The One Safe Place (19 page)

But that decision was for tomorrow. Right now he had a frightened girl and a sick dog to think about.

“Good,” he said again, trying not to look at the way Faith's breasts curved under the lace of the nightgown, trying not to see the soft, dark circles that lay just below her tired eyes. “I guess I'll see you in the morning, then.”

 

I
T WAS FOOD POISONING
, he would bet on it. Reed did what he had to do, and he did it quickly. In a very few minutes, once the dog's stomach was empty and
he'd begun the temporary IV drip, Reed began to see some changes.

Vincent's gaze cleared a little, and he tried to raise his head from the pillow Suzie had placed under it.

“Not yet, buddy,” Reed said softly. He stroked the dog's glossy coat. “You just rest.”

Suzie, who had been sent out of the room on a contrived errand, stuck her head back in the door. She blanched at the sight of the IV. “Is he going to be okay?”

“I think so.” Reed stood to stretch his legs for a minute. “I think he may have gotten into some bad food. Has he been in the garbage?”

She shook her head. “No.” She sat on the floor next to her dog and laid her hand on his back. “They both spend a lot of time out back. They love the cold weather. But there's no garbage out there.”

Reed didn't like the sound of that. It was always disturbing when the culprit couldn't be easily identified. There was always the chance of bad canned food, which might hurt other dogs, as well. Or half a dozen other troubling scenarios. But when he got Vincent back to the clinic, he could make a better diagnosis.

“He's going to pull through fine.” He smiled at Suzie. “So, otherwise, are you doing okay?”

She nodded. “If Vincent's okay, I'm okay.”

“I meant about Mike. I know there's a lot going on right now, and it must be pretty rough on you. You guys were getting pretty serious, weren't you?”

She sighed and rolled her eyes. “I'm not gonna saddle him with another kid, if that's what you mean. I'm not sleeping with him. I'm not that dumb.”

He laughed. “The thought never crossed my mind.”

“It didn't? Hmmm… That might be a little more than I can swear to,” she said, chuckling.

At least she still had a sense of humor about it, Reed thought. It couldn't really have destroyed her if she could still laugh about it.

Okay, now back to business. He took a breath, scanning Suzie's neat kitchen, where she had made a temporary bed for Vincent. Claude was locked in the utility room, but they could hear him pacing and whining softly, wondering why he couldn't come out and play. Reed didn't like the idea of Suzie alone here all night, but maybe Claude could be both watchdog and companion enough.

“I need to take Vincent back to the clinic. I believe he's going to be fine, but it might be a good idea to watch him.”

She looked stricken at the thought. “I need to be with him,” she said thinly. “I'll go crazy if he's there, and I'm here. It's almost three in the morning anyhow. There's not that much night left. I'll sit up with him, and then, in the morning when I get my car fixed—it's probably just a battery—I'll bring him over for you to double-check.”

It was a rushed collection of logical arguments. She looked so tragic, sitting there with her black leggings
and black turtleneck sweater, her face pale and devoid of makeup.

“Okay?” She turned big, dark, pleading eyes his way. “Okay, Dr. Fairmont? He can just stay here with me, right?”

He didn't see how he was going to have the heart to say no. But he needed to keep Vincent where he could deal with any unexpected developments. He was within an inch of inviting Suzie to come camp out in the clinic next to her dog.

Luckily, at that moment, he saw Mike Frome's bright red Jeep pull up in Suzie's back driveway. Suzie saw it, too. She went even whiter, and though she set her jaw tightly, her eyes began to shine.

Reed knew the visit was problematic, in a lot of ways, but he didn't care about that right now. It was time for Mike Frome to step up to the plate again and be a man. He owed this girl an apology, and maybe he owed her some company, too, some companionship to get her through a tough night.

He opened the door. “Mike. I'm glad you're here, buddy. Vincent is sick. He's going to be fine, but I've got to take him back to the clinic. I'm not crazy about leaving Suzie alone here. Can you stay for a little while?”

Mike, who obviously had already seen Reed's truck in the driveway, didn't look shocked. He just looked serious, and very subdued.

“I'd be glad to, Dr. Fairmont.” He flicked a glance
at Suzie. “If Suzie will let me. I needed to talk to her anyhow.”

Suzie's face was still pale, still tense. “I'm not sure this is a good idea,” she said.

