“Upstairs. With a couple of roommates. Thanks a lot for the ride.”
“No problem. I’m glad we…had this chance to talk. God only knows why, but it makes me feel a little better about things.”
“Me, too.” Leaning toward him, Alison slipped her fingers behind his head. His face was a dim blur in the darkness, moving closer. She pressed her mouth gently to his, then eased away. “See you around,” she whispered. “Okay?”
“Okay.”
“You in the student directory?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
“Me, too. You going to call?”
“You bet.”
Then Alison was out of the car and striding through the rain. She knew that she had almost stayed. She was glad that she hadn’t. She felt lonely and hurt, but strong. She had lost Evan. Maybe she had made a new friend tonight, but that didn’t matter so much as knowing that she had won against herself.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Dana woke up again, cramped in the backseat of her Volkswagen. This time, her right arm had fallen asleep. Before, it had been a leg, a buttock, a foot. No matter what her position, one part or another of her body got its circulation cut off.
Right now, she was lying on her side with her knees bent, using her right arm for a pillow. The arm had no feeling at all. With a struggle, she managed to sit up. She shook her arm, grimacing as the numbness became an aching tingle. The tingle was like a thousand stabbing needles. But soon it went away and her arm felt almost normal.
She reached to the floor and picked up her travel clock. Pushing a button on top, she lighted its face. The digital numbers showed 2:46 A.M.
The alarm had been set for 3:00 A.M.
She wouldn’t be needing it.
When she’d set the alarm, she hadn’t realized that she would be waking up every fifteen or twenty minutes.
She flicked a switch sideways to deactivate the alarm, then put the clock down.
The rain still pounded down making an endless rumble hitting her car.
Might as well go ahead now, Dana thought.
She began to shiver.
It’ll be fabulous, she told herself.
She didn’t want to go out in the rain. But this was too good an opportunity to miss, and she’d already gone to so much trouble. What’s a little rain?
I’ll get soaked.
But I’ll scare the hell out of Roland.
Besides, he had stuck it out this long. Left alone, he might very well make it till morning.
Dana didn’t want to lose the bet.
The money was no big deal, but the whole idea was to humiliate and destroy Roland. If he didn’t come running out of the restaurant in terror…
I’ll do it.
She struggled into her poncho, flipped up the hood to cover her head, and left the car. She shut the door quietly.
The rain pattered on the plastic sheet as she stepped to the front of her car and opened the trunk. She slipped the screwdriver and knit cap into her pockets, and clutched the five-pound sack to her belly underneath the poncho to keep it dry. Then she closed the trunk and headed for the restaurant.
If Roland is watching from a window, she thought, I’m sunk.
That wasn’t likely, though. If he was awake at this hour, he was probably hiding in a closet—and scared out of his gourd.
But not half as scared as he’ll be in a few minutes.
Dana crossed the parking lot at an angle.
She was pleased with herself. She’d made a pretty good show of being afraid of the restaurant, so Roland would never suspect a trick like this.
At the corner of the lot, she waded through some high grass to the restaurant wall. The grass was wet, soaking through her running shoes and the cuffs of her jeans.
She stayed close to the wall, heading for the back of the building, ducking under the windows.
There were no doors along this side of the restaurant. In the back, however, she found one. The upper portion had four sections of glass.
Dana crept up the wooden stairs and pressed her face to one of the panes. Dark in there. A lot darker than outside, but patches of the counters and floor were pale gray with light from the windows.
This obviously was the kitchen. This was where the killings had supposedly taken place.
She couldn’t see Roland.
The kitchen wouldn’t be at the top of his list of places to spend the night. Anywhere but the kitchen.
Dana set the sack down between her feet. She tried the knob. When it didn’t turn, she began to work her screwdriver into the crack between the door and its frame, directly across from the knob.
She widened the gap. Splinters of wood broke off. She kept digging and prying. At last, the lock tongue slipped back and she carefully opened the door.
Picking up the sack, she entered the kitchen. The sounds of the storm were muffled when she shut the door. The fresh air also went away. There was a heavy, unpleasant odor.
Motionless, she listened. Water dripping onto the floor from her poncho, nothing else. Except her heartbeat.
Roland won’t hear that.
He obviously wasn’t in the kitchen. The rain pounding on the roof provided enough steady noise to cover any sounds Dana might make.
As long as she was careful.
Very slowly, she pulled the poncho over her head. Its plastic made quiet rustling sounds. She lowered it to the floor.
Listened.
Balanced on one foot at a time, she pulled off her shoes and socks.
She realized that she was gritting her teeth and trembling.
Excitement, not fear.
Poor Roland, he’ll have a cardiac arrest.
Wouldn’t that be a pity.
Dana unbuttoned the waistband of her jeans and lowered the zipper. Thumbs under the elastic of her panties, she drew down both garments at the same time and stepped out of them. Then she pulled her sweatshirt off.
She took a deep, shaky breath.
This’ll be quite a treat for you, Roland old pal. You wanted to look at the bod, you’ll get it. The real thing, this time, not some fucking snapshots.
Hope you enjoy it.
Squatting, Dana folded open the sack. She scooped out a handful of flour. It seemed almost iridescent. She spread the powder over her skin from shoulder to shoulder. Streams of it trickled down her breasts. Coating her left arm, she noticed that her skin was pebbled with goose bumps. She filled her other hand and covered her right arm. Then she scooped up flour in both hands and spread it over her chest and belly. Her nipples were stiff. Touching them sent warmth down her body. She rubbed flour over her thighs, hands gliding, feeling her gooseflesh through the thin layer of powder, feeling her slick wetness when she patted the flour between her legs. With her hands full again, she coated her feet and shins and knees.
Then she straightened up. Shoulder to feet, she was white except for faint areas where the flour had been rubbed thin from the way she had squatted. She dug more powder from the sack, spread it over her thighs and hips and belly, and emptied her hands by swirling the last of the flour over her breasts.
She looked down at herself again.
Some ghost.
Roland wouldn’t know whether to get a hard-on or a heart attack.
The floor around her feet was dusted white.
Dana wrung her hands, trying to get the flour off them. They remained white. She reached back and rubbed them on her buttocks. That got most of it.
Turning toward her pile of clothes, she bent from the waist to avoid smearing the powder, and pulled her knit cap from the pocket of her jeans. It was navy blue, but it looked black in the darkness. Holding the cap away from her body, she felt for the eyeholes she had cut that afternoon. When she found them, she pulled the cap over her head, drew it down to her chin, and tucked her dangling hair up the rear of it.