Blindspots, p.1
Blindspots, page 1
Copyright © 2024 by David Sakmyster
Cover art and design by J. Kent Holloway
Charade Media, LLC
www.charadebooks.com
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I’d like to thank my early readers: Amy, of course; Dad as always, giving you something a little more exciting to read when you’re up at 5 in the morning; the incomparable Bill Rader, and the incredibly swift and insightful Daz Pulsford, and the brilliant writer Jeremy Robinson. Cheers to all, and thanks especially to Kent Holloway and Charade Media for bringing new life to one of my favorite books and opening the doors to finally offering a series.
And, of course, thanks to all of you—the readers!
CONTENTS
Book One
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Book Two
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Book Three
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Epilogue
BOOK ONE
STRANGERS
1
Philadelphia, PA
November 18
In the dark, Monica Gilman reached for the gun, moving as slowly as she dared, praying the bed wouldn't creak, at least not enough to draw the attention of the intruder downstairs.
She kept the Smith & Wesson 9mm in the bedside drawer. After a moment of fumbling around notepads and papers, the TV remote, and a small bottle of sleeping pills, the gun settled into her hand like it belonged there. It was the same magic feeling she'd had in St. Cecilia's church five years ago when Paul had slipped the wedding ring on her finger. She had never taken it off, not even once, not even to clean it. It had been perfect, just like this gun, with its stainless-steel handle, cool at first, then warming to her touch, responding to her need.
Intimately familiar with the 9mm, she often slept with it beside her when Paul wasn't there, and its simple presence calmed her during his absence.
He was away a lot lately. And she was scared enough as it was. Alone in this house.
In her condition.
Paul had bought her the gun last year, and he had taken her to the shooting range every weekend for three months until she had felt comfortable with it. Loading, aiming, holding her breath, firing. Again and again, flinching with each recoil until it felt right. The 9mm magazine held twelve rounds, more than sufficient if she lost her focus and sent a few shots wide. “You never know,” he had told her, “And I'll feel better knowing you're not defenseless if something should happen.”
'Something.' What he didn't say was: Like what happened to your mother.
She pushed the avalanche of memories aside and tried to ignore the fear gnawing at her insides. She had to focus, remain in the present, grounded.
Reality. Were the noises downstairs really real? A response bubbled up in her thoughts, something her mother always used to say, the way she had always concluded Monica's favorite bedtime story. “Was that Velveteen Rabbit really real, Mama?” Yes, he became really real. Monica was a girl who was at once spoiled and adored, cherished, and protected. Loved fiercely, even more so because her parents knew Monica would be their only child; she was a miracle, appearing in defiance of a squadron of doctors who had assured them it was time to seek other options.
But in the end, she had let them down when it counted. And that was real, as real as any childhood fable.
Another sound jolted her back to the present. Someone was downstairs, maybe several someones, in the dark, moving about in the kitchen. Now into the living room. The floorboards creaked, whimpering under stealthy feet.
The alarm's been deactivated, Monica realized. Or the wires were cut. How did they get in? Did she forget to arm the system? No, not possible. It was the first thing she did whenever she came home—lock the door immediately, arm the system. She kept the downstairs windows locked all year round, and only when Paul was home did she feel safe enough to let in some air. The last thing she did every night, whether Paul was there or not, was to double-check the alarm. There was no way she had forgotten.
But someone was inside. Someone who knew the code—or had stolen it or managed to disable the system from the outside. She squeezed the gun's now-sweaty grip and slowly swung her legs over the bed, disentangling herself from the heavy cotton sheets.
Her heart thundered so hard she almost couldn't hear the sounds from downstairs—sounds already competing with the November wind, roused and defensive, as it rattled the windows and tugged at the shingles.
It was happening. This was real. Real, real… The nearest neighbor was five hundred yards away, and only four other houses were within a mile. Privacy. Isolation. Paul had bought her this house because it was precisely what she needed, but right then, she had never felt so scared.
She took a deep breath to settle her shaking hands, released the safety on the 9mm, and set her trembling feet onto the rug. It won't happen to me, she thought. Mom wasn't ready. I am. The first step was the hardest, willing her muscles to move, to actually get out of bed and step toward the door. Toward the hall. Toward danger.
