Whispers at Midnight (43 page)

“For a while there I thought Shelby might actually be going to get him.” Dani finished her salad and stood up. “I’m glad she’s not.”

The phone rang then, with someone calling to ask if it was true that Carly Linton was staying with them because a madman had attacked her in her house, and the conversation was dropped. The rest of the day passed surprisingly swiftly. Mike Toler had stopped by with a haphazard collection of clothes pulled from their closets and drawers for both her and Sandra, which fortunately included a nightgown and robe which would be suitable for Sandra to wear in the hospital. Carly took them to her along with the other things Sandra had asked for and then ran errands. Finally she went back to see Sandra again with a stack of magazines and a supply of Sandra’s favorite malted milk balls, and found Antonio with her again and Sandra happy as a clam. Everywhere Carly went people had heard what had happened and flocked around her, exclaiming over her injuries, her
courage, the unbelievability of it all. Finally, supper was very much a party-type affair, with all three of Matt’s sisters present and several deputies, including Sammy, who was relieved by Mike Toler, but who stayed to eat anyway. Matt himself would not be in until later. He was … busy, Mike said.

Given the way Mike said it, Carly took that to mean that he was doing something concerning the investigation into what had happened at her house, but no one got specific and she didn’t ask. She didn’t want to know. It was getting dark outside now, and she didn’t even want to think about the previous night.

By the time Carly went upstairs to bed around ten—she made sure to go up early, while the house was still full of people and light and laughter—she was feeling almost cheerful. Matt wasn’t home yet, but that was probably a good thing too. She needed a night, just one night, to sleep and clear her head, and then tomorrow she would start facing her problems again one by one.

Including the problem of what to do about Matt.

She took a shower, taking care not to get her stitches or bandage wet. The stitches felt a little tight and the cut beneath the bandages a little sore, but the worst thing about her injuries was that they served as a constant reminder of the previous night’s horror. She refused to think about it, refused to allow the nightmare images in, and so she sang all the cheerful songs she could remember as she went about her usual nightly routine. Then she took one of the sleeping pills the doctor had given her for the first few nights to help her, as he put it, cope with the shock, and put on her candy-striped pajama pants and pink top. She chose them deliberately because the color was cheerful, coated her lips with cherry-flavored Chap Stick because the taste made her feel cheerful, turned Matt’s TV to
Nick at Night
to watch reruns of
Cheers
and
The Cosby Show
because they were cheerful. She was tucked in bed with Hugo curled beside her and Annie on the rug beside the bed, watching Dr. Cosby having a fatherly chat with Theo and reflecting on just how really cheerful she really, truly was feeling when sleep hit her like a giant black wave.

She didn’t know how long she slept. She only knew that her sleep was deep, but not restful. There were things in her sleep. Things she
didn’t want to see. Things that grabbed her even though she fought against them. Things that were too big, too strong, too terrifying to escape.

Things with eyes. Light blue, lashless eyes. Coming closer and closer and closer until they were just inches away from her face. Monster eyes …

Then she was back in the Home.

31

T
HE LIVING ROOM COUCH
was long. It was wide. It was comfortable.

Not.

Matt threw his pillow to the floor in disgust and gave up trying to get comfortable. It didn’t matter. He couldn’t sleep anyway, even though he knew he needed sleep badly. He’d had all of—what?—maybe two hours of shut-eye in the last twenty-four? But sleep was proving as elusive as the identity of the bastard who had attacked Carly. The really terrifying part about it was that he felt pretty sure that the guy was going to keep coming after her until he either got her or was caught. And catching the bastard was going to be up to him and his department. The state police had been out to the scene, but had basically given him to understand that the heat wave was doing bad things to their workload, too, and that this assault on two women at home that had not resulted in rape, grievous bodily harm, or death to either, was not a top priority for them. The FBI had no jurisdiction and less interest, although an agent friend had offered to run some of the blood recovered at the scene that Matt had been able to identify as belonging to the perp through their computers to check on a possible DNA match. Matt didn’t have much hope of that panning out—DNA matches only happened if the perp’s DNA happened
to already be on file—and so he was pinning his hopes on less high-tech methods, like piecing together the clues. Flopping onto his back, he stared up into the darkness and ran through what he knew, or thought he knew.

First, what he had by way of a physical description: the bastard was an inch or so taller than Sandra, which made him five-eleven to six feet; stocky build; light blue, nearly lashless eyes. The lashless part meant that he was probably fair-haired: Blonds or near-blonds tended to have fewer hairs, and their eyelashes, sans makeup, which most guys tended not to wear, were generally pale, which would make them hard to see, ergo, Carly’s lashless description.

Second, the perp was wearing a coat and a full-face mask in ninety-seven–degree heat. What did that tell him? Maybe the guy was trying to terrify, in which case he might have been expected to want to torture his victims to prolong the vicarious thrill he got from their fear. But that hadn’t happened; as soon as he’d gotten hold of Carly, the bastard had tried to cut her throat. Which pretty much ruled out the infliction of fear as a motive for the freak-wear.

Maybe the guy was simply a lunatic who got off on dressing up like a cartoon ninja. But a lunatic who specifically targeted Carly? It was possible, but in his opinion not probable.

Maybe the guy didn’t want to be recognized. A coat and a full-face mask could be used to conceal his identity in case someone besides the victim (it was easier to think of her as the victim; it helped him contain the white-hot anger that threatened to cloud his reason when he thought of
Carly
at the mercy of the murderous bastard) saw him or in case the victim herself survived to tell the tale, as had happened in this case. To add weight to this possibility, the guy had said
Now I remember you
to Carly. Remembered her from where was the million-dollar question. Of course, it was always possible that he remembered her from having grabbed her in the dining room. That the burglar and the murderous attacker were one and the same was so likely that he considered it almost a certainty.

