It seemed an acre away in the huge room.
But Helen saw little flames, like malignant sprites, running along the silk rug toward the ebony casket. It burst into flames. The satin lining caught fire. A crazy giggle rose up inside her. Shouldn’t a casket be fireproof— especially for this crowd?
Smoke from the finest ebony smelled like the world’s best autumn bonfire. Helen also smelled raw panic. Naked people were screaming and pushing one another as they ran for the double doors. The doors were closed, the demons dancing insolently in the fiery haze.
A skinny woman rushed by, her waist-length hair on fire.
A muscular middle-aged man was knocked sideways against the double doors. His black toupee came loose and slid along the floor like a hairy hockey puck, until it hit the blaze and burst into flames. But the newly bald man was strong. He pushed and punched his way back to the doors. Then he tore them open and escaped.
An older, flabbier man was not so lucky. He was trampled by panicked people rushing toward the doors. He tried to rise to his knees, but someone kicked him in the head. His body was pushed back toward the flames, and he did not move again.
Helen hoped the man was unconscious when the fire engulfed him. She felt oddly numb, as if she were watching a movie.
Hank and Mindy stayed cool in the chaos. Flames did not frighten them. Hell was their home.
“Get the disk, Mindy, and I’ll put a bullet through her head,” Hank said.
“Can’t I strangle her?” Mindy twisted her long filmy scarf.
“There’s no time,” Hank said.
“I’ll be quick. I always am.”
Her eyes were savage. Helen saw one thing clearly in the smoky darkness: Mindy liked to murder.
“You killed her,” Helen said. “You strangled Debbie.”
“Of course, you idiot. And that stupid piece of trailer trash.”
“Laredo? You killed Laredo? Hank strangled her. I heard him.”
“You heard
“I wasn’t scared,” Hank snapped. “I was angry. You shut her up too soon.”
“And now you want to rush.” Mindy slowly drew the scarf through her fingers.
The air was electric with heat and black with smoke.
Helen could see the disk on the floor, next to her abandoned toolbox. Soon, the only link to Laredo’s murder would be a lump of melted plastic. Little fires burned along the floor only a few yards away.
“Mindy, move,” Hank said. “The place is on fire.”
“I know it is, lover, and it’s glorious.” Mindy seemed to delight in the destruction of her home. She threw out her arms and shouted, “Welcome to hell!”
There was an odd
Flames ran down her vinyl catsuit and up into her hair.
Mindy shrieked and beat at the fire with her hands, but the vinyl melted into her skin. Her screams turned to hellish howls. She collapsed on the floor, rolling frantically to smother the flames. Her blazing body tossed and tumbled dangerously close to the computer disk.
“Make it stop!” she shrieked. “Make it stop!”
Hank was paralyzed. Helen could feel the gun pressing harder into her skull, but Hank’s hand was shaking. Mindy gave another inhuman cry and the gun barrel lurched upward, digging a trench in Helen’s scalp.
The pain made Helen look away from the madly screaming Mindy.
“Help meeeee!” But no one could help her now.
Helen had to run for it or she’d burn, too. The way Hank’s hands were trembling, he might miss if he tried to shoot her.
Helen had a chance if she moved fast. But she wasn’t leaving without that disk.
She hit the hot floor and felt around for the disk. She found the toolbox. It was warm. The oven cleaner! Savannah’s oven cleaner was inside. Mindy, burning and screaming, was inches away. If the oven-cleaner can exploded in the fire, the metal toolbox would disintegrate into deadly shrapnel.
Helen heard Hank take quick strides toward her, as she frantically searched for the disk in the smoke. Now he was right behind her.
“Pleeeeeeease,” Mindy pleaded.
Helen started to crawl forward, but Hank’s huge hand grabbed her around the neck. She couldn’t move. She couldn’t breathe. She heard him draw back the trigger. He was so close, Hank couldn’t miss if he tried.
This is it, Helen thought. I’m dead.
Chapter 28
I can’t hear, Helen thought. He shot me in the head.
The silence was frightening. She could see people screaming, but there was no sound. She didn’t feel any pain.
Helen knew that was shock. The pain would come later.
Hank had let go of her. She sat up.
Helen felt her face for the sticky spurt of heart-pumped blood. Nothing. She checked the back of her head for leaking brains. No squishy mass. Both ears were still attached.
There were no gaping gunshot wounds on her arms, legs or gut.
He didn’t kill me, she realized with dazed wonder. Unless I’m dead and don’t know it. I could be in hell.
Smoke swirled around her. Helen smelled roasting meat, but her mind skittered away from that. A million miles away at the far end of the room, the black velvet curtains flared into yellow sheets of fire. The coffin was a brimstone baptismal font.
A small fireball ran along the floor like a mouse. Helen gawked, then gulped like a goldfish. That cleared her ears.
They opened to unearthly sounds: infernal shrieks of panic, squeals of pain.
Helen heard another shot, and hit the floor. A bullet zinged past her and buried itself in the floor three feet away. Hank wasn’t aiming at her. He was shooting at Mindy.
“Aahhhhgh!” Mindy’s burned lips could no longer make human sounds. Her body bucked and tossed in the flames.
Hank fired two more shots. Both went wild. One hit near Mindy’s smoking shoulder, the other by her fiery hair.
Another shot, and Mindy’s lost-soul wails stopped.
Mindy lay deathly still, tiny flames crackling quietly on her vinyl catsuit. Helen saw the bullet wound in her forehead, a red hole like a third eye.
Even in hell, I will never see anything this horrible, Helen thought.
Hank Asporth had shot his lover. Four of his bullets had gone wild. But the fifth hit the mark. He had one shot left.
Helen could see Hank lurching through the smoke. His big body was hunched like a cave creature. His jaw was slack with shock. His eyes were white and wild in his smoke-smeared face.
Now he pointed the gun straight at Helen. It was a revolver. It looked small in his huge hand, like Det. Lennie Brisco’s little revolver in
“You made me kill her,” Hank said. “I loved her. She’s dead and it’s your fault.”
“No,” Helen said. “No, you don’t—”
Hank pulled the trigger. I’m never going to sleep with Phil, she thought. I’ll burn in hell because my last thought was about boffing the hunk next door. She braced herself for the impact. She heard a loud snap.
Snap? What kind of noise was that?
The gun was empty. Of course. The
