Andrew Kaufman - The Lion, the Lamb, the Hunted - A Psychological Thriller

But I didn’t get far, because CJ screamed from the other room. I jumped off the couch and ran to her, found her standing in the bathroom doorway, visibly shaken, eyes opened wide.

Hanging from the shower curtain rod by a strand of rope around its neck was a small doll, no bigger than my fist. A little boy doll. Dripping with what appeared to be blood, and a note tacked to its chest that read:

Kill me.

I put my hand on CJ’s back. She startled and let out a gasp.

“Pack up your things,” I said, “We’re getting out of here.”

Chapter Thirty-Five

Nowhere to hide. No place safe, not even CJ’s house.

The hanging doll pretty much clinched it. Someone had been there before we’d ever arrived. That meant they knew we were coming, and that meant whoever was running this campaign of terror was tracking our every move—not only one step behind us, but one step ahead of us, too.

My rental car was still drivable, more or less. It had suffered substantial damage to the side and rear during our dance with death, and now had an annoying rattle. But we were alive. My insurance would take care of the rest.

I stared out at the open road as the headlights carved a path into darkness, without so much as a clue as to where we were going or what to do next. CJ rode open-eyed next to me: any chance of sleep now fell into the slim-to-none category.

“Any ideas?” I said.

“Yeah. I’ve got lots of them. Which one would you like?”

“How about where to stay for the night?”

“Sorry, that went out the window around the same time the strangled Kewpie doll showed up in my bathroom.”

“How about a motel?”

She allowed herself a mild laugh, but nothing about it showed any amusement. “Not in Corvine, that’s for sure. There’s only three, it wouldn’t take them long to figure out which one we were at.”

“Okay. How about somewhere off the beaten path?”

She yawned. “There’s a little hole-in-the-wall town called Jerome about twenty miles up ahead. There’s a motel, I think. Can’t guarantee it’ll be livable. Or even clean.”

About fifteen minutes later, we rolled into town—or something like one: a gas station, a drive-through liquor store, a drive-through post office, and drive-through cleaners. Seemed folks here didn’t like getting out of their cars much. The main road brought us to a bridge so old and rickety that I feared we might not live to see the other side.

“I told you,” CJ said in a singsong voice.

“I didn’t think it would be quite this bad.”

If it hadn’t been for the sign, I might have mistaken the motel for an abandoned warehouse. The place looked dark. And empty.

“Think they’re even still in business?” I asked. We walked toward something white hanging down from a rafter, which eventually revealed itself as an office sign.

“There are two other cars in the lot,” she offered. “They have to belong to someone.”

“Yeah, the two people who work here, probably.” I pulled on the door: locked. Peered inside. Saw nothing but darkness.

“Push the button,” she said, nodding toward it.

I did. Heard a buzzing sound inside. Looked at CJ.

She shrugged. “It works. That’s a good sign.”

“Or not.”

A light flickered on, and a shadowy figure appeared toward the back.

CJ said, “Hooray.” But the expression on her face—and tone of her voice—implied the opposite.

More lights came on, and the shadowy figure became a man. He cupped his hand against the window and peered out at us, his eyes tired and squinty. He was a heavy-set guy in his fifties with messy hair, an unshaven face, and a neck that looked like a pile of pre-oven pizza dough. All nicely packaged in a wife-beater t-shirt with stains down the front.

“Nice,” CJ muttered under her breath.

“Zip it,” I muttered back.

He opened the door, said nothing.

“Have anything available?” I asked.

He burped under his breath, motioned toward the parking lot, and said, “Does it look like we got a waiting list?”

Then he walked back into the office. We took this as an invitation to follow.

“All that and charm, too,” CJ whispered. “Catch me, I think I’m falling in love.”

I elbowed her, then to Pizza Neck, “We need a couple of rooms.”

“Well, it’s your lucky night. I just happen to have about twenty. Take your pick.”

My room smelled nasty, like a cross between stale socks, stale air conditioning, and stale cigarette smoke. A few seconds after hitting the light switch, I heard a knock on the connecting door.

“Hate it here,” CJ said, standing in the doorway, expression stoic, arms pulled tightly to her sides. She came in without waiting for an invitation. “Did you see the bathrooms.” It wasn’t a question; it was a declaration.

“That bad?”

“The dirt has dirt on it, and what’s not completely filthy is corroded. I’m calling this a serious case of the nasties. Who stays in a hole like this?”

“Apparently we do.”

“There you go throwing that logic at me. Don’t do that.”

“It’s just for the night until we can figure out what to do next. And it’s not that bad.”

“You’re right. It’s far worse. But hey, at least we get a free newspaper.” She lifted it off the bed as if it were a dead fish, then carefully laid the pages across the bedspread. “Which doubles as a bed condom, don’t you know…very handy.” She sat.

I sat next to her. The paper crunched under my ass. She looked at me, and for the first time in a long time, started to laugh.

I gave her a look. “What?’

Still laughing. “This.”

“You think it’s funny?”

“No, I think it’s horribly pathetic, but if I don’t laugh, I’ll cry. And I don’t want you to see me curled up on the floor in a fetal position, twirling my hair. Not pretty.” She was laughing harder now.

Then I began to laugh too.

Chapter Thirty-Six

I woke up to the sound of knocking. It took me a few seconds to realize it was coming from the partition between my room and CJ’s. I rolled out of bed, stepped into a pair of sweatpants, and pulled them up on my way to the door.

CJ stood on the other side, wide awake, fully dressed, and holding the morning paper.

“It’s four a.m.,” I said.

“I actually never went to sleep.”

“I actually don’t find that hard to believe.”

“Sorry; it’s this place.”

“That ought to help your concussion heal well. Just what the doctor ordered.” I returned to my bed, sat on the edge, rubbed my eyes. She followed me in.

“I was thinking,” she said.

“About how sleep is something you should try to get every day?”

“Very funny. No.” She was busy spreading sheets of newspaper across the bed.

“That sleep is something I should try to get every day?”

She sat on the newspaper and began ticking points off on her fingers. “Samuels kills Jean. And we think he may have killed Nathan too. And framed Lucas. What’s the connection?”

I thought for a moment and then, “You’ve been here for a long time, talked to lots of people about this case. Is there anything we’ve missed? Someone you’ve spoken to at any point that was somehow connected to Jean, maybe?”

She chewed her lip for a long moment, then answered, “There’s one woman, but I honestly didn’t see a connection then, and I don’t see it now.”

“Who?”

“Her name is Ruth Johns. She called me several years ago and claimed her son-in-law was somehow involved in the Kingsley case. I never could make it fit.”

“Why did she think he was involved?”