“Try me and you’ll be sorry.”
“You won’t,” he said confidently. “You aren’t the type to pull the trigger unless you don’t have any other choice. You couldn’t kill me in cold blood. You couldn’t shoot me in the back. Not in a million years. Not you. You don’t have that kind of strength. You’re weak. Just too damned weak.” He gave her that ghastly grin again, that wide death’s head smile, and he took one step toward the door. “You can call the cops when I’m gone.” Another step. “It would be different if I was a stranger. Then I might have a chance to get away scot-free. But after all, you can tell them who I am.” Another step. “See, you’ve already won, and I’ve lost. All I’m doing is buying a little time. A very little bit of time.”
She knew he was right about her. She could kill him if he attacked, but she was not capable of shooting him while he retreated.
Sensing her unspoken acknowledgment of the truth in what he had said, Frye turned his back on her. His smug self-confidence infuriated her, but she could not pull the trigger. He had been sidling carefully toward the exit. Now, he strode boldly out of the room, not bothering to glance back. He disappeared through the broken door, and his footsteps echoed along the hallway.
When Hilary heard him thumping down the stairs, she realized that he might not leave the house. Unobserved, he could slip into one of the downstairs rooms and hide in a closet, wait patiently until the police had come and gone, then slither out of his hole and strike her by surprise. She hurried to the head of the stairs and got there just in time to see him turn right, into the foyer. A moment later, she heard him rattling the locks; then he went out and threw the door shut behind him with a loud wham!
She was three-quarters of the way down the stairs when she realized he might have faked his departure. He might have slammed the door without leaving. He might be waiting for her in the foyer.
Hilary was carrying the pistol at her side, the muzzle directed safely at the floor, but she raised it in dread anticipation. She descended the stairs, and on the bottom step she paused for a long while, listening. At last, she eased forward until she could see into the foyer. It was empty. The closet door stood open. Frye wasn’t in there either. He was really gone.
She closed the closet door.
She went to the front door and double-locked it.
Weaving slightly, she walked across the living room, in the study. The room smelled of lemon-scented furniture polish; the two women from the cleaning agency had been in yesterday. Hilary switched on the light and drifted to the big desk. She put the gun in the center of the blotter.
Red and white roses filled the vase on the window table. They added a sweet contrasting fragrance to the lemon air.
She sat down at the desk and pulled the telephone in front of her. She looked up the number for the police.
Suddenly, unexpectedly, her vision blurred with hot tears. She tried to hold them back. She was Hilary Thomas, and Hilary Thomas did not cry. Not ever. Hilary Thomas was tough. Hilary Thomas could take all the crap the world wanted to throw at her and keep on taking it and never break down. Hilary Thomas could handle herself perfectly well, thank you. Even though she squeezed her eyes shut, the flood would not be contained. Fat tears tracked down her cheeks and settled saltily in the corners of her mouth, then dribbled over her chin. At first she wept in eerie silence, emitting not even the shallowest whimper. But after a minute or so, she began to twitch and shiver, and her voice was shaken loose. In the back of her throat, she made a wet choking sound which swiftly grew into a sharp little cry of despair. She broke. She let out a terrible quaverous wail and hugged herself. She sobbed and sputtered and gasped for breath. She pulled Kleenex from a decorator dispenser on one corner of the desk, blew her nose, got hold of herself–then shuddered and began to sob again.