beers. He grabbed one of the cans because it contained one-third more
ounces than a bottle of Corona.
The first long swallow fueled the fire in his throat instead of
quenching it. The second hurt slightly less than the first, the third
less than the second, and thereafter every sip was as soothing as
medicated honey.
With the pistol in one hand and the half-empty can of Coors in the
other, shivering more at the memory of what had happened and at the
prospect of what lay ahead than because of the iv her h went back
through the house to the foyer.
The Other was gone.
Marty was so startled, he dropped the Coors. The can rolled behind him,
spilling foamy beer on the hardwood floor of the living room.
Although the can had slipped out of his grasp so easily, nothing short
of hydraulic prybars could have forced him to let go of the gun.
Broken balusters, a section of handrail, and splinters littered the
foyer floor. Several Mexican tiles were cracked and chipped from the
impact of hard oak and Smith & Wesson steel. No body.
From the moment the double entered Marty’s office, the waking day had
drifted into nightmare without the usual prerequisite of sleep.
Events had slipped the chains of reality, and his own home had become a
dark dreamscape. As surreal as the confrontation had been, he hadn’t
seriously doubted its actuality while it had been playing out.
And he didn’t doubt it now, either. He hadn’t shot a figment of the
mind, been strangled by an illusion, or plunged alone through the
gallery railing. Lying incapacitated in the foyer, The Other had been
as real as the shattered balustrade still scattered on the tiles.
Alarmed by the possibility that Paige and the girls had been attacked in
the street before they had gotten to the Delorios’ house, Marty turned
to the front door. It was locked. From the inside. The security chain
was in place. The madman hadn’t left the house by that route.
Hadn’t left it at all. How could he, in his condition? Don’t panic.
Be calm. Think it through.
Marty would have bet a year of his life that The Other’s catastrophic
injuries had been real, not pretense. The bastard’s back had been
broken. His inability to move more than his head and the fingers of one
hand meant his spine probably had been severed, as well, when he had
done his gravity dance with the floor.
So where was he?
Not upstairs. Even if his spine hadn’t been damaged, even if he’d
escaped quadriplegia, he couldn’t have dragged his battered body up to
the second floor during the short time Marty had been in the kitchen.
Opposite the entrance to the living room, a small den opened off the
study. The dishwater-gray light of the storm-washed dusk seeped between
the open slats of the shutters, illuminating nothing. Marty stepped
through the doorway, snapped on the lights. The den was deserted. At
the closet, he slid open the mirrored door, but The Other wasn’t hiding
in there, either.
Foyer closet. Nothing. Powder bath. Nothing. The deep closet under
the stairs. Laundry. Family room. Nothing, nothing, nothing.
Marty searched frantically, recklessly, heedless of his safety.
He expected to discover his would-be killer nearby and essentially
helpless, perhaps even dead, this feeble attempt at escape having
depleted the last of the man’s resources.
Instead, in the kitchen, he found the back door standing open to the
patio. A gust of cold wind swept in from outside, rattling the cupboard
doors. On the rack by the entrance to the garage, Paige’s raincoat
billowed with false life.
While Marty had been returning to the foyer via the dining room and
living room, The Other had headed for the kitchen by another route. He
must have gone along the short hall that led from the foyer past the
powder bath and laundry, and then crossed one end of the family room.
He couldn’t have crawled that far so quickly. He had been on his feet,
perhaps unsteady, but on his feet nonetheless.
No. It wasn’t possible. Okay, maybe the guy didn’t have a severed
spine, after all. Maybe not even a fractured spine. But his back had