The Midnight Club_ A Novel - James Patterson [96]
One of the passkeys began to turn slowly in the lock…
92
SARAH WAS CERTAIN she had heard something outside the bedroom door. The noise was different from the usual nighttime sounds inside her apartment. She was surprised the tiny sound had awakened her at all.
Something was different.
Her eyes were wide open, revealing a field of total blackness stretching out around her. For a brief moment, it gave her the illusion that she might still be dreaming.
A few seconds of concentration were necessary to accustom her eyes to the dark. Finally, she could discern the outlines of both large picture windows inside the bedroom. The sounds of car horns and pneumatic bus brakes drifted up from the street, but no noise came from inside the apartment.
Sarah began to look for her clock.
Where was it? She couldn’t find it anywhere on the night table.
She thought she heard a floorboard creak. Did it come from the hallway?
Maybe a board under the living room carpeting? Someone was in the apartment.
Her breathing was already coming in short, rapid bursts. She couldn’t get enough air into her lungs.
Sarah concentrated on listening… listening… just listening to whomever… whatever…
She was sure that she heard another distinct sound, and she desperately wanted to cry out, to call out and question whoever was there. This wasn’t just night frights. Not some ordinary New York apartment scare…Somebody was actually inside her apartment.
Oh God. She was a fighter, but not against something like this.
Who was it? Alexandre St.-Germain? The Grave Dancer? That horrifying, truly bizarre night and early morning in Atlantic City came flashing back at her… The murders. Out of nowhere, it had seemed. How had they gotten in so easily?
“Stef?” she whispered as softly as she could. She moved over to touch his shoulder.
He wasn’t there.
“Stef?…”
“I hear them.” A voice came from a few feet away, off to the left.
He had gotten himself into his wheelchair. He had moved across the bedroom, away from Sarah. His revolver was cradled in his lap.
“Go lock yourself in the bathroom.” There was no mistaking the policeman’s command in his voice. “If anybody so much as touches the bathroom door, start screaming like hell. Once you start screaming, don’t stop for anything.”
“Stef?…Who do you think it is?”
93
“I DON’T KNOW. Get into the other room, please. There’s going to be shooting here.”
John Stefanovitch heard the creaking bedsprings, then Sarah’s light footsteps padding across the bedroom carpet.
She understood what was happening… the imminent possibility of gunfire in the bedroom. There was no arguing or discussing with him this time.
Stefanovitch tried to maneuver the wheelchair, and to catch his breath at the same time. He wondered how good he would be in this kind of situation…
He never could have imagined how unnerved he would be by the presence of an intruder inside Sarah’s apartment. Rage surged in the corridors of his brain, balancing some of the fear.
How many of them were there? Would they come into the bedroom firing? Maybe they would creep up to the bed and fire at close range.
How would Alexandre St.-Germain want it done? The street law had to be observed. That was it, wasn’t it? Another important object lesson to be taught to the world.
I wanted you to know one thing …I shot her myself.
I stood in the hallway of your pathetic little apartment building….
Suddenly, Stefanovitch imagined exactly how it had been that night. For a terrifying, sickening instant he saw everything, the unbelievable horror of the killer coming right into his home. How Anna must have felt at the end.
The awful silence made him feel he was trapped in a jar.
As Sarah stood inside the bathroom, a hundred conflicting thoughts rushed through her mind. Her body felt heavy and almost useless. This isn’t happening to us, she thought over and over. It was impossible to accept that they had actually come into the apartment.
Her mind kept grabbing on to one thought. Alexander St.-Germain