later, bounced off it. Locked. She heard Hatch shouting her name-thank
God, he was alive, he was alive-but she didn’t stop or turn around to
see where he was. She stepped back and kicked the door hard, then
kicked it again. It was only a privacy latch, lIimsy, it ought to pop
open easily, but didn’t.
She was going to kick it again, but the killer spoke to her through the
door. His voice was raised but not a shout, menacing but cool, no panic
in it, no fear, just businesslike and a liNe loud, terrifyingly smooth
and calm: “Get away from the door, or I’ll kill the little bitch.”
Just before Lindsey began to shout his name, Hatch was sitting at the
desk in the den, lights off, holding Arts American in both hands. A
vision hit him with an electric sound, the crackle of a current jumping
an are, as if the magazine were a live power cable that he had gripped
in his bare hands.
He saw Lindsey from behind, sitting on the high stool in her office, at
the drawing board, working on a sketch. Then she was not Lindsey any
more. Suddenly she was another woman, taller, also seen from behind but
not on the stool, in an armchair in a different room in a strange house.
She was knitting. A bright skein of yarn slowly unraveled from a
retaining bowl on the small table beside her chair. Hatch thought of
her as “mother,” though she was nothing whatsoever like his mother. He
looked down at his right hand, in which he held a knife, immense,
already wet with blood. He approached her chair. She was unaware of
him. As Hatch, he wanted to cry out and warn her. But as the user of
the knife, through whose eyes he was seeing everything, he wanted only
to savage her, tear the life out of her, and thereby complete the task
that would free him. He stepped to the back of her armchair. She
hadn’t heard him yet. He raised the knife high. He struck. She
screamed. He struck. She tried to get out of the chair. He moved
around her, and from his point of view it was like a swooping shot in a
movie meant to convey flight, the smooth glide of a bird or bat. He
pushed her back into the chair, struck. She raised her hands to protect
herself. He struck. He struck. And now, as if it was all a loop of
film, he was behind her again, standing in the doorway, except she
wasn’t “mother” any more, she was Lindsey again, sitting at the drawing
board in her upstairs studio, reaching to the top drawer of her supply
cabinet and pulling it open. His gaze rose from her to the window.
He saw himself-pale face, dark hair, sun glasses and knew she had seen
him. She spun around on the stool, a pistol coming up, the muzzle aimed
straight at his chest “Hatch!”
His name, echoing through the house, shattered the link. He shot up
from the desk chair, shuddering, and the magazine fell out of his hands.
“Hatch!”
Reaching out in the darkness, he unerringly found the handgrip of the
Browning, and raced out of the den. As he crossed the foyer and climbed
the stairs two at a time, looking up as he went, trying to see what was
happening, he heard Lindsey stop shouting his name and start screaming
“Regina!” Not the girl Jesus, please, not the girl.
Reaching the top of the stairs, he thought for an instant that the
slamming door was a shot But the sound was too distinct to be mistaken
for , and as he looked back the hall he saw Lindsey bounce off the door
to Regina’s room with another crash. As he ran to join her, she kicked
the door, kicked again, and then she stumbled back from it as he reached
her.
“lemme try,” he said, pushing her.
“No! He said back off or he’ll kill her.”
For a couple of seconds, Hatch stared at the door, literally shaking
with frustration. Then he took hold of the knob, tried to turn it