Blood Red

He nodded and the smile on his face faded a bit. “Don’t be a stranger.”

“Not on a bet.”

She slipped out the front door with another wave and crossed over to her own apartment. The sky was overcast, but the world still seemed too bright.

A moment later she was inside where everything was tolerable again. Just the act of walking across the courtyard left her feeling as weak as a baby.

She’d barely gotten into her living room before the phone rang. It was Tom. He needed to see her and he had a job for her that was going to pay well. She agreed to meet him just after six at his place.

It was a job. It was what she did.

But not for much longer. She just had to decide how to break it to Monkey Boy without him putting a few bullets through her head or doing something even worse that would leave her alive and ruined when he was done.

VI

Alan Tripp tore a few layers of skin away from his hand and reopened the wounds under his stitches, but he finally managed to get free of the restraint. After the first one, the rest were easy, if painful. He rummaged in the supply drawer until he found gauze and tape, and then awkwardly applied a pressure bandage.

Now all he had to do was get out of the psychiatric ward.

They were calling to him every night, just as soon as the sun set, and this time around, he intended to answer his family when they called.

They needed him, damn it, and he wasn’t going to let down Avery or Meghan again.

He leaned against the wall near the only entrance into the room and closed his eyes, letting himself drift for a while. The pain was just enough to stop him from going to sleep, and when he feared that he would actually start counting sheep, he just slapped his hand against the wall. One quick explosion of pain and he was good to go again, a trick that worked every time.

Some time later, he heard the wheels on the meal cart squeaking down the long hallway. It was a distinctive noise far different from the other tables and carts the interns were rolling around. Best of all, it was usually manned by only one person.

That was important; he didn’t know if he could bring himself to kill more than one.

It hadn’t taken long to figure out the routine; every few hours the cafeteria worker would bring food, normally something that could be eaten with just fingers, and set it down on the ReadyServe rolling table at the foot of the bed. The table was put into position and locked in place at the height of the patient’s chest, and the meal was left behind. The straps had just enough give that a patient who was limber enough could eat, even if they couldn’t quite get the cloth covering their wrists to the right level for chewing through their restraints.

The less fortunate ones got spoon-fed or, in extreme cases, forced to choke down their liquefied meals with a tube down through the nose.

Alan had made sure to avoid that particular experience.

He wasn’t really in the full-scale loony bin. He was “under observation” because he’d assaulted two police officers. He supposed he was lucky he hadn’t gotten himself killed. But because the rooms were all full at the inn, he got put in the manger: the rooms he and four others were occupying were technically being renovated. That was okay. He could handle that.

In all honesty, it was kind of a bonus, because at least these rooms weren’t equipped with cameras. He didn’t know for sure, but he figured the really serious cases were kept in rubber rooms with several cameras taping their every move.

So he had a chance, at last. He could maybe get himself free from this place and get out to Meghan and Avery. He was willing to try; he was willing to die trying.

They needed him.

The wheels rolled closer and came to a stop outside his door. He waited as patiently as he could for the door to swing inward.

And when the man with the food tray stepped inside, he was ready. He was a big man, six feet, two inches tall and somewhere around two hundred and fifty pounds; most of it was muscle. The guy had shaved his head, presumably to stop patients from ripping it out by the roots. So his large, shiny skull made a perfect target. Alan pushed away from the wall and slammed his forehead into the back of the man’s skull. It hurt, but it worked. The tray the man carried—paper, of course—fell from his hands and he reached back to check what had happened. As he did, Alan moved forward, too, bringing both of his fists into play and punching the poor bastard in the face and in the neck.

The bruiser hit the tile and grunted. Alan reached for him, ready to slam his face into the ground as many times as he had to in order to get free.

He never made it. The man spun on one hip and cocked back his leg. An instant later Alan had a size twelve loafer buried in his stomach and knocking him back against the wall.

“You outta your fucking head?” The man didn’t talk, he growled. He also stood back up, a look of absolute rage on his face. Alan managed to duck the fist that tried to separate his face from his skull.