As soon as she broke the connection to Dan, Melanie felt vulnerable, and very alone. With trembling fingers, she dialed Pete Terrozzi’s cell phone. It rang once and rolled over to voice mail. She hung up and dialed again, breathing faster. Same result. Had Terrozzi turned his phone off? Was it getting no reception?
Melanie got out of the car and slammed the door. She had no choice but to go inside and find him. LaserMania’s enormous neon sign boasted a half-naked woman with big boobs in thigh-high boots shooting what appeared to be a machine gun. Gold coins spurted from the gun in a steady stream, forming an arrow that pointed directly at the entrance. She ran for it, nervous about being exposed on the street, hoping to find protection inside. A bunch of guys with fade haircuts and gang tattoos hung around the door. They eyed Melanie with cool indifference and moved aside so she could pass. The panic in her face was nothing to them. They’d seen women running like that before.
Inside the door, a black rubber staircase led straight down for several flights, the walls and ceiling surrounding it painted a dead black. After the bright sunshine and vivid neon outside, Melanie could barely see. She plunged down, praying not to fall. In the basement arcade, light blazed everywhere, assaulting her vision. Video-game pods and slot machines flashed like firecrackers, making carnival noises and spitting out long strands of yellow tickets. The games had ten-foot-high TV screens, and guns and wands bristling from them. A hip-hop kid whirled around, pointing a silver pistol at her, and Melanie jumped.
“I could have shot you!” she shouted. He saw the Beretta in her hand and his eyes widened.
She put her gun away. It was more of a danger than a help in here. There were kids around. She pulled out her phone to try Terrozzi again. But she was deep underground, in a subbasement. There was no reception. That’s why he hadn’t answered.
The place was jammed. Groups of men and boys clustered around every machine, a weird mix of gangbangers and private school kids in blazers and ties. Between the low ceiling, the soaring machines, and the pulsating crowd, Melanie couldn’t see more than a few feet in any direction. A wild clanging of bells and buzzers rang out all around her, making it impossible to hear any sound originating more than a foot or two away. How would she ever find her people in this chaos? She walked forward as calmly as she could manage, looking into each face she passed. But in the lurid, smoky light, all the players melded together into a swirling mob. After a few minutes, she came to a driving game dominated by a life-size replica of a Harley-Davidson, and realized that she’d passed it once before. She must have made a wrong turn. The space was so confusing and mazelike, and each part of it looked so much like the next. She was disoriented, with no sense of which direction she should walk to get back to the entrance. Full fledged panic set in, and Melanie started to run. She immediately body-slammed into a guy in a wifebeater and baggy jeans who must’ve weighed at least three hundred pounds.
“Watch it!”
“Sorry!” Melanie cried.
Something caught her attention out of the corner of her eye. Finally! She’d recognize that dark head stubble anywhere. Pete Terrozzi was sitting in a chair in front of a game called Wild Wild West, his back to her. What the hell was he doing playing some cowboy shoot ’em-up thing at a time like this? But as Melanie approached, she realized with a horrible sinking in her stomach that something was very wrong. Terrozzi wasn’t playing. He sat utterly still, his body at an odd angle, the screen before him flashing INSERT TOKENS NOW.
Melanie came equal with the back of the machine and rounded it. She gasped as she saw the staring eyes and the slick purple blood oozing down the front of Terrozzi’s light blue dress shirt. All around her, people shouted and laughed and argued, not even aware that a man sat here with his life snuffed out, a man she’d known. Pete Terrozzi had been knifed to death mere inches from them and they hadn’t even noticed, let alone helped. Had Welch killed him to avoid arrest? But why? Riveted by the horrific sight of Terrozzi’s dead body, Melanie was having trouble thinking clearly. What could this mean? Was Welch the Butcher after all?
She needed to get help. Melanie turned around, looking for signs, but nothing was marked. She couldn’t tell where the exits were, or which direction she’d come from. She turned back toward Terrozzi, and then she saw him.
