Page 68 of No Quarter

Valerie felt an agonizing shock run up her body. She still wasn’t 100 percent from her concussion, and now the janitor had the upper hand.

The woman on the bed screamed in terror.

“Get out!” Valerie cried at the patient as the janitor grabbed Valerie by the hair and yanked her up onto her feet.

“No!” The janitor shouted, his voice filled with rage. “You’re not going to stop me!”

He then lifted Valerie up and slammed her against the wall.

Valerie struck out with her knee, catching the man in the abdomen. He gasped loudly, momentarily releasing his grip. Now was Valerie’s chance.

With a quick movement, Valerie grabbed the man’s wrist, putting him into a wrist lock. But he managed to pull his hand away. Valerie kicked at his knee and then struck his nose with a palm strike.

She saw a change in his demeanor. The man’s anger was now replaced with fear and a gasp of pain. He staggered back, turned, and ran out of the doorway and along the corridor.

Valerie got up and ran after him, determined to stop him from getting away again. She rushed down the hallway, but just as she reached a corner, Valerie heard a loud crash and saw that the janitor had smashed a fire alarm, sending an alarm off all around Elmwood.

She stopped for a moment, cursing under her breath as psychiatric patients came running out of their rooms in droves, unnerved, and someone shouting “fire!” nearby.

Saldana was smart, she would give him that. Valerie pushed through the crowds of patients. She saw, up ahead in front of the janitor, Charlie looking around, surrounded by patients.

“Charlie!” Valerie screamed.

He looked up and saw her.

“The janitor!” she shouted, pointing at the man.

Charlie nodded and ran toward the janitor.

But the janitor had other plans. He ran into another room. As Valerie reached the door with Charlie, she could hear the man barricading the door with furniture. Charlie tried to knock the door down, but it was solid.

Suddenly, there was a sound of glass being smashed from inside the room.

“He’s going outside!” Charlie shouted above the commotion around them. The problem was that most of Elmwood was rushing outside at the same time.

Valerie and Charlie jostled past the patients as best they could, but they were like driftwood caught in a current. Eventually, they found their way, pushed along to the outside of the building.

Nurses and orderlies were trying to organize the patients as they waited for the Buford fire department to turn up.

Valerie scanned the area with her eyes.

“Do you see him!?” she shouted to Charlie.

Charlie was moving around, but it was hopeless. The janitor had managed to escape their net.

Valerie and Charlie had let the killer slip through their fingers.

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

Valerie sat once more by the glow of the fire in Doctor Whitmore’s study. Charlie and Will sat beside her. The room was thick with an atmosphere of defeat.

Doctor Whitmore was in a great deal of pain as he took a seat behind his desk and motioned for the others to help themselves to a drink. But they didn’t.

A nurse entered the room and began tending to the wound on the doctor’s head, putting on a fresh dressing.

“Sam Teller is organizing a search of Buford,” Charlie sighed. “Hopefully they’ll find Saldana before he escalates any further.”

“We were so close ...” Valerie felt the words escape her mouth like steam or smoke.

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