said it’s safe.”
“Probably safe. We can’t be positive.”
“I suppose not.”
“If you don’t have any major objections, I’d like to go up to the room with you.”
“Okay. Why not? You’ve come this far, might as well go the rest of the way.”
“I concur,” Jim said. Smiling, he crinkled his eyes at her. “Don’t worry, I’ll be out of your hair as soon as I’ve delivered you safely into the arms of your beau.”
“Let’s go.” She headed for the stairway, Jim walking close by her side. “You probably just want to check him out,” she said, starting up the stairs.
“Now that you mention it.”
“You’ll be nice to him, won’t you?”
“I’ll be charming.”
“You’ll probably scare the hell out of him.”
“I do tend to sometimes have that effect on people. Through no fault of my own.”
“Maybe I should keep you around till I find out what he was up to. Maybe I’ll want you to hurt him.”
“Oh, you wouldn’t want that.”
“Don’t count on it. He might’ve been with another woman.”
“When? Tonight?”
“Yeah. Right there in his van in the parking lot of the Speed-D-Mart.”
“With you waiting for him?”
She nodded.
Jim shook his head. “No way.”
They reached the top of the stairs. “This way,” Sherry said.
Side by side, they walked down the silent corridor.
“No man in his right mind,” Jim said, “would mess around with some other woman when he’s got you waiting for him.”
The heat of a blush rushed through Sherry. “I don’t know about that,” she said.
“He’d have to be nuts.”
“Well…thanks.”
“What makes you think he was with this other woman?”
“Toby saw him with her. They kissed, then Duane took her into his van.”
“Maybe Toby lied.”
“I don’t know,” Sherry said. “I don’t think I’ve ever completely trusted Duane. Something like that wouldn’t really surprise me.”
“If you felt that way, what were you doing…?”
“Shhhh!” She suddenly hushed him.
Duane’s door, only a few more paces down the corridor, stood partway open.
Holding her blouse shut with one hand, she reached out with the other and took hold of Jim’s forearm. “Be nice to him,” she whispered. “But maybe stick around for a while. I might want you to drive me home if things don’t go well. Okay?”
“I’ll do whatever you want.”
“Thanks.” She gave his arm a gentle squeeze. Still holding it, she stepped up to Duane’s door.
Chapter Sixteen
She leaned toward the opening. The room inside was lighted. Though she couldn’t see Duane, music was playing. Some sort of sad, haunting…she realized it was the soundtrack from Titanic.
“Duane?” she called.
An answer came, but she could barely hear it through the music. One of the words sounded like “bedroom.”
“What’d he say?” Jim asked.
“I think he said he’s in the bedroom.”
“Oh.”
“Come on in.” Sherry swung the door wide open and entered the living room of Duane’s apartment. Jim came in behind her and shut the door. “You’d better wait here,” she whispered. “He might not be decent.”
Jim’s face twitched slightly. “Go on,” he said. “Yell if you need me.”
Sherry walked down the passageway, glancing into the dark bathroom on her way to Duane’s bedroom.
His door stood open. She took a step inside, then halted. The room was lit by a single candle on the nightstand—probably the same candle that she’d put there earlier. It cast a shimmering, mellow glow across the bed.
She saw Duane’s head on the pillow.
Staggering sideways, she reached out and flicked the light switch. The bedside lamps came on, flooding the room with brightness.
Is it real?
It’s real.
And it’s Duane.
It looked as if someone had eaten his nose and lips and part of the right side of his face. Sherry could see his teeth, all bloody, through the gap where his cheek should’ve been.
Blood was dripping slowly from the pulpy red stump of his neck.
“Jim!”
She heard quick, heavy footfalls behind her. Turning sideways, she saw Jim running toward her.
A moment after he ran past the bathroom, someone leaped out behind him.
A naked, tubby guy with butcher knives in both hands.
“Look out!” Sherry yelled.
In midstride, Jim started to twist around.
Toby—she could see his face now in the light from the bedroom—sprang at Jim and pounded the knives into his back. Jim’s mouth twisted. He grunted and fell, Toby on top of him.
“No!” Sherry cried out, racing toward them. “Stop it!”
Toby stabbed him again, then stopped and looked up. His face was spattered with blood. As his eyes latched on Sherry, his heavy lips curled into a smile.
Sherry aimed a kick at them.
With her left foot. The one with the shoe.
Toby dodged the kick.
Sherry’s leg flew high. Too high. Balance gone, she