Read Domino for Free Online Page B

played over and over in her head like a sour
discord and she pressed her hands to her ears to shut them out. She
wanted to scream.
    The doorknob rattled violently and it jolted
her out of her madness. She fought back wild panic, sought another
means of escape. A tall window with a french door opened out onto a
small wrought iron balcony overlooking the front of the house.
Clarissa looked down onto the driveway and the garage just beyond.
The full moon cast a dusting of silver on the cobblestones but
there were enough shadows along the trees and bushes to the garage
if she could somehow get down there from the balcony.
    Clarissa started to pull the bed sheet from
the guest bed when his voice stopped her cold.
    "Clarissa!" Morgan's voice was but a whispered
hiss on the other side of the door and the knob turned. Dread
flooded through her as she watched the chair move slightly under
the pressure. Terror held her. She could only stare at the chair
under the knob. It would not hold long. Then he would have her, his
cold eyes impassive as she begged for her life as Byron Roth had
done.
    She blinked back tears and slowly backed away
from the door. Her hands trembled as she pulled the bed sheet back
with her. When it snapped free of the mattress, Clarissa stumbled
back into the vanity table, knocking over a small lamp.
    "Clarissa," Morgan's voice was smooth as
poisoned silk. "It's over, darling. Don't think that you can run
from me. Open the door."
    The dread seemed to drain from Clarissa as
quickly as it had come. It left an emotional emptiness that allowed
her to think with crystal clarity as if she were watching the scene
in slow motion on television. She had one chance to escape as long
as the chair held in place against Morgan's weight. He had not
called out to Marco or the other security guards. He wanted her to
come to him, defeated and afraid.
    "There is no escape, Clarissa," said Morgan.
"No one has ever escaped me. Now, open the door. I have no choice,
my love. And you have no options."
    Clarissa wadded the sheet into a ball and
pressed it up against the long curved handle of the balcony door to
muffle the audible click. She stepped out onto the balcony and tied
one corner of the sheet to the wrought iron railing, then threw the
bulk of it over the top of the railing.
    "Clarissa, you are only prolonging the
inevitable. You will feel nothing, I promise you, if you open this
door at once. If you do not obey me, I will have no choice but to
turn you over to Marco."
    The sudden jolt of terror shocked her. Marco's
very presence around the estate had always frightened her. He was
loathsome and crawly as a scorpion. She had heard things, vague
insinuations from the house staff, of Marco's appetite for violence
and reputation for sudden intense anger. The thought of his hands
on her wrenched at her stomach. She had to escape. Death waited on
the other side of the door, held at bay by a flimsy chair giving
way under the blows from Morgan's shoulder. With no other thought,
Clarissa put the Jaguar keys in her purse and slung the strap over
her shoulder. She straddled the railing, easing herself down until
she could grab the sheet. She clung there for a moment, not wanting
to let go of the railing, fearing she would fall.
    The agonizing scrape of the chair, as Morgan
forced the door, loosed Clarissa's feet from the balcony and she
swung precariously, grasping the sheet in a white knuckled
grip.
    "Clarissa!" Morgan shouted.
    She could hear him moving about the guest
room, slamming the closet doors. Fear of Wolfe stripped away the
fear of falling and the sheet burned her palms as she slid to the
ground. She pressed herself tightly into the shrubbery next to the
house as the French door above her was flung open and Morgan
stepped onto the balcony.
    The white bed sheet danced gracefully,
billowing out with the night breeze, a lonely specter pointing
accusingly at Clarissa's tenuous refuge. She closed her eyes but
could not will it away.