Other thoughts entered her head: the telephone, which was now an equal distance from her in either direction; the handgun, which resided in the drawer of her bedside table but which she had left the room without; her father; Melissa; Gwen Klein’s swollen tongue. A parade of thoughts and images that came down Main Street and walked right over her, trampled her, stealing her from her single-minded intention to determine what the hell was going on out in the hall.
And then she was the yo-yo at the bottom of the string, stuck between climbing back up that tether or lying down and giving in—in her case, giving up—for the next thing she heard was a key attempting to open her lock. The sound paralyzed her, froze her, claimed her, at first because it was so utterly impossible a notion than anyone should try to break into her apartment, and then, only fractions of a second later, from the realization and understanding that that was exactly what was going on. Mixed into her confusion, images of that swollen tongue flashed before her eyes, and she knew beyond a doubt what fate lay in store for her: rape, strangulation, the oven’s gas turned on high. It was the wrong story to pursue, a story that consumed anyone and everyone involved. She felt like shouting, ‘‘Okay, I quit!’’ as if she could stop the momentum that had brought this visitor to her door, but he wasn’t a decision maker, only the messenger.
What drove her feet toward that door, she did not know, only that she found herself immediately on the other side of this person’s efforts, separated by a two-inch-thick slab of wood. She dragged over a straightbacked-chair and wedged it under the doorknob as she’d seen done in films. It seemed so pathetically fragile, cocked at an angle like that.
Her eyes found the small security monitor, a five-inch TV screen that alternated shots between the entrance lobby, the inside of the elevator, and the hallway outside her door.
The lobby appeared empty. At two in the morning, Edwardo should have been at the desk, the only possible excuse a cigarette or bathroom break. Or was it him on the other side of the door? Did she dare call out? Was this some kind of a mix-up? Did he believe she was in trouble? Was he coming to help? Had she pressed the wrong button in setting the security device? Edwardo possessed the only other key to her elevator. It made sense, in the way any reasonable explanation satisfies panic. For that instant she felt relief—a mix-up was all. The tension that held her nearly paralyzed subsided. She could move again.
The next image that appeared on the small security monitor was of the empty elevator. This made sense as well. Edwardo had ridden the elevator up to her floor.
The scratching sound continued on the other side of the door, at which point her theory went all to hell. Edwardo knew which key to use.
The next video image showed the back of a man standing at her door. The man was big. He wore a hooded sweatshirt. It was not Edwardo.
The lock opened, the alarm sounded, and the chair buckled.
Stevie ran down the hallway. It stretched away from her, growing longer with each stride.
The station had run a piece on home security alarms. Stevie knew much more than she wanted to know about them. Average police response time was twenty to thirty minutes. First the alarm signaled the security company of a breach; then the security company telephoned the resident to check if it was a false alarm or to verify its authenticity; then the company dispatched its own security officers to the scene and, if needed, it was only then the police were summoned. In her case, because of the stalking, any breach was to be treated as a home invasion—the police were to be called immediately. This change reportedly would cut at least ten minutes off the response time. But that would hardly help her. The alarm was meant as a deterrent, something to send a low-life burglar running. It would do nothing to discourage a determined rapist or killer.
The hallway stretched on.
The chair creaked and made popping sounds as its joints gave way. Her feet would not carry her fast enough. The door at the end of the hall seemed to grow no bigger, to draw no closer—an unkind illusion born of panic.
When the chair broke and splintered it sounded like gunshots. She did not look back, did not waste a single movement until she made it through that door and turned to slam it and to lock it. She looked back. He was a big son-of-a-bitch, the sweatshirt hood obscuring his face; he ran like a water buffalo, head down and charging. She bumped the door shut and pushed the button locking it.
As he hit the door running, the entire frame, jamb and all, popped out of the wall as the plasterboard cracked, giving way. Stevie dove for the bedside phone, trying for the gun in the drawer at the same time she attempted to dial 911. The phone was dead. She squeezed off a round; it went through the ceiling above the door. Another. It shot out her TV screen, eight feet from the door where she thought she had aimed.
She heard another shot—this one from the far side of the door— and threw her gun down instinctively, tossing it away as if it did not belong to her. She looked at it then and, wondering what the hell she was doing, fell to her knees and lunged for it.
From the other side of the door came sounds of a fight.
Stevie huddled by the door, one hand on the weapon, the other preparing to unlock the bedroom door, driven by an innate curiosity and an instinct that she was needed. When she heard one of the plate-glass windows break, she turned the doorknob. Someone was out there defending her. The button popped out. The sounds of breaking furniture and the dull wet slap of flesh grew louder and more easily distinguished.
The alarm deafening, she hurried down the hallway, the gun extended.
The big man with the hood crawled across the carpet in an attempt to reach the apartment’s open door. Blood ran from his nose and marked his progress along the carpet.
Another man, tall and lean, struggled across the carpet and delivered what was left of her six-thousand-dollar Hondel lamp over the back of the first man’s head. The victim erupted, turning and kicking this other man in the face, throwing him off to the side and stealing the lamp himself. But his target rolled and kicked sharply, catching the man in the shoulder.
She saw the blue glint of steel—a gun on the kitchen floor—and this inspired her to aim her own gun overhead and pull the trigger. The blast shot a hole through the ceiling and rained down grains of sheetrock, briefly winning the attention of the two. In that millisecond, the hooded man lunged for the other, caught him by the jacket, stood and put him between Stevie and himself. Then he spun the man, threw him across the living room and ran for the apartment door—all before Stevie understood any of what was happening.
The thrown man struck yet another plate-glass window and it shattered, the sound deafening. He staggered and collapsed into the debris out on the balcony. The intruder fled out the door, so fast as to be only a blur of size and color.
Stevie stood there, the gun gripped in both hands, trembling— bone-numbing cold. She took two steps to her right, aimed at the alarm’s ceiling siren from just a few feet below and shot it out, silencing the room. Not knowing herself.
In the resulting stillness she heard the fire door at the end of the hallway thump shut, the heavy winded breathing of the stranger who had gone out the plate-glass window, the panic of blood pounding in her ears. Not a single siren anywhere to be heard.