Walking After Midnight (30 page)

The sickly sweet scent of hair spray reached Summer’s nostrils milliseconds before the stream of aerosol mist hit the flame.

„What the…?“ Charlie began.

With a muted roar, a tongue of fire shot two feet in the air. Charlie, leaning down, was caught full in the face. He screamed, dropping the knife and staggering backward, hands clutching his face, as the smell of burning filled the air. Summer released the nozzle, watching with horrified fascination. What she could see of his face behind his hands was bright red. Tiny flames licked at the edges of his hair.

Summer didn’t wait to see more. Still clutching her homemade flamethrower, she scrambled for the door on all fours. Muffy was ahead of her, then underneath her, running too. Summer got tangled up by the little dog, and almost fell flat on her face.

„You bitch! I’ll kill you for that, you bitch!“ Sobbing, face uncovered now, Charlie lurched after her, arms opening and closing like giant pincers as he grabbed for her. Apparently his vision had been affected; it was obvious he could not see clearly. Staggering in her wake, he looked like an apparition from hell. Charred skin hung in long strips from his face. The surface that remained was pulpy and raw. His eyebrows and lashes were gone. The flames that had danced along his hairline were now extinguished, leaving little wisps of smoke in their place.

Dodging his clutching arms, Summer fought to bite back a scream. Screaming could do her no good. It would only alert Charlie’s pals, who, she was sure, lurked somewhere in the vicinity.

„I’m gonna kill you!“ It was an unearthly howl. Summer’s hair stood on end. She reached the door and climbed it, scrabbling for the knob. He seemed to really see her then. His eyes focused on her. Terrified, Summer nevertheless managed to turn the knob. She yanked opened the door just as he lunged for her, and bolted – smack into a solid masculine chest.

For an instant after the collision she was shocked speechless. Hard male hands grasped her shoulders, hurting her as they held her captive. Hysterical tears rose to her eyes, making her vision swim. Despair rendered her both blind and numb. She could see nothing, feel nothing.

That she had almost escaped made her recapture seem even more cruel.

„Bitch!“ The howling thing that was Charlie came charging through the door. With a push her captor shoved her aside. Summer fell to the ground, scraping her knees on the gravel path that circled the building but not caring as she clawed at the grass to get away. God was affording her one more chance at freedom, it seemed, and it was not for her to question the whys and wherefores of his gift.

Summer staggered to her feet, glancing fearfully over her shoulder as she prepared to run for her life – only to see Frankenstein bring the tire iron down on Charlie’s head with all his might.

She would recognize that Bulls cap anywhere.

Thwack!
Charlie dropped like a felled tree. He toppled backward, his head striking the metal door with a resounding thud on the way down, and lay still.

„Take that, you bastard,“ Frankenstein said, standing over him.

„Steve, oh, Steve!“ Summer had never been so glad to see anyone in her life. She stumbled toward him, collapsing against his chest. His arms, including the one that still held the tire iron, closed around her. He hugged her tight. Summer felt something that might have been his lips brush the top of her head. „Oh, Steve!“

„Are you all right?“ He held her a little away from him, looking intently down into her face.

Summer took a deep breath, nodded, and collapsed into his arms again.

„What happened to him?“

She glanced up to discover that he was staring down at Charlie’s ruined face.

„I – I did it.“ Her teeth chattered with shock.

„You
did it? Jesus, what did you do?“

It was only then that Summer realized she still clutched the lighter and hair spray. „I – I – this,“ she stuttered, holding out her hands so that he could see the evidence.

„You lit his cigarette or styled his hair?“ he asked dryly, relieving her of her weapons. He turned them over in his hands, studying them.

„I burned him.“

„You
burned
him?“

„If you spray the hair spray over the flame, it makes a kind of flamethrower. I saw it on
F/X2.“

„F/X2?“
He sounded totally at sea.

„It’s a movie.“ She was shaking. His arms came around her once more, holding her close against his comforting warmth.

„Jesus.“ He glanced down at Charlie again, then back at Summer. There was awe in his face. „Rosencrans, you are something else.“

A whimper came from the other side of the closed door.

„Muffy!“ Summer would recognize that sound anywhere. Steve bent to shove the hair spray and lighter into the gym bag at his feet, then obligingly pushed the door open. The litde dog, now limping on her hind leg, came out, skirting Charlie’s inanimate body to crowd against Summer’s ankles.

„He kicked her,“ Summer said, picking Muffy up.

„Oh, yeah?“ Steve glanced down as Charlie stirred and groaned, and started to sit up. „That’s for Muffy,“ he said grimly, bringing the tire iron down on Charlie’s head. Charlie fell back as if he had been poleaxed. He landed so hard that his head bounced; then Steve hit him again, across the chest. Summer winced instinctively at the sound of the blow. „And that’s for Summer.“

„Stop!“ Summer couldn’t stand it. „You’ll kill him!“

„He was trying to kill us, remember?“ Steve said. „Anyway, I never kill people in cold blood. I just aim to put him out of commission for a while.“

Steve was hefting the tire iron skyward for what Summer suspected might be another blow just as a blond teenager in skintight jeans and an older, heavyset woman in Lycra bicycle shorts and an oversize pink T-shirt came around the corner of the building.

„I must have left it in here…“ the girl was saying, only to break off as she saw Steve and Summer staring at her with Charlie sprawled at their feet. The woman saw them at the same time and clutched the girl’s arm, stopping her in her tracks. Both their eyes went wide as saucers, and their mouths gaped, as they stared.

„We were just leaving,“ Steve said hastily, snatching the gym bag from the ground near his feet and pulling Summer with him as he headed away from the transfixed pair. Summer went willingly. The girl and her mother began to back away, then turned and ran in the direction from which they had come.

