Living with the Dead

ROBYN



Robyn looked out over the multicolored haze of the fairgrounds as her Ferris wheel car climbed. Was Detective Findlay on his way? If he did come, what would he do? Quietly search for her? Or commandeer the PA system, sending Adele into a murderous panic?

She dismissed the last thought by focusing on a lighter one. Tomorrow’s headline: “Double Murder Suspect Apprehended on Ferris Wheel.” She tried to laugh, but the sound came out shaky, whisked away on the updraft as the car descended, the swaying setting her wounded shoulder afire.

When her car dipped to the bottom, she saw Adele in the crowd by the ride’s exit gate. Robyn couldn’t summon even a spark of surprise. She was beyond thinking she could outwit Adele. To get through this, she had to believe the unbelievable—that this young woman could find her wherever she went. Accept it and work around it.

So when the car descended the next time, Robyn pretended to search the crowd for Adele, as if she hadn’t seen her. As it rose again, she used the cell phone and called a cab. The dispatcher said a car would be at the front gates in twenty minutes. Robyn checked her watch, calculating. She took a deep breath of chill night air. She’d been playing cat and mouse with a psychotic killer for six hours. She could survive another twenty minutes.

Robyn erased all calls from the log. If she had to hand this phone over to Adele, she wasn’t taking the chance of her going after Hope when she realized she’d been duped.

Once in the cab, she’d go to the nearest police station. If Adele somehow managed to get there first, Robyn would continue on, from station to station, until she found one where the driver could drop her off right at the door. Then she’d make a run for it.

As plans went, this one sucked, as Damon would say. But it would have to do.

The Ferris wheel was unloading now. Robyn leaned over the side, making a show of searching the crowd. She’d already seen Adele slip behind a burly man at the exit.

Finally Robyn’s car reached the platform. She let the operator help her out, and started toward the exit. A few steps from it, she stopped, checking her pockets, then shaking her head. She walked to the bank of cubbies where riders stashed backpacks and stuffed bears. She pretended to root around in the last cube, then darted to a nearby gap in the fencing. The attendant at the gate let out only a halfhearted “hey” as she squeezed through.

Sixteen minutes left.

Robyn didn’t run—too obvious—just walked quickly, scouring the attractions for one that would whisk her out of Adele’s reach for a few minutes. But the lines were now swollen with laughing, jostling teens who scared away anyone over twenty. Robyn would stick out like a sore thumb among them. What she needed was—

A profanity-laced outburst exploded behind her, and she glanced back to see Adele bowling through a knot of teens, her gaze fixed on Robyn, shouldering aside anyone who got in her path.

Okay, Bobby, browsing time is over. Pick something and hustle your ass in there.

Robyn skirted one large group. Then she saw the answer, shimmering and winking under blinding floodlights. A house of mirrors.

She jogged over, startling the dozing attendant. Clearly not one of the more popular attractions at the fair tonight. All the better. Robyn flashed her wristband, climbed the steps and dashed into the maze.

She snaked down the first few corridors, feeling her way, paying little heed to her surroundings until, deciding she was in deep enough, she slowed.

Think you can find me anywhere, Adele? Try this.

She leaned against the cool glass wall, smiling as she caught her breath. Beyond the trailer, the lights of the fair flashed, distorted bubbles of color.

Uh, Bobby . . . You shouldn’t be able to see that. Not through mirrors.

She told herself it was an illusion, that the lights were actually inside the trailer, reflecting off the mirrors. Then she saw the distorted shape of a man carrying a child on his shoulders, the little one’s white shirt glowing.

A house of mirrors? No, she was in a house of glass.

Don’t panic, Bobby. You’re the only one in there, right? If you can’t see the faces of people outside, Adele can’t see yours from out there.

But that didn’t matter with Adele. She could find Robyn anywhere.

The trailer steps creaked. A figure appeared at the distant entrance. Robyn wheeled and stumbled the other way. Three strides, and she smacked into a pane of glass. Both hands shot out, feeling her way, finding glass in front and to either side, and then she understood the idea of a glass maze. You could see the exit sign, but couldn’t get to it, banging around like a bird caught in a sunroom.

She kept feeling. Glass in front and beside, trapped—

Bobby? Relax. You’re just caught in a dead end.

She turned and saw the other figure moving through the corridors. She could make out only a light-colored shirt and dark pants, a description that could fit half the people at the fair.

Take a deep breath . . . then get the hell out of there, Bobby.

Robyn headed back the way she’d come, sweeping the sides and front, taking any turn that would bring her closer to that exit sign. The other person—she refused to think of it as Adele—kept moving, too, getting closer, then farther away as she navigated the maze.

Finally, Robyn saw the exit sign right ahead, above the glass, so close she could jump—

She smacked into the wall.

