Terminal

A scream started in Janet’s throat but was stalled before it could get out by the hideousness of the image that confronted her. A man was in her bathroom dressed in baggy dark clothes. A knotted segment of nylon stocking had been drawn over his head so that his features were grotesquely compressed. At shoulder height he clutched a butcher’s knife menacingly.

For an instant, neither of them moved. Janet quiveringly aimed the ineffectual hair dryer at the ghoulish face as if it were a magnum revolver. The intruder stared down the barrel in shocked surprise until he realized he was looking at heating coils, not the innards of a handgun.

He was the first to react, reaching out and snatching the hair dryer from Janet’s hand. In a burst of rage he threw the apparatus aside; it smashed the mirror of the medicine cabinet. The shattering of the glass jolted Janet from her paralysis, and she bolted from the bathroom.

Tom reacted swiftly and managed to grab Janet’s arm, but Janet’s momentum pulled them stumbling into the bedroom. His original intent had been to stab her in the bathroom. The hair dryer had thrown him off guard. He hadn’t planned on her getting out of the bathroom. And he didn’t want her to scream, but she did.

Janet’s first scream had been stifled by shock, but she more than made up for it with a second scream that reverberated in the confines of her small apartment and penetrated the cheaply built walls. It was probably heard in every apartment in the building, and it sent a shiver of fear down Tom’s spine. As angry as he was, he knew that he was in trouble.

Still holding onto Janet’s arm, Tom whipped her around so that she careened off the wall before falling crossways on the bed. Tom could have killed her there and then, but he didn’t dare take the time. Instead he rushed to the slider. Fumbling with the curtains and then the lock, he yanked the door open and disappeared into the night.

SEAN HAD been loitering on the balcony outside Janet’s open living room slider, trying to build up the courage to go in and apologize for trying to make Janet feel guilty. He was embarrassed at his behavior, but since apologies weren’t his strong suit, he was having difficulty motivating himself.

Sean’s hesitation dissolved in an instant at the sound of the shattering mirror. For a moment he struggled with the screen, trying to slide it open. When he heard Janet’s bloodcurdling scream followed by a loud thud, he gave up opening the screen properly and threw himself through it. He ended up on the shag carpet, his legs still bound in the mesh. Struggling to his feet he launched himself through the doorway into the bedroom. He found Janet on the bed, wide-eyed with terror.

“What’s the matter?” Sean demanded.

Janet sat up. Choking back tears, she said, “There was a man with a knife in my bathroom.” Then she pointed to the open bedroom slider. “He went that way.”

Sean flew to the sliding glass door and whipped back the curtain. Instead of one man, there were two. They came through the door in tandem, roughly shoving Sean back into the room prior to everyone recognizing each other. The newcomers were Gary Engels and another resident who’d responded to Janet’s scream just as Sean had.

Frantically explaining that an intruder had just left, Sean led the two men back out onto the balcony. As they reached the handrail they heard the screech of tires coming from the parking lot behind the building. While Gary and his companion ran for the stairs, Sean returned to Janet.

Janet had recovered to a degree. She’d slipped on a sweatshirt. When Sean entered she was sitting on the edge of the bed finishing an emergency call to the police. Replacing the receiver, she looked up at Sean who was standing above her.

“You okay?” he asked gently.

“I think so,” she said. She was visibly shaking. “God, what a day!”

“I told you you should have stayed with me.” Sean sat next to her and put his arms around her.

In spite of herself, Janet gave a short laugh. Leave it to Sean to try to smooth over any situation with humor. It did feel wonderful to be in his arms.

“I’d heard Miami was a lively city,” she said, taking his lead, “but this is too much.”

“Any idea how the guy got in here?” Sean asked.

“I left the slider in the living room open,” Janet admitted.

“This is learning the hard way,” Sean said.

“In Boston the worst thing that ever happened to me was an obscene phone call,” Janet said.

“Yeah, and I apologized,” Sean said.

Janet smiled and threw her pillow at him.