She took a breath. With studied nonchalance, she picked up her plate and her glass, carried them into the kitchen, and put them in the sink. To her astonishment she realized she was humming a melody-that old song, “Full Moon and Empty Arms,” which had been taken from the theme of Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto, hadn’t it? Now why would a tune like that have chosen this particular moment to pop into her head? The human mind sure was an amazing thing, yes, indeedy. Simply remarkable, what the old cerebral cortex could come up with to amuse itself in moments of extreme stress.
Nausea burned in her stomach. The back of her neck was icy; her forehead, feverish. She had the absurd impression that her heart had leaped out of her chest into her skull and was beating there; she could feel its hard steady rhythm against her temples, her jaw, the crown of her head, each beat a separate knock, shaking her body.
Still humming softly, she ran cold tapwater in the sink, banged her breakfast dishes around in a noisy pretense of washing and drying them, and shoved them into the kitchen cabinets. Then, prompted by a sudden thought, she picked up the knife she’d used to core and slice the apple, and hid it in the pocket of her robe.
Now for the hard part.
She tried to estimate how far it was to the front door. A good fifteen paces, she figured. All she had to do was cover that much distance, and she would be home free.
Heart pounding, she left the kitchen, keeping her face averted from the armchair and potted plant up ahead on her left. She could feel his eyes on her. Could sense his closeness, the closeness of a camouflaged jungle animal poised to spring for the kill.
She padded through the living room, still humming the tune, which in her ears had segued from a cheerful melody into a series of stifled screams. She was aware with preternatural alertness of every object she passed. The coffee table, its glass surface scattered with copies of Elle magazine. The sofa, still bearing the plastic slipcovers that had come with it. The end tables where ceramic lamps glowed, casting cones of yellow light over the bare white wall.
She wished she were not wearing her pajamas and robe. The bedtime clothes made her feel even more vulnerable, almost naked. Naked before him, exposed to his staring eyes.
The door was only six feet away. But closer still, there loomed the armchair. She wanted to veer around it, but if she did, he would know something was up. She forced herself to walk right by the chair, passing so close that the hem of her robe brushed its legs. Abruptly something cold and smooth touched the bare skin of her neck, and she was sure it was his hand reaching out for her-but no; it was only one of the schefflera’s plastic leaves. She hummed louder. The noise was maddening in her ears; it throbbed in time with the pulse of roaring blood.
Then-hallelujah-she’d gotten past the chair. The hallway was coming up on her left. He would expect her to turn down that hall. When she didn’t, he would know she was on to him, and he would strike.
She took a step toward the hall, and then with a burst of speed she raced for the front door.
Behind her she caught a flash of motion, and without even looking back she knew he’d sprung to his feet, bobbing up from behind the chair like a jack-in-the-box. She reached the door. Her hand fisted over the knob. She jerked it savagely. The door didn’t open. The dead bolt-oh, God-she must have thrown the dead bolt.
Behind her, footsteps. Closing in. Fast.
She drew the bolt and tried the knob again.
This time the door opened. She was going to make it. Going to make it-
At the edge of her vision, a blurred white shape. A sneaker lashing out in a kick. Thump of impact, rubber on wood. The door slammed shut.
Wendy grabbed the knob again, trying to turn it, to pull open the door and escape into the night just beyond her reach, and then suddenly two gloved hands flew past the sides of her face like brown bats, leather-winged and blood-spotted, and something threadlike and viciously sharp was looped around her neck, cutting into the tender skin, drawing blood.
“Let go of the door. Miss Wendy Alden,” a male voice whispered in her left ear, “and don’t make a sound.”
My name, she thought in cold shock. How does he know my name?
Slowly she released her grip on the doorknob. She let both hands fall to her sides, fingers splayed. She was unnaturally aware of the position of her body, her slippered feet planted wide apart on the floor, her back arched, her head leaning back under the pull of the sharp slender cord-a loop of wire, she realized-lashed around her throat.
The man was directly behind her. She could smell the stale greasy odor of his sweat, could feel his breath hot on her cheek. But she couldn’t see him. Couldn’t see anything except the black specks pinwheeling crazily before her eyes.
“If you cry for help,” he said softly, his voice so low she could barely hear it over the staccato beating of her heart, “if you try anything foolish, I’ll kill you.”
His last words echoed in her mind: I’ll kill you, kill you, kill you. No, he couldn’t have said that. But he had. She’d heard him. She was sure of it. He’d said he would kill her. But that was crazy. She couldn’t… die. Could she?
“Your lovely neck,” he went on quietly, “is now encircled by a foot and a half of stainless-steel wire. A garrote, you see.”
Garrote. Like in The Godfather.
“Homemade,” the stranger whispered, “but most effective nonetheless. The wire is threaded through two wooden dowels, which serve as handles. Simply by twisting those handles, I can exert pressure”-the wire tautened slightly for emphasis-“as much pressure as I like. Steel wire is wickedly sharp; it can slice flesh like wax. Do you understand what I’m telling you? Say yes.”
“Yes.” The word a croak. It startled her. Someone else’s voice.
“Good. Very good. Are you afraid of me, Miss Wendy Alden?”
A choked sound was all she could utter.
“Are you?” he inquired more sharply, as once again the garrote tightened almost imperceptibly, but just enough.
“Yes. Oh, yes.”
“Of course you are. Do you know who I am?”
“No.”
“I am called the Gryphon.”
Dizzying fear. Waves of it. Her knees weakening. Feverish heat in her forehead. Vision doubling. Heart pounding. She fought to keep from passing out.
This wasn’t happening. Not to her. It couldn’t be. The Gryphon-why, that was something she heard about on the news, something that involved other people, something remote and distant, a headline or a few seconds of tape shot by a wobbly camera, scary but not immediate, not a threat, not part of her world.
“Oh. Oh. Oh.” Who was saying that? She was. Funny. Why was she repeating that one word, that empty sound, over and over? She wanted to stop, couldn’t. “Oh. Oh. Oh.” The sounds coming faster now, uncontrollable, like hiccups.
“Shut up.” His voice like a slap.
She shut up. She waited for him to kill her. He would, of course. He always killed his victims. Killed them and… and cut off their heads.
“Now listen to me. Miss Alden. You’ve seen the stories in the news. You know what happened to the other women I’ve encountered. But for you I may make an exception. I may let you live… if you’ll do what I say. Will you?”
An exception. Then there was a chance. A hope. If she would do what he said. Well, of course she would. She would do whatever he wanted. Even let him molest her, rape her. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except staying alive.
Everything was clear, vivid. Terror had sharpened her senses, heightened her awareness, slowed time to a spider crawl. The smallest details around her stood out sharply like photographic close-ups. She saw the light glinting on the brass doorknob a foot away, saw the blurred, contorted, upside-down images of herself and the man behind her cupped in the knob, two indistinct shadowy shapes backlit by the lamps on her end tables. She saw the white pile carpet, and the seam where the carpet met the molding of the wall, and the brownish dust that had
