Читать книгу Dangerously Attractive - Jenna Ryan - Страница 7

Wisps of black fog drifted in and out of Vanessa Connor’s head. They obscured the face of a man she desperately wanted to see. She called his name, but that only added knife blades to the darkness. The shiny tips jabbed gleefully at the edges of her brain.

It was like a dream, but not really. Someone had hit her, caught her hard with the butt end of a gun. As the darkness began to crack, vague memories slithered in to hiss at her.

The walls around her groaned. She heard a bird croaking overhead. “Beware,” it warned again and again.

With an enormous effort, Vanessa clawed her way through one of the cracks and forced her eyes open. Think, she ordered herself. Breathe. Focus.

Because the literal darkness hadn’t altered, the only thing she could focus on was a tattered spiderweb in the corner of a high, rectangular window. The air smelled damp, vaguely musty. The bird’s voice floated downward again.

“Don’t talk to strangers!”

Having succeeded in raising her head, Vanessa let it fall back. She stared at the unfinished ceiling. Cobwebs dangled like broken threads. Her mind became a whirlpool, sucking in thoughts and tossing them back out at random.

She pictured the man again. Was he calling her name? Probably. Would he find her here in this dank northern California cellar? Unlikely.

On a more chilling note, she recalled four dead women, college friends once who’d turned into strangers with the passing years.

She visualized their killer. Her killer unless she could find a way out of here. But the ropes around her wrists were cinched tight, and the ones binding her ankles weren’t much looser.

Behind her, the cellar door creaked. A protracted silence followed. Then a foot hit the first stair tread.

Vanessa’s heart thumped. She counted the steps, fourteen to the bottom. And finally…

“Hello, Vanessa.” The disembodied voice was soft, like a caress. Oh, but there was a definite whip of fury in her name.

The eerie approach continued, leather soles on the smooth concrete floor. Gradually, a form took shape. A gun emerged from the darkness. A hand appeared and caught her chin. The fingers that dug in jerked Vanessa’s head higher. Cold eyes glittered down at her.

“Awake and aware, are we, Sleeping Beauty? I must have hit you harder than I realized. But then I’m so close to the end, you see, so very, very close.”

The killer’s face came into view. Smiling lips dipped to kiss her left cheek, then her right.

“You glow, even in the dark, Vanessa. Such a temptation for a weak, mortal male.”

Vanessa knew better than to react. Any sign of fear or revulsion would send the killer over the edge. Of what, she wasn’t sure, since insanity was a given at this point and mercy an impossible dream.

“Watch out!” the distant bird shrilled, and the killer laughed.

“I’ll shoot that crow before I leave.”

“But…”

“For fun. For the sake of confusion. Because I hate birds. But not as much as I hate you.” The hand holding the gun rose, touched Vanessa’s forehead. “Say your prayers, gorgeous.” The freakish smile returned. “You have five short seconds. Then you’re dead.”