rattle intensified. “Run!…Hart…keep.”
More spittle dribbled from between his lips, frothy with blood. His chest heaved with that terrible rattling sound and then he sighed. The hand clutching hers went limp.
“Daddy!”
She shook him. His eyes were fixed and empty. His features were oddly peaceful in death.
Alexis didn’t know how long she stood there, holding his dead hand and crying, but her body was tight with pain when she straightened. Her head throbbed. She swayed slightly, feeling light-headed and weak. Every muscle in her body felt stiff and uncoordinated. And she was so cold. Her teeth chattered uncontrollably.
Swollen red eyes stared back at her from her reflection in the mirror over her dresser. Her face was blotchy from her tears. There was blood on her wrist. She used a corner of the towel to wipe it off.
The apartment buzzer sounded—an imperious summons from someone in the downstairs lobby. She’d forgotten all about her date. It didn’t matter. He’d have to wait. Everything would have to wait. Her father was dead and she didn’t even know what or who had killed him.
Like a somnambulist, she left the room, barely able to think past the horror. The buzzer sounded again, impatiently this time. She couldn’t deal with a date right now. Her father was dead. He’d been so still in death. He’d always been so animated in life.
She entered the living room. The buzzer was an irritant. She wished it would stop. She was so terribly cold. Moving automatically toward the door she paused, staring at the shiny spot of blood on the floor.
“I need you, Daddy.”
The whispered words ended on a broken sob. Except she couldn’t cry anymore. She felt spent. Besides, tears wouldn’t bring him back. Yet her eyes continued to burn with fresh tears.
The buzzer stopped its annoying sound. She swayed, feeling sick. She couldn’t seem to think. She should call for help. Only there was nothing anyone could do to help. Her father was dead.
Run!
He’d told her to run.
Fear slipped past her barrier of shock and grief as the memory of his broken words surfaced. She hadn’t given real thought to how he’d died or why, too caught up in the horror of his death. Now she tried to wrap her sluggish mind around that thought.
Her father had ordered her to go. He’d used his last remaining strength to tell her to run. She pictured the blood, the towel pressed to his abdomen. This hadn’t been some careless, drunken accident. Something far more horrible had happened.
Run!
Her gaze fastened on a large suitcase-shaped briefcase. The dull black leather was nothing like the worn brown case he usually carried—the one her mother had given him years ago when life had been fun and happy.
Lifting the unfamiliar case, she was surprised by its weight. The case was sticky with his blood. Adrenaline shoved aside her shock. Her father had died, struggling to tell her to take the briefcase and go.
She looked around for something to wipe the blood from her hand. Linda’s favorite throw pillow was the closest object. She didn’t care. She had never had liked that shade of orange anyhow.
In the hall outside her apartment, the ancient elevator ground to a halt. The sound was alien. Menacing. No one who lived in the building ever used that elevator. Most visitors took one look and opted for the stairs.
Heavy footsteps started down the hall. Terror seized her. She realized she’d left the front door ajar.
Someone would come here next. Run!
She’d waited too long. Now there was no place to run. Clutching the briefcase against her chest, she snatched up her purse. Mail fell to the floor. She ignored it and darted inside the miniscule hall closet, pulling the door closed.
Her heart threatened to beat its way free of her chest as she heard the footsteps stop in front of her apartment. She sensed more than heard the front door swing open.
Alexis held her breath. With every thud of her heart, she waited for someone to fling open the closet and to kill her, too. Seconds passed. What was he doing? What was he waiting for?
Heavy footsteps moved into the living room. Panic held her immobile as she strained to listen.
The sound of glass crunching beneath an incautious foot put the intruder in the kitchen. Alexis opened the closet. He’d closed the front door. Her fingers felt numb as she turned the handle and slipped into the hall.
The elevator yawned open across from her. A death trap, more so now than ever. But someone was coming up the stairs. In seconds the person would be in view. Or worse, the intruder inside her apartment would open the door at her back.
Alexis ran for the elevator. Flattening her body against the dirty metal panel, she prayed she was hidden from direct view while she strove to control the sound of her raspy breath. The person on the stairs was coming down the hall. Terror left her muscles straining with tension as she battled an urge to run.
Her apartment door opened. “What are you doing here?”
A man’s voice. She didn’t recognize it. She missed the low-murmured response. “Forget it, she’s gone. We’d better go, too.”
Mrs. Nicholson’s dog began yipping in pleasure as animal and owner headed down the main steps from the floor above. The sound covered what the voices were saying.
“…find her. Get inside.”
Her apartment door closed. Alexis pressed the button that would take the decrepit elevator up to the next floor. The old metal doors crawled closed. Sounding as if any second might be its last, the elevator rose with painful slowness.
She stayed pressed against the side until it finally ground to a halt and opened once more. The hall beyond was empty and silent. Alexis pressed every floor, sending it on up, then ran for the back stairs.
But running was bad. Running would attract attention. She mustn’t draw attention. They’d be watching for that. She didn’t know what these people looked like, but it was certain that they would know her. Her car was in the garage down the street. She’d have to walk around the block to get there.
Walk. Don’t run.
They’d expect her to use the back door out of the building since they’d come in the front, so Alexis forced herself to walk down the hall toward the main entrance. She squirmed out of her white summer blazer and folded it over the briefcase as she stepped onto the noisy, dirty street outside.
She welcomed the people moving past, intent on getting home and out of the city heat. The ninety-seven-degree temperature didn’t faze the ice in possession of her body. With each step, she fought the panic screaming inside her head. Panic that urged her to run, urged her to look back to see if she was being followed.
A horn blared so loudly that it made her jump. Balanced on the razor’s edge of hysteria, she averted her head and kept walking. Other horns joined in screaming protest. They weren’t honking at her so it didn’t matter. Let them honk. This was rush hour in New York. Everyone used their horns. Her brain filtered out the noise and kept her moving.
She was deaf with fear by the time she reached the busy garage. It took every bit of strength she had not to break into a run to the safety of her seldom-used car. At each step, she expected to be stopped by a hand on her shoulder—or worse.
She nearly sobbed with relief when she reached her car. Putting down the briefcase, she searched desperately through her purse for the keys. She was shaking hard by the time she found them. The automatic button released the lock. She tossed the briefcase onto the passenger seat and slid inside, locking the doors and slumping down to allow herself the luxury of sitting a few minutes until the worst of her shaking had passed.
When she could manage it, she put the key into the ignition and backed slowly from the narrow parking space. She