Sandra Brown: Low Pressure

He left the car he’d stolen earlier in an adjacent parking lot and helped himself to Dent Carter’s sweet ride. And, as if good fortune wasn’t already with him, it began to rain buckets, which would make it difficult for the policemen at the gate to see who was behind the wheel of the Vette. To make it even more difficult for them to see into the car, Ray turned the headlights on high beam.

It was so easy he’d wanted to laugh. The two cops who’d waved to Dent when he drove out waved to Ray when he pulled up to the gate, which opened even before he came to a full stop. Abraca-fucking-dabra. He figured the cops had been given a transmitter so they could control who went in and out.

Getting inside the house posed no problem. Bellamy herself ran out to greet him. He had her in an inescapable bear hug before she realized he wasn’t Dent.

She seemed too shocked even to scream, which was good. It saved him from having to hit her. He didn’t want her unconscious. He wanted her awake and terrified.

But as he lifted her off her feet and started up the front steps with her, she began to struggle. “No, please, my stepmother is upstairs.”

“I’ll get to her. Two for the price of one. But you first.”

She doubled her efforts to wiggle out of his grip and kicked him solidly in the shin. It hurt so bad that as soon as they were across the threshold and he’d pushed the front door closed, he thrust her from him so hard she went hurtling forward and landed on the stone-tile floor.

Splintering pain shot from Bellamy’s shoulder and hip, which had sustained most of the impact. But she had no time to dwell on the pain because Ray was whipping a knife from its scabbard.

He brandished it at her, and she saw that the blade was already streaked with dried blood. Moody’s? Bile filled the back of her throat as the image of his open neck flashed into her mind. That was what Ray would do to her if she didn’t prevent it.

He grinned down at her and took two lumbering steps forward.

She put a hand up. “Listen, Ray, you don’t want to do this.”

“Hell I don’t. You killed Susan and let…”

“No. No I didn’t.”

“I heard you. I was hiding in your closet when you admitted it. I should’ve killed you then.”

Hiding in her closet? She didn’t take time to sort that out. Stammering, she said, “I didn’t kill my sister, but I also know that your brother didn’t, either. He was innocent. I’m going to tell everyone that he was innocent.”

“Too late for that.”

“I know,” she said wetting her lips. “There’s nothing anyone can do about what happened to him. But I want people to know that he was unjustly sent to prison. You were wronged, too. I want to tell about it. But I won’t be able to do that if you kill me.”

“I’m gonna kill you.” He reached down, grabbed a fistful of her hair, and pulled her up by it. She cried out in pain, and did the only thing she knew to do. She kneed him hard in the groin. It wasn’t a direct hit, but his grip on her hair relaxed slightly, enough for her to jerk herself free.

She ran for the staircase. If she could lock herself inside Olivia’s room only long enough for the 911 responders to arrive, there was a chance that both of them could survive.

But she was still a long way from the second floor when Ray’s arm hooked her around the waist. He pushed her face first onto the stairs and landed hard on top of her, knocking the breath out of her. Slapping his hand over her forehead, he pulled her head back against his shoulder. She felt the blade of his knife against the soft area beneath her jawbone.

“I told you you’d be sorry.”

When Dent fishtailed Gall’s pickup onto the Lystons’ street, he saw two silhouettes inside the squad car. What were they doing just sitting there?

He braked hard, leaped out of the truck, ran up to the police car, and smacked the driver’s window with both hands, startling the officers inside. He yelled, “Have you seen my Vette?”

The officer lowered the window. “Sure. When you drove it in a few minutes ago. But how’d you get—”

“Wasn’t me. It was Strickland.”

“Strickland? In your car?”

“Where’s the transmitter Bellamy gave you?”

“Right here, but—”

“Open the gate.” He ran toward it, shouting over his shoulder. “And call for backup.”

The second officer alighted from the passenger side and shouted through the rain. “Dispatch just reported a nine-one-one from the house. Said a woman’s bleeding to death.”

Dent, fear clutching him, gripped one of the iron bars and shook it. “Open the fucking gate!”

The officer retrieved the transmitter from inside the car, but as he fumbled with it, he hollered to Dent, “Stay where you are. This is a police matter.”

Dent remembered the gate code from earlier in the day, but the patrol car was between him and the column where the keypad was mounted. He made an about-face and began scaling the estate wall, using the wet, clinging vine for footholds.

“Hey! Stop there!”

“You’ll have to shoot me.”

He got a knee onto the top of the wall and, without even looking to see what was on the other side, flung himself over. He landed in a hedge of evergreens, breaking branches as he worked his way free, then sprinted toward the house, which seemed to be miles away and in total darkness.

His chest was burning with exertion and fear for Bellamy as he hurdled the steps, skidded across the rain-slicked porch, and put his shoulder to the front door as he pushed his way through it.

He couldn’t see a thing until lightning flashed, then he took in the scene at once. Strickland had Bellamy facedown about midway up the staircase. Strickland’s knee was planted in the small of her back and he had her neck arched and exposed.

“No!” Dent bounded up the stairs.

Ray’s head came around and, seeing Dent, he released his hold on Bellamy, spread his arms away from his body like wings, and launched himself down the remaining stairs, catching Dent on the fourth one.

They tumbled together down onto the floor of the foyer in a jumble of arms and legs. Dent was the first to disentangle himself and sprang to his feet, but Ray surged out of a crouch with his knife aimed at Dent’s belly. Dent bowed his back, making his abdomen concave enough to escape a fatal uppercut.

By now his eyes had better adjusted to the darkness. When Strickland lunged at him again, Dent went after his knife hand, risking his own hands in order to gain control of the weapon. His fingers clamped around Strickland’s wrist and, using fury as his propellant, drove him backward against the wall. He slammed Strickland’s knife hand into the paneling.

But Strickland had enough leeway in his wrist to turn the knife toward Dent’s face. The tip of it was level with the corner of his left eye. One jab would blind him.

“I’m gonna mess you up, pretty boy. Then I’m going to cut her head off.”

Dent bared his teeth. “I’ll kill you first.”

“Drop it!”

The order must’ve come from one of the cops. Dent didn’t turn his head, but Strickland looked in that direction, and Dent used that momentary distraction to flip the knife away and, with his free hand, give the man’s Adam’s apple a hard chop. “That’s for my plane, you son of a bitch.”

Strickland, stunned and suddenly breathless, tried to suck in air. Dent squeezed his wrist so hard he released the knife and it clattered to the floor. Then four police officers swarmed them.

But, even gasping for breath, Strickland wasn’t going down easily or quietly. Dent fought his way past the policemen trying to subdue him and bolted up the staircase to where Bellamy was weakly crawling up the steps.