Read Hush Online

Authors: Karen Robards

Hush (7 page)

The skin-crawling sensation of being observed that had been with her from practically the moment she'd left Margaret's house was finally gone.

The living room curtains were open, but since she was on the fourteenth floor and the building opposite was only twelve stories tall she never bothered closing them, as she liked being greeted by daylight when she stepped out of her bedroom in the
mornings. The two tall windows were the best thing about the apartment: they fronted the street and let in lots of light. At the moment, she could see the city skyline glowing as it rose like uneven teeth to touch the midnight blue sky.

Her furnishings were minimal—a glass-topped dining table and four chairs, a black pleather couch and chair in front of a small flat-screen TV, a pair of glass-topped end tables, and, serving as both coffee table and storage, a carved wooden trunk. In the bedroom, she had a queen bed with a black and white floral spread, nightstands and chest, plus the desk that she used as her home office. The effect was clean and modern and she liked it. The government scavengers who'd seized everything belonging to the Cowans had come to her apartment, too, on the theory that her divorce was recent and anything she'd acquired during her marriage, like furniture, had been purchased with ill-gotten gains. Just as they'd done at Oakwood, they'd cleaned her place out despite the fact that, except for a few pieces, she'd bought everything new after she'd separated from Jeff. All they'd left her were her clothes and personal belongings. For good measure, they'd seized her bank accounts, too. Nobody had cared that the money she possessed had been hers; she'd taken nothing from the Cowans, nothing from Jeff. Their unfair treatment of her still rankled. Along with their ongoing suspicion of her and Margaret and Jeff, it was one of the reasons she despised them.

When she'd left Jeff she'd been fed up, furious.
You can take your money and shove it up your ass,
is what she'd snarled at him when he'd reminded her of everything she would be walking away from if she divorced him. At that point, all she'd wanted was her life back.

Since then, naturally, her life had gone to hell on a slide.

And she was just as involved with the Cowans as ever.

Grimacing, Riley kicked off her shoes, dropped her purse on the dining table, and padded barefoot across the smooth cushion of the gray wall-to-wall carpet, heading for her bedroom, unzipping her slim black sheath as she went. She felt sticky from the heat, and as she stripped down to her underwear she welcomed the feel of the air-conditioning on her bare skin.

I wish I could turn back time.

That was the useless thought that curled through her mind as she dropped her pearls (fake; the government had taken the real ones, along with the rest of her jewelry except, ironically, the wedding ring she no longer wore or wanted) on the nightstand, put her dress away, then walked into the small connecting bathroom to turn on the taps in the tub, opting for a bath over a shower because she didn't want to get her hair wet. With one bathroom shared between the three of them at Margaret's house, waiting to use it was a given, especially since one of their number was a teen who could spend hours locked in there doing God knows what.

As the water ran she returned to the bedroom, pulled her small suitcase out of the bottom of the closet, and quickly packed enough clothes to last for a few more days. After that, she would reevaluate.

Here, it was possible to pretend that the worst hadn't happened. Her apartment didn't reek of Jeff: he'd visited, but he'd never lived in it. Never even spent the night.

If I'd gotten to Oakwood faster . . .

Impatient with herself, Riley pushed away the useless thought
and focused on the task at hand. Conservative suits for the car dealership, sexy dresses for the club. Her work wardrobe reminded her of a mullet: business during the day, party at night.

Packing done, she stripped down to her skin and walked into the bathroom, which was tiny and windowless and strictly utilitarian. The bath was ready: she turned off the taps, twisted her hair up, secured the coil by the simple expedient of shoving the business end of a rattail comb through it, and stepped into the tub.

The water was blissfully hot. As she sank down into it, Riley felt her tense muscles begin to relax for the first time since she had walked into Oakwood that terrible night. She'd needed this, she realized: a little bit of time to herself.

