Candles flickered in the big room, their flames casting dancing shadows on the wall, their clean scent of vanilla filling the air. Nicole lay on the cool shining hardwood floor, her blond hair spread across a fringed tapestry pillow. Beside her a man rested in perfect stillness, holding her right hand. His eyes were open, but she knew he saw nothing in the room. His vision was fixed on a world created by the music.
She closed her own blue eyes, letting the music flow over her. Rhapsody in Blue. Huge stereo speakers sent the sensual jazz classic throbbing through the room. On the recording, Paul Dominic, the man next to her, played the piano with all the expertise and passion of the world-famous virtuoso he was.
Nicole felt Paul tense as he listened to the four-bar passage that bridges the long piano cadenza into the famous Andantino moderato melody. Then the music soared and Nicole’s own heart beat faster as the song moved into the development of the slow theme, trading off with the orchestra until the rhapsody was brought to its spectacular conclusion.
Paul rolled toward her, propping himself up on one elbow. “So you liked it, chérie?”
Nicole took a deep breath. “I loved it.” She thought she sounded like a breathless teenager and wished she had a critic’s sophisticated vocabulary to express her feelings. Instead, she reached up and touched the man’s black hair. “I can’t believe I’m with you, Paul,” she whispered. “I can’t believe I’m with a man who’s capable of playing such glorious music. To have that kind of talent…” She shook her head. “You’re a genius.”
“I’m no genius,” he said with a self-deprecating laugh. “The music is one-fourth gift, three-fourths very hard work. Besides, I’m not as good as I should be.”
“That’s not what the critics say. They say you’re the ideal Gershwin pianist.”
He smiled. “You’ve been reading my reviews.”
“Of course. I also know your concerts all over the world are always sold out.” She frowned. “What on earth does someone like you see in me?”
His penetrating hazel eyes gazed into hers. “Do you believe in destiny, Nicole?”
“I’m not sure I’ve really thought that much about it.”
“I believe in it,” he said intensely. “I believe I was destined to come back to Texas and meet you again.” He touched a strand of her hair. “You were only seven when I first saw you in your father’s store, and I thought you were the most beautiful little girl I’d ever seen. You were sitting at your father’s finest baby grand piano playing ‘Down in the Valley.’ ”
Nicole rolled her eyes. “One of my most requested numbers, very hot at family parties.” She laughed. “I’m surprised Dad let me actually bang out a song on that expensive piano. I have no musical talent, you know that.”
“But you have feeling, Nicole. Your little face was so concenrated, almost rapt. It was one of the most touching things I’ve ever seen. I think I fell in love with you that day. Or rather, the woman I knew you’d grow up to be.” He grinned, the lean, aristocratic lines of his own face softening. “As for your father letting you play that piano, he could deny you nothing.”
“Except you.”
Paul’s expression sobered. “You’re only nineteen, a sophomore in college. I’m ten years older and I’ve seen a lot of the world. He’s just trying to protect you. He thinks you’re a temporary diversion for me while I’m here looking after Mother during this siege of pneumonia.”
Nicole’s eyes darkened. “It doesn’t bother you that we have to sneak around to see each other? That we can’t go out in public to dinner or a movie, that he would be furious if he even knew I was here with you instead of studying at the library?” She held up the white rosebud he’d handed her as soon as she walked in the door this evening. “I can’t even take this home.”
“It bothers me that we can’t be open about our relationship,” Paul said calmly, “but I understand it. Aside from my being older, your father always thought I was strange, even back in the days when I was a kid who used to haunt his music store.”
“How could he have thought you were strange?” Nicole asked indignantly.
Paul smiled. “I am strange. Ask anyone I went to school with.”
“They didn’t understand a musical prodigy,” Nicole protested. “Not even Dad, although he had his own aspirations at one time. Maybe that’s his problem. Maybe he’s jealous of you.”