Mike came over and looked her straight in the eye. “Listen,” he said. “I'm not here for anything funny. I'm here because I've got a lot of things I need to talk to you about. I'd like your advice.”

He exhaled, and the sound was very tired and strangely adult. “Suzie, please. You're the most levelheaded person I know. I need someone I can trust.”

She wrinkled her nose. “Um, in case you hadn't noticed, I'm not all that levelheaded where you're concerned.”

“Yes, you are,” he said, smiling. “You've always seen right through me.”

“Hey, I could use some help here,” Reed said. They were just making noises now—it was clear they'd reached an agreement.

“Mike, can you take some blankets and make a comfortable spot for Vincent on the front seat of my truck? I'm going to be carrying him out in a minute.”

Mike snapped to attention. “Of course,” he said.

“Good. He's going to need—”

He stopped. The cell phone in his pocket was ringing. He held back a sigh. Another emergency? He was tired. He wanted to go home. He wanted to be sure Faith was all right.

But he didn't have that luxury. If someone needed
him, he would have to respond. He pulled out the cell phone and looked with resignation at the caller ID.

For a moment he didn't recognize it. It wasn't a number he had ever called….

His heart began to beat heavily against the wall of his chest. It was the number to the cell phone he'd given to Faith. The cell phone that always lay beneath Spencer's pillow as he slept.

“Hello?” But there was only dead air, and something that might have been breathing.
“Hello?”

A small sound, perhaps a sob.

His heart stopped. It just plain stopped.

But his mind didn't. He grabbed his bag and his jacket.

“Moving Vincent is going to have to wait,” he said. “Take care of Suzie, Mike. I'll call you as soon as I can.”

Mike and Suzie looked bewildered, but he didn't have time to explain.

“Hello?” he said again. He was already running toward his truck, driven by mindless instinct and adrenaline. And a terrible, terrible fear.

He shoved his key into the door lock. “Spencer? Is that you?”

A thin, frightened sound trembled over the airwaves. “Yes.”

“Spencer, are you okay?” He had the ignition going. “Spencer, is anything wrong?”

“Please come home.”

The little boy's whisper was pure terror. Fingernails of dread clawed their way down Reed's spine.

“Please,” Spencer said again. “Come home. There's somebody in the house.”

T
HE FIRST TIME
she heard the noise, Faith didn't pay very much attention.

In the weeks she'd lived at Autumn House, she'd learned that, like most old houses, it made a lot of settling, creaking noises during the night. Especially windy nights like this.

Even the second time she heard it, she wasn't particularly alarmed. She thought perhaps Jeanne Peterman had forgotten something. The woman had shown up at Autumn House not long after Reed left, apologetic but determined to get her cherished lizard safely home.

Faith had let her in without any anxiety. Mrs. Peterman had come to the back door, as all Reed's patients knew to do. And she was obviously Spike's owner. Spike, who was in the utility room, began trying to scramble up the glass walls of his terrarium in his excitement. Faith had laughed a little. Apparently lizards did have readable facial expressions. This was one happy lizard.

After that, even though Reed had told her not to let anyone in, how could she resist? Faith herself might not be crazy about lizards, but this woman
clearly was. Keeping her from Spike tonight would be as cruel as telling Spencer that Tigger couldn't sleep in his bed.

The woman had chattered, thanking Faith over and over, and making an amazing fuss over the lizard. She had to check and double-check his bag. Did he have his drops, his treats, his favorite jungle-sounds cassette tape? The whole rather surreal transaction had taken at least half an hour.

So when, a few minutes after she returned to her bed and her book, Faith heard the odd noise from the back door, Faith immediately thought of Mrs. Peterman.

She put her book down with a sigh. What now? Had Spike left his teddy bear behind?

But then she heard the noise a third time. And suddenly every nerve end began silently to scream. It wasn't Mrs. Peterman. It was the sound of breaking glass.

It was, quite clearly, the sound of danger.

Though her instinct was to fly from the bed, to fly straight up to the loft, up to Spencer, she forced herself to think clearly. The few seconds it took to dial 911 were, the literature always said, frequently the difference between life and death.

And so, breathing slowly to try to clear her mind, she picked up the bedside phone and put her index finger squarely over the nine so that she couldn't tremble and miss her mark.

But there was no point in dialing anything. For one
horrible second Faith stared at the phone, disbelieving. No wonder Mrs. Peterman hadn't called first, as she'd promised to do. No wonder Reed hadn't phoned to check on her, though he'd been gone more than an hour now.