As Mrs. Jeff Cowan, she'd become used to the ultimate in lavish living: gorgeous clothes; six-hundred-dollar-a-pair shoes; thousand-thread-count linens; the finest restaurants; the best clubs; private jets; high-end cars. Most of the materialism hadn't made much of an impression on her. But the one thing she'd come to love was luxurious toiletries.

Now as she lathered her skin with silky white bubbles, the sight and smell of the pink, flower-shaped, rose-scented bar that was one of her few remaining extravagances provided her with a familiar glimmer of pleasure. At least, until all the associations that came with the divine-smelling suds slammed her. Before she'd married Jeff, soap had been soap. Nothing special. Got the job done. The cheapest bar was usually the one she went for.

Their marriage hadn't worked. They hadn't been soul mates, or even compatible life partners. But he had changed her life.
He had introduced her to expensive soap
.

Ah, Jeff
.

She closed her eyes, remembering. The first thing she'd noticed about him had been his blond hair gleaming under the light as he'd sat down at the very end of the bar where she was mixing drinks. The second thing, about an hour later, was his smile, rueful and charming, when after running a tab for four old fashioneds he'd discovered that he'd forgotten his wallet. Per bar policy, she'd been on the hook for his tab. She hadn't been happy, and she'd been even less happy when he'd pulled out car keys and informed her that he was going to drive to his apartment, retrieve his wallet, and be right back. Judging him unfit to drive, she called him a cab, and paid for that, too. She hadn't ever expected to see him again. But he'd shown up the next night, reimbursed her, and asked her out to dinner. He'd been sweet and kind and sober and straight, and over the following six months they'd fallen in love.

She'd married him because he'd needed taking care of, and, in the aftermath of losing the little sister she'd raised practically from birth, she'd needed someone who needed taking care of. She saw that now. But then—she'd been in love with him.

At least, with Lorna, she'd been there at the end. Not so with Jeff. He'd died alone.

He must have been so scared
.

Don't think about it.

Her throat tightened. Tears stung her eyes. She gripped the soap so hard her nails dug into it.

Crying won't change a thing. I am
not
going to cry.

Riley let her head rest back against the smooth porcelain and squeezed her eyes even more tightly shut as she fought the tears she refused to shed.

A prickle along the back of her neck was accompanied by the eerie sense that she was not alone. Opening her eyes, blinking to force back welling tears, Riley caught the shadow of movement with her peripheral vision, turned her head so fast it hurt her neck, and saw a man step inside her bathroom and stop. Just like that, there he was, gray sneakers planted on the white tile just inside the door.

Every cell in her body froze.

Average height. Muscular build. Dark jeans. Navy polo shirt.
A black ski mask pulled down over his face.

“Hello, Riley,” he said, and as her heart jumped into her throat and her eyes popped wide he leaped for her.

Terror exploded inside her. Jolted into instant action, she screamed, so loud it echoed off the tiles, and hurled the round little cake of soap at him. It hit the middle of his chest and bounced harmlessly off even as she splashed and scrabbled at the slick porcelain and grabbed the built-in soap dish for leverage, somehow managing to catapult to her feet.

“Shut the fuck up.”
He snatched at her and got the billowing shower curtain instead as she flung it at him and shied violently away.

Go, go, go
.

Shrieking like a train whistle, knowing that she had almost no chance of escape, Riley sprang from the tub. Her only hope was to somehow dodge past him, make it through the door, and run—but the bathroom was small and the sink was blocking her on the left and
he was right there
. Her wet feet slid precariously as they smacked down on smooth tile. Her heart jackhammered. Her pulse raced. She had no weapon, no way to escape.

He's between me and the door—

“I said shut up
.” He caught her as she tried to barrel past him, his hands—
oh, God, he's wearing gloves, white surgical gloves; this is bad
—big and rough on her waist as he picked her up and threw her bodily back against the tiled wall. She hit with so much force that the breath was knocked out of her along with the scream and she banged her head, hard. The force of it snapped her teeth together, rattled her brain.

