Karen Radcliff appeared from nowhere, cut her bonds
with a paring knife, and carried her bodily to the house. Unceremoniously
dumped in the center of her bed, Lori curled up into a ball, inwardly
calm, but trembling violently.
Carol remained outside to deal with the wailing
children. Karen sat at her side, sinking the edge of the bed deeply. "I
heard you screaming," she whispered harshly. "Lori, I
don't know what to do! Talk to me!"
Lori had trouble getting the words past her
chattering teeth. "I'm okay. It was only a fruit jar."
Karen just stared at her, clearly suspecting that she
was in shock and incoherent. A calm part of Lori’s mind thought that the
case as well. "The glass eye," Lori said, trying to explain. She
stuttered badly. "I saw it, but it was just a broken fruit jar."
Somewhere in the house, the rescued kitten mewed in
its questing little voice, bringing back memories of childhood. The
kitten would need a bowl of water, another of cat food, and a
strategically placed litter box or two.
Carol came into the room. "How is she?"
"Not entirely in her right mind."
"We have to report this to the sheriff," Carol said.
Lori pushed herself upright to quell the disaster
Carol was contemplating. She sat on the edge of the bed, pulled a cover
to her breasts to hide her nakedness, and forced a reassuring smile. "I'm
okay."
"Neither one of us believes that for a flat-ass
second," Karen said.
Lori put a hand to her bruised neck and cleared her
throat. "I don't want a bunch of men in the house asking questions I
can't answer. I need time to think." She managed to stand on wobbly legs
and wrap herself in the blanket. "I'm going to be sick. I want to take a
shower."
She calmly picked a fresh change of underclothing and
a nightgown from her dresser and locked herself in the bathroom. She
vomited once in the toilet, then sat naked on the floor of the shower
beneath a hard sting of hot water.
Carol knocked on the bathroom door fifteen minutes
later. "Hon, are you okay?"
Lori fought her way to her feet. "Give me a
moment!" She toweled herself dry, dressed, and put on her heaviest
terrycloth robe. He passed both Karen and Carol on her way through the
bedroom. With Wendy and Leslie in tow, she sat at the kitchen table.
She took the kitten from Wendy and lifted its tail to
sex the animal as a demonstrate of her resilience. "Tom cat," she said
and smiled at the power of its kitten motor purring against her chest. Wendy would want to keep it, of course. He'd piss on the furniture, if
not deballed first. If only pesky human males could be as easily rendered
trouble-free.
She handed the kitten back to Wendy. "Take Leslie
and watch television."
Still pale and shaking, Wendy turned obediently away
and gestured with a tilt of her head for Leslie to follow. Leslie sighed
and did so, mercifully ignorant of what had happened and knowing it would
never be explained to his satisfaction regardless.
Carol and Karen stood quietly off to one side. Lori
looked up at Carol. "Karen and Amy and I have worked out a way to get
those packages out of your house."
"You told them about Ruben," Carol cried in
frightened surprise.
"I told them everything," Lori said. "We need their
help."
"This is not the time," Karen said. "You've just
been physically assaulted and in all probability you narrowly escaped
being murdered. Did you see who it was?”
Lori shook her head. She hadn't seen. She couldn't
for the life of her guess who it may have been. Nothing about the way he
had moved or behaved had been familiar to her. It seemed as likely that
the freight trains passing through town had dropped off a transient to
prey upon the locals as happened from time to time. The van may have been
stolen.
"Ralph's got a broken arm," Amy reminded the group. “It couldn’t have been him.”
Lori looked around in surprise. Amy's presence in
the room hadn't even registered. Events were moving faster than she could
follow.
“Perhaps those men looking for Ruben." Karen mulled
over other possibilities. “Or Henry Kahn’s thugs,” she added, visibly
shocked by the number of potential candidates.
"I'll stay with you tonight,” Carol said. “If we're
not going to call the sheriff, there's really nothing more we can do."
"But what if he comes back?" Amy said, wide-eyed with
fear.
"Amy, you and the twins stay with me," Karen said. "Where in God's name are the twins?"
Amy gestured with an innocent nod toward the living
room. "Sleeping on the couch."
Karen headed in that direction with a sigh of
relief. "I'll give you a hand." But she paused at the front door before
leaving the house with Gertrude in her arms and Amy following hand-in-hand
with Timothy. "It was a trap," she called through the house. "Under
ordinary circumstances, who would have gone to check out the commotion,
you or Wendy?"
Lori closed her eyes. It would have been Wendy.
"Remember that you saw a man's face at Wendy's
window, not at your own. I think that you almost lost your daughter just
like I lost mine. Something must be done, Lori, or he'll be back, and
he'll try again, and you won't be so lucky the next time."
Novels by
William G. Tedford