The line was dead.

Even then she tried to force herself to think. Spencer had the cell phone. If only she had time to race up to the loft, to grab the phone without making enough noise to wake Spencer, who might call out and alert the intruder, without waking Tigger, who would begin whining and shuffling, excited to see her….

Maybe, somehow, she could even get them all to the safe room. Doug wouldn't even know the room existed. He'd never find them there.

But what if she didn't have time? What if, by going upstairs, she led Doug Lambert straight up to the loft, where there was no way out except back down the stairs? What could she do to help Spencer, then, in that tiny little room, where Doug would have all three of them trapped with absolutely nowhere to hide?

No, she must not go upstairs, no matter what happened. Instead, she needed to make enough noise to wake Spencer, so that he'd know there was danger in the house.

And then she could only hope that he wouldn't come out. She had to pray that, at six years old, he'd have the presence of mind to call Reed, or 911, and
to do it quietly enough that Doug Lambert would never suspect anyone else was in the house.

And finally, most importantly, she had to pray that the police, or Reed, could make it here in time. In time for Spencer, at least.

The logic seemed a slow, excruciating process in the weird, melting time of fear. In reality she'd made her decision in less than a second. She was already hurrying down the hall, scanning it as she went for anything that could be used as a weapon.

She didn't bother with the most desperate prayer of all—that it had been the wind, or a falling tree branch, or a raccoon. That it hadn't, after all, been Doug who broke the kitchen window.

Why wish for that? In her soul, she knew it was Doug. She knew it by the way her flesh had turned to shivering waves of raw fear. She knew it by the way her body temperature dropped to a cold, lost winter, and her heart froze like a ball of ice.

Of course it was Doug. She knew it even before she saw him on the stairs. She knew it even though his hair had been dyed a ridiculous strawberry-red. She knew it even though she'd never before seen him in ratty jeans and sweatshirt, certainly never seen his face looking so caved in and unfocused, like a street person, like an insane person.

Like a murderer.

He was already halfway up the stairs, though he wasn't coming very fast, as if he knew he had all the time he needed. He was looking at her without blink
ing, his eyes catching the gleam from one of the dozens of little nightlights Reed had put here to guide Spencer's way in the dark.

Crazy, she thought on a wave of nausea. This man was completely crazy.

She'd known that, of course. But the last time she'd seen him, he had been hiding it so well. He had looked normal. He had always sounded normal, persuasive, even occasionally charming. It had just been his compulsive attentions—and a slight creeping of her flesh whenever he came too close—that had given him away.

But now his strangeness was written all over him. His quality of being completely
other.
And somehow that was even more terrifying. It might have been possible, just barely possible, to reach the old Doug Lambert with logic, a bribe, a treat. This new, wild-eyed man was no longer on her planet. If she spoke, she wasn't even sure he'd hear her.

But she had to try.

She planted herself at the head of the stairs. He had one more landing to clear before he was on the second floor. He would not get farther than that, she vowed to herself. He would never make it to the top floor. Not as long as she was alive.

Her knees seemed unreliable. She held on to the balustrade and tried to look calm.

“Get out of here, Doug,” she said. “I've already called the police.”

He had slowed down even more the minute he saw
her. His eyes were narrowed and glinting. He was working his mouth strangely. But he didn't answer her.

His hand twitched, and suddenly Faith saw the knife flash in the moonlight. She felt momentarily dizzy. Who made knives like that—so long and so cruel? That knife was made for killing things. And for enjoying it.

“Get out,” she said again. “The police are coming.”

But if he had cut the lines, he'd know the phone wasn't working.

“I have a cell phone,” she said. Maybe Spencer would hear her say that. Maybe he would understand what she was trying to tell him.

“I have a cell phone, Doug. I've called the police. They're on their way.”

He seemed to smile at that, but his mouth was so new and so wrong, she couldn't be sure. His open mouth was just a black hole, instead of those charming white teeth. The teeth must have been false, she thought. Like his charm, like his protestations of love. Like his sanity.

A door somewhere above her opened. She heard the sound of clumsy feet coming down the stairs.
No,

Spencer,
she wanted to scream. But there still was hope. Hope that Spencer would turn around before Doug could see him…

“Reed?”

Spencer's voice was trembling, but hopeful. He peeked his head around the corner of the staircase. And he froze. His eyes were suddenly as empty and blank as a doll's.

