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Behind the wheel once arage or go to the h the catacombs No ti in on him He had so much to do, so much, in so few precious minutes It wasn’t fair He needed tioing to have to drive along the wide pedestrian ays, between the rotting and eirl across the dry lagoon and in by way of the gondola doors, through the tunnel with the chain-drive track still in the concrete floor and down into Hell by that more direct route
While Hatch was on the phone with the sheriff’s depart lot The tall laht Vistas of eht ahead a few hundred yards stood the once glittery but now dark and decaying castle through which the paying custon of Jereh dust on the acres of unprotected, ept pavement to track him by his tire prints
She drove as close to the castle as she could get, halted by a long row of ticket booths and crowd-control stanchions of poured concrete They looked like massive barricades erected on a heavily defended beach to prevent ene put ashore
When Hatch slammed down the handset, Lindsey was not sure what to make of his end of the conversation, which had alternated between pleading and angry insistence She didn’t knohether the cops were coreat, she didn’t want to take time to ask him about it She just wanted to move, move She threw the car into park the moment it braked to a full stop, didn’t even bother to switch off the engine or the headlights She like the headlights, a little so open her door, ready to go in on foot But he shook his head, no, and picked up his Browning from the floor at his feet
"What?" she demanded
"He went in by car somehow, somewhere I think I’ll find the creep quicker if we stay on his trail, go in the way he went in, let myself open to this bond between us Besides, the place is so daot behind the wheel again, popped the Mitsubishi into gear, and said, "Where?"
He hesitated only a second, perhaps a fraction of a second, but it seeirls could have been slaughtered in that interlude before he said, "Left, go left, along the fence"
2
Vassago parked the car by the lagoon, cut the engine, got out, and went around to the girl’s side Opening her door, he said, "Here we are, angel An amusement park, just like I promised you Isn’t it fun? Aren’t you as out of the car He took his switchblade from his jacket pocket, snapped the well-honed knife out of the handle, and showed it to her
Even with the thinnest crescent h her eyes were not as sensitive as his, she saw the blade He saw her see it, and he was thrilled by the quickening of terror in her face and eyes
"I’s so you can walk," he told her, turning the blade slowly, slowly, so a quicksilver glie "If you’re stupid enough to kick me, if you think you can catch et away, then you’re silly, angel It won’t work, and then I’ll have to cut you to teach you a lesson Do you hear me, precious? Do you understand?"
She eh the wadded scarf in her eirl So wise You’ll make a fine Jesus, won’t you? A really fine little Jesus"
He cut the cords binding her ankles, then helped her out of the car She was unsteady, probably because herthe trip, but he did not intend to let her dawdle Seizing her by one ar in place, he pulled her around the front of the car to the retaining wall of the funhouse lagoon
The retaining o feet high on the outside, twice that on the inside where the water once had been He helped Regina over it, onto the dry concrete floor of the broad lagoon She hated to let hiloves, because she could feel his coldness through the gloves, or thought she could, his coldness and damp skin, which made her want to scream She knew already that she couldn’t screa her mouth If she tried to screa, so she had to let him help her over the wall Even when he didn’t touch her bare hand with his gloved one, even when he gripped her arm and there was also her sweater between theht she was going to vo in her itation
Through ten years of adversity, Regina had developed lots of tricks to get her through bad ti-worse trick, where she endured by iht befall her than those in which she actually found herself Like thinking of eating dead mice dipped in chocolate when she felt sorry for herself about having to eat li blind on top of her other disabilities After the awful shock of being rejected during her first trial adoption with the Dotterfields, she had often spent hours with her eyes closed to show herself what she ht ar now because she couldn’t think of anything worse than being where she ith this stranger dressed all in black and wearing sunglasses at night, calling her "baby" and "precious" None of her other tricks orking, either
As he pulled her i as if she could not ain time to think, to find some new trick
But she was just a kid, and tricks didn’t come that easy, not even to a smart kid like her, not even to a kid who had spent ten years devising so many clever tricks to make everyone think that she could take care of herself, that she was tough, that she would never cry But her trick bag was finally empty, and she wasboats like the gondolas in Venice of which she had seen pictures, but these had dragon prows fro i serpent’s head bigger than she was
Dead leaves andpapers had blon into the eusted heartily, that trash eddied around thehost sea
"Come on, precious one," he said in his honey-sotha just as He did Don’t you think that’s fitting? Is that sothat you carry your own cross, am I? What do you say, precious, will you move your ass?"
She was scared, with no fine tricks left to hide the fact, no tricks left to hold back her tears, either She began to shake and cry, and her right leg greeak for real, so she could hardly re let alone move as fast as he demanded