The door creaked open.
A section of Richie's head angled around the edge of the wooden frame.
"Marie-" he started to say. And then he saw her there, took in the man who had the knife at her throat.
Something terrible started to form in his throat, some sympathetic wail of protest.
But before Richie could get much of the sound out, the man said, "Get in here, punk."
Richie's first instinct was obviously to run. You could see him start to withdraw in the doorway, wriggle himself free, and run for help.
The man said, "If you don't get in here right now, I'm going to kill her on the spot. You understand?"
Marie could see the colour fading fast from Richie's face. She could also see that he was just starting to take serious note of her virtual nudity. While she'd been able to pull her jeans up around her waist, she hadn't had the opportunity to snap them shut. Her panties tom by the man, she knew that dark pubic hair blossomed in the V of her open fly.
Richie came inside. "Don't hurt her. Please. All right?"
"Lock the door and come over here."
Richie came over. Stood two feet away.
The man said, "Anybody else know you're in here?"
Richie shook his head, glanced at Marie. She saw both fear and sympathy in his eyes.
"Then you're going to be the only witness, kid."
And with that, the man began to pull the knife across Marie's throat.
There was no pain. That was the first thing she noticed. She knew she'd been cut but still there was no pain. Not yet anyway.
She was wriggling against the man's grasp when she saw Richie hurl himself across the empty floor between them.
Richie let out a sound that was both bravado and nerves, some ancient war noise that humans had learned long ago from some lower species.
Richie hit them so hard that all three of them were knocked to the floor. He scrambled to his feet immediately, grabbing Marie's hand and helping her get upright, too.
On the floor, the man was crawling toward the knife that had once again been knocked from his grasp.
"Call the police!" Richie said to Marie.
Frantically, she shook her head. "He tore the wires out from the wall."
The man grabbed the knife, jumped to his feet, spun around, and faced Richie.
"You little sonofabitch," the man said.
He seemed even more insane now than he had earlier. Obviously he'd assumed that Marie would be all his, to do with as he chose. But Richie had spoiled those plans and the man was enraged.
"Richie, watch out!" Marie cried as the man started circling Richie, much as he had Marie herself.
Richie looked about desperately. Whatever courage had come to him in the first moments of seeing Marie in the man's grasp was now given to caution and anxiety.
Marie realised that there was only one way she could help Richie. Reach the door and run out to the sidewalk and start screaming for help.
But as she started for the door, she saw a nightmare take shape.
The man jumped on Richie, slamming him to the floor. In seconds he had the knife at Richie's throat and had tom a deep gash from one side of the throat to the other.
Richie made a horrible gasping sound-almost as if he wanted to vomit-and the man once again pulled the knife all the way back across Richie's throat.
Blood began to flood the floor.
Richie's eyes showed pleading and panic. He looked like a small child in the throes of death.
Marie knew she was screaming but it sounded as if somebody else were making the sound.
The man was bending over Richie like some feasting animal and then abruptly he was on his feet.
Marie was running.
She had no idea where.
She was just running.
Running.
Through the door. Out onto the sidewalk. Screaming, screaming. Out into the street.
Headlights and blaring horns. Shouted obscenities.
Collapsing into the middle of the street itself. Brakes screeching. The stomach-turning sound of one car slamming into the rear end of another car. More blaring horns. More shouted obscenities. Richie lying bleeding to death back there on the floor and the man-
Richie; Richie…
He didn't get the bitch. He'd come here to get the cunt-fuck her till she cried out-then slash her throat.
Instead he cut up some goddamned punk who must have been her boyfriend or something.
He saw her go for the door and he went after her.
He knew his whole hand was bloody, that the knife blade was running, dripping with blood.
He also saw-peripherally-that there were people on the sidewalk watching him as he lunged into the street after her.
He didn't care.
The only thing that brought him back to his senses was the noise of cars slamming on brakes and horns shouting at each other like wounded animals.
He didn't follow her into the street.
Hell, she was probably going to get killed out there.
Taking stock of his circumstances-wild looking man with a bloody knife in his hand, neighbourhood yokels starting to shout for help now, terrified of him-he decided the only thing he could do at this point was get in his car and get out of here.
Somewhere a police siren exploded.
Not far away.
He pushed past two simpering old ladies and ran to the side of the bookstore.
All he could think of was the tower and safety.
He ran.
9
By the time Chris, Emily Lindstrom, and O'Sullivan reached the crime scene, squad cars had cordoned off the entire street. Grim looking uniformed cops-men and women alike-stood next to their squad cars waving long silver flashlights and rerouting traffic. Car passengers seemed equally divided between those who were irritated at being sent two blocks out of their way, and those who were irritated because they couldn't get a closer glimpse of all the trouble.
O'Sullivan took a big PRESS card (black letters on white cardboard for easy reading), set it up behind his steering wheel, and pulled up to one of the uniformed cops.
"I'm O'Sullivan from Channel 3."
The cop-a trim black man-leaned in and said, "There isn't much room in there with the ambulance. Why don't you pull over by that tree there."
"Thanks."
The cop nodded and went back to his job.
After they'd parked and got out, Chris looked at the display past the yellow police tape. The old buildings of the neighbourhood were awash in the splashing red and blue lights of the emergency vehicles. On the other side of the barricades the police had set up stood at least twenty cops, some in uniform, most in suits.
There wasn't a smile to be seen anywhere. Reporters from TV stations were busy with mobile lights and cameras trying to get interviews with officers who clearly had no intention of saying anything at this point. It was too early to know what had gone on here. Ordinary citizens stood on the edge of the perimeter. Most of them looked shocked. Death is always hard to accept but sudden violent death is even tougher-it reminds everybody of how fragile life truly is. One moment you can be walking down the street happy and content, the next you can be on the sidewalk bleeding to death from a stab wound or a gunshot. And no amount of prestige or wealth can save you from the unexpected, either.
Then Chris saw the teenage girl the police were leading out of the bookstore. Chris's heart broke for her. Not only was the girl in shock, but even from ten yards away you could hear the low, moaning animal noise that violent death prompts from those forced to witness it.
The girl was drenched with blood and now, as she held her hands to her face as the TV lights bore in on her, her lovely, soft face became streaked with blood, too.
It was then that Chris noticed the girl's limp. She wondered if this was the result of the murder that had taken place inside the bookstore.