In Self Defense by Susan Sloan (phonics books .TXT) 📕

two of the officers standing behind him moved up immediately, fired several rounds into the lock, knocking it out, and pushed the door open.

“Let’s go,” Erin ordered, and with two of the group staying back to cover the door, the rest headed for the stairs.  But just as they reached the top and started down the second floor hallway, bumping into a terrified Nina Jacobsen as they went, they heard the scream.  Only it wasn't a scream, exactly, the way one would expect a human to scream.  It was more of a grotesque howling sound, so chilling that it filled them all with a terrible sense of dread.

Expecting the worst, they pushed forward, only to find Clare, alive and well, dressed in a flimsy nightgown, standing in the middle of her bedroom, which was now fully lit by a sparkling crystal chandelier, still gripping the Beretta, and staring down at the bullet-ridden body of her husband, Richard.

 Six

Clare huddled in a corner of the bedroom, her arms wrapped tightly around her body, rocking slowly back and forth, her unblinking eyes riveted to the spot where her husband lay, and then, after his body had been removed, to the spot where his blood had oozed into the lush gray carpet.  Nina somehow managed to get a robe around her, but was unable to get her up off the floor and away from the horror.

Dr. Ahrens came again from Ballard and, as he had just two nights earlier, gave her a sedative that was, so far, having little, if any, effect.  The only noticeable difference was that the frenzied howl had muted into a whimper.  But it was a whimper of such agonizing pain, as Nina would later describe it, that it was in some ways harder to endure than the scream had been.

“That sedative should have knocked her out cold,” Ahrens murmured, shaking his head.  “It was such a big dose, I don’t dare give her another for at least a couple more hours.”

Clare remained where she was, wedged between the wall and the bureau, oblivious of the crime scene analysts who continued to pick meticulously over everything, her eyes glazed, her body wracked with uncontrollable shudders.

“Are you thinking of this as some sort of crime?” Nina asked Erin, eyeing the analysts.  “Could Clare go to jail for this?”

“We have to investigate everything, that’s standard procedure,” the detective told her.  “But I’m sure this is going to be ruled an accident.  I certainly don’t expect any kind of charges to be filed.”

Nina sighed.  “Between you and me, I don’t see her getting over this,” she confided to the detective.  “I know she puts on the career-woman face five days a week and then the social face two or three evenings a week, but Richard was her life . . . Richard and the children.”

“What a horrific mistake,” Erin murmured.

“It’s all my fault, you know,” Nina confessed.

“What do you mean?”

“She was so afraid of the stalker.  I’m the one who told her she needed the gun.  She didn’t even know how to use it.  That’s the awful irony of it all -- Richard had to show her how.”

“Don’t blame yourself,” Erin said.  “You couldn’t have anticipated anything like this happening.”

“I just don’t understand -- he wasn’t due back until tomorrow,” Nina said.  “That’s why I was here.  So someone would be with her on Doreen’s day off.”

“That was our understanding, too,” Erin confirmed.  But she already knew this was going to be trouble.  Not anticipating Clare being run off the road on Mercer Island was one thing.  Staking out a home while the man of the house walked right in and got himself shot dead was quite another.

***

Clare Nicolaidis met Richard Durant a week after her eighteenth birthday, and she would never forget a moment of the encounter.  It was in her father’s office, it was early summer, and it was Richard’s first day at work for the medical conglomerate.  She was wearing green, he was wearing gray, she was giddy, he was nervous, and when she told him not to believe the rumors about her father barbequing his assistants for lunch, he smiled at her, and her whole world turned upside down.  He had the most radiant smile.

Despite her unusual combination of light hair and dark eyes, Clare was not what one would call beautiful and, as the daughter of an immigrant, she surely didn’t qualify for membership in high society.  But she didn’t come to the table totally devoid of credentials, either.  After all, she was the daughter of Gus Nicolaidis.  And in the mid 1990’s, that had come to mean something in Seattle.

For Clare, on that warm day in June, it was as close as she would ever come to love at first sight.  Although they did nothing more than exchange a few words and shake hands, it was enough.  The feel of his fingers gripping hers sent a rush of excitement up the length of her arm that quickly spread throughout her whole body, leaving her flushed and breathless.

Never mind that she was barely out of high school and on her way to the university come fall.  And never mind that he was ten years her senior.  She knew, with absolutely no hesitation, that this was the man who was going to define her future.

              Richard’s first reaction, on the other hand, was more one of polite indifference -- indifference because, to him, she was a mere child and he could have all the women he wanted, and polite because she was, after all, his new boss’s daughter.

She made her plan and proceeded to reel him in, slowly and patiently.  After all, she was young, she had her whole life ahead of her, she was in no particular rush to get where she was going, and she had no doubt in her mind that she would win him eventually.

It began with impromptu visits to her father’s office, where she displayed an uncanny knowledge of, and interest