Great, Molly thought. Just peachy. They’re finally patching the potholes from last winter’s mud slide. With all the racket, she was definitely on her own.
Her fanny stung from the sharp lip of the window, and Jerry’s rail was farther away than she thought. She didn’t have much room to maneuver so she swung one leg over the windowsill and tried to reach sideways for the rain gutter.
Her fingers slipped just as the pounding on the door started. She couldn’t hear what Alec Steele was saying over the drone of the shower and the work crew, so she yelled back, “I’ll be out in a second. Make some eggs.”
Something about her voice must have alerted him. Maybe he could tell she was way up off the ground, she realized, because he tried the door. Molly heard him rattle it, then hit it a couple of times with his fist when he realized it was locked.
The sound of his fury made her rush. Using all her strength, Molly pulled herself completely out of the window, balancing her toes on the ledge. Because the windowpane opened in, she had nothing but the frame to hold on to as she tried to stand, though she found she could reach the railing now, with about six inches to spare.
Gritting her teeth, she forced her right hand to release the window and made a grab for the metal slat of Jerry’s rail with both hands. With much effort, she started pulling her body up the side of the building.
The stucco against her skin hurt like the dickens, pricking the soles of Molly’s feet. She was breathing through her mouth, concentrating on pulling her rear end up even with her shoulders when she slipped. Her knees skidded and banged against the rail and she slid down, though she somehow managed to hold on despite now sweating hands.
She knew she didn’t have much more time. Her shoulder blades and every muscle in her back screamed for relief, but after five or six seconds, she managed to grab the rail with her left foot and hoist herself up.
It was exhilarating, but only for a moment. The front door opened below her and she flattened her body against the wall. Alec Steele was most likely searching the ivy, figuring Molly had dropped down and been killed, considering his unspoken but guessably low opinion of women’s physical abilities.
But the man was no fool. She knew it wouldn’t be long before he checked upstairs. Molly had a feeling he wouldn’t be nearly as calm as he’d been a minute ago. She grabbed the knob on Jerry’s door and turned it, but of course the door was locked. She had a key to his place, but it was hanging downstairs on the key keeper in her kitchen. She dropped to her knees to feel under the slimy green welcome mat. Amazing how people leave their keys in such obvious places, she thought as her heart pounded faster. A yell of victory nearly escaped as her fingers found the cold piece of metal. Still on her knees, she leaned over and slipped the key in, shivering as the door creaked open to admit her into the safe haven of her neighbor’s empty home.
Molly shut the door behind her, surprised at how badly her hands were shaking. The skin on her face felt taut and unreal, and she had a funny hollow sound in her ears, like the one she got on some carnival rides. She knew enough about shock, however, to realize that it probably accounted for all these bizarre symptoms.
The dead bolt seemed nice and sturdy, and for good measure she fumbled with and finally engaged the chain. She turned and ran into the kitchen and picked up the wall phone. It seemed to take forever to punch in 9-1-1, but finally a man answered.
“I need help, please,” Molly said.
“Give me your name, phone number and location, please.”
Her tongue felt like leather. She swallowed, then ran it over her dry lips. But before she could speak, an urgent pounding began at the front door a few feet away.
“Molly! Open the door. Please, I need to tell you something about last night you need to know. Please, I don’t want you to get hurt.”
“Right,” she yelled in a sarcastic voice. Alec Steele’s voice was clear even through the plaster and wallboard that made up most of the residential buildings in California. He is insane, she thought. Why doesn’t he just run away?
“Miss? Are you okay, miss? Please give me your name and location,” the emergency operator’s voice insisted in her ear, but suddenly all Molly could hear was the echo of Alec’s words of a few minutes earlier, saying he couldn’t trust the police.
“Molly! Please, I don’t have much time.” Alec’s voice was louder.
Molly didn’t feel afraid, only confused somehow. He was pleading with her as if they were friends.
Which they weren’t.
The man had kidnapped her at gunpoint, for crying out loud! Still, how did they happen to be at the same place last night? Had Alec Steele planned it?
Had someone else? Fred Brooker?
None of it made sense to her. Molly’s internal argument had slowed her reflexes, but she had come to a decision.
Err on the side of the sensible, she told herself. Swallowing hard, Molly spoke into the phone more loudly than she had intended.
“My name is Molly Jakes. I live at 2001 Plaza Viejo. But I’m in the town house at 2003. Send help immediately. I think there’s a very dangerous man with a gun by the name of Alec Steele outside. He kidnapped me. Please hurry.”
Chapter Four
Thirteen minutes isn’t a long time if you’re waiting for a taxi, and it’s a short amount of time if you’re waiting for a doctor. But if you’re waiting for the cops, Molly decided, it feels like a day and a half.
Alec pleaded another minute or so while Molly stayed on the emergency line, and his voice grew a little more desperate, then trailed off. She assumed he had departed. Normally very civic-minded, she decided there was no way she was going to make an attempt to try to stop him.
As she sat with her head pressed to her knees and her back against Jerry’s front door, it passed through her mind that she should probably call all the neighbors and warn them. But she didn’t know any of their numbers and wouldn’t have known what to say in any case.
The police were efficient and polite when they showed up, two young Mission Verde cops, ringing Jerry’s door and calling out nicely, “Miss Jakes. It’s the police.”
They dutifully checked her town house, walking in and out of every room after they had thrown open her front door, but Alec Steele was nowhere in sight. The three were joined a few minutes later by two additional officers, one a woman.
Ten minutes after that, four Orange County P.D. members arrived, one of whom was the plainclothesman Molly had talked to at last night’s freeway accident scene. He obviously hadn’t had any sleep, either, and his manner had deteriorated to a point where even the excuses she made to herself on his behalf didn’t allow her to like him.
“You’re telling us you drove this guy from the accident scene out to your house?”
“He held a gun on me, Officer. And as I’ve told all eight of you, I didn’t know he was there until I was too far away from any cop to yell for help.”
At that, Lieutenant Cortez, as Molly had heard one of the others call him, turned and yelled for the rest of them to start searching the area for Alec. Molly described her car, and the female cop went to look and see if it was still in her car space. Molly didn’t see her keys anywhere but couldn’t remember what had happened to them last night, so really had no idea if Alec Steele had them or not.
Cortez and Molly stayed put, she on her pink-and-green flowered couch, he pacing in front of the fireplace. “So when did you know this Alec Steele from before?”
Cortez had called