Her gaze came back very unwillingly to him. Homeless? Druggie?
He must have seen her gaze slip sideways or her right foot begin an instinctive back step because he raised the barrel of a gun he’d been holding at his side until it came to a stop aimed at her midsection. “Get the fuck in here.”
Shay froze. That voice. She knew it from the phone calls.
Her stalker. The man who’d carved that ugly word into her car door. The man who’d tossed a cat under her wheels. The man Eric had sent here to—what?
A fist of fear closed over her stomach. She moved backward automatically.
“Stop!”
Her feet stopped their backward motion.
Grinning, he waved her in with the barrel. “I said get in here.”
She thought of running anyway, but she knew the instant she saw him that this man would use his gun.
“Who are you and what are you doing here?” Useless questions but they were all that came to mind.
He looked at her as if she’d spoken to him in a language he didn’t understand. Finally he shrugged and set the tequila bottle down by the chair. “Stupid bitch.”
This time he beckoned to her with his free hand. “And shut the door,” he added as she hesitated.
Shay pushed it to with her foot, wondering what time James would show up. She had no doubt now. He and Bogart would show up. They had to. Tonight. She just had to stay alive until then.
She walked over to the living room table on legs that had gone stiff as a pair of chopsticks, and placed her canvas grocery bags down. She had reached for the lemon sorbet ice cream to put it away, buying a moment to collect herself, before she realized she was testing the patience of a man with a gun. She turned around slowly.
He was still there, only he was no longer by the easy chair. He was much closer.
Fear set fire to her senses. Unlike when James had burst in on her, and she could see nothing but gun, this time her senses bombarded her with vivid detail. The red-and-black plaid shirt over a greasy tee, the jeans, the sneakers that were much more expensive than anything else he wore and, finally, his face. It was big and round and red with a fringe of black stubble, like a beet that had just been dug up. Black hair sprouted from his scalp like monkey grass. Eyes black and intense as a hawk’s sat above a squashed nose. And then there was the gun.
She didn’t know guns but she thought fleetingly that this one had had a hard life. Compared to those on TV, so shiny they vibrate with light. The one he fisted was dull and grazed with use. It seemed deadlier.
She chased around in her head looking for an attitude to adopt. Because it was all she really had, she chose pissed off. “You’re making a mistake. I know who sent you.”
“You don’t know shit.” He moved toward her, but not too close. “I been watching you all week. You didn’t know that, did you? Stupid bitch! Watched you go to work and come home. Lucky thing I showed up in time to follow you out here. Saved me trying to snatch you.”
Several responses whip-snaked through her thoughts but only one seemed pertinent. “If you’ve been stalking me then you know my boyfriend is a cop.”
He grinned. It revealed a shantytown of bad teeth. “You like to fuck?”
She didn’t shrink back in revulsion but beneath her sweatshirt her muscles contracted, ready to fight for her life. Her phone was in her purse. Impossible inches away.
She strained to keep her gaze from shifting toward it. Even so, he seemed to know what she was thinking. He waved her away from the table. “Over there, by the chair.”
She moved in a half-circle around him to reach the oversized stuffed chair he pointed to.
As she moved, her overstimulated gaze raked every inch of their surroundings for weapons. Logs stacked by the fireplace. The poker leaning against the hearth. The kerosene lamp on the mantel. The tequila bottle by the chair. She would have to be fast to grab any one of them. And then what? None of them were more dangerous than a loaded gun.
When she reached the chair it suddenly seemed like a trap, something that would restrict her ability to move. Instead, she perched on one arm, her body tensed for flight though where or how seemed to face insurmountable obstacles at the moment.
Buy time. Keep the assailant talking. Learn something. Anything. She’d watched crime shows. That’s what all law enforcement professionals told hostages to do.
A shudder rolled through her. “Did Eric send you?”
He snorted, as if she’d said something funny. “Who the fuck is Eric?”