“ I don’t know the way to the Beach Inn on Ocean either,” he said, smiling.
“ You know the way to the Long Beach airport?” Rick smiled back at him. He liked the man’s sense of humor.
“ Yes, sir.”
“ I’ll direct you from there.”
“ You got it,” the driver said. “Just settle back and relax.”
Rick nodded and closed his eyes as the driver lurched the cab into the airport traffic. It wasn’t long before he drifted off and found the sleep he couldn’t get on the plane.
What seemed like scant seconds, but was thirty-five minutes later, the driver reached over and shook Rick awake.
“ Okay, Mister, I need you to guide me.”
Rick knocked the fog from his head and looked out into the dark.
“ Go straight down Lakewood Boulevard to the Traffic Circle, follow it around to Pacific Coast Highway and then take the first right and follow it all the way to the beach.”
They drove the next five minutes in silence, until the driver stopped the cab in front of the Beach Inn.
“ What room is Christina Page in?” Rick asked the underage boy behind the counter.
“ Just a sec.” The kid punched keys as he stared at a computer screen. “Not here,” he said after a few seconds.
“ You sure?”
“ The computer doesn’t lie.”
“ She was supposed to check in this afternoon.”
“ That explains it. We’re full up. Been that way for a couple days.”
“ Damn,” Rick said. “Thanks.” He left and walked down Ocean. He turned left on her street and walked the block to her house. He mounted the porch, rang the doorbell and waited. No answer. He tried the door and found it unlocked. He turned the knob and felt his stomach flutter. Something was wrong.
The living room was small and connected to the dining room. Only the change in ceiling texture told the division between the two. He made his way through the rooms toward the light switch.
He swore as he banged into a coffee table. He stepped around it, moving between the table and a sofa, toward the switch. He flicked it and the two rooms lit up. Calling out Christina’s name, he went into the kitchen. He was worried. She wouldn’t go out and leave the front door unlocked. In the kitchen, everything appeared to be in order. He opened the refrigerator and checked the vegetable bin where she kept a plastic head of lettuce, stuffed with a another kind of green. If she’d gone to ground, the hidy hole would be empty. It was.
He backed away from the refrigerator, glanced around the kitchen, looking for anything out of order and found nothing. He left the kitchen, moving toward the stairs. With trepidation he started up.
Oh, God, the killer’s back, the thought rang through J.P. He lay on the cold dirt and covered his head with his hands. He heard footsteps overhead. Heard his heart beat. He tried to make himself small. The footsteps went away and a few minutes later they came back, running. They moved around the house, the killer was looking for him. Then the footsteps ran across the living room, out the door, and down the porch steps. He looked through the mesh grill and saw Rick. It wasn’t the killer, after all.
“ Rick, it’s me!” he shouted and Rick stopped. He shouted again and Rick turned and started back. “I’m down here, under the house.”
“ I’ll get you out, J.P.”
“ I can do it.” He scurried on his belly, soldier-fashion, with the bird cage in front, instead of a rifle. Rick met him in the bedroom. The boy handed the cage up to Rick,
“ Did he kill them, Rick? Did he kill them?” he asked as he took in the blood-stained mess.
“ We have to get out of here.” Rick brushed damp dirt off the boy, then took him by the hand, led him through the house and out the front door. They walked quickly away from the house, not noticing the brown Ford Granada parked a half block down, on the other side of the street. They made a right at the corner. Rick looked over at the Beach Inn on the other side of the street, but kept going. If it was full a few minutes ago, it would be full now.
“ Did he kill them?” J.P. asked again.
“ I don’t know. Both the twin’s room upstairs and the downstairs bedroom were torn up and there was a lot of blood, but Christina and the girls were gone. Her money’s gone and so is her car. I think they got away.”
“ But she wouldn’t have left me.”
“ She would if she thought you were dead.”
“ Oh.”
“ We still have a big problem. Even if she got away, as soon as the cops see the house torn up and all the blood, they’re going to think I killed her and the girls.”
“ What are we gonna do?”
“ First we have to find a place for the night.”
“ There.” J.P. pointed.
Rick followed the boy’s finger with his eyes to the red neon vacancy sign of the Ocean View Motel. Neither man nor boy noticed the brown Ford round the corner after them and park.
Crossing the threshold, Rick addressed the sleepy-eyed youth behind the counter.
“ Can we have a room for the night?”
“ Can have all you want, we’re mostly empty,” the boy was barely old enough to need a shave.
“ They’re full across the street,” Rick nodded in the direction of the Beach Inn.
“ They get the tour bus crowd.”
“ They don’t come here?”
“ We’re not quite up to their standards, but don’t tell the boss I said that.”
“ Not a chance. You got a room with two beds?”
“ Sure, sign in here.” The youth handed over a pen and the registration form. “You’re in twenty-four, go out the door to your left, you can’t miss it. TV works, we got cable, free coffee in the morning, you pay for the donuts.” He handed Rick a key.
“ Thanks.” Rick took J.P. by the hand.
“ The room is to the left, halfway down.”
“ We’ll find it.”
It was the moment Storm had been waiting for, the chance to go at Gordon. He clamped his left hand around the knife and started to open the door with his right and pain prickled his testicles. He let go of the door handle. Gordon wasn’t going to be as easy as the others. He wouldn’t be able to just walk in on him and attack him with his knife. Besides, he rationalized, he wanted him to suffer, to be humiliated, to know what it’s like to be scorned. He was going to need help.
He started the car and went back to the woman’s house. He ran water over his bloody hand in the downstairs bathroom, then wrapped the cuts with bandages he found in a medicine cabinet. Once he was satisfied his hand looked as good as he could make it, he combed back his hair, washed his face and straightened his clothes.
Time to get that help.
The first thing Rick noticed after entering the room, was the odor of mildew. No, not first class, he thought, as he watched a cricket dart across the carpet. He followed it to the bathroom and gave the room a cursory inspection. He checked the window and decided it was too small for him to squeeze through.
Turning, he faced the twin beds and studied the door that adjoined the next room. One of those doors that locked on each side. The cheap room had been designed so that it could be used as a two room suite. Mom and Dad in one, the kids in the other. When let as a single, the adjoining door remained locked.
Next he turned his attention to the closet and eased the sliding door open.
“ What are you looking for?” J.P. asked.
“ I didn’t know till now, but I think found it.”
“ What?”
