Michael Prescott - Stealing Faces

“Kill her. Break her neck.”

Stop saying that! she wanted to shout. Just shut up and stop saying it and go away!

He was in the bathroom with her, no expression on his face, no light in his eyes, a huge man who was an automaton in the grip of a trance, and he swiped at her, clutching at her hair, loose strands whisking through his fingers as she spun away from him, trying to maneuver in the tight confines of the room.

Flash of action, his left arm streaking toward her face. She whipped sideways, the blow connecting only with the mirror above the sink, silvered glass fracturing, and she had time to think I’m okay before pain walloped her hard on the back of her head — his right hand, delivering a palm heel strike — and in a plunge of dizziness she staggered through the doorway and collapsed on the floor between the bed and the TV stand.

She was aware of numbness alternating with jolts of pain, and of the feeble clawing movements of her hands on the short-nap carpet, and of bubbles of nausea popping in her throat and leaving a sour taste.

Aware of all this, but not really, because there was no person to register these separate facts. There was no Elizabeth or Kaylie or whoever she thought she was. There was only pain and desperation and then, strangely, one lucid thought.

This is what Cray does to them.

To his victims. That was what she meant.

He’d told her how he liked to strip them to their essence. She hadn’t understood. She did now.

Then the pain was gone, replaced by a cold anger that cleared her mind.

She wouldn’t let him win. Had to get up, run, run now.

But her body wouldn’t obey. Her arms and legs trembled with weakness. She could not find the strength to stand.

Blinking, she turned her head. Walter was still in the bathroom, wrapping his left arm in a small hand towel. He’d cut himself on the mirror’s shards.

He tied the towel in place, then looked benignly at her. He seemed to be in no particular hurry, and of course he wasn’t, because he was a schizophrenic and time did not exist for him.

“Kill her,” he said, as if reminding himself. “Break her neck.”

She was getting tired of hearing that.

*

“You remember her?” Shepherd said, keeping his voice calm.

The manager shrugged. “Sure do. Maybe nine-thirty, she comes sashaying in here, asking for a room. So I think she’s a hooker, right? And I don’t want hookers. My husband and me, we run this place, and it’s not the Hilton, I grant you, but it’s respectable.”

“Did you give her a room or not?”

“Room thirty-seven. Left side of the building, first floor. Sort of close by, so I could walk past now and again and check on it. Any noise, any funny business, and she’d be out of here. But it’s been quiet all day. What’d she do?”

“Never mind that. I need a spare key.”

“You bust up the place, you pay for it.”

“I’m not going to bust up anything.” Shepherd took his cell phone from his pocket and used the speed dialer to call Alvarez at his desk. As the phone rang at the other end of the line, Shepherd asked, “What name did she register under?”

“No name. No registration. She paid cash up front. That’s another reason I pegged her for a whore. Now, seeing how you’re after her, I’m guessing maybe she’s something a whole lot worse.”

Shepherd heard a click as the phone was picked up, then a snap of chewing gum and a laconic voice saying, “Alvarez.”

“I found her.”

“What took you so long?”

“That’s funny. I need you and a patrol unit right away.”

“I’ll bring Galston and Bane, the ones who I.D.’d her. They’re still here filling out the report. It’ll be a nice little reunion for Miss McMillan, don’t you think?”

Shepherd nodded. “She’ll be thrilled.”

Walter came out of the bathroom.

Elizabeth twisted onto her side, making one last effort to stand, knowing it was hopeless.

“Kill her,” Walter said.

Where was Detective Shepherd anyway? For the first time in twelve years, arrest was not her greatest fear.

Walter bent over her. His hands, so huge, loomed like figments of a nightmare.

“Break her neck.”

She drew up both legs and delivered a double kick to his midsection, aiming for his groin.

He only blinked, perfunctorily acknowledging the blow.

She scooted back, banging her head on the base of the TV table — another shimmer of pain — but fleeting, insignificant, as Walter stooped lower, closing for the kill.

Nowhere to retreat. Behind her, only the table and the wall and a tangle of insulated wires — the power cord and cable connection for the color TV.

She grabbed the wires with her right hand, not knowing why. They couldn’t help her, not when Walter was reaching out, his eyes level with hers, his bald head gleaming like a bullet.

Her grip on the wires tightened, and she pulled, straining, the muscles of her arm and shoulder bursting with sudden, desperate exertion.

The wires were screwed into the back of the TV, and the TV was bolted to the tabletop, and the table was tall and narrow and just a bit unsteady, and she felt it move.

Hands on her throat.

Walter on top of her, foul breath in her face, pressure shutting off her windpipe.

“Kill her. Break her—”

The table rocked, tilting back, banging the wall.

Walter glanced up.

The table swayed forward, top-heavy with the weight of the TV, and Elizabeth tore free of the hands that held her and gave the taut cords a final, violent yank.

She heard Walter make a small noise, something midway between a grunt and a groan — a scared, childish noise that made her feel almost sorry for him.

Then the table pitched forward, the TV cracking free of its bolts, and the picture tube exploded around Walter’s head in a brief, sizzling fury of sparks and smoke.

He slumped, maybe unconscious, maybe dead.

Elizabeth was pinned beneath him. She thrashed and flailed, fighting to wriggle free. The man was two hundred pounds of dead weight, with the table and the ruined TV fixing him in place.

He stirred.

Alive.

Regaining consciousness.

And she was still stuck beneath him, his heavy midsection and legs draping hers.

She had to liberate herself, and do it now.

Gasping, she twisted onto her side and dug her fingers into the short carpet fibers and clawed until she had a secure handhold, then dragged herself forward an inch at a time.

Walter murmured, his face showing a flicker of animation before going slack again.

She got one leg free, then planted her shoe against his shoulder and used the leverage to pry loose her other foot.

Now get out. Get out now.

She tried to stand, but at first the effort overwhelmed her, and she fell on one knee.

Walter moaned.

On her second try she stood without falling. Some blind reflex guided her to her purse, which she had dropped on the counter when she was packing her suitcase in a rush.

There was no time to salvage her belongings now. Half of them lay scattered across the bed and the floor.

The purse was all she could take with her, all she had left.

She sprinted for the door, then heard a clatter of wood and glass behind her, and turned instinctively to look back.

Walter was on his feet. He’d come fully alert, swept clear of the table and the smashed television set, lurched upright. And he had done all this in less time than she had taken to cross ten feet of carpet.

Run.

Outside, into the glare and heat, fishing her car keys from her purse and stumbling, her shoes pounding asphalt, heart vibrating like a plucked wire, currents of dizziness all around her.