.“ He stood. “And now it’s time to teach you what you’ve never learned.”
Nora could not move. Could not breathe.
He must have come to the house directly from the park, arriving before
she did. He had forced entry, leaving no trace of a break-in, and he’d been
waiting here on the bed all the time she’d been sipping brandy in the kitchen.
There was something about his waiting up here that was creepier than anything
else he had done, waiting and teasing himself with the promise of her, getting a
kick out of listening to her putter around downstairs in ignorance of his
presence.
When he was finished with her, would he kill her?
She turned and ran into the second-floor hallway.
As she put her hand on the newel post at the head of the stairs and started
down, she heard Streck behind het.
She plunged down the steps, taking them two and three at a time, terrified that
she was going to twist an ankle and fall, and at the landing her knee nearly
buckled, and she stumbled but kept going, leaped down the last flight, into the
first-floor hall.
Seizing her from behind, catching the baggy shoulders of her dress, Streck spun
her around to face him.
9
As Travis swung to the curb in front of the Devon house, Einstein stood on the
front seat, placed both forepaws on the door handle, bore down with all of his
weight, and opened the door. Another neat trick. He was out of the truck and
galloping up the front walkway before Travis had engaged the hand brake and
switched off the engine.
Seconds later, Travis reached the foot of the veranda steps in time to see the
retriever on the porch as he stood on his hind paws and hit the doorbell with
one forepaw. The bell was audible from inside.
Climbing the steps, Travis said, “Now, what the devil’s gotten into you?”
The dog rang the bell again.
“Give her a chance—”
As Einstein hit the button a third time, Travis heard a man shout in anger and
pain. Then a woman’s cry for help.
Barking as ferociously as he had done in the woods yesterday, Einstein clawed at
the door as if he actually believed he could tear his way through it.
Pressing forward, Travis peered through a clear segment in the stained-glass
window. The hallway was brightly lit, so he was able to see two people
struggling only a few feet away.
Einstein was barking, snarling, going crazy.
Travis tried the door, found it locked. He used his elbow to smash in a couple
of the stained-glass segments, reached inside, fumbled for the lock, located it
and the security chain, and went inside just as the guy in running shorts pushed
the woman aside and turned to face him.
Einstein didn’t give Travis a chance to act. The retriever bolted along the
hallway, straight toward the runner.
The guy reacted as anyone would upon seeing a charging dog the size of this one:
he ran. The woman tried to trip him, and he stumbled but did not fall. At the
end of the corridor, he slammed through a swinging door, out of sight.
Einstein raced past Nora Devon and reached the still-swinging door at full tilt,
timing his approach perfectly, streaking through the opening as the door rocked
inward. He vanished after the runner. In the room beyond the swinging door—the
kitchen, Travis figured—there was much barking, snarling, and shouting.
Something fell with a crash, then something else made an even louder crash, and
the runner cursed, and Einstein made a vicious sound that gave Travis a chill,
and the din grew worse.
He went to Nora Devon. She was leaning against the newel post at the bottom of
the stairs. He said, “You okay?”
“He almost . . . almost . .
“But he didn’t,” Travis guessed.
“No.”
He touched the blood on her chin. “You’re hurt.”
“His blood,” she said, seeing it on Travis’s fingertips. “I bit the bastard.”
She looked toward the swinging door, which had stopped moving now. “Don’t let
him hurt the dog.”
“Not likely,” Travis said.
The noise in the kitchen subsided as Travis pushed through the swinging door.