Jumping off the side of the deck, Jane sprinted across the grass to the gravel drive. Approaching the horses slowly, she opened the gate to the field and walked them inside, then shut them in. As soon as she entered the barn, she saw that the ladder to the hayloft was lying
flat on the ground. It was heavy, made of rough-sawn wood, and would have made a loud noise when it hit. She assumed that's what had spooked the horses. With the barn door open, the noise had no doubt driven them outsideâand at the same time, awakened her.
“David?” she called softly, her eyes searching the shadowy interior. Looking up, she saw him standing near the edge of the hayloft, gazing up at the rafters. There was no railing on the loft, which was a good fifteen feet above the ground.
“David?” she said again, more cautious this time. “What are you doing up there?”
He glanced down but didn't reply. In the dimness, she couldn't make out his expression.
“You've got to come down. It's not safe up there. You could fall.”
She hefted the ladder back up and propped it against the edge of the loft. Starting up, she wondered if he'd had so much to drink that he wouldn't be able to make it down without falling. If she had to sit up there with him until he sobered up, that's what she'd do.
As she stepped off the ladder onto the hayloft floor, she said, “How drunk are you?” He was about six feet away, his back to her.
When he turned around, his face was screwed into a thick fist of rage. “I knew you'd find me sooner or later.”
“David?”
He rushed at her, ramming her into the side wall. She hit with a hard thud, sliding to the floor. “David, it's
me,
” she gasped. But he was at her again, on top of her this time, hands at her throat. She pried a finger free, then a hand, and bit it hard, tasting blood. He yelped and slugged her, grabbed her hair, and slammed her head against the floor.
The world suddenly went hazy.
Feeling his weight lift off her, she tried to focus, to scramble free. She crawled toward the ladder, but he was on her again, this time flipping her on her back. They struggled together, rolled across the hay. He was so much stronger than she was, but he reeked of alcohol. It slowed him down, altered his judgment. “David, it's
me. Jane.
”
“This time, I'm gonna kill you,” he bellowed. He rose up over her, both hands clenched together. They were inches from the edge of the loft.
Looking past him, Jane saw Kenzie. She was behind him, a shotgun pointed at his back.
“No,” screamed Jane. “Don't!” She bucked, tried to break free.
A blast cracked the air.
Startled, David turned.
Kenzie slammed the butt of the shotgun into his forehead. He fell sideways, moaning in pain, rolling, grasping his head in both hands.
Jane slipped away from the edge. “God,” she said, touching a cut near her eye, which was bleeding a thick river down her cheek. “I don't ⦠I don't know what happened.”
“He was beating the crap out of you,
that's
what happened.” Kenzie looked frantic. “Are you okay? Anything broken?” She held the gun on David.
“I don't think so.” Jane examined the inside of her mouth with her tongue. With a little time, she hoped the world would rebalance itself.
David was on his hands and knees at the back of the loft, swearing a blue streak.
“Sit down and shut up!” ordered Kenzie.
He turned to look at her.
“Don't make me repeat it!”
He stared at her a moment longer, looking wild, disoriented, then turned and fell backward against the wall.
“What the hell were you doing?” demanded Kenzie. She walked over to him, still keeping the shotgun pointed at his chest. “I fired at the ceiling, asshole, but I should have fired at you.”
David stared at her, his mouth slightly open, then fastened his eyes on Jane. “I'm sorry,” he said, his voice barely audible.
“Sorry?
Sorry?
”
“I ⦠I never meant ⦠I mean ⦠God, you don't ⦠I wouldn'tâ” It was a sentence that apparently had no end.
Jane was completely bewildered. “Why the hell did you attack
me?” she said, moving into a crouch, then standing up. Every inch of her body hurt.
“I ⦠Iâ”
“You said you wanted to kill me.”
“No,” he said, pressing his fists to his eyes. “Never. God, never.”
“Then what's going on, David? Tell me!”
He pulled his knees up to his body and started to cry. “Just shoot me, okay? Get it over with.”
“Be careful what you ask for,” said Kenzie, her voice cold.
“Do it!”
“David,” said Jane, her voice softer this time. “What's
wrong
with you?”
“Everything.”
She lowered herself to one knee so she could look him square in the eyes, but she kept her distance. “That's not an answer.”
“I'm losing my mind. I'm
insane.
