He thought about that for a second, and a pleasedlook crossed his face. 'That would have been nice.'
'I'm still gonna do it, if you're around,' she said. 'But todaytoday was a little too much.'
'I know. I willbe around.'
Back upstairs, she crawled under the quilt her mother made, and before she drifted away, thought about Jake: she liked him, a lot. She even liked watching him hit golf balls.
On the darker side, she thought about the scene in Louis' living room, when they looked at the tape.
What did she do for a living? What was she becoming? And why wasn't she more frightened? She wasfrightenedbut above that, she was angry, and in some dark way, interested. My God, she thought: this is a good story. Gotta get right on it.
She was supposed to be a musician, a classical pianistbut whatever anyone might think about the night crew, it was apparent from the Jacob tapes that they were very, very good at what they did. Watched a man dying, never lost the frame.
And she ran the crew. She was better on the street, she thought, than she was at the piano.
Then she was gone, asleep, a killer back in the dark drapes of her dreams; and with it, a hard little diamond of anger.
She was gonna get him.
Chapter 17
The two-faced man was covered with bloodhis own bloodrunning down his face and arms. He licked at it, and the blood was both sweet and salty on his tongue; but his face was on fire.
The wounds hurt, but didn't really matter: what mattered was the failure. The explosion of his dreams.
Anna didn't want him.
And he'd run like a chicken.
He'd felt real fear: Anna had come after him like a madwoman, and he thought for a moment that she'd pull him down. If the others had gotten there, they would have lynched him.
The humiliation hurt worse than the bitealthough the bite hurt badly enough. He gagged in pain, pressed the palm of his hand to his cheek.
Still. He would heal. But the memory of thrashing up the hill, being chased by this small woman. that memory wouldn't go away. He'd remember that forever.
He'd gone to her expecting recognition. He'd eliminated the others. Hadn't that proven something? Didn't that give him some rights? He'd expected resistance, but then, he thought, she'd see the fire, feel the steel, and she'd come with him.
She'd slept with other men. He didn't like it, but he accepted it. He also knew that the others didn't love her: they simply used her. Jason O'Brien, Sean MacAllister, her driver, Creek. Users. Takers.
He'd goneto her; virtually begged her.
He flashed back to the sex: he'd bent her over the car, had been plucking at her pants, and suddenly, from the friction of the contact, the excitement, he'd ejaculated.
He remembered that without pleasure; because he also remembered running frantically across the parking lot, his penis protruding from his pants, wobbling around like a crazed-comic compass pointer, leading him into the brush.
He'd managed to tuck himself back inside before he hit the thorn trees, or he'd really have been hurt.
Had she seen that? Were she and her bodyguard off somewhere, laughing about it?
He closed his eyes: Of course they were. He could feel it.
And quick as that, love turned to hate; as it had with his teacher, Mrs Garner. As it had with a kitten that scratched.
He' d have to get her, now. He' d have to erase her.
The inner and outer faces agreed.
She didn't want him? Okay.
First, he'd show her what fear was. He'd frighten her worse than she had frightened him.
He licked at the blood on his arm.
Then he'd cut her to pieces.
Anna Batory was a dead woman walking.
Chapter 18
One of the dreams, something unpleasant, woke her; the diamond of anger was there, like a pebble in her shoe. Unlike a pebble, she cherished it, nurtured it, willed it to grow.
The clock glowed at her in the near-dark: six in the morning. She rolled over, tried to sleep, failed. Giving up, she swiveled to drop her feet on the floorand needles of pain shot through her shoulders and ribs. She said, 'Ooo,' silently, rolled her arms, then cautiously stood up. Her legs hurt, especially along the inside of her thighs; and she could feel the strain in her butt, where the big muscles connected to her pelvis, in her shoulders, and in her ribs. Her head itched: not thinking, she reached up to scratch, and felt the stitches.
Jeez. The guy had done a number on her.
She went to the bathroom, read the label on an ibuprofen that warned against taking more than two, took four, steamed herself out in the shower again, and, as an afterthoughta Harper thought?shaved her legs. The hot water felt good, and as it poured down on her neck and back, she thought about what had happened so far.
Jacob was connected to Jason only through coincidence: Jason's dealer hadn't sold to Jacob Harper, and was apparently hostile to the people who had. So what did that leave?
The white-haired man? The white-haired man who'd run from them at the hospital was out of keeping with last night's attack, and the attack on Creekso much so that she nearly dismissed him as part of the problem: she didn't know what was going on there, but the white-haired man simply did not fit.
Last night's attacker had been young and strong. Younger than she was, she thought. He liked cologne, and though he was stronger than she was, he wasn't nearly as strong Jake. What else? He'd been coming to court her? Could that be right? He'd tried to talk to her.
She finished showering, tiptoed around the bedroom getting dressed, found her running shoes and a pair of socks and carried them downstairs. She wouldn't be running, but the shoes were quiet. She went to the front door and saw that Harper had piled Coke cans next to it. She unstacked them quietly, unlocked the door, looked out, spotted the paper, reached out and grabbed it. Relocked the door, feeling virtuous.
She ate cold cereal with milk, read comics, pulled on a pair of socks, got a yellow legal pad and a No.2 pencil from her office, sat at the kitchen table and tried to untangle the maze.
White-haired guy. Dead end.
Courting her. He must've met her; he expected her to know himbut maybe not by name or face; maybe he expected only a kind of cosmic connection. Something he said hinted at that; that they were fated together.
And that fit with the killings, and the attack on Creek: if Anna was at the center of a sex triangle, a three-way, or even four-way, maybe he'd conclude that he had to eliminate his competitors.
He must've heard the storywhich meant that anyone who knew all of themJason, Sean, Creek and herselfwas a possibility. And that was not many people. On the other hand, anyone who knew them at all knew that she wasn't sleeping with either Jason or Sean: the idea was ludicrous. They might suspect Creek, because they worked so closely together. but Creek was the last one attacked. Why? Because he was the most dangerous? The hardest to get at?
Huh. They really needed to get to BJ's.
She was still struggling with the list when Harper bumbled out of the guest room, unshaven, wearing last night's pants and a T-shirt.
'How are you?' he asked.
'Creaky,' she said.
'I'm gonna get cleaned up, then we gotta run up to my place so I can get some clothes.'
'All right, and I want to get up in the hills and try out the gun. It's been a while.'
He looked at her for a moment, then said, 'Best thing you could do is go back to your dad's place for a visit. This guy is freaking out: he'll be dead meat in two weeks, whether you're here or not.'
'If I believed that, I might go, but I'm looking at the cops and I'm not seeing much. So. I'm gonna stay.'