Read Online Blind Pursuit by Michael Prescott - Free Book Online

breath.
    Squirt of suntan lotion into her open palm. Her hand creams the oil over her cleavage, her breasts. She rubs harder, fingering her nipples. Her legs flex as her head lolls. Glint of sunlight on her mirrored lenses. One hand caresses her breasts while the other drifts lazily down to the zipper of her shorts. She wears no underpants. Lotion on her finger. The finger curling inside ...
    Gund woke.
    His breathing was loud and labored above the pounding of his heart.
    Blinking, he registered a smear of morning light caught in the window curtains. He must have kicked off the covers during the night. Naked, he lay motionless, arms and legs splayed.
    Beside the bed, an upended apple crate supported a gooseneck lamp and dime-store alarm clock. The short and long hands of the clock were at seven and three: 7:15.
    He’d awoken fifteen minutes before his alarm was set to go off. Strange.
    After dropping the letter in Annie’s mailbox, he’d come directly home, arriving at five in the morning. He had shed his clothes—the outfit from last night lay scattered on the floor like a trail of clothes left by a melting man—and collapsed into bed, falling instantly asleep.
    That had been only two hours ago. He would have expected to sleep straight through.
    Perhaps a residuum of excitement over last night’s successful enterprise had roused him. Or the nagging sense of urgency, the awareness of a looming deadline, which had been with him for the past two weeks.
    He studied the wall opposite the bed, bare of ornament save for the single decorative item found in his apartment, a calendar showing scenes of America’s national parks. Today’s date was April 17. A Tuesday.
    It had been April 3 when he purchased the two cans of gasoline that now lay under the tarp in the rear of his van. Three days later he had bought a badminton set at a toy store. The net, shuttles, and rackets had gone into the trash; he had wanted only the metal stakes used to put up the net.
    They were hidden under the tarp also.
    Funny how he had done these things without quite permitting himself to know where his actions would lead. Oh, he did know, of course, but in some peculiar way he seemed able to block out that knowledge and operate on automatic pilot, making his purchases and preparations with no conscious planning, no definite intentions.
    It was always that way. But this time things would be different. This time he had Erin Reilly to help him.
    If she could.
    And if not ...
    Then the stakes and the gasoline would be used for her.
    His mouth twisted, and a groan shuddered out of him, thick and wheezy.
    He wondered how much time he had before the compulsion became irresistible. A month? Two weeks?
    Perhaps not long enough for Erin to do her work. But it had to be. For his sake and hers.
    Therapy. The prospect simultaneously frightened and intrigued him. He supposed she would ask him about his childhood, his sex life. Those appeared to be the standard avenues of inquiry.
    Some evasion would be necessary in both areas. There were things he wouldn’t reveal, secrets he meant to keep.
    Dreams. That was another topic sure to arise. Well, there was only one dream that mattered, the dream that had visited him on so many nights, the dream that would not let him go.
    A frown crossed his face. The dream ...
    That was what had woken him ahead of the alarm clock. Of course.
    Slowly he raised his head and, for the first time since opening his eyes, looked at himself. He preferred never to see his unclothed body. His pale white flesh, thick around his waist, repelled him, and he found the hairy swatch of his genitalia troubling in some obscure way.
    Still, he looked, then released a relieved sigh. His penis was soft, flaccid. He did not have an erection. Good.
    Erections scared and disgusted him. Pain and shame were inextricably intertwined with any reminder of the sexual act.
    He thought again of the dream. Lotion on her finger; her finger between her legs ...
    The