Is that clear enough? Do you
get
it now?”
Jane felt a terrible pressure in the air around her. “David, that's ridiculous. You're as sane as anybody I know.”
“Am I? I don't remember anything until I heard that shotgun blast. I don't know what I'm doing anymore, Jane. I'm a danger to everyone around me. I need to be locked up!”
“Just slow down, okay? You said you don't remember fighting with me?”
“No. God, did I hurt you? One minute I'm watching TV on the couch, the next I'm sitting here. Did I really attack you?”
She gave him a questioning look.
“Oh, shit. Shit! Call the police. I'll sit here quietly until they come. Don't take the gun off me.”
“Are you telling the truth?” asked Kenzie, her eyes full of suspicion. He nodded, covering his face with his forearm. “It used to happen less often. Maybe once or twice a year. But it's gotten worse in the last few months. That's why I left Atlanta. I was afraid I'd hurt Diego.” He hunched forward, head against his knees. “The night before I left, I woke up out on our front lawn. I had a hammer in my
hand. A hammer! Can you understand how much that scared me? I had to get away, figure out what to do. I couldn't explain it to Diego because he would have insisted I stay. But every minute I was there, he was in danger!”
Jane got up and crouched a few feet away from him. He seemed too raw to be touched, but she needed to be closer.
“See,” he continued, his entire body slumping with exhaustion, “it usually happens at night, although it happened once during the day. I fall asleep one place and wake up another. That's why I've been sleeping in my car. I use handcuffs, cuff myself to the steering wheel. It's the only way I can make sure I stay put.”
Jane remembered the welts under his watchband.
“I've tried ropes, but somehow I manage to untie them. All I can do is hope that I don't figure out how to unlock the handcuffs. I mean, I can go for days and days without an episode, and then it hits like a hurricane. I made the mistake of sleeping in Joanna's loft the other night. I was drunk, not thinking straight. The next morning, I woke up in her bed. She was in the living room on the couch. God knows what I did or said. She gave me a pretty strange look before I left, but I was too embarrassed to ask why.”
Jane glanced up at Kenzie.
“I'm tired all the time,” he said. “I can't work, can't think straight. I mean ⦠I know this is nuts, but I thought if I came to Minnesota, told you what was happening, that you'd help me make a decision. I think ⦠I mean, I need to be committed, Jane. I want you to do it.”
An involuntary shudder rumbled through her. “Surely there's something we can do short of that.”
David scraped tears away from his eyes. “I'm such a mess. I shouldn't have come here. I should have known better.”
Jane held out her hand to him, but he pulled his body away.
“Jesus, Jane, don't be nice to me, not after what I just did to you.” He broke down, began to sob again.
She moved over next to him, slipped her arms around him. Instead of pushing her away, he gripped her hard. “I feel like I'm falling.”
She sat on the floor with him, rocking him in her arms. “We'll figure this out, David. I promise.” She looked up at Kenzie, who stared back at her with an expression so swollen with fear that, for a second, Jane wasn't sure she remembered how to breathe.
J
oanna spent all day Saturday shut up in her loft, reading and rereading the script Freddy had sent her. The more she thought about it, the more desperately she wanted it. She was about to pull a diva-like move that might end a friendship and land her in legal hot water, but she saw no way around it. It not only solved her problems with Gordon, but it also might rejuvenate her waning movie career. She couldn't wait to sign on the dotted line.
Jane had called early on Sunday morning, waking Joanna from a sound sleep. She explained that she and David had changed their plans. They were staying another day in Nebraska. Joanna asked to talk to David, but apparently he was out riding with Jane's new girlfriend, having one hell of a grand time. Well, good for him, thought Joanna. Her life was coming apart, but at least David was enjoying himself.
Joanna spent a good part of the afternoon standing at the windows in the living room, gazing longingly at the windy fall day on the other side of the glass. She wanted to go window-shopping down Hennepin Avenue, but she couldn't bring herself to call the bodyguard service and ask for a man to be sent out to escort her around town. The loft was big and comfortable enough, but after nearly four days cooped up inside, she simply had to get out, even if it was just for a few minutes.
Tomorrow she would need to go to the theater, put up a good show until the details of the film got sorted out, so this afternoon would be a trial run.