Paul shrugged. “Whatever. Local opinions hurt at one time, but they don’t matter now.” He raised his arm and looked at his watch. “What does matter now is that it’s almost ten o’clock. Your parents will be wondering where you are.”
“I wish I had an apartment,” Nicole fretted. “It’s ridiculous to be nineteen and still living at home. I hate it there.”
“Soon you’ll be married to me and living in New York City,” Paul said. He rose with the fluid grace of a dancer, his strong, slender body outlined in the candlelight. He was dressed in black jeans and a black T-shirt, the slender silver and turquoise cross she’d given him for his birthday hanging on a chain around his neck, glinting in the light from the candles. He reached down and clutched her hand, pulling her lightly to her feet. “You should go home now before your father gets suspicious.”
“I guess it is fairly late. I also have to stop by the library and get at least one book. If I come home empty-handed, he’ll know I lied about where I was this evening.”
“You should have told me earlier.” Paul looked at his watch. “I’ll walk you out to the car.”
A woman appeared at the door. Her dull black hair was pulled into a long braid and she wore a high-necked maroon dress. “Señor Paul, your mother asks for you,” she said in her Spanish accent.
“I thought she’d be asleep by now.”
“She was.” Nicole didn’t like the Dominics’ housekeeper, Rosa. The woman looked at Paul with flat black eyes and an expression of deep disapproval although her tone was civil. “Your music woke her.”
Paul briefly shut his eyes. “I keep forgetting I’m not living alone anymore. Sorry, Rosa. Tell her I’ll be there in a minute.”
“Very well, but you should hurry. The loudness of the music disturbed her. She rambles in French. I cannot understand her. I’m thinking she should return to the hospital.” Her words simmered with rebuke, but Paul either didn’t notice or chose to ignore her. His tone remained cordial.
“Go back to her, Rosa. Tell her I’ll come after I’ve walked Miss Sloan to her car.”
“That really isn’t necessary, Paul,” Nicole said hastily, annoyed with herself for being intimidated by Rosa’s unflinching stare. She’d caught fleeting glimpses of the woman’s teenage son around the house a couple of times, and she wondered if he were as cowed by his mother as she would have been. Probably. Only someone with Paul’s self-confidence would be oblivious to her perpetually reproachful manner. “Your mother needs you and my car is right outside.”
“But not in the driveway.” Paul looked troubled. “I don’t like you walking around late at night by yourself.”
“Now you sound like Dad.” She stood on tiptoe and kissed his taut cheek as Rosa slowly turned away, her face heavy with disdain. “I can make it safely across your front lawn and half a block away to my car.”
They walked down the curved staircase. The Spanish-tiled entrance hall was empty, lit only by an antique Tiffany lamp throwing rich, luminous colors into the shadows. Paul said the house had been built in the 1920’s, bought in the fifties when Texas oil had brought the Dominics from New Orleans, and Nicole thought it resembled the Spanish mansion of a grand silent-movie star—maybe Rudolph Valentino’s Falcon Lair. She could picture him and his mysterious wife, Natacha Rambova, doing the tango across the tiled floor. A movie director couldn’t have chosen a more perfect home for a man like Paul Dominic to have grown up in. It suited his drama and elegance.
Paul pulled her close to him. “Will I see you tomorrow?”
“I’m not sure. I only have two classes in the morning, but I have to go to the Mission San Juan to finish my research. My paper is due Monday morning.”
“Then I’ll meet you at the mission.”
Nicole grinned. “Paul, the last time you met me there we spent all day wandering around taking pictures of each other and talking.”
“It was one of the happiest days of my life.”
“Mine, too, but I didn’t get a thing done. I only have two paragraphs of notes and no pictures without one or the other of us posing like tourists.”
Paul smiled. “All right, my scholar. This time we’ll be very professional, I promise.” He held out his hand. “Deal?”
She put her hand in his. “Deal. I’ll be there around one o’clock.”
