Nancy Bush's Nowhere Bundle: Nowhere to Run, Nowhere to Hide & Nowhere Safe. Nancy Bush

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      “There was a shooting. That’s all we know, so far.”

      “Why? Why . . . was he in front of Liv’s door? Is she there?”

      “No.”

      “Did she do it?” she asked in a horror-filled whisper.

      “When we get something, we’ll let you know.” September’s heart clutched. Here, she’d been upset with D’Annibal and her brother for keeping her in the dark, but what if something had happened to Auggie?

      “Do you think these boots will work?” she asked September seriously.

      September fought back her own rising anxiety, “They’ll be fine,” she assured her, then held out a hand to help Jo to her feet.

      Liv tried to surface from a deep sleep. Uncomfortable sleep. Sleep surrounded by nightmare fragments that swept in and out of her consciousness. Fingers of dream fog that beckoned her reluctantly forward.

      Through the mist she saw Aaron . . . his quirk of a smile . . . his joking mouth. He opened that mouth to speak but it grew into a dark hole where black blood started spilling toward her. And there was Paul de Fore, with only half a head, leering and jolting forward on stiff robot legs.

      She wanted to scream but couldn’t. There were rags in her mouth. Pieces of something that kept her mute. A gag. But then the gag was over a man’s mouth. Her hostage. Auggie. But his eyes burned with an angry blue flame. Liv turned away, sobbing.

      A cat strolled through her legs. A very fat cat with yellow tiger stripes and a long, curving tail that switched and twitched. She reached for it, but it too disappeared into the sneaking fog.

      Cat, she called. Cat!

      She was screaming. Screaming at the top of her lungs but the cat was gone and couldn’t hear her. CAT!

      “HEY!!!” a voice yelled loudly.

      She jerked as if pulled by strings, her eyes flying open. She could hear the echo of her own voice fading away.

      “HEY! WAKE UP!”

      Auggie. Auggie was yelling at her.

      “Stop,” she told him, struggling to her feet. “Stop yelling. I’m awake.”

      “You were dreaming. Whimpering,” he called out.

      She struggled to get her bearings, then finally drew a breath and walked to the open doorway of his bedroom. She could just make out his form in the dim light.

      “You said ‘cat,’” he told her.

      “I know.”

      “What does that mean?”

      “I was dreaming about a cat.”

      “Do you have one?”

      “No. It was just something I said to Aaron.”

      “What did you say?”

      “I told him I had a cat. A very fat cat. It was a joke, of sorts.”

      “A joke?”

      Liv turned away. Sadness and fear vied for control of her senses and she felt tears form in her eyes. She didn’t know what the hell she was doing. Making a worse mess of things.

      “Hey,” he said, but she walked quickly away, to the kitchen, where she poured herself a glass of water and drank half of it down in two gulps. It stemmed the tide of tears. For now, at least.

      “I could use a drink!” his voice found her from the other room. She poured another glass and took it back to him. A part of her just wanted to untie him and have him drink it himself, and she was debating that, when he said, “And another trip to the bathroom.”

      That did it. She just didn’t care anymore. She set down the water on the TV stand, untied him, then gestured for him to have at it, whatever it was. Then she returned to the couch, where she sank into the cushions and stared straight ahead.

      He came into the room, rubbing his wrists, eyeing her speculatively in the near dark. There was a crack in the curtains where a strip of moonlight crept in, and it was enough for her to see his expression. He looked confused.

      “I don’t care what you do,” she said, before he could speak. “Call the police. Run away. Do the chicken dance. I just don’t care.”

      “Tell me what the dream was about.”

      “This isn’t about the dream,” she snapped back. “Not in any way I can explain. Just . . . I don’t care.”

      For the first time, he seemed at a loss for words. Well, good. She was sick of talking to him anyway. “Why are you called Auggie?” she asked him again.

      “Because I liked dogs. My Dad called me Auggie-Doggy.”

      “Is that true?”

      “Why would I lie about it?”

      She shook her head in frustration, looked away from him, then sighed. “I’m sorry I dragged you into this and growing sorrier by the minute.”

      “At the risk of being redundant, why don’t you contact the police? Do you have some deep dark secret? Some lawlessness that’s caught up to you? Some crime you don’t want discovered?”

      “The police have done me no favors,” she mumbled, wishing he would just go back to sleep.

      “They catch you shoplifting? Pick you up for a DUI? Give you a speeding ticket?”

      “My mother hanged herself when I was six and I found her body, and they treated me like I was stupid and a liar and they treated my brother the same way.”

      Silence.

      That, finally, had the power to shut him up.

      And then she remembered what Hague had said about the doctor.

      The doctor.

      We both know him . . . from when we were kids . . .

      The stalker. The zombie. The doctor.

      We both know him.

      She sat up straighter.

      “What?”

      “I went to see my brother tonight. Hague. He said it was the doctor.”

      “It?” he repeated.

      “The bogeyman.” She abruptly got to her feet, thinking hard.

      “Which doctor? Your Dr. . . . Yancy?”

      “Another doctor. But he was there. He came to Hathaway House and he stalked! ” She paced toward the kitchen, felt for a light switch on the wall, changed СКАЧАТЬ