“Des,” he groaned. “Have to see Des.”
And now he was staggering past Teddy out into the entry hall, groping his way blindly up the stairs, blinking from all of those flashbulbs that kept popping, popping… “I’m ready for my close-up, Mr. DeMille…” Teddy was calling after him, panic in his voice. But he was doing okay. He was making the climb on his legs of Silly Putty, getting there, getting there, almost there…
Only it wasn’t Des whom he encountered at the top of the stairs. It was Carly. She let out a horrified gasp at the sight of him, and Mitch could feel himself starting to pass out. His head was a balloon on a very long string, bouncing up, up, up against the ceiling. One of the people way, way down below was Des. Alive, thank God. He saw her jump to her feet.
Heard her cry out, “What happened to your head?”
And, whoosh, there went the air right out of Mitch’s balloon. As he came zoom-zooming all the way back down from the ceiling, he croaked, “Les… the woodshed…” And then the hallway floor suddenly tilted to a forty- five-degree angle and headed right for him and he was gone again.
When he came to this time, Mitch was lying on the hallway floor with everyone standing over him looking terrified. All except for Des, who wasn’t around. And Hannah, who was kneeling on the carpet beside him, waving something stinky under his nose. Ammonia. It was ammonia.
“What’s your name?” she barked as she shone a flashlight into his eyes.
“I’m Mitch,” he replied hoarsely. “We’ve already met, haven’t we?”
“Do you know where you are, Mitch?”
“Uhh… on the floor.”
“On the floor where?”
“Astrid’s. Hannah, do you have to shine that light right in my eyes?”
“Mitch, you’ve taken a blow to the head and you’ve lost consciousness. I’m checking to see if your pupils are equal and reacting to light-which they are, so there’s no indication of brain damage. Good, good.” Hannah flicked off the light and gripped his hands tightly with hers. “Can you feel this?”
“Yes.”
“And what am I doing now, Mitch?”
“You mean, besides squeezing the hell out of my ankles?”
“Okay, this is all good. Can you sit up?”
“I can try.”
“Here, give me your hand, big guy,” Spence said, reaching his own hand down to him. The others just stood there, pie-eyed and mute.
Mitch grabbed hold and Spence pulled him up to a sitting position. Hannah pressed something cold against the back of his head. It was a wet washcloth. A bloodied one already lay discarded on the rug next to him.
“Where’s Des?” he wanted to know.
“She’s checking out the woodshed,” Spence said. “She’ll be right back.”
“You got yourself quite some smack on the bean,” Hannah observed, examining his wound. “The bleeding seems to have stopped, but you should keep applying pressure for a little while longer. We can put some gauze over it later if it starts oozing. I don’t think you’ll need stitches.”
Mitch pressed the cold compress against the back of his head, peering at her. “Have you done this before?”
Hannah let out a big bray of a laugh. “When your mom’s a nurse you learn first aid before you can read and write.”
“Why don’t you let me see what I can do with that, Mitch?” Jory offered gently. She meant his blood- and brain-spattered jacket.
Mitch unzipped it and she helped him out of it and took it into one of the rooms.
“How long was I gone?” he wondered.
“Thirty seconds,” Carly answered in a trembly voice. “No more than that.”
“No, I mean outside. How long were we out there?”
“A few minutes,” Teddy said. “Ten, tops. And I was just sitting there playing the piano like a damned fool. I had no idea that anything out of the ordinary was going on, Mitch. I just figured you guys were loading up on wood.”
“We were,” Mitch said. “Until somebody hit me.”
And murdered Les. But Mitch didn’t need to say this part out loud. They already knew it. He could tell by the looks on their faces. By how they kept glancing around at each other. They were not safe. None of them was safe. They knew this. Because, somehow, the murderer in their midst had just managed to take out Les despite Des’s best efforts.
But how?
Mitch could not imagine. They had all been tucked inside their individual second-floor rooms, hadn’t they? Except for Carly, with whom Des had been eyeball to eyeball, and Teddy. But if Teddy had stopped playing the piano for even a few seconds, Des would have noticed that, right? Besides, Teddy’s trouser cuffs were dry, Mitch observed. They’d be soaking wet from the snow if he’d plowed his way out there and killed Les, wouldn’t they? Mitch’s certainly were. And yet Teddy’s were dry. Actually, everyone’s legs were dry, he realized, looking around at them. No one was wet. And yet one of them had just knocked him unconscious and killed Les.
But how?
Jory returned with his jacket, scrubbed reasonably clean of blood and brains. “Good as new,” she said, mustering a faint smile.
Mitch took it from her and thanked her.
Then he heard footsteps on the stairs and Des returned, her hooded shearling coat caked with fresh snow. “Are you okay, baby?” she asked, kneeling next to him with a fretful expression on her lovely face.
“I’m fine, totally okay. In fact, I’m going to get up off this carpet now.”
“Careful, you’ve suffered a concussion,” Hannah warned him.
“I don’t think so, actually,” Mitch said, slowly getting to his feet. “If I had, then I’d be experiencing short-term memory loss, and I’m not. And, believe me, I wish I were.”
Des clamped a hand around his arm just in case he felt teetery, which he didn’t. She said, “Okay, I’m going to have to ask you all to go back to your rooms.”
“What the devil for?” Aaron demanded.
“Because I said so.”
Aaron gaped at her, incredulous. “There’s a homicidal lunatic loose among us and that’s the best you can offer-go to your rooms? What are we, ill-behaved children?”
“He’s right,” Spence said. “It’s not as if we’ll be safe in our rooms. Or anywhere else in this damned place.”
“Just please go to your rooms.” Des kept her voice steady and firm. “You’ll all be fine.”
“No, we will not,” Aaron argued. “It is blatantly obvious that a fresh approach is called for. I say we stay together. As long as we’re all together, we’re safe.”
“I’m with you,” said Spence. “Let’s stick together in a group.”
“Gentlemen, we need to get something straight right damned now,” Des responded, drawing herself up to her full six-foot-one-inch height. Make that six-three in her boots. “This is not a consensual type of situation. I am in charge here.”
“And you have been a spectacular failure,” Aaron informed her. “Three of us have lost our lives so far on your watch. Believe me, when this nightmare is over I shall demand a full investigation of your conduct by the proper state authorities.”
“You go right ahead,” Des encouraged him, staying remarkably calm.
Which surprised Mitch, who was about ready to stuff his cold compress in Aaron’s big mouth. He couldn’t believe she was taking this crap from him.
“In the meantime, I still have to take your statements,” she went on. “And I still want you in your rooms. So let’s get moving.”
Aaron stayed right where he was. “I say we arm ourselves.”
Teddy let out a mocking laugh. “Oh, do you now, you manly man.”