He lowered his face over hers, kissing her deeply. When he pulled away, she felt almost dizzy. “I love you very much, chérie. You believe that, don’t you?”
She blushed. “I hope you do.”
“You mustn’t hope. You must know.” His voice had deepened, and his eyes flashed. As exciting as Nicole found Paul’s intensity, sometimes it disconcerted her. She’d had several boyfriends over the years, but Paul Dominic wasn’t a boy. And he wasn’t just any man. He was brilliant, a musical genius, famous, wealthy. He was also the most dazzlingly handsome man she’d ever seen. Occasionally the force of his very being overwhelmed her young and relatively inexperienced psyche. Although she knew she was pretty and she’d always been popular, nothing in her life had prepared her for the larger-than-life whirlwind that was Paul Dominic, and sometimes this relationship seemed more like the dream of a teenager instead of reality. But it wasn’t. Her certainty of Paul’s love, as incredible as it seemed, had allowed him to become her first lover, and she knew she could never love anyone else as she loved this man.
He released her from his embrace and kissed her lightly on the forehead. She handed him the white rosebud. “Put this by your bed tonight and think of me.”
“I will,” he said, taking the rose and holding it to his lips. “Good night, my love.”
She stepped out into the February night. Not until she’d reached the end of the front walk did he close the front door.
The temperature had been in the low seventies during the day but now hovered around sixty. A breeze blew from the north, swirling her hair around her face as she walked south to her car. She pulled her jacket tighter, listening to the heels of her boots click on the road and the sound of the wind rustling the limbs of the live juniper.
She hadn’t been worried about time when she was with Paul, but now she suddenly wondered if she could make it back to Trinity University, retrieve a couple of books from the library, and get home at a convincing hour. She had to be more careful, she told herself. If her father found out about her relationship with Paul, he would be furious.
Still, he couldn’t keep her away from him. No matter what rules he set down, she would find a way to circumvent them. She loved her father deeply and didn’t like the idea of deceiving or defying him, but for Paul she would do anything. “You’re just not brave enough to be open about it,” she muttered. “Some fearless romantic heroine you are.”
She reached her white Mustang. She never bothered locking the doors in this quiet upscale neighborhood and she hurriedly climbed inside. Fishing around in her purse, she found her keys and was inserting one in the ignition when a large hand closed over her mouth, jerking her head back and smothering her scream.
“Visiting your boyfriend?” a razor-edged male voice asked in her ear.
Panic raced through her, stopping her breath in a freeze response. While trapped air stretched her lungs, her legs spasmodically shot out, thrusting against the pedals of the car, smashing them to the floor. The car wasn’t running and nothing happened. Her hands clenched, nails digging into her palms, and her arms locked, bent at the elbows. Finally breath poured from her nose, easing the pain in her chest. Without thinking, she moved her hand toward the horn. Then she felt a cold blade against the side of her throat beneath her right ear, halting her hand in midair. “Do you know how easy it is to slice through the skin here?” the voice grated from the backseat. “Important vessel in the throat. What you call it? Juggler?”
“Jugular.” Another voice. Oh God, Nicole thought in horror. There were two men in the back. “And don’t forget the carotid. It’s an artery.” The first man had a Spanish accent. This one didn’t and his voice was smoother. “Blood shoots like it’s coming from a fountain when the carotid’s cut.”
“Ah, the Brain. Should’ve been a doctor.”
Both men laughed hysterically. Nicole smelled wine. Wine and perspiration and cigarette smoke. Her heart was beating in slow, heavy thuds and she was now growing almost calm despite her terror. Slowly she reached for the door handle, but the knife pressed harder against her neck. “Are you stupid?” the one with the accent asked harshly. His voice was older than the other’s. The rough, sandpaper quality made it sound as if the vocal cords had been injured. “I will slash your throat if you try to get away,” he ground out. “Do you understand me?” Nicole’s hand dropped away from the door handle. “I asked you a question, little bird. Do you understand me?”
