in her feet starting to return. The cousins were sitting in the
kitchen, each wrapped in the biggest towels they could find
in the supply room.
“I’ve got my good suit, but that’s it.” Renie fluffed up her
short, straight chestnut hair. “We can’t leave until our clothes
are dry.”
“We can’t leave anyway until I get the food out,” Judith
said in frustration. “How am I going to do that wearing a
towel?”
“Nobody’s around. I’ll help. My stint’s over, and they
won’t see me. We could do it in the nude.”
“Yeah, right, and scare the OTIOSE executives half to
death.” Judith grimaced. Only now that her teeth had stopped
chattering and her limbs were responding was she able to
face up to their awful discovery. “None of the above are the
biggest problem, though.”
Renie sighed. “I know. I’ve been trying to forget about it.
Maybe we were hallucinating.”
“We weren’t.” Judith’s eyes wandered over to a telephone
that was set against the far wall. “We’ll have to notify the
authorities.”
“We could do that now,” Renie said, clumsily lighting a
cigarette. The raw redness in her skin was beginning to fade
and she had almost stopped shivering.
Given the circumstances, Judith refrained from criticizing
Renie’s newly acquired habit. Indeed, she could have used
a cigarette herself, not to mention a stiff drink. “Hang on for
a minute,” she said, gathering the towel around her and
walking over to the counter where she’d put the items she’d
collected from the little cave. “Maybe we can read some of
this stuff.”
The plain leather wallet was soaked, but Judith pried it
open and saw that most of its contents were either plastic or
encased in plasticene. “Here’s a driver’s license,” she said,
holding the laminated item under an overhead light above
the counter. “It’s in pretty good shape.”
“Better shape than its owner,” Renie remarked, rubbing at
her feet.
“I’m afraid so…Ohmigod!” With a stricken expression on
her oval face, Judith turned to Renie. “This belongs to Barry
Albert Newcombe!”
Renie slid off the tall stool where she’d been perched.
“Barry! The disappearing caterer! Holy Mother!”
With shaking fingers, Judith rifled through credit cards
and other personal pieces of ID. “It’s him, all right. Some of
this stuff is paper, and it’s unreadable, but here are his
OTIOSE employee card, credit cards, gas cards, medical
