Wendy Hornsby - Midnight Baby

I went straight to her bookcase and used the flashlight only long enough to make sure that I had taken down the right books – the photo album and the yearbook. Then I went back out into the hall. I listened to be sure all was quiet before I went back down.

Thinking it had all been too easy, I pulled the French doors shut behind me and rebolted them. I was so slick, I thought, I could reel in a little extra money as a cat burglar on the side. Send Casey to an Ivy League school if she wanted. Or to London for ballet. I felt more hyped than scared when I came out into the narrow passage between the houses.

I flattened myself against the wall beside a skinny juniper, and looked for trouble. The alley end, where I was headed, was clear. To be cautious, because my dad when he taught me to drive told me always to look both ways in case a comet, or whatever, came shooting up behind me, I looked down to the canal end, too.

On the water, things are always moving: lights, boats, ducks, gulls. What alarmed me was a block of dark stillness against the motion. I froze, tried to focus on it. I was closer to the canal than to the alley. I tried to figure whether I had a big enough head start to make it back to the car if that dark shape decided to chase me. I hated myself for being so anal that I had locked the car – my caution had added two or three seconds to my escape time.

I thought about the alternatives, and chose one. Clutching the books tight against my chest, the Kel-Lite straight in front, I stepped away from the wall and shot the light into the dark.

What I saw was an old wooden dinghy that had been hauled up out of the water. It leaned against one of the support pilings of the Ramsdale dock. Next to it was a can of caulking. Kids, I thought, doing some boat-repair work on a vacant dock.

Feeling relieved, if a bit of a jerk, I switched off the light, quickly reevaluated my future as a burglar, and turned toward the alley.

My dad also taught me to look three times, left right left, before committing to a turn into traffic. I forgot that part at the wrong time.

When I spun back, he was there, blocking the passage to the alley maybe four yards in front of me. I flashed the light on him.

He flinched, raised an arm to shield his eyes.

“Officer Flint,” I shouted in the direction of the shattered French door. “Metrano is here. Have the alley sealed.”

George Metrano smiled, monstrous in the beam of light. “I watched you go in. You were alone.”

“Cops have had the place staked out.”

“No, they haven’t.” He started toward me. “What did you take?”

“Not a goddam thing.” I gripped my booty tighter, and screamed, “Flint, out here, now!”

“Shut up.” He hissed as he lunged, moving fast for a big man.

I ran for the canal. Ivy vines snagged my shoes and ripped up from their roots – I didn’t have time to aim for the artfully placed stepping stones. If I tripped, I knew he would be all over me.

I felt him reach for me, a push of air from behind. I ducked to the side, used my flashlight hand to right myself, and ran on. I didn’t have time to find him back there. I only knew he was too close. My back arched away from him, giving me a few more inches of time.

I came out on the sidewalk, careened around the corner, and headed toward the nearest bridge. I miscalculated my speed at the turn and lost both my footing and my lead. As I scrambled to find solid ground underneath, he dove. And he got me.

Metrano’s huge hand caught me just below the knee, flipped me, and sent me skidding face forward onto the concrete. I kept the books, but lost most of the skin on my knuckles.

He slid his hand up my leg for a better grip. I managed to roll onto my back. I cocked my free foot to flatten his smug face, but he caught it, too. He was on his knees, I was on my butt, struggling to get upright, straining to wrench free as he tried to get over me, dominate me, pin me down. I hate to be pinned. Especially by a guy with a thing for razors. Every time I tried to sit up, he yanked my legs and sent me backward again. One big jerk had sufficient force to knock me on my head hard enough to make my ears ring.

I was plain old mad. On my way up again, I swung the Kel-Lite with everything I had, a well-placed backhand stroke. He was turning to see where the blow was coming from when Kel-Lite and face bones connected. He screamed like something on Wild Kingdom. Warm blood sprayed through the air and hit my face. I retched at the smell of it.

The follow-up shot I gave him didn’t have as much force as the first blow, sufficient to raise a dummy bump on his temple, but not enough to break the skin. It did motivate him to try something else on me. When he moved his hands higher on my calves, looking for a better grip, I found an instant of hesitation to slide through. I snatched one leg free and got some leverage to kick away from his hold. Like a scared bunny, I scooted the hell away.

I felt the wood of the dock under me. He never gave me more than a few inches of lead, but I used them to scramble to my feet. A yard from the edge of the dock, I sprang for the water, a high, off-balance dive. He snatched at my trailing foot. I felt the hard parts of his hand collide with my shoe as the black water rose to meet me.

I coursed down through frigid salt water so dark I could see nothing. I was worried about the bottom, about sharp obstacles among the boat trash that had been dumped into the canal. But I worried about George Metrano more. I felt him hit the water somewhere above me, felt the shock waves generate down from him.

When my dive lost its initial momentum, I pushed myself deeper, groping ahead for debris. My lungs ached, my head throbbed, but I still had the books against my chest. A reflex grip, probably. Not that a photo album was what he was after.

The sharp barnacles on the dock pilings snagged my sleeve, and I reached for them. I wrapped an arm around the piling long enough to kick off my heavy shoes. Then, with the barnacles cutting into my hands like embedded shards of glass, I used the piling to control my rise to the surface.

When I broke through to the still, dark night, I gulped sweet air, got my bearings, and ducked down again, pushing myself beneath the Ramsdale dock. I pressed my face up to the gaps between the planks and managed to find breathable air. I listened for George, but all I could hear was the water lapping around my ears. I was so cold I ached all over. The salt water burned my scraped knuckles, stung my eyes. But I waited.

It is nearly impossible to keep track of time under water.

After what seemed like hours but was probably only a few minutes, I located George. I had lost the flashlight somewhere in my flight. Apparently, George had found it. A shaft of light between the planks hit my eye, so I slid down deeper until it passed overhead.

I couldn’t stay there. So I came up for a last gulp of air, then dove down again through the water, pushing myself deep into Randy Ramsdale’s grave. Around me, the light cut through the water like thrusts of a sword, but I was so close under him that the light passed over me.

I felt my way along the slimy seawall until I came to Martha’s dock. I rose again for air, dove again, and continued along for two more docks.

I passed under a bridge and found moss-covered stone steps that led up to the sidewalk. The steps were too slippery to use, but I hauled myself up by the metal rail. Sheltered, I hoped, by a cluster of potted geraniums, I lay curled into a ball on the rough concrete and filled my lungs, gasping, shaking with cold. Green slime clung to my clothes. I reeked of boat fuel.

I risked raising my head to see over the pots. George was still searching the canal for me. He scuttled down the sidewalk in the opposite direction, knifing the water with his beam again and again. When he headed back my way, I was still out of breath. I knew it was only a matter of moments before he gave up on the water and looked elsewhere, the most obvious place being the alley where I had left the car. I had to be history before George got there.