Nicole moved her head slowly up and down while the other man broke into another spate of convulsive giggling. “Little bird? Where’d you get that? Some book of poetry?”
The other laughed. “Sure. I read poetry all the time. You read poetry, little bird?” His face came closer to hers. She felt the stubble of his beard on his cheek and the cold metal of a hoop earring. He breathed rapidly, his breath reeking of sour wine and filthy teeth. “Sure you read poetry. The pretty college girl with the nice car. Daddy loves you, huh? Daddy gives his little bird whatever she wants. She goes to the right schools. She wears expensive clothes. She reads poetry.” He snickered. “And still she sneaks off in the night to meet men. Fancy clothes on the outside, but a puta inside.”
“But she goes to a rich man,” the other said, then hiccuped. “A rich man in a mansion. What else for her? No slumming with guys like us. No sir, not for her. When she wants a little action, she goes to her own kind.”
How did they know she’d been to see a man? Nicole wondered inanely.
“I want you to start your nice car,” the older one said. “I want you to pull away from the curb slow, understand?” Nicole managed another tiny nod. “You better understand ’cause you try anything and this knife goes in your throat. One slice, little bird, and you’re dead.”
The blade of the knife was not so cold now. It had pressed against Nicole’s skin for over a minute, long enough for her to realize it was serrated and diamond-sharp. It was also held in a jittery hand tight with tension. One small tremor would split her skin. A stronger one would pierce blood vessels.
Her fingers had turned icy. She realized she still clutched the keys, and she raised her right hand, fumbling as she tried to insert the proper key into the ignition.
“Hurry up!”
“Trying,” she mouthed against the callused hand covering her mouth.
The big hand moved down to her chin, still holding her head backward in a viselike grip. “What?”
“Trying.”
“Try harder.”
Blindly she fumbled with the keys on the ring. They jangled and slithered as if alive in her trembling hand. She tried one, then another. Finally the third slipped in the ignition. She turned it and the car started smoothly. She hadn’t shut off the radio and Queen’s “Radio Ga-Ga” boomed through the interior. The knife pushed dangerously against her throat and she gasped. “Turn that thing off!” the older one shouted.
Nicole didn’t need to see to find the radio she listened to constantly. Her hand immediately shot sideways, but her stiff fingers slipped off the knob before she’d completely clicked off the instrument. The music played on, softly. “That’s okay,” the younger one said pleasantly. “Good song. Great concert group. The windows are closed. No one can hear. Leave it on.”
The other one sighed. “Such a spoiled baby. Always got to have music. Okay. You want music, we’ll have music. Little bird, turn on the headlights.”
Nicole fumbled along the dash until she found the headlight knob. She pulled and the lights came on low beam.
“Good. Now go.”
“Can’t see,” Nicole croaked, the angle of her head constricting her windpipe.
“What you mean you can’t see? You got lights.”
“Can’t see.”
“You got her head jerked back too far,” the younger one said casually. “Ease up some, man.”
“Don’t give me orders!” The knife trembled against Nicole’s neck. She could feel his rage rising like a sharp wind.
“Okay. Don’t freak out. It was just a suggestion.”
A grunt before the knife-wielder abruptly complied, lessening the pressure of his hand on her jaw. “Okay, now go!” Fighting to control her shaking, Nicole lowered her head, shifted into drive, and crept away from the curb.
“Good, little bird,” the man said gently. “Drive nice and slow. No tricks.”
Nicole eased the car down the residential street. No tricks? She could always try jerking the steering wheel to the right and slamming into a parked car, but she knew the serrated knife would be in her throat at the moment of impact. No, there would be no tricks. At least not for now.
The younger man had begun to sing along with the music in a surprisingly strong, melodic voice. I know that voice, Nicole thought with a jolt. She hadn’t recognized it when he was speaking, but now it was familiar. She’d heard this guy sing before. But where? When? Her memory blurred when the older man began to sing off-key in his own rough voice before they both stumbled over the lyrics and fell into raucous laughter.