Her feet rebelled. Why not stay, lock the bedroom door, barricade herself inside and call the police? She looked to the phone next to the digital clock, the blue numbers glowing the time: 2:23 a.m. Surely if the alarm was deactivated, the phone would be dead too—they shared the same line. Maybe the intruder—or intruders—had been spying on her, knew about her, her condition. Knew that she'd never be able to identify them. They could steal, assault… rape. Anything, and she'd be powerless. Every nightmarish scenario played out in her brain's sadistic theater; there were things worse than death. At least death would be merciful. But for Paul to come back and find her assaulted and hysterical, locked in the bedroom, her mind in a panic—what would he do?
Probably what he should have done years ago. Have her committed.
She would not let that happen.
She ignored the phone. It was too late for the police. But maybe there was some small hope. If someone had cut the lines, the interruption in the alarm signal would have sent a warning pulse back to the monitoring station. Maybe the cops were coming after all. Maybe the intruders would flee if they heard the sirens.
Too many maybes. She had to act. As quietly as possible, she slipped out into the dark hallway. Inky-black shadows yawned before her, and a translucent blue light filtered up from the open space to her left, beyond the railing, looking down into the foyer and the dining room. A solid wall on her right proudly displayed framed pictures like war medals. She knew them all by heart—wedding photos, collages of their honeymoon on the deserted beach in Bermuda. Her vision quickly tugged back to the left, sensing some furtive movement below—a darker figure blending with the shadows, moving quickly toward the stairwell.
Coming upstairs.
Now it was real.
Monica steadied the gun with both hands, aiming at the top of the stairs. She inched forward, listening to muffled footfalls. Should have bought a dog, she thought, amused at the sudden notion of something so simple and practical, and angry with herself for not thinking of it before. If she survived the next few minutes, survived this night, that's exactly what she'd do. Tomorrow morning, in fact—get up and find the perfect watchdog, some cute but deadly furball with teeth, something to curl up with in her king-size bed, to snuggle with her—and to scare off any foolish intruders.
But if she really meant to buy one, that would mean leaving the house. Going out there. With them…
She took a step back toward the bedroom and slipped into a deeper shadow. She knew she'd now be almost invisible to whoever emerged at the top of those stairs—whoever it was that seemed to be coming toward her with deliberate knowledge, seeking her out. Confident in his steps, sure of her location.
Steadying the gun with both hands, she held her breath and waited. The darkness at the top of the stairs shifted and then parted, producing a darker, denser form.
One figure…so far. It paused on the top step as if aware of her presence. She heard breathing—shallow, rushed. Tense, perhaps scared. Or just excited by the things he was contemplating, approaching her bedroom.
The 9mm's trigger felt inviting, softly yielding to her finger. If he took just one more step…any sudden motion…she would fire. Over the roaring in her temples, the house creaked and grunted as the winds shook out a last desperate warning. She listened closer but couldn't make out any other sounds from downstairs. No creaks, no footfalls.
Hopefully, this meant the intruder was alone. Should she call out? Warn him she was armed? At best, if she surprised him and he turned and ran, that might only save her for tonight. He'd be back—whoever he was. Paul would be gone another two nights. She couldn't stay awake and alert forever. And…
And she had had enough. Enough of living in fear.
The intruder took another step. The floor groaned and sagged under his weight. He hunched his shoulders, and the darkness about his body swirled.
But the wavering blue light from downstairs avoided his face, and instead the shadows moved in and coalesced, enhancing his impenetrable mask.
Something scuffled…a hand scraping against the wall, feeling for something. Monica's finger tightened, the trigger moving halfway, the hammer pulling back. Her blood roared, seething through her veins, pounding rhythmically in her throat; her head felt airy, detached.
Something clicked. White light exploded like a supernova, and she only barely registered the figure on the stairs—a large man dressed in black sweatpants and a t-shirt. A baseball cap on backwards.
He stepped forward and, in the dazzling light, his hands looked huge, his fingers as long as talons. His mouth opened, words came out as frantic gibberish, something…
…something lost in Monica's scream.
She saw his face, or rather, the lack of one. Above his neck, nothing but a blur, a swirling mass of indescribable features, a miasma of shape and texture that defied comprehension.
She fired.
Steady, deliberate. Holding firm against the recoil.
Again.
The blasts were swallowed up by her escalating scream.
The faceless intruder jerked back after each impact, then lurched two steps ahead. Splotches of red blossomed on his chest and stomach, and still he came forward.
