a second locked door outside this one. With a PIN panel.”
“I lied,” she said wearily. “There’s no door. I just said that so you wouldn’t jump me. Just keep climbing.”
“I— Thank you, Carrie.”
“Don’t thank me.” Her eyes were closed again. “Just pull this off—for both of us. And don’t look back.”
“Okay.” I moved towards her, I don’t know why—to hug her, maybe. But her chest was spattered with fresh blood, with more coming from the wound at her temple. And she was right—bloodstains on my gown wouldn’t help anyone, least of all her.
It was the hardest thing I’d ever done—turning my back on a woman who looked like she was bleeding to death, all because of me. But I knew what I had to do—for both of us.
“Good-bye, Carrie,” I said. She didn’t answer. I fled.
The corridor outside was narrow and hot as hell, even hotter than the stuffy little cabin I had left. There was a heavy clasp across the door, drilled roughly into the plastic, and a thick padlock with a key sticking out of it. I snapped it across, swallowing against the guilt that was constricting my throat, and then hesitated, my fingers over the key. Should I take it? I left it. I didn’t want Carrie to spend a moment longer in there than she had to.
The cabin door was at one end of the drab beige corridor. At the other was a door marked NO ENTRY—AUTHORIZED CREW ONLY and then, past that, a flight of stairs. I took one stricken look back at the locked cabin door, behind which Carrie lay bleeding, and then I ran for the stairs and began to climb.
Up and up I climbed, my heart beating in my chest, my legs shaky with disuse. Up the service stairs, drably carpeted and edged with metal. I felt my hand slip with sweat on the plastic banister, and in my mind’s eye I saw the dazzling glare of the Great Staircase, the glint of crystal, the feel of the polished mahogany rail beneath my fingers, smooth as silk. I felt a laugh bubble up inside me, as irrational as the time I giggled through my grandmother’s funeral, my fear and fright turning to a kind of hysteria.
I shook my head and pushed on, up the next flight, past doors marked MAINTENANCE and STAFF ONLY.
I kept climbing, until I reached a huge steel door with a bar on the inside, like a fire escape. I stood for a moment, panting from the long climb, feeling the cold sweat pooling at the base of my spine. What was on the other side?
Behind me lay Carrie, curled on the bunk in that airless coffin of a room. My stomach turned, and I forced myself to put that picture out of my mind and focus, coldly and deliberately, on the steps that lay ahead. I had to get out—and then as soon as I was safe I could . . . but what? Call the police, in defiance of Carrie’s request?
As I stood there, my hand on the door, I had a searing flashback to that night in my flat—to cowering inside my own bedroom, too scared to open the door and confront whatever—whoever—was on the other side. Perhaps it would have been better if I’d kicked down the locked door, burst out and confronted him, even if it meant being beaten bloody. I could be in the hospital right now, recovering, Judah at my side, not trapped in this waking nightmare.
Well, the door wasn’t locked now.
I shoved my hand against the release and pushed it open.
- CHAPTER 32 -
The light. It hit me like a slap, leaving me blinking and dizzy, gaping at the rainbow prisms of a thousand Swarovski crystals. The service door led directly out onto the Great Staircase, where the chandelier blazed, day and night, a giant “fuck you!” to economy and restraint and global warming, not to mention good taste.
I steadied myself on the polished wooden handrail and looked left and right. There was a mirror at the turning point of the stairs, throwing back the reflected glare of the chandelier, multiplying the dancing light again and again, and as I turned I caught sight of myself in it and for a moment I did a double take, my heart leaping into my throat—for there in the glass was Anne, her head swathed in gold and green, her eyes hunted and bruised.
I looked like what I was—a fugitive. I forced myself to