Even after she knew he was dead.
Because he’d thrown Eric. He’d flung her son across the room and hurt him. That was Slade’s worst offense. But he’d also inflicted himself on Sandy. If Eric hadn’t come to the rescue, he would’ve raped her for sure.
“You’re lucky I ever stopped stabbing you,” she muttered, then smiled as she realized what she’d said.
“Lucky,” she repeated. “You’re just brimming over with luck.”
But she’d made such a mess.
Too bad I didn’t strangle him, she thought, and shook her head. It would’ve been impossible to strangle the man. Without Agnes Kutch’s butcher knife, she wouldn’t have stood a chance.
He would’ve raped her, beaten her, maybe even killed her.
And God only knows what he might’ve done to poor little Eric.
The knife had been her salvation.
The bloody mess was part of the price that had to be paid for survival.
Before getting into the shower with Eric, Sandy had decided to leave the cleanup for later. First things first. Get the hell out of town, then worry about disposing of Slade’s body and trying to scrub the blood off the walls and floor.
She finished fastening her belt. Barefoot, she walked over to the body. The rug felt sodden and sticky under her feet.
Now I’ll be tracking blood through the place!
Annoyed, she crouched beside Slade’s right hip. She patted the outside of his front trouser pocket, felt a flat object and heard a slight rattle of keys.
She reached into the pocket. The wet lining clung to her hand. She wrinkled her nose, but dug deeper until she wrapped her fingers around the key case.
She pulled it out.
She wiped the black leather case against her shirt to clean it off, then dropped it into a front pocket of her shorts. Her hand felt tacky from Slade’s pocket, so she rubbed it on her shirt.
She hoped the sticky wet stuff was only blood.
Standing up, she wondered how to avoid leaving a trail of bloody footprints on her way out.
Earlier, she hadn’t been clear-headed enough to worry about such things. She’d carried Eric from the bedroom to the bathroom without giving a thought to the mess she was making. Those tracks would have to be cleaned up. But why double her work by making a new set all the way to the front door?
Her shirt was already ruined, anyway.
She took it off. Standing on her right foot, she used the shirt to wipe the blood off the bottom of her left foot. Then she took a giant step toward the bedroom doorway and set her clean foot down on a section of rug that didn’t seem to have much blood on it. She shifted her weight to that foot. Standing on it, she crossed her right foot over her knee and wiped it clean.
When she started down the hall, her feet felt dry against the rug. She knew she wasn’t leaving a trail, so she didn’t bother looking back. There wasn’t enough light to see much, anyway. Ahead of her, the bathroom light was still on. It filled the short hallway with a dim glow so she could see where she was going. She didn’t want more.
She entered the bathroom, filled the sink with cold water, and stuffed her shirt into it. The water turned rosy. As she swirled the shirt around, hoping to rinse off the worst of the blood, she looked at herself in the mirror and found no blood on her face or chest or belly.
She didn’t want to put the shirt back on. It would be cold and wet. Worse, it would still be stained with Slade’s blood in spite of the washing. The idea of his blood touching her skin... She couldn’t wear the shirt again. Wouldn’t. But she didn’t want to go for a clean one, either. She’d seen enough of Slade for a while. She’d smelled enough of him, too. And if she returned to her bedroom, her feet would get bloody again.
She let the water drain out of the sink, then held the shirt underneath the spigot and ran clean, cold water over it. She started to scrub the ruddy stains with a bar of soap.
And tried to think of something she might wear instead of the shirt. She didn’t have a great many clothes. All that she owned, she kept in her bedroom dresser and highboy.
Anything hanging outside on the line? No. And nothing but diapers and blankets in Eric’s room. No clothes in the living room or kitchen.
I can’t go wandering around in nothing but my shorts.
Who’s going to see me, anyway? she suddenly thought.
Nobody’d better see me. It blows the whole plan if I get spotted taking his car.
But she didn’t know where Slade’s car might be. If she had to go traipsing halfway across town...
She shook her head.
The car wouldn’t be halfway across town. The director was a tubby slob. A guy like that doesn’t walk any farther than he has to. He might’ve been afraid to take his car very far up the hill—scared it might get stuck in a rut, or scratched by the trees and bushes—but he probably would’ve at least started driving up. Or maybe he’d left his car on the roadside at the foot of the hill. No big problem; the trees went nearly all the way to the edge of the pavement.
Regardless, Sandy didn’t like the idea of going that far from home in nothing but her shorts.
She finished rinsing the suds out of her shirt, then shook it open.
Just as she’d expected, plenty of stains remained.
I can’t. I can’t put this on.
She flopped the shirt over the shower curtain rod.
After drying her hands on a towel, she turned off the bathroom light and walked through the dark trailer until she found the switch by the front door. She flicked it. A lamp came on beside the sofa.
In the kitchen, she opened a drawer and took out an old dish drying towel. The flimsy white cloth had ragged edges and a couple of holes in it. Also, it was white. But she didn’t have any dark ones.
This’ll do, she thought.
