Aunt Dot! You had to be the one!” Peterson protested, the knife twitching in his hand.
“Let’s get to the house,” Beth said again. “Mr. Peterson, I’ll walk ahead of you, and Keith will walk ahead of us.”
Keith frowned fiercely at her.
“Yeah, all right, go!” Peterson said.
Keith started forward uneasily. There was one man in the house, and another behind him with a knife to Beth’s throat. There was no doubt one of them was a murderer.
He entered the house. The door had been left open. Rain had blown in.
He was followed by Beth.
And the man with the knife.
Mrs. Peterson remained as a lump on the sofa; nothing more than a dark blob in the shadows. Cocoa, however, was no longer with her. He had run to the far side of the room, and wasn’t even yapping. He hugged the wall, near the guest-room door, whining pathetically as they entered.
“There was another fellow with us, too, a musician. Plays for a group called Ultra C,” Beth said to Peterson. She swallowed carefully before looking at Keith again. “What happened to him? He was, uh, in the house when I left.”
“Gone—I hope!”
They heard a sound of distress. It was Joe Peterson. He was staring at the lump on the sofa.
“Mr. Peterson,” Keith said softly. “I’m not going to shoot you. But you are going to get that knife away from my wife’s throat this instant.”
Beth pushed Peterson’s arm, stepping away from him. Peterson barely reacted. He stared at the sofa. “God! Is she dead?” he asked.
Cocoa whined. Beth stared at Keith, shaking but relieved. “Cocoa,” she said softly. “Well, I could have been wrong, but if this man had attacked Mrs. Peterson, the dog would be barking right now.”
“Aunt Dot!” Peterson said numbly.
“She isn’t dead—wasn’t dead,” Keith said. He looked at Beth. “So it’s your musician.”
“You realized it, too…But—”
“He’s out there somewhere. And we’ll have that to deal with. But for the moment…we’ve got to try to keep Mrs. Peterson alive.”
“Keith, would you get me some brandy and the ammonia from the kitchen?” Beth asked. “We’ll see if we can rouse her. Then we can try to make it to the hospital.” She grimaced. “With the Hummer.”
Keith walked to the kitchen, then stopped, pausing to pick up the frying pan that lay on the floor. He froze in his tracks as he heard a startled scream rise above the pounding of the rain. He turned to race back to the living room, then came to a dead stop.
Their living room had been pitched into absolute darkness.
Terror struck deep into Beth’s heart. She had pulled back the blanket, anxious to be there first, to assure herself that the woman hadn’t died.
A hand snaked out for her from beneath the cover, dragging her down with a ferocity that was astounding. Fingers wound around her throat and she was tossed about as if she weighed nothing.
Egan. Mark Egan. Drugged-out musician. No. Psychotic killer.
She saw his deranged grin right before he doused the lantern, holding her in the vise of his one hand like a rag doll.
“What ya gonna do, big man?” a throaty voice called out in the darkness, next to her ear. “Shoot me—you might kill her. Don’t come after me, or she’s dead.”
Beth tensed every muscle. She didn’t know if the man had a weapon or not, anything more than the hideous strength of his hands.
She could hear nothing other than the wind and rain. Stars began to burst into the darkness as his grip choked her. There was no sound of voice. No sound of movement.
Not even Cocoa let out a whine.
Then there was a muffled groan. Not Keith, the sound had not come from Keith! It was Peterson who had groaned. So…where was Keith?
“That’s right,” Egan—or whoever he was—said. “You stay right where you are. The missus and I are going to take the car. Your car. We’ll go for a little ride. Will she be all right? Who knows? But try to stop me now, and you’ll probably kill her yourself.”
He began to drag her toward the door. He chuckled softly. “I don’t see too badly in the dark. I like the dark.”
They were nearly there; she could sense it. He threw open the door. Her heart was thundering so that she didn’t hear the whoosh of motion at first.
She gasped, the air knocked from her as the whoosh became an impetus of muscle and movement. Keith. He flew into them from the porch side, taking both her and Egan by storm and surprise. She twisted. Egan’s grip had been loosened by the fall. She bit into his wrist. The man howled, then went rolling away as he and Keith became engaged in a fierce physical battle.
Cocoa began to bark excitedly. She felt the little dog run over her hand and begin to growl. Egan cried out in pain again. She could hear Cocoa wrenching and tearing at something—Egan. In pain or not, Egan was still wrestling on the floor with vehemence. Rain washed in from the open doorway. The faintest light showed through, glittering on something…
The frying pan.
She picked it up, and in the darkness, desperately tried to ascertain her husband’s form from that of the killer. She saw a head rise—
She nearly struck.
Keith!
The other head was on the ground. There was a hand around Keith’s throat, fingers tightening…
Blindly, she slammed the frying pan down toward the floor. A scream was emitted…
She struck again. And again.
And then arms reached out for her.
“It’s all right now. It’s all right.”
The lantern was lit. Good old Cocoa was in the bedroom, standing guard over Mrs. Peterson who—despite having been dumped unceremoniously on the floor—was still alive and breathing. Her nephew, Joe Peterson, was tending to her.
Keith hadn’t moved the form on the floor yet. Beth didn’t know if he was dead or alive, but he wouldn’t be blithely getting up this time.
She’d seen his face. Before Keith had covered it with the throw.
“Is it…him? The serial killer?” she said.
“I think so,” Keith murmured, slipping an arm tightly around her shoulders.
“But you knew it wasn’t Peterson when I did.”
He turned to her, a pained and rueful smile just curving his lips.
