“No,” replied William, “And the Captain?”

“Of all the room’d the poor guy could have taken to d’pend his Ben. That wad the place. They pulled him outta there and well ya don’t walk away from that. We heard thid morning. I hope he laid zees and never knew what hit him. If that woman—he called her an angel—hadn’t given him the dollar’d, he’d be out front now. Talk ‘bout I’dn’t It Ironic? You know that d’ong?”

William nodded to the clerk about the song, then shook his head about the bizarre news. Words eluded him he was so stunned. He muttered a quick thank you and headed for the door.

He found the wrecked hotel within moments. Spear Lip was correct. The place indeed was a war zone, the front corner of the three-story building in ruins. A mountain of collapsed bricks lay piled high as if dumped there ready for construction. Crushed by a still intact portion of wall was a lone car.

Several men in hard hats and orange vests climbed among the remains, moving methodically and with caution. A temporary nine-foot fence erected to protect against voyeurs held back a swarm of pedestrians who’d stopped to examine the destruction.

William stood by the barrier, his hand clenched tight around the mesh. What an unholy mess. He wondered what the poor fellow had done to deserve this fate. Orelia couldn’t have known him before yesterday, could she? No, that wasn’t possible, but what did he truly know? Was she now targeting complete strangers? If so, why? Or was The Captain just unlucky?

Isn’t It Ironic? played in his head. He’d always liked that song; kind of reminded him of his own life and the wrong decision made to follow Orelia instead of talking to the Captain. The answer to many of his questions may have lay only ten yards away yesterday, in the note in the vagrant’s collection container.

Another person dead connected to her, even if only for a moment of contact. How many more had died? Would die?

The Alanis Morisette melody drifted through his head as he turned from the devastation, wondering at the power that could have created this.

Isn’t it ironic? he sang under his breath, thinking nothing when it came to Orelia was random irony.

45

Bountiful Books’ manager, Diane Lynch, looked like an escapee from the punk rock eighties. Her pink-wash hair, streaked with blonde, fit far better in an alternative designer clothes store than selling bookmarks, magazines and classic novels. She wore a Rolling Stones’ ‘Get off my cloud’ attitude and did not hold back her opinions.

“Out with the old, white thriller guys. In with the fresh voices. King, Koontz and Child have got one foot in the graves they write about in their books.” This was her explanation as to why she only stacked piles of new authors in the coveted front table display.

“They’re given enough shelf space in the big book barns and nobody else gets a fair chance. And none of these ridiculous YA apocalyptic books either. If the only person to save us is Jennifer Lawrence with a bow, I’ll hand myself over to the zombies.”