THE PHONE WAS RINGING when PJ and Schultz got back to her house. She dashed to answer in the kitchen, calling out for Thomas that she was getting it.
When she picked up the phone, there was dead air.
“Hello?”
“Penelope Jennifer Gray,” said a voice that sounded like it was under water.
“Speaking. May I ask who’s calling?”
“Someone with a special interest in you and yours.”
A chill climbed her spine. The gamer with the sword was in jail. Now what?
“You’re out to get me, aren’t you, Penelope?”
Schultz was across the room rummaging in the open refrigerator, his back to her. She went over and kicked him in the shin.
“Ow!”
She gestured at the phone. He immediately went to the living room to listen in.
“I’m not out to get anyone. Why would you think that?”
There was a watery-sounding laugh. “Very good, Dr. Gray. Always thinking like a shrink, turning my question back on me. I know you’re trying to stop me. You’re one of them, and they’re always trying to get me.”
“Stop you from doing what? Are you planning to kill someone?” PJ was shaking. She felt as though evil were creeping along the phone line and pouring itself into her ear. In her practice as a psychologist, she’d dealt with killers face to face. But that was in a controlled setting, usually in an interview room in a prison. Standing in her kitchen, with her son upstairs, with a caller who could be anywhere, was a situation that shook her to the core.
“Too many questions,” the voice said. “How about this? Two questions are all you get. Someone may die, but I won’t lie.”
Someone may die. PJ tried to pull her mind away from going back to that image of Thomas in a body bag. Why didn’t I leave him at Lilly’s? Or is he safer here with us?
She was hesitating too long, her thoughts splintering. Scenes were streaming through her mind: Arlan’s exposed heart, Shower Woman’s blood on the glass door, severed body parts pierced with nails, the neat hole in Frank’s forehead, Greg Royalview lying on the floor next to his dead wife, his blood draining from a dozen wounds.
“Tick, tick …”
“Who are you?” PJ asked.
“I’m dead.”
Dead. April’s dead but not really. One more question. What to ask?
“Where are you?” she blurted.
“Where I can see you. You haven’t taken off that old blue parka of yours yet. You really should get something new. Maybe something bulletproof.”
PJ heard a crash from the living room. It sounded like Schultz had dropped the phone. In a moment he was in the kitchen, gun drawn.
“Down, get down!” he shouted.
As she was dropping to the floor, he collided with her and shoved her under the kitchen table. Then his weight was on top of her, and she heard two pops! Glass rained down on the floor and chunks of the wall went flying, right where she’d been standing.
On the floor just a couple feet away from her was the phone. A drop of sweat—or was it a tear?—slid down her check and onto the floor. Her heart was pounding against her ribs so loudly it nearly drowned out the voice, a voice that sounded drowned.
“Don’t stand in my way. Dr. Gray, or you won’t be standing at all.”