Read Online Nowhere to Hide by Joan Hall Hovey - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Joan Hall Hovey
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Tiger at all.
Soon the pictures inside Ellen’s head grew more vivid than those on the television screen, complete with sound and texture, making her want to claw them from her brain. A small, agonized moan breaking from her, she bolted from the chair. Crossing to the sideboard, she poured herself a generous shot of vodka to go with the two Valium she’d taken earlier, and which didn’t seem to be working.
Her hands shook, and some of the vodka splashed the sideboard’s lovely cherry wood surface. She didn’t bother to wipe it up. The drawer was not all the way closed, and she could see one corner of the bulging scrapbook containing Gail’s brief life.
No need to buy another one. Not now.
Nine
Other than to refill her glass, and turn the sound up a little, Ellen had not moved from in front of the television. The room had grown dark. She was on her third vodka, glass in hand, clear liquid gently swirling. She looked to see it creating a tiny whirlpool, and longed to lose herself in it.
What did it matter if she drank? What did anything matter now? She thought about the bottle of Valium on the shelf in the medicine cabinet—maybe twenty left.
Enough, she knew, to end the nightmares.
Strangely, Myra’s nightmares came to mind. "A shadowy figure at the foot of my bed," she’d told her on the night Gail was murdered. "I wake up in an icy sweat, terrified. What do you think it means after all this time, Ellen?"
"I don’t know," Ellen said aloud to her glass, her words slurring slightly. "I don’t know anything anymore."
Ellen continued to stare at the screen. Live at Five. Only five o’clock? It got dark out so early now. The announcer’s voice cut through the boozy haze "...More trouble in the Middle East... economists are predicting the country is headed for another depression... a plane exploded over Bangkok..."
The voice faded out again like a receding tide as Ellen began thinking about him. Was he too, at this very moment, sitting in some darkened room in front of a television set? Smiling perhaps, reliving his vile, brutal act with a sick pleasure? Her hand began shaking so hard she had to set the drink down.
And suddenly Gail was smiling out at her from the television screen, sending a knife of searing pain straight through her heart. It was the picture of her they’d run with the last article.
"Police are still baffled by the recent murder of a young Evansdale woman," the announcer read from the sheaf of papers in his hands. "Gail Morgan’s body was discovered two weeks ago today on the bedroom floor of her New York apartment, savagely beaten, raped and strangled. Ms. Morgan was a singer on the verge of her big breakthrough in the music industry. Her recording of "Do You Know Me?" also written by Ms. Morgan, should hit the airways in a matter of weeks, reports a spokesman for Genesis recordings. Police are continuing their investigation into the murder.
"The search for a Scarsdale man missing in the Maine woods over the weekend has ended on a happier note..."
The announcer’s voice lost to her now, Ellen leaned forward in her chair, focusing, concentrating all her mental energies. Who are you? You’re out there somewhere. She tried to see him in her mind’s eye, trying in desperation to tune him in. What kind of monster are you to do what you did to my sister?
Imagining Gail’s pain, her helplessness, and the final terror of knowing she was going to die, sent a surge of rage and hatred through Ellen so powerful she felt it might suffocate her. Bile rose in her throat as wave after bitter wave took her, building in strength and intensity like dark clouds before a storm. When she could no longer contain the storm within her, in the space of a breath, she released the torrent of writhing, black emotion into the television screen, and beyond.
You’ll pay, you bastard. I’ll find you. And you’ll pay for what you did.
Outside, the cold January wind screamed under the
Soon the pictures inside Ellen’s head grew more vivid than those on the television screen, complete with sound and texture, making her want to claw them from her brain. A small, agonized moan breaking from her, she bolted from the chair. Crossing to the sideboard, she poured herself a generous shot of vodka to go with the two Valium she’d taken earlier, and which didn’t seem to be working.
Her hands shook, and some of the vodka splashed the sideboard’s lovely cherry wood surface. She didn’t bother to wipe it up. The drawer was not all the way closed, and she could see one corner of the bulging scrapbook containing Gail’s brief life.
No need to buy another one. Not now.
Nine
Other than to refill her glass, and turn the sound up a little, Ellen had not moved from in front of the television. The room had grown dark. She was on her third vodka, glass in hand, clear liquid gently swirling. She looked to see it creating a tiny whirlpool, and longed to lose herself in it.
What did it matter if she drank? What did anything matter now? She thought about the bottle of Valium on the shelf in the medicine cabinet—maybe twenty left.
Enough, she knew, to end the nightmares.
Strangely, Myra’s nightmares came to mind. "A shadowy figure at the foot of my bed," she’d told her on the night Gail was murdered. "I wake up in an icy sweat, terrified. What do you think it means after all this time, Ellen?"
"I don’t know," Ellen said aloud to her glass, her words slurring slightly. "I don’t know anything anymore."
Ellen continued to stare at the screen. Live at Five. Only five o’clock? It got dark out so early now. The announcer’s voice cut through the boozy haze "...More trouble in the Middle East... economists are predicting the country is headed for another depression... a plane exploded over Bangkok..."
The voice faded out again like a receding tide as Ellen began thinking about him. Was he too, at this very moment, sitting in some darkened room in front of a television set? Smiling perhaps, reliving his vile, brutal act with a sick pleasure? Her hand began shaking so hard she had to set the drink down.
And suddenly Gail was smiling out at her from the television screen, sending a knife of searing pain straight through her heart. It was the picture of her they’d run with the last article.
"Police are still baffled by the recent murder of a young Evansdale woman," the announcer read from the sheaf of papers in his hands. "Gail Morgan’s body was discovered two weeks ago today on the bedroom floor of her New York apartment, savagely beaten, raped and strangled. Ms. Morgan was a singer on the verge of her big breakthrough in the music industry. Her recording of "Do You Know Me?" also written by Ms. Morgan, should hit the airways in a matter of weeks, reports a spokesman for Genesis recordings. Police are continuing their investigation into the murder.
"The search for a Scarsdale man missing in the Maine woods over the weekend has ended on a happier note..."
The announcer’s voice lost to her now, Ellen leaned forward in her chair, focusing, concentrating all her mental energies. Who are you? You’re out there somewhere. She tried to see him in her mind’s eye, trying in desperation to tune him in. What kind of monster are you to do what you did to my sister?
Imagining Gail’s pain, her helplessness, and the final terror of knowing she was going to die, sent a surge of rage and hatred through Ellen so powerful she felt it might suffocate her. Bile rose in her throat as wave after bitter wave took her, building in strength and intensity like dark clouds before a storm. When she could no longer contain the storm within her, in the space of a breath, she released the torrent of writhing, black emotion into the television screen, and beyond.
You’ll pay, you bastard. I’ll find you. And you’ll pay for what you did.
Outside, the cold January wind screamed under the
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