“Oh.”
She fell heavily, landing in the slippery tub, cracking her hip and elbow and shoulder painfully on the way down, splashing into the water, causing it to spill out of the bath in a great wave.

Stunned, she didn't even have time to suck in air for another scream before his hands closed on her shoulders and he forced her down beneath the surface of the water. Desperately she held her breath as she went under, her mouth somehow filling with the taste of the hot, soapy water even as she clamped her lips together.

No, no, no, no, no
.

She fought like a wild thing, thrashing and kicking as water closed over her head, shooting up her nose, filling her ears, stinging her eyes. Instinctively she snapped them shut, then a moment later forced them to open a slit so that she could see, because being able to see what was happening seemed somehow paramount to survival. He was leaning over the tub, over
her,
his fingers digging into her shoulders, a blurry dark shape distorted by the waves of churning water sloshing around her. With every ounce of her strength she tried to tear herself free of his grip, to at least get her head above water for a second so that she could
breathe, but he held her down against the bottom of the tub like he meant to keep her there forever.

Like he meant to drown her.

The horror of it hit her with the suddenness of a thunderclap.

My God, he's going to kill me!
A second later, on a fresh wave of horror, she thought:
Like they killed Jeff.

Like
he
killed Jeff?

Anger and terror combined to send adrenaline rocketing through her. Surging upward with an urgency born of mortal fear, Riley struggled desperately but still couldn't break free of his grip or get her face above the surface. Dying for air, she went for his eyes, just missed as he jerked back, and wound up raking her nails across the front of his mask and down the sides of his neck.

“You fucking—”
He lifted her up by her shoulders—oh, God, thank God, her face was out of the water at last; she sucked in air with a greedy, shuddering gasp—and slammed her head hard against the back of the tub.

Riley saw stars.

Just as quick as that, he pushed her back down under the water and held her there with one hand locked around her throat.

She barely managed to press her lips together. Her lungs were empty. The blow to her head had made her exhale.

No, no, please, I can't breathe
.

Panic blinded her. No, it was her hair, loose now, swirling in a dark cloud in front of her face. Her body writhed, twisted, as her empty lungs screamed to be filled. The feel of his rubber-gloved hand squeezing her throat was nightmarish. She grabbed his forearm,
clawed at it, tried to knock it aside. As if in retaliation, his hand tightened with excruciating force, and then he let go. She shot upward, only to be caught again before she could reach air and breathe. Clamping on to her shoulders, he forced her down even deeper. Trapped.

He kept her shoulders pinned to the bottom of the tub. Her head swam; her ears rang. The smooth sides of the tub provided no purchase for her desperately scrabbling hands.

I need air
. Her burning lungs cried out for her to inhale. It was all she could do not to give in to the increasingly urgent need, but if she did . . .

I'm going to die.

As the reality of that slammed into her, her heart pounded like it would burst out of her chest. Her pulse thundered in her ears.

Without warning he hauled her up so that her head was out of the water once more.

Oh, thank God
.

Sucking in air for all she was worth, Riley coughed and choked and hacked up water and sucked more air into her starved lungs in a series of frantic wheezes.

“Pay attention, bitch.”

He was talking to her. Water streamed from her hair, which hung down in front of her face and partially blocked her air intake and her vision. She tossed her head, slinging the soaked mass of it back, and to her surprise found herself looking at her attacker's face. In the same shocked instant in which she registered that his ski mask was gone she realized that he must have pulled
it off when he'd switched to the one-handed grip on her throat. She'd grabbed his mask: had she dislodged it somehow so that he couldn't see properly?

It didn't matter: the damage was done. He was no longer making any attempt to hide his features. Her eyes widened on a bony, sallow, thirty-something face with a long chin, large nose, full mouth twisted into a snarl. Short brown hair. Raised scar near the nose. Ugly. Scary.

I can see him clearly. I can identify him. He doesn't
care
if I can identify him.

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