he was going to vomit. A bitter fluid touched the back of his throat,
but he choked it down.
“Another couple of minutes-”
“Might make all the difference.”
Doyle turned away from the Thunderbird and hurried across the dark
lawn toward the front door, which was ajar.
How was it possible? Who was this man who could follow them wherever
they went, who could catch up with them no matter how much they changed
their plans? Who in the hell was he that he could drive ahead and wait
for them here? He seemed more than maniacal. He was almost superhuman,
satanic.
And what had he done to Courtney? If he had hurt her in any way .
. . Alex was caught up between rage and terror. It was frightening to
realize that even when you had the courage to face up to violence, you
could not protect those you loved. More than that, you couldn’t know
where the danger would come from or in what form.
He reached the front door, pushed it open, and stepped into the house
before he thought that he might have walked into a trap.
Suddenly he remembered all too clearly the cunning and ferocity which
the madman had shown when he had been swinging that ax . . .
Doyle crouched against the wall, sheltering behind a telephone stand,
making as small a target of himself as he could. He looked quickly
around the front room.
It was deserted.
All the lights were blazing, but no madman-in here.
And no Courtney.
The house was very quiet.
Too quiet?
Keeping his back to the wall, he went from the living room to the dining
room, the shag carpet absorbing the noise of each footstep. But the
dining room was also empty.
In the kitchen, three plates, knives, forks and spoons had been laid out
on the butcherblock table along with various other utensils.
She had planned a late-night snack for them.
Doyle’s heart was pounding painfully. His breathing was so harsh and
deep that he felt certain it could be heard from one end of the house to
the other.
He kept thinking: Courtney, Courtney, Courtney . . .
The sunken den and the screened-in back porch were also deserted.
Everything was neat and orderly-or, rather, as neat and orderly as
things could be in Courtney’s house. And that must be a good sign.
Right?
No traces of a struggle, no overturned furniture, no blood . . .
“Courtney!
He had intended to remain silent. But now it seemed terribly important
to call her name-as if the spoken word were a magic charm that would
heal whatever the madman had done to her.
“Courtney!
No reply.
“Courtney, where are you?”
in the back of his mind, Doyle knew that he should calm down. He should
shut up for a minute and rethink the situation, consider his options
once more before making another move. He was not going to help either
Courtney or Colin if he acted stupidly, precipitously, and got himself
killed.
However, with the silent house pressing in on him, he was temporarily
incapable of rational behavior.
“Courtney!
Bent for-ward like a soldier landing on an enemy-held beach, he ran up
the main stairs two at a time. At the top, he grabbed the head of the
banister to keep his balance, and he gasped for breath.
Along the second-floor hallway, all the doors were closed, each like the
lid of a surprise package.
The guest bedroom was the nearest. He took three steps across the hall
and threw that door open.
For a moment he could not understand what he was seeing. Boards, boxes,
papers, and other junk were stacked in the middle of the room, a pile of
rubble in the center of the nice new carpet. He took several steps
forward, past the threshold, curiously disquieted by the incongruity of
what lay there.
The thick, slow voice came from the doorway immediately behind him: “You
took her away from me.”
Alex made himself fall to the left as he turned. But it was hopeless.
In spite of that maneuver, the bullet slammed into him and knocked him
all the way down.