Макс Коллинз - No One Will Hear You

But plenty of room to hide, though hiding wouldn’t be enough. Carmen would have to take advantage of surprise to take that bald bitch down.

What then?

Her pursuer had that knife, and what did Carmen have?

Frantically, but noiselessly, her hands felt around in the darkness. A cardboard box next to her had bulbs in it, useless. Another held bags of something, seed or fertilizer maybe.

Carmen couldn’t see her, but her pursuer must have been stalking down the aisle, looking under the benches, which meant inevitably...

Her hands found a small wooden box containing gardening tools, a blunt trowel, no , a scoop, no , a claw, better , pruning clippers... perfect!

Cowering there on the dirt floor, staying as far back as possible to let the darkness shield her, Carmen watched. Waited. Watched...

Suddenly, the creature was right there, her bare legs coming to a stop, and Carmen held her breath. As the bald woman began to bend down, Carmen shot her hand out, grabbed an ankle, and jerked the woman to the aisle’s hard dirt floor, onto her side, with a hard whump!

The stalker lay motionless for a moment, her bare head making her look like a naked toppled mannequin. Then maniacal eyes popped open, seeking Carmen in the darkness.

Low and lurching forward, the woman wildly poked the knife under the bench, and the blade came within an inch of Carmen’s nose. The next time the knife violated her space, Carmen slashed back with the clippers, gouging the woman’s wrist.

“Ow!” the attacker said, pulling back, trying to get to her feet, but Carmen scrambled out and tackled her, the woman’s knife shocked from her grasp, spinning down the aisle a few feet away.

On top now, Carmen scratched long nails across the woman’s face, drawing blood and an angry scream. The woman grabbed a handful of Carmen’s hair and pulled, yanking so hard it threw Carmen off into the opposite bench, knocking the wind out, the clippers popping from her grasp.

The bald naked woman went after her knife.

Harrow could hear the struggle in the nearby greenhouse, ran to it and threw the door open, Anna just behind .

Carmen found the shears.

She was on her knees when the bald woman turned and ran at her, naked, washed in ivory, surrounded by black roses, beautiful and horrible with the knife raised high, the point aimed down.

Inside the greenhouse now, Harrow saw the bald woman with the knife raised, and drew a bead on her; but he also saw Carmen, on her knees before the woman — at this distance in near darkness, with the two women in such close proximity, did he dare take his shot?

Carmen thrust forward with the pruning clippers tight in her hand, but not in a way that parted the blades, keeping them a single pointed, knifelike double-blade and plunged it into the woman’s belly, aided by the woman running into the thrust, and as she was penetrated, a bizarrely orgasmic expression blossomed on Vince Clay’s sister’s countenance.

But when Carmen released her grasp, the clipper blades stayed behind, to snap open into their V deep within the woman’s flesh, tearing everything in their path. The resulting gurgling scream held no hint of pleasure.

Blood splashed in terrible warmth onto Carmen’s bare skin. Jana Clay fell to one side, knocking hard into a bench but not feeling it. Like the roses around them, the blood on both naked women looked more black than red.

Still on her knees, Carmen slumped and began to cry. Her tears began small, whimpering, but by the time Harrow’s arms were around her, her chest was heaving, sobs wracking her.

Then he was holding her, like a gentle parent, not worried about getting blood on him, just a caring daddy who whispered, “It’s all right, Carmen. It’s all right. They’re both dead, and you’re alive, and it’s over. It’s finally over.”

Three days since they’d taken down the Clays, and Harrow still couldn’t believe the amount of attention getting heaped on Crime Seen . And this time there hadn’t even been a camera along, unless you counted the hidden one behind the two-way mirror in Vincent Clay’s bedroom, adjacent to the make-up niche with its wigs, spirit gum, contact lenses, and other theatrical applications.

Entertainment Weekly and TV Guide wanted cover stories; and Rolling Stone had assigned an award-winning journalist to write about the hunt for Don Juan and Billie Shears.

Harrow found it repellent, while Dennis Byrnes was giddy, delighted to have Don Juan move from a nebulous “maybe a debit” column to the sheer asset one.

At a staff meeting in the conference room, Billy Choi — surprisingly — took a stand they all could get behind.

“I’m fine with these guys doing a story on us,” he said. “Cool with them covering the show. But only with the understanding that the Don Juan/Billie Shears thing is something to touch on, not the focus. I do not want those sickos getting the attention in death that they craved in life. Period.”

And this got Choi a round of applause from his coworkers, and a smile and nod from his boss.

Anna and Captain Womack had expressed their gratitude for what the Killer TV team accomplished, though the FBI sent both Harrow and Byrnes a strongly worded (if not public) statement that the network and its employees had “endangered the welfare of the community by inserting themselves into an active federal investigation.”

Any future dealings with the FBI would likely be chilly.

The more inflammatory cable news networks decried the actions of “that vigilante cop show” — even right-leaning Fox — and op-ed columns from several papers wondered if Harrow and his team had overstepped.

The host of Crime Seen was going over the script for this week’s show, which was tricky, dealing as it did with the Clays, when somebody knocked on the jamb of his open door.

He glanced up to see Carmen Garcia framed there in jeans and a plain black T-shirt contrasting the array of small white bandages on her hands and face. She managed a sideways smile.

“You’re back,” he said.

“Aren’t you the detective.” She came over and sat opposite her boss.

He asked, “Didn’t you just get out of the hospital yesterday?”

“Day before, actually. Figured maybe I might be needed here. Not really crazy about spending time alone right now.”

He tossed the script pages aside. “You want to talk?”

“... One thing’s bothering me.”

“Just one?”

She laughed a little. “Well, I’m fixated on one. But it embarrasses me to say it out loud.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s what all victims say, and it’s stupid.”

“Oh... ‘Why me?’ ”

“You are a detective. Yes — why me? I’d already been through this once. Isn’t that enough for one lifetime? I mean, it would be like that one nurse, who survived the night Richard Speck killed every other nurse in the house? To suddenly wake up next to Gacy or Bundy or something.”

He shrugged. “You’re a TV star, Carmen. You wanted the spotlight. You got it. There’s baggage. Some of it pretty ugly.”

“Okay. I get that. That does make sense.”

“Don Juan and his sister craved the spotlight you were already in. Standing next to you gave them more light.”

Another knock at the jamb.

Harrow didn’t recognize the short, thin, fifty-something sort — but the guy wasn’t just anybody, not in that tailored gray suit, not with that briefcase.

“Help you?” Harrow asked.

“I’m James Watkins,” he said. “Attorney for the Clay estate. May I come in?