I opened the medicine cabinet and took out the arnica cream. People could label the concoction hippy-dippy all they wanted, but it was the only thing I’d ever found that helped the bruises fade more quickly.
After squirting some onto my arm, I rubbed until the ointment disappeared. The marks still tingled like frozen toes immersed in warm water.
I watched television for a few hours. A day spent with children turned my brain to oatmeal and until I had some distance, I’d be no good for anything. Eventually I popped the cork on a new bottle of cabernet and took both it and the glass to my kitchen table where I proceeded to correct papers.
“You must run.”
In the act of reaching for my wine, the voice nearly made me knock it over. My Puritan hugged the shadows of the living room. He had an accent—Irish? Scottish?—something with a brogue.
“I … uh … What?”
Not only had he never spoken, but he’d never come so close. At this range I could see he was nearer to my age than I’d thought—mid-twenties perhaps—and handsome despite the prudish, black clothes.
“Now, dear girl.”
I glanced at my cell phone, which had been sitting on the table next to my papers, and it flew onto the floor then skidded toward the front door.
I stood. “Was that really necess—”
My Puritan disappeared.
Something moved within my darkened bedroom, and I took a step in that direction.
“Hey,” I began.
The figure started toward me. Though I couldn’t see a face, or even get a sense of male or female amid the swirling shadows, the meat cleaver was unmistakable. I threw open the door and tore down the stairs. “Help!”
Unfortunately it was ten P.M. In New Bergin. Everyone was safe at home, probably already asleep.
I was so dead.
I sprinted into the street, ignoring the chill of the pavement against my bare feet. Where I was going, I had no idea. The police department lay on the other side of town. Not that the town was that big, but it was dark. No streetlights. No need. No one drove around at this time of night, and if they did there was a lovely invention called headlights.
For an instant I believed my thoughts—or my wishes, hopes, and prayers—had conjured some. Then the car that was moving too fast for First Street hit the brakes and screeched to a halt about a foot from my knees. A man jumped out.
Talk about wishes, hopes, and prayers. He was the answer to all three.
Fury brightened his blue gaze. “Are you crazy?”
Despite the color of his eyes, he wasn’t from around here. The Southern accent would have given him away even if I’d been too blind to register the deeper than sun-kissed shade of his skin.
“I … No.”
Maybe, my brain corrected.
I pointed where I’d been, cringing when I realized the knife-wielding maniac could have caught up to me by now, but we were alone.
“There was someone in my apartment. With a meat clever.”
I expected him to laugh and ask if I was high instead of crazy. Instead, those brilliant eyes hardened. “Get in the car.” He reached inside and came out with a gun. “Lock the doors.”
While I stood there gaping, he hurried toward my apartment. I glanced back and forth, torn between following him and doing as he’d ordered. Then the wind picked up, making the autumn leaves rattle like bones. The headlights blared down the street, creating shadows at the end that might be a dog, a cat, a murderer, or just shadows.
I got in the car.
*
Bobby climbed the steps to the second-story apartment. The door loomed open. No meat-cleaver-wielding maniac burst out. But there was still time.
On the landing he leaned right and left, able to see nearly the entire living area and kitchen through the open door. Both were empty.
“Police,” he announced, and stepped inside. “Show yourself.”
Nothing moved but the papers on the table, which ruffled in the breeze through the door. A few had drifted onto the floor next to a cell phone, which the woman must have dropped when she ran. A cell phone would have been a good item to take along, but people did strange things when they were frightened.
The papers appeared to be homework for the very young and proved an intriguing contrast to the nearly full glass of wine glistening like rubies in the lamplight.
On one side of the sheet were three fish, four cats, two bicycles, and so on. The other side listed the numbers. Wavy crayon lines connected the numbers to the pictures.
Bobby tilted his head, narrowed his eyes. Looked like Jacob needed some special help as he’d connected the cats to the three and the fish had been counted as two.
“Focus.” The meat-cleaver maniac might still be through door number one or door number two.
The first loomed open on a shadowy bedroom. He flicked on the light, peeked behind the door, under the bed, in the closet. Nothing but brightly colored, casual clothes and more dust than she probably wanted anyone to see.
He backed out, flicked the next doorknob, and sent the closed door flying open.
Bathroom. Empty.