Exposure (12 page)

“Giordano, you hear me?”

“Yeah.”

“Don’t move.”

Keeping his eyes on his target, Nico sidled toward the living room window. He drew back a frayed sheer curtain with his left hand and threw a glance outside. All clear.

From the corner of his eye he saw Giordano launch like a rocket.

Nico jerked and his finger pulled the trigger.
Crack
,
crack.
Holes torched in Giordano’s left jaw and right forehead. The man’s body recoiled, and he stumbled backward. Both arms flew up.

He thudded to the floor, face down.

Curses burst from Nico. He shoved his pistol in the waistband of his pants and ran to Giordano. Yanked his shoulder to flip him over. Giordano’s eyes were at half mast, his breath a rattle in his throat. Blood pumped from his head and down his temple.

Fury flooded Nico. “Get up!” He kicked Giordano, then wrenched his arm, dragging him over the carpet. Blood smeared in his wake. “Get up!” When Giordano’s head hit the hall floor, Nico came to his senses. The guy wasn’t going anywhere. Nico threw the man’s limp arm down and straightened, glaring at him.

Giordano twitched — and his breathing stopped. The blood stopped spurting.

Nico ran a hand down his face. Good, real good. Now he’d have to load a deadweight body in the car in broad daylight.

The sound of a loud engine filtered from outside. Nico ran back to the window and edged away the sheers. A man climbed down from a pickup truck and walked over to open his storage unit in the first building. As Nico watched, a van turned into the parking lot and headed for a unit in the second building.

Too late.

He pulled back from the window, thoughts racing. Any minute now more renters were likely to show up. No way could he take the chance on waiting for them to clear.

He turned away, his gaze cutting to Giordano. Blood from the corpse had run onto the hall floor.

Beyond Giordano through the kitchen window, Nico caught a glimpse of black and white on Huff Street.

A police car. Slowing down.

For a stoplight? Or to turn into AC Storage? Maybe some cop coming to pick Giordano up — take him to the station where the Feds could question him?

Nico sprang for the apartment exit. He flung open the door, twisted the cheap lock into place, and slipped through, closing it behind him. Glanced around. The two renters were out of sight in their units. He couldn’t see the black-and-white. If the cop turned in, it would be in seconds.

He ran to his car, pulling the Beretta from his waistband, and jumped inside. Threw the pistol under his seat. He surged on the engine and veered right, up between the two storage buildings, toward the north entrance, forcing himself not to go too fast. As he passed each renter’s car, he flung a look in its direction. One man glanced around, then went back to his boxes. Nico checked his rearview mirror. No black-and-white near Giordano’s apartment. But too late to go back now.

Nico hit Starling Street and turned left.

His shoulders felt like steel. In seconds it had all gone wrong. And he was gonna pay. Bear would eat him alive for leaving Giordano for the cops to find.

Nico smacked the steering wheel and cursed.

At the bottom of the stairs Kaycee peered upward, shoulders lifted, one hand on the banister. She stopped to listen.

No sound from the second floor.

With a deep breath, she mounted the first step.

Certain places on the staircase always creaked, Kaycee knew that. Even so, when the third step groaned beneath her foot, a shiver scuttled across the back of her neck. Her beloved house, her haven for the past five years shape-shifted as she climbed. The walls closed in, the air thickened.

Kaycee reached the sixth step.

She told herself nothing was up there. In two minutes she’d be feeling like an idiot. If she were a child watching her mother mount the stairs with such horror, she’d be disgusted.

But hey,
this
fear wasn’t irrational. She’d just seen a dead man on her monitor.

At the ninth stair Kaycee smelled blood.

The sudden odor flooded her, carrying sound with it — the multiple screams and rush of footsteps from her dream. Only Kaycee wasn’t asleep. The noise banged through the house, her head, so very real.

I’m just imagining this. I’m just . . .

She bent low, a darkness she’d never known closing in. Her fingers curled around the worn banister, fighting to keep her steady. For a long minute she could only drag in air.

We see you.

Eyes bored into her back. She whirled around, knowing they hulked behind her — and nearly lost her balance.

No one below.

Slowly the sounds and smell faded until only the rumor of them remained.

Kaycee turned forward again. She scanned the landing above her, looking for she knew not what.

Her fingers cramped as she pried them from the banister.

Five more stairs.

The eleventh creaked louder than the third, as breath-catching as nails on a chalkboard. Kaycee’s shoulders jerked. She leaned to her right, looking up and around the corner into the hall. Her narrowed eyes searched the carpet for footprints, drag marks. Anything. She saw nothing.

One last stair and she reached the landing. She paused, head cocked, gaze raking across what length of hallway she could see. Her mind still throbbed with memories of the footsteps, the screams and smell. But they didn’t come back.

At the door to the hallway, Kaycee looked toward the dim guest bedroom a short distance on her right. Through its open door she spotted the foot of the bed, its yellow spread smooth to the floor, and one of the windows. The curtains were closed. Grasping her upper arms, she moved down the hall and into the room. She took in the whole bed, the maple dresser and nightstand, framed carousel prints on the walls. The second window’s curtains were also drawn. Kaycee pulled back all the window dressings, letting light into the room.

She thought of Mark the night before, checking all closed-off spaces. Heart knocking, she approached the closet. She fisted her hand around the knob and pulled back the door.

Coats and extra clothes hung as she’d left them. Boxes on the shelves. Kaycee shut the door quickly.

Before she could think twice she sank to her knees, bent down, and lifted the covers to check beneath the bed. Nothing there.

