“Bastard!” she choked out, all the while working frantically to free her hands.
An animal sound tore from his mouth when the heel of her boot caught him squarely in the solar plexus. He faltered. She heard the breath whoosh from his lungs. But she didn’t stop kicking. The toe of her boot caught his neck. Making a strangled sound, he clutched his throat. A final kick to the chest sent him reeling back.
She scrambled to her feet and looked around wildly for an escape route. He stood between her and the front door. Between her and escape. Spinning, she used both hands to grab a row of books from the shelf to her right and fling them at him. By the time they hit the floor, she was sprinting down the aisle toward the rear door. Her boots barely touched the floor as she ran down the aisle, past the last shelf. She used the edge of the bookcase to fly around the corner.
“Help me!” she screamed. “
Please!
”
The twine binding her hands was loose. Working frantically to free them, she glanced over her shoulder. He’d already risen and started down the aisle. The Mardi Gras mask looked macabre in the semidarkness. A monster from hell bent on killing her. Her terror escalated, took her breath, threatened to paralyze her.
She reached the back door. Tried the knob. Locked. Breaths rushing between her clenched teeth, she brought her fist down on the bolt lock. “Help me!”
A heavy hand bit into her shoulder, squeezed.
Spinning, Julia lashed out with both fists. She used her nails, her body weight, her fury to drive him back. He swung at her, his fist coming within an inch of her face, but she lunged backward just in time to avoid being knocked unconscious.
She turned back to the door, twisted the knob. The door flew open. Hope made her giddy as she burst into the alley. No time to think. Just run.
She went left where the narrow courtyard teed. She ran as she had never run before. Every breath was a scream. Every beat of her heart a surge of adrenaline. She heard him behind her. Hard shoes against asphalt. Insane rantings. The whimpering of a predator that had lost its prey and would go hungry one more night.
“Succubus bitch.”
She ran blindly, stumbling over clay pots and past Dumpsters ripe with garbage. She’d taken this route a hundred times in the last two years, but the fear had jumbled her thoughts so badly she couldn’t remember where the alleyway led. She needed a phone. A public place. Somewhere the monster in the mask would not follow.
When the lights of Bourbon Street came into view, she risked a look behind her. The alley was empty, but Julia didn’t stop running.
TWENTY-THREE
John had just packed the last lure into his tackle box
and snapped the lid closed when his phone rang.
A number he didn’t recognize. “Yeah.”
“Is this John Merrick?”
“Who wants to know?”
“This is Doug Lay, the bouncer over at Tequila Joe’s on Bourbon in the Quarter. I got a lady here who’s been roughed up pretty bad. Says her name is Julia. She needs someone to pick her up. Wants to talk to you.”
Julia.
The muscles at the back of his neck went taut at the thought of someone hurting her. “Put her on.”
“John.”
He barely recognized her voice and knew immediately something was terribly wrong. She wasn’t crying or hysterical, but there was a sharp edge to her voice he’d heard before from other crime victims. “What happened?”
“I need you to come get me.”
“Julia, are you hurt?”
“I’m . . . okay.”
He could tell from the sound of her voice that she wasn’t. Worry swept through him. “I’m on my way.” All thoughts of the cabin and a week of fishing forgotten, he dug into his jeans pocket for his keys.
There was rustling on the other end of the line, then the bouncer came back on. “She wants you to come pick her up here at Tequila Joe’s. You know the place?”
But John had already disconnected and run out the door.
It took John four minutes to drive across the Quarter to
Tequila Joe’s. He parked illegally in front of the place and hit the ground running. The bar and dance club was packed with pre-Mardi Gras revelers. He strode purposefully to the bar, where a scantily clad woman the size of a tank toweled shot glasses.
“Where’s Doug?” he asked.
Raising a puffy arm, she pointed toward the back. “You can’t go back there, though.”
