Homeport

up her head and expose the vulnerable line of her throat.
    In her mind flashed the image of the knife slashing once, fast and silent, severing carotid artery, a gush of hot blood. And she would die on her feet, slaughtered like a lamb.
    “Please don’t. I have three hundred and fifty dollars in cash.” Please let it be money he wants, she thought frantically. Let it just be money. If it was rape, she prayed she had the courage to fight, even knowing she couldn’t win.
    If it was blood, she hoped it would be quick.
    “I’ll give you the money,” she began, then gasped in shock as he tossed her aside like a bundle of rags.
    She fell hard on her hands and knees on the gravel drive, felt the burn of small, nasty cuts on her palms. She could hear herself whimpering, hated the helpless, numbing fear that made it impossible to do more than stare at him out of blurred eyes.
    To stare at the knife that glinted in the thin sunlight. Even as her mind screamed to run, to fight, she hunched into herself, paralyzed.
    He picked up her purse, her briefcase, turned the blade so that the sun shot off a spear of light into her eyes. Then he leaned down and jammed the point into the rear tire. When he yanked it free, took a step in her direction, she began to crawl toward the house.
    She waited for him to strike again, to tear at her clothes, to plunge the knife into her back with the same careless force he’d used to stab it into the tire, but she kept crawling over the brittle winter grass.
    When she reached the steps, she looked back with her eyes wheeling in her head, with small, hunted sounds bubbling through her lips.
    And saw she was alone.
    Short, rusty breaths scraped at her throat, burned in her lungs as she dragged herself up the steps. She had to get inside, get away. Lock the door. Before he came back, before he came back and used that knife on her.
    Her hand slid off the knob once, twice before she managed to close her fingers around it. Locked. Of course it was locked. No one was home. No one was there to help.
    For a moment, she simply curled there, outside the door, shivering with shock and the wind that whipped over the hill.
    Move, she ordered herself. You have to move. Get the key, get inside, call the police.
    Her eyes darted left and right, like a rabbit watching for wolves, and her teeth started to chatter. Using the knob for support, she pulled herself to her feet. Her legs threatened to buckle, her left knee was screaming, but she darted off the porch in a kind of drunken lope, searched frantically for her purse before she remembered he’d taken it.
    She babbled out words, prayers, curses, pleas as she yanked open the car door and fumbled with the glove compartment. Even as her fingers closed over her spare keys a sound had her whirling around wildly, her hands coming up defensively.
    There was nothing there but the wind sweeping through the bare black branches of trees, through the thorny canes of the climbing roses, over the brittle grass.
    Breath whistling, she took off for the house in a limping run, jabbing frantically with the key at the lock, all but wailing with relief when it slid home.
    She stumbled inside, slammed the door, turned the locks. When her back was against that solid wood, the keys slipped out of her fingers, landed with a musical crash. Her vision grayed, so she closed her eyes. Everything was numb now, mind, body. She needed to take the next step, to act, to cope, but she couldn’t remember what step to take.
    Her ears were ringing and nausea rose up in one long greasy wave. Gritting her teeth, she took one step forward, then another as the foyer seemed to tilt gently right and left.
    She was nearly to the base of the stairs when she realized it wasn’t her ears ringing, but the telephone. Mechanically, she walked through the haze into the parlor, where everything was so normal, so familiar, and picked up the phone.
    “Hello?” Her voice sounded far away, hollow like a single beat in a wooden drum. Swaying a bit, she stared at the pattern the sun made as it slipped through the windows and onto the wide planks of the pine floor. “Yes. Yes, I understand. I’ll be there. I have . . .” What? Shaking her head to clear it, Miranda struggled to remember what she needed to say. “I have some things . . . things to take care of first. No, I’ll leave as soon as I can.”
    Then something bubbled up inside her she was too dazed to recognize as hysteria. “I’m already