The front door of the Richter house flew open and banged shut with an unnecessary slam. Joey Richter raced in, dumped his schoolbooks on the hall table without slowing down, and made a speedy circuit of the downstairs rooms. He came to a stop at the foot of the stairs.
"Mom!" he called
Mrs. Jensen came down the stairs carrying a basket of laundry. "Your mother isn't home. And if she was, she'd tell you not to slam the door."
"Where is she?"
"She had an appointment downtown."
"With the doctor?"
"I wouldn't know."
"Why did she have to see the doctor today? This isn't her day."
"I'm sure I couldn't say."
"She's probably having those dreams again. The ones that scare her."
"I don't know anything about any dreams," Mrs. Jensen said. "Now come in and eat your lunch. It's good vegetable soup."
"Campbell's?"
"No, it's homemade."
"I like Campbell's."
"You're going to like this even better. Come on and I'll dish it up for you."
Joey clumped into the kitchen and ate two bowls of the soup, which he admitted was almost as good as Campbell's. He finished up with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a glass of milk while Mrs. Jensen loaded clothes into the washer in the adjoining laundry room.
"I wish Mom would get home," Joey said. "I want to tell her about the face last night."
Mrs. Jensen came back into the kitchen. "Did you say a face?"
"Yeah. Last night it looked right in my window. Wow, was it ugly!"
"You had a dream, you mean."
"Nah, it wasn't any dream, it was a face. All kind of scrunched up and hairy and with great big teeth. Really ugly."
The housekeeper studied the boy for a moment.
"Did it scare you?"
Joey met her eye seriously, then broke into mischievous laughter. "No way. I knew who it was all the time."
"Who?"
"That crazy Kelly in a rubber mask. He's always doing crazy things. Probably climbed up on the roof and thought he could scare me. Crazy."
"What would he be doing up so late?" Mrs. Jensen said with stern disapproval.
"He gets to stay up as late as he wants to," Joey said. "I'm as old as he is and don't even get to stay up and watch 'Kojak.'"
"It does you a lot more good to get your sleep than staying up to watch junk like that. Or playing dumb tricks like your friend Kelly."
"I'll tell Mom," Joey said. "She'll buy me a mask, a horribler one than Kelly's even, then I'll go to his house and really scare him."
"I don't think you'd better tell your mother about it," Mrs. Jensen said.
"Why not? She'll buy me a mask. I know she will."
"Maybe so, but your mother's not been feeling too well, and I don't think it would do her any good to hear about faces at the window and such foolishness."
"Awww."
"You want her to get well, don't you?"
"Sure."
"Then don't go bothering her with this kind of stuff."
"Oh, okay."
Joey jumped up from the table and ran outside, slamming the door firmly. Mrs. Jensen looked after him with a worried frown, then shook off the thought and got busy picking up the dishes.
CHAPTER
TEN
Room 9 in the Evergreen Motel was cool and dim in the pale light that filtered in through the curtains. Roy Beatty sat beside the bed, holding the hand of the woman who lay among the twisted sheets.
"I was worried when you didn't come home last night," he said.
Marcia rolled her head on the pillow and looked at him. There were shadows around her deep green eyes, but they shone as brilliantly as ever.
She said, "I'm all right now. It was frightening when it happened. Last night was the first time I wasn't prepared for it. It must have been the excitement of being so close, of seeing at last what we are going to do. I could not control the change.
Roy stroked a strand of black hair from her forehead. "My poor Marcia."
"It doesn't matter," she said. "There is a patch of trees near their house. I was able to reach them and stay there until daylight. No one saw me, except perhaps the boy, and I don't think he knew what he was seeing."
"Maybe we should forget about this. Go away from here. For your sake."
"Forget about it?" Marcia sat straight up in bed, and it seemed to Roy that he could see the strength flow into her body. "Never! I have not waited this long, come this far, only to turn back. As for what happened to me last night, I will take care to see that it does not happen again. I will keep a tighter hold on my emotions."
Roy sighed and nodded his head slowly. He stood up and walked over to the window where he pulled aside the curtain and looked out over the asphalt of the parking lot. The Evergreen was not on one of the main highways which ran through Seattle, and in the middle of the week there was little business. There were only three cars parked outside, the white Ford, which Roy had rented, and two others. They looked cold and abandoned in the misting rain.
"If it's going to rain, I wish to Christ it would really rain," he said irritably. "This everlasting drizzle is driving me up the wall."
"We won't have to be here much longer," Marcia said. "Your Karyn is frightened and worried now. The way we want her."
"Why do you keep calling her my Karyn?"
"I'm sorry. It was just an expression. I won't do it any more if it annoys you."
"Well, it does. Anyway, what's the need for all this?" Roy continued to stare out the window. "Why don't we do what we came to do and get it over with?"
Marcia slipped out of bed and came over to stand beside him. She took his broad hand in hers and held it against her smooth, naked hip. "Indulge me in this, my Roy, and I will make it up to you."
He held himself tensely, not looking at her. She moved his hand across the flat of her stomach and down to the crisp bush of pubic hair. He resisted for a moment more, then surrendered and turned to face her. He whispered her name. His fingers probed between her legs and found the dampness there.
Marcia grasped his wrist and held it, keeping his hand pressed against her. "When this business is over I will make you very happy. I know I have not been a complete woman to you these past months, but I will make it right in a hundred ways. You will never regret being with me, darling." She drew back and her eyes searched his face. "You are with me, aren't you, my Roy?"
"You know I am."
"Good." She kissed him lightly on the mouth, then slipped away and began to put on her clothes. Once again she was businesslike.
"Are you sure you were seen at the shopping center?"
"Karyn saw me, all right," he said. "Once when she rode the escalator below where I was standing, and again as I was going out. She followed me to the parking lot, but I lost her there."
"Good. She will have much to think about, many things to remember when we take the next step."
"And that is?"
"We kill the boy."
Roy drew in his breath and let it out slowly. "Is that the only way?"
"It is the best way. It is the way that will hurt her the most before we finally finish with her." Marcia fixed him with her eyes. "Do you have some objection?"
"It's just... killing the boy - "
Marcia's laugh clattered off the walls in the small room. "Come now, Roy. After the things you have done these past three years? The blood you have spilled? Would one more killing bother you?"
He could not meet her eye. "Remember, Marcia, I wasn't born to this life the way you were. What I am, you made me. I am not all wolf. I still have human emotions sometimes."
Marcia stepped close to him and touched his face. "I understand, my darling. The time will come when you will no longer be held back by remorse. Until then you will take strength from me. I know that when the time comes to act, you will not fail."