Three feet away, he released the breath he’d been holding.
Luggage. Black leather, two large and one small carry-on type. He frowned and moved closer. He nudged them. Full.
What was going on?
A fragment of noise came from down the hall, toward the bedrooms. He slowly rose and in a low crouch, proceeded into the gloom of the long hallway. He stopped to listen for more sound to direct his way. None came.
He paused at the first door he came to and listened for a moment. No noise. Still he braced himself, fisted his flashlight and turned the knob. The door swung open. Brody flipped on the flashlight. His gaze swept the room. Nothing beneath the bed. But the closet…
Out of habit, he glanced over his shoulder, making sure no one was behind him. He pressed his back into the wall, closed his hand over the closet doorknob and slowly turned.
Kate had to find a way out of the house.
She stood in the middle of the second bedroom. A bed, a dresser, a nightstand and a closet. There was nowhere to hide. Forget the closet. She couldn’t take being in the small, confining space. Better to face her enemy and die in the open than wait meekly in what very well could be her coffin.
Chills slid over her body.
She didn’t dare go back down the hall, so that left the window above the bed. Stepping up onto the mattress, she grasped the handle and pulled upward.
The window wouldn’t budge. She tried the lock, but it refused to give. Using all of her strength, she managed to turn the lock, and yet the window still wouldn’t move. Running a hand over the wood, she found the problem. The window had been nailed shut.
She gritted her teeth in frustration as she fought desperate panic. The logical part of her mind that had always ruled her life clamped down on the urgent impulse to dive head-first through the glass and hope she got away in one piece.
An idea formed in her mind. Something she’d seen in a movie or read in a book.
Lord, let this work in real life.
Kate snatched the brass bedside lamp, yanking the cord from the wall. Taking a deep breath, she raised her arm and threw the lamp with all her might at the window. Glass shattered in a shower of chunks and slivers, mostly landing in the dirt on the outside the house, some falling inward onto the bed.
She cringed at the noise, then jumped from the bed and ran across the room to press her body against the wall beside the hinges of the door bare seconds before it burst open. The doorknob connected with her hipbone and she bit her lip to stifle a cry.
In hypnotic terror, she watched as the broad back of a man appeared within her line of vision. Please, don’t let him find me.
She squeezed farther into the corner. The man stopped in front of the open closet door, his head cocked to one side. He moved out of her view and she heard the barely perceptible creak of the mattress and a powerful beam of light lit the room. Kate closed her eyes and prayed her ruse had worked and he thought she’d escaped.
The light went out and she heard a soft thud. He’d stepped off the bed. A second later she heard him move toward the doorway. Tensing, she waited.
Through the crack between the door and the jamb she saw him pass by, a dimmer shape against the darkness. Relief coursed through her, making her knees weak. She hadn’t been found. Thank You, Lord.
Minutes ticked by. She heard the solid click of the front door being closed, the sound of the man retreating to take his search into the night. The waiting seemed eternal before she gathered enough nerve to emerge from behind the door.
Should she go through the house to escape? She turned to look at the broken window. The jagged edges would cut her to shreds. She didn’t have any choice. She had to go through the house.
Brody stood poised with his back against the wall at the mouth of the long, dark hallway. Clever trick, breaking the glass to make it look as if his prey had jumped out the window and escaped.
The second Brody had entered the bedroom he’d known he wasn’t alone. A tightening of his senses had made him aware of the other’s presence.
Even if his instincts hadn’t alerted him, he still would have known. No one could have gone out that window without cutting themselves and leaving a trail of blood. Besides, the lack of footprints in the soft, mossy dirt below the window, visible in his flashlight’s beam, had been a dead giveaway.
So he waited. Waited as a honed patience calmed his heart and readied his body. It was only a matter of time.
Inch by inch, Kate made her way down the pitch-black corridor, her hand guiding her past the doors to the other rooms. As she neared the living room she stopped. A familiar, yet strange sensation tickled her spine. She wasn’t alone.
On some deep, basic level she felt the man’s presence, sensed his heartbeat. She pressed her back flat against the wall and balled her hands into tight fists. It wasn’t fair. But then, God never promised life would be fair, only that He’d be there.
Her gaze slid from the grayer light of the house back to the darkness of the windowless hall. Was he behind her in the dark, inching his way toward her? Taking her lip between her teeth to keep tears and welling panic at bay, she stood immobile, unsure what her next move should be.
Tension coiled, her stomach churned and her lungs burned. She couldn’t go back. She had to go forward.
With a deep breath, she pushed from the wall and forced her legs to move fast. Adrenaline coursed through her limbs and her heart raced. She could see the front door. She just had to make it across the open entry way. Three more feet…iron cords wrapped around her, stopping her momentum with a jerk. She screamed as she was tackled to the ground.
Her head smacked against the hardwood and spots of light exploded before her eyes. A huge, muscled body landed on top of her, effectively pinning her beneath his hulking figure, and drove the air from her lungs.
Fear blasted up her spine. She was going to die, and it was all Paul’s fault.
With a grip of steel, the man yanked her arms over her head and held her wrists captive while another probing hand ran over her body. Numbing shock rippled through her, then the roaming hand stilled.
The man swore in a deep hiss near her ear and eased off her.
She took a shallow breath.
“You’re a woman,” a deep, rich voice accused.
The observation seemed ridiculous. Of course she was a woman. Did Paul’s murderer think Paul had been married to a monkey?
The ridiculous thought brought fear raging headlong into her consciousness. This man was here to get something she hadn’t a clue about, and then he would probably kill her the way he’d killed Paul. Then another thought flittered across her mind: what if he assaulted her before killing her? Oh, Lord, take me home quickly.
No. Not yet. Sheer terror spurred her into action. She twisted and turned, her body bucking in an effort to throw him off balance. Her hands pulled against the restraint of his grip, her legs struggled to find leverage on the floor, pushing and kicking wildly. The toe of her shoe made contact
