jerked back. As her fingers clawed for a solid grip, she felt the hard
object under Brophy’s shoulder. Her fingers instinctively closed around
the metal. With her back to the gunman, she was able to tuck Brophy’s
revolver into her coat pocket without being observed.
When she opened the door, something hit her in the back.
Frightened out of her mind, she managed to turn around and eyed her
purse where it had fallen on top of Brophy’s body after bouncing off
her. Then her eyes caught hold of the computer disk Jason had sent her
as the hand holding it disappeared back through the partition.
With trembling hands she picked up her purse, pushed open the heavy door
all the way and fell out of the car. Then she staggered up and raced
away with every ounce of energy in her possession.
Back in the limo the man leaned through the partition. Next to him in
the front seat, Parker was slumped over, a bullet hole in his right
temple. The man carefully picked up the minicassette recorder where it
had fallen on the seat of the limo and played a few seconds of it. He
nodded to himself when he heard the voices and then carefully moved
Brophy’s body slightly to the side, slid the recorder several inches
under his body and let him slump back to his original position. The
disk was put away in the man’s fanny pack. His last act was to
carefully pick up the three shell casings ejected from the pistol. He
couldn’t make it too easy for the cops. Then the man exited the limo,
the gun he had used to murder three people carried in a baggie for
deposit in an out-of-the-way place, but not so out of the way that the
police would fail to uncover it.
Kenneth Scales took off the ski mask. Under the bright lights of the
empty garage the deadly blue eyes twinkled with deep satisfaction.
Another night’s work successfully completed.
Sidney punched the elevator button again and again until finally the
doors opened. She slumped against the wall of the elevator car.
She was covered in blood. She could feel it on her face, her hands. It
was all she could do not to start shrieking at the top of her lungs.
She just wanted to get it off her. Wth an unsteady hand she hit the
button for the eighth floor.
As soon as she got to the ladies’ room and saw her bloody image in the
mirror, she threw up in the sink, then dropped to the floor, where she
lay moaning, the dry heaves pounding her unmercifully.
Finally she managed to pull herself up and wash off the blood as best
she could. She continued to pour hot water over her face until its
sting began to calm the shakes; she kept raking shaky fingers through
her hair, probing for things that did not belong there.
Leaving the rest room, she ran down the hallway to her office and
grabbed a spare trench coat that she kept there. It effectively covered
the remnants of blood that had refused to come off. Then she picked up
the phone and prepared to dial 911. She gripped the .32 with her other
hand. She could not shake the feeling that at any moment that gleaming
pistol would be pointed in her direction again. That the man behind the
black mask would not let her live a second time. She had keyed two of
the numbers. Then her hand froze as the vision hit her. In the limo:
the barrel of the gun staring her in the face. Then its image as it
swung toward the door. That’s when she saw it.
The grip. The cracked grip. Cracked when she had dropped the gun back
at her home. The man had her gun. Two men had just been murdered with
her 9mm.
Another vision burned into her brain. The tape of her and Jason’s
conversation. That too was back there, with the dead men. The reason
why she had been left alive became abundantly clear to Sidney Archer:
She had been allowed to live so that she could rot in jail for murder.