Alone (Detective D.D. Warren, #1)(102)

“We're not going to have much element of surprise, two of us blundering down a hall.”

“No, we won't. Which is why we're going to make him come to us.”

“And how do we do that?”

Bobby looked her in the eye. “Well, Catherine, you know him best.”

She nodded slowly. “Yes,” she said after a moment, “I guess I do.”




M R. BOSU WAS on the prowl. He spotted the target. He yanked back the closet door. He thrust deep with his knife. And ripped into a pile of terry cloth towels. What the hell?

“Shit!” Mr. Bosu roared.

He tossed out the pile of towels. Then the shelf of toilet paper, then a collection of bathrobes. Empty, empty, empty. Where was the boy?

“Shit!” he roared again.

But then he saw it. Farther down the hall, another louvered door. Mr. Bosu stalked forward.

“Richard.”

The voice stopped him, the name, too. Mr. Bosu turned, feeling slightly confused. It had been years since anyone had called him Richard. Prison guards didn't use it, neither did his fellow inmates. He was Umbrio or, in his own mind, Mr. Bosu. He had not been called Richard in over twenty years.

Catherine stood alone at the end of the hallway. Taller than the image implanted in his mind, and yet in many ways still the same. Those dark, dark eyes. That tangled mass of black hair. He wished she were wearing a red bow.

Pity that girls should grow up at all.

“Catherine,” he said, and gestured with his bloody knife. “Did you miss me?”

He grinned at her. She had her shoulders back and her head up, trying to appear strong. But he could see how hard she was breathing by the rapid rise and fall of her chest.

She was terrified.

That old feeling came back to him, nostalgic and swift. It was twenty-five years ago, and he was scrambling through the woods, heading happily for a small clearing made distinct only by the large piece of plywood that appeared to be lying on the ground. Next to it were a tall stick and a section of chain that, only upon closer inspection, became a ladder.

He raised the plywood, supporting its edge lean-to style on the stick. Then he was leaning over the gaping hole, preparing to drop down the chain.

Her face appeared below in the gloom. Small, pale, dirt-streaked. Desperate.

“Are you happy to see me?” he called down. “Tell me you're happy to see me.”

“Please,” she said.

He flew down the ladder, grabbing her into his arms. “What shall we do today?”

“Please,” she said again, and just the sound of that word made his heart burst in his chest.

“Are you going to beg?” Umbrio asked now, genuinely excited. “You know what I like to hear.”

“No.”

“You should. I'm going to kill you and your son.”

“No.”

“Come now, Catherine. You of all people know how powerful I am.”

“You put me in a hole for twenty-eight days, Richard. I put you in prison for twenty-five years.”

Mr. Bosu scowled. He didn't like that thought. In fact, he didn't care for this whole conversation. He took a step forward. Catherine held her ground. He took another step, then came to a sudden halt. Wait a minute.

“Show me your hands,” he ordered.

She obediently lifted them up.

“Where's the gun?” he asked suspiciously.

“I gave it to Maryanne. I already tried it and you and I both know I can't shoot.”

He frowned, still not liking this. “So you're just going to attack me with your bare hands.”

“No.”

“What then? Why'd you come out? Why'd you leave the room?”

“To buy time for my son. The police are going to come, Richard. They're going to be here any minute. And frankly, I don't care if you hack apart every inch of my body, just as long as you don't touch a hair on Nathan's head.”

“Oh.” He considered it. “You know what? It's a deal.”

He sprang forward and Catherine bolted down the hall.




C ATHERINE RAN. NOT too fast. That was the hard part. Her heart was pounding, her nerve endings screaming. Adrenaline pumped through her veins and commanded that she run, run, run.

But she had a role to play. They all had a role to play, and this was suddenly the biggest stage of her life.

She could hear him thundering down the hall behind her. In all of her nightmares, Umbrio rarely had a face. He was a giant black shadow, an impenetrable force that always mowed her down. She was tiny and insignificant. He loomed like a dark, vengeful God.

She had tried telling herself over the years that it was a child's perspective on things, a young girl versus a grown man, a child versus an adult. But seeing him now, she realized she'd been wrong. Umbrio was huge, a muscled mountain of a man. He had terrified her then, and he terrified her now.

So much of her life he'd taken from her. So many pieces of herself, which had gone into that hole and never emerged again.

Now she ran from him. She ran and she cried, out of fear, out of sadness, out of rage. She hated Richard Umbrio. And she missed the woman she might have become if they'd never met that one horrible day.

He was closing in. She picked up her pace, letting her control slip, letting the panic kick in. He was upon her, he was reaching for her. He was going to grab her by the neck and throw her to the ground and then . . .