She fired again, just as her scream died.
And she heard him speak. A single word. Forced out in a choked exhalation before he staggered the last few steps and collapsed onto his knees right in front of her, just before she fired one last time…directly into the swirling kaleidoscope of his face.
“Monica…”
Blood and brains and bits of his skull blasted out and spurted onto the white rug. Finally, after wobbling unsteadily on his knees, the intruder collapsed onto his back. His legs straightened and continued twitching too long, far too long without a brain, or much of a head left to command them. The air smelled of sulfur and the retching pall of death.
Monica gagged, dropped the gun, and stumbled to the balcony where she vomited over the railing, a long dribbling stream that clung stubbornly to her chin. For an instant, she thought of her father, how he had left the example of an easy way out, and she thought about jumping… but then, quickly, before she could take a breath and clear her throat, she reached back down and snatched up the gun, again pointing it at the fallen intruder, expecting him to rise at any second. Then she spun and aimed at the stairs, then between bars of the railing, down into the foyer.
She listened. To the wind, to the creaking windows and the crackling trees, and then to the tomb-like silence inside her house. Returning her aim to the dead man, she backed into her bedroom and took her eyes away, only to snatch up the cordless phone with her free hand. She rushed back to the hall, hit TALK and held the shaking phone to her ear.
A dial tone chirped in her ear. At least that was something. This intruder wasn't as good as she had feared. She dialed 911.
An operator picked up on the second ring. “911 Operator. What's your emergency?”
“Hello?” She choked out the word.
“Is this… Mrs. Gilman?”
“Yes?” God bless technology and caller databases.
“You're calling from 96 Clarence Mills Drive?”
“Yes.”
“Are you okay?”
She swallowed, eyeing the intruder, staring at the blood seeping into the carpet, staining the white fibers a thick, dark black. She looked at the man's face, at the unrecognizable features around the gore-streaked hole punched through his forehead, and she expected his face to suddenly revert to something familiar—like a werewolf changing back into human form after death.
“Mrs. Gilman?”
“Yes, yes. I'm okay,” she whispered. “I… there was a man. A break-in.” She took her eyes away and lowered the gun a few inches.
Her attention drifted to the pictures on the wall. The soothing, familiar images. Her wedding photo—those two people holding hands. Their whole lives ahead of them. Two people having found each other despite the odds, despite the obstacles—especially hers. Paul was so understanding, so noble. He was the one, the one she needed, the one she'd been searching for through so many lost years, the only one who could truly understand her. She smiled again at that picture, at those two people in love, and it calmed her, as if seeing them still on their rightful place on the wall was assurance enough that everything was going to be all right. This, what just happened, was real, but she had survived it. She was still here, still alive.
She looked at her hair in the picture: all pinned up and speckled with glitter, his cut short, and that cute five o'clock shadow on Paul's lip and chin. Their faces—their faces…
Unrecognizable. Blurry, indistinct.
A lump had lodged securely in her throat.
“Mrs. Gilman? Is the intruder still in the house?”
“Yes. But… he's dead. I shot him.”
“Okay, just calm down. Is your husband home?”
“No, he's on a trip. Sacramento. Won't be back until Thursday night.”
“We're sending a car. Don't move. Are you sure the intruder was alone?”
“I… I think so.”
“We'll be there soon, Mrs. Gilman.”
“Thank you. Stay with me, please.”
“Of course. Do you know the intruder?”
Monica shook her head. She was glad the operator was still talking—it rooted her, settled her down like a cup of peppermint tea. She didn't want to be alone with her thoughts or with this corpse. “No, I don't think so. I…”
She frowned, noticing something. Just as she saw the scattered petals, and the tied stems that had been in the intruder's left hand, and she caught the scent of roses—pink, her favorite—she saw a glint of something else. Something sparkling in the painful light.
“Mrs. Gilman?”
“Wait…” Suddenly woozy, her head spinning, she stepped forward on wobbling legs, and her eyes locked on one tiny object.
She bent down, gingerly reaching above the broken rose petals for his lifeless hand. And then she froze, choking on the abrupt fear, the certainty that he would suddenly spring to life, faking all this time until he could grasp her wrist, and then her throat.
But he didn't move. She slowly took his hand. Raised it to her face. Felt the familiar contours of his big fingers, the roughness of his palms. The tiny hairs, starting to turn gray around his knuckles. And then…
