"Have fun with Mr. Gay Shoes," he teased as she rushed past.
Jill stuck out her tongue and kept going, pausing only long enough at the dining room door to wish Claire a good day before rushing out of the house, her knapsack over one shoulder and purse over the other.
Jill had parked on the street when she'd arrived the night before to prevent blocking in Claire and Kyle's car when they went to leave or being blocked in by it when they returned. Unfortunately, the closest empty parking spot she'd found had been halfway up the street. Now she hurried up the sidewalk, her thoughts already on the day ahead and Nick.
Distracted as she was, Jill was nearly at her car before she noticed the man leaning against the front grill of her little Toyota. Pausing abruptly, she watched with a frown as the man straightened to face her. He was tall, dark-haired, not bad looking, but there was something about his mouth and eyes that made him look hard and cold. She was instantly wary.
"Can I help you?" she asked, her hand tightening on her bags. The only thing she could think was that it was his house she'd parked in front of and he didn't care for her parking there. "Is it about my parking here?"
"Parking here?" he echoed with bewilderment, then seemed to understand. Flashing a smile that didn't reach his eyes, he said, "Oh, of course, you don't know who I am. I'm John Heathcliffe. I used to work with your brother."
Jill stiffened, the hair on the back of her neck suddenly standing on end as she recognized the name of the crazy co-worker who had zapped Claire with the destabilizer.
"You've heard of me," he said with apparent pleasure.
"What do you want?" she asked, her gaze slipping back the way she'd come.
"You didn't think I'd zap you with the destabilizer and then just leave you alone?" he said with amusement.
Jill jerked her head back around.
"Zap me with the destabilizer?" she echoed blankly, wondering what on earth was he talking about. He shouldn't even know about the destabilizer. No one knew Kyle had rebuilt it in his home. As for zapping her with it, the only encounter she'd had with it was banging her head as she…
Jill frowned as she suddenly recalled the flash of light that had accompanied the pain before she'd blacked out.
"You zapped me?" she asked in a choked voice.
John nodded with a wicked grin that quickly turned bitter. "Did Kyle really think I'd let him just take the machine away from me? I worked on the original prototype as long as he did. It's as much mine as his," he proclaimed, taking a step toward her. "Dr. Cohen may have believed that nonsense about it not working and allowed him to talk him into shutting down the experiment, but I can't believe Kyle really thought I was stupid enough to swallow it."
"You zapped me with the destabilizer?" Jill repeated faintly.
John nodded, appearing amused by her stunned state, and then announced, "Once the project was shut down I started to watch Kyle. I saw the materials he brought into the house and realized he was rebuilding it. Some nights I even watched through one of the basement windows as he worked." He smiled with disdain. "Kyle really should have covered the windows. It was rather silly of him not to. I suppose he thought it was private enough with the high fence around the property, but anyone could climb the fence and look in… like I did."
Jill remained silent, her mind still reeling under the possibility that she'd been hit by the shape-shifter beam. She found herself suddenly doing a silent self-assessment, checking to see if she felt different. She didn't. She'd felt a little weak directly after waking up in the basement, but—Her thoughts stopped dead as she realized she'd woken up in the middle of the basement floor, nowhere near the destabilizer.
"You pulled me out from under the machine?" she asked uncertainly.
John nodded. "Once I'd estimated you'd been exposed long enough, I turned it off. You collapsed like a limp noodle." He shrugged. "I had to be sure I hadn't given you too much and accidentally killed you, but I couldn't take your pulse all crumpled under the machine as you were."
Jill stared at him with disbelief. He was standing there admitting that he hadn't been at all sure the beam wouldn't have killed her and he'd gone ahead and zapped her anyway. Why would he do such a thing?
"Now," John continued. "If you'll just come with me, we'll go to my house and I can start running tests on you."
"Tests?" she asked with surprise.
"Yes. Why else do you think I zapped you? You're going to be my guinea pig."
"Are you nuts?" Jill cried, tugging her arm free of the hard hold he suddenly had on her wrist. "Stay away from me or I'll tell my brother."
Okay, as threats went it was pretty lame, Jill thought as soon as the words left her mouth, but let it go and merely pushed past him to get to the driver's door of her car. Before she could get it unlocked, he was there, grabbing her by the arm again.
"I said you're coming with me!" he snarled, trying to pull her away.
Jill didn't think, she just reacted. Allowing her self-defense classes to kick in, she struck backward sharply with her elbow, driving it into his stomach. She then turned and drove her knee sharply into his groin. John collapsed on the street, groaning in agony, one hand clutching his stomach, the other cupping his groin.
Leaving him rolling around on the pavement, Jill unlocked the driver's door, threw her bags in, and leapt inside. She hit the button to lock the doors the moment the door closed, and then struggled briefly with her keys. Her hands were shaking and by the time she managed to turn on the engine, John was crawling to his feet beside the car.
"Hey!" He lunged for the driver's door even as she shifted into drive and hit the gas. He thumped furiously against the side window as she tore away up the street.
Eyes shifting between the street and the rearview mirror, Jill reached for her purse. She opened it one-handed, felt around until she found her phone and glanced in the rear-view mirror as she pulled it out, only to curse again as she spotted a black van rushing up the street behind her. She knew it was John.
Mouth tightening, Jill pushed her foot down harder on the gas and raised the phone in front of her eyes. She needed to call Kyle. She didn't know what else to do. Jill was afraid to call the police and bring them into the matter. She didn't know how much damage the man could do to Kyle if he blabbed about the machine in his basement. She should have just pulled into Kyle and Claire's driveway and made a run for the house. Unfortunately, the car had been pointing in the opposite direction. Also, unfortunately, she wouldn't be calling her brother for advice. She'd forgotten to recharge her phone again. The battery was dead.
Cursing, Jill tossed it aside and glanced in the rearview again. The van was gaining on her. She needed to lose the crazy idiot and either drive back to Claire and Kyle's, or find a phone. Calling seemed her safest bet. Jill didn't really want to lead trouble back to Claire and Kyle's door. She didn't know just how crazy John Heathcliffe was or what he'd do.
Where to call from was the problem. Jill suspected her house would be high on John Heathcliffe's list of places to look. Even if he didn't already know where she lived, all he had to do was look in a phone book to find her address.
He might overlook her shop though, she thought. In fact, he might not even know about it. He'd said he'd been watching her brother's house, not that he'd been following her around. Her store might be a safe place to go to call Kyle.
Mouth thinning with determination, Jill tightened her hold on the steering wheel and increased her speed. She then suddenly spun the wheel, taking a sharp and abrupt right that almost saw her car on two wheels. Managing to maintain control, she shot up the street, watching the rear-view mirror as much as the road ahead.