Talking to Conrad had helped after all, Ardeth discovered. She resumed work on her thesis with renewed energy, as the ideas that had seemed so formless a week ago began to take shape. She no longer felt that someone was following her around the campus. She confined any thoughts about the Armitage mystery to idle speculation during her dull moments in the library.
Then Conrad was murdered.
She heard it on the news Sunday afternoon a week after the party at Peter’s. For the next two days the rumours were passed through the Grad Students pub, the library, the classrooms. Con had been stabbed, bludgeoned, shot. The villain was an old boyfriend, a new boyfriend, a complete stranger. There wasn’t much in the papers, beyond the coroner’s confirmation that the death had come from a blow to the head with a blunt object, and that police were canvassing the areas frequented by gays for information on Con’s movements that night.
Somewhat to Ardeth’s surprise, she cried more for Con that she had for Tony. Cried and tried to ignore the cold weight in the pit of her stomach, the irrational, terrible suspicion that she was somehow responsible—that her peace of mind had come at the expense of Conrad’s life. Behind the illogical guilt was the frightening compulsion to see the patterns that Conrad had so neatly dismissed. Armitage’s disappearance, the fired warehouse, Tony’s ‘accident,’ Conrad’s murder, the echo of footsteps behind her in the night. She wondered if it was better to be crazy or really in danger.
Routine offered some refuge from grief and speculation, so she kept to the established rhythm of her days as best she could. One ritual she clung to was her early morning walk. At 6:30, the neighbourhood was quiet, the sun just beginning to touch the empty streets. She had a usual route, so she trusted her feet to keep to the path and let her mind wander, drifting from one of her thesis arguments that was still giving her problems, to Conrad’s funeral, to Carla’s upcoming dinner party, and back to her thesis.
She paused briefly at the foot of the hill leading up to Casa Loma. She could turn left here and follow the street to climb the hill or take the steep stairway cut into the hillside. She could see the turrets of the castle rising over the trees, the elaborate folly of a wealthy merchant as tribute to the wife who never lived to see it finished. Now, it was a tourist attraction and a site for extravagant weddings or tasteful corporate Christmas parties.
You need the exercise, she told herself. And climbing the stairs was hard work, or at least hard enough to keep her mind from things she’d rather not think about this morning.
She was halfway up, pausing on one of the landings to catch her breath, when she heard footsteps behind her. She glanced back and saw a fair-haired man climbing the second flight of stairs. He was moving quickly, not looking at her. Ardeth started up again, feeling vulnerable and exposed on the long stairway. She didn’t stop again, despite the burning in her thigh muscles and the beginning of a painful stitch in her side, but the footfalls behind her grew steadily louder.
She started up the last stretch of stairs two at a time, using the railing to help haul herself up. Halfway to the top, she dared a glance back and saw that the man was almost at the landing below her. Something shifted sickeningly in her stomach and she turned around to run up the last steps.
There was someone standing at the top.
She had a brief impression of dark hair, dark clothing. Run, the terrible chill in her spine urged her. Don’t be a fool, her reason answered. It’s just a jogger, or someone out for a walk. He’s not waiting for you. Ardeth looked up again and saw the smile he tried to hide.
She knew her widening eyes betrayed her. He was already moving towards the first step when she ducked under the railing and fought to get her balance on the almost vertical slope of the hill. Slipping on the dew-damp grass, she started to scramble up and to her left, hoping to reach the top before he could head her off. If he came out onto the hillside, he’d have the same trouble moving as she did and she might be able to beat him to the top. If only he didn’t go back up the stairs . . .
A quick glance to her right revealed that he’d done just that and was running across the top of the hill to cut her off. This isn’t happening, a part of her mind whispered in dull panic, this can’t be happening. She was slipping again, gasping as her body hit the ground and she started to slide down backwards. The ache in her side had turned into a knife-sharp pain.
Twisting around, she saw that the fair-haired man had left the stairway and was scrambling across the grass directly below her, to intercept her if she tried to tumble down the slope to safety. There was nowhere to go but across the face of the hill.
She wanted to scream for help but couldn’t get her voice past the band of terror that seemed to have tightened around her throat. She could only listen to her gasping breaths as she struggled over the slanted ground, grabbing saplings for support to halt her slow steady drift downward towards the man moving below her. A glance upward revealed that the dark man had sprinted ahead of her along the hilltop and was working his way through the scrubby trees towards her. There was no escape, no way they wouldn’t catch her. Don’t let them get me, Ardeth prayed and lunged forward, hands clawing at the grass, feet slipping in the dirt.
The dark one caught her as she reached the edge of the denser growth, one hand closing over her shoulder and pulling her around to deliver the backhanded blow that tumbled her to the ground. She skidded down the hill a little, struggling to free her shirt from his grip, then he sat down hard on her stomach and drove the air from her body.
For a moment, darkness swamped her as she fought only to breathe. When the sudden rush of oxygen back into her lungs cleared her vision, the man was crouched over her. There was a long knife with a wickedly serrated blade moving in hypnotic rhythm in front of her eyes. “Another sound, another move out of you and I’ll leave your guts here for the birds to eat, understand me?” he whispered.
Ardeth’s head spun again but she found herself nodding without thinking about it. She felt a distant sense of relief that some part of her had managed to maintain an instinct for self-preservation. She felt the sudden cold kiss of metal against her skin as he laid the knife beneath her jaw. “That’s good. Now sit up, nice and slow.” She managed to get her hands under her and ease herself into a sitting position, aware of the knife poised just below her chin.
The blond man emerged from behind the dark one, breathing hard, eyes angry. “You could leave her in the bushes here. Nobody’d find her for weeks. It’d be even better than the ravine where we left the other guy,” he suggested helpfully.
“No. We’ll take her with us. Get her up,” the dark man ordered and, with a shrug, the blond moved around to grip Ardeth’s shoulders and pull her to her feet. They held her firmly as they struggled back up to the top of the hill. “We’re going to that van over there. You walk nice and steady, Alexander, and I won’t cut your throat.”
My name, he knows my name, Ardeth thought dazedly as she let them guide her towards the van waiting by the curb. The blond one went ahead to open the back doors.
This is it, last call, Ardeth thought as she was pushed around to the back of the van and sent stumbling inside. I ought to scream, I ought to do something. Someone might hear, someone might save me. But it was too late, the hands were closing over her again, jerking her hands behind her back to bind them tightly, forcing a greasy rag between her lips.
The back doors of the van slammed shut, then she heard the front door echo them. The engine sputtered into life, then the van into motion.
“Where do you want to dump her?” a distant voice asked.
“Go back to the base.”
“You want to do it there?”
Ardeth didn’t see the blindfold coming, then all light was gone. Pain sparked briefly behind her eyes as her hair was tangled in the knot as it was jerked tight. Finished with her, the dark man answered. “We’re not going to do her, Wilkens. Our guest needs her.”
There was a sudden outburst of laughter, echoing wildly through the darkness in her mind. “I get it . . . kill two birds with one stone.”
“So to speak.” Another harsh burst of laughter was drowned by the roaring in Ardeth’s skull. I’m going to faint, she thought distantly, before the last coil of fear inside her tightened and stopped her heart.