Never Wake (22 page)

*

Emma had watched from the window seat for the first three hours before she moved to the couch where she read the same five pages over and over again until she had fallen asleep. When she next opened her eyes, thirteen and a half hours had passed since Troy had left the condo. Emma gave herself permission to stop pretending she wasn’t worried.

She was on her way to the kitchen to make her sixth cup of tea when the buzzer rang. The weight that had been pressing into her chest eased. She limped to the speaker and pressed the speak button.

“Troy?”

No answer
. She’s still mad. She came back, though, which means she must be willing to talk to me.
Emma pressed the door release button and unlocked the bottom lock. She limped to the window seat. She would be able to keep her hands to herself much better if she sat down. Her face flushed, and she stood up again. Maybe the couch would be a better choice. She hadn’t taken one step when a wave of nausea swept over her. Her eyes went to the door and she froze.
Something bad is coming. I need to lock the door.

The feeling was acute, insistent, but she brushed it off as left-over emotion from her fight with Troy.
She might be angry, but she wouldn’t hurt me.
Even as she thought it, even as she told herself she was being ridiculous, she realized that what she was feeling had nothing to do with Troy. She scanned the room for a weapon and her eyes fell on her cane propped between the wall and the window seat. She needed something more lethal. A gun, no, a knife—she had knives. Her feet felt as though they had been encased in quicksand as she stumbled into the kitchen and reached for the hilt of the longest knife in the butcher block.
What am I doing? I should be hiding, not looking for a weapon
. She pulled the knife out of the butcher block and stood there looking at it. She would have to fight. There was no place for anyone to hide in the condo. She had made sure of that when she moved in. Just as she had made sure to have the extra security chains—the chains. Emma moved toward the front door as fast as her knee could take her.

She had turned the bottom lock and the deadbolt and had the last of the three security chains in her hand when the elevator chimed. She froze as she heard the elevator doors glide open. They would hear her if she put the last one in. So what if they did?

Her breathing was shallow as she willed the person to go away. She had been a fool. She should have made sure it was Troy before she pushed the door release. But who else would it have been? Troy had propped the door open earlier. And why not? She’d ridden up and down those streets out there. She said she’d seen no one.

A small scratching sound toward the bottom of the door startled her enough to cause her to take a step back. The chain jerked from her hand and landed against the door with a loud crack. There was complete silence before the scratching began again. This time there was no effort made to hide the fact that someone was on the other side of her door. They wanted her to know they were there.

Movement caught her eye, and Emma took another step back. Her doorknob was moving. Why were they turning the knob back and forth? Wasn’t it obvious it was locked? Emma wanted to scream at them to make them go away. The scratching sound began again, and to her horror, Emma recognized the metallic sound that accompanied it.

She heard that sound every time she was forced to go out to the garbage chute or on the handful of occasions that the building manager brought her a package. She knew the sounds of her locks engaging, like she knew the sound of her own voice.
He’s trying to pick the locks.
She continued to stare with horrified fascination until the scratching stopped and started again, this time on the deadbolt, and Emma told herself she should find someplace to hide. He didn’t seem in any kind of a hurry. He wasn’t worried in the least that he might be caught.

Emma gripped the knife hard and swallowed. The deadbolt began to turn. It hung up, as it always did, in the middle, and she held her breath. The lock turned one way, then the other and finally clicked to the open position. The door swung toward Emma, but the safety chains held and sent the door crashing back closed. Emma jumped back and held the knife out in front of her. The door slammed back against the chains again and again, and Emma had a vision of a small, enraged animal.

“Stop it! Go away!” she yelled. The frenzy behind the door escalated. “I have a gun.” All movement stopped. The door stood open, the chains hanging limply, swaying as if resting up for the next test of their strength.

If she leaned to the left, she could probably see who it was, but she was afraid, and part of her was hoping that he had gone away. She knew he hadn’t. The door was cracked, and she hadn’t heard any footsteps. The point of a knife appeared in the door opening. Emma heard the clink of metal on metal as it fumbled for a moment before catching one of the links in the chain. The knife point rocked back and forth until, to Emma’s horror, the chain fell, impotent against the door. The point of the knife began working on the last chain with the same amount of patient assurance, which meant she had seconds rather than minutes.

Emma threw her body at the door. She sensed his shock and then his fury, but by then she had already turned the bottom lock and was replacing the chains. All three of them this time. Something small and powerful hit the door.

The scratching began again, only this time it was more furtive and then she heard the elevator chime. Troy had come back. Stark horror followed elation as she realized that, at any second, Troy would be walking unsuspecting out of the elevator and into the path of a maniac.

“No!” Emma rushed the door again, only this time she was unlocking it and removing the chains. She heard the door to the stairs slam just as she opened her front door. The fluorescent light drained the color from the hall and there was a long moment when Emma stood there shaking until Troy walked out of the elevator and came to an abrupt stop when she spotted Emma.

Emma got to Troy as fast as she could and hugged her tightly. “Thank God,” she said into Troy’s shoulder.

“What’s…?” Troy pushed Emma back gently. She spotted the knife and looked behind Emma toward the open door of the condo.

“Someone tried to break in. He ran down the stairs when he heard you coming.”

It took Troy a second to comprehend what Emma was saying and then she was through the stairwell door, her feet thundering down the stairs before Emma could yell at her not to chase him.

Emma caught the door before it closed and rushed into the lit stairwell after Troy. She could see the top of Troy’s head below her as she took the stairs, sometimes three at a time.

