Face of Death

The blood wouldn’t stop, so much of it. Rubie grasped at her neck with both hands as she ran, sacrificing the added balance and mobility of her arms, trying to hold it all in. There was a line that stretched from one side to the other, wrapping around, oozing and leaking more and more with each passing moment.

Without her eyes or her balance, Rubie stumbled, one foot catching on something that felt like a rock or a hard tuft of ground. She fell heavily, unable to break her fall, the wind rushing out of her as her elbows hit the ground first. At the same time she felt a gush, a feeling like water from a tap bursting out beneath her fingers.

She wasn’t going to give up. No. She had to get away—keep going—as far away from him as she could. She didn’t dare look around to see if he was still standing in the light from the car, or if he was only steps behind her, ready to grab her again. She couldn’t waste time. Rubie got her feet underneath her and pushed up again, only to fall, sagging, her legs refusing to work.

Everything felt strange—loose—like she was made of jelly all of a sudden, her arms and legs flopping like dead fish when she tried to move them. The one thing she knew she could feel was the heat of the blood seeping out of her neck, staining the ground now, pouring in such quantities that she could not comprehend it.

Rubie lifted her head to look into the distance, the lights of the town where her sister lived still just a speck on the horizon. So far away that it might as well have been the stars. The wound on her neck opened like a mouth to pour out another gush of blood, and she felt her face hit the ground, no longer strong enough to hold it up.

She only registered dimly that she could no longer feel the cold before there was nothing left to feel at all.

CHAPTER NINE

Zoe was dismayed to find that the motel was even shabbier on the inside than it had looked from the outside.

“Only the finest for the FBI,” Shelley joked. “That’s why they call us ‘special’ agents, right?”

Zoe grunted, turning back from her examination of the threadbare sofa in the lobby just in time to see the receptionist returning. “Here’s your key,” he said, tossing one plastic card onto the surface of the counter. It slid over toward them, stopping just before it teetered off the edge.

“Thanks,” Shelley said, picking it up and lifting her hand in a gesture of acknowledgment.

Zoe didn’t think his customer service skills warranted even that.

The man said nothing. He slumped back into his chair and grabbed up his cell from in front of him, resuming whatever activity he had been engaged in when they entered.

“You know where we can get a decent bite to eat at this time of night?” Shelley asked.

“Diner ’bout five miles down,” he said, lifting his chin in the approximate direction without looking up.

Shelley thanked him again, to as little response as the first time. They left him where he was, Zoe leading her away before she could try to start another conversation with the world’s surliest clerk, heading back out into the cold night of the parking lot.

“Should we go for dinner?” Shelley asked. “Or set up the room first?”

“We should put our bags in, at least,” Zoe said, sighing. She rubbed the back of her neck, stiff and sore from the long day and the driving they had done. “Then food.”

“So much for getting on a plane before the day was out,” Shelley remarked, hefting the key and examining it for the room number. She led them across the lot to a door much like all of the others in the long, low building, unlocking it with a swipe.

“It looks like this was more of a complex case than expected,” Zoe agreed. The mild words hid the anger she was harboring toward herself. She should have been able to solve this one, read the numbers and taken him down. Not leave him the chance to kill again. If someone died tonight, it would be on her.

The room was small, two single beds placed less than a foot apart with old-fashioned floral bedspreads. The kind that had probably been purchased in the eighties, or even earlier, and washed over and over again until they were thin and scratchy. At least, Zoe hoped they had been washed.

She kicked one leg of the bedframe, eyeing it warily to see how much it shifted. It felt good, but not good enough. Zoe could probably have kicked the whole place until her leg hurt, and it still wouldn’t work out the frustration she felt. She should have been home by now, not sitting in a motel and waiting for a killer to claim another victim that she could do nothing to prevent.

She thought of Euler and Pythagoras, and hoped they were all right. She had a delayed-release feeder set up for nights like these, but the cats were too clever for their own good. Once before, they had broken into it and eaten half a week’s supply in one night. She’d come home a few hours later to find them lying bloated and happy, so full they could only wave their tails in response to her voice.