Chapter 4
SABLE
"What the hell?"
I staggered back a few steps but managed to stay on my feet. Lucky for me I hadn't put shoes on yet. If I was wearing heels I would have fallen right on my ass.
A man stood in the doorway, dressed from head to toe in black.
If this was Forrest's way of picking up a date…
He slid a knife out of the back of his pants.
"I told you you'd be seeing me, didn't I?" His voice was a low growl, part gravel, part animal.
My pulse ratcheted up.
"What do you want?" I managed to keep my voice from shaking.
"What do I want?" He stepped deeper into my apartment, stalking toward me. His eyes piercing through the holes of what looked like a Halloween mask. The kind with a smiling skull. Leering. Menacing.
"I want revenge," he said.
"I think you might have me confused with someone else." How was my voice so light? My palms were starting to sweat. "It happens. People make mistakes all the time. If you turn around and leave, I won't tell anyone." Keeping secrets was becoming a habit.
"I'm not leaving," he said, continuing to move toward me. "I don't have the wrong person. I know exactly who you are."
"To be sure, you should tell me who you think I am," I said. This could be an honest mistake. It had to be.
He took another step forward. "Why would I do that? I didn't come here for a conversation. I came here because of what you did."
What had I done? I didn't remember accidentally kicking anyone's puppy. I didn't drive, so this wasn't about an unpaid speeding ticket. Not to mention the fact this was an extreme reaction to something so minor.
Maybe he was a neighbor who heard my music and didn't like it after all? Again, an overreaction, but some people were sensitive to things like that. I could have woken him from a deep sleep, or interrupted him mid-orgasm. From the sound of him, that kind of thing would piss him off.
"You're really going to have to elaborate." I took a step back, trying to think what I had to hand, that I could use as a weapon. A couple of couch cushions, my e-reader. My piano wasn't far away, but I wouldn't be able to pick it up and throw it at him. The stool, maybe?
"You think playing dumb is going to save you?" he asked.
"Oh, I'm not playing," I said. "I honestly have no idea why you're here. Who are you?"
I didn't think he was going to give me his name, address and telephone number, but a hint wouldn't hurt. If I could figure out what I'd done, or apparently done, we might be able to resolve this without any bloodshed.
I hated to think like Wolfgang, but I'd pay him if that was what he wanted. It was only money.
He sighed as if I was the most annoying person he'd ever had the misfortune to meet. Hey, maybe don't break into someone's apartment if you don't like them.
"You killed my father," he said.
I raised my hands to either side.
"Look, I like that movie as much as the next person, but I really have no idea what you're talking about. I haven't killed anyone. I don't even like stepping on ants."
He scoffed.
"Yeah right. I know exactly what you did."
"Would you like to share that with the class?" I asked.
Now probably wasn't the time for sarcasm but if he wasn't going to explain what was going on, he might as well kill me and get it over with.
I inched over toward the piano bench.
"Why are you pretending you don't know?" he asked. "Everyone knows, even if the cops can't prove it."
"I mean, you've come here into my apartment and threatened me, accused me of doing something I didn't do." My heart sank and my hands went with it. "If this is about Wolfgang…"
"Of course it’s about fucking Wolfgang," he snarled.
I tried to put two and two together, but the math wasn't mathing.
"Wolfgang doesn't have a son," I said finally.
"Of course he does, or I wouldn't exist," he said. Okay, ten points for logic.
"Do you?" I asked. As far as I know, he had no kids. This made no sense. "Maybe I'm hallucinating." That would be right, I finally get a chance to move on with my life, and I lose my mind instead.
"You're not hallucinating," he said.
"Maybe I'm dreaming." Moving slowly, I pinch the inside of my arm. "Ow, that hurt. I guess I'm not dreaming. But I might still be hallucinating."
"You're not." He let out a frustrated breath and stomped over to me. He raised his arm, the one without the knife. "Feel for yourself."
"I don't think that's a good idea," I said slowly. "What if you're not real?" This whole thing was freaking me out enough as it is. And if he was real, that knife was awfully close already.
He put his arm up under my nose.
"Feel," he insisted, my hand shaking.
I poked him in the side of the arm. His bicep was firm under the layer of black fabric.
"Is that a Balenciaga t-shirt?" I asked. "Nice."
"It's…" He sputtered and pulled his arm back. "It doesn't matter what it is. You get it, right? I'm real. Wolfgang Taylor-Francis was my father."
I sighed softly.
"I'm so sorry."
"So you admit what you did?" He looked at me sidelong.
"Oh, hell no," I said. "I'm sorry you're related to him. He was a prick."
"Don't talk about my father like that," he growled.
"He was absent in your life or he would have mentioned you to me," I said.
