Gillian slid backward until she was safely against the wall again.
Maybe he thinks I’m dead, she told herself.
He must have gone to the edge of the cliff and looked down. If he did that, he saw me. I was out cold for a while. Was he still looking when I woke up and tossed my cookies?
Maybe, maybe not. Maybe he does think I’m dead.
I must’ve looked dead. Gillian straightened out her legs, moaning at the pain in her knee. Yeah, she thought, I look messed up pretty good.
Her skin was shiny with sweat, glowing from the sun, streaked and smeared with blood and dirt, cross-hatched with fresh welts, scratched and scraped, split in six or eight places from knife wounds that looked raw but no longer bled. There were swollen patches of red, a deeper hue than the sun had caused, that would turn into bruises. There were even purple-gray marks left over from the beating at his house like an undercoating of old hurts. Gillian touched her face. She felt dry, puffy lips, a knot on the point of her chin, a left cheek that seemed like twice its normal size. She could actually see a slope of cheek below her eye.
She ran her tongue gently along the broken edges of her teeth.
And started to weep.
Cut it out, she told herself. I’m alive. •■•■»
My dentist is gonna love me.
Couple months, I’ll look good as new.
If I’m still alive. If I make it out of here.
Holden, he’s not gonna leave till he’s sure I’m dead.
Maybe he does think I’m dead, she told herself again.
A guy like him, how come he didn’t drop some rocks on me? When he saw me down here, he could’ve bombed me till he crushed my head. How come he didn’t?
Maybe he fell.
The thought struck her like a promise of life. She wiped the tears from her eyes.
What if Holden came running out of the trees, full tilt, the same way I did? What if he couldn’t stop in time, either, and went right over the edge?
She whispered, “Jesus,” through her broken lips.
Then she crawled forward on her hands and knees. When • she neared the edge, a falling sensation forced her to lie down flat. She squirmed a few more inches forward, then peered down over the rim.
A short distance below her perch, other rocks protruded from the mountain wall. None were large enough to break a fall. The slope was still nearly vertical for fifty or sixty feet. If Holden went off the cliff, he would’ve dropped that distance, then crashed onto the boulders that were heaped at the foot of the wall.
Gillian didn’t see his body.
Doesn’t prove anything, she told herself. The body , might’ve gone down in between the rocks.
Some were the size of refrigerators, others the size of cars. They were all tilted and tipped every which way, with big shadowy gaps between their edges. A body could fall into one of those crevices, Gillian thought, and never be found.
She felt a trickle of joy.
But over the years she had lived like a thief in sixty-six houses and she had never been caught until this time. Luck, she knew, had been a factor in that. But the main factor was her mind. She’d gotten away with her intrusions because she was smart. She didn’t let herself run on luck, hoping for the best. She studied the possibilities, foresaw the dangers, took precautions, and was always creative and quick enough to keep herself safe.
So now, in spite of her thrill at the thought that Holden lay broken and lifeless among the rocks below, she warned herself not to count on it.
You don’t see his goddamn body. Therefore, he isn’t dead.
If he isn’t dead, what’s he doing?
For some dumb crazy kind of reason—why, at a time like tbis?-she was back in the white stucco house on Silverston. The deco place. If ever she made it back to LA in one piece, which, let’s face it, doesn’t seem too likely, the memory of the hot tub she’d taken that day would live on in her mind forever.
What happened afterward, though, in number 1309, almost put paid to her illustrious career. Of intrusions, house-sittings, that is. ,
Finito. Full stop.
She wished that it had. Then she wouldn’t be here now, halfway up this bastard mountain, bare-ass naked and a murdering psycho after her hide.
Back to the house that time forgot ...
She’d lain there, soaking up the sheer luxury of that tub, breathing in lilac perfume, like she was in some mystical Garden of Allah.
Then the bathroom door blew ajar. That’s right, a puff of wind opened the door.
She remembered thinking, Holy shit ...
And sitting up with a start, arms wrapped around her breasts, shivering in the cold draft. Faint, familiar music wafted through the door. So faint, it was hardly there at all.
Then, the weirdest thing. She’d had this powerful urge to get up out of the tub, wrap herself in one of those thick white towels hanging over the towel rail and walk out the door.
Leaving a trail of wet footprints behind her, she padded across the marble landing. No ideas as to where her feet were taking her. In a kind of dream, she let them have their lead. They took her to a white door which had the name A-L-I-C-E printed on it in silver letters. ALICE?
Alice who?
Looking at those letters made her feel like she’d stumbled across somebody’s private place. Somebody’s very private place.
A special place.
The old familiar buzz tugged at the pit of her stomach. It melded into an ache, setting her mons alight with longing.
“Here goes,” she breathed. She’d invaded a lot of private space in her time. One more wouldn’t hurt.
Her breath came out in huffs, quick and shallow. Not knowing what she would find behind the door, she opened it, slowly, and peeped into a tiny room that was straight from the past.
Chintzy flowered drapes, a doll’s cradle, a rocking chair.
And a big, brown teddy bear sitting in the far corner. The bear wore several bald patches and stared across at her with beady eyes. She imagined it saying, Who are you? You’re an intruder. You don’t belong here.
Her eyes turned to the small single bed. Not much more than a cot, really. Floral drapes were drawn around it. Not knowing why, she knew that she must open them. It was as if she’d come to this house specifically to discover what lay behind the drapes.
Stepping forward, she did just that. Slowly. Drawing back the fabric with tentative fingers. A gasp broke from her lips. Wide-eyed, she stared at a small wizened figure, prostrate on the bed. It was no more than four feet ten at the most.
Little Bo Peep in a long floral dress, matching poke bonnet and a shepherd’s crook by her side. Little Bo Peep with a drunken monkey face and bright rouge spots high on her cheeks. And ludicrously red, cupid bow lips.
The large blue eyes, ringed with thick mascara’d lashes—false, they had to be, they were so long and curly—gazed curiously into Gillian’s face.
She gasped, clamping a hand over her mouth. She felt the warm towel swish down her legs and fall around her ankles.
My GOD!
This is it. Curtains. I’ve been caught out. No more intrusions for this baby. Hello, real world—LAPD here I come ....
“I’m sorry ...” she began. Then clamped her lips together, hard. Something was up. The blue eyes weren’t moving.
Slowly, carefully, Gillian reached out and lifted Little Bo Peep’s thin, blueveined hand. The bony fingers sparkled with clusters of gold and diamond rings. The hand was ice cold. Stiff. Gillian let it fall back onto the white lace bed sheets.