“Don’t chase him. He has a knife!” Her knee reminded her with every step how much pain it could give her. She heard the door at the bottom of the stairwell open, and then the only sound was her own slow footsteps. She had the horrifying vision of Troy running out into the darkness and getting ambushed. She stumbled down the last three stairs, saving herself by grabbing the railing at the last minute. She opened the heavy door and leaned against the frame to catch her breath.

The streetlights did nothing to illuminate the area, but Emma could see Troy standing halfway down the block, her feet spread, her hands balled at her sides. Even from a distance and in poor light, Emma could see that Troy was furious.

Come back inside, Troy. We’ll be safe inside
, she thought, but then she realized she didn’t know if that was true anymore. She had thought herself safe inside the condo, but he—whoever he was—had found her, had almost gotten inside, had tried to hurt her. The door had come to rest on Emma’s back as she stood in the doorway. She felt vulnerable.

“Come back, you coward. I’m right here. I’m not running anymore.” Troy’s words echoed down the empty streets.

“Troy? Please come back. Please.” Emma was sobbing now. She was afraid for Troy; afraid that, in her anger, she would do something foolish.

“Go back inside.” Troy’s voice was authoritative, gruff, and angry, but Emma could sense her fear.

The tingling that signaled the start of a migraine began at the back of Emma’s head. She swayed but braced herself with a hand on the frame of the door. She closed her eyes.
Not now. Don’t do this now
. As if willing a reprieve for herself, the tingling receded and Emma opened her eyes.

Troy had started to walk, then jog, and soon she was sprinting toward her. She caught Emma up in her arms and carried her into the stairwell. The door slammed shut behind them.

Emma couldn’t stop shaking. The dizziness had returned and her eyes were blurry. She blinked and tried to get her bearings. Troy released her just long enough to cup the back of her neck in order to pull her into a kiss that was more reassurance then passion.

*

“Emma, answer me, damn it. Are you okay? Did he hurt you?” Troy stared into Emma’s glazed blue eyes. She hadn’t meant to yell, but in her frustration and fear, her voice had risen.

Emma blinked and looked at Troy as if she had just realized she was there. “I’m fine. Just scared.” Troy pulled her close and held her too tightly. “I’m fine, it’s okay,” she said right into Troy’s ear.

Troy felt the listless arms around her waist strengthen, tighten, and she felt like Emma was holding her up, instead of the other way around.

“How did he find out about you?” Troy asked. “I was so careful. How did he get here first?”

Emma pushed away from Troy. “What are you talking about? You knew this guy was out there? Why wouldn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t know. Not until I heard his car today. I followed the sound back to the hospital.”

“What hospital? You mean the one where you woke up? You went back there? I thought you said it creeped you out.”

“It did, but I heard a car engine, and I figured it had to be coming from there.” Troy stopped, uncertain whether she should tell Emma what she had seen.

Emma looked at her long and hard. “What happened? Don’t try to sugarcoat it. I’ll know if you do,” she said firmly.

“I think he killed a woman, a patient there.”

Emma’s face paled. “Are you sure she wasn’t asleep?”

“You mean like the others? No, she wasn’t sleeping.”

“Maybe she killed herself. You know, because of how things are, I mean.” Emma’s voice was climbing higher. “You thought about it, too. Maybe she was just so afraid of being alone.”

Troy shook her head slowly. “No, she couldn’t have done that to herself. He did it. He chased me because I caught him cleaning it up.” Troy felt the bile rising in her throat. “I can’t figure out why in the hell he would do that to her and then clean it up.”

Troy noticed that Emma’s face had gone ashen. “Sit down.” Emma didn’t move. “Sit down,” she said louder and pointed to the stairs. Emma’s eyes widened. She looked behind her and eased down on one of the stairs. Troy sat down beside her. Emma’s reaction to what she had just told her seemed off, but Troy couldn’t pinpoint how.

“He chased you?” Emma seemed confused.

“Yeah, that’s why I didn’t come back until now. I was afraid I’d lead him back to you. I don’t know how he got here first.” She held Emma’s cold hands between her own and tried to rub some warmth into them.

“I jumped over a wall to get away from him. I had to ditch Dite. He threw her off a parking structure.”

Emma reeled back as if Troy had slapped her. She ran her hands all over Troy’s body, her fingers finding all of the scrapes and bruises.

Emma pulled Troy close then, and Troy buried her face in Emma’s neck. “We’ll go back and get her when it’s safe, all right?”

Troy felt both comforted and embarrassed by the fact that she didn’t have to try to hide how upset she was at the thought of losing her bike. “How did he get in? How did he find you?”

“I…I buzzed him in because I thought it was you.”

Troy leaned back and looked at her.

Emma’s hand went to the bridge of her nose. “I know. I can’t believe I did it now. I move into a secure building because I’m paranoid about break-ins, and I just let him in without verifying who it was.” Emma reached up and touched Troy’s cheek. “I was so scared that you weren’t going to come back that…”

“I just needed to cool down.”

“That’s what I figured, but you were gone so long. When I heard the buzzer ring, I tried to speak to you but…I don’t know. I thought maybe something was wrong with the speaker, or you were still angry with me and didn’t want to answer. By the time I realized it wasn’t you, he was already getting off the elevator and I could feel something was wrong. How did he know which condo to ring?” Emma asked.

“Every city kid knows that one. You just push them all and hope someone lets you in. How’d he know where you were once he got in the building? There’s no numbers or anything on the buzzers down there.”

“How did you know the first time you came up?”

“After all that time sitting down there yelling up at your window, it was pretty easy to figure out which door you were in once I was up here.”

Emma closed her eyes and shuddered. “The blinds. I had them open. I was waiting for you to come back. I guess I must have fallen asleep because it was dark when I woke up.” Her voice quivered as she continued to speak. “That bastard must have been out there watching me. How could I have been so stupid?”