On a whim, she took the turnoff to Cal’s barn. It was closer than town. There was no one there unless Tom was getting a very early start since he wouldn’t be waking the occupants. But she could get inside and lock herself in. She had a key to Cal’s house right on her key ring. And once in the house she could call for help. She could press her alarm button—the noise wouldn’t serve any purpose, lost in the countryside, but it would signal Connie’s cell phone...if Connie even had his cell phone nearby. For all she knew he could be out on a call, some early-morning heart attack out on a ranch.
But never mind, it was only important to get herself into a safe fortress and hope to be able to hold him off until help could arrive. She roared down the road toward her brother’s house. Mother Nature was trying her best to foil her—the road was blocked by a small herd of elk and she laid on the horn with all her might. They barely moved and she scooted that little pumpkin onto the shoulder and wove carefully through them. Seven of them, one bull. And apparently in no hurry.
She heard a horn and looked into the rearview mirror—they had closed ranks around him and he couldn’t move. She sped down the road, digging in her purse as she drove. She grabbed her cell phone and her pepper spray and less than five minutes later, pulled right up to the door and ran from the car so fast she didn’t even put it in Park. He was just pulling into the clearing as she fumbled with the keys. A small squeak of panic escaped her as she tried to get the key in the lock, the door open. Just as she was getting inside she saw him running toward her and yes, it was him. Derek or Craig, or whoever else he was now pretending to be. She whirled inside and locked the door behind her. She depressed the alarm button and sent the noise screaming into the air.
He rattled the door immediately. She backed away from it. She went as far back into the house as she dared to get away from the noise and yet be able to see the door. She dialed 9-1-1.
“Emergency,” the operator said.
“This is Sierra Jones and I’m being pursued by a rapist. I think his name is Craig Dixon and the police are after him. He followed me and I’m locked in my brother’s house.”
“Address?”
“Crap,” she said. “I have no idea! Conrad Boyle, firefighter in Timberlake, he knows. Please! Please! He’s trying to get in. Please!”
“Where is the house, ma’am,” the operator asked.
“It’s a barn turned into a house and it’s in the country, isolated, right between Sullivan’s Crossing and Timberlake. Crap.” She shoved her phone in her pocket and ran to the kitchen and lifted the cordless. She dialed 9-1-1 again.
“Emergency,” the operator said.
“Help! Help! The house is on fire and I’m trapped!” Then she laid down the phone with the line still open and grabbed her cell phone just as the door was kicked open. She hit the speed dial for Connie’s number but she didn’t have time to say anything. She put the phone down in the shrieking din of her alarm and backed away, holding her pepper spray behind her back. Terrified, she knew she’d have to let him get close for it to be effective. And his approach was so slow. Her alarm stopped. The silence almost echoed.
“Well, clever girl, you tricked me,” he said.
“No,” she said, shaking her head.
“How do you expect me to find you if you stop going to bars?” He turned around, kicked the door closed and then methodically pushed the heavy picnic table against the door. She noticed his strong arms, his muscled back and shoulders and was terrified. For the first time she found it strange that he didn’t seem to carry a weapon. But his strength was his weapon. Oh dear God, don’t let Connie get hurt, she prayed. She was backed right up against the kitchen counter.
He turned toward her again. “I guess we’re going to spend a little time together, my little bitch.”
She just shook her head and reminded herself not to let him get close enough to touch her.
“I couldn’t find you,” he said. “You gave up the bars and you threw away your phone, naughty girl.”
He was six feet away. Then four feet. Then she pulled out the small canister and fired right into his face. He cried out and with lightning speed his arm shot out and knocked the canister from her hand, but not before he’d taken a hit in the face. Maybe not as much as she’d hoped, but he’d been hit. And she’d gotten a little overspray; she felt the sting in her eyes immediately.
Though half blind and disoriented, he grabbed her and slugged her in the face so hard she fell. He kicked her out of the way and she couldn’t breathe. She thought she was doomed but then he went to the sink and flushed his face with water. She wasn’t sure she could stand so she crawled away from him as quickly as she could.
When she had a little distance from him, she pulled herself upright but looked despairingly at the picnic table against the door, her eyes tearing madly. If she broke a window, could she somehow outrun him? Was his vision bad enough to give her a chance? Because after being kicked in the stomach, she wasn’t going to be very fast.
She couldn’t afford to think about it for long. She took to the stairs. She would be cornered up there but her only hope was to stay alive long enough for help to come. She’d made three calls for help. Cal’s house wasn’t close to first responders and it would take them a little while—ten or fifteen minutes—but she was banking on this man’s pathology. He wasn’t going to kill her until he tormented her. She’d survived him once, she could survive him again.
She ran to the master bedroom and closed the door but of course there was no lock on the door. She gave the bureau a tug but she couldn’t budge it. She looked around for something to bar the door, something to hit him with. She looked in the master closet, so large it was almost a room unto itself. Cal and Maggie hadn’t moved their things into the closet yet because Tom was still in the process of finishing it with custom shelves and hanger rods. The finished wood was cut to the right sizes, stacked and about half the closet finished.
She heard some powerful pounding coming from downstairs and she tried to imagine what he was doing. Breaking up the place? Destroying it?
On top of the pile of boards sat the nail gun.
She had to search for an outlet and plugged it in. She lifted it to turn it on and it was so heavy she could barely hold it. She’d been around Cal’s house when some of the building was going on and she knew from observation you couldn’t fire nails out of the gun by pulling a trigger—the later models had been improved and were much safer than the earlier nail guns. It had to be pressed against something to work. And it was too heavy for her to hold behind her back like a small canister of pepper spray.
She heard breaking glass and wondered what it was. Was he trying to make his escape through a broken window? She sat atop the stacked boards, the nail gun in front of her and the outlet behind her.
Then, without warning, he was standing in front of her in the closet doorway. She nearly jumped out of her skin. His eyes were red and already swelling, his burned cheeks wet with his tears. And yet the sneer on his face was so awful, so sinister. She remembered—this was what he liked! A victim who fought!
There was a shout from inside the house.