She could have wept in her chagrin. The man must have read the disappointment in her face, because his smile grew wider. “Are you expecting any other company?” he asked.
“Yes, I am,” she replied quickly, instinctively. “My next-door neighbor comes over for coffee every morning.” Oh, dear, wonderful Naomi — how welcome she’d be if she’d come to visit now! But she wouldn’t. There was no possibility of it.
The man nodded. “That could be true too,” he said. “A woman, huh? Well, that doesn’t worry me. I could handle her. Do you know something? I sat in my car down at the end of the block and counted ’em. There are sixteen houses here, and I counted sixteen men leaving for work.”
Kit’s fear had become almost terror now. And terror is blind, unreasoning, helpless. Oh, Naomi, I’m so sorry...
“But even if it’s only a woman,” the man was saying, “I wouldn’t want to be interrupted.”
He reached behind him with his free hand, and turned the lock on the door. Then he tested the knob to make sure.
You don’t need to do that, she thought despairingly. Nobody will be coming to that door. They’re all angry with me. They all hate me. They wouldn’t come to my door if they were starving, or if the house was on fire.
“You got any more funny stories, lady?” he asked her.
She shook her head numbly. He took his first step toward her then.
She thought she was going to scream, automatically, despite the threat of the knife. Her mouth opened, but no sound came. For an instant she had the desperate idea of flinging herself past him toward the door or trying to dive through one of the screened windows. But her body seemed incapable of any such big, demanding effort. She could only back away a step, to match the step he had taken, to keep the original distance between them. But he came on.
When her back encountered the wall, she knew she had to turn. And she chose to retreat down the hallways because in that direction she could retreat farther. Only then did a desperately slim chance of escaping him occur to her. There was a lock on the bathroom door. Could she get inside, close and lock the door before he reached her?
The man was obviously patient, and supremely confident of himself. He knew he had her trapped, and seemed even to enjoy her feeble efforts to keep him at a distance. Carefully, she tried to increase the few feet separating them. He followed her slowly, cautiously, constantly alert. As they passed the kitchen, his gaze flicked momentarily toward the running water in the sink.
She seized that small opportunity. She turned, flung herself desperately around the corner of the hallway. The suddenness of her movement did take him by surprise. In another second she was in the bathroom. She swung the door shut, fumbled with the lock and managed to get it turned.
But she had gained only an instant of relative safety, just time enough to stagger to the screen window and struggle frantically with the fastenings at its case. She heard the door knob rattle, violently and then — a single, hard, pounding thud as his fist crashed against the door frame in the vicinity of the lock, splintering it. The door flew open as if from a gust of wind... and then the man was standing there in the doorway, grinning at her with mockery in his eyes.
“See,” he said, “all you did was spoil a nice door.”
She didn’t quite faint then. But everything began to swim before her eyes — the room, the man, the knife. Her brain was numb, incapable of taking further action. She was terrifyingly aware of how surprisingly strong the man was, despite his slender build. He had battered down the door so easily.
She knew that she could do nothing to escape him. She could only hope now that in the end he would not kill her. But even that hope was dim, vague. She was not sure that she would want to live.
He had her by the wrist now, and he was dragging her toward the bedroom. She did not plead or beg, knowing instinctively that it would be useless.
And then, from somewhere, came a sound. She heard it. And the man heard it too, because he let go of her wrist and stood listening, tense, his shoulders hunched. Slowly, carefully, he turned away from her, and faced the bedroom doorway. The knife weaved in his hand, ready, waiting.
The sound came again, and she could identify it now. It was the back screen door opening. The back door was unlocked, she remembered suddenly. She hadn’t given a thought to the back door, and neither, apparently, had the man. But someone was entering by the back door now. There were footsteps in the kitchen. Hesitant, reluctant footsteps. Would they come this far?
She wasn’t sure she wanted them to come. Should she scream a warning? Even if by some miracle it was Tony coming back, she didn’t want him coming in here. He would have no weapon. He would be badly hurt, perhaps killed.
The man stood waiting. He crouched lower, and the weaving motion of the knife grew larger, wider, like the head of a snake rearing to strike. Waiting for the intruder, who was just a step away now.
Naomi! She stood there suddenly in the doorway, staring at them. Naomi, in halter and shorts, her round, plain face startled, her mouth hanging open.
They confronted one another in complete silence for a long moment, while the man hesitated. Then Naomi turned, and Kit had never seen her move any faster. Naomi ran back down the hallway, and at the same time she started to scream.
It all confused the man. Obviously he could not decide which way to go. Should he pursue the woman and stop her screaming, possibly with the knife, and by so doing risk leaving Kit alone in the bedroom? Or should he let the other woman escape and rouse the neighborhood, while he turned his attention swiftly back to his victim?
He hesitated until he no longer had any choice. They heard the back screen crashing open and Naomi’s scream becoming louder. It didn’t stop but went on and on. Then faintly, from a distance other voices began to answer.
The man turned back to Kit, his lips set in tight lines, his eyes feverishly bright. He was obviously still trying to decide how to cope with this unexpected turn of events. Slightly, ever so slightly, Kit dared to hope.
“I wouldn’t have time,” he said, “I wouldn’t have time... I want it peaceful and quiet.”
But he didn’t seem afraid. He continued to stare at her, his eyes narrowing to gleaming pinpoints.
“We’ll go somewhere else,” he said.
Then he lunged. He gripped her by the wrist and she found herself being dragged again. Out of the bedroom, down the hallway. Understanding his purpose now, she began to fight him.
She caught hold of a closet doorknob first, and it took him a moment to pull her away from it. She bounced against a wall, but felt no pain. Her groping free hand found another anchor, the doorless arch of the kitchen entrance. She held on frantically for another moment.
He stopped pulling and thrust his body against hers, putting his face close to her face. His breath, smelling of sour wine, nearly overpowered her. “You’re not going to get away from me, baby,” he said. “Not till I’m finished with you.”
She kicked at him then, and he answered by letting go of her wrist and slapping her hard with the open palm of his hand. Even that way, the blow nearly stunned her. Then he had her wrist again and was pulling her through the living room toward the front door. She fought as best she could. Her efforts delayed him but didn’t stop him.
He had a little trouble unlocking the front door, and then again as she was being dragged through it, she caught hold of the door frame and held on for a moment. He was cursing now, and his face was glazed with sweat. But his strength was irresistible.
Outdoor she had a vague glimpse of a subdivision in turmoil. At least half a dozen women were screaming and shouting. She saw halter-and-shorts-clad figures running over lawns, but seemingly only in terror, without purpose. As the man had boasted, what could a bunch of women do?