“Kate?” he asked. “You need to go back to sleep. You need to get rest.”
“You should shut the door,” she said.
“I promise I will when you go back to sleep,” he said and ran his hand through her hair in the hopes of calming her down.
“You should shut the door now,” Kate said again, still in the eerie voice. “My mom says he is coming.”
The hairs on the back of Quinn’s neck stood up. Suddenly the room felt colder and he looked at the door too.
“She told you that just now?” he asked.
“Uh-huh,” she said. “She said he has been watching us.”
“When will he come?”
“My mom says soon,” Kate said. “You should shut the door.”
“I will, Kate,” he said. “I’m going to go back over there and shut the door on my way outside. I’ll be outside and I won’t let anyone through. If you need anything, just shout… again.”
“No,” she said simply. “Stay here. You should stay here in case he gets in.”
Quinn paused for a moment. He was freaked out now, too, and somehow being in a smaller place with only one small window seemed safer.
“Okay, Kate,” he replied. “I’ll shut the door and I’ll be right over there.”
He pointed at the computer chair. He got up and shut the door, then wrestled for a minute with the dresser to right it again in front of the door. He was not taking any chances. It took a minute for his eyes to get used to the dark, but when he looked back at Kate, her eyes were closed. She was sleeping again.
Quinn sat down in the chair and waited.
“How did you get in here?” a voice asked.
Quinn woke up with a start. He felt disoriented and it took him a while to figure out what was going on. He was in his room and he realized that somehow he had fallen asleep.
“What?” he said groggily.
Quinn looked around. Kate was sitting up in bed (his bed) and looking at him.
“How did you get in here?” she asked again. She was looking at the door, which still had the dresser propped up against it. “I never heard you get past that. The noise should have woken me up.”
It took Quinn a moment to remember everything. He was surprised he had fallen asleep. One moment he had been waiting for something to happen and then… nothing. And he appeared to have slept pretty deeply too. He wiped some drool off the edge of his mouth.
“You were screaming,” he said. “You started screaming and I busted down the door enough for me to get in.”
“I don’t remember that,” Kate said. Her tone sounded accusatory.
“Well, that’s not my fault, is it?” he snapped back at her. She had acted like this all the previous evening-cold and distant. On the one hand, they were together and supposed to be partners in this mess. But he felt like he was just dead weight in her eyes. He was simply an obstacle the killer would have to mow down before he got to the real show.
“I didn’t…” Kate said and stopped. She took a deep breath. “I just meant, what happened? Why was I screaming?”
“I’m not sure,” Quinn said. “I thought I woke you up, but you were sleep walking. Well, not walking. I guess sleep talking. You stopped screaming at any rate and we talked for a little bit.”
“What did we say?” Kate asked.
“Look, is that important?” he replied. “You had a bad dream. You kept looking at the door and telling me I needed to close it. So I said I would on my way out and you said I should stay here. So I fixed the dresser back up against the door and stayed here. I just thought it was safer that way. What is the point of one of us staying in a boarded-up room and the other one left outside it?”
“I put it there because…”
“I know why you put it there, Kate,” Quinn said. He suddenly didn’t feel like playing nice anymore. “Because either you don’t trust me and think I might kill you, or you don’t care what happens to me out there.”
“That’s not true,” she said.
“It isn’t? So if I had started shouting for help out there, how fast could you have been out there with your gun? How long do you think it would take for somebody to kill me? Jesus. If we’re supposed to be safer together, then let’s be together. But instead you want it both ways. I’m out guarding the main door, but if he makes it through there, then at least you get some time to prepare before I’m out of the way.”
“Quinn, I…”
“Look, I know you are scared,” he said. “I understand that. But I’m scared too. I know this guy is gunning for you, but do you really think he is going to stop and have tea with me when he finds us? I’m staying near you because I want to help. But between yesterday’s ‘I don’t need your help Quinn’ and physically locking me out of my own room, what the hell am I supposed to think?”
He was really angry now and knew he should drop it. She had been through a lot and it wouldn’t help if he blew up at her. But damn if he didn’t feel better.
Quinn got up and walked over to the door, taking a minute to work the dresser out of the way.
“Either trust me or don’t,” Quinn said, more quietly this time, as he opened the door. “If you can’t trust me, then take shelter somewhere else, because then I’m just one more thing to worry about.”
He walked outside. And stopped dead cold when he saw the note.
Right on the outside of the door was a small post-it note. It simply had one word on it.
“Almost.”
Fifteen minutes later they had checked the apartment with her gun and satisfied themselves that there was no one else there. The front door had clearly been forced from the outside. If Quinn thought he would have satisfaction from finally having proof that he wasn’t involved, he didn’t feel it. Instead, he concentrated on the fact that if not for Kate’s nightmare, he could have been dead. Likely would have been.
Of course, he had been awake in the living room. Maybe he would have been awake when the guy came through the door. But he didn’t feel like it. He felt that somehow the guy must have known when he was sleeping. Even after checking every nook and cranny of the apartment, he did not feel safe. Would the guy hit them on the way out the door? Would he be waiting in Quinn’s car?
Kate, for her part, appeared better than she had been for several days. She checked the apartment with a strange calm that Quinn was grateful for, since he was definitely lacking it. For the only time he could remember, Quinn was glad he had few rooms-and fewer places to hide.
“We can’t come back here,” she said finally. He nodded and they packed quickly. Their visitor was in all likelihood gone, but how could they be sure of anything?
Five minutes later they were at the car and after Quinn first checked the trunk and back seat carefully, they climbed in. He felt like he was being watched from somewhere and knew that was probably right.
He started driving with no real direction in mind.
“Where to?” he asked when they pulled onto Route 7.
“We need to check the hotel,” she said.
“That’s not a safe place,” Quinn replied.
“I agree, but I should pick up some stuff before we hit the road.”
“And where, exactly, are we going to go?”
“For starters-Bluemont,” she said.
“You can’t be serious,” Quinn said.
Kate just stared at him, raising her eyebrows.
“Okay, apparently you can be,” Quinn said. “Even if I got the right guy, how’s that going to help?”
“It’s a lead,” she said. “And besides-we have to find Lord Halloween before he finds us, again. Wouldn’t you rather be on the offensive?”