John frowned at her and spun toward the rear of the club, where he could see light slanting in from what was probably the kitchen. The bass of the band kept time with his heart as he strode toward the double saloon doors. He hit the doors with both hands, sent them banging against the wall. The room was dimly lit and cluttered with boxes of canned goods and booze. To his right were a dozen shelves jam-packed with glasses of all shapes and sizes. To his left was a small kitchen dirty enough to keep the health department busy writing citations for a week. Straight ahead he spotted Julia and his stomach dropped to his feet.
She was sitting in a folding metal chair with her arms wrapped tightly around her midsection. She looked small and fragile and very alone. Her hair was in disarray and hanging in her face. She was wearing boots, a denim skirt and a pink blouse. But even from twenty feet away John could see that the blouse had been ripped.
He didn’t remember crossing to her. Midway there her head came up. Her eyes met his and all he could think was that some son of a bitch had hurt her. Not just roughed her up. Someone had punched her. Really
hurt
her. How could some guy do that to such a lovely and fragile creature?
The fury came with unexpected force. An earthquake that moved through his body hard enough to make him shake. He knew that wasn’t what she needed at the moment, but it was the kind of rage that couldn’t be reined. He wanted to find the bastard and pound his face until it caved in.
The bouncer was standing over her with a baseball bat in his hand. He was a tall man with a crew cut and biceps the size of Volkswagens. “You Merrick?”
John looked from the bouncer to Julia and back to the bouncer. “What the fuck happened?”
The bouncer propped the bat against the counter. “I was out taking a smoke break and she comes flying out of the alley like the demons from hell were chasing her.”
Judging from the way Julia was shaking, John figured the description wasn’t too far from the truth. Jesus. He couldn’t believe someone had done this to her. In the back of his mind something began to niggle at him.
Realizing he’d been putting off looking closely at her, he reeled in his temper and knelt in front of her. “Julia, how badly are you hurt?”
She didn’t meet his eyes. “I’m not. I’m just . . . shaken.”
He could plainly see that she was a hell of a lot more than just shaken. Reaching out, he touched her, ran both hands down her arms. Her skin was cool to the touch and she was trembling violently. “I need for you to tell me what happened,” he said.
When she didn’t look at him, he gently took her chin in his palm and forced her gaze to his. “Come on, honey. Help me out here. Who did this to you?”
She lifted large, fragile eyes to his, and John felt it like a physical touch. Within the depths of her gaze he saw the remnants of terror. The jagged edge of shock. A jumble of emotions he couldn’t begin to decipher.
“It was him.” She said the words in a voice so low he had to lean forward to hear.
“Who?”
“The stalker. He was . . . in the shop. He . . .” Her voice cracked. “He was waiting for me when I arrived home after dinner.”
John looked her over as she spoke. Both knees were cut. Most of the buttons were missing from her blouse and she was clutching it together with a white-knuckled hand. Her slender throat looked as if someone had gouged the skin with his nails. But worst of all was her face. Her left cheekbone was swollen and tinged purple. How could someone garner enough hatred and rage to hurt something so utterly beautiful? What kind of man could hurt such a generous, giving woman? A woman whose smile could light the night.
“Julia, you know Vester is in jail,” he said gently.
Her gaze didn’t waiver. “It was him, damn it. The same man who came at me in the alley.”
John didn’t believe in coincidences. But what were the odds that two men would go after the same woman in the span of a single week? “How do you know he was the same guy?”
“He was wearing the same mask as before. The Mardi Gras mask.”
An unsettling chill went through John. He knew there was a possibility some scumbag defense lawyer had gotten a judge to grant Vester bail. But he didn’t think so. With Vester sitting in a jail cell, that could mean only one thing. Vester wasn’t the stalker. And John had left Julia alone and unprotected . . .
“Did you get a look at him?” he asked. “Can you give me a physical description?”
She shook her head. “It happened so fast. The shop was dark. The lights weren’t working, but I figured it was just the fuse again.” Her throat bobbed when she swallowed. “God, John, I was so scared.”
He swallowed outrage, took her hand and squeezed. “It’s okay.”
“I tried to yank off the mask a couple of times, but he kept . . . hitting me.”
