“Look,” he snapped. “You can either report on my work or become my work. It doesn’t really matter to me. It’s your choice, your life.”
Terri felt the hairs on her nape stand on end. “Why me?” she asked, trying to suppress a shudder. “There are hundreds of reporters out there, and a lot of them are far more established than I am.”
“I like your work. You’re just starting out and you have something to prove. I can relate to that.”
“What exactly do you expect me to do?” She asked, unable to prevent an edge of fear creeping into her voice.
“Have you got a pen ready?”
She looked around frantically, scrabbling through the papers strewn across her desk until she found one. “Y-Yes, go on.” Hands trembling, she wrote down the address he gave her, reading it back to confirm it. “What’s so important about this place?” she asked.
“Why don’t you check it out yourself,” he taunted. “Remember this: you have nothing to fear from me if you do exactly as I say. I will be reading your column with interest, and we will speak again…soon.”
The connection was severed.
Terri held the phone to her ear for what seemed an age, listening to the dialling tone in disbelief. And then she remembered the door. “Shit!” she exclaimed, dropping the phone and sprinting back to the hallway.
To her horror, the door was ajar.
Terri slammed it shut and rammed both deadbolts into place, and then she looked through the security peephole at the top of the door. The wide-angle glass revealed that the corridor was clear. With a sigh of relief, she sagged back against the door, her legs turning to jelly now that she was safe. And then it occurred to her that the killer could already be inside her apartment, hiding in one of the rooms, waiting for her.
She knew the living room and kitchen were clear, but what about the bedrooms, bathrooms and utility room? All the internal doors were closed, but she couldn’t remember if they had been that way when she came in. Terri ran into the kitchen and grabbed the biggest knife she could find in the knife rack. Her heart was beating like a trip hammer as she frantically searched the other rooms, checking behind doors, pulling open cupboards, looking under beds. They were all clear. That only left the small utility room that housed her washing machine, spin dryer, and ironing equipment. Terri wiped her palm on her leg, then took hold of the brass door handle in her left hand and twisted it gently. Holding the knife out in front of her, she took a deep breath and pushed the door inwards as forcefully as she could.
There was a loud bang as it connected with something inside, and then a figure lunged forward out of the darkness, knocking the knife from her grasp. Terri screamed as they went down together, limbs entangled. Screaming, she thrashed out trying to twist free of her attacker’s grasp and scrabble away. “No, please, don’t hurt me,” she sobbed, convinced she was going to end up like one of the unfortunates in the photographs. And then, as she broke free, she saw the knife on the floor in front of her, and hope mushroomed in her chest. If she could just reach that, then maybe she had a chance.
She scrabbled forward on all fours, wrapped her fingers tightly around the handle of the huge carving knife and spun back to face her attacker. The ironing board lay half inside the utility room, half out in the hallway. The three-quarter length leather jacket that she had hung over it several days ago lay in between the ironing board and her legs, where she had kicked it moments earlier.
Terri slowly stood up, exhausted by her exertions and breathing like she had just run a marathon. Returning to the spacious living room, Terri began pacing nervously up and down, hugging herself tightly as she tried to fight back the tears. She was shivering, despite the apartment’s expensive climate control system, which was pre-programmed to operate at body temperature all year round. Without warning, a wave of nausea hit hard. “Oh God,” she exclaimed. Cupping her hands to her mouth, she ran for the toilet. Surely this was some sort of twisted prank, she thought as she buried her head in the bowl; it was the sort of thing one of those male chauvinist bastards at the office would come up with.
But if it wasn’t, then what a story!
After gargling liberal amounts of mouthwash to rid her mouth of the aftertaste of vomit, Terri rushed back to the lounge and retrieved her mobile phone from her handbag. Unlocking the phone, she hit the speed dial for Julie’s flat.
A sleepy voice answered halfway through the eighth ring. “…Hello?”
“Julie. It’s me, Terri. Get over here, right now, as fast as you can. It’s an emergency…”
“Are you alright…?” Julie asked, her voice thick with concern.
In her mind’s eye, the reporter pictured her friend sitting up in bed, her stomach turning over.
“I’m fine – at least I think I am,” Teri said, running an unsteady hand through her hair. “Just get here quickly. You won’t believe the friggin’ story that’s just landed in my lap.”
Hanging up, Terri stumbled over to the built-in wall bar beside the large patio doors. Her entire body was shaking. She glanced back at the cool bag, remembering with a shudder what it contained. Suppressing the urge to gag again, she put some ice in a glass and unscrewed a bottle of brandy. She knew she ought to phone the police but, if she did, they would stop her from going to the address ‘Jack’ had given her, and she had no intention of letting them do that. No, she would just have to think of a bloody good reason to delay the call for a couple of hours, and hope she didn’t get in
