J. JANCE - Hour of the Hunter

Carlisle had begun the complicated process of subjugation. Having once established dominance, it was important to consolidate his control, to show Diana Ladd exactly who was boss.

Stepping from the foot of the bed to the side of it, he reached down and yanked ruthlessly on the exposed mound of auburn pubic hair, pulling out a handful of the stiff, curly stuff. She winced and gritted her teeth, but again she refused to cry out. Damn her! She was deliberately spoiling his fun.

He moved to the head of the bed and stood looking down at her, hoping that she’d shrink away from him and try to get away, but she lay beneath his gaze without moving, staring brazenly back at him, daring him to hit her.

And so he did, slapping her hard across the face. He smiled at the rewarding droplet of blood that appeared almost instantly at the corner of her mouth. Maybe now he’d start getting through to her. He hit her three times in all-twice openhanded and once with the back of his hand. He didn’t have to put much effort into it. The blows were gratuitous, stinging slaps, administered mechanically and without emotion, calculated more to humiliate than hurt.

Andrew Carlisle hit the woman primarily for effect and for his own amusement. He hit her because she dared stare back at him. He hit her because he could. It never occurred to him that hitting her was a tactical blunder. That thought never crossed his mind.

Diana tasted blood in her mouth where a tooth had cut through her cheek. She focused on the salty taste, and that, combined with the teeth-rattling blows, shocked Diana out of her stunned lethargy and forced her to remember that other man who had once hit her like this, who had pulled her hair out by the roots. The sudden surge of memory galvanized her in a way Carlisle couldn’t possibly have foreseen or predicted. It rekindled the spark of her old anger, relit a raging fire that lost hope had almost extinguished.

Without a word, she sat up.

“Get dressed,” he ordered again, flinging a pair of shorts and a tank top in her direction. “Wear these, but no shoes. I like my serving women dressed but barefoot.”

She stared blankly at the clothing. They weren’t what she’d been wearing before. Those, torn from her body in his initial fierce attack, still lay in a heap on the living-room floor.

Carlisle leered at her from the doorway, savoring the marks he’d left on her sore and naked body, but she refused to turn away from him while she dressed. “Hey,” he said jokingly, “except for a few stretch marks here and there, you’ve got a pretty good bod. Anybody ever tell you that?”

A flush of embarrassment crept up her face. She said nothing. He came over to where she sat on the edge of the bed and shoved the muzzle of the gun hard into the tender flesh of her already bruised breast.

“Don’t you have any manners at all?” he demanded. “Didn’t your mother teach you that when someone pays you a compliment, you’re supposed to say thank you?”

“Thank you,” she murmured.

“That’s better. Now, get moving. We’re going to the kitchen. I want you to fix me some dinner or, better yet, breakfast. Sex always makes me hungry. How about you?”

Without answering, she started for the kitchen at once, hoping he would read defeat and submission in her every action. But Diana Ladd knew she was fighting him again, and Andrew Carlisle was far too pleased with himself to notice.

There were two sounds in the room-the priest’s breathing and the mouse-like twitchings of Rita’s owij picking at the twine. Davy wished Bone were there. He longed for the dog’s comforting presence, but Bone was at the vet’s or dead now, too, along with everybody else.

Forbidden to make a sound, Davy thought about what Rita had told him, for him to run away, to find a crack, to hide. A crack.

He thought about cracks, about the jagged one in the lumpy plaster beside his bed. He always examined that crack in great detail when he was supposed to be taking a nap, wondering if it had grown bigger or smaller since the last time he saw it. But a fly could never hide in there. Davy couldn’t even put his thumbnail in it. Flies were bigger than that.

A crack. The verse came to him, singsong, the way he had heard it at school. “Step on a crack, and you’ll break your mother’s back.” But that was a sidewalk crack. Again, not big enough.

There was Fat Crack, but he wasn’t a crack at all. He was a person.

Then, finally, Davy remembered the cave he and Bone had found, the chimney in the mountain behind the house. Now that he thought about it, maybe that cave wasn’t a cave at all. It was a crack-a crack in the mountain. That was where he would go, where he would run to hide if he ever got a chance.

Suddenly, there were voices on the other side of the door. Davy’s heart pounded, wondering how soon the door would fly open again, how soon before he would have to make his dash for freedom.

At first, Davy heard only the man’s voice, talking on and on, but then he heard another voice, that of a woman, softer and higher. Straining, he recognized his mother’s voice. She wasn’t dead after all.

Rita had finally managed to free herself. Davy tugged at the old woman’s hand, wanting to tell her the news, but she laid her fingers on his lips, warning him to silence. Carefully they moved into position. A sliver of light had appeared under the door. They used that as a guide.

They stood on either side of the door for what seemed like forever. Eventually, the smell of frying bacon came wafting into Davy’s nose. It was a long time since he and the Bone had shared their last tortillas. The smell of that frying bacon filled Davy’s nostrils and made his mouth water. His feet itched. He needed to go to the bathroom. Davy began to doubt that the door would ever open. He fidgeted a little, but Rita clamped her good hand down hard on his shoulder, poking him painfully with the awl in the process. After that, he stood quietly and waited.

A hundred yards or so from the turnoff, Fat Crack doused the lights and parked the truck. He had kept the lights flashing almost the entire way, but as they neared the house, he turned off everything, flashers and headlights included.

“Now what?” he asked, shutting down the ignition and parking the truck just beyond a curve that concealed the house from view.

“We go down there and try to take him by surprise.”

“Good luck,” Fat Crack returned. “What about the dog?”

“Dog?”

“Rita has a huge dog named Oh’o. When I was here earlier, he almost bit my leg off.”

“He must be inside,” Looks At Nothing said.

Right, Fat Crack thought. Sure he is. Famous last words. With a disgusted shake of his head, the younger man hurried around to the passenger side and helped Looks At Nothing climb down. Moving as quietly as possible, they headed for the driveway that led down to the house. The dark made no difference to the blind medicine man, but when they stepped off the pavement, Fat Crack had some difficulty negotiating the rocky terrain.

They’d gone only a few steps when Fat Crack saw, a mile or so away, the approaching headlights of another vehicle. That other car worried him. What if Looks At Nothing was wrong? What if the ohb was only now coming to the house, only now beginning his attack? If he drove up right then, they would be trapped in the open driveway with no means of retreat or defense.

“I have my stick,” the old man was saying. “What will you use for a weapon?”

“A rock, I guess,” Fat Crack replied. “I don’t see anything else.”

“Good,” Looks At Nothing said. “Get one.”

Fat Crack was bent over picking one up when he heard the dog. This time there was no warning bark, only a hair-raising, low-throated growl. The night was black, and Bone was a black and brown dog, totally invisible to the naked eye. Fat Crack straightened up and looked around, expecting to fend off an all-out attack. Instead, Looks At Nothing spoke forcefully into the darkness.