Security(54)

Maybe this advice plays in her head.

Maybe not.

Maybe it penetrated deep enough into her mind, when she heard it, that it became a part of her, something she’ll carry as long as she lives, however long that will be.

It will be at least another few seconds, because as the Killer comes for Tessa, as Brian runs across the penthouse to save her, as Jules gurgles, Tessa crouches and curls her left leg tight to the hip, releases it with an outward snap that is like a bear trap tripped, and the arch of her foot—the powerful part—connects solidly with the Killer’s wounded left shin. There is a dull thunk, not a crunch but good anyway, and the Killer makes a kind of desperate yapping noise as the pain of ripped--open cuts impedes his coordination and he windmills over the women. If the Killer were allowed to fall forward, he might impale himself on his own damn knife, but no, Brian catches him around the belly and hurls him into the kitchen. Tessa’s pulling Jules up to sit against the door frame, seeing the blood, babbling, “It’s okay, babe. It’s okay. Don’t worry,” and like comments that are patently untrue. The Killer has recovered his wits, head--butts Brian, and Brian falls. The Killer raises the knife high up in both hands.

Tessa screams so loudly, the Thinker returns to the security counter. The Thinker is searching for the audio feed volume. The audio feed volume is digital. It requires a code. The Thinker presses random buttons. The foyer’s chandelier goes dark, and the fountain in the maze’s center lights up and jets water at the night sky. The Thinker flaps an impatient wave at the controls and goes back to his cards.

Brian rolls out of the path of the knife. The Killer uses so much force that he stabs through the carpet and into the flooring. He’s trying to pull the knife free when Tessa kicks him in the face. This time, there is a crunch. There is also wonderful, awful banshee screeching that any sane person would run away from, coming from Tessa’s mouth. The Killer cannot run. He tries to catch Tessa’s feet as they pummel him. Blood leaks out of his mask. He catches her foot, turns it, and she falls to the floor with a thud. She hits her head, but the carpet is stupidly thick. The Killer is wrapping his hands around Tessa’s throat when Brian leaps on his back. The Killer stands, reverses into the kitchen and into the refrigerator. Brian bounces off. Brian ducks a punch that dents the refrigerator, runs around the Killer and helps Tessa stand. “Stairs! Stairs!” Brian shouts as the Killer selects the biggest knife from the knife block. He pulls out a spare and rears back to throw it at Brian, but Tessa stumbles, so Brian falters, so the knife flips past where Brian’s head was a half second ago and embeds into the door frame with a thwummm. Tessa grabs for Jules, but Jules is dead. Brian propels Tessa and himself through the door to the stairwell.

“Hurry!” Brian says. “Hurry! Hurry! Go!”

“Is he behind us?”

“No! He must be taking the elevator! Hurry, Tess! We can beat him—go, go!”

The Killer’s shoulders quiver with rage. He steps over Jules. He hustles across the hall, into the regular penthouse, across the living room, into the secret elevator. He hits the “Lobby” button and turns around.

Jules, not dead, smiles at him and raises a stiff middle finger right as the secret elevator’s seam sews shut. She laughs. It’s a gurgling sound. She wiggles so she can fall back to the floor. She flops around as her own blood drowns her.

“Go! C’mon, Tess, hurry!”

Brian and Tessa are running past the eleventh floor.

The Killer, in the secret elevator, passes the ninth floor.

There are no lights on in the foyer. It is dark as a grave. Until headlights bathe it bright. There’s a Lamborghini tracing the horseshoe of the parking lot. It’s Charles Destin’s Lamborghini.

“Who is he?” Tessa says, running. They are passing the eighth floor. “Who’d want to do this?”

The Killer is passing the second floor.

The Thinker is watching Charles Destin pull on Manderley’s front doors. Destin curses at finding them locked. He has a woman with him. She’s wearing a short, thin gold dress and big hoop earrings. Destin says something to her about “a scenario” and rolls his eyes. He takes her hand and leads her around the outer perimeter of the hotel.

The Killer is in Franklin’s office. He limps past the desk and filing cabinets, out, past the check--in counter and the information desk. He goes to the stairway door and stands to the side of it, knife in both hands again, high above his head.

“Go!” Brian says. “Go, go, go!”

He and Tessa are running past the fourth floor.

The Killer is waiting.

Charles Destin is at the back door to Manderley, the one Brian and Tessa exited to visit the pool. Destin likes to bring women to Manderley for tours, though he rarely does this on Tuesdays. He is opening the back door.

The Killer’s head turns to the sound of the back door. To the sound of Brian and Tessa, on the stairs (“Go! Go, Tess!”) as they run past the second floor. The Killer goes toward the back door. He is most of the way there when Destin says, “Voilà!” and flips on the chandelier.

The woman screams. The Killer has the knife high. Destin manages to say, “Who—?” before the knife’s length disappears into the top of the woman’s head. Her eyes become all whites. The stairway door flies open. The Killer lifts the knife, and the woman rises off the ground a few inches, before sliding off and making a pile of skin and bones and thin gold fabric on the floor. The chandelier is bright, now specked with red splats from a geyser that shot from the dead woman’s head, and Destin is running for the front doors. Brian and Tessa are also running for the front doors, and the Killer is limping after them. His legs are long; he is still impressively fast. As Tessa screams, “Del, oh my G—,” Brian is screaming, “Go, Tess!” but Destin shoves Tessa as all three of them near the exit. Tessa slaloms to the left. Destin is a strong man, and determined. Tessa bashes into the fireplace, unsettling the mantel. Delores’s head falls and rolls. Brian runs to help Tessa. Destin gets to the doors and pulls on them, taking for granted they’ll open. They don’t open. The Killer is directly behind him. The Killer stabs, but Destin evades, does a move from his lacrosse days, runs through the wreckage of Delores, and slips. The Killer is running for him, and slips. The both of them bobble hopelessly through the bloody lobby like a pair of children trying to do a standing run down a Slip ’N Slide. Brian and Tessa watch. It’s too strange a sight not to watch. Tessa’s perhaps thinking how, this afternoon, Destin greeted her with a hello and a kiss to each cheek before reading the riot act to his every other employee. Tessa bleeds from a small cut on her right cheek, from the mantel. Her left hand is bleeding again, through her bandage. The Killer’s arm draws back, and the knife whips forward, whirls, sticks—with a thwap—in Charles Destin’s neck. He falls forward.