She was standing on it. And although it took less than a second for her to process what she was seeing, it was a second too much.
The murky figure in front of her dropped immediately to his haunches, grabbed the plastic sheeting in his hands, and yanked with all he had.
Mackenzie felt the ground move. The plastic she was standing on was yanked toward him and she lost her footing and went airborne.
The man then shoved the naked woman in her direction, and she landed on top of her.
Mackenzie, dazed, reached up and shoved the frantic woman off her, but by the time she did, the man was already lunging for her, bringing his fist down. She was halfway up when it struck Mackenzie directly between the eyes and sent her back to the ground.
As she fell to the ground, Mackenzie got her first glimpse of the killer. He was in his forties and partially bald. His eyes were electric blue and had the look of a crazed animal that has been penned up for far too long and has a pretty good idea of what freedom must be like. He was short but had a stocky look to him. Mackenzie had a pretty good idea that there was more muscle under his shirt than his appearance made it seem. The punch he’d delivered to her was another indication of this.
He was coming in for her now, moving with a quickness that the small space of the shed seemed incapable of containing. He had something in his hand that seemed to slither through the darkness. By the time he had raised his arm, Mackenzie realized what it was. She saw the splintered end sailing toward her.
Mackenzie rolled out of the way just in time.
The whip cracked less than two inches from Mackenzie’s right ear. The sound was deafening.
The killer brought the whip back again, this time aiming it directly for Mackenzie.
This time, she reached back, raised her gun, steadied her hands, and fired.
The motion he made as he brought the whip down skewed her aim and the bullet hit him high in the left shoulder rather than his heart.
He dropped the whip and stumbled forward, looking to Mackenzie as if the very idea of a gun was absurd to him.
Still, he was undaunted. He dove for her, going for her gun. Mackenzie fired again, this one grazing his right arm as he came down.
He slammed his full weight on top of her and the jolt of it sent a blast of pain through her body. Her hands opened reflexively and the Glock went to the floor.
The moment she heard the gun hit the floor, the killer rose up and drew his fist back. Before he could bring it down, Mackenzie punched him squarely in the gut. From the floor on her back, she did not get her full force into it, and it only diverted his blow. Yet when he brought it down and his fist only bounced from her shoulder, Mackenzie spun and clubbed him hard in the side of the jaw with her elbow.
He went sliding off of her and she instantly went for the Glock.
The killer ran as Mackenzie’s hand found the gun. She brought it up and aimed at the door just as he made his exit. She nearly fired, but the naked woman was in the way.
Mackenzie jumped to her feet and looked over at the naked woman, shaking, still bound.
“Stay here,” Mackenzie said. “I’ll come back for you.”
The woman nodded and Mackenzie saw something broken in the woman’s eyes. The events of this night, no matter how they turned out, would traumatize this poor young woman for the rest of her life.
With that haunting thought pushing her, Mackenzie sprinted out of the shed just in time to see the back door to the house closing. Mackenzie gave instant chase, fully expecting the back door to be locked.
When she turned the knob, it did so freely. The back door opened, revealing a small entryway and a darkened kitchen beyond.
He did that on purpose, she thought. He wants me to follow him inside.
She gave only a moment’s thought before she stepped inside and raised her gun, plunging into darkness.
CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR
Mackenzie stepped into the kitchen and could tell right away that this man did not care much for the way he lived. She smelled spoiled food coming from somewhere, mingled with the smells of dust and old body odor. She felt her palms sweating on her gun as her heart slammed, knowing she could full well die in this house, and she tried to steady them.
Mackenzie crept across the kitchen floor, listening for movement elsewhere in the house. Now that they were inside, she knew that there was no telling what the killer might have access to. At this very instant, he could be getting his own gun.
Mackenzie reached the edge of the kitchen where a dark hallway waited. Halfway down the small hallway, a flight of wooden stairs led to a second floor. The killer had the advantage here and she knew it. It would be foolish to go venturing down that hall. She looked to the right and saw a living room, illuminated by a small lamp on an end table. Another Bible sat on the end table. A bookmark stuck out of it and a pen and pad of paper sat beside it.