The stink of his own perspiration grew greater than the lime and wood-stain
odors of the house.
He came to a powder room on his left. A quick sweep of the light revealed
nothing out of the ordinary, though his own frightened face, reflected in the
mirror, startled him.
The rear of the house—family room, breakfast area, kitchen—was directly ahead,
and on his left was another door, standing open. In the beam of the flashlight,
which suddenly began to quiver violently in his hand, Ken saw Teel’s body on the
floor of a laundry room, and so much blood that there could be no doubt he was
dead.
Beneath the waves of fear that washed across the surface of his mind, there were
undercurrents of grief, rage, hatred, and a fierce desire for vengeance.
Behind Ken, something thumped.
He cried out and turned to face the threat.
But the hall to the right and the breakfast area to the left were both deserted.
The sound had come from the front of the house. Even as the echo of it died
away, he knew what he’d heard: the front door being closed.
Another sound broke the stillness, not as loud as the first but more unnerving:
the clack of the door’s dead bolt being engaged.
Had the killer departed and locked the door from the outside, with a key? But
where would he get a key? Off the foreman that he had murdered? And Why would he
pause to lock up?
More likely, he had locked the door from inside, not merely to delay Ken’s
escape but to let him know the hunt was still under way.
Ken considered dousing the flashlight because it pinpointed him for the enemy,
but by now the twilight glow at the windows was purple-gray and did not reach
into the house at all. Without the flashlight, he would be blind.
How the hell was the killer finding his way in this steadily deepening darkness?
Was it possible that a PCP junkie’s night vision improved when he was high, just
as his strength increased to that of ten men as a side effect of the angel dust?
The house was quiet.
He stood with his back to the hallway wall.
He could smell Teel’s blood. A vaguely metallic odor.
Click, click, click.
Ken stiffened and listened intently, but he heard nothing more after those three
quick noises. They had sounded like swift footsteps crossing the concrete floor,
taken by someone wearing boots with hard leather heels—or shoes with cleats.
The noises had begun and ended so abruptly that he had not been able to tell
where they were coming from. Then he heard them again—click, click, click,
click—four steps this time, and they were in the foyer, moving in this
direction, toward the hall in which he stood.
He immediately pushed away from the wall, turning to face the adversary,
dropping into a crouch and thrusting both the flashlight and the revolver toward
where he had heard the steps. But the hallway was deserted.
Breathing through his open mouth to reduce the noise of his own rapid
respiration, which he feared would mask the movements of the enemy, Ken eased
along the hall, into the foyer. Nothing. The front door was closed all right,
but the den and the living room and the staircase and the gallery above were
deserted.
Click, click, click, click.
The noises arose from an entirely different direction now, from the back of the
house, in the breakfast area. The killer had fled silently out of the foyer,
across the living room and dining room, into the kitchen, into the breakfast
area, circling through the house, coming around behind Ken. Now the bastard was
entering the hall that Ken had just left. And though the guy had been silent
while flitting through the other rooms, he was making those noises again,
obviously not because he had to make them, not because his shoes clicked with
every step the way Ken’s shoes squeaked, but because he wanted to make the
noises again, wanted to taunt Ken, wanted to say: Hey, I’m behind you now, and
here I come, ready or not, here I come.