She frantically ran her hands around all three sides. The exit was right there. She could see the steps, the faces of passersby, just one pane of glass separating them.

She turned around. The other figure was closer now, no more than ten feet and a few glass panes away. A woman with dark blond hair and a yellow shirt. Just like—

Don’t think, Bobby. Just keep moving.

But moving meant getting closer to Adele. She kept picturing the gun and her knees locked. Finally she closed her eyes and, feeling her way, took one step, then another. The junction that led to the exit couldn’t be far. She’d just taken a wrong turn.

Only she hadn’t. There hadn’t been another route all along that back corridor. Finally she reached the end, turned, and turned again, each move bringing her closer to that searching figure.

Just keep going. If she made it to the entrance, that was good enough. Ignore Adele. It was a public place—

At a smack against the glass, Robyn jumped and even as she turned, the memory of Adele at the taxi window resurfaced and she knew—

There she was, right on the other side, her face twisted by the warped glass, pulled into something monstrous, all eyes and gaping mouth. Even through the distortion, Robyn could see her hate and felt a twinge of outrage. What had she done to deserve this girl’s hatred?

She’s nuts, Bobby. She doesn’t need a reason. Just run—

Adele pulled out her gun.

Robyn sidestepped, unable to tear her gaze away from the weapon.

It’s on the other side of the glass, Bobby. She’s trying to spook you. Don’t let her. Just get out of there.

Another slow step sideways. Robyn slid her hand into her pocket and took out the cell phone, then motioned throwing it over the wall. Adele nodded and lowered the gun.

Robyn reached as high as she could and dropped the phone over the wall. She didn’t wait to see whether Adele caught it. She was turning to run when, out of the corner of her eye, she saw Adele let the phone hit the floor, her hands rising, the gun swinging up.

Robyn dove. The bullet sliced through the glass and whizzed past her.

Holy shit. Holy shit!

Robyn scrambled up and ran, hands out, veering when she felt glass. She heard another crack behind her. Another bullet.

Wasn’t anyone out there? Couldn’t they hear it? Adele had a silencer on the gun, but it made a noise. An unmistakable noise, along with breaking glass. With the racket from the carnival, though, no one noticed. Robyn could scream as loud as she wanted and she’d only be mistaken for a girl on the Zipper next door.

The glass in front of her cracked into a spider web, bullet hole in the center. Robyn spun, wildly feeling for another passage, found one and took it, leading her toward the rear of the trailer.

A distorted, painted clown leered from the back wall. Something about the image wasn’t right, the costume off-kilter, as if someone had put up a painted panel wrong, leaving a black line through it. Then she realized the line was the night sky, the painting masking a door, the distortion meaning it was cracked open.

She barreled toward it, hands out, expecting another glass wall, ready to smash through it. But her luck held and in three steps she was at the door, stumbling forward in her eagerness, hands hitting hard. The door flew open under her weight and she staggered, about to fall face-first off the steps when a figure caught her and slammed the door behind her.

She opened her mouth to shriek. A hand clamped over her mouth. The figure yanked her around, one hand at her waist, the other around her neck, pulling her back against him.

“Shhh,” a man’s voice said. “You’re okay.”

She struggled to turn around, managing to catch a glimpse of dark hair before he grabbed her shoulders, propelling her down the steps and into the shadows behind the trailer. Then he pulled her against him again, his hand ready to clamp over her mouth, waiting until she gave him cause.

Adele’s footsteps sounded across the trailer floor.

“Karl?” Robyn whispered.

“Shhh, yes. You’re okay.”

“How—?” She’d been about to ask how he found her, then remembered the phone call and Hope overhearing the background noise.

He leaned into her ear. “Count of three?” He pointed to a narrow dark strip behind the row of trailers.

He started counting. On three, she ran, with Karl behind her. She tried to glance back once, but he gave her a shove, hissing for her to keep going.

Finally they reached an exit marked Staff Only manned by a pimply teen. Still pushing her forward, Karl grabbed the gate.

The kid lowered his magazine. “Hey, are you—?”

“Staff.”

Karl prodded her through. Again, she tried to slow, to talk, to turn and look at him, but he shoved her, even less gently this time, with a gruff “move.”

Now she could see why the fair had been crammed into one end of the park. The other was hilly and wooded. When she squinted, she could make out a sign telling cyclists to stay off the footpath. That was where Karl took her, onto that path and into the woods.

They’d gone about fifteen feet when his steps slowed to a walk.

“This looks like a good place,” he said. “Suitably nondescript. She won’t find you here.”

The voice, no longer distorted by whispering, was not Karl’s.

Robyn turned. Behind her stood the young man she’d followed that afternoon. The one who’d attacked Karl.