In the distance Summer heard sirens wail. She glanced over her shoulder in the direction of the sound. A navy Lincoln Continental nosed into view, moving slowly toward them down the gravel road that bisected the campground.

A navy Lincoln Continental… She knew that car!

„It’s them,“ Summer said urgently, but Steve had already seen. He grabbed Muffy from her, tucked her under his arm, caught Summer’s hand, and pulled her around the corner of the shower building out of sight of the car. Then he ran.

Her fingers entwined with his, Summer ran too, as if all the demons of hell were after her. Which, in a manner of speaking, they were.

Even as they left the campground behind, the sirens grew louder. They ran through the trees, leaping small bushes and fallen logs, until they found a path that seemed to lead straight uphill. Keeping up with Frankenstein in full flight was hard, but terror gave Summer’s feet wings, and her lungs strength. Besides, she was deathly afraid to let go of his hand. Not for anything did she mean to get left behind.

At last they paused for breath on top of what Summer had thought was a small rise, both of them bending almost double as they gasped for air. Muffy, set on her feet, immediately collapsed with a groan, and lay panting as though she had run every step of the way, which she emphatically had not.

Glancing around, Summer was surprised to discover that the small rise was in actuality a stone-faced cliff, and they were perched near the edge of it, overlooking the campground below, spread out like a child’s playscape. She was even more surprised to see the blue lights of at least half a dozen police cars, minuscule at that distance, flashing in front of a squat building that she took to be the women’s showers.

„I never even called Sammy,“ she said, puzzled. Had all those cops shown up because the girl and the woman from in front of the showers had reported a beating? But that was impossible. She had first heard the sirens while the women were still in sight.

„You didn’t need to.“ Steve reached into his back pocket and drew something out, which as he unfolded it Summer recognized as the front page of the morning newspaper. „Look at this.“

He handed it to her. Summer looked and gasped.

There, in full color on the front page, staring back at her, were three remarkably clear photographs: Steve, herself, and Muffy, whom the caption grandly identified as Grand Champion Margie’s Miss Muffet.

The headline over the pictures, set in inch-high boldface type, read:

CALHOUN, GIRLFRIEND, DOG SOUGHT IN CONNECTION

WITH DOUBLE HOMICIDE.

Jaw dropping, Summer scanned the accompanying story. She, Muffy, and Steve were the subjects of a statewide manhunt after the bodies of Linda Miller and Betty Kern had been found in her home. The police were working with two possibilities: Either she and Steve, whose fingerprints had been found at the scene, were partners in crime, or he had taken her, and her dog, hostage. In any case, citizens spotting any of the three were asked not to try to apprehend them but to call police. They were considered armed and extremely dangerous.

„Where did you get this?“ Summer asked, dumbfounded.

„In the manager’s office. I decided you were making a mistake, so I came looking for you. You weren’t where I expected you to be, but the manager was. So was this. He was reading it when I came through the door. I had to take him out.“

„Oh, my God! You didn’t…?“ She glanced at him, her thoughts immediately turning to murder.

„No, I didn’t,“ he said dryly. „I told you, I don’t kill people in cold blood. I just put him to sleep for a while.
He
never had a chance to tell anybody, and nobody else saw me. I made damned sure of that. Somebody must have recognized you or the dog – I told you, she’s so weird-looking she attracts attention – and called the police.“

„I asked a woman the way to the manager’s office,“ Summer said, remembering. „The way she looked at me – it must have been her!“

„Probably.“ He was looking down at the scene below.

People, at that distance appearing no bigger than ants, were beginning to crowd around the police cars.

„Maybe we should go back,“ Summer said hesitantly, looking too. „After all, they
are
the police…“

He shook his head. Summer didn’t argue. As far as she was concerned, her safety now lay with Steve.

30

They were still standing there, watching the tableau far below, when a miniature pickup truck pulled up slowly to park beside the police cars. A man got out and was almost immediately joined by two uniformed police officers.

The man and the officers walked around to the back of the truck, scattering the gathered crowd. The man climbed up into the truckbed, did something, then jumped down again.

This time he was accompanied by a pack of leashed dogs.

Summer could hear shrill echoes of their cries from where she stood. Muffy came upright, her head cocking as she stared down.

„Jesus. They’ve brought in dogs.“

A third cop walked up to the group around the animals, and passed a bundle of what looked like cloth to their handler. The man took the bundle, bent and offered it for the dogs to sniff.

„Did you leave anything in the shower room?“ Steve was folding the newspaper back into its small rectangle.

Summer thought. „The – the makeup kit. Uh – and my uniform! My Daisy Fresh uniform! Do you think they’re letting those dogs smell my uniform?“

„I’d say so,“ Steve answered grimly, and returned the folded newspaper to his back pocket.

Even as Summer looked down again, the handler loosed the dogs. There were five brown and black hounds, and they scattered, sniffing the ground. Seconds later one of them, near the building, set up a howl.

„He’s found the trail.“

The other dogs rallied to their leader, and all five of them streaked in a pack for the woods, baying at the top of their lungs.

„Oh, God, what do we do? Do you have a plan?“ Summer looked wildly at Steve.

„Yeah,“ he answered, bending to scoop up Muffy and then grabbing the gym bag and Summer’s hand. „Run like hell.“

Some plan. But Summer didn’t say it. She didn’t have a chance. With Steve dragging her along behind him, it was a struggle to breathe, much less speak. The baying of the dogs was a distant, but potent, spur. Her feet barely touched the ground, she ran so fast. She almost seemed to be floating – probably because she felt light-headed.

Summer didn’t know whether that was from the altitude, hunger, or fear.

They ran down a gulley full of brush, which sported a trickle of water at its bottom. Halfway down the mountain, the gulley suddenly made a sharp left, and turned into a full-blown creek.