Behind Closed Doors

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Thursday, June 7, 2007, 2:03 a.m. Tucson, ArizonaThe red LED lights swam, cleared, blurred again. Every muscle tense, Harry lay in bed, listening. Something had awakened him. And it wasn't Laura. Her hand was still half clutched in his under the covers, and she slept on, despite whatever had interrupted his own sleep.2:04. There it was again. A sort of swishing. Not a footstep. But movement. He recognized it immediately as the sound that had just jerked him abruptly out of a dreama dream about his botanist wife snipping bits of cactus from a garden that had appeared in the middle of their bedroom...The sound came again. Was it closer? Harry couldn't tell. And he couldn't identify it. It was like moving air. Not from the vent in the ceiling, but lower. Thinking of the unloaded pistolinheritance from his unclein the back of his closet, Harry slid his hand from Laura's, moving so slowly he almost wasn't.He wanted to believe he was imagining things, but Harry wasn't prone to an overactive imagination. Someone...or something...was in their house.Without disturbing Laura, he slipped one bare leg out of the covers. Then the second...He froze. There was a shadow on Laura's side of the bed, the shape of a man bending down, reaching toward her. Harry's arms shot out to grab the bastard around the neck but he was caught from behind. He bellowed in pain and rage, the sound immediately muffled by a leather-gloved hand against his mouth.His wife's eyes openedinstantly widestaring at him in the darkness. He read the fear there, the desperate plea for him to do something. And saw a man gag her.Infused with frantic strength, Harry alternately yanked his arms, trying to free them from his captor's hold, and hit back against him. A hand grabbed the waistband of his briefs and yanked him backward. He bit and tasted leather, bit again and had a piece of leather on his tongue. He couldn't spit it out. Couldn't swallow."Do not move and you won't be injured." Laura was hauled up, the strap of her pink gown falling down one shoulder. She tried to right it but before she could, her hands were pulled forcibly behind her and restrained. Her whimper sent him over the bounds of sanity.Harry's foot connected with flesh and bone. His nails scraped leather and denim. The elbow punch he landed resulted in a loud smack in the too-quiet room.And then, his arms wrenched behind his back, pulling the left one half out of its socket, he felt something thin and hard being twisted around his wrists, cutting into his flesh."Unless you want more than a dislocated AC, you'll keep still," the deep voice muttered. He could hear it clearly despite Laura's high, terrified moans.Tears streamed down her face.Shoving against his captor with both legs, Harry broke free, kicked again and again, landing some blows. The shadow was doing something to Laura at the bedpost and Harry lashed out like a madman, needing to annihilate his own unseen force so he could get to her.He couldn't.Laura's captor joined Harry's and just as Harry realized his wife had been tied to the bedpost, he was attacked by two male bodies at once. He kicked. He bit. He pummeled with the hands tied behind his back, hardly aware of the pain that shot through his shoulder with every wrench. The pain was good; it kept him alive and feeling, aware.Harry was strong, athletica black man who knew how to defend himselfbut he was no street fighter.He landed a kick to one guy's head. The guy fell.And the other was there, smashing his fist into the right side of Harry's face. Stars swam before his eyes at the