Cold rage poured over him at the image of some sick fuck striking her. Julia wasn’t helpless, but she was small-framed and probably didn’t weigh much more than a hundred and ten pounds soaking wet. The very thought made him grind his teeth in fury.
“John, it was him, damn it. I’m sure of it.”
Something cold skittered down John’s spine. “Okay. I believe you.”
Shaking her head, she put her face in her hands. “I tried to fight him off, but he was in a rage. I hit him, but he just kept coming.”
John had never been much of a toucher. He didn’t give hugs. He didn’t much like receiving them, either. But for the first time in his adult life, the need to touch, to comfort, overwhelmed him.
He set both hands on her shoulders and gently squeezed, wishing he was man enough to do more. Like take her in his arms and hold her until she stopped shaking. “I’m going to call Mitch.”
Her head shot up. Her eyes were alarmed when they met his. “I want to go home.”
Taking in the extent of her injuries, he decided she would be going to the hospital first. But because he didn’t think she was ready to hear it, he said nothing.
“Hey, man, you want me to call the cops?”
John looked at the bouncer. The man was holding his cell phone in one hand, a smoldering cigarette in the other. “I’ll take care of it,” John said. “Thanks.”
“Sure thing.”
John turned his attention back to Julia. She was shaking violently. Her arms. Shoulders. Legs. She wouldn’t look at him. He couldn’t stand to see her like this. “Honey, I’m going to drive you to the hospital and get you checked out.”
She looked at him. “I don’t want to go to the hospital.”
An alarm went off in his head. Julia was too levelheaded to think ignoring her injuries was going to make them go away. His experience as a cop reminded him that many times the victims of sexual assault were the ones who wanted to avoid a trip to the hospital. The thought made him sick.
He took her hand. “Did he . . .” Not wanting to finish, he let the words trail.
She closed her eyes tightly and shook her head. “I thought he was going to . . .” She drew a shaky breath, used it to pull herself together. “He had a crucifix in his hand.” Lowering her head, she rubbed at the spot between her eyes. “He tried to . . . He tried to . . .”
The thought made him nauseous. “With the crucifix?”
She nodded. “If I hadn’t gotten away, he would have raped me with it. I’m sure of it.”
He squeezed her shoulder, then looked at the bouncer. “Did you see anyone in the alley?”
The bouncer shook his head. “If I had, it would be the last time he touched a woman. I don’t tolerate that shit.”
John handed the man one of his old cards from back when he’d been with the Chicago PD, with the old numbers crossed out and his cell phone number written in. “If you remember anything or see anything, give me a call, will you?”
“You bet.”
John turned back to Julia. She was deathly pale. Probably close to going into shock. “Let’s get you checked out.”
“John—”
“I’ll call Mitch on the way.” Bending slightly, he reached out to lift her hair to get a better look at the angry red marks on her throat. “What happened here?”
“I’m not sure,” she began. “It was . . . strange. I think he had some type of vial in his hand. He splashed me with something. At first I thought it was water. Then it started to burn and I realized it must be some kind of chemical.” Her gaze darkened. “He kept calling me a succubus. Quoting things out of context from the Bible.”
“Sounds similar to what happened before.”
“That’s what I thought, too.”
“What kinds of things did he quote?”
“I was too scared to make sense of most of it.” Her brows snapped together. “He called me a succubus. And he said something about holy water blistering the skin of Satan’s followers.”
He thought about the burns and shook his head in disgust. “Anything else you can think of?”
“No, but I think once he finished with me, he was going to kill me.”
John had never liked hospitals. Ever since he was six
years old and had had his tonsils removed, he’d known they were places he would try to avoid at all costs the rest of his life.
Even at one A.M., the emergency room was alive with activity. He guided Julia to the registration desk and hit the bell with his palm. A plump African-American woman looked from Julia to John and handed him a clipboard with a form to fill out. “Don’t forget to sign at the bottom. A nurse will be out in a few minutes.”
John found a relatively quiet corner in the waiting area and ushered Julia into a chair beside him. Beneath the lights, her complexion was alarmingly pale. He tried not to be obvious about it, but he was more than a little worried.