how it had wrapped her husband’s cold and naked cadaver, and she
shuddered uncontrollably.
“Enough of this,” Benny said, putting his arm around her for warmth and
support. “I’m getting you the hell out of this place.
Everett Kordell and Ronald Tescanet accompanied Rachael and Benny to the
elevator in the parking garage, continuing to make a case for the
morgue’s and the city’s complete lack of culpability in the body’s
disappearance.
They were not convinced by her repeated assurances that she did not
intend to sue anyone. There were so many things for her to think and
worry about that she had neither the energy nor the inclination to
persuade them that her intentions were benign. She just wanted to be
rid of them so she could get on with the urgent tasks that awaited her.
When the elevator doors closed, finally separating her and Benny from
the lean pathologist and the corpulent attorn,e,y, Benny said, “If it
was me, I think I would sue them.
“Lawsuits, countersuits, deposiflons, legal strategy meetings,
couflrnomsboring, boring, boring,” Rachael said. She opened her purse
as the elevator rose.
“Verdad is a cool son of a bitch, isn’t he?” Benny said.
“Just doing his job, I guess.” Rachael took the thirty-two pistol out
of her purse.
Benny, watching the light move on the board of numbers above the lift’s
doors, did not immediately see the gun. “Yeah, well, he could do his
job with a little more compassion and a little less machinelike
efficiency.”
They had risen one and a half floors from the basement. On the
indicator panel, the 2 was about to light.
Her Mercedes was one level farther up.
Benny had wanted to bring his car, but Rachael had insisted on driving
her own. As long as she was behind the wheel, her hands were occupied
and her attention was partly on the road, so she couldn’t become
morbidly preoccupied with the frightening situation in which she found
herself. If she had nothing to do but brood about recent developments,
she would very likely lose the tenuous self-control she now possessed.
She had to remain busy in order to hold terror at arm’s length and stave
off panic.
They reached the second floor and kept going up.
She said, “Benny, step away from the door.”
“Huh?” He looked down from the lightboard, blinked in surprise when he
saw the pistol. “Hey, where the hell did you get that?”
“Brought it from home.”
“Why?”
“Please step back. Quickly now, Benny,” she said shakily, aiming at the
doors.
Still blinking, confused, he got out of the way.
“What,’s going on? You’re not going to shoot anybody.”
Her thunderous heartbeat was so loud that it muffled his voice and made
it sound as if he were speaking to her from a distance.
They arrived at the third floor.
The indicator board went ping! The 3 elevator stopped with a slight
bounce.
“Rachael, answer me. What is this?”
She did not respond. She had gotten the gun after leaving Eric. A
woman alone ought to have a gun…
especially after walking out on a man like him. As the doors rolled
open, she tried to remember what her pistol instructor had said, Don’t
jerk the trigger, squeeze it slowly, or you’ll pull the muzzle off
target and miss.
But no one was waiting for them, at least not in front of the elevator.
The gray concrete floor, walls, pillars, and ceiling looked like those
in the basement from which they’d begun their ascent. The silence was
the same, too, sepulchral and somehow threatening. The air was less
dank and far warmer than it had been three levels below, though it was
every bit as still. A few of the ceiling lights were burned out or
broken, so a greater number of shadows populated the huge room than had
darkened the basement, and they seemed deeper as well, better suited for
the complete concealment of an attacker, though perhaps her imagination
painted them blacker than they really were.
Following her out of the elevator, Benny said, “Rachael, who are you
afraid of?”
“Later. Right now let’s just get the hell out of here.”
“But-” “Later.”
Their footsteps echoed and reechoed hollowly off the concrete, and she