“You have no idea what we’re dealing with and if you have any decency you’ll respect that and leave us alone. I’ve spoken to the sheriff about you badgering us. The next step is a formal complaint.”
Johnson smiled and moved closer, lowering her voice. “But you wouldn’t really want to do that, would you? Not after last night. What were you doing out there, by the way? Revisiting your childhood memories? Singing some old songs?”
It felt like a glass of ice water had been dumped into her veins. “Stay away from us,” Clare said, and left her standing in the hallway, glancing back only once to see Johnson had started off in the other direction. She took in a deep, steadying breath and let it out, taking some comfort Johnson hadn’t attempted to follow her up to the room. But the reporter’s reference to songs had shaken her to the core. Hughes had said she was tenacious, but how much did she truly know about the cult? About them singing in the dark?
A new email chimed on her phone, bringing her free of her thoughts, and she paused in the lobby to read it after seeing it was from Barry Tillman. The attachment was the mostly finished sketch of the twisted man. She was stunned at the likeness the artist had created. He’d captured the man’s eyes and straight teeth so well it instantly brought her back to the day she’d spoken to him outside their home in Oregon. She could almost feel the menace coming off the picture. The only thing she noticed for feedback was the thickness of his eyebrows. She’d email Barry once she got to the room.
“Have a good night,” the clerk called as she passed the check-in counter. Clare was about to respond when she paused, returning to the desk and holding her phone across to the woman behind it.
“You haven’t seen anyone around lately who looks like this man, have you?” Clare asked.
The woman picked up her glasses from the desk’s top and put them on, squinting slightly at the screen. She glanced at Clare, then back at the picture. “Are you police or something?”
“No, but he’s a person of interest with the sheriff’s office.”
“This is different than the other guy we were supposed to be on the lookout for. Are they together or something?”
“Possibly.”
The clerk gave the picture a final look before frowning. “Can’t say for sure, but it looks like the guest in two-twenty-one.”
“What?”
“He checked in a few days ago. He’s the only other one on the second floor besides you all.”
Clare’s heart did a strange double tap against her breastbone, then sped up as if she’d just sprinted a mile. “He’s here?”
“As far as I know. Is he dangerous?”
“Call the police,” Clare said, reaching for her gun, but it was upstairs, tucked beneath a layer of clothes in her suitcase. “Tell them to hurry.”
She didn’t wait to see if the clerk would do it. The stairs looked like Everest as she approached them and she had to steady herself on the banister. A swarm of dizziness engulfed her, then passed, and she hurried up the steps, a silent pleading repeating in her mind that the clerk had been mistaken. That it was only someone who looked like the twisted man.
The second-floor hallway was deserted. Clare shot a quick look to the right before starting for their room, wondering where the deputy on duty was. There was no time to find him now. She had to get to Shanna, had to get her out of the hotel.
When she reached their room Clare tried sliding her key card into the reader but the door wasn’t latched. It swung inward at the pressure and she froze in the doorway.
Shanna sat on the end of the bed across the room. The twisted man stood beside her, a long, serrated blade against her throat.
Everything slowed.
Each thought collapsed into the next. She tried to speak, to move, but she was locked in place.
“Come in, Clare,” the man said. He smiled at her, revealing the straight whiteness of his teeth. He stood tall, without a hint of angle to his posture. “We were just talking about you.”
She fought down a powerful urge to run and stepped into the room, keeping her hand on the doorknob as the door shut. “The police are on the way.”
“Maybe they are. But we’ll be gone long before they get here. Apparently there was a breaking and entering across town.” He grasped Shanna’s hair and pulled her to her feet. She whimpered.
“Don’t hurt her!” Clare said, eyes flitting to her suitcase three steps away. There was no chance she’d be able to retrieve her gun in time to do anything except get Shanna killed.
As if he were reading her mind, the twisted man said, “Do anything stupid and her head comes off. It’ll probably roll right to your feet. The last thing she’ll see is you looking down at her.”
The borders of Clare’s vision began to smolder with darkness and she gripped the doorknob harder. She couldn’t pass out now. There was no telling what he’d do then. A crimson shine coating the back of his hand caught her eye and she noticed the blade itself looked like it had been hastily wiped clean. A red droplet hung from the pommel.
“What did you do?” she asked, unable to look away from the blood.
“Let’s walk, shall we? All will be revealed in time.” He started forward, keeping the knife tucked into the hollow of Shanna’s neck. “Run and I’ll cut her. Scream and I’ll cut her. Do as I say and neither of you will be hurt.”
Clare sized him up and immediately knew she wouldn’t have a chance at disarming him. He was too tall and rangy-looking. She didn’t think Shanna’s decapitation was an idle threat either; she believed he was capable of it. But there was still the option to run. In a second he’d be within reaching distance and would be able to grasp her as well. For now she was free. She could run down the hallway and stairs to the front door and outside. She could escape.
I could run away again and leave her behind.
All resistance drained from her.
“Open the door,” the man said. She obeyed.
They stepped into the hallway and he motioned toward the waiting stairway at the end of the corridor. He meant to take them out the way she’d slipped free of the hotel the night before. The thought that he’d been watching her then came and went as she felt the cold and powerful grip of his hand on her arm. “We’re going to stroll out of here without a fuss,” he murmured to them. “No harm, no foul, as they say.”
“Where are you taking us?” Clare asked, every fiber of her being wanting to yank away from his hold.
“Someplace special. You’ll see.”
“To Rainier and Parson?” She glanced down, noticing a splash of red on the carpet outside a door. The blood glistened, not yet dry. It led into the room, disappearing below the door, and she wondered if the twisted man had found the deputy on duty first. Clare looked away, faintness trying to cloud her mind with mist. They had to get away from him before he got them to the parking lot. If he forced them into a vehicle, they were lost.
Her mind whirred, eyes flitting to the stairway corridor they were approaching. As he led them to the top of the stairs Clare spotted a fire alarm pull on the wall. It was on her side, within reach as they closed in on the first step.
Terror clenched her gut as she casually reached out and hooked a finger over the pull and yanked as they turned onto the stairs.