Hollow with fear, Nicole kept the car at a steady fifteen miles an hour, desperately scanning the road for potholes. If she hit even a small one, the sudden movement could send the knife into her throat.
Vaguely she was aware of lights on in the houses she passed—big, luxurious houses where people sat in safety. They had no idea what was happening just a few hundred feet from them. How ironic, she thought. Help was so close, yet so far from her reach.
They came to the end of the street. “Turn here,” the man said. “Nice and slow.” Nicole obeyed. “Good. Now turn again.”
They were on Dick Frederick Street, heading out of residential Olmos Park into the empty grounds of Basin Park. Lights glowed dimly from the dashboard. She knew that if she glanced in the rearview mirror, she could see the face of the man holding the knife. But that would be a mistake. He might panic if he thought she could identify him later. If, please God, there was a later.
They passed no other cars on the narrow road. Suddenly it seemed more like three in the morning than ten o’clock at night, Nicole thought in frustration. Where was everyone?
One of the men made a soft snorting sound, gasped softly, then let out a sigh of delight. “Want some?” the younger one asked.
“In a minute. I’m busy with the knife right now.”
Drugs, Nicole thought. Not just liquor but drugs. Cocaine? No, more likely crystal meth. It was cheaper. That explained the excitability, rapid breathing, tremors. They were hyped up, acting on false courage. And if Nicole remembered correctly, one of the symptoms of amphetamine abuse could be assaultiveness.
“All right, now pull your car off the road.”
“What?” Nicole whispered with a sinking heart.
“Can’t you hear?” the man shouted in her ear as she cringed. “Pull your car to the left, off the road. Way off the road, into the brush.”
As Nicole slowed the car, she was relieved the man moved the knife away from her throat a fraction when they jolted into the undergrowth. The headlights picked out spiny shrubs, empty aluminum cans, and crushed Styrofoam cups. This was the kind of place people passed by quickly, never stopping. A deserted place abandoned to weeds and trash. Suddenly it seemed to Nicole as if until this moment the whole experience had been a terrifying dream. Now it was becoming real and she felt as if she were sinking in quicksand. The more she cooperated, the deeper she sank. There was no way out. She was doomed to endure whatever these two had in store for her. Her mind shuddered away from the possibilities.
They nearly bumped into a small mesquite tree and Nicole stopped. “Now turn off the car and the lights.”
Do something! her mind screamed as she switched off the headlights and the ignition. But do what? Even honking the horn wouldn’t help at this point. No one could hear. She had no weapons, not even Mace in her purse.
“Take the knife.”
The sharp edge of the knife lifted from her throat for a moment as the knife changed hands. Then the dangerous points pricked at her skin again. Someone took hold of her hair, yanking it so hard she yelped. “You gonna get out of the car very, very slow,” the razor-voiced one said. “You can’t run because I’m holding you. Besides, Ritch—” He broke off sharply. “There’s a knife at your throat, little bird. You can’t outrun us. You won’t even try, will you?”
“No,” she whimpered. “But you don’t have to do this. My father has money. He’s not rich, but my boyfriend is. If you just let me go, they’ll both pay you.”
Foolish, adolescent-sounding snickering emerged from the backseat. The younger one. “Okay,” the razor-voiced one said. “We’ll let you go. Then tomorrow we’ll go to your daddy’s house and your boyfriend’s house and they’ll both hand us envelopes full of money. So simple.” He wrenched her hair so hard she couldn’t believe it didn’t come out in his hand. “You think we’re fools?”
Nicole’s insides twisted as they both fell into that awful, maniacal laughter again. Idiot, she thought. This wasn’t a television show. How could she have thought she could talk her way out of this with offers of money?
“Not even a very smart try,” the older one said with a mixture of amusement and disgust. “Maybe you’re dumber than you look. Just a puta they let in college because she’s got a pretty face and a daddy with money. Get out of the car.”
