Cal put the key in, turned it, and pushed open the door. Jennifer was nowhere in sight.

Cal and Durell exchanged glances. “Where is she?” Durell whispered.

“How the hell do I know,” Cal responded. Cal pushed the door fully open until the doorknob hit the wall. “Miss Hernandez!” Cal called out. “This is not going to help.”

The two men listened. There wasn’t a sound.

“Shit,” Cal said. “We don’t need complications.” He stepped into the room. Durell followed.

“Let’s lock this door, too,” Cal said. He got Durell to move so there was room to close the door behind them. He threw the bolt. “She’s got to be in one of the bedrooms or the bathroom,” Cal said. At least he hoped she’d be in one place or the other. What had him particularly confused was seeing both bathrobes on the couch.

“We can see most of the bathroom,” Durell remarked.

“Okay, so one of the bedrooms. Come on!”

Cal walked across the room and approached the doorway. He pushed the door open all the way. The only furniture was the cot, a small night table and an old-fashioned lamp, and a straight-backed chair. There was also a tiny closet, the door of which was ajar. No Jennifer. Turning around, he stepped across the hallway and passed in front of the bathroom in the process. He then checked out the second bedroom. This room was a mirror image of the other except that there was no chair.

Durell, who had come up behind Cal and was looking over his shoulder, noticed the missing chair, and the words had barely come out of his mouth when there was an earsplitting, banshee-like scream that momentarily froze both men. Jennifer had launched herself out of the shadow of the small, shallow closet with one of the legs of the missing chair raised over her head.

Cal was able to react rapidly enough to move his head so that he took the blow on the shoulder. Durell was not quite so lucky. He took a direct hit on the top of the head and staggered backward.

With yet another yell, Jennifer turned back to Cal, but Cal had recovered sufficiently to lunge forward and drive into Jennifer’s naked body as if he were an NFL lineman intent on tackling her. And tackle her he did, while she tried desperately to hit him with her chair leg. They ended up on the floor between the wall and the cot, with Jennifer flailing at Cal but without enough arc to hurt him. By then Durell had recovered adequately to step forward and grab the chair leg. He tore it from her grasp. As suddenly as the battle had started, it was over, with both Cal and Durell forcibly restraining Jennifer.