Too? Then she believes that I’m already dead, Doyle thought.
“Courtney!” He did not care if the man downstairs heard him.
“I’m okay. Colin will be okay.”
“Alex? Is that you?”
“It’s me,” he said. Holding the crude weapon tightly in his good hand,
he went across the landing and down the steps, hurrying after the
madman.
Twenty-six Colin tried the kitchen door. it was locked. He did not
want to waste time trying all the windows, and he was not about to walk
through the front entrance which had so completely swallowed Alex. He
hesitated only a second, then reversed the pistol, held it by the
barrel, and used the butt to smash in one of the large panes of glass in
the door.
He thought he ought to be able to get inside quickly enough to find a
good hiding place before the madman reached the kitchen. Then he would
come out of concealment and shoot the man in the back.
But he could not find the latch. He thrust one arm through the empty
windowpane, scratching it on the remaining shards of glass, and he felt
around on the inside of the door. But the lock mechanism escaped his
fingers. There did not seem to be a lock switch.
He looked at the other end of the well-lighted kitchen, at the door the
man would come through.
Precious seconds passed while he fumbled noisily, desperately for the
unseen latch.
And, suddenly, he found it. He cried out, twisted it, and pushed the
door open, stumbling into the kitchen with the .32 held out in front of
him.
Before he could look for a place to hide, George Leland came through the
other door. Colin recognized the man at once, though he had not seen
him in two years. But the recognition did not freeze him.
He pointed the gun at Leland’s chest and pulled the trigger.
The recoil numbed his arms clear up to the elbows.
Leland moved in like an express train, roaring wordlessly. He swung one
open hand and sent the boy sprawling on the shiny tile floor.
Colin’s pistol clattered among the table and chair legs, out of reach.
And the boy knew, as he watched the gun spin away, that his first and
only shot had missed the mark.
Alex was halfway through the dining room, closing in on the stranger’s
unprotected back while the man was still unaware of him, when the shot
exploded in the kitchen. He heard the madman shout, saw him leap
forward. He heard Colin squeal and something overturn an instant later.
But he did not know who had shot whom.
Running the last few feet into the kitchen, he raised the spiked board
over his head.
On the floor by the refrigerator, Colin was trying to get to his feet.
Two yards away, the stranger raised his pistol . . .
Crying out in terror and a sort of savage glee, Alex brought his club
down, swung it with all his strength. The three spikes raked the back
of the other man’s skull.
The stranger howled, dropped his gun, grabbed at his head with both
hands. He staggered two steps and was brought up by the heavy
butcher-block table.
Alex struck again. The spikes pierced the man’s hands this time,
briefly nailing them to his skull before Doyle jerked the board away.
The madman came around to face his attacker, his bleeding hands thrown
up to ward off the next blow.
Alex met the wide blue eyes, and he thought that there was definitely
more than a trace of sanity in them now, something clean and rational.
The madness had temporarily fallen away.
Alex did not care about that. He swung the club again. The spikes
grazed the stranger’s face, furrowed the flesh, drew three red streaks
across one cheek.
“Please,” the man said, leaning back over the table, crossing his arms
in front of his face. “Please! Please stop!”
But Doyle knew that if he stopped now, the insanity might well return to
those eyes quickly and with a vengeance. The big man might lunge
forward and regain the advantage. And then he would show no mercy.