Riptide
Catherine Coulter
Riptide
Catherine Coulter
Chapter 1
New York City
June 15
Present
Becca was watching an afternoon soap opera she’d seen off and
on since she was a kid. She found herself wondering if she would
ever have a child who needed a heart transplant one month and
a new kidney the next, or a husband who wouldn’t be faithful
to her for longer than it took a new woman to look in his direction.
Then the phone rang.
She jumped to her feet, then stopped dead still and stared over at
the phone. She heard a guy on TV whining about how life wasn’t
fair. He didn’t know what fair was.
She made no move to answer the phone. She just stood there
and listened, watching it as it rang three more times. Then, finally,
because her mother was lying in a coma in Lenox Hill Hospital,
because she just plain couldn’t stand the ringing ringing ringing,
she watched her hand reach out and pick up the receiver.
She forced her mouth to form the single word. “Hello?”
“Hi, Rebecca. It’s your boyfriend. I’ve got you so scared you
have to force yourself to pick up the phone. Isn’t that right?”
She closed her eyes as that hated voice, low and deep, swept over
her, into her, making her so afraid she was shaking. No hint of an
Atlanta drawl, no sharp New York vowels, no dropped R’s from
Boston. A voice that was well educated, with smooth, clear diction,
perhaps even a touch of the Brit in it. Old? Young? She didn’t
know, couldn’t tell. She had to keep it together. She had to listen
carefully, to remember how he spoke, what he said. You can do it.
Keep it together. Make him talk, make him say something, you never know
what will pop out. That was what the police psychologist in Albany
had told her to do when the man had first started calling her. Listen
carefully. Don’t let him scare you. Take control. You guide him,
not the other way around. Becca licked her lips, chapped from the
hot, dry air in Manhattan that week, an anomaly, the weather forecaster
had said. And so Becca repeated her litany of questions, trying
to keep her voice calm, cool, in charge, yes, that was her. “Won’t
you tell me who you are? I really want to know. Maybe we can talk
about why you keep calling me. Can we do that?”
“Can’t you come up with some new questions, Rebecca? After
all, I’ve called you a good dozen times now. And you always say the
same things. Ah, they’re from a shrink, aren’t they? They told you
to ask those questions, to try to distract me, to get me to spill my
guts to you. Sorry, it won’t work.”
She’d never really thought it would work, that stratagem. No,
this guy knew what he was doing, and he knew how to do it. She wanted to plead with him to leave her alone, but she didn’t. Instead,
she snapped. She simply lost it, the long-buried anger cutting
through her bone-grinding fear. She gripped the phone, knuckles
white, and yelled, “Listen to me, you little prick. Stop saying you’re
my boyfriend. You’re nothing but a sick jerk. Now, how about this
for a question? Why don’t you go to hell where you belong? Why
don’t you go kill yourself, you’re sure not worth anything to the
human race. Don’t call me anymore, you pathetic bastard. The cops
are on to you. The phone is tapped, do you hear me? They’re going
to get you and fry you.”
She’d caught him off guard, she knew it, and an adrenaline rush
sent her sky-high, but only for a moment. After a slight pause, he
recovered. In a calm, reasonable voice, he said, “Now, Rebecca
sweetheart, you know as well as I do that the cops now don’t believe
you’re being stalked, that some weird guy is calling you at all
hours, trying to scare you. You had the phone tap put in yourself
because you couldn’t get them to do it. And I’ll never talk long
enough for that old, low-tech equipment of yours to get a trace.