For his money, he was going with the last scenario. Another point in its favor was that statistically people were usually murdered by people they knew.

So what he had was a stocky, fair-haired guy with light blue eyes who was around six feet tall that Carly—or Sandra, or some chance passerby—would recognize without the disguise.

His next clue was, of course, the wound itself and the blood that the attacker had shed copiously at the scene. (And bravo to Carly for that. She’d always had more fight in her than any three men he knew.) Area hospitals were being checked to see if any had treated a man with the kind of leg cut that might be the result of being slashed with a piece of jagged glass. As for the blood itself, the house had been awash in it. He’d already had it typed: It was O, like about half the population. Not much help in winnowing out suspects. Of course, it was always possible that there’d be a DNA match. Following the trail of blood (courtesy of Billy Tynan’s dogs) had also led him to where the perp’s vehicle had been parked. He suspected that it was some kind of four-wheel-drive truck because the hiding place had been off-road and fairly inaccessible. But again, in these parts, that didn’t rule many people out. So far, efforts to recover a tire print or any other kind of forensic evidence from that locale had been fruitless.

His fourth clue was a footprint. The perp had run out the back door when Matt had burst in through the front, but he had run around toward the front of the house before disappearing, and in his haste had knocked over the can of tarry red paint Carly had been using on the roof. He had then stepped in it, leaving behind a beauty of a shoeprint. Matt had had a plaster cast made of the print today, and was having it analyzed at that very moment.

And last but not least was a handkerchief. A plain white man’s handkerchief that had apparently been soaked in some kind of soporific liquid and applied to Sandra’s face to keep her quiet after she’d been initially knocked unconscious. The perp had tried that tactic on Carly too, but with a less successful result. The bastard had dropped it when she’d fought back.

He was having the handkerchief analyzed too, to see if they could identify the liquid the perp had used. Matt had his suspicions, but it was better to wait for the lab results to be sure.

But the best thing about that handkerchief was—

A scream ripped through the night, a terrified scream, a woman’s scream, echoing off the walls, electrifying every nerve ending Matt possessed.
Carly.
He knew who the screamer was even before he launched himself off the couch and took the stairs two at a time. Stark fear lent wings to his feet. His heart pounded. His mouth went dry.

The dog was barking now, wild hysterical yaps which lent even more impetus to his headlong rush.

Surely to God the bastard hadn’t managed to get to her here.

It occurred to Matt that he wasn’t carrying his pistol. It also occurred to him that he wasn’t going to need it. If the murderous bastard was in there with Carly, he was going to take him apart with his bare hands.

And enjoy every minute of it.

Matt burst through his bedroom door like a running back carrying the ball that last yard to the goal. The door slammed back on its hinges. He saw Carly, sitting bolt upright in the middle of his bed, still screaming, her eyes huge and glinting in the dim light from the cracked-open bathroom door. The damned dog, barking hysterically, charged him, going for his bare ankle. Matt dodged, hit the light switch, yelled, “Annie! No!” and watched the cat perform aerial gymnastics before it landed on the back of his recliner.

The last echoes of the scream still hung in the air as he determined that there was no one in the room besides Carly and himself.

“Quiet, Annie,” he said to the dog, which had backed off but continued to bark. To his surprise, she shut up, apparently having finally recognized him as a friend.

Standing in the middle of the room, his chest heaving, his heartbeat just starting to slow down, Matt watched awareness come into Carly’s face and realized what he was dealing with.

“Matt …” she said in a quavery little voice at just about the same time as his gaggle of girls piled into the doorway behind him, gasping and exclaiming.

“Matt, what happened?”

“Carly, are you all right?”

“Did somebody try to break in?”

Matt turned around, shaking his head at his sisters. They were in their usual summer night gear, shorty nightgowns and big tee shirts and pajamas, Lissa with her hair tied up in rags so it would be curly in the morning, Dani with hers pulled back in a ponytail so it would be smooth, Erin’s face shiny with cream.

They gaped at him, their faces studies in surprise and speculation and amusement. He realized then that he was standing there in nothing but his underwear, and scowled at them.

“I’m sorry. I had a nightmare,” Carly said in a small voice behind him. She was talking to his sisters, he knew.

“Okay, I’ll handle this. Out,” he said to them, walking purposefully toward them. The cheeky things grinned at him. Matt ignored those grins and the three pairs of eyes twinkling up at him even as he backed them up a step and closed the door in their faces. And locked it for good measure.

God save him from his sisters.

Then he turned back to Carly. She was as white as the walls, no color to her at all, and he could tell that she was still badly shaken. Her hair was a tumbled mass of blond corkscrews, wild as a lion’s mane around her face. Those baby-doll blue eyes were huge. Her lips trembled. She was still sitting bolt upright in the middle of the mattress, looking small and vulnerable and very female in her tiny pink top that was all that he could see of her attire, given the fact that the covers were pooled around her waist. There was a large flesh-colored Band-Aid on her shoulder, and white bandages wrapped the palm of her left hand.

These reminders of how close she had come to dying made his stomach clench.

Padding across the carpet, he turned off the overhead light, tensed instinctively at the soft involuntary gasp she gave as darkness wrapped around them, walked to the bathroom and turned off that light too, then moved to the side of the bed, pulled the covers back and got in.