Intensity Read Online Free PDF Page B

furiously, clearing her tear-blurred vision.
        He stopped and turned, evidently studying the bedroom one last time.
        Lest he hear her child-shallow exhalations, Chyna held her breath.
        She was glad that she wore no perfume. She was certain that he would have smelled her.
        He switched off the light, stepped into the hall, and pulled the door shut as he went.
        His footsteps moved off the way he had come, for her room was the last on the second floor. His tread swiftly faded, cloaked by the fierce pounding of her heart.
        Her first inclination was to remain in that narrow haven between the carpet and the box springs, wait until daybreak or even longer, wait until there came a long silence that ceased to seem like the stillness of a crouched predator.
        But she didn't know what had happened to Laura, Paul, or Sarah. Any of them-all of them-might be alive, grievously wounded but drawing breath. The intruder might even be keeping them alive to torture them at his leisure. Any newspaper regularly reported stories of cruelty no worse than the possible scenarios that now unreeled vividly in her mind. And if any of the Templetons still lived, Chyna might be their only hope of survival.
        She had crawled out of all the many hideaways of her childhood with less fear than she felt when she hesitantly slid out from under this bed. Of course she had more to lose now than before she had walked out on her mother, ten years ago: a decent life built on a decade of ceaseless struggle and hard-won self-respect. It seemed madness to take this risk when safety was assured simply by her staying put. But personal safety at the expense of others was cowardice, and cowardice was a right only of small children who lacked the strength and experience to defend themselves.
        She couldn't simply retreat into the defensive detachment of her childhood. Doing so would mean the end of all self-respect. Slow-motion suicide. It's not possible to retreat into a bottomless pit-one can only plunge.
        In the open once more, she rose into a crouch beside the bed. For a while that was as far as she got. She was frozen by the expectation that the door would crash open and that the intruder would burst in again.
        The house was as echo-free as any airless moon.
        Chyna rose to her feet and silently crossed the dark guest room. Unable to see the trio of blood drops, she tried to step around the place where they had fallen earlier.
        She pressed her left ear to the crack between the door and the jamb, listening for movement or breathing in the hall. She heard nothing, yet she remained suspicious.
        He could be on the other side of the door. Smiling. Deeply amused to think that she was listening. Biding his time. Patient because he knew that eventually she would open the door and step into his arms.
         Screw it.
        She put her hand on the knob, turned it cautiously, and winced as the spring latch scraped softly out of its notch. At least the hinges were lubricated and silent.
        Even in the inkiness to which her vision had not totally readapted, she could see that no one was waiting for her. She stepped out of her room and soundlessly pulled the door shut.
        The guest quarters were off the shorter arm of the L-shaped upstairs hall. To her right were the back stairs, which led down to the kitchen. To her left lay the turn into the longer arm of the L.
        She ruled out the back stairs. She had descended them earlier in the evening, when she and Laura went out to walk the vineyards. They were wooden and worn. They creaked and popped. The stairwell acted as an amplifier, as hollow and efficient as a steel drum. With the house so preternaturally silent, it would be impossible to creep down the back stairs undetected.
        The second-floor hall and the front stairs, on the other hand, were plushly carpeted.
        From around the corner,