After pinning back her hair and donning a hat and a pair of dark glasses, she tossed on a jacket, grabbed her purse and her keys, and headed downstairs. She felt strong in the elevator, as if the act of movement itself was somehow a show of defiance. When she stepped off on the first floor, she nodded to a man standing next to the elevator door. His arms were folded over his chest and he was wearing a uniformâbrown slacks, tan shirt, official-looking hat, with a two-way radio pinned on his shoulder. Just the sight of him gave her courage a boost.
She walked through the main floor with her head held high. Nobody seemed to recognize her, or if they did, they let her pass without comment. When she pushed through the front door out into the gray autumn day, she breathed in deeply. She knew it was half car exhaust, but she didn't care. It was the smell of freedom.
Looking both ways down the street, she headed south. There was a deli halfway down on the other side of the street. After her short stroll, a cup of coffee sounded good. She walked along slowly, her eyes darting in every direction. The area around the Linden Building reminded her of SoHo in New York twenty years ago. What had once been a microcosm of inner-city blight was now in the process of being gentrified. The area still had some of the rawness of street life about it, but it was on its way toward respectability.
Entering the deli a few minutes later, she ordered a coffee and waited by the counter as the young man stepped back to the press pot and filled the paper cup. She picked out a lemon bar to go with it and paid cash at the register. Then, turning to survey the room, she decided on a table by the windows. It was an odd sensation, this newfound confidence. She felt like an adult again, something that had evaporated inside her the moment she received that first bouquet in Sandpoint. The short walk had brought her back to herself. She realized that she
did
have powerâoptions.
As she sipped her coffee, she looked out the window, watching the
cars, the people, content just to be out of the loft. And that's when she saw him. He was striding along the sidewalk a few hundred feet to the north of the Linden Building. As he approached the front door, he dashed across the street. Joanna couldn't see him now, but she knew he was out there. And she knew why. He was watching her, like he used to. And waiting.
Opening her purse, she removed her cell phone. She searched through the numbers she'd recently called until she found Gordon's. She hit redial and then waited. One ring. Two. Finally, he picked up.
“Out for an afternoon walk?” she asked conversationally. “You're a long way from home.”
Silence. Then, “What do you want?”
“You're losing your edge, Gordon. You think you're watching me, but actually, I'm watching you. The prey is hunting the hunter. Ain't it a crazy world?”
“What the hell are you up to?”
“Me? Well, how about a little payback?”
“You fuck with me, Joanna, and it's the last thing you'll ever do.”
“You do like to make threats.”
“And, if you remember correctly, you can trust me to carry them out.”
The comment made a dent in her resolve, but she forged on. She couldn't stop the hate spewing out of her mouth. It had been locked up for too many years. “But you're an old man now, Gordo. You look to me like a heart attack waiting to happen. Couldn't happen to a nicer guy.” She laughed. It felt so good. “God, Gordo, you're a tub of lard. What happened to your discipline? Your ideals? I assume you eat most of your
supersized
meals alone now. I mean, who'd date a gross-looking blimp like you? Kind of hard up in the date department, are we, Gordo?”
For some reason, she had the sense that she wasn't succeeding at making him mad, that instead, he was smiling at her.
“You have no idea what my life is like now, Jo. I'm truly a lucky man. I've been blessed with the love of many fine women.”
“The ones you murdered? You think I don't know? The police are on to you. It's just a matter of time until they nail you.”
“My my, how you do go on.”
“I'll bet those women dumped you because you can't get it up anymore. One too many Krispy Kremes?”
“Sounds like you wanna find out, Jo. That can be arranged.”
Just the sound of his voice was enough to send a needle through her heart. She needed to end the call before her confidence completely died.
“Joanna, you still there?”
“I'm here, I'm there, I'm all over, Gordon. You never know when I might pop up.”
“Shit, woman! What do you
want
?”
Maybe she
had
touched a nerve after all. “What do
you
want? Why the hell don't you leave me alone!”
A long pause. When he finally spoke this time, his voice had taken on a warm, conspiratorial edge. “I want to finish what I started all those years ago. You'll like it, Jo, what I've got planned for you. You may beg me to stop, but I know it's what you want. I can still see into your soul, Jo. It's even blacker than it used to be.”
“You ⦠youâ”
“Think about me tonight when you go to sleep. I'll be there, waiting for you in your dreams.”