They were coming for him. He just knew it. And him without so much as a cap pistol for protection. Damn, he'd electronically painted himself into a corner, a corner where he could get seriously hurt, maybe busted ribs, maybe worse, maybe killed, maybe… maybe…
There came a knock on the door.
He pretended to not be home as Muriel welcomed the guest with a startlingly high-pitched cry.
Another knock and Randy was sweating in the kitchen, his pizza beginning to smell from the heat.
“Randy? You in there?”
God, it was Dr. Sanger's voice. “Open up! We've got to talk.”
She'd never seen his place, never been here before. It was a shambles. Damn, why hadn't she called to give him some warning? “Dr. Sanger,” he called out. “Just… just a minute.” He futilely went about picking up, giving up after a few tosses.
He pulled the door wide to find Meredyth with Lucas Stonecoat beside her.
“Hi, Randy,” she said, smiling. “I'm sorry I didn't get back to you today, but when I called you were gone.”
“That's all right, Dr. Sanger. Hi, Detective… Officer Stonecoat.”
“Why don't you call me Lucas.”
“All right, Lucas.”
“We came into the office and found your monitor on, Randy.”
“What? No way, I shut it down. I never leave it up, Doctor, never.”
“And a window was left open in Dr. Sanger's office.”
“No, no way, I swear.”
“We got a little worried about… things,” she said.
“You don't know the half,” Randy replied.
“Meaning?”
Randy gave them a complete rundown on what had occurred late this afternoon. He located the disks and showed the others.
“Better get your dinner,” she warned. “It'll be burnt.”
“Looks like we've got work ahead of us,” said Lucas. “Why don't we order out for three? I'm buying.”
With that, they settled in around the computer and brought up the material Randy had copied to disk. After a time, they began taking turns, watching the screen as the material scrolled by.
“There,” said Meredyth, pointing.
The others joined her. 'They all belonged to the Houston Hunt Club. They all contributed heavily to a number of charities, church organizations.”
“All rather harmless enough in and of itself,” suggested Lucas.
'They both contributed to the Church of the Sepulcher, located in a poor section of Houston, Texas, where a monastic order of brothers did all in their power to help out troubled youth. And they both likely knew the pastor there.”
“Maybe he gave them both last rites?” Lucas wondered aloud.
“And look, they both went to the same college, Texas Christian University…”
“But they attended different years.”
“I wonder where Timothy Little attended college,” Meredyth pondered aloud. “Geezus, man… wow, what do you think?” Randy was asking.
“There's another cross here,” said Meredyth, pointing to the screen.
Lucas leaned in to read it for himself. 'They shared the same doctor?
“Coincidence?
“ Or plan? Remember, whoever filleted the bodies knew anatomy, and whoever got close enough to tuck Mootry in was likely a trusted friend.” Lucas began to pace the room, trying to consider all sides.
“Meantime, someone's getting damned nervous about what we know. Someone broke into my office and was rifling through Randy's computer.”
“Why weren't these simple connections made on the earlier investigations?” Randy wondered aloud. “Why weren't they in the Cold Room files?”
“Removed?” suggested Meredyth.
“Maybe this was the connection that got Felipe and Covey put away so permanently.”
Meredyth looked from Lucas to Randy and back again. “You think it's now our turn?”
“We could call a halt to it. Tell Lawrence we've got zip. Go our own ways, maybe live longer,” he suggested.
“Hell, Lucas, we can't do that.”
'To buy time, we can, until we know more.”
“Besides,” she suggested, “who's to say that Phil Lawrence isn't behind the cover-up?”
“We've got to be smarter than Covey. He gave them the wherewithal to silence him. We can't be so careless.”
The elevator disturbed the silence now creeping over them, and for a long and sullen moment, they all stared across at one another, each sizing up the weighty aroma of paranoia they all inhaled. It was a potent and sensuous thing they shared, spooning up great gobs like an acrid and pasty oatmeal. Lucas located his gun and stepped to the door, where the pizza deliveryman pounded on the other side and shouted in his best business voice, “Delivery for Lucas Stonecoat!”
After gulping down Pepsi and pizza, Lucas agreed to submit to a hypnotism session with Meredyth Sanger. Randy agreed to remain as a witness to the session. Meredyth's voice was soothing, like a prairie wind, he thought, and he easily allowed himself to fall under her direction. He was soon relaxed; in fact, he could hardly recall a time when he'd felt more relaxed. Under hypnotism, he felt none of the usual bodily constraints or relentless pain that stalked him under normal circumstances.
But all freedom from pain was lost when he found himself reliving the events of the mugging he had suffered. He saw it all through a teasing fog and heard through a filter that created a slow motion of all speech. He didn't hear himself as he mimicked the voice of the man he had judged to be Fred Amelford: “You get yourself free of this case you're pursuing, son, or you and your girlfriend are dead. You understand that, kimosabe?”
“l-I–I…” He couldn't nod for fear the razor-sharp knife would cut a major artery, and now his body was frozen stiff on the couch where he lay. He couldn't find the words in his suddenly parched throat. He imagined what the world would be like tomorrow without him in it.
“That's what we think, son, exactly. Now, you just come to your fucking senses, boy,” the supposed Amelford voice continued.
Lucas felt a huge, doubled-up fist chop away at the base of his skull, just as it had happened, and he sensed that the knife was lifted away from his throat in the same fluid motion. He guessed that one of his assailants had had combat training. His last thoughts were twofold: The attack on him was the work of two assailants, and Meredyth was in danger as well. But Stonecoat was in a black world now, the concrete walk his pillow. The words of his second attacker filtered through Lucas's fogbound mind now, the words of Jim Pardee, he assumed, tumbling out in broken slow motion. “We should just kill the bastard here and now.”
“No, not-now-and-not-here.”
A sudden, teeth-jarring kick struck Lucas in the side. On the couch where he lay, he flinched in pain. “Why're- we-screwing-with-him?”
The other man answered, “That's-'nough. We-do- it-the-way-we're-told.”
“Damn… damn… It's-a'ways-hell-Sanger's- way, isn't-it?”
“Orders-is-orders.”
“Our-lives-on-the-line.”
“Damn it. Partner, we're-all-in-this-together.”
“Bas-tard!”
Stonecoat felt another sharp pain in his ribs when one of the apes viciously kicked out at him again. He flinched where he lay on the couch. He fought the pain every step of the way, then fell into complete unconsciousness. But now, under hypnosis, he could contemplate his own unconscious state. It was strange, like being on locoweed.
