Brian Freeman - Stripped

Fifteen years ago, he might have made that mistake. Like Amanda did.

“I’ll call Sawhill,” Stride said quietly. “We need to get him over here.”

Cordy nodded. “Uh-huh. We should get a cordon around the scene.”

“Right. Let’s get squad cars two blocks from the apartment building on every major intersection. But no lights, no sirens. Silent running, okay? And let’s keep diem off the actual street. We don’t want anyone in that building seeing a cop anywhere.”

“We’ll need to move fast. We don’t know how long he’s going to stay put.”

“Exactly. Let’s establish a base down on Harris in ten minutes, and we can meet Sawhill there to map out our plan.”

“Shouldn’t we do some recon?” Cordy asked.

Stride thought about it. “Yeah, see if we can get one of the undercover cops from vice. Someone already dressed like a hooker. We’ll have her do a walk-by on the building and then stake out a place where she can keep an eye on the front. Nothing too close. If Blake is eyeing the street, we don’t want him spooked.”

Cordy already had his phone in his hand as he took off.

Stride retreated toward the doughnut shop and found his Bronco. He wanted to be on the scene as the cordon took shape at Harris. If Blake was in for the night, if he thought he was safe, then maybe they could take him quickly, with a minimum of violence.

Why the girl? Stride thought. He knew there were killers who wanted sex after a murder, but he didn’t think that fit Blake’s profile. Maybe Cordy was right and Blake wanted a hostage. Whatever the truth was, it complicated their assault. It would slow them down, deciding how to proceed with a third party in the room. Maybe that was what Blake was counting on.

Normally, Serena loved the silence of their town home, because it was a respite from the noise of the city. That was one thing about Las Vegas -you couldn’t escape the din of people and machines. At home, she and Jonny sometimes turned off the stereo and sat in the darkness to relish a few moments of quiet.

Tonight the silence felt like a threat. It got under her skin.

When she put down the phone, she thought about Amanda. She had heard the pain in Jonny’s voice. She had never really known Amanda, not well, but she of all people knew the effect that Jonny had on women. How they fell in love with his caring, his humanity. How he in turn wanted to wrap his big arms around them and be a protector. Some women hated that. Most wanted to get lost in it. She knew that Jonny and Amanda had taken no time at all to bond as partners and that Jonny felt her loss as keenly as if it had been herself or Maggie under the gun. It made her a little jealous.

Serena went to the front door. She opened it and went outside onto the porch. Her senses were on high alert, and fear pricked along the nerves in her back. She listened carefully, and she spied every detail around her home. Nothing was moving. The overhead garage light shone down on her Mustang convertible in the driveway. The maze of streets through the gated complex was empty, except for the tall silhouettes of palm trees. No strange cars. No headlights. She studied the shadows on both corners of the house. It made her palms sweat to realize that she had left her gun inside, that she was a target here, unarmed. But she was alone.

She returned inside and locked the dead bolt. She made sure the alarm was set. She thought about turning off the lights as she went upstairs but decided to leave them on. Let anyone who was out there think she was still awake. This time, she took her gun with her.

She felt guilty being here, safe. Jonny was out on the street, chasing Blake, and she should be with him. She said a silent prayer that he wouldn’t let his emotions overrun him, that he wouldn’t be foolish like Amanda and try to take Blake on his own.

Don’t die, Jonny. Don’t leave me. It was that simple.

But nothing was simple.

She passed the spare bedroom in which Clare was sleeping. She stopped there and listened. Her hand reached for the doorknob, and she turned it silently. To check on her, she told herself. To make sure she was okay. No, that was a lie. What she wanted to do was go in and sleep beside her. Touch her. Make her spill her secrets. Serena realized she was like Jonny, wanting to wrap her arms around Claire and protect her.

She let go of the doorknob, and it clicked loudly. Serena winced. She continued quickly to her own bedroom and shut the door behind her.

The ceiling fan moved the cool air around the room. Even so, she was overheated. Flushed. She laid her gun on the nightstand beside her bed and put her cell phone next to it. She took off her clothes and went into the bathroom to get ready for bed and take a brief shower. Her skin was still damp as she returned to the bedroom. She draped clothes for tomorrow over the back of a chair, in case she needed to get dressed quickly overnight, and then she stretched out naked on top of the blankets.

Serena switched out the lamp on the nightstand. The room was dark. She lay on her back, her eyes open. The aloneness of the night felt oppressive.

Tap tap tap.

She froze, and it happened again, a scratching on the window glass. Tap tap tap.

Serena practically leaped from the bed, her heart pounding. She scrambled for her gun and ran to the window, where she tore the curtains open. Dim light streamed in from the lamps hung outside. Where the glow reflected on the window, a white moth was beating against the glass, its wings quivering. After a few seconds, it rose up higher and flew away.

Good, Serena , she thought Shoot a moth.

She left the curtains open and went back to bed, where the beam of light from outside played across her body.

As her heart slowed down, sleep began to catch up with her. She tried to stay awake, in case Jonny called again, but the harder she tried to keep her eyes open by staring at the ceiling fan, the more it hypnotized her until her eyes blinked shut.

Dreams floated in. Bad dreams. The kind where she was chased, where footsteps pounded behind her and she ran from someone invisible. She was out in the desert at night, and she could hear rattlesnakes and hawk wings and the snuffling of javelinas-and someone’s breathing in the darkness near her, measured and loud.

Something awakened her. She didn’t know what. When she glanced at the clock, she saw that an hour had passed while she was sleeping. Had she heard something? A click. Footsteps. Was it real? She glanced around the bedroom and saw a ghost, a shadow by the closed door. As she squinted and looked harder, the shadow moved. Someone was in her room.

Serena felt paralyzed and exposed, naked in the glow from outside. She started to reach for her gun again. “Who’s there?”

From the darkness, she heard Claire’s voice. “It’s only me, Serena.” Claire stepped farther into the room, where the light found her, and she was naked, too.

She came and lay next to Serena on the bed without being asked. They were both on their backs, staring at the ceiling. “I’m sorry, I couldn’t sleep,” Claire said. “Did you hear something before?”

“I assumed it was you in the hallway.”

“No, something else.”

They waited and listened. Serena knew every groan and creak in the beams of her home, but there was nothing out of place.

“It’s my imagination,” Claire said.

“Try to sleep.”

Serena turned on her side, away from Claire. She could see the time glowing on the clock. Almost two in the morning. She wondered where Jonny was and when he would be coming home to her. She wanted to close her eyes, but she was awake now, keenly aware of Claire behind her. She could hear her breathing softly; she was awake, too. A fragile silence hung between them. Waiting for the next move.