Alone (30 page)

Serenity was out there, he knew
it.

Her
vulnerability scared him, alone
somewhere on the poorly lit structure, with a creature who wanted
her dead hot on her trail.

The pier looked different from the last
time they visited. Gone were the tourists, bright lights and music.
Instead, silence settled over the structure and a bright yellow
‘Caution’ tape roped off the front entrance, warning people to stay
out. Signs informed visitors of the pier now being a construction
site, instructing that hard hats must be worn at all times. Huge
pieces of machinery—a giant borer drilling machine, a couple of
cement mixers and a huge flatbed truck with several steel girders,
one hundred feet in length, resting on the back—were positioned at
the end of the pier. The wharf was quiet now, the workmen long
gone.

Sebastian wanted to call out for Serenity
but held his tongue, afraid Madeline might be near. Instead, he
used his sense of smell and followed the faint hint of iron on the
still night air.

He stepped over the tape and onto the
pier. It was strange seeing the place like this, so still and
somehow exposed. Removing all the laughter and lights and music
uncovered the place for what it really was—smoke and mirrors.
Without people, the structure contained no life.

At a normal pace, a human pace, he walked
down the length of the pier toward the machinery at the
end.

Right at the end, on the right hand side,
work had begun.

A huge metal cylinder had been sunk in the
water, down into the bedrock. It ran parallel to the struts already
supporting the pier. The existing struts couldn’t be removed; doing
so would compromise the integrity of the pier and weaken it. Safer
to add more support to what already existed. Several days earlier,
the cylinder had been sunk and water pumped out of the huge metal
tube. Embedded into the bedrock, the cylinder was now water tight.
A ladder ran down the sheer internal wall, allowing the workmen
access.

Sebastian didn’t care about the
construction. His attention focused on the woman sitting on the
back of the flatbed truck, her legs dangling over the
end.

Serenity
managed a shaken smile as he
approached. “I knew you would come.”

“
What the hell are you doing?” he
said. “What if I hadn’t found you and Madeline did
instead?”

She didn’t answer his question. Instead,
she pushed herself off the flatbed and landed with her feet firmly
on the ground. She walked up to him and took hold of his hand,
focusing his attention. Her smile disappeared.

“
Sebastian, you need to listen to
me,” she said with urgency behind her voice. “And you need to trust
me. She’ll be here soon and I want you to hide. When Madeline gets
here, you need to promise me—promise
me—you will wait until I call before you
come out.”

Sebastian started to interrupt, but she
held up her hand, stopping him.

“
As soon as I call out, I want
you to come and pull me out of the pipe, but not just me. You need
to pull up the ladder, as well. Can you do that? Do you have the
strength to rip the whole ladder up?”

“
Yes, of course, but what are you
planning?” he said, squeezing her hand, fear for her life
encompassing him. “What the hell are you doing, Serenity? We need
to get out of here.”

“
Please, don’t even think about
the reason for what you’re doing. You can’t
think about it. Just do as I ask. I
know this site, Sebastian. It was one of the contracts my old
company was working on before I got fired. I know the construction
and what materials are being used. It might not be much, but it’s
something and I intend to use every advantage we have.”

“
But...”

“
Shut up, Sebastian,” she said.
“I can’t always have someone looking after me. I need to do this
for myself.”

“
No. No, you...”

H
e stopped.

“
She’s coming,” he hissed.
“I can hear her.”

“
Then go,” she said. “But please,
do as I ask”

So he
did.

The sound of the siren
blaring above James
Bently’s head gave him comfort. With confidence, he skillfully
guided the car as traffic pulled to the side, allowing him
through.

H
e headed across Lincoln Boulevard and hit
a red light. The car in front didn’t budge. Some young guy had his
music on so loud at first he didn’t hear the police siren behind
him. Then his gaze flicked up to the rear view mirror to see the
police officer staring back. Momentary panic flashed in his eyes
before he pulled the car to the right.

After
Serenity’s call came through, James
told Dawson to go home. His partner did so willingly—Dawson had
already been peeved from their trip to the hotel—and happily called
it a night.

Heart racing, James sped through the city.
Serenity’s terror had been apparent on the phone. She said someone
was after her and James believed her.

S
o many questions raced through his mind.
What the hell had happened at the hotel? He no longer questioned
the possibility that someone else had disappeared from the room,
but what she’d gotten herself involved with remained a mystery. He
couldn’t explain much of what had happened—from how the glass in
the bedroom had been broken, to how someone managed to shatter
dozens of windshields in a matter of seconds and then disappear
without a trace. If he didn’t know better, James would have thought
he was chasing a ghost.

S
omething wasn’t right. He was afraid of
what he might find when he eventually reached Serenity, as though
some part of him had already seen his future and couldn’t quite
comprehend it.

He wasn’t on duty anymore. If someone
reported him driving through Los Angeles with his lights and siren
on, because of a phone call from a woman he barely knew, he would
be reprimanded.

Would he be doing this if the woman in
question didn’t have big, dark eyes, or skin the color of cream?
Everything about her made him want to protect and take care of her.
It made him crazy that a woman like Serenity would stay with a
husband who hurt her.

You’d do the same for anyone
else in trouble
, he told himself. He’d do exactly the same thing if
Serenity was thirty years older or a man.

So
why did his heart beat so hard and his
palms leave a slick of sweat on the steering wheel?

James
hoped he’d get to the pier before
whoever was chasing her reached Serenity first.

