Page 57 of Never Flinch

Holly hopes that throwing the stalker off her schedule will make the woman easier to catch. If Holly had Pete Huntley with her—or Jerome—she would have one of them stake out the Axis, looking for someone who’s looking for Kate and Corrie. But Pete’s retired and Jerome is keeping an eye on Izzy’s case. She hopes he’s also gone back to work on his new book.

“Got it,” Corrie says. “Give me your credit card, Holly. We’re going to switch hotels all the way down the line, I suppose? The whole tour?”

“I’m afraid so.”

Corrie sighs but makes no further objection. Holly guesses she’s already calibrating the changes that will have to be made. And Kate? It’s nothing to her, either way; for her it’s on with the show. Holly knows, even on brief acquaintance, that if she suggested a change that directly impacted Kate—canceling one of her dates, for instance—her response would be more than a sigh. It makes her like the younger woman more, and it takes only a moment to realize why.

She’s like me.

2

Chrissy is wearing the plain brown dress of a chambermaid, purchased yesterday at A-1 Uniforms in Coralville, and paid for with cash—love offerings from Real Christ Holy, by way of Andy Fallowes.

She gets out of her Kia, circles the hotel on foot, and goes in through the service entrance, which has been propped open by a brick. For smokers, no doubt. Swinging from one hand is a plastic bag that might contain trash. It doesn’t, but itdoescontain offal. Chrissy has reached Iowa City by secondary roads and found plenty of usable stuff along the way: squirrels, squashed birds, a woodchuck, an exploded cat. Kate McKay is a fan of blood and destruction?

Fine.

Here’s a whole bag of it.

3

Holly doesn’t want to wait for Sunday to get after the stalker. She asks Corrie if she has communications from the woman on her phone or tablet.

“I have a computer file with everything in it, including police reports.”

“That’s great. Send me the file. Maybe I can go over it after your lecture tonight, Kate.”

“There’s really not that much,” Kate says. “The card with the anthrax in it was—”

That’s when the hotel’s fire alarm goes off in a series of almost deafening whoops. A moment later an overhead speaker comes to life. “There is an alarm,” says an automated voice. “Please leave the building. Do not use the elevators. Wait outside for the all-clear. There is an alarm. Please leave—”

“No shit there’s an alarm.” Kate sounds annoyed. “It’s going to blow my freakin eardrums out.”

“What do we do?” Corrie asks Holly.

“Nothing,” Kate says before Holly can answer. “Somebody probably sparked up a joint in their bathroom, and—”

“We’re going to leave,” Holly says. She wishes her gun—Bill Hodges’s .38—wasn’t still in the trunk of her car, locked in its airline box.

“I hardly think—” Kate begins.

“I’m sorry, Kate, but this is exactly what you’re paying me for. Follow me down the hall. Wait outside the stairwell door until you hear me sayclear. Same thing at each floor—wait for my clear. Do you understand?”

Kate decides to play this as something that’s amusing rather than annoying. She’s not scared, but Corrie is.Because she’s the one who got the bleach bath, Holly thinks.Nothing at all has happened to Kate, at least so far.

Holly goes to the door of Kate’s sitting room and looks out into the hall. At this time of day there are few guests on the floor, and only four or five are heading for the stairs. Two others are looking out theirdoors, wearing the same exasperated expression Holly saw on Kate’s face when the alarm started to blare.False alarm, of course it is, those faces say.Nothing happens to me, it’s always someone else. I’m exempt. Those doors shut even as Holly beckons Kate and Corrie out.

They go down the hall, now empty, in single file. Holly peers into the stairwell, keeping low. There’s no one there; the few guests who elected to heed the alarm are already most of the way down. She calls, “Clear!”

Kate and Corrie follow her down, stopping on the stairs until Holly can check the landing and then the third-floor hallway, where a head-down chambermaid in a brown dress is pushing a trolley, seemingly oblivious of the alarm. They reach the lobby in this fashion. Here the reception clerks and a man in a suit—probably the manager—are ushering people out.

“I’m sorry, Ms. McKay,” he says as they pass. “Probably a false alarm.”

“Women are very familiar with falsies,” Kate says. The man in the suit laughs as if it’s the funniest thing he’s ever heard.

Outside, two or three dozen guests mill around beneath the lobby overhang where Holly first glimpsed Corrie waiting for her. Kate looks at her watch. “I had hoped to be on my next call by now,” she says. “First you were late, Holly, now this. It’s obviously a false alarm.”

“I think—” Holly begins, but Kate has reached a decision.

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