“Please,” Nicole begged in a thin, ragged voice. “Please, I haven’t done anything to you—”
“But I’m gonna do things to you. Things you’ll never forget.” He twisted her hair another painful notch tighter and she cried out, tears beginning to run down her cheeks. “Quit squealing like a pig and get out!”
In numb resignation, Nicole opened the car door. The interior lights came on. If only a car would drive by, she thought desperately. Please, please let a car pass.
But the road was empty and dark.
She stepped from the car, staggering with the weakness of fear. For a moment he released her hair. Even if the moment had been longer, though, she was too helpless to run. Her legs shook and she knew she couldn’t get away from these two lunatics whose reflexes were sharpened by amphetamines. By the time her feet were firmly on the ground, a muscular arm in a sweatshirt gripped her around the waist and the knife again pressed into her throat. She heard car doors closing and the interior lights blinked off.
“Into the brush,” he ordered.
She stumbled forward, the long dry grass crunching under her boots. A few trees grew in the area, their branches bare against the night sky. In the distance she heard cars, saw the flash of lights. She looked up and stumbled over an abandoned tire, almost falling. The arm around her tightened, and the knife finally slightly pierced her skin. The man cursed violently. A thin trail of warm blood oozed down her neck, tickling slightly as it slithered over her collarbone.
Suddenly he threw her to the ground so hard he knocked the breath from her. She landed on her back, a rock jabbing excruciatingly into her hipbone. Silent with the shock of the pain, she looked up and saw an overpass. Interstate 281, she thought distantly. That’s where all the cars and lights were. Hundreds of cars sped over 281, none of their passengers knowing what was going on below them in the dry Texas grass. I’m only half a mile from home, she realized. Half a mile from love and safety.
Nicole felt the weight of a body descend over hers. She closed her eyes and turned her head to the right, letting out a tiny sob. “Relax,” the sandpapery voice crooned in her ear. “You gonna enjoy this, baby. You never had anything like this.” He paused. “Hold her.”
Hands pinned her shoulders to the ground. Suddenly she felt her jeans being jerked from her body. Every time he jerked, trying to pull off the tight jeans, her hipbone hit the sharp stone again. “Damn,” he spat. “Why couldn’t you wear a skirt?”
Later, Nicole couldn’t remember what made her begin to fight at this moment. Seconds earlier she’d been limp with fear and resignation, but now adrenaline flooded her body. With an animal cry she didn’t recognize as her own voice, she kicked out, eliciting a pained shout from her attacker. He hit her face with his fist so hard she thought she was going to pass out, especially when she heard a bone crack, but she didn’t stop fighting, thrashing wildly against the weight of two male bodies.
But the men were too strong for her. The next few minutes were a nightmare of pain, terror, and humiliation. Her face grew wet with their saliva, her ears rang with their wild laughter and their shouts of triumph as they reduced her to something less than human.
Through it all she’d kept her eyes squeezed tight, trying to shut out at least part of what was happening to her. Even when she realized the sexual assault was over, she wouldn’t look although she no longer thought an ability to identify them might jeopardize her life. She had abandoned the hope of saving her life. She just didn’t want her last earthly memory to be of their savage, hated faces.
For a few seconds, while she lay quietly wishing she could pass out and escape the pain, she heard only their panting, a few grunts, a high-pitched snicker. Then the older one said, “Now we gotta do her.”
“I thought that’s what we just did,” the younger one giggled.
“No. I mean really do her.”
Slowly the giggling stopped. “You mean kill her?”
“Sure, man.”
Nicole heard movement in the grass, as if one of them were attempting to stand up. “Look, Magaro, rape’s one thing. I didn’t count on murder.”
“What did you think? We’re gonna beat and rape a girl like this, then just leave her alone? You don’t think she’s goin’ to the police?”
“She doesn’t know who we are. She never looked at us. I made sure. She doesn’t know who we are.”
