Brain. Chapter 11
11
Denise Sanger woke up in one instant. She lay there unmoving, scarcely breathing while she listened to the sounds of the night. She could feel the pulse at her temples, hammering away from the adrenaline that had been pumped into her system. She knew that she’d been awakened by some foreign noise but it was not repeated. All she could hear was the rumbling of her ancient refrigerator. Her breathing slowly returned to normal. Even her refrigerator, with a final thump, kicked off, leaving the apartment in silence.
Rolling over, wondering if perhaps she’d just had a bad dream, she realized she had to go to the bathroom. The pressure on her bladder slowly augmented until she could no longer ignore it. As distasteful as the idea was, she had to get up.
Pulling herself from the warm bed, Denise padded into the bathroom. Gathering up her nightgown in a bundle on her lap, she sat down on the cold toilet seat. She didn’t turn on the light nor did she close the door.
The adrenaline in her system seemed to have inhibited her bladder and she was forced to sit for several minutes before she could urinate. She had just finished when she heard a dull thud that could have been someone hitting her wall from another apartment.
Denise strained her ears for any other sound but the apartment was quiet. Marshaling her courage, she moved silently down the hall until she had a view of her front door. She felt a sense of relief when she saw that the police lock was securely in place.
She turned and started back toward the bedroom. It was at that moment that she felt the draft along the floor and heard a slight rustle of some of the notes tacked to her bulletin board. Reversing her direction, she returned to the foyer and glanced into the dark living room. The window to the fire escape in the air well was open!
Denise tried desperately not to panic, but the possibility of an intruder had been her biggest fear since coming to New York. For almost a month after her arrival, she’d had great difficulty sleeping. And now with her window ajar her worst nightmare seemed to be unfolding. Someone was in her apartment!
As the seconds ticked by, she remembered that she had two phones. One by her bed, the other on the kitchen wall just ahead of her. In one step, she crossed the hall, feeling the aging linoleum under her feet. Passing the sink, she grabbed a small paring knife. A glint of meager light sparkled off its small blade. The tiny weapon gave Denise a false sense of protection.
Reaching past the refrigerator, she grasped the phone. At that instant, the old refrigerator compressor switched on and with a sound similar to a subway, chugged to life. Startled by the noise, her nerves already drawn out to a razor’s edge, she panicked, letting go of the phone and starting to scream.
But before she could make a sound, a hand grabbed her neck and lifted her with great power, causing her strength to drain away. Her arms went flaccid and the paring knife clattered to the floor.
She was whisked around like a rag doll and rapidly propelled down the hall with her feet just touching the floor. Stumbling into the bedroom there were several flashes, a sensation of searing heat on the side of her head and the sounds of a pistol with a silencer.
The bullets slapped into the mound of blankets on her bed. A final rude shove sent Denise to her knees as the blankets were yanked back.
“Where is he?” snarled one of the attackers. The other pulled open the closets.
Cowering by the bed, she looked up. Two men dressed in black with wide leather belts were standing in front of her.
“Who?” she managed in a weak voice.
“Your lover, Martin Philips.”
“I don’t know. At the hospital.”
One of the men reached down and lifted her up high enough to throw her onto the bed. “Then we’ll wait.”
For Philips, time had passed as if in a dream. After the last rifle shot he’d heard nothing. The night had remained still except for an occasional car on the city street beyond the playground. He was aware that his pulse had slowed to normal, but he was still having trouble collecting his thoughts. Only now, as the rising sun imperceptibly brushed over the playground, did his mind begin to function again. As the dawn brightened he was able to make out more details in the landscape, like the series of concrete wastebaskets that were fashioned to look like the surrounding natural rock. Birds had suddenly convened on the area, and several pigeons wandered over to the sprawled body in the dry wading pool.