Behind Closed Doors

Were they going to finish with Laura after they broke his neck? He couldn’t leave her to them…

Harry’s flesh cooled, the red behind his eyes dissipating, before he realized that the gloved fingers around his neck were gone. He opened his eyes.

He and Laura were alone.

She’d twisted herself around until her lower body was under the covers. Her body shook with sobs.

Tears blinding him, pain in his nose and head and shoulder keeping him sane, Harry threw himself upward and over, hopping the chair inch by inch toward the bedpost where they’d tied Laura’s hands. And half an hour later, with his back to the post, using the numbed tips of his fingers, he had unfastened the ropes, sickened by the wetness he felt.

Blood? Or sweat?

Laura grunted, a deep, unfeminine sound that he couldn’t decipher. But in seconds she was at his wrists, releasing them. He went for his gag next.

“Oh, my love, I’m so sorry,” he said even before he’d untied his feet and faced her.

He assumed she’d untied her own gag as well. He couldn’t be sure. She didn’t say a word. And didn’t stick around for anything else he might have said or done.

Before he’d freed one ankle, Harry heard the bathroom door behind him slam.

And lock.

2

S he had to get them off her. Now. Away. Off her. Gone.

Hearing nothing except the internal voice hollering for cleanliness, Laura ripped at her gown. Her arms were weak, her hands shaking so badly she couldn’t grip. Pinching the fabric between her fingers she pulled, pinched and pulled, but she couldn’t get free.

Get this off me!

Her mind wouldn’t quiet yet couldn’t help.

With tears running off her chin, she stomped her feet, pulling at the garment. Trying to see, to focus on what she was doing.

Pinch and pull. Pinch and pull. And then, almost miraculously, she managed to get a handful of the thin cotton in one fist.

No! Get off me!

Clutching the material, Laura ripped for all she was worth. And stumbling, falling against the counter, she climbed through the tear she’d made down the middle of the gown, leaving the offensive material in a pool on the floor. The blurred image swam before her, blending with the light beige and blue of the tile. It couldn’t stay there.

Couldn’t stain her space with its filth. And she couldn’t touch it again. The disease it carried would crawl through her fingertips, up her arm and, like a spike of poison, slice straight through her heart.

The fuzziness in her mind, the haze surrounding her, enclosing her, allowed only one image at a time to intrude. And her focus was one-hundred percent on that image. The shard of poison—she could see it piercing her heart. Could feel it.

And do nothing.

Then she recognized the gown again. In a heap on the floor. Inches from her bare feet.

Feet that had touched dirt many times. All those summer days she’d walked barefoot as a kid. As she envisioned her toes sliding toward the gown, picking it up, dropping it in the plastic-lined trash can by the toilet, she thought she could do it.

Laura had no idea how long she stood there before she moved. And when she did, she caught a glimpse of her body in the mirror.

She was completely naked. Exposed. Her breast was discolored.

With a shriek, she grabbed a fistful of toilet paper. Using it, she picked up the gown, tossed it in the toilet, flushed and waited. It didn’t go all the way down. She flushed again.

And when the toilet water started to rise, she kicked at the handle behind the seat until it shut off, stopping all flow inside the tank.

The gown floated uselessly in the bowl, half down the drain, captive. It was sewage now.

As quickly as she could, Laura slammed the seat down.

Detective Daniel Boyd stared at his computer screen at the Tucson precinct, thinking about the cinnamon twist Danish he was going to get out of the machine just as soon as he’d finished checking the next hundred names and times and phone numbers on his list. He was looking for a call made from a cell phone in Tucson at the same time as one made from a phone booth in Phoenix. He could be home in bed. His shift had long since ended.

But if he didn’t get this done tonight, he’d have to do it in the morning. And the work was boring as hell.

It also was going to point him to Sherry O’Connor’s rapist—before that vile excuse for a human being struck again. The Phoenix cops had caught his counterpart that afternoon—a wimp who’d blabbed like a baby as soon as they’d brought him in, telling how the two men who’d never met had called a third, the coordinator, who’d arranged it so they’d both be raping teenage girls at the same time. They’d all connected through the Internet, the third man offering to set up time, place and opportunity in exchange for detailed accounts. It got the rapists off, knowing they were both doing it at once.

Sick. Sick. Sick.

Too bad their Phoenix perp hadn’t known the name of his Tucson partner in crime. Phoenix police were still trying to trace the coordinator.

And that was for them to handle. Daniel had Sherry O’Connor’s rapist to worry about. As soon as he put a name to the number and time, he’d have his man.

“Go home, Boyd, it’s three in the morning.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Slouched in his chair, he didn’t even look up as Robert Miller, a twenty-year veteran officer and Daniel’s partner for the past five, walked by. God knew, Miller wouldn’t work an extra minute if it was up to him. They’d just come in from a desert crime scene—a young boy whose body had begun to decompose, but luckily for forensic purposes, hadn’t been found by coyotes. From an old break in the jawbone, they’d been able to tentatively identify the remains as those of Matthew Frazier, a twelve-year-old who’d gone missing four months earlier on his way home from school. Just hours afterward, they’d found the boy’s pants in some bushes about a mile from his home. They were stained with semen from two different men—which made it Daniel and Robert’s case.

He’d track down the bastard responsible for the boy’s death now that he had a body—concrete evidence. He couldn’t save the life.

But this one…

Even after five years in the sex crimes bureau, Daniel couldn’t just go home and rest when he was close to solving a case. Taking a break might mean the difference between a young woman living with strength and confidence—and one constantly having to fight fear and panic to recover the slightest hint of peace.

As always, memories of Sheila, or at least an awareness of those memories, kept him awake and working, even if that meant missing a night’s sleep. He rarely thought consciously about his older sister. Couldn’t allow himself to get that close. But history had taught him that this near the end of a case, he’d miss his sleep one way or another—either working though the long night hours or lying alone in the dark, remembering.

Daniel’s phone rang. There’d been another rape. Grabbing his jacket, Daniel called out to his partner who was just leaving, dispatched a forensics team to the crime scene and headed for the hospital.

“Laura! Honey! Open the door!” Harry rattled the doorknob, overwhelmed by helplessness. “Please?”

Wiping dried blood from his nose, which he figured probably wasn’t broken, he stared at the door separating him from his wife. “Laura?”

Getting the same response he’d been receiving for the past five minutes—none—Harry slumped his good shoulder against the frame, his swollen face an inch from the jamb.

He could hear movement, the toilet flushing, sniffling.

“Honey?” Shaking with the need to get to her, Harry tried not to feel the throbbing in his face and head.

“Laura? Don’t shower. We have to get you to a doctor, baby.”