Eden, New York
July 2, 2008
3:17 AM
Erin Lambert placed two hands on the precast concrete barrier of the pedestrian bridge that arched over the Genesee River.
Erin had no doubt that the forty-foot drop would end her pain. The violent crush of flesh and bone on rock and water would break the grip of the street-grade OxyContin, acid-laced weed, cheap vodka, and uncaring men who had ruined it all. The plunge would also erase the shame of dancing nude for leeches and losers. Erin wondered whether her sister strippers at the Bottoms Up Gentleman’s Club would hold a wake for her using her stage name, “Breeze.”
“My life is fucked,” she thought, watching the water swirled below. “Totally fucked.”
At that moment, Erin heard the unwelcome sound of salvation coming in the form of tires on gravel. The engine stopped, the door opened, and footsteps snapped dried twigs and leaves. Tree frogs and cicadas screeched an alarm.
“Go away.” Erin didn’t bother to look back to see who’d crashed her pity party. “Just leave me alone. Get it? Go.”
No response.
“For Christ’s sake.” She raised her voice even louder, her cry riding the jagged rocks that studded the shallows upriver. “What part of ‘get lost’ don’t you understand?”
Still no response.
Erin turned to confront the intruder. She saw the dark outline of a man moving toward her. His shadowy presence stepped onto the footbridge, taking long strides. In his black sweatshirt, slacks, gloves, and boots, the figure blended into the night like the reflection of the black oaks on the dark water. His eyes, however, cut through the darkness, glowing in the moonlight like those of a predator closing in on his prey.
As the man approached, Erin opened her eyes so wide, her lids ached, straining to see if she could identify him. In the hazy moonlight, she could make out his face. The guy’s rigid bone structure and cold, deep-set eyes sent panic racing up and down her spine. In the dim light of the starry sky, she moved her gaze to his hands. The man twirled a steel pipe in his right hand and swung a coil of rope in his left. Her heart pounded, and her brain raced; fear paralyzed her arms and legs.
“No!” she screamed. “Why?”
He kept coming, picking up his pace.
“I’m sorry,” she gasped. “I am. I’m so sorry.”
Her hunter laughed. His cold, deep voice said, “Too late now.”
Her blood froze over.
Although she’d contemplated death just moments before, Erin Lambert now wanted to go on living. “Don’t hurt me,” she gasped, registering the noose hanging at the end of the rope.
She felt like one of those chiseled ice sculptures at a winter festival. Closing her eyes, she embraced the darkness, blacking out what she hoped was just a bad dream. When her eyes opened, however, there was no doubt that this was real. The intruder raised his right arm above his head and brought the tire iron down hard. The dull clunk echoed off the granite rock face.
White-hot pain cascaded over the right side of Erin’s face, circled her skull, and spread through her head, neck, and shoulders. Her knees buckled. Her eyes rolled. She dropped the vodka jug she’d been slurping from and heard it shatter at her feet. She crumpled into a heap on the shards before curling herself into a ball at the base of the barrier. She felt another surge of pain as the black tire iron cracked against the other side of her skull. Now, she lay still, feigning death.
“Wait.” Her mind raced. “What’s this?” Hope flickered. Erin spotted the vodka jug’s handle, still intact, and grabbed it, thrusting the jagged edge into the leg of her assailant. She heard a scream, followed by silence.
“Now go.”
No chance. The man’s muscular arms lifted her up and propped her against the barrier. His skilled and practiced hands dropped the noose over her head and snapped the slipknot tight. He pulled hard, squeezing the rope into her neck, cutting off her air supply.
The man in black stepped back and wrapped the other end of the rope around a steel bar protruding from the concrete. Then, he lifted her limp body onto the top of the wall.
“No!” Erin sucked in a lungful of air, summoning the strength to scream. “Please, no!”
She saw him smile and heard him snicker.
She felt his hands rest on her upper body.
She watched him step back and set his feet.
She felt him push.
Erin experienced an instant of weightlessness as she plunged into the abyss.
The rope unfurled and snapped tight.
The cicadas and tree frogs went silent.