Creepers

57

"We'll try another stairwell," Amanda said, hoping.

"Hardly any left."

Amanda sank wearily, her hips on the floor, her back against the wall. "He has a good chance of finding us."

Balenger slid down next to her, sounding as exhausted as she did. "Probably has traps in them."

"Yes," Amanda said. "Probably." She looked down at Vinnie, whose pain had caused him to pass out. "Any other ideas?"

"Not at the moment."

"Me, neither."

In the surveillance room, smoke drifted past the wet towels that sealed the edges of the trapdoor.

"But there must be something," Amanda said. "I won't give up."

Yes, just like Diane, Balenger thought. "That's right. We won't give up."

Static from the walkie-talkie.

"Still alive?" the voice asked.

Balenger pressed the transmit button and squeezed his elbow against his holstered pistol, trying to draw reassurance from it. "Waiting for you."

"Waiting for the fire," the voice said.

Waiting will get us killed, Balenger thought. We need to do something. We're not going to let ourselves die here. He was conscious of the rain lashing against the metal shutter above him.

Something. There's got to be something.

Amanda stared up toward the shutter. With a chill of hope, Balenger realized the thought that came to her. Slowly, they stood and examined the shutter. Like the others in the hotel, it had rollers that rested on a horizontal bar above the window. In theory, a sideways sliding motion was the only thing necessary to open it. At the bottom, a lock secured it.

But unlike the shutters downstairs, the rollers on this one were rust-free. As with everything else in the penthouse, Ronnie kept the shutters scrupulously clean.

Balenger shoved the end of the crowbar under the lock. He started to apply leverage, then worried that Ronnie might hear.

"I'll distract him," he whispered to Amanda, putting her hands on the crowbar.

He eased into the dining room and pressed the transmit button on the walkie-talkie. "Walter Harrigan. Ronald Whitaker. Ronnie. Did your mother call you 'Ronnie'? Is that why you want your girlfriends to call you that? So they'll be like your mother?"

"You're guaranteeing more pain for yourself."

Balenger looked into the kitchen, where Amanda tugged furiously at the crowbar.

"Walter Harrigan. You're Ronald Whitaker, and yet you're… Of course." Balenger felt a thrill of understanding. "When you left the juvenile facility, did you change your name? Is that what happened? With a new name, you wouldn't be stalked by your past. No one would connect you with that Fourth of July. No one would know you killed your father. No one would know he abused you."

Balenger watched Amanda. The lock's plate seemed about to separate from the wall.

"Was that it, Ronnie? Was it Carlisle's idea to change your name? Was that another way he helped you?"

"Oh, he helped, all right," the voice said. "He couldn't stop helping."

"Or making excuses? Even when he suspected what you were doing, he still made excuses for you, didn't he? He didn't really believe what you were capable of. Why would-"

Amanda strained against the crowbar. As the lock's plate pulled from the wall, Balenger returned to the kitchen and grabbed the plate before it could strike the floor.

"Why would he make excuses for you, Ronnie?" Balenger felt sick as the answer occurred to him. "He watched through the wall. He saw your father… He saw the pervert your father took money from come in and… After a lifetime of watching, Carlisle finally got disgusted with being a watcher. He could have done something to stop it, but… He was a god who observed without intervening in this hell he created. But when he saw you bash in your father's brains, he finally felt more than curiosity. Maybe because he was alone so much as a child, he identified with you. He felt guilty. He wished he could have stopped what happened. The only thing left was to try to make amends. He spoiled you, and then one night, he discovered the consequences."

"Tonight, you'll discover consequences. I see smoke down here," the voice said.

Balenger put the walkie-talkie into his knapsack. He and Amanda pushed at the shutter. He was surprised how smoothly the rollers shifted along their rail.

4.00 a.m.