T
he most obvious answer to all of this was
her good-for-nothing husband. He’d come out of whatever hole he’d
been hiding in and found where she was staying. James couldn’t
explain how he’d broken the window in the hotel room, but Serenity
must have finally run from him. James refused to be another man who
let her down.

The vehicle ate up the miles, the wail of
the siren helping things along. The car sped down the Pacific Coast
Highway and into the affluent area of Santa Monica. Within minutes,
he headed down Colorado Avenue toward the pier. Before he got too
close, James killed the siren.

Immediately, the silence struck him. He
had forgotten the pier was closed for reinforcements and had
expected the place to be covered in the usual throng of tourists
and bright lights. Tonight, darkness settled over the structure.
Only the thin strip of colored bulbs hanging along the edges
offered any light.

A silver BMW sat abandoned at the entrance
with its headlights left on. The bright halogens lit up the front
part of the pier, revealing frozen pigs with saddles on their
backs, and painted grins on their faces. The effect on the carousel
was eerie and a shiver ran down his spine. He wasn’t a man who
spooked easily, but after the events earlier, things had
changed.

James pulled his patrol car up beside the
BMW and got out. Everything remained quiet. He’d known work was
taking place on the pier, but he hadn’t thought about it when
Serenity gave him the place to meet. That wasn’t like him; he
didn’t usually miss details. The sudden appearance of Serenity in
his life seemed to be changing him.

He put his hand on his hip, reassured
by the solid metal of his gun in its holster. He didn’t know if
Serenity’s husband would be carrying, but he wasn’t going to take
the risk of going out there unarmed.

With cautious but fast steps,
James
headed
out onto the wharf, using the now dark and silent attractions as
cover. The holster of his gun was unclasped, his fingers never far
from the weapon. He scanned the area, searching for any place
Serenity might hide. He wanted to call her name, but didn’t want to
alert her husband to his location.

The silent amusements loomed over him; a
clown’s maniacal face, a giant porcelain fortune teller with wide,
staring eyes. James wished he’d called for backup.

Maybe Serenity hadn’t reached the pier
yet? He did have the advantage of a police car and siren. If not
for the abandoned BMW, he might have convinced himself he was
alone.

Then he saw her.

Serenity stood, balanced on the end of the
pier. One of the huge metal cylinders being used to reinforce the
pier had been sunk deep into the ocean beside her.

Beyond the pier, beyond the black sea, an
ominous grouping of clouds grew on the horizon. The bank rolled
toward them, threatening to blanket the moon and steal what little
light they had. A cold wind picked up, lifting Serenity’s hair from
her neck and making James unconsciously tighten his
muscles.

The sudden chill wasn’t the only
thing causing James to tense;
Serenity wasn’t alone.

A woman stood in front of her, her back to
James. Red hair fell in spirals down her back.

A memory tugged at him.

The two women appeared to be in a
stand-off. The other woman stood tall, with her hands on her hips,
not looking the slightest bit intimidated.

Could this be the person chasing Serenity?
The same person who had smashed the window in the hotel? A woman?
He found it hard to believe a female would have the strength and
speed to create such damage, but it wasn’t impossible. However, the
manager at the hotel said a man and a woman were staying in the
hotel room, not two women.

That wasn’t his concern right now; he
needed to focus on the scene in front of him.

At first he thought neither of the women
had noticed him but then Serenity’s eyes flickered to his and he
saw them dark with abject fear.

Something was very wrong
here.

Instinct switched on and he snatched his
gun from his holster. James opened his mouth to shout ‘freeze’, but
never got the chance.

The woman spun around snarling, her lips
drawn back from teeth which looked as though they’d been filed down
to razor points. Her eyes glowed in the dark; bright yellow with
slit pupils like those of a snake. Her skin was whiter than the
moon, and had the appearance of a corpse; waxy and shiny. Despite
all of this, James recognized her immediately. Although he hadn’t
been present when the woman came in to the station to report
Jackson Hathaway had raped her, he’d seen the photographs taken as
evidence.

Except, she wasn’t just a
woman.

She focused on him and leaped. Her
movements were unnatural, more animal than human. She flew through
the air, face contorted in a terrible snarl, fingers outstretched
and curled as though she intended to tear him apart with her
fingertips when she landed.

James reacted. He raised the gun and fired
three times in quick succession. Her body jerked in the air, once,
twice, three times, and then dropped to the ground a few feet from
him.

Though in
shock, his mind was already
forming reasons—maybe a bad dose of ice, a horrific drug that had
become popular in the city—anything to rationalize what he’d seen.
In his eight years as a cop, he’d never been forced to kill a woman
and the act shook him to his core.

But even as he came up with excuses, she
started to get to her feet.

“
What the fuck?” he
breathed.

In the rapidly deteriorating
light, he searched for Serenity
. She no longer stood on the edge of the pier. She
must be hiding and he didn’t blame her.

The woman stood up straight, her eyes
wide, never blinking. She tilted her head to one side and looked
him up and down.

“
You fucking shot me!” she
said, as though outraged by his actions.

James opened him mouth and closed it
again. He’d been about to apologize and then realized how insane
that was. How was she standing there? How the fuck was she speaking
to him? She should be dead.

He searched her chest, trying to find the
bullet holes and accompanying blood. Had he missed? No, he’d seen
her body jerk as the bullets hit.

“
What the hell are you?” he said,
his voice barely a whisper. Her face was an unearthly white and he
struggled to believe those terrifying yellow eyes belonged in this
world.