Beach Thriller(97)
I feel it immediately, the horrifying sensation of my weapon sinking deep into flesh. A wave of nausea roils through me, but I stab again and again. I don’t know what part of his body I’ve struck. Throat? Shoulder? Arm? I’m blind from the rush of adrenaline. Warm blood oozes onto my hand and down my arm.
The figure grabs hold of me, a bloody arm wraps tightly around my chest, knocking the air out of me. I feel my attacker’s strength and determination, just as I fear mine is fading away.
“I’ve got you now,” a voice says before everything goes black.
Chapter 61
Holly
Gail and Serena stood near the front door, directing guests to the first-floor bathrooms and away from Ethan, who was working the lock.
Standing close to the door, Holly heard something she hadn’t before—the notes of an evocative, dreamy piano sonata she instantly recognized as “Clair de Lune” by Claude Debussy.
Ethan stood up and turned to Holly. “Finally,” he said. “We’re in.” He turned the knob and the door opened easily. A burst of cooler air bathed Holly’s face. The stairs led up and down, but Holly heard a commotion above, so they hurried, moving quickly over the uneven stone steps as fast as they could.
Ethan took the lead, his body disappearing around the first bend in the stairwell, then reappearing before vanishing again. Up, up, up they went—the stone walls echoed with the sound of their quick footsteps. The piano music was audible even over the roar of what sounded like a fight.
They burst into a dimly lit room. Holly paused in the doorway, stunned by the sight before her.
Conrad was in the middle of a wrestling match with Dr. Vernon Hill. From the looks of it, Conrad wasn’t winning. The front of his white dress shirt was soaked in blood. Holly could see he was bleeding from a cut in his neck—not a fatal wound, but definitely a messy one.
And he was hardly down for the count. In his bloodstained right hand, Conrad clutched a syringe, its needle hovering inches from Dr. Hill. Nearby, a frail, exhausted woman, swallowed up inside a large bed, gazed blankly at the ceiling as if she were catatonic.
“He’s trying to kill her,” Dr. Hill screamed as Conrad lunged at him with the needle. Shifting his weight, Dr. Hill dodged the strike in the nick of time.
Before Holly had a chance to intervene, Ethan pounced. He wrapped Conrad in a tight bear hug, lifting him off the ground from behind. In one violent motion, he pulled both Conrad and the needle away from Dr. Hill.
“Let me go!” Conrad demanded. “I’m going to fucking kill him.” His legs bicycled uselessly in the air.
Ethan’s biceps strained, but his vise grip held.
Conrad’s eyes burned like the sun. His skin turned a deep, dark shade of crimson. The veins on his neck and arms pulsed, venom flowing through every part of his body. His muscles were coiled, vibrating—ready to snap.
Gone was the calm, composed, debonair host of the party. In his place stood a savage beast. A deep, guttural growl rose from his throat—more animal than human.
Dr. Hill’s medical note came back to Holly: PTSD … with potential for violent behavior. That might have been a wild understatement.
The woman in the bed moaned as if she were in pain, but Holly went to help Ethan instead. Conrad’s hand was close enough to Ethan’s leg to deliver what could be a deadly strike. Who knew what was in that syringe?
Holly moved deftly. With a quick upward thrust, she seized Conrad’s wrist with one hand. With the other, she dug her fingernails into his flesh. She pressed harder and harder until she felt blood. The coppery smell from Conrad’s multiple wounds—the one to his neck and now to his hand—turned her stomach.
He yelped like a wounded pup, loosening his hold on the syringe. It fell to the floor with a clatter that Holly could hear over the music, the same song starting again. Maybe it was set to repeat.
Maddening, she thought.
She let go of Conrad, hoping he would give in now that he was unarmed, but instead he snapped his head backward, head-butting Ethan.
Incensed, Ethan spun Conrad around to face a stone wall. He opened his arms. For a moment, Conrad was free, but Ethan wasn’t finished with him yet. He delivered a hard shove to Conrad’s back, which sent him crashing into the wall. He hit his head hard enough to leave a smear of blood on one of the jagged stones. His legs buckled, but Ethan didn’t give him a chance to fall. Coming up from behind, he wrenched Conrad’s arm behind his back and then led him to the staircase.
Navigating down the narrow stairs was tough enough. Managing with someone else was nearly impossible. Ethan’s grip loosened, and as it did, Conrad twisted at the waist, delivering an elbow strike to Ethan’s temple that snapped his head back, and he fell quickly. On impulse, Holly threw herself behind Ethan to cushion his fall. His weight pinned her to the ground, trapping her for a moment.
“Dr. Hill—help, you have to stop him,” Holly cried out.
Vernon Hill sprang into action, stumbling into Holly and Ethan as he raced down the stairs after Conrad.
Amazingly, Ethan wasn’t far behind. He bounced up as if he were made of rubber. Holly was slower to get to her feet.
“Are you all right?” she shouted to Ethan’s back, but he was too busy running down the stairs to respond.
Holly left the bedridden woman, taking a million questions with her. Was that Elizabeth Ward under the covers? What was Conrad planning to do to her? More important, how did Jade fit into all this? Did she see something she shouldn’t have?