coming up the stairs. The footfalls were muffled, as if the intruders were trying to approach as quietly as possible.
“Two. Three…” Counting out loud almost inaudibly, the big man was staring at something above his head. She followed his gaze and saw a tiny red pinprick of light appear just above the door. “Four.” He looked up for a second longer. Under the beard, his mouth was set in a tight line.
“Four of them.” He saw her confusion. “Something I rigged up under that fifth stair,” he said briefly, unlocking the door. “The light goes on inside the room, too, so I know if someone’s coming. Hold on, I’ve got to disable something.”
Cautiously pushing the door open an inch or so, he squatted and felt along its bottom edge, finally releasing her hand to do so. This was her chance to run, Ainslie thought. She didn’t move.
“Okay, we can go in.” He straightened and opened the door completely. “I guess this is the last time I’ll have to reset it. This place is blown now.”
“‘Blown’?” she repeated, moving like an automaton ahead of him into the room. The wavering beam of his flashlight seemed to be growing fainter, and she felt a sudden sharp panic overlay the nebulous fear gripping her. His solid bulk brushed against her in the dark, and her panic eased a notch.
Which was stupid, she admitted to herself. He was the reason she was creeping around in the dark in the first place, jumping at the slightest sound. That flashing light over the door was a perfect illustration of just how unbalanced the man was—and how off balance he’d made her feel, since for a moment there, watching the red pinprick, she’d actually believed it meant something.
“Blown. Finished.” His elaboration was perfunctory. “I won’t be able to come back here again.”
At his last words Ainslie heard a small clicking sound, and the next moment she was squinting her eyes against the harsh brightness that suddenly illuminated the room. Still blinking, she peered at him suspiciously.
“How did you do that? Is that another gadget you rigged up?”
He looked at her as if she were crazy. “Yeah. It’s called a light switch.”
“But…but the power to this place must have been cut off years ago.”
She looked around her. The hotel room that this must have originally been was no longer recognizable as such. It was obvious that he’d been living here long enough to put his own stamp on the place. His own wacky stamp, Ainslie thought, not knowing whether to laugh or to be appalled.
Whatever the booby trap was that he’d jury-rigged at the entrance, it was hardly necessary. On either side of them were towering walls of bundled newspapers, and even as she turned she felt the wall nearest her sway ominously. He grabbed her arm.
“Watch out, they’re balanced pretty delicately. Walk behind me and try not to touch the sides. It opens out just past the curve.” Setting off down his insane hallway, he kept talking, no longer making an effort to keep his voice low. “I ran a line in. What the power company doesn’t know won’t hurt them. I needed the electricity to make the modifications, anyway.”
“What modifications?” she asked faintly, following him. They reached the curve in the newspapers, and he stopped so suddenly that she almost ran into him.
“The door, for one. I replaced it with a steel one, and then painted it to match the rest of them again. And of course all the interior walls had to be sheeted with quarter-inch steel, in case they tried to get in from one of the adjoining rooms.”
“Good thinking.” Ainslie pressed her fingers to her forehead, hardly able to absorb what she was hearing—and seeing. The man was a full-blown paranoiac. That was a given. But there was no denying he was also quite a handy renovator, in his own unique way.
Somewhere in the real world Sullivan would be attempting to apologize for her actions to an incredulous Pearson, she supposed. Somewhere in the real world the man whose wife she should have been by now would be wondering how he’d managed to read her character so inaccurately.
In that real world was a man she’d behaved unforgivably toward, Ainslie thought. She owed it to him to deliver her apology in person, and as soon as possible. Except that she first had to find a way out of this fantasy world she’d stumbled into.
She had no idea what the Rube Goldberg-esque contraptions around her were supposed to do. In one corner of the room was what looked to be the back half of a bicycle. Attached to it was a circular leather strap, and nearby were neatly lined-up rows of car batteries, each with alligator clips and wires snaking from each terminal. Out of the corner of her eye she could see similarly strange juxtapositions of junk, but she purposely didn’t look at them. Instead she looked at their creator. Even as she did, though, he turned from her and headed toward the truncated bicycle.
“Thank God, I finished this yesterday,” he said with a touch of satisfaction. “I figure the first thing they’ll do is get the outside team to cut the power.”
“The outside team? I thought you said they were coming up the stairs.” She kept her tone carefully neutral. “Shouldn’t they have been here by now?”
Hunched over his invention, he didn’t look up, but she could hear the amusement in his voice. “That was the first wave. I’ve already taken care of them. If everything went the way I planned it, the four of them are in the basement right now, probably with a broken bone or two among them. Trap door on the first landing,” he added, toggling a switch on one of the batteries. “I activated it at the same time I turned the lights on.”
This time she couldn’t hide her horrified reaction. “A trap door? For God’s sake, it was probably a group of street kids on those stairs! Are you out of your mind?”
“The mechanism is weight sensitive. It can’t even be tripped by a good-size teenager, only by a full-grown male who’s packing a lot of muscle—and equipment.” Setting a lever at the side of the bicycle wheel, he stood, turning to face her. “And no, I’m not crazy. But you’re just going to have to trust me on that for a few more—”
The room was suddenly plunged into darkness once more, and Ainslie heard him draw in a sharp breath. “Tell me you did that,” she said, fighting her sudden desire to reach out and touch him. “Another one of your gadgets, right?”
“No, that was them. They’re moving faster than I thought.” She heard him bend down again. “Here, put this on.”
Something was pressed into her hands, and she started. Whatever it was it felt clammy and rubbery. Even as she opened her mouth to ask him what it was, a low humming sound started, gaining in volume and speed. A moment later the room was dimly illuminated with the weak yellow glow of a bare bulb in the ceiling. In front of her the bicycle wheel was spinning madly, the leather strap attaching it to the smaller flywheel near the batteries a brown blur.
“It’s a gas mask. They used gas the last time, and I almost didn’t get away. I wasn’t expecting to need two of these, but I thought I’d better keep a spare handy.” In the half light she saw him smile lopsidedly at her. “This must be our lucky day.”
Malone’s grin had been one-sided, she thought distractedly, fumbling at the rubber-and-metal mask with no real idea of what she was supposed to do with it. He put his on, the cylindrical snout of the mask giving him a distinctly alien appearance. Taking hers, he slipped it into place over her face and adjusted it at the