“She didn’t look at us?” the older one spat out. “How do you know she didn’t sneak a peek? Besides, you couldn’t help showing off your voice in the car. Maybe she’s heard the band. Maybe she recognized the voice. And, genius, you just said my name.”
“I did?”
“Yeah. Now we got to kill her.”
Nicole, cold, in physical and emotional agony, lay motionless, her eyes still closed, but she heard the younger one’s voice begin to betray anxiety. “Look how still she is. Maybe she’s already dead.”
“She’s not. Are you, little bird?” He hit her face again, splitting her lip, dislocating her jaw, and a moan escaped her.
“I…I still don’t think she knows who we are. We can get away with it. I mean, God, murder. I don’t…” Nicole was aware of a sharp intake of breath. “Listen, man, I don’t think I can do it.”
“Oh, you can’t? A little short on courage? Well, I’m not gonna do it alone.”
“Magaro—”
“Shut up! You hold her down again.”
“Look, man, I told you—”
“I said hold her! Do it now, or I swear to God I’ll kill you, too.”
“Me?” the younger one squeaked.
“If something goes wrong, I’m not gonna be the only one guilty of murder. You’re gonna be—what they call it? An accessory. That way you won’t talk.”
“Talk? You think I’m gonna tell anybody about this?”
“Who knows? You get all crazy on your wine and meth and you could say anything. I don’t trust you. Now do what I say. Hold her down.” Nothing happened. “Hold her down. I mean it, Zand. Hold her or I’ll kill you, too. You know I will.”
“Okay, okay,” the younger one said shakily. “Just cool it. I’ll hold her, man. I’m with you all the way.”
During this exchange a tiny flame of encouragement had flickered in Nicole’s ravaged body and mind. But when she heard the fear in the young one’s voice, the flame died. Hadn’t she known all along that the experience would end this way? The best thing to do would be to send her mind somewhere else, somewhere beautiful and far away where she wouldn’t feel the pain, wouldn’t feel the frightening darkness of death descend.
But when hands pressed on her shoulders again, unexpected desperation flowed into her. She began to flail with the strength of a madwoman, her right hand connecting with an eye socket. The man’s scream was followed by a spate of cursing as her knee sank into a groin. Writhing with all her strength, she fought grappling hands and efforts of strong bodies to pin her to the rough ground. A fist connected with her temple, and another punched into her abdomen, forcing the air from her.
During it all Nicole had been aware of noise—the men’s voices, one high-pitched, the other growing even more guttural than before in its fury. Then, as the excruciating pain of the blows overwhelmed her and her surge of strength dissipated, she heard another sound. She slowed her weak attempt at fighting, straining to listen. Could it be? Could it possibly be? Yes! A car.
Both men stiffened as the car drew nearer. “Stay low,” the rough-voiced one she knew as Magaro ordered. “They’ll go by and never see us.”
But the car didn’t whiz by as Nicole expected. It slowed. She heard gravel crunch as it pulled off the road. Then headlights swept over them. In the shock of the brightness, Nicole’s eyes snapped open. In five seconds she saw two faces clearly—one in its early twenties with blue eyes, clear skin, a slightly broad nose, and shoulder-length light brown hair. The other was at least ten years older, acne-scarred, the dark eyes narrow and mean, the lips so thin they were almost nonexistent.
A car door opened. “Hey, what’s going on here?” a man demanded.
“Run,” the younger one quaked.
“It’s not the cops. Gotta kill her!”
Nicole flung herself to the left, missing the slash of the knife aimed at her throat. She screamed with all the strength she could muster.
“I’ve got a gun!” the man in the car shouted.
“He’s lyin’,” Magaro hissed.
Suddenly the sound of a shot tore through the night.
Hands released Nicole’s shoulders. “I’m gettin’ outta here!”
The knife swept past Nicole’s throat again, this time nicking the skin. She shrieked frantically and another shot rang out.
Then she fainted.