Ride the Nightmare Read Free Page A

exhibition game, they had managed to beat the Hollywood Stars 7–5. Helen recalled that Chris hadn’t wanted to be in that picture.
    “We’re going to Mexico but I had to stop and see you first, didn’t I, Chrissie boy?” said the man. “I been waiting a long time for this.”
    “You better go,” said Helen. “The police are coming and—”
    She broke off as the man’s face hardened and he raised his gun.
    “No!” she gasped, one hand reaching out as though to stop him.
    The man relaxed and the smile returned to his lips. He didn’t even look at Helen.
    “Now you didn’t call the police, did you, Chrissie boy?” he said. “I know you wouldn’t do that because, if you did, you’d go to jail, wouldn’t you? And you don’t want to go to jail, do you?”
    Helen looked over at Chris with sickened eyes. The room seemed to waver around her. “Chris, you
did
call the—”
    All of it fell into a pattern then. Chris’s strange reaction to the call, his refusal to let her telephone the police, his telling her that they couldn’t go over to Bill Albert’s house, his plan to go outside with a knife and stop the man before she could find out that…
    Helen felt herself trembling with a sickness of despair which welled up in her before she could control it. With a body-wracking sob, she turned away, one hand thrown across her eyes.
    “
Stay right here
,” the man’s voice ordered and she stopped, leaning against the door jamb.
    “Helen—” She heard Chris’s pleading voice.
    “You mean you haven’t told her?” the man asked.
    “Leave her alone.” Chris muttered.
    “But I think she should know all about it, don’t you, Chrissie boy?” said the man. “I think every wife should know all about her husband. That wasn’t nice of you, not telling her about your wicked past.” He clucked mockingly. “Shame on you, Chrissie boy.”
    Helen barely heard him. It was as if the shock of discovery had drained the powers of her senses. Through a blur of tears she saw the living room stir gelatinously. The sound of the man’s voice faltered, one moment fading into silence, the next, flaring in her eardrums. Of smell and taste there was nothing and her flesh seemed numb as she leaned against the door frame.
    Now the man seemed to notice, for the first time, that he was bleeding.
    “Stuck me in the arm, didn’t you, Chrissie boy?” he said, almost amusedly. “Well, we’ll make up for that, won’t we?”
    Abruptly, Helen turned, her heart jolting in slow, heavy beats, remembering that the man had come to kill Chris. “Maybe my husband didn’t call the police,” she said, “but I did.”
    The man glanced over. “Good try, lady,” he said. “Just shut your mouth and maybe you won’t get hurt.”
    “I tell you the police are—”
    “Helen, don’t.” The sound of Chris’s defeated voice made her stop.
    Chris turned to the man.
    “Listen,” he said. “I’ll go with you. Just leave my wife alone.”
    “Now what’s the hurry, Chrissie boy?” asked the man. “We got plenty of time to chat—” his voice lowered. “Before I kill you.”
    “No.”
    The man turned again and looked at Helen.
    “Lady, I told you to keep your mouth shut,” he said.
    “Why do you want to kill him?” she asked in a shaking voice. “You—”
    “Hold it.”
    Helen stopped. Then, hearing what the man did, she began to tremble. The man looked past her into the living room.
    “You know,” he said, “that sounds just like a little girl.”
    The sound of Connie’s crying seemed to fill the house.
    “So you got a little girl,” the man said.
    Chris seemed to lean forward.
    “A little girl,” said the man. “Now that’s real sweet.”
    “I said I’d go with you,” said Chris.
    “Yeah, that’s what you said, isn’t it?”
    The man’s amiable tone degraded in an instant, his face became a mask of animosity. “And what if I don’t want you to come with me?” he said.
    Helen glanced across her shoulder