Chapter 15 #3
“The key,” the girl called. “His pocket, his pocket.” The teenager thrust her ankle out from under the blanket, and Diane saw that there was a shackle around it, attached by a chain to the bed’s foot post. “Hurry.”
Diane crouched beside the prone man. He’d fallen facedown, so she had to roll him onto his back, and he was not small.
She knelt on one side and pushed with one arm because she was not letting go of her fire extinguisher until she and the girl were safe.
She had to put her shoulder into it before he flopped onto his back.
His face was lax, eyes closed, head dented in on one side.
No blood. She hadn’t hit him hard enough, then, had she?
She kept her eyes on his face as she checked his pockets.
His phone was in one. Damn phones were the bane of modern existence. She took it out of his pocket and turned it off, then dropped it into her purse. She dug into another pocket and found the key.
“Is this it?” she asked as she pulled it from the pocket.
The girl nodded.
Diane’s body was starting to shake, an involuntary reaction to violence. Probably there was adrenaline or whatever they’d renamed it coursing through her veins.
She held the fire extinguisher under her arm and tried to use the key but it was awkward with the gloves.
She finally peeled them off in frustration, cramming them into her pockets and using her hands.
It was hard to unlock the shackle while keeping her eyes on the fallen man.
His chest was still rising and falling. He was still alive.
“Do you have clothes here?” she whispered, her gaze riveted to the man, her hands still fumbling with the lock.
“Yeah.”
“Be quick. I don’t think he’s—”
The leg shackle clicked open. Diane stood holding the extinguisher in both hands again, her unblinking eyes on Dan, her back to the girl, her blood pressure in the stratosphere. In thirty seconds, the girl was beside her. “I’m dressed, get me out of here.”
Diane started to put an arm around her, but she flinched away. “Okay,” she said. “Okay. Sorry.”
There were sunglasses in Dan’s breast pocket, so she took them out and handed them to the girl, then dug in her purse for a spare COVID mask—she always had them—and handed her that.
She was a tiny thing. She wore jeans, a T-shirt, and a dark blue hoodie. “Put up the hood, and tuck your hair inside,” Diane advised. “Try to walk like a guy, if you can. Long strides, widespread. They like to own the space.”
“Tell me about it.” She pulled up her hoodie and went to step over Dan, who was on the floor between them and the door.
Suddenly, his hand closed around the girl’s ankle, and his eyes flew open.
Shrieking, the girl twisted her body, snatched the fire extinguisher from Diane, and just started swinging. She smashed Dan’s skull once, twice, three times, four, before Diane managed to catch hold of her arms.
“Stop! Jesus!” Because it was not pretty.
This time, there was no doubt that Dangerous Dan was dead. The evidence of it had been flung all over the room. How were they ever going to clean this up?
The girl dropped the extinguisher. “Can we go? Please?”
“You can’t get out of here the normal way, hon,” Diane said. “Not after this. There are cameras everywhere. On the other hand, it’s dark outside, and there’s a fire escape. Do you have anywhere to go?”
The girl shook her head.
“Where’s your family?”
She sniffled. Her hands were trembling. Diane knew how she felt. “Iowa.”
“You ran away?”
She nodded rapidly. “But it wasn’t that bad there.
Not like this. Not like this. He said he’d help me.
He had connections in the modeling industry, and he could get me an agent and…
First it was just pictures. Then they just…
took me.” There were no tears. Barely any inflection to her tone, nor emotion in her eyes.
The poor girl sounded dead inside. “My family won’t want me back. ”
“Family always wants you back. Always. You need to get a bus ticket home. Believe me, it’s your best, safest option—as long as nobody there was abusing you.”
“My old man’s an asshole, but at least he’s not a perv.”
“Good.” Diane pulled out her wallet to give her some cash, but the girl was ahead of her. She crouched and took Dan’s wallet from his pants, and a fat wad of bills from the wallet. “Fucker,” she said, and then she kicked him in the ribs.
She turned to Diane, stuffing the cash into her pocket. “There’s a stairway to the roof, and a freight elevator we can take down from up there. No cameras. It’s how he got me in here. Less noticeable than the fire escape.”
Diane nodded. It was a perfect plan. “You’re smart. You’re gonna be okay. What’s your name?”
The girl looked at the very dead man on the floor, then shook her head. “You just watched me kill a guy. I don’t think I want to tell you my name.”
“If it makes you feel any better, hon, I was gonna kill him anyway.”
The girl looked up and smiled slightly. She dropped Dan’s wallet on his chest and stepped over him and through the door.
On her way out of the suite, Diane put up the Do Not Disturb sign.