“Spencer, sweetheart.” Faith didn't look at him for long. She wanted to keep her gaze on Doug, who was still hesitating on the last landing, as if he wanted to prolong the moment, as if a slow anticipation was part of the plan. “I want you to go back into your room right now. I want you to lock the door.”

Doug smiled at that, a real smile, as if the idea struck him as very amusing. But, thank God, Spencer didn't argue. He just obeyed. He made one strangled sound, and then he ran up the stairs with pounding feet. He slammed the door to the loft, twisting the lock so hard it thundered in the silence.

Then Doug began to move.

He made a deliberate, arrogant ascent to the second floor. Faith still didn't take her eyes off him, but she began to back up, inch by inch, maintaining the distance between them desperately, although she knew that eventually she'd run out of room.

In her mind's eye she scanned every item in the hallway. She needed something heavy. Or sharp. Or both.

Before she could decide, there was noise and movement, a whirl of confusion. And suddenly Tigger, who for once had not followed Spencer everywhere he went, was between them. The puppy
crouched, snarling at Doug, baring his little teeth like the loyal guard dog he would some day grow up to be.

But not yet. Not tonight. Tonight his yapping ferocity was just a joke.

Still smiling, Doug reached down, as if to pet him. The knife flashed again. Tigger let out a brief yelp of pain, then sank to the ground.

Oh, God…

Behind her back, Faith's hands closed over a heavy pewter sculpture of a rearing horse. And then, in a startling burst of motion, she hurtled toward Doug, who had just reached the top step.

She swung the sculpture high and hard, aiming for his head.

But he was so tall. And she wasn't quite tall enough.

She connected with his shoulder instead. Something cracked, but it wasn't his skull. He roared with pain, he staggered back. But he didn't fall.

Spencer,
she thought, her thoughts confused as the world turned red with fear. She swung out again, reaching high but knowing it would not be high enough.

Oh, Spencer, sweetheart. I'm so sorry.

Something else cracked—was it Doug's cheek? He put his hand to his face and cursed, and then, with a sudden vicious determination, he swung, too.

His hand with the knife came toward her. She moved away just in time, but like a motorized dervish it came back again. And again. Even as she ducked
and twisted, she knew that, eventually, in all this frenzied fury, the knife would find her.

He jammed it into the wall, and he had to stop to rock it out. In that vulnerable second, she hit him again, and blood poured into his face. But he was so strong, insanity made him oblivious to pain, to fear, to anything but his need to drive his knife through her body.

And he would, of course. She had nowhere to go. He blocked the stairs to the first floor, and she refused to back up any farther than the entry to the loft staircase. As long as she lived, she would stay between him and Spencer's door.

Besides, she wasn't really fighting for survival anymore. Now she was just fighting for time.

Time for Spencer to use that phone. Time for someone, anyone, please, God, to come and save him.

But time, like an overturned hourglass, had run out. Doug had her against the wall, his arm across her throat. His breath smelled horrible. It smelled like madness and death.

Oh, Grace,
she thought with an immense sorrow as she instinctively shut her eyes against what was to come.
Spencer.

And then…
Reed.

Suddenly, the force of Doug's arm slackened strangely, and, though it shouldn't have, the miracle of air rushed back in. She opened her eyes. Doug was staring at her, but he wasn't a man anymore. He was a statue, a frozen, wide-eyed, terrible statue. His face
was smoothing out weirdly, melting into a hideous, slack-jawed caricature of shock.

He turned his head slowly, looking behind him with a wide-eyed disbelief. His mouth moved, as if he wanted to speak but couldn't.

He dropped the knife. It clattered to the floor noisily. He shook his head, frowning, looking down at his open hand as if it confused him.

And then, as if he had abruptly fallen asleep, his eyes dropped shut. His legs crumpled under him, and, without even trying to save himself, he tumbled like a rag doll down the stairs.

Bewildered, but shaking so hard she, too, could hardly stand, Faith dropped the sculpture and grabbed for the banister, hoping it would hold her up. Her legs no longer could be trusted.

She looked over the banister, blinking, trying to clear her vision, and the last thing she saw before the world disappeared was Reed.

She smiled, half-aware that she was about to pass out.

Oh, Reed.

He was so beautiful. He might look fierce, grim and determined. He might even be holding a large, strange-looking gun.

But she knew he was really an angel.

Her sweet, sexy, superhero guardian angel.