Come and Find Me A Novel of Suspense - By Hallie Ephron Page 0,38
cab. She gagged at the thought of getting into a taxi with a driver who was a stranger to her. She’d have to drive herself. The car keys were still in the olive-drab canvas backpack she used to carry everywhere, back in the day when she actually went places without thinking twice.
She could practically hear Daniel’s voice: Lean on me. She pulled his walking stick from her umbrella stand. Grabbed the cell phone and charger and dropped them into the backpack. Checked her video monitors. Outside it was quiet. A cardinal was perched on the fence again.
Trying not to think, just do, a minute later she’d armed the doors and reset the security alarms. She pulled open the kitchen door and stepped into her garage. There she leaned on Daniel’s walking stick, and the smell of pine overwhelmed the odors of gas, mold, and skunky pheromone that rose from the garage floor.
Hands trembling, she keyed in the security code. Checked twice that the door was secure.
She could do this, she told herself, hugging the walking stick to her chest as she turned to face the Hummer. It had been backed into the garage. She pressed the button on the key ring and heard the reassuring click as the doors unlocked. She pulled open the door, stepped up onto the shiny chrome bar and into the driver’s seat.
Dropping her backpack and the walking stick on the floor, she slipped the key into the ignition and anchored both hands on the leather-clad steering wheel. A few feet in front of her was the closed garage door. She shut her eyes and took deep breaths, counting down from ten.
When she opened her eyes, she saw the Dunkin’ Donuts cup sitting in the drink holder. The program from Daniel’s memorial service was lying on the floor. Diana remembered the line from the poem Jake had read, his voice choking. May the road rise to meet you.
She forced herself to focus, to turn the key. The engine whinnied until she released the pressure. The engine light was on and the needle on the gas gauge had jumped to half full. She pumped the gas pedal and tried the key again. On the third try, the engine caught, roared to life, and kept right on roaring. Diana coughed as fumes filled the closed garage. It took her a moment to realize she had her foot jammed down on the gas pedal. She pulled it off.
She pushed the remote to raise the garage door and jumped as the mechanism clanked and then whirred. The door’s hinges gave a loud creak. Diana’s heart pounded as the door tilted open and a sliver of light grew at ground level. She gripped the steering wheel to keep her arms and shoulders steady. Slowly the door rose in front of her.
All she had to do now was shift into drive and accelerate out of there. Once the car was in the clear, the garage door would lower automatically.
She stared at the needle pointing to park. Moved her hand to the gearshift, her hand clawed, knuckles white.
A shadow fell over her. She jerked her head up. A car was coming up the driveway at her. Shiny. Black. Diana screamed, and as if answering her cry, the car screeched to a halt just a few feet from the Hummer’s front bumper.
Diana screamed again and bashed the remote over and over until the garage door started to descend, cutting her off from the intruder. Then she yanked the keys from the ignition, threw herself from the car, and stumbled to the door, keying in the security code and falling into the house without looking back.
She slammed the door behind her, threw the dead bolt, and raced into her office. In the echoing silence, the doorbell rang, but Diana barely heard it. The security camera in the front of the house showed an empty driveway. The black car that she knew had to still be there appeared to have vanished, and that same damned cardinal was perched on the front fence.
On top of that, not one of her alarms had gone off.
Chapter Seventeen
Diana crawled under her desk and sat there, hugging her knees to her chest. In her mind’s eye she could still see the black car. Why didn’t her security camera see it too? Why hadn’t it triggered her security alarm? And how come each time she’d looked out through the front camera, the same damned bird was perched outside?