“About Leo,” he echoed, “of course. And about…us.”
Us, like we, was a foreign word on Wyatt’s tongue. Yet it, as we had earlier, now managed to roll off with ease.
He held his breath, waiting for Lindsay to dispute it.
To tell him that there was no us.
She merely smiled.
It was a smile that spoke volumes, so that she didn’t have to.
“I’ll be here when you get back,” she told him simply.
And for the first time in his life, Wyatt found himself wholeheartedly looking forward to the rest of it.
Whore.
That’s what you are, Lindsay. You’re a whore.
She paced across the now-familiar living room like a caged panther, then back again, and looked at her watch.
5:21.
A little over sixty seconds had passed since the last time she’d checked.
There was no telling when Lindsay was going to show up. She had obviously rekindled her old flame with Wyatt Goddard.
For all I know, she’ll spend the rest of the weekend with him.
She couldn’t stay here waiting for her indefinitely. She had already arranged to check out on Sunday, and she was scheduled to fly back to Oregon in about twelve hours.
I can’t leave New York without taking care of Lindsay.
No, but she couldn’t take care of Lindsay until she resurfaced.
She yawned deeply and realized she was on the verge of exhaustion. Her shoulders burned with fatigue and her legs ached from standing. She should go back to her hotel room, arrange to stay at least another night, and get some sleep.
She could try again tom-
She froze, hearing a sound at the door.
It was a key in the lock.
Lindsay.
Her gloved hand closed around the handle of the butcher knife she’d stolen from Lindsay’s kitchen drawer.
Heart beating in anticipation, she hurried back to the hiding spot she’d chosen hours earlier.
Lindsay was smiling as she stepped over the threshold into her apartment, her thoughts on the good-bye kiss Wyatt had just given her in the backseat of the limo, along with a sweet, unexpected parting gift.
“I’ll call you when I land,” he promised as she tucked it into her purse. “And I’ll see you the second I get back.”
It was a promise, and she met it with one of her own.
“Good. I’ll be waiting for you.”
Now, at last, exhaustion was beginning to steal in to meld with her dreamy afterglow.
She started to reach for the light switch just inside the door, then changed her mind. The sky beyond the large window above the couch was already pink, and the first light of dawn that seeped into the room was enough for her to see her way through to the bedroom.
All she wanted to do was fall into bed and think about all that had happened in the last twenty-four hours-then sleep.
Yawning, she kicked off her sandals and left them where they landed, under a table by the door. Her purse still over her shoulder, she walked into the bathroom to brush her teeth and wash her face.
Then she thought better of that.
She’d rather fall asleep still tasting Wyatt’s last kiss, her skin, slightly raw from his razor stubble, still smelling faintly of his aftershave.
She was about to hang her purse on the knob, strip off her dress, and put on the nightie that hung on the back of the door…
Then she was struck by something odd.
The bathroom was dark.
There was no familiar glow from the night-light she kept plugged into an outlet above the sink and never turned off.
She had changed the bulb just the other day.
It couldn’t have burned out again so soon.
Frowning, she reached for the switch and flicked it.
The light turned on.
Huh.
That was strange.
Had she flipped it off without thinking yesterday?
She doubted it; she had never done that before.
She looked at herself in the mirror, noticing the apprehension in her own expression.
Okay, don’t get carried away. You’re just being paranoid. Maybe the power went out because of the storm. And maybe that tripped something in the outlet, and the light turned itself off.
A reach, but she was willing to believe it, because what else could possibly have-
Lindsay froze.
Behind her, in the mirror, she could swear she had just seen a human shadow pass along the wall beyond the bathroom door.
Leo waited until dawn, when he heard his mother moving around in the kitchen.
Then, after an entirely sleepless night, he quietly sat up and swung his legs over the edge of the bed.
Ma always got up early on Sunday mornings.
By the time Leo and his brother woke up to the scent of frying eggs and bacon, she would have drunk her coffee, read the paper, walked to seven o’clock Mass and back, and mixed the meatballs for the homemade spaghetti sauce they’d have for dinner.
Never, until this particular Sunday morning, had Leo appreciated the comforting ritual. Nor had he fully appreciated his mother.
A wave of sentiment swept through him when he spotted her from the kitchen doorway, standing at the sink in her faded pink terry cloth housecoat, filling the old coffee percolator with cold water.
He had to force his voice past a lump in his throat to say, “Ma?”
She gasped and jumped, spinning around. “Leo! You scared me!”
“Sorry, Ma.”
“What are you doing up? Are you sick?” she asked worriedly.
“No.”
He hesitated. He had lain awake all night, shaken to the core and riddled with guilt. Now, he wondered if he had made the right decision.
But his mother wore an expectant look, and it was too late to change his mind now.
Anyway, he felt like a frightened little boy who needed his mommy.
Thank God she’s here for me. Right here, where she’s been all along.
He took a deep breath and plunged in. “There’s something I need to tell you.”
Her back flattened to the wall, her hand gripping the handle of the knife, she sent up a silent prayer.
Now there was nothing to do but wait, barely breathing, for her prey to step across the threshold.
And when you do, you won’t have a chance, she promised, knowing she had the element of surprise in her favor.
She waited for what seemed like endless hours, holding her breath.
Then, at last, she poised the knife as she heard movement from the other side of the wall.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a figure move stealthily into view.
In that instant, she leapt into action, attacking with a vengeance, and blindly. She could feel the knife sinking into flesh, heard the high-pitched cry of pain.
She saw that the blade had caught her in the side just below her rib cage; blood was pouring from the wound.
Yet suddenly, shockingly, she somehow found herself on the defensive, fending off a violent retaliatory assault. Her enemy was a force to be reckoned with-now her only thought was getting the hell out of here, hoping she was going to escape with her life.
They wrestled on the bathroom floor and she struggled to hang on to the knife, to reposition it so that she could use it again. She was enraged now, hell-bent on doing whatever she had to do to survive.
I can’t die now. Not when everything is coming together for me at last. Please, God…
They rolled over on the hard tile, rolled over again and she found herself on top. She seized her chance, knowing that if she didn’t, she wouldn’t get another.
With a primal grunt and a mighty arc of her arm, she shoved the blade as hard as she could.
Again, it found its target, and she could feel it sink sickeningly into flesh and bone, until it hit something more unforgiving than either.
Wallboard, she realized…she had just pinned a human hand to the wall like that arrow had, twenty years ago, pinned Jake Marcott to the tree.
Her ears rang with the terrible howl of agony that erupted, echoing through the tiled bathroom.
For a moment she was frozen in sheer horror at what had just happened-at what she had just inflicted upon another human being.