This close, his eyes red-rimmed as if he’d been crying, bore into her. “I’ll never let you go. You belong to me. I love you.” His body hummed with need. Need to own her. Need to possess her. Need to hear her words of love.
More tears spilled down the sides of her face. He controlled so much in this moment. Life or death rested in his palms. All she controlled were her words. The truth. If she died tonight, Philip would know her heart. “I don’t love you.”
He flinched as if he’d been slapped. “You’ve been brainwashed. Your mother and your friends filled you with lies. Poisoned you against me.”
“I don’t love you.” Defiance pricked as sharp as the knife’s tip. “You don’t own me.”
Pain deepened the lines of his face, even as his teeth bared into a snarl. He lowered his lips to her ear. Warm breath against her skin raked over her nerves.
“I love you,” he whispered. “I love you. Why can’t you understand that?”
Out of habit, not love, she raised her hand to his muscled arm, her touch gentle as if soothing a beast. “Philip, this isn’t love.”
He burrowed his face in the crook of her neck. Hot breath brushed the nape of her neck as his hand fisted her blond hair in his hand. “It’s love. It is.”
“No, Philip.” A lie crept from the shadows. “You deserve better.”
A fist pounded on the apartment’s front door. “Ms. Carson! Ms. Carson! This is the police!”
The officer’s voice cut through the door and relief collided with tension. The cops!
He flinched. “Shh. It’s just us, the way it’s supposed to be.”
Her fingers hardened into a grip. “Help me! Please save me.”
Philip rose up, eyed her, disappointment mingling with anger. “Carson. You told the operator your name was Carson. You took your maiden name back.”
The anger-coated words stoked a flicker of guilt. His temper, his abuse was not her fault but even after all the pain, he could so easily press the button that triggered guilt. Her weakness shamed her. “The cops are here. Go! Run while you can, Philip. Leave through the window. Just go! You don’t want to go to jail.”
He pressed the knife’s tip to the hollow of her neck. “That would suit you just fine.”
“I don’t want to see you in jail.” She prayed the directness in her gaze covered the lie. “You don’t deserve jail. You need a doctor.”
“I don’t need a doctor. I need you!”
“Ms. Carson!” the officer shouted. “Are you in there?”
Nothing would sway Philip. Nothing. “Yes!” she screamed. Philip winced and pressed the tip of the knife to her neck. The tip scraped skin and drew blood.
How much longer before the cop got into her apartment? How long to slice skin? Seconds?
Blood flickered along the narrow column of her neck and dripped on her hair. “Please.”
“We’re meant to be together.” Desperation tinged the anger.
“Just leave. While you can.”
He dragged the tip of the knife over her belly, etching a red scratch along her pale midline.
Fear contorted her gut as keys rattled in the front door. Had the cops gotten the apartment manager’s master key? Hurry! A door opened and caught on the security chain. The balance of her life depended on seconds.
Philip mopped up the blood trickling from her neck with his forefinger and smeared it across his forehead. “We live and die together.”
He raised the knife and plunged it into her gut. At first, shock and then agony sliced and burned through her insides as she stared into blue eyes that danced with satisfaction. He pulled the knife back and drove it down toward her neck. It skidded over her collarbone, before he sliced her cheek and her arms.
Cops pounded on the door. “Ms. Carson!”
Screaming, she grabbed the blade. The edge cut her palms. Blood gushed from her hands as he pulled the blade free and raised it again. She lost count of how many times he stabbed her before he rose breathless and stood over her. He stared a long moment at the blood blooming on the bedsheets. His eyes filled with fresh tears. “What have I done? God, I’m sorry.”
In the next instant, he vanished through the window, leaving her alone and bleeding. Stunned by pain, she lay still, feeling the warm blood pool around her body.
A scream caught in her throat as her hands went to her belly, now crimson and wet. The front door banged open and then the bedroom door. The silhouette of the cop appeared in the doorframe. “Leah Carson?”
The cop’s gaze settled on the blood pooling around Leah and then swept the room for threats. When he determined the room was clear, he holstered his gun and pushed a button attached to the mike on his vest. “I need an ambulance . . .”
His deep voice drifted away as her insides burned and her heart pumped hard. She lay as still as possible, fearing Philip had severed an artery.
Her mind drifted to a sandy beach where the breeze was gentle, the sky a bright blue, and the sun warm.
“Ms. Carson, can you hear me?” Desperation edged the words. “Open your eyes.”
She looked up and saw the blurred face of an officer with dark, graying hair. Kind, worried eyes.
“Can you hear me?”
“Yes.”
“Who did this to you?”
Air hissed from a slice in her chest as she gasped in a breath. “My husband. Philip Latimer.”
The room chilled quickly. A shiver passed through her body, and she imagined her spirit leaving, drifting above, looking down at the pale lifeless body that had been her.
Her eyes closing, her mind traveled to a warm beach, where the sky winked crystal clear and the waves lapped against fine sand. A seagull squawked. A gentle breeze. So far away from the pain, Philip, and Death.