Michael Prescott - Blind Pursuit

For a long time there was nothing in his world but the hum of the road, the engine’s steady grumble, the red petals of fire unfolding like a night-blooming flower.

His jaws slid slowly in a painful grinding motion.

So easy to kill her, and so good.

Part of him had wanted to destroy her all along. Last night he’d very nearly pulled the trigger when the pistol was in her mouth.

He hadn’t kidnapped her for that purpose, however. He’d taken her prisoner in order to help himself, save himself.

At least that was what he liked to believe. Perhaps it was only a convenient lie. Perhaps his true intention always had been to feed her to the flames.

Even now he could hear her final agonized shrieks, smell the mingled odors of gasoline and charred meat No.

The wheel spun under his hand. The Astro skidded off the road onto the dirt shoulder and shuddered to a stop.

He killed the engine, listened to the clockwork tick of its cooling parts. Around him was a vast silence and darkness, a waveless sea faintly foam-flecked with starlight.

Dry wind, unusually warm for an April night, gusted through the open window. The air had a velvet texture; it wrapped him like a winding sheet.

Sitting motionless, hands resting on the wheel in the ten o’clock position approved by driving instructors, chest expanding and contracting with slow, metronomic breaths, he struggled to marshal calmness and strength.

The fantasy of Erin staked out, drenched in gas-banish that.

He could afford no such thoughts and images. He was too likely to act on them, to make them real.

A chill passed through him as he understood how near he was right now to surrendering to the secret, deadly side of himself.

But he would not yield. Not tonight.

A long, slow exhalation shuddered out of him, leaving him limp.

He was nearer to the critical stage of his cycle of violence than he had realized. But still in control, for a short while longer anyway. Some time was left to him-and to Erin. Some, but not much.

He wondered if there was any chance he could hold off disaster. Perhaps he could. Perhaps.

Even in their abbreviated session tonight, Erin had offered some unexpected insights. The connection between the three women and his past-he had not been consciously aware of that. Yet as soon as she had identified it, he’d known it to be true.

He had selected the first one, Marilyn Vaccaro, because he’d seen her leaving a Catholic church. But at no time then or since, until tonight, had he permitted himself to recognize that fact or to consider its implications.

Though Erin’s probing questions had disconcerted him, objectively he had to concede that she’d been doing only what he’d asked her to do, and doing it well. Already he felt fractionally less mysterious to himself, felt that there was logic, of a kind, underlying his dark urges.

She was helping. She really was.

Whether or not she could free him, he didn’t know. But one thing was certain. If he killed her, or if he walked out every time she aroused his anger, he would never be cured.

To profit from her skill he had to do the work, ride out the emotional fever that such close interrogation brought on; and he had to be honest with her… as honest, at least, as he could permit himself to be.

All right, then. He would go back. Go back and try again, while there was still time.

He restarted the engine, guided the van onto the road, and executed a sloppy U-turn. The headlight beams scared a loping jackrabbit out of the southbound lane.

Flooring the gas pedal, he accelerated to sixty, retracing his route.

Erin spent long minutes of sweaty effort prying the dead bolt out of the socket again. Twice the taped-up comb threatened to snap. Perhaps her prayers held it together.

She pulled the door toward her until the chain was taut. The half-inch opening was too narrow for her hand. The comb fit through and easily snagged one of the links, but the chain resisted her efforts to lift it.

Frustrated, she pocketed the comb, then considered the problem more carefully.

It did her no good to hook the chain at its midpoint. The end of the chain was what mattered-the end soldered to the sliding bolt that held it in place.

She had to find a way to hook one of the end links, then lift the bolt free of its slot in the door jamb.

To do that, she needed a flexible tool, which could be angled sharply. Wire would be ideal.

Wire…

In her purse was a memo pad, spiral-bound.

Her fingers trembled with barely controlled excitement as she worked the wire free of the punched holes. She pulled it straight, then bent it at a ninety-degree angle and curved one end into a fish hook.

Now all she had to do was tease the chain out of its slot. She guided the hooked end of the wire through the opening, then rotated it, probing blindly for the jamb plate.

The hook seemed to catch on something, but came free when she started to lift it.

Keep trying.

For a second time the hook caught. She drew the wire toward her, seeking to give the tool a better grip, then slowly raised it. The chain rose also; she heard a faint rasp of movement, the scratching of the slide bolt in the slot The hook lost its grip, and the chain fell back in place.

Disappointment stabbed her. Teeth gritted, she tried again.

The hook clawed at air, scrabbled at wood, and then, with a faint metallic jangle, snagged the chain once more.

Careful now.

She drew up the chain slowly, heard the dull scrape of the bolt sliding along the slot.

Higher. Higher.

The chain stopped abruptly. At first she thought it had caught on some obstacle. Then she realized that the bolt must have reached the top of the slot.

Ease it free. Gently…

On the other side of the door, there was a soft chink, then a louder rattle, and the chain fell away.

The wire dropped from her hand. She grabbed the door, pulled it toward her, and this time nothing prevented it from swinging fully open, exposing the flight of concrete stairs that led upward into darkness.

She was free.

Gulping air, she emerged from the cellar room, planted a foot on the staircase, almost fell-her knees were weak, her head spinning-then mastered her emotions and climbed the stairs, gripping the wooden banister.

The light from the cellar receded. The stairs dimmed. She had to feel her way, one arm outstretched to grope in the dark.

Her fingers touched wood.

A smooth sheet of wood directly before her, stone walls on either side.

A door.

She found a knob. It would not turn.

Locked.

At the top of the cellar stairs, a locked door, another locked door.

“No, that can’t be right.” Her voice quavered dangerously close to hysteria. “Can’t be, just can’t be right.”

She had never heard her abductor shut this door or open it. Had never suspected its existence.

Desperately she jiggled the knob, determined to make it turn; but her hand merely slid over the smooth, rounded brass.

Fingering the knob, she felt a small button of metal at its center, like the bull’s-eye of a target.

The latch’s manual release. Of course.

She pressed it, then tried the knob again, but still it wouldn’t respond.

“What’s the matter with you?” she demanded of the stubborn mechanism, raw anger shredding her self-control.

She punched the button a half dozen times, but the lock remained frozen.

The latch release, goddamn it, had been disabled somehow.

Well, it didn’t matter. There had to be some way to open the door. She couldn’t be stopped now. Not now Engine noise. Outside.

He had come back.

A moan warbled up from the pit of her throat. “ No…”

Had all her efforts been wasted for a second time? Would she have to retreat to the room, lock herself in once more?