Michael Prescott - Blind Pursuit

To kill her… and Annie, too.

Frantic.

Gund stamped the gas pedal to the floor, careening north. He didn’t look at the speedometer needle, didn’t want to see it pinned to the far right of the dial.

He had no idea where he was going. All that mattered was to put distance between himself and the ranch. If he returned to it tonight, Erin would die.

Leaving her unharmed had exhausted nearly the last reserves of his willpower. Even now he wasn’t sure he could hold out against the ugly impulses churning inside him, wasn’t sure he could resist the urge to turn the van around.

Gasoline in the rear compartment. Two cans. More than enough to do the job.

He didn’t want to think about that. But it was hard not to, agonizingly hard.

His fingers tingled and itched. His neck burned. In his ears was a faraway chiming, elusive and mysterious.

All day long he’d been on edge. And after what he’d done with Erin-the meeting of their lips, the pressure of his mouth on hers Until the moment when he’d pulled her close, he had never known what he wanted from her, wanted and desperately needed. He’d been blind to his true nature, blind to the origins of his compulsion… willfully blind, afraid to face the ugly reality of what he was. Although he had tracked down Erin and Annie Reilly, although he had become part of their lives, he’d never admitted the full reason for their hold on him.

The burnings had been bad, but the twisted needs that lay at the root of his crimes were still worse.

Better to splash his victims with gas and toss a lighted match than to… to…

“Fuck,” he whispered, testing the word, a word he had not used-not once-since he was fifteen years old.

The muttered obscenity drew the muscles of his groin tighter. He shifted in the driver’s seat.

Turn around. He had to turn around, go back, fuck her. Fuck her and then burn her, burn her -

“I won’t,” he murmured, his eyes misting. “I won’t do it. I won’t.”

Tension racked his body. He couldn’t fight himself much longer.

But perhaps he didn’t have to.

There might be a way out. A way to find relief.

His photo. His special picture.

Yes. Go home. Remove the photograph from its hiding place. And then…

He knew what he would do.

Would it be enough? He wasn’t sure. But it was his last hope.

As he swung off Houghton Road onto 22nd Street, he glanced at the dashboard clock: 8:15.

His apartment was only fifteen minutes away-ten, if he maintained this reckless speed.

And if a traffic cop should pull him over…

He fingered the shotgun mounted under the dash, then lightly touched the handgun in his pocket.

Any cop who tried to ticket him would be dead. Anyone who interfered with him tonight, anyone who fucked with him…

Dead.

Annie had trouble finding a parking space in Gund’s neighborhood. Finally she pulled into a curbside slot on a side street, outside a used-car lot protected by a security fence and a restless Doberman. Her dashboard clock glowed 8:05 when she killed the engine.

The guard dog growled at her through the fence as she walked swiftly to the corner. She turned east and hurried past a dreary row of brick houses, their sandy lots bordered by chain-link fencing. Graffiti clung to walls and utility poles like patches of black fungus. From some homes the drone of a television or radio was audible, the voices on the broadcasts always in Spanish.

Gund’s apartment was a ground-floor unit at the front corner of a two-story stucco building. His windows were dark, his curtains drawn.

No fence around the place-that was one obstacle she wouldn’t have to contend with, anyway-but covering the front windows were iron security bars.

Impossible to get in that way, and she lacked the skills to pick the lock on the door. Maybe she would find some means of access at the side of the unit.

A narrow passageway ran between the apartment building and the house next door. Through the wall of the house bled the loud, insistent blare of Mexican music. Shadows of human figures flitted across the lowered window shades like drifting clouds of smoke.

Annie crept down the passage, past a wheeled trash bin and another barred window, then stopped at what must be Gund’s bathroom window. It was a slender rectangle of frosted glass, five feet off the ground, sealed shut, and unbarred.

She studied the window, uncertain if it was wide enough for her to squeeze through. She thought it was-just barely.

For a moment she hesitated. Was she really going to do this?

Then her resolve stiffened. For Erin she would. For Erin.

The music from next door ought to cover the sound of breaking glass. All she needed was a way to smash the window. Should have brought the jack from the trunk of her car, but she hadn’t thought of it.

She’d make a lousy burglar, she decided. She wasn’t even dressed right.

A black jumpsuit would have been the appropriate attire. She was still wearing her clothes from work-a brightly colored cotton skirt and a floral-print blouse. The blouse would look good in the mug shot, at least.

The small joke made her frown. There wasn’t going to be any mug shot. Everything would be fine, and there was no reason, absolutely none, for her hands to be trembling.

They trembled anyway as she rummaged through the trash bin and found someone’s gooseneck lamp, the cord badly frayed. She hefted the lamp experimentally. It seemed sturdy enough to do the job.

Leaning against the bin, drawing a slow breath to compose herself, she felt a hand on her arm.

“ Jesus.”

She swung around, instinctively raising the lamp as a weapon, and saw two green eyes staring at her from a foot away.

Cat’s eyes. An alley cat, that’s all it was, just an alley cat that had climbed atop the bin and touched her with its paw.

“Oh, God, puss, you scared me.”

The cat sniffed her clothes, unafraid. Annie realized the scent of her own house cat must have drawn the stray’s attention.

“His name is Stink,” she whispered. “He’s got green eyes like yours-and mine. Maybe the three of us are related.”

The cat appeared unimpressed with this hypothesis.

“Okay now, scoot. Scoot.”

Gently she brushed the cat away. It bounded off the bin and meandered a few yards down the passageway, then stood watching, a silent spectator.

Her conversation with the cat, one-sided though it had been, had calmed her somewhat. She always felt soothed in the presence of a feline, whether Stink or this mangy stray. Cats were good for the soul. Maybe if Harold had a cat, he wouldn’t A new worry froze her. How did she know he didn’t own a cat? Or worse, far worse, a dog? A guard dog, even, like that Doberman at the auto lot?

She might enter the apartment only to find herself pinned to a wall, fangs at her throat.

Then she shook her head firmly. “That won’t happen. Come on, girl. No more procrastination.”

A quick breath of courage, and she turned to face the window. Holding the lamp by its base, she jabbed the glass. The window cracked on her first attempt, crumbled to shards with a second, stronger thrust. Both sounds were largely swallowed by the wail of mariachi horns next door.

Carefully she swept the frame clear, using the metal neck of the lamp, then rolled the Dumpster under the window and climbed onto the lid.

A glance at the far end of the passageway revealed two green eyes still burning against the dark.

“Wish me luck,” she whispered to the cat.

Its answering meow heartened her.

Gingerly she inserted one leg through the window, then the other. Inch by inch she wriggled in, holding fast to the sill, her feet probing until they found a smooth, sturdy surface. Resting on it, she was able to release her grip on the sill and draw her upper body, her arms, and finally her head inside.