Page 5 of Kill For Me Kill For You
‘Do you want to come up?’ asked Ruth.
‘I do, but not tonight. I think you need some coffee.’
Ruth remembered the feeling of disappointment. She’d let herself down, and now Scott didn’t want to see her again.
‘If you didn’t want to come up to my place, why did you come with me in the cab?’ she asked.
He leaned in towards her, said, ‘I wanted to make sure you were safe.’
For the first time, Ruth felt a flood of familiar and long-gone feelings. Feelings of comfort and security.
‘There’s an ice-cream parlor two blocks over. I’ll see you there tomorrow at one? My treat. They’ve got rum raisin.’
Ruth giggled, said, ‘Now I think you’re really trying to make me puke.’
With the memory of that night curling a smile into the corner of her mouth, Ruth stubbed out the joint. When the time came for Ruth and Scott to have a kid, it would be just fine. Her baby’s parents would always be together. Her child would never have to go through what Ruth had endured. Scott and Ruth were rock steady.
Back in the lounge, she brought the bottle of wine with her and found an old movie on TCM. It was just starting. She settled in for the night. Finished the second bottle and then went to bed.
Ruth woke from a bad dream in darkness. The clock on the nightstand showed it was 11:45 p.m. She reached behind with her left hand. No one on the other side of the bed. Just cold sheets. Shaking her head, she sat up. The time between turning off the movie and going to bed seemed a little hazy, but she remembered she had a glass of water by her bed. She drank, tried to force the remnants of the dream from her mind. Moments ago, she had been in her boss’s office, being fired for losing a property-developer client and she didn’t care to get back to that nightmare. It had not been the first time she’d had that dream.
She sat up fully in the bed and reached for her phone. It wasn’t by the bedside. She must’ve left it downstairs on the couch. She finished the water. The glass hit the nightstand with an almighty crash. The sound of glass exploding onto a hard floor.
Ruth sat up straight, touched the base of the bedside lamp to turn it on.
Her empty glass was intact. Perfect.
She heard glass being crunched underfoot. Cracking. The skittering of glass across tile. It was coming from downstairs.
Silence.
Glass being crushed.
Silence.
Crunching glass.
The small hairs on the back of her neck prickled. Her skin rose in goosebumps, the fear rising on her flesh, but then she heard something, a voice perhaps, downstairs.
Scott.
Scott was downstairs, drunk, and he’d dropped a glass or plate.
It had happened before. More than once. Especially when he was out with deadbeat pal, Jack. Maybe Jack had returned from Atlantic City, and he’d been giving Scott coke all night.
Ruth threw off the covers, tied up her dark brown hair and went downstairs in her night things. A vest and silk shorts. She hit the light switch on the landing, then took the last set of stairs to the first floor.
She started calling out Scott before she reached the bottom of the stairs.
‘You frightened the hell out of . . .’
The kitchen light wasn’t on. From the light on the stairs she saw broken glass on the kitchen floor. She reached inside, feeling for the switch. Flipped it.
The kitchen floor was covered with glass. She looked around, then saw that a pane had been smashed in the back door. The small one just above the door handle. The rest of the panes in the grid were intact. Then, in one of those panes, Ruth caught a reflection. A man, tall, dark clothing. Fierce blue eyes, a long narrow nose and square jaw.
He was right behind her.
An arm clamped around her throat and a hand stifled her scream. There was something in that hand. Something soft. It smelled bad. A chemical odor.
