Deja Dead Page 0,104

turn on the wall switch?

My mind snapped out of its paralysis. What had they taught in self-defense class? Run if you can. I can’t. If cornered, fight to win. Bite. Gouge. Kick. Hurt him! First rule: Don’t let him get on top! Second rule: Never let him pin you down! Yes. Surprise him. If I could get to any exit door, the cops outside could save me.

My left foot was already on the floor. Still on my back, I eased my right leg toward the edge of the bed, millimeter by millimeter, pivoting on my buttocks. I had both feet on the floor when the figure made a jerky motion and I was blinded by the glare of light.

My hand flew to my eyes and I lurched forward in a desperate effort to knock the figure aside and escape the bedroom. My right foot caught the sheet, sending me headlong onto the carpet. I rolled quickly to my left and scrambled onto my knees, turning to face my attacker. Third rule: Never turn your back.

The figure remained on the far side of the room, hand on the light switch. Only now it had a face. A face distorted by some inner turmoil at which I could only guess. A face I knew. My own face was fast forwarding through a series of expressions. Terror. Recognition. Confusion. Our eyes locked and held. Neither moved. Neither spoke. We stared at each other across the air in my bedroom.

I screamed.

“Goddamn you, Gabby! You stupid bitch! What are you doing? What have I done to you? You bitch! You goddam bitch!”

I sat back on my heels, hands on my thighs, making no attempt to control the tears bathing my face or the sobs racking my body.

25

IROCKED BACK AND FORTH FROM MY KNEES TO HEELS, SOBBING AND shouting. My words made little sense and when mingled with the sobbing became incoherent. I knew the voice was mine, but I had no power to stop it. Gibberish I didn’t recognize flew from my mouth as I rocked and sobbed and shrieked.

Soon the sobbing won out over the shrieking and receded to a muffled sucking sound. With one last shudder, I stopped my rocking and focused on Gabby. She, too, was crying.

She stood across the room, one hand clutching the light switch, the other pressed to her chest. Her fingers twitched open then closed. Her chest heaved with each intake of breath, and tears ran down her face. She wept silently, and seemed frozen in place except for that one clutching hand.

“Gabby?” My voice broke, and it came out “—by?”

She gave a tight nod, her dreadlocks bobbing about her ashen face. She started making little sucking sounds, as if trying to pull back her tears. Speech seemed beyond her capabilities.

“Jesus Christ, Gabby! Are you crazy?” I whispered, reasonably controlled. “What are you doing here? Why didn’t you call?”

She seemed to consider the second question, but attempted to answer the first.

“I needed to . . . talk to you.”

I just stared at her. I’d been trying to find this woman for three weeks. She’d avoided me. It was four-thirty in the morning, she’d just broken into my home, and aged me at least a decade.

“How did you get in here?”

“I still have a key.” More gulping sounds, but quieter, slower. “From last summer.”

She moved a trembling hand from the light switch and displayed a key dangling from a small chain.

I felt anger rising in me, but my exhaustion held it in check.

“Not tonight, Gabby.”

“Tempe, I . . .”

I gave her a look intended to freeze her in place once more. She stared back, not comprehending, plaintive.

“Tempe, I can’t go home.”

Her eyes were dark and round, her body rigid. She looked like an antelope cut from the herd and cornered. A very large antelope, but terrified nonetheless.

Wordlessly, I pushed to my feet, got towels and linens from the hall closet and dropped them on the guest room bed.

“We’ll talk in the morning, Gabby.”

“Tempe, I . . .”

“In the morning.”

As I fell asleep I thought I heard her dial the phone. It didn’t matter. Tomorrow.

And talk we did. For hours and hours. Over bowls of cornflakes and plates of spaghetti. Sipping endless cappuccinos. We talked curled on the couch and on long walks up and down Ste. Catherine. It was a weekend of words, most of them pouring from Gabby. At first I was convinced she had come unglued. By Sunday night I wasn’t so sure.

The recovery team came by