Nine Elms (Kate Marshall #1)(7)

“Kate. I’m getting wet here. Can I come in?”

She hesitated, and swallowed, but her throat was dry.

He shouldered the door, and the chain snapped easily. He stepped over the threshold, forcing her to move back into the kitchen. He pushed the door closed behind him and stood there, dripping wet.

“What?”

She shook her head.

“Nothing. Sorry,” she said. Her voice was a thin rasp.

“I need a towel . . . I’m soaking wet.”

Everything about the situation was surreal. Kate left the kitchen and went to the small airing cupboard and took out a towel. Her mind was racing. She had to act normal. She looked around for something to defend herself with. She grabbed a small smooth glass paperweight. The only thing she could find remotely close to a weapon.

Her breath caught in her throat when she went back into the kitchen. Peter stood in the middle of the room, staring at the thermos flask sitting in its plastic evidence bag on the kitchen table. When he turned to her, his features were the same, but anger had changed him. He was like an animal about to attack. His eyes were wide, pupils dilated, and his lips were curled back, baring his teeth.

Do something! shrieked a voice inside her head. But she couldn’t move. There was a thud as the paperweight fell from her hand onto the floor.

“Oh dear, Kate. Kate, Kate, Kate,” he said softly. The broken glass crunched under his feet as he went to the back door and locked it.

“Peter. Sir. I don’t think for a second that you . . . It’s my job to investigate . . .”

He was shaking, but his movements were calm as he went to the phone. In one swift motion he wrenched it clean off the wall, still attached to its metal bracket. Kate flinched as the tiny nails holding the wire to the wall popped out and skittered across the linoleum. He yanked the cable from the socket and placed the phone on the counter by the fridge.

“It’s funny. You said the killer would slip up . . . The keys . . . The fucking keys.” He took a step toward her.

“No. No. They’re just keys,” said Kate. If he took another step forward, he would block her path out of the kitchen.

“The flask . . .” He shook his head and laughed. It was a cold metallic sound. Devoid of humor.

Kate made a dash for the living room, where her mobile phone was charging, but he was quicker. He grabbed the back of her hair, swung her around, and slammed her into the tall fridge door. Pain exploded in the side of her face, but he was on her, twisting her shoulders around to face him and gripping her neck with one hand.

“Rough area, where you live,” he said calmly, pinning her against the fridge door with his shoulder and left leg. He gripped her throat with his right hand. She kicked out, hitting him in the side of his leg, and she tried to claw at his face and neck, but he used his elbows to keep her arms down. “There was a breakin. You scared the intruder. He panicked, and he killed you.”

His fingers gripped her throat harder. She couldn’t breathe, and his face, looming over hers, began to blur. She scrabbled around, her fingers feeling the edge of the counter. Peter leaned into her chest, and she felt his strength pushing the remaining air from her lungs. She cried out as she felt one of her ribs crack.

“I’ll make sure to be the one who leads your murder case. The tragic death of a rising star in the police force.”

Kate writhed and pushed back, managing to free up her left arm a little. Her hand felt along the edge of the counter and found the phone, where Peter had left it. She didn’t have much strength as she swung it, but the sharp edge of the metal bracket glanced off his forehead, slicing through the skin above his eye.

His grip loosened for a moment, and she was able to push him away. He staggered back in shock, blood pouring from the gash in his forehead.

Kate held up the phone on its bracket and advanced on him, not feeling the broken glass under her bare feet. Peter staggered back, spitting blood. He lunged for the block of knives by the sink and pulled one out.

The knives! Why didn’t I go for the knives? she thought. She turned and ran into the living room, but she tripped, landing on the phone, knocking the air from her. She rolled back and tried to get up, but he was on her. He punched her hard in the face, dragged her kicking and writhing through to the bedroom, and threw her on the bed. Her head hit the headboard, and she saw stars. Her robe was open, and she was naked underneath. He climbed on top of her, his face slick with blood, reddening the whites of his eyes and giving his smile a pink mania. He knelt on her hip bones and pulled her wrists down, pinning them under his knees.

He held up the knife and grazed the tip of the blade over her nipples, down to her belly button, and pushed the blade into her skin. The sharp steel sliced through her flesh easily and through the muscles of her abdomen. She screamed out in agony, unable to move. It was terrifying how fast the blood pooled on her belly. He calmly twisted the knife and dragged it up through the flesh of her stomach, toward her heart. It snagged on one of her ribs.

Peter leaned close, lips curled back over pink-stained teeth. The pain was unbearable, but she summoned the last of her strength and fought and writhed, freeing her knee and bringing it sharply up into his groin. He groaned and fell backward off the bed, landing on the floor.

Kate looked down at the knife sticking out of her abdomen. Blood was saturating the white robe and bedclothes. Leave the knife in, said a voice in her head. If it comes out, you’ll bleed to death. Peter started to get up, his eyes crazed with rage and pink from the blood pouring from his head. She thought of all the victims, all those young girls who had been tortured. The anger gave her a surge of adrenaline and energy. She grabbed the lava lamp from beside her bed, and she brought the heavy glass bottle of oil and wax down on the top of his head, once, twice, and then he was still, slumped weirdly, his legs splayed outward.