Gaining courage, she retraced her steps up the hall, past the doorway to the stair landing. Turned right into the bathroom. This one was easy. The shower curtain remained pushed all the way back, as Mark had left it. The tub stood empty.

By the time she reached her bedroom, Kaycee wanted this torture to be over. She stepped inside and took it all in with a glance. Her gold comforter and pillows, the two old dressers that once belonged to her mother. She walked around to the other side of the bed, then knelt down to check beneath it. All clear. Finally only her closet remained. Her courage faltered as she approached it, and she hated that.

She didn’t want to live with fear
any more.

Jaw tight, she flung back the closet door — to the sight of her clothes hanging as she’d left them. The floor, the shelf were undisturbed.

Cold relief washed over Kaycee. She closed the door, backed up, and sank upon her bed. Hand to her forehead, she willed her heart to slow. Minutes passed. She couldn’t move.

Her column. Time was ticking.

Kaycee struggled to gather pieces of her strength off the floor.

Slowly, jaw set with determination, she rose and walked toward the stairs. As Kaycee descended, her ankles still trembled.

Back in her office she sat at her desk and gazed at the sunset picture on her desktop. Hannah’s face rose in her mind. Kaycee breathed another prayer for the girl, then clicked into a new Word document. Headed the new column: “World’s Worst Dental Patient, Part 2.” Kaycee’s eyes fell on the time at the bottom right corner of her monitor. Almost nine. She’d left the Parksleys’ house shortly after nine last night.

Hannah hadn’t been seen in twelve hours.

Kaycee gazed at the page waiting to be filled, trying to focus.

Her search through the upstairs rooms wedged back into her thoughts. They’d planned it this way, hadn’t they? She wasn’t supposed to find anything she could take to the police. It would have been far better if they
had
left something behind. Something tangible. Now she still had no proof they’d even been here . . .

Kaycee swiveled around to look over her right shoulder, then her left. She scanned the office walls, the ceiling. They could have returned last night after Mark checked the house and hidden a video camera. They could be watching right now.

Exposure.

But they wanted more than just to watch. They wanted to drive her crazy. And these were high-tech people. Maybe they knew about the dark yellow floor in her dream because they
caused
her to have that dream in the first place. Somehow they’d pushed thoughts into her brain — sights, smells, and sounds. Maybe through hypnosis. Or through something like the subliminal advertising once used in movie theaters — when a split-second flash of buttery popcorn on the screen, too fast for the eyes to register, would send droves of customers to the concession stand.

But why keep showing her pictures of that dead man? Who was he?

Kaycee stared sightlessly at the computer screen. Her mind swirled until it numbed . . .

She blinked. Awareness returned. She took in the white page, the bold heading of the new column. She had to write it. Now.

Kaycee pulled in a deep breath. Placed her fingers on the keys.
Come on
,
Kaycee Raye. You’ve done enough of these. Drag up some humor and write this thing
.

Through sheer will, she began to type.

WHO’S THERE?

BY KAYCEE RAYE

I have a new outlook on drugs.


Remember before my Death by Drilling appointment the dentist gave me a pill to take at home? To start the sedation “process.”


“Take it at seven a.m.,” he said, “and we’ll see you at eight.”


D-Day arrives. I pop the pill and settle on the couch to wait for my demise. Turn on the TV to keep me company.


First fifteen minutes I feel fine. Next fifteen minutes, the same. At seven fifty-five, my designated driver, Tricia, will arrive to ferry me the whole two blocks to the dentist’s deadly domain.


Suddenly, I am feeling . . . strange.


Out the front window I see Tricia’s car pull up to the curb. She toots her horn.


I get up and head for the door. The wall moves — right in front of me. I bounce off and shake my head hard.


Outside, the porch has turned into a shifting sea. I stumble down my three steps like a drunken sailor. Tricia helps me into her car. “You okay?”


“Yeeahhh.” I bare all my teeth in a smile.


As we pull up to the dentist’s office, Miss Chipper receptionist is out the door before I can even fall from Tricia’s car. “Hiiiiey, good
morning!”
She takes my arm to guide me inside. Dratted doorway moves on me. I crash into it twice.


Doc’s waiting for me inside, a concerned expression on his face. The fish in his large aquarium give me goggle-eyed glances.


“Hey, fishies, hey, Doc! Let’s party!”


At least that’s what I try to say. It comes out more like, “. . . heeeey, Doooccc, lesssss paarrrrteeeee.”


I remember moving to the chair. The chair that normally wigs me out just to look at it. Now I don’t care. I plop right down. “Lessss doooo thiissss thinngggg.”


Doc gives me more drugs. Whoooohawwww. They’re crystals under my tongue. Taste like Sweet’N Low. He let’s me sit so I can . . . drift . . .


He comes back. Asks me if I’m ready. “Nuhhh-uuhh. Hittt meeee with sommmme mooorrrre.”


“You sure? You look pretty wasted.”


“Doonn wannaa feeeeel nuthinnnn, Dooooc.”


He processes this. My being out cold is clearly in his best interest. “Okay.”


I have this vague recollection of asking for a third hit.


After that I’m ready, all right. For anything. All fear gone. You hear me —
all fear
. In the
dentist’s
chair.
Man
,
I can take on the world!


As long as I don’t need to stand up to do it.


I feel the needle go into my cheek for numbing. I don’t care. Another needle. (Remember, I needed a lot of work.) I don’t care.


The Big D comes at me. By this time I should have a heartbeat of 500, sweat pouring off me. But now? I don’t care.


The drill goes on. The fun begins in my mouth.