He didn’t expect to see Hannah. He barely had time to realize she was there. All at once, she slammed the aluminum bar over his head.
Richard Kidd howled in pain. The video camera fell out of his hands and broke on the tiled floor. The butcher’s knife flew into the tub. Though stunned, Richard remained on his feet. Blood oozed from the gash on his forehead.
Hannah hit him again, knocking his glasses off. He stumbled back, almost falling into the tub. He accidentally knocked the shower head askew. The hot water doused both of them.
“Fucking bitch!” Richard growled, enraged. He managed to regain his footing.
The steam from the shower set off the smoke detector in the next room. The beeping noise echoed in the brightly lit white bathroom.
Hannah tried to strike him again with the aluminum rod. But Richard Kidd reeled back and hit her across the face.
Hannah’s feet slipped from under her. She fell back on the slick, tiled floor, bumping her head on the side of the tub.
Catching his breath, Richard Kidd stared at her. Without his glasses, it took a moment for him to focus. She’d been knocked unconscious. The shower spray was pelting her. Hannah’s blond hair was matted down. The blood coming from her mouth looked like pink drool that the pulsating water waved away. It stained the front of her blouse.
The knife was still in the tub.
Richard glanced at the mirror above the sink, then wiped the fogged glass. He had two gashes on his forehead, seeping blood.
“Goddamn you,” he muttered. He gave Hannah’s leg a fierce kick. Then he kicked his broken video camera. It slid across the wet floor. He picked up his designer glasses. Both lenses were cracked.
The smoke alarm continued to beep at an obnoxious, high pitch.
Grabbing a washcloth from the sink, Richard held it to his bleeding forehead. Again, he stared at the butcher’s knife in the tub.
She’d ruined his death scene. All those weeks of planning and preparing, and she’d fucked it all up. Killing her now was too easy. She was semiconscious at best. She’d barely even feel it. That wouldn’t do. He wanted her to suffer.
He wanted Hannah to regain consciousness. And then she would wake up to a nightmare.
Hannah tasted blood in her mouth. Soaked and shivering, she lay in a puddle of cold water on the bathroom floor. When she sat up, her head started to throb.
She’d lost some time. But she didn’t know how much. A few moments? An hour? The shower wasn’t running anymore. The smoke detector was no longer beeping. Hannah squinted up at the ceiling in the next room. The alarm device had been smashed. She noticed blood smears on the bathroom door, and a bloodstained washcloth on the floor just beyond the bathroom threshold. She glanced around for the butcher’s knife, but didn’t see it.
Suddenly, she heard a door slam in the next unit.
“Guy,” she whispered, panic-stricken. She got to her feet, and nearly collapsed again. The floor was so slippery. Her leg ached something awful. Had he kicked her?
Hannah hobbled out of the bathroom. Tracking water on the brown shag carpet, she hurried to the door connecting to Room 112. It was locked.
“Guy?” she called, pounding on the door. Tears stung her eyes. “Guy, are you in there?”
No response.
Hannah ran out the other door. It was cold outside, and she was soaked to the bone. But she hardly noticed.
She banged on Room 112. The door creaked open. “Guy, are you in here?” she cried, stepping inside the dark room. She checked between the beds, then under them.
The lamp on the nightstand table had been knocked over. There was blood on the white shade.
Hannah bolted back outside. She spotted the old burgundy Volvo in the lot. Richard hadn’t driven away with him.
She had hoped to use that car to get away. After knocking Richard Kidd unconscious, she would have phoned the police and reported a man attacking a woman in Room 111 of the Sleepy Bear Motel. Then she would have taken his car and driven off with her son.
But now Richard Kidd had her little boy.
Hannah gazed around the parking lot. She was shaking. Tears streamed down her face. She had to remind herself to breathe.
She heard Guy scream, but for only a couple of seconds. He was drowned out by the sound of a train whistle. Still, she knew it was Guy. She knew his voice.
Hannah ran to the side of the motel. Beyond some shrubbery and a barbed-wire fence was the railroad switching yard. She stared at the rows of freight cars lined up on the tracks. The yard was well lit. Rain puddles had formed in the shallow, rocky gullies between the tracks. The place smelled of oil and freshly cut wood. A couple of the trains were moving.
Hannah saw an opening in the fence, then wove through the bushes. She passed a couple of old empty boxcars on the first track line. Her leg began to hurt more as she forged over the coarse rocks and gravel around the tracks. A cold wind cut through her, and she shuddered.
She heard another scream, much closer this time. Hannah found an opening between a tanker and a flatcar stacked with lumber. Down the next line of tracks, she saw them.
Richard was hauling Guy toward a moving train on the next track. He paused for a moment, then glanced back at Hannah and smiled. Blood from the cuts on his forehead streaked down his face.
Guy was shrieking and struggling in his arms.
“Let him go!” Hannah screamed. She hurried toward them. Up ahead, a train rounded a curve in the tracks. For a moment, the locomotive’s front light blinded her. The loud horn muted the sound of Guy’s screams.
Past the glaring light, Hannah caught sight of them again. Richard was loading Guy into an empty boxcar of an idle train. He climbed aboard after Guy.
Hannah started running after them, sidestepping around wooden ties and rails. She tripped on a lockbox, and toppled forward onto the rocky gravel. It hurt like hell. She knew she’d scraped her hands and knees. She knew she was bleeding. But there was no time to stop and look.
Pulling herself up, Hannah felt a loose spike on the ground. She hid it in the waistband along the back of her jeans. Once again, she staggered toward the train. She heard its air brakes hissing, and the engine starting up.
Out of breath, Hannah hobbled toward the open boxcar.
Then she stopped dead.
Richard Kidd was standing inside the freight car, holding a butcher’s knife to Guy’s throat. Silent, with tears running down his cheeks, Guy looked utterly terrified. His little body was shaking. The front of his jacket had been smeared with blood. It took Hannah a moment to realize that the blood was Richard Kidd’s.
He was grinning at her. She’d never seen him without his trademark glasses. She didn’t realize how cold his eyes could be. With his face covered in blood, he appeared almost demonic.
“Let him go,” Hannah gasped. “I’ll do anything you say.”
Richard Kidd merely snickered. “Come and get him.”
Hannah hesitated, then boosted herself up into the car. Putting weight on her bad leg, she nearly fell backward onto the rock piling and the next set of rails. She grabbed hold of the boxcar’s sliding door. “Please,” she said, catching her breath. “Please, it’s me you want—”
Another blast from a locomotive drowned her out. As much as Hannah pleaded, she knew he couldn’t hear her. And she knew it didn’t matter what she said. He was still going to kill her little boy.
With the knife tip, Richard Kidd traced a thin line of blood along Guy’s neck. Guy didn’t register any sign of pain. But he was still trembling.
“What do you want from me?” Hannah screamed.
