Killing Fear

“All you had to do was let me fuck you. You would have liked it. Brandi used to beg me for more. She couldn’t get enough. She was devastated when I broke up with her. But you knew that, didn’t you? Your friends told you everything. Did Brandi tell you how she liked being tied up and spanked? Did Bethany tell you how she liked it from behind? Did Jessica tell you how we had sex in your apartment when she was on break? Anna had given her the key.”

Robin tried to ignore Glenn. He wanted to torment her emotionally. The pain across her midriff stung, but began to subside.

“The only thing I regret was not videotaping my kills. My mistake. I won’t make it again.”

He put the camera on her face, the video flash almost blinding her. “That’s good. Show me your fear, Robin. Show me your pain.”

He poured bleach over her new cut and her body convulsed, moving as far away from him as she could. Tears streamed down her face.

She felt the duct tape slip. Just a fraction. She had hope. Maybe her sweat was loosening it, or the rope was cutting into it, or both. Something was giving, and in the dark Theodore might not notice.

She twisted her wrists together, felt the tape slip a little more.

Glenn set the camera up to one side, the light on her body, not her face. He stood and seemed to be pacing, but she couldn’t see him. Then his voice came from halfway across the room. “I wanted to take you. For me. All me. When I fucked Sara, I pictured you. I put her dress over her head and it was you. When I fucked Brandi, it was you. Always you. You wouldn’t get out of my head. You’d bewitched me, I couldn’t stop seeing you and I hate you for that. I couldn’t stop coming to RJ’s. And then you spurned me. Treated me like I was some substandard pervert while you were ripping your clothes off for horny men who jerked off in the bathroom thinking about you!”

His voice grew closer, louder, and he kicked her in the thigh. She sucked air in through her nose, a mewling noise escaping from her throat.

“The whore in Mexico, I thought of you. I fucked her hard and wanted to choke her to death because of you. I hate you. I hate you for forcing me to take chances. If it weren’t for you, I would be halfway across Mexico by now. If you would just get out of my head, I’d finally be free!”

Robin yanked one raw wrist out of the makeshift restraints as Theodore’s shoe connected with her stomach. The wind was knocked out of her and she couldn’t catch her breath.

Then he was on top of her and whispered in her ear, “When I killed Bethany, I told her it was because of you. When I killed Brandi, I told her you were fucking the detective in charge. That it was because of you that she had to die. Because you treated me like scum. When I am the smartest person you have ever met.”

Robin’s other wrist slipped free. She clasped her hands together, pulled them back like she was holding a baseball bat, and as hard as she could swung her fists into the side of his head.

She won that round through the element of surprise.

Run, Robin!

He grunted, shifted just enough that she could slide away.

A weapon. Where did he put his knife? That bag of his. On the table. It was closer than the kitchen.

She scrambled to her knees and crawled. Her hand brushed against the bottle of bleach.

“Bitch, I’ll slice your throat-”

She pulled herself up the wall, bottle in one hand. She moved to the right, toward him-hoping he’d think she was still moving toward the kitchen. The video camera light was aimed on the other side of the room, making this side even darker in the shadows.

She hit the light switch, blinking in the brightness, startling Glenn enough for her to splash bleach at him. He couldn’t get his arms up fast enough to block most of the cleanser from hitting his face.

He screamed and paused only momentarily, blocking the front door. She ran toward the back, ripping the duct tape off her mouth so she could scream.

He was right behind her.

Will didn’t wait for backup.

It was him and Blade. The rest of SWAT was less than five minutes behind, but five minutes was the difference between life and death.

His house was dark, a faint, foreign light filtering through the closed blinds. What was that?

But other than the light, he could see nothing unusual about his place. Had he been wrong? Had Glenn deliberately tricked him? Had he wasted precious time by coming here first?

Suddenly, the interior lights went on. He heard a deep, guttural cry-a man? — then, as his hands were on the doorknob, a piercing female scream.

Gun out, Blade at his back, Will kicked open his own door and went low and to the right. Glenn had a knife in his hand and was about to throw it at Robin’s back as she ran toward the rear of the town house.

“Down!” he yelled.

Robin dropped to the floor at the same time that Glenn spun around and aimed the knife at Will. He and Blade fired simultaneously.

One bullet hit Glenn in the arm, but he’d anticipated the gunshots and dove behind Will’s couch.

Did Glenn have a gun?

“Robin! Stay down!”

She crawled in the kitchen, behind the counter. As long as she didn’t move, Glenn couldn’t see her, Will hoped.

Robin didn’t say anything.

Will looked around and saw the blood in the foyer, bloody handprints on the white walls. The smell of bleach permeated the room.

How far had Glenn gone? How much blood had Robin lost?

If Will went for Robin, Glenn could kill him-either by shooting him, or throwing a knife.

Blade was behind a table he’d flipped on the right; Will was in the narrow hall off the foyer that led to his upstairs. He could see the couch Glenn hid behind, but he couldn’t see the kitchen.

Could Glenn see Robin?

“Come out with your hands up!” Will shouted.

The low voice of laughter made Will’s blood run cold.

“Not exactly how I planned it,” Glenn said, “but she’s still dead.”

Will’s ears buzzed.

“Will!”

He heard Robin from the kitchen. She sounded strained, but she was alive. Alive, not dead. Glenn had wanted him to react, to do something rash.

“You’re not going to leave alive unless you throw your weapons out and stand up, hands behind your head.”

“She is dying, Will. I sliced her from her navel to her breast. She’s bleeding to death. I can sit behind here all night long. By the time you have the courage to come for me, precious Juliet will be dead in a pool of blood on your kitchen floor.”

“Don’t, Will,” Robin called from the kitchen. “Don’t listen to him. He’ll kill you.”

She didn’t sound herself, but that could be from fear.

Will stared at the bloody handprints. So much blood. Too much.

Robin was alive now, but for how long?

He glanced at Blade. Held up his fingers. On three, cover me.

Blade nodded.

One.

Will glanced around the corner. A small spatter of blood was next to the couch where his bullet had hit Glenn in the arm.

Two.

He pictured the layout of his kitchen, the likely place Robin would hide-behind the center island. It was a solid block of wood.

Three.