Walking After Midnight Read Online Free PDF Page B

fist.
    „Make a sound and die.“ Having reached safety, he flung himself against the building’s brick wall and jerked Summer with him, her back to his chest. His right arm locked around her waist. She imagined that the scalpel nestled somewhere beneath her left breast. Close to her heart.
    His body heaved with each breath he drew. She was panting too, from terror. Sweat poured off him. His skin was damp with it. The odor he gave off was not pleasant.
    „Do you have on a bra?“
    „What?“ The guttural question so surprised Summer that she answered in a near-normal voice.
    „Do you have on a bra?“
    Summer nodded faintly. From the front of the building came the swoosh of tires on pavement, and then the faint squeal of brakes. Thank God, someone was there.
    „Take it off. Take off your shirt and take off your bra and do it now.’“
    The fierceness of the command, accompanied by the shifting of the scalpel from beneath her breast to the pulse below her ear, spurred Summer into complying without question. He meant it. There was no doubt whatsoever in her mind that he would kill her that exact second if she did not do as he ordered, or if she impeded him in any way. Hands shaking, she fumbled at the buttons at the front of her blouse, afraid to even speculate on what he meant to do when it was off. Surely, surely, he did not intend rape. She didn’t think he intended rape. Despite his overpowering nakedness, sexual assault seemed to be the last thing on his mind.
    „Hurry.“
    Summer tried, but dread made her fingers clumsy. She still had two buttons to go when he grew tired of waiting. Untangling his hand from her hair with an impatient jerk that made her grit her teeth against the pain, he grabbed hold of her blouse by the back of the collar and yanked it off her. The thin nylon gave with a soft ripping sound, and the remaining buttons shot into space.
    The sheer unexpectedness of it made Summer gasp. Instinctively she crossed her arms over her chest. His hands were already at her back, clawing for the fastenings of her bra. When he could not find it, muttered curses intermingled with threats singed her ears.
    Feeling as if she were trapped in a nightmare, Summer lifted her unsteady hands to undo the hook-and-eye closure between her breasts. At this point, she was willing to do anything necessary to appease him.
    From somewhere out of sight came the slam of a car door. Whoever was driving the vehicle had gotten out.
    Let them find me, she prayed as the bra was stripped from her and her arms were dragged ruthlessly behind her back. Please, please let them find me.
    Glancing down, Summer was made ill by the sight of her bare breasts gleaming palely in the moonlight. It brought home the reality of her danger as nothing else had. This man could strip her, rape her, kill her, at will. She was at his mercy – unless she did something. But what? What could she do that would not hasten her own grisly end?
    The distant crunch of footsteps told her that her potential savior was on foot now, presumably walking through the parking lot. Toward them? But he didn’t know they were there. In all likelihood, he was headed toward the mortuary’s front door. Who could it be? Mike Chaney? An ambulance crew with another corpse? A cop making a routine check on the building? Who knew?
    Please… she prayed again, so shaken that she could not even put the rest of her request into words. But God knew what she meant. Please save me. Please.
    Her captor was tying her wrists together with her bra. He was using both hands, which meant that wherever the scalpel was, he wasn’t holding it just at that instant. If she was ever going to do it, now was the moment to scream, while the scalpel was not at the ready and there was someone nearby to hear.
    But suppose the someone could not, or would not, help? Suppose it was a woman, or worse, a woman with kids in the car, who by her screaming would be exposed to the madman’s menace too? Or a rank