... only all the bottles — aspirin, aftershave, tubes of theatrical makeup, contact lens solution — were plastic.
Choi parked a hundred yards short of Clay’s house. There were few neighbors, the nearest a good fifty yards. Woods rose behind and came around one side of Clay’s place.
As they approached, guns drawn, using the trees for cover, the house was mostly dark.
Harrow said, “Anna and I’ll take the front, you two take the back.”
Chase and Choi nodded.
Carmen turned back to that bathroom window — she would have to break it.
She lifted the porcelain lid off the toilet tank and swung it into the glass.
It shattered first try.
On the other side of the bathroom door, a muffled voice, female, yelled, “Son of a bitch!”
Don Juan’s partner, Billie Shears! Behind that mirror by the bed? Two-way glass?
No time to waste wondering.
She didn’t know what was outside; she didn’t care. Two killers were inside.
Nicked a dozen times by the window’s teeth, she dropped into a shallow backyard, bleeding and nearly nude, her feet crunching on glass. In a moment her eyes adjusted to the darkness, trees surrounding, thick and tall — if she bothered screaming, no one would hear her.
But she heard a scream, and reflexively swung around to see a bald naked woman framed in the window, a wild-eyed figure baying like a wounded animal...
Carmen knew she’d been roofied — was she hallucinating?
Then the woman was gone.
Not coming out the window through that jagged glass after her, the naked harpy must be heading for a door... giving Carmen time, a little time...
Her bare feet (soles already nicked landing on shards) weren’t on grass, rather hard dirt covered with spiny weeds and God knew what else. Carmen had to run, but barefoot through the woods? Not if she could avoid it.
To her left, up a gentle slope, nestled among the trees, loomed a greenhouse — a place to hide.
She sprinted the short distance, found the door unlocked, slipped in and quietly closed the door behind her.
When Harrow had heard that glass break, followed by the sound of someone wailing in agony, it initially frightened him... Then he thought it through and a tight smile came.
Something had gone wrong, and that meant Carmen was likely still alive.
He fired a round into the front door’s dead bolt, shattering it.
He shouldered his way into the living room, Anna right behind him.
Empty — a dim table lamp let them see as much — and as he swept the barrel of his .38 around, he saw a purse on the floor.
“Carmen’s here,” he said.
Moonlight fingered in through all that glass as Carmen crept down a central aisle. Wooden benches were arrayed with flower pots, Black Pearl roses all around, their rich red looking black by night, highlighted ivory by filtered moon glow.
She was in the midst of a mammoth bouquet of death.
Outside, she heard someone running.
A woman screaming, “You bitch! You ruined everything!”
She was coming, the bald naked woman was coming, and Carmen, in her weakened state, with no clothes on but her panties, not even frigging shoes, knew she had to find a way out of the trap she’d run herself into...
Harrow moved through the living room — the dining room looking empty, as did what he could see of the kitchen beyond, no light on in there. Anna was checking the rest of the house.
He remembered moving through another house in the darkness, only to find his son and his wife murdered.
Not this time. Not this time.
Breathing hard, ignoring her screaming feet and burning bloody cuts, Carmen ran down the aisle to the greenhouse back door.
Padlocked.
Shit!
Trapped...
Choi and Chase entered at the rear into the kitchen and Harrow moved to meet them, his hand finding a wall switch and flooding the white room to expose a bald man in only silk boxers, waving a butcher knife.
Vincent Clay looked like a big, upright, dangerous fetus.
Chase moved toward the hairless figure, her gun in hand lowered, her steps tentative. “Vince... put that down, Vince. It’s over.”
Vince said nothing.
This man who had so craved attention was now frozen at the center of it.
“Vince,” Chase said gently. “Where’s Carmen?”
Vince’s eyes popped and he shrieked like a scared child as he ran right toward that back door where Choi and Chase had just come in.
But there was nothing childlike about that raised butcher knife, and Chase ducked out of the way, while Choi shot him in the head.
Vince didn’t go down at once — he took the shot with a shudder and then teetered there. Behind him, red splashed white cabinets. The knife clattered to the floor, and Clay dropped to his knees, as if praying, but he was already dead.
When Don Juan finally flopped in a heap in front of the man who’d shot him, Choi said, “Prick would get off easy.”
“There are two of them, remember!” Chase said.
Anna was at Harrow’s side. She saw the dead Vince Clay, said nothing about him, just, “No Carmen. Broken bathroom window.”
“Clear the house,” Harrow told Choi and Chase. “Anna, let’s take the yard!”
The greenhouse door slammed open.
Carmen ducked down.
The bald naked woman had a knife, a very big knife whose point caught moonlight and winked at Carmen, though its bearer hadn’t spotted her hunkered next to a bench.
As the naked woman started down the aisle, all those roses her silent cheering section, her prey scrambled under the bottom shelf of that bench, just high enough to accommodate her.
But plenty of room to hide, though hiding wouldn’t be enough. Carmen would have to take advantage of surprise to take that bald bitch down.
What then?
Her pursuer had that knife, and what did Carmen have?
Frantically, but noiselessly, her hands felt around in the darkness. A cardboard box next to her had bulbs in it, useless. Another held bags of something, seed or fertilizer maybe.
Carmen couldn’t see her, but her pursuer must have been stalking down the aisle, looking under the benches, which meant inevitably...
Her hands found a small wooden box containing gardening tools, a blunt trowel, no, a scoop, no, a claw, better, pruning clippers... perfect!
Cowering there on the dirt floor, staying as far back as possible to let the darkness shield her, Carmen watched. Waited. Watched...
Suddenly, the creature was right there, her bare legs coming to a stop, and Carmen held her breath. As the bald woman began to bend down, Carmen shot her hand out, grabbed an ankle, and jerked the woman to the aisle’s hard dirt floor, onto her side, with a hard whump!
The stalker lay motionless for a moment, her bare head making her look like a naked toppled mannequin. Then maniacal eyes popped open, seeking Carmen in the darkness.
Low and lurching forward, the woman wildly poked the knife under the bench, and the blade came within an inch of Carmen’s nose. The next time the knife violated her space, Carmen slashed back with the clippers, gouging the woman’s wrist.