past at a crawl, and the guy with the mustache looked right at Ben for a
moment, or seemed to, stared right between the oleander branches that
Ben was holding slightly apart. Ben wanted to let the branches close
up, but he was afraid the movement would be seen, slight as it was, so
he just looked back into the other man’s eyes, expecting the Caddy to
stop and the doors to fly open, expecting a submachine gun to start
crackling, shredding the oleander leaves with a thousand bullets. But
the car kept moving past the house and on down the street. Watching its
taillights dwindle, Ben let out his breath with a shudder.
He crept free of the shrubbery, went out to the street, and stood in the
shadows by a talljacaranda growing near the curb. He stared after the
Cadillac until it had traveled three blocks, climbed a small hill, and
disappeared over the crest.
In the distance, there were still sirens, though fewer.
They had sounded angry before. Now they sounded mournful.
Holding the thirty-two pistol at his side, he hurried off into the
night-cloaked neighborhood in search of a car to steal.
In the 560 SL, Rachael had moved up front to the driver’s seat. It was
more comfortable than the cramped storage space, and it was a better
position from which to talk with Sarah Kiel. She switched on the little
overhead light provided for map reading, confident it would not be seen
past the property’s thick screen of trees. The moon-pale glow
illuminated a portion of the dashboard, the console, Rachael’s face, and
Sarah’s stricken countenance.
The battered girl, having been shaken from her catatonic state, was at
last capable of responding to questions.
The was holding her curled right hand protectively against ier breast,
which somehow gave her the look of a small, njured bird. Her. torn
fingernails had stopped bleeding, ut her broken finger was grotesquely
swollen. With ier left hand, she tenderly explored her blackened eye,
bruised cheek, and split lip, frequently wincing and making small, thin
sounds of pain. She said nothing, but when her frightened eyes met
Rachael’ 5, awareness glimmered in them.
Rachael said, “Honey, we’ll get you to a hospital in just a few minutes.
Okay?”
The girl nodded.
“Sarah, do you have any idea who I am?”
The girl shook her head.
“I’m Rachael Leben, Eric’s wife.”
Fear seemed to darken the blue of Sarah’s eyes.
“No, honey, it’s all right. I’m on your side. Really. I was in the
process of ivorcin him. I knew about his young girls, but that has
nothing to do with why I left him. The man was sick, honey. Twisted
and ar’ogant and sick. I learned to despise and fear him. So you can
speak freely with me. You’ve got a friend in me. You understand?”
Sarah nodded.
pausing to look around at the darkness beyond the car, at the blank
black windows and patio doors of the house on one side and the untended
shrubbery and trees on the other, Rachael locked both doors with the
master latch.
It was getting warm inside the car. She knew she should open the
windows, but she felt safer with them closed.
eturuin her attention to the teenager, Rachael said, “Tell me what
happened to you, honey. Tell me everything.
The girl tried to speak, but her voice broke. Violent shivers coursed
through her.
“Take it easy,” Rachael said. “You’re safe now.” She 9″ hoped that was
true. “You’re safe. Who did this to you.
In the frosty glow of the map light, Sarah’s skin looked as pallid as
carved bone. She cleared her throat and whispered, “Eric. Eric b-beat
me.
Rachael had known this would be the answer, yet it chilled her to the
marrow and, for a moment, left her speechless. At last she said, “When?
When did he do this to you?”
“He came. .. at half past midnight.”
“Dear God, not even an hour before we got there! He must’ve left just
before we arrived.”
From the time she’d left the city morgue earlier this evening, she had
hoped to catch up with Eric, and she should have been pleased to learn