Betrayers(72)

Silence down there.

Still out on the balcony, trying to spot her in the dark? Come on, you son of a bitch, I’m long gone. Get the hell out!

Something wet dripped onto the back of her hand.

Sweat . . . no, blood. Her nose was bleeding again from the exertion, throbbing like the worst toothache she’d ever had. Another drop fell, and another—

Oh, shit—what if it’d been bleeding again before she came up here? What if she’d left a trail of blood drops across the bedroom to the closet? But she hadn’t, she hadn’t, and even if she had he wouldn’t notice—

Yeah, she had.

Yeah, he did.

The louvered closet doors rattled open. A second later the light came on.

Fear, a knot of it this time, rose up in her throat. She pulled farther away from the platform’s edge, into the musty darkness, the rough boards scraping her palms. The platform was about a dozen feet long and narrow, empty except for a handful of items the former tenants had left behind; she hadn’t had the time or inclination to clean it out, move her own storage stuff up here. Only been in the attic once before, with the rental agent on her first look at the flat. The rest of it was exposed rafters and joists and crosspieces, and mounds of insulation like dirty saffron-colored snow puffed up between the joists. No place to hide, no window or any other way out.

“I know you’re up there, bitch. Better come on down.”

She lay still, holding her breath, cursing herself. All that time with Pop getting herself firearms certified . . . wasted because she’d been too busy, too lazy, too stupid to buy a handgun. If she had, she’d’ve kept it in her nightstand drawer and none of this would be happening—

“Make me come up there after you, I’ll cut you into little pieces.”

Couldn’t go down to him, couldn’t, couldn’t! He’d use that knife on her no matter what she did. The fury behind the pretend calm in his voice told her that.

“All right, you asked for it.”

She heard him leave the closet, then faint sounds in the bedroom she couldn’t identify.

A weapon . . . anything up here she could use? Frantically she felt along the dusty boards, trying to remember what the former tenants had left behind and where it was. Wicker laundry basket. Roll of moldy rattan window shades that would probably crumble to dust if you picked them up. Box of old sheets and towels. Maybe she could . . . no, forget it. No hope of unfolding a sheet and throwing it over him in this dark cramped space, wouldn’t be enough time anyway.

She heard him come back into the closet. Heard him fumbling around inside the trapdoor opening, trying to figure out how to get the ladder down.

What else was here? Sharp object, or a heavy one like a chair or small table? Dammit, no, nothing like that.

It didn’t take him long to find the button. The low whirring came again; the steps began to unfold downward.

Jesus, sweet Jesus. She squirmed farther away from the edges of light, sweeping her hands over the platform now like a blind person. Something, anything . . . nothing but dust and dried mouse turds.

The whirring stopped; the ladder was all the way down.

She felt a sudden crazy urge to give up, curl herself into a ball, like one of those little bugs when they were about to be squashed. The hell with that! She kept moving, kept sweeping, the dust clogging her throat and aching nose, her breath coming in little muffled gasps.

A spear of light shot up through the trap opening, steadied and made a yellow-white circle on one of the rafters. Flashlight beam. That was what he’d been doing in the bedroom, looking for a flashlight, and he’d found the one she kept in the nightstand.

Her hand touched something . . . the wicker basket. Pushed it away. Touched something else, something that rolled and rattled.

Delman was on the stairs now, starting up.

She caught hold of the rolling thing—a round, smooth piece of wood. Remembered what it was just before her fingers confirmed it.

Closet clothes pole!

Her pulse rate surged. Up on her knees then, quick and quiet, lifting the pole with both hands and pulling it across her body. Felt like it was about three feet long, not heavy but solid.

The flash beam roamed over the cobwebby rafters and studs, but it couldn’t reach to where she was; the angle was wrong. He’d have to come most of the way up before he could swing it around in her direction.

There was enough room along the platform so a person of her height could stand upright without banging her head on one of the rafters. She pushed onto her feet, hunched over with the clothes pole tight against her chest, her hands sliding down to one end until she was gripping it like a baseball bat.

Delman’s head appeared in the opening, then his upper body. The cone of light wobbled and danced lower over the skeletal timbers, making pieces of them appear and disappear in the heavy blackness.