Page 50 of Already Lost

Nate’s hand tensed on the grip of his gunas he realized they must be closer than he thought. He couldn’t see anything,but the humming – for him to hear it this clearly…

He stepped forward, taking care with everysingle step, agonizingly slow. What he really wanted to do was to burst forwardand tell the guy to put his hands above his head, make him stop whatever he wasdoing. But he had to be cautious. Had to remind himself.

So long as the music isn’t playing,Laura’s alive.

Unless, of course, the killer had decidedthat she wasn’t worthy of his ritual and just killed her anyway. And was nowstanding over her corpse as her lifeblood spread out across the warehousefloor, humming gently to himself…

Nate gritted his teeth and took anotherstep, refusing to allow this vision of darkness to take over. He couldn’t letit get to him. Couldn’t panic. If he did, it was definitely over for Laura,whether the killer had made his move yet or not.

Another step.

Nate leaned carefully around a stack ofcrates, piled above the height of his head, trying to see. He froze and dartedback again, holding his breath, trying hard not to gasp or give himself away byany other noise. There was someone there.

Cautiously and slowly, Nate leaned forwardagain. The figure – it was a man, he thought – was sitting with his back toNate. He was on the floor in what seemed to be a random spot amongst thedetritus of the former warehouse, his back arched over in a curve. No, notsitting – crouching, resting on his haunches. In front of him there wassomething big and dark, something covering the floor…

Laura?

The visibility was bad. Nate couldn’t seea thing. Had no way of knowing if the guy had a knife or some other weapon inhis hand. And the humming… thehumming. It was low and persistent, eeriein the abandoned space, echoing slightly around them. It put a shiver downNate’s spine. Exactly the way that a deranged killer might.

He had two choices here. Keep creepingforward until he could see better and hope he wouldn’t disturb the guy, whichwould be near impossible since he might have to be right on him to seeanything. Or make a stand right now and hope that he wasn’t putting Laura infurther danger.

A drop of sweat slid down Nate’s forehead,trailing off to the side and going past his eye.

He had to make a choice.

It was now or never.

“Freeze!” he shouted, using the full forceand loudness of his voice, keeping the gun steady in front of him. “Stay whereyou are and slowly put your hands above your head!”

The humming stopped abruptly. The guyswayed on his haunches, almost going down, his back going tight with tension.Slowly, very slowly, two hands appeared and rose through the air, heading forthe ceiling.

“Don’t move,” Nate barked, moving forward,keeping the gun trained on him as he began to circle around to the front. “Stayright where you are.”

There was no response. He came around to aposition where he could see the guy’s face and blinked. He was young – youngerthan Nate had expected. In the dim light it was hard to see, but he thought hisface was dirty. He looked down at the ground for a single glance, at the darkshape on the ground.

Not a person.

It was a collection of things – a duffelbag at one end, some spread-out materials that looked like maybe blankets ortowels, what looked in the poor light like a bunch of clothes. A collection ofbelongings. Nate looked at the guy again.

He was wide-eyed, looking up at Nate witha gaze that seemed luminous in the darkness. Nate looked again. His pupils wereblown.

Nate grabbed a flashlight and shone itdown at the floor and saw what he was really looking at. Not a killer. Not apsycho kidnapper who had taken Laura.

A kid who was sleeping rough and probablyhigh on something to help him deal with it.

“Shit!” Nate swore. “Kid, you seen anyoneelse around here? Anyone at all?”

The kid shook his head slowly side toside. His hands were still up in the air. He looked as though he’d taken theinstruction to freeze quite literally. Like he was afraid to breathe in casehis chest rising and falling counted as moving.

Nate let out a groan of total frustrationand fear, turning to kick out at another length of cable that had been leftabandoned on the floor of the warehouse. He was in the wrong place.

He turned and left the kid, running backthe way he had come, knowing it was now that much more likely that Laura wouldbe dead before he even got there.

***

There was a kind of swish as Oreyo drewthe sword from its scabbard. Laura saw that it was wickedly sharp, and even withoutknowing he had already used it to kill three women, she would have known shewas in trouble. It glinted in the dim light of the place, and when Oreyo letthe point thump against the ground, it was an even more noticeable noise in theabsence of the song. The gramophone was silent, and Laura wondered if that madea difference.

“You can’t kill me,” she said. “The song.”

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