Page 58 of Never Flinch

“Fuck this, I’m going back.”

Holly is dismayed. Should she go with? Try to restrain her? She has an idea that trying to restrain might get her fired. As it happens, there’s no need to decide. The alarm quits, and the man in the suit comes out.

“Folks, you can go back to your rooms. We’re very sorry for the inconvenience.”

“You should be,” Kate says.

“It looks as if some prankster—” the manager says, but Kate is already power-walking past him.

“Where was the alarm triggered?” Holly asks. “Which floor?”

“I’m not sure,” the manager says.

Holly wonders if that’s the truth, but this is not the time to probe. Her client is already approaching the elevators, a Type A who is wellahead of the other guests, meaning to get the first available car. Corrie is close behind, but looking back at Holly, who catches up to them and steps in just as the doors begin to close.

“False alarm, as I told you,” Kate says.

“Seems so.” Holly isn’t entirely convinced. It feels wrong.

“I appreciate your dedication to the job, Holly, but you might be a little too eager to show off your skills.” Kate is watching the digital floor indicator count up, giving Corrie the chance to shoot Holly a quick sidelong look that sayssorry, sorry.

Holly makes no reply to Kate, but when the elevator doors open, she makes sure she’s out first. She takes four steps down the hallway toward Kate’s suite, then spreads out her arms. “Stop, stop.”

“For God’s sake,what?” Kate’s not exasperated now; this is annoyance edging into anger.

Holly hardly notices. Her sensors, which have been in the yellow, now turn bright red. “Stay where you are.”

“I don’t need you to—” Kate pushes past Holly, then stops. “Which of you left the door open?”

“Neither of us,” Corrie says.

The door to Kate’s junior suite opens inward. Holly can see part of the living room rug and a slice of the window where Kate was sitting in the sunshine with her pad of paper. She can also see splinters on the hallway carpet.

“It’s not open, it’s been forced. Probably kicked in.”

Her first impulse is to herd them back into the elevator, get them down to the lobby, and tell the manager to inform hotel security. Only the manager himself may be the only security the day shift has, and she doesn’t trust Kate not to bull ahead into the room.

“Wait here, both of you. Please.”

“I want to—” Kate begins.

Corrie says, “Let her do her job, Kate. It’s what you hired her for.”

Holly goes to the door in gliding slide-steps, back pressed to the wall and the room doors she passes. She thinks again of the revolver locked in her trunk and promises herself she won’t be without it again—isn’t it why she brought her big purse, even though it’s ugly? As she closes the distance, she sees something has been written on thedoor. And even though it looks like it’s been written in blood, she relaxes a little. If there’s a message, it means the messenger is gone.Probably g—

A hand falls on her arm. Holly jumps and gives a small squeak. It’s Kate, who obviously has a problem with following instructions. She’s looking over Holly’s shoulder. “What the hell does that mean?” Scrawled on the door is EX 21 22 23. “Is itblood?”

Holly doesn’t answer. She shakes off Kate’s hand and moves closer to the open door. This time Kate stays where she is. Holly peers around the splintered jamb. What she sees isn’t nice—far from it—but it makes her even more sure that the person who did this is gone.

Kate McKay’s neat little suitcases have been drenched in blood and the mangled corpses of birds and small animals.Roadkill, Holly thinks.Oough.Lying on the carpet is the white plastic bag the dead things came in.

“We need to go back down to the front desk,” Holly says, but Kate darts past her and stares, disbelieving, at the blood and guts on her previously pristine luggage. She utters a scream that causes the guests who have stayed in their rooms to open their doors and stare out. Several returnees from the false alarm stop in their tracks. Holly has heard screams like that before, on at least one occasion coming from her own throat. Not fear. It’s partly horror, mostly fury.

Kate is no longer exempt.

4

Izzy and Tom are looking at the Porta-John where the Boy Scout found the body. With them is a State Police detective lieutenant named Ralph Ganzinger. The toilet has been blocked off with a square of DO NOT CROSS tape, but the door has been propped open. The bench seat, urinal, and plastic walls are black with fingerprint powder. The State Police forensic unit has been and gone.

---