Not necessarily. He'd never been very forthcoming about personal things, not with me, anyway. Honestly, that was fine. I didn't want to know any more about him than I already did.
"It's complicated," the man muttered. "I didn't know what happened until recently. You killed him and you got away with it. Until now."
I shook my head and sat down heavily on my piano bench.
"I didn't kill him." I looked up into his eyes, brown, unless I missed my guess. "Is that what you've come here for? You think I killed him so you're going to kill me?"
"That's exactly what I'm going to do," he said. "If the police won't make you pay, I will."
"I'd rather you didn't," I said.
I lifted my chin and pushed myself back to my feet. As I rose, I brought the stool up with me and around my body.
I held it in front of me, the legs out, putting space between us.
"I didn't kill him."
I lost track of the amount of times I thought about it.
The times I'd held a knife in my hand the way this guy was holding one right then.
I could have walked up behind him and stabbed him in the back of the neck.
I could have poisoned his food. I could have wrapped one of his ties around his neck and strangled him with it…
Okay, I know that's harder than it sounds; he was bigger than me. Besides, he would have made me pay if I'd tried, which was why I hadn't. Fear and a healthy dose of self-preservation.
Forrest was right. I was a survivor.
"You think that is going to stop me?" he asked.
"Sure," I said lightly. "Why wouldn't it? What could be scarier than a piano stool?" I jabbed it toward him, almost poking him right in the groin.
He snorted and swept it out of my hands with his arm. The stool flew a couple of feet before landing on the floor with a thud.
"Okay, well, that was only plan A," I said.
I didn't have a plan B. Apparently I was going straight to plan F. As in I was completely fucked right now.
I backed up until my back hit the wall.
"I'm starting to see what he saw in you," he said, "and you repay him by murdering him."
"What did he see in me?" His father seeing anything in me was a compliment. I didn't want Wolfgang to have liked anything about me. I liked nothing about him.
"You have sass," he said.
If he knew his father, he'd know Wolfgang hated sass. He liked meek and scared. Small and quiet. Like a statue on a pedestal in the corner. Pretty but silent.
"I've been told that before," I said. "You're not going to kill someone with sass, are you? I mean, doesn't the world need more sassy people?"
I cocked my head and smiled, hoping like hell he found it endearing. At least endearing enough to turn around and walk out the door again.
"The world needs more sassy people who don't kill my father," he said.
"So that's a yes," I reasoned. "I mean, he's dead. I can't kill him."
Neither could Forrest. No one could. Thank goodness for that. The idea of Wolfgang as a zombie was horrifying. Or worse still, a vampire. Knowing him, he would have turned me, because he knew how much I'd hate it. I'd grab a stake and use it on myself. After I used it on him.
Sable the Vampire Slayer has a ring to it, don't you think? Yes, I'm exactly the nerd Savannah accused me of being.
"Why did you do it?" he asked. "Didn't my father give you everything?" He stepped over so close the heat radiated from his body.
"You remind me of him," I said. "He didn't respect my personal space either."
My masked attacker leaned in and whispered, "People like you don't deserve personal space."
I whispered back, "Now that's just rude."
What the hell, he was going to kill me anyway. I might as well make it entertaining for us both.
"Murdering people is rude," he said.
"So, you admit to being rude? Since you're, you know, holding a knife and threatening to kill me." I managed a small, ironic smile.
"I'm not threatening, Princess," he said. "I'm explaining what's going to happen. It's not personal. It's revenge."
"It's very personal to me," I said. "I don't even know what you look like. You've come in here all masked and mysterious. The least you could do was show me what you look like before I die. I'm curious to see if you look like your father."
He didn't sound like Wolfgang. He sounded as if, under any other circumstances, he'd be hot. These circumstances though? They were anything but hot.
He hesitated for a moment.
"I suppose it can't hurt. Then I can say something cool like, 'My face will be the last thing you see before you die.'"
"See, there you go," I said approvingly. "You get to be cool. Right before you murder me in cold blood."
"It's not…"
He growled and pulled off his mask.
I was right, he didn't look like Wolfgang. His hair was a lighter brown, messed up by the elastic on the back of the mask. His chin was square and stubbled. His lips plush, but set in an angry line. His hand tightened around the knife so hard his skin turned white.
"Happy now?"
"Since you're about to kill me, happy isn't exactly the word," I said.
I took in a deep breath through my nose and closed my eyes…
I took the opportunity to lunge to the side, trying to get away from him.
He grabbed my arm and pulled me back, slamming me against the wall before pressing the knife to my throat. He locked his eyes on mine.
I quivered.
"Woody, what the hell are you doing?" Forrest said from inside the doorway.