PJ AWOKE LYING ON the floor in a dark room. The floor was hard to the touch, and rough, probably tile. Sitting up, she felt dizzy. There was a painful spot on her head, and she could tell that blood had flowed down her forehead and all the way to her neckline. Her hands were tied behind her back. Waves of pain were chasing each other up her leg from her left ankle.
There was a line of light coming in under a door. Her head spun, and she saw double strips of light. She wasn’t ready to move, but wasn’t ready to wait in a confined shooting gallery for April to return.
April! How long have I been out?
Everyone could be dead. May, June, Jasmine. And any collateral damage, like Mary Beth. April wouldn’t hesitate to wipe out anyone who stood between her and the women who’d stolen her life. A bloodthirsty Cinderella.
There were children in the house.
PJ tried to stand and found that she couldn’t. Her leg was twisted under her, with sharp jabs from her ankle. She rolled onto her stomach. Her injured left ankle smacked into the floor as she did so, sending bolts of searing pain up to her hip. She lay still, trying to bring her breathing and heart rate down. Then she began to inch her way across the floor. With her good foot, she could get leverage on the rough tiles. Scraping along slowly, she made it to the door and stopped to rest. Then, grimacing, she braced her back against the door and slowly worked her good foot back toward her. Her leg and arm muscles trembled with the effort, and her left foot dragged painfully. Her fingers spread, she walked up the door a fraction of an inch at a time. Once she got her rear several inches off the floor, it got a little easier.
Standing up with all her weight on her right foot, leaning against the door, she again stopped to rest. PJ was very aware that every minute that went by increased the chances of multiple deaths in the house, if it wasn’t too late already. And of April coming back to finish her off.
Twisting the knob, she found it turned freely, but there had to be a lock somewhere else, because the door wouldn’t budge. She used her shoulder to feel around on the wall in the spot where there would normally be a light switch, right inside the door. She flicked it on with her tongue, wondering if she was going to get shocked, like sticking her tongue in a wall socket.
No shock, just lots of light. Blinded, she pinched her eyes shut, then opened her eyelids just a little, getting a view of the room through narrow slits. What she saw startled her enough that her eyes flew open.
Blinking hard against the light, she realized she was in a storage room for sex toys. There were shelves lined with dildos of all sizes, shapes, and colors. Strap-on dildos were hung on hooks. There was a rack of clothing with all kinds of sexy lingerie, skimpy little nurse and maid costumes, and men’s thong underwear, pouches covered with sequins or feathers, even a leather thong with spikes on the pouch. Hanging on the wall were two life-sized inflatable dolls, one open-mouthed female and one amply endowed male.
May was so indignant when she found out about June’s foreplay album. Hell, this is an entire foreplay warehouse.
Checking her leg, PJ saw bone fragments barely poking through the skin at her ankle. It was a compound fracture and no way was it going to bear her weight. Yet she had to move.
PJ studied the room carefully. Relief washed over her when she saw what she was looking for: tools. There was an old, rusty toolbox, unlocked, tucked under one of the shelves.
Hoping that box wasn’t empty, she reversed the procedure she’d used to stand, sliding the last several inches and landing hard, jolting her body enough to take her breath away. Inchworming on her back across the floor, she came to the box. Sitting up, her back to the box, she tugged on the handle and worked the lid of the box open. Grappling around blindly, she found the narrow, toothed blade of a hacksaw. Exultant, she pulled the saw out and looked around for a place to anchor it. A shelf at the right height had separated from its support board, pulling the nails apart. Scooting around on her butt, she got to the right spot and inserted the blade. It took her several tries, but finally it seemed firmly anchored.
She pulled the rope—clothesline?—that bound her wrists back and forth over the hacksaw. A number of times she slipped and the teeth bit into the skin of her wrist.
I wonder when my last tetanus booster was.
A few more strokes and her hands were free. The first thing she did was check her pockets for her cellphone. Not there. She remembered tossing it into the back seat of her car.