She shook it open and tried to wrap it around her chest. It was too short for that. But it was long enough to hang from her shoulders to her waist, so she attempted to tie its comers together behind her neck. They wouldn’t reach far enough. She took care of the problem with a six-inch bit of string she found in a drawer. In less than a minute, the dish towel draped her front like a large, flimsy bib. Her shoulders and back remained bare, but that was fine; the towel covered her front and it was clean and dry.
Now, all she needed was a weapon.
The weapon she wanted was Agnes’s butcher knife.
After using it on Slade, she’d dropped it to the floor beside his body, hurried across the room and taken Eric into her arms.
If she wanted it, she would need to return to the bedroom.
No way.
“A knife’s a knife,” she muttered. She didn’t believe it, though. Not really.
Agnes’s knife was special.
Now that she’d used it herself, it almost seemed to possess a protective magic. It had saved her from Slade. Maybe it would save her from every enemy.
“Bull,” she said.
Besides, she was pretty sure that she wouldn’t really need a knife. This was a secret mission to retrieve Slade’s car. The whole idea was to be sneaky and not have to fight anyone. A knife would just be a precaution.
In case.
There were several on a rack above the kitchen counter. She chose one that was just as large as Agnes’s.
Knife in hand, she walked silently back to Eric’s room.
She stopped outside his door and listened. She heard the slow, easy hiss of his breathing. From the sound of it, she knew he was submerged in the depths of sleep.
She returned to the living room, opened the front door, and stepped outside. Though the day had been sunny and warm, the night was cool—chilly enough for a heavy shirt or windbreaker. She shivered a little as she shut the door and made her way carefully down the stairs.
The old, makeshift stairway wobbled. Its wooden planks felt damp and slippery from the moisture in the air. Sandy had fallen off it a couple of times in the month since moving into the trailer, but she didn’t fa
ll tonight.
The ground at the bottom of the stairs felt cool and wet. As she hurried along, pine needles clung to the bottoms of her feet.
She walked completely around the trailer, being careful not to trip over its hitch, bump into her barbeque grill, water tank, or propane tank, or collide with her clothes line. There was no sign of Slade’s car, or anything unusual. Except for the patches of moonlight, the clearing that surrounded her trailer looked dark. The forest looked even darker; only flecks of moonlight made it down through the branches.
She found her way to the old tire tracks and started following them down the hillside. She’d been using the twin trails as footpaths ever since moving into the trailer, hiking downhill each morning on one side and hiking uphill every evening on the other. Weeds had grown high in the middle, but the paths were fairly clear and easy to see in the darkness.
She stayed in the one on the right.
Around every bend, she half expected to find Marlon Slade’s car. But she rounded one bend after another without running into it.
Sandy didn’t mind the hike. She was eager to find his car and get out of town, but she really enjoyed being out like this. She liked the free, exciting way it felt to be wandering the night in nothing except her shorts and the draping dish towel. She liked the feel of her moving body, and the fabric brushing softly against her skin. She liked the cool touch of the moving air. She liked the feel of the moist earth under her feet.
Her footfalls were almost silent. She could hear the wind sliding through the trees, the squeal of seagulls and the murmur of the distant surf.
Wherever we go, she thought, it has to be a place like this.
We’ll find a nice clearing in the hills overlooking the coast, and never leave.
Unless somebody makes us.
Another Marlon Slade.
“Rotten creep,” she muttered, and felt a tightness in her throat.
We shouldn’t have to leave, she thought. It isn’t fair.
They’d already been forced out of Agnes’s house because of the damn movie people. She and Eric had been living there in secret, which had been a tricky business in the first place. But they couldn’t possibly remain hidden once the filming began, so Agnes had made arrangements for them to move into the trailer.
She’d had mixed feelings about leaving Agnes’s home.
She loved Agnes like a mother and sister and best friend all rolled into one, and had known she would miss her terribly. Not only that, but she’d been nervous about the idea of living alone.
While she’d sort of dreaded it, however, she’d also found herself thrilled by the prospect of having her own private place to live—even if it was nothing but a crummy old trailer.
She’d soon found that she loved living in the trailer.
As things turned out, she could’ve stayed at Agnes’s house for another full month. The film had run into some kind of problem that had delayed the start of shooting.
But she was glad she’d had the month.
The way things looked now, it might be the only month she would ever spend in her trailer in the hills above Malcasa Point.
Maybe she would find another place just as good...
No. Impossible. Malcasa was her home. It was where she’d met Agnes and the others, where she’d fallen in love with the father of her child, where she’d given birth.
I don’t want to leave!
Sandy began to weep as she walked down the trail.
She knew that she had to leave. There was no choice. She had to leave even though she’d killed Marlon Slade in self defense and no jury would find her guilty of murder.
Because if she stayed, she would be found out. Eric would be found out. It would be the end of their lives together.
The towel came in handy. As she strode down the trail crying, she lifted it now and again to wipe the tears from her eyes and cheeks.
It just isn’t fair, she thought. We never did anything wrong.
Well, not much, anyway.
