?
tap- tap-tap-tap-tap pause tap-tap
5/2, Robin thought, the novelty of the moment fighting through fatigue. Letter W. Okay. I can do this.
2/3, 3/4, 4/2, 4/5 tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap... Robin broke that off for his reply
tap- tap-tap-tap-tap-tap
Al Wallace? Al? He's alive?
tap- tap-tap-tap-tap-tap
HOW U? he asked his friend of fifteen years.
MAKIN IT came the reply, then an addition for his fellow Utahan.
1/3, 3/4, 3/2, 1/5, 1/3, 3/4, 3/2, 1/5, 5/4, 1/5
Come, come, ye saints...
Robin gasped, not hearing the taps, hearing the Choir, hearing the music, hearing what it meant.
tap- tap-tap-tap-tap-tap
1/1, 3/1, 3/1, 2/4, 4/3, 5/2, 1/5, 3/1, 3/1, 1/1, 3/1, 3/1, 2/4, 4/3, 5/2, 1/5, 3/1, 3/1
Robin Zacharias closed his eyes and gave thanks to his God for the second time in a day and the second time in over a year. He'd been foolish, after all, to think that deliverance might not come. This seemed a strange place for it, and stranger circumstances, but there was a fellow Mormon in the next cell, and his body shuddered as his mind heard that most beloved of
hymns, whose final line was not a lie at all, but an affirmation.
All is well, all is well.
Monroe didn't know why this girl, Paula, didn't listen to him. He tried reason, he tried a bellowed order, but she kept driving, albeit following his directions, creeping along the early-morning streets at all of ten miles per hour, and, at that, staying in her lane only rarely and with difficulty. It took forty minutes. She lost her way twice, mistaking right for left, and once stopped the car entirely when another of the women vomited out the window. Slowly Monroe came to realize what was happening. It was a combination of things that did it, but mainly that he had the time to dope it out.
'What did he do?' Maria asked.
'Th- th-they were going to kill us, just like the others, but he shot them!'
Jesus, Monroe thought. That cinched it.
'Paula?'
'Yes?'
'Did you ever know somebody named Pamela Madden?'
Her head went up and down slowly as she concentrated on the road once more. The station was in sight now.
'Dear God,' the policeman breathed. 'Paula, turn right into the parking lot, okay? Pull around the back... that's a good girl... you can stop right here, okay.' The car jerked to a halt and Paula started crying piteously. There was nothing for him to do but wait a minute or two until she got over the worst of it, and Monroe's fear was now for them, not himself. 'Okay, now, I want you to let me out.'
She opened her door and then the rear one. The cop needed help getting to his feet, and she did it for him on instinct.
'The car keys, there's a handcuff key on it, can you unlock me, miss?' It took her three tries before his hands were free. 'Thank you.'
'This better be good!' Tom Douglas growled. The phone cord came across his wife's face, waking her up, too.
'Sergeant, this is Chuck Monroe, Western District. I have three witnesses to the Fountain Murder.' He paused. 'I think I have two more bodies for the Invisible Man, too. He told me I should only talk to you.'
'Huh?' The detective's face twisted in the darkness. 'Who did?'
