CHAPTER 3

The pounding stopped, and started again. She turned over, her face against the pillow. Her head ached, she felt sick, the banging echoed in her skull. She lay in the stale-smelling cave under the covers, but the noise followed her there, insistent and unendurable.

She said harshly, "For god sake shut up."

"Kate?"

It was what she had always dreaded, in all the cheap rented rooms: discovery. The inside of her stomach turned cold with apprehension. But what landlady or bill collector would call her Kate?

Connie, she thought with tears of gratitude coming to her eyes. She does love me. She looked for me and found me.

But the voice was lower than Connie's. Unfamiliar, yet heard before.

She rolled over, pains springing to life in a dozen muscles. My back hurts, she thought confusedly. Try and go to sleep. It's daytime, the night's over, maybe the dreams are over.

The banging stopped. She relaxed.

"Kate? Let me in, please."

She sat up, frightened, beginning to shake. Her hands were out of control. Her feet, groping over the edge of the bed, couldn't find the floor. She swallowed hard. Shame weighed upon her, pinning her where she was.

"Kate?”

“Go away.”

"Please. Please let me in."

A flame of resentment flared up in her. She crawled out of bed and moved slowly and carefully across the room. The floor was miles wide. I'll hit her, she thought, I'll smack her the way I did Connie. Oh god, I don't want to hurt anybody, please don't let me hurt anybody, just make her go away.

Halfway across the room, the chair rocker hit her on the ankle. She went down, feeling the cold hard linoleum before she heard the thud. She lay there, confused and dizzy, not daring to get up.

Anyway, the knocking had stopped. I made her go away, she thought, very pleased with herself. She closed her eyes.

She was half-asleep when the tiny sound of a key grating in the lock, metal on metal, jerked at her mind. She looked up. The door was swinging inward, slow-motion. There was a moment of panicked silence, like that moment in her dream when the head appeared over the top of the ladder. She didn't know what was going to happen, only that it would be terrible.

But this was where she always woke. She sat rigid, trying to control her breathing, hearing her heart beat.

The light flashed on. She turned her head.

Erika Frohmann stood in the doorway, as calm as though she picked locks for a living. She looked down at Kate silently. Kate waited.

"Do you like it down there on the floor?"

Kate's voice came thin and tight. "Go away."

Erika said nothing.

"Oh, goddam you."

"That's better," Erika said. She moved into the room, pulling the door shut after her. Footsteps paused at the bathroom door. Both girls were still.

Have to put a bolt on that door, Kate realized in weary resentment. Or move. Tears trickled down her cheeks. Have to move all the time, and god, I'm so tired.