Sandy tried to stop crying. It was noisy and messy and childish.
We’ll be fine, she told herself. We’ll just take the trailer someplace else and dump that dirty rotten son-of-bitch’s body along the way and we’ll live by ourselves in the hills and everything’ll be fine.
Soon, she reached the bottom of the slope. Using a tree for cover, she glanced up and down the two-lane, paved road. No cars were coming.
Only one car was in sight.
Parked on the gravel by the side of the road, not far away, was a tiny MG convertible.
Sandy groaned.
No, she thought. Please. Don’t let it be his.
She couldn’t possibly tow the trailer behind that.
Taking the key case out of her pocket, she hurried over to the sports car. She jerked open its door, dropped into the bucket seat, chose a key and tried it in the ignition.
It fit.
With a moan, she slumped forward and rested her head against the steering wheel.
What now? she wondered.
We have to get away tonight.
Why not go ahead and try to drive it up to the trailer, hook it up and just see if ...?
Hook it up?
“Oh cripes,” she muttered. She flung open the door and rushed toward the rear of the car.
Even before she got there, she knew that she wouldn’t find a trailer hitch.
And she was right.
Chapter Six
TUCK AND DANA
Tuck rolled the wrought iron gate open, then hurried back to the Jeep, hopped in and drove into the Beast House parking lot.
She grinned at Dana. “See? I told you we’d be the first ones here.”
“You almost have to be,” Dana pointed out. “If anybody shows up before you, they’ve got no place to park.”
“Plenty of room on Front Street, long as you get here early.” She steered across the empty lot, heading for its far corner. “Didn’t used to have any parking lot at all. Back in the old days, this was all lawn over here and everybody had to park on the street.”
“Progress,” Dana said.
“Things just got out of hand after the first movie. They had to build a parking lot.” She eased her Jeep neatly into the space between the white lines, then shut off the engine.
“Do you always park all the way over here?” Dana asked as they climbed out.
“Yep.”
“You can’t get any farther away from the gate.”
“I could’ve dropped you off back there.”
“That’s all right,” Dana said. They met behind the Jeep and started walking toward the gate. “It just seems like a funny place to park. You are the boss. You can park wherever you like.”
“I like my corner. For one thing, my car’s tucked safely out of the way where nobody is likely to bang it up. The main thing, though—I don’t want to be taking a good parking spot away from the paying customers.”
“That’s very considerate.”
Tuck grinned. “Just good business.”
“No wonder Janice has you running things.”
“It’s probably just because I’m the daughter of her husband. When you have a family business, you try to have family running it. Nobody else cares as much, and a lot of employees will rip you off if they get half a chance.”
Side by side, they walked through the gate. Turning to the right, they followed the sidewalk toward the ticket booth and entrance.
A car coming toward them on Front Street slowed down. Its left turn signal started to blink. Dana glimpsed a couple of adults in front, two or three kids in the back seat. Looking over her shoulder, she saw it turn through the gate of the parking lot.
“First customers of the day,” Tuck said.
“What time do you open the ticket booth?”
“Ten on the nose.”
Tuck turned aside before getting there, and started to unlock the entrance gate.
“Will I be selling tickets?” Dana asked.
“I thought I’d start you off today inside the house.”
“Fine.”
Tuck opened the gate. As soon as they were both inside, she shut it. Then they started up the walkway toward Beast House.
Dana tried not to look at the place. When Tuck had brought her here yesterday, she’d spent too long gazing at it, too long thinking about it. Ending up with a bad case of the creeps, she had almost refused to go in.
Can’t let it get to me. It’s just a house.
“We have regulars who handle the gift shop and snack bar,” Tuck explained, “so you won’t be involved in any of that. The guides basically have five different jobs: running the ticket booth, handing out and collecting the tape players, downstairs monitor, upstairs monitor, and supervisor.”
“That’s you?”
“That’s me. I’m basically in charge of the whole operation, and spend most of the day just wandering around, looking out for problems, trying to be friendly and helpful to our guests. I’m the person you’ll come to if you have any trouble or questions.
“I thought you might start off as the upstairs monitor. Tomorrow, you’ll have a different job. You’ll be alternating on a daily basis with the other guides. It’s very flexible, though. People do a lot of trading. The only thing you can’t trade on is bus tour guide. I suppose that’s job number six, but I don’t really count it. It’s Patty’s job. She lives in San Francisco, shows up here at about ten-thirty with a bus-load of tourists, wanders around being friendly and eating hot dogs, then takes off again at one-thirty and doesn’t come back again till the next day. She’s the only staff member you didn’t get a chance to meet yesterday.”
They started to climb the porch stairs.
Dana suddenly felt a sinking sensation in her stomach, a weakness in her legs.
She turned her head to avoid looking at the hanged man.
It’s all right, she told herself. Calm down. He’s just a dummy. Nothing’s going to happen.
She wiped her hands on the legs of her uniform shorts, and took a deep breath.
At the top of the six wooden stairs, Tuck smiled at her. “Are you okay?”