A muffled sound, one I can’t make out.
Damn it, give me a little more.
I lift my phone and open the browser. I’m halfway through typing “Scotland emergency phone number” when a cry comes, a stifled word that is unmistakable.
Help.
Then another cry, this one of pain and surprise, and I bolt from my spot before I realize what I’m doing. I swing into the lane to see…
Nothing.
It’s more alley than lane, stacked with boxes and bins for trash pickup. The cobblestones stretch into darkness, and I race along them, following the whimpers and muffled cries of a woman, until I reach the back corner and look around it to see…
An empty lane.
It’s a narrow alleyway between the rows of shops, and there is nothing in sight.
I squint into darkness lit only by a single flickering lamp over a door. Even without better lighting, I am absolutely certain there’s no one here.
They must have moved on. I misunderstood, and the couple moved on.
I’m turning away when a gasp sounds behind me. I spin, fists rising, to see that empty expanse of alley again.
Then there’s a flicker. The shifting of light. A flash of cornflower blue, hovering like a haze. The haze becomes a dress. A long dress, half-translucent. A glimpse of light hair. Then another gasp, as the wisp of a figure falls back against the wall, only to disappear as she strikes it.
What the hell?
I blink hard. A projection? It must be. Some kind of video projection from a tour, a young woman in an old-fashioned dress struck down by an unseen assailant. I peer up at the opposite wall, looking for the malfunctioning projector.
Something moves behind me. Do I catch the whisper of a foot on stone? The smell of another body? Or just a shift in air pressure. Nan would call it a sixth sense, but all I know is that my gut says “Turn around now!” and I obey.
I wheel just as something swings toward my head. I spin out of the way and catch a glimpse of rough rope gripped in a man’s hand.
Synapses fire, a connection made. An article glimpsed in passing. Edinburgh. Two bodies found in the past month. Strangled. Old rope around their necks.
A spark of realization, smothered by the far more important fact that I am being attacked.Thisis not a malfunctioning ghost-tour video.
My arm smacks up into his, and he staggers back grunting in shock. His face rises, hidden in the shadow of a dark hoodie. Then the hood falls half back and—
It’s the man from the coffee shop. The man I spilled coffee on.
If asked what he looked like, I’d have said I had no idea. I only saw his shirtfront, dappled with coffee droplets. But I never ask witnesses whether they would recognize someone if they saw them again, because half the time they’ll say no, but if I put a lineup before them, the memory will slam back.
That’s what happens now. I thought I didn’t see his face earlier, but then this man looks at me—white guy, midthirties, average face, light hair, dark eyes—and I know him. I know him beyond any doubt.
I spilled a few drops of coffee on some suit in a crowded shop, and now he’s in this alley, dressed in a black hoodie, with a length of fraying rope in his hand.
It makes no sense, and that is where I fail. My foot was flying up to kick him, and then I recognized him and I falter. He feints out of my way. I stumble and twist to right myself and in a blink, the rope is around my neck.
I claw to get my fingers under it as twenty thoughts explode at once. Twenty instructions, and above all of them, the scream that I should do better. I’ve taught women how to fight off an attacker in every situation, and here I am, uselessly clawing at a rope already around my neck.
It happened so fast.
It happened so goddamn fast, and part of me screams a curse for every time I calmly told some woman how to fight this. Get your fingers under whatever is choking you. Free some air. Claw. Kick. Punch. Scream.
Scream? I can’t breathe. How the hell can I scream?
I do claw, but the rope is already digging in, my nails shredding against it. I kick backward. Rear kick. Side kick. Roundhouse kick. I know themall, but my foot never makes contact. Even when I manage to get my hand behind my neck, all I feel is that length of rope.