It was easier to move across the floor with the full use of her hands. She went to the toolbox, and what she wanted was right on top: a hammer and screwdriver, probably used in building the storage shelves and left to grow rusty. Left to save my life.
Leaning against the wall by the door, she removed the door’s hinges by tapping up each pin. The door was held, probably by a hook and eye on the outer side, but she would be able to rotate the door to get out. There was a stab of pain from her ankle, enough to sicken her stomach and cause her to vomit. She’d hit her foot against the doorframe and felt bones grinding inside. The pain lessened enough to focus again.
Now for a weapon. She tucked the hammer and screwdriver into her waistband and considered the hacksaw blade. Was it worth going back for?
A noise came from upstairs, a soft crying. No. Go now!
She was about to leave when she noticed the broom standing in one corner. Leaning against the wall, she worked her way around to it, grasped the broom head, and twisted it off. She had a cane. Better mobility meant she could get to the kids faster.
Armed and leaning hard on the broomstick, she swung the door open, careful not to make noise with it. That’s when it hit her. She was going after a vicious killer with rusty carpenter’s tools, a household cleaning item, a broken ankle, and a likely concussion. Fear and anger vied for control of her emotions. She shoved the fear down into a little corner where giant spiders, child abductors, and all of Dean Koontz’s books lived.
PJ limped out to find that she wasn’t far from the front door. She could see Mary Beth’s body lying in the entry foyer. To her right was the dramatic marble staircase she’d never climbed. When Mary Beth took her on tour, they’d used the staffs rear stairs. It was up that staircase she needed to go now.
PJ made her way there and sat on a step. She went up the stairs backward, lifting her rear one riser at a time, trying to keep her ankle from impacting the stair. Near the top, the hammer in her waistband worked itself loose and clattered down a couple of steps. The noise reverberated in the two-story stairwell. She felt very exposed. If attacked on the stairs, she was at a terrible disadvantage. The only thing to do was keep moving and hope the hammer’s noise sounded louder to her because of her proximity than it did to someone up on the second floor.
She made it to the top and stood up, with the aid of the massive stair rail and her broomstick. She entered into a lengthy hallway that had several doors. PJ was looking for the kids, for May, for April, and for a phone. She made a right turn, went down a short distance, and tried the first door on her right. It opened to reveal a small room with a nightlight burning. The light was enough for her to see boxes stacked almost to the ceiling. She checked the contents of one that was open, and found it packed to overflowing with children’s clothes. May said that Frank worked with children’s charities, and here was the proof of a dead man’s philanthropy.
She spotted a wall phone. Eagerly she made her way over to it and picked up the receiver. There was no dial tone.
April has been a busy little bee here since killing Mary Beth.
PJ had been so close when that happened that she heard the impact of the bullets tearing into Mary Beth, or imagined that she did. Either way, she’d be hearing that sound for the rest of her life. Mary Beth had lost her daughter to leukemia, Schultz said, and now she’d died a violent death. There was no trace of her left on earth, nothing to connect her to the future, no one to remember her.
Mom always said you weren’t dead as long as a living person remembered you. Maybe I can do that for Mary Beth.
She heard a noise, and froze in place. There was a sound of scuffling on a wooden floor, and something falling with a thud. The source was close. Her breath barely whispering in and out of her lungs, she moved to the door as quietly as she could. Halfway there, the room started reeling. Closing her eyes, she waited it out, willed the nausea down, and floated in the pain coming from her head and her ankle. Time passed before she could move again, and then she made it to the door.
She listened with full concentration, then put her face out in the hall for a quick look. The hall was empty.
PJ eased into the hallway and moved down, listening for more noises. The next door down had children’s drawings stuck up on it, and just as she got there, there was a scraping sound coming from behind the door. Her heart plummeted all the way to her feet. It had to be the children’s suite. She had a sickening feeling that April was in there.
Too late, too late.
She put her hand on the doorknob and turned it.