Edward Harvey was a big man, and he stood out in the crowd. He was heading for her slowly, taking his time, a sadistic smile spreading across his moon face. He was holding something up. He was showing her something, displaying it to her. It was a small black gym bag. He unzipped it, reached inside. Was he going to shoot her? Her gun, her gun, she made herself reach for her gun. But her eyes were riveted on that gym bag. As she watched in mute horror, he pulled something out, and it wasn’t a weapon. Melanie opened her mouth to scream, but she was too stunned to make a sound. Harvey held up a man’s foot and the lower part of a leg. Bloody. The shoe still on. With a black contraption around the ankle. Welch’s GPS tracking bracelet, still attached to his ankle, which was no longer attached to Welch’s body. Harvey had Welch’s foot. And he was laughing.
Benedict Welch, Cory Nash, whatever his name was—he’d never been here at all. This whole thing was a trap, and they’d walked right into it.
Melanie didn’t know where the exit was, so she just turned in the opposite direction and ran, pulling out her gun as she went. The entrance to the laser tag room was ten feet away, marked by a flashing sign. A bunch of prep school kids milled around the doorway, laughing and pummeling one another as they strapped on big Day-Glo-orange vests with blinking red lights on them. She blitzed right past them. Inside, the room was pitch dark, suffused with the eerie purple glow of a black light. It felt like a black hole in outer space. All around her, she saw the outlines of bodies moving stealthily, carrying big laser guns. There must have been ten or fifteen people in the room, but she couldn’t see their faces.
She lowered her gun. It would be unsafe to fire in here. She’d be sure of nothing except hitting the wrong person, a kid probably. Nearby, somebody was breathing heavily through his mouth. Next to him, Melanie heard muffled giggles. The room was purposely filled with objects ideal for hiding behind—half walls and pylons and strangely shaped plastic constructs, most taller than her head, all glowing in eerie colors. Right beside her, a burst of red laser suddenly spurted from somebody’s gun, and Melanie screamed.
“Awesome! I killed Porter,” somebody shouted.
“Who screamed?”
“You did, you pansy.”
Melanie retreated behind a big pylon and peeked out, her breath coming hard and fast. In the blackness, all she saw were the vests. When they got hit with a laser, their digital displays lit up red and showed the score. But the players’ heads and arms, the color of their hair or clothing, and everything else about them faded to a weird empty black. Melanie realized that Harvey would not be wearing a vest. Why would he? He wasn’t here to play. If his clothes were dark, he’d fade into nothingness, become completely invisible. In the heat of the chase, she’d run in here, and now he had her cornered. She needed to get by him, get out, go to the front desk, call the police. Have them surround the place and turn on all the lights.
Melanie steeled herself and stepped out from behind her pylon. She could see the door across the room, lit up and glowing. She headed for it, moving carefully, trying to reach out with her senses and feel where the people were. She was making good progress. She was feeling confident that she’d get there. It was so dark in here. If she couldn’t see him, he wouldn’t be able to see her, either.
But wait—the night-vision goggles. Dan had said they weren’t in the apartment.
The next second, somebody tall and broad stepped out in front of her, and she stopped short.
“You’re smaller than I thought. I like that,” a voice said. A man’s voice, low, guttural, slow, and cruel, with the remnant of an Oklahoma twang. Then he laughed. “Lotta good your little friend did you. Fucking twerp. Who’d you think you were dealing with? You underestimated me, you bitch. I’m gonna do you right in here. By the time they find you, I’ll be halfway to Canada.”
Melanie backed away, opening her mouth to scream, but she wasn’t fast enough. He punched her hard in the stomach. No mercy, he has no mercy, she thought, flying backward through the air. Mercy is for the weak; who said that? She heard her own cry as if from far away. Then she was flat on her back on the carpet, no air in her lungs. She struggled to a sitting position, tasting something foul in her mouth, her insides feeling like they’d been split open. Her gun had been knocked from her hands. She felt around on the floor and found it. The air above her went black as he bent over her. She saw a purple glint of neon on metal. He had a knife in his hand. Melanie pulled the trigger. He grunted in pain and stumbled backward.
“You shot me!” he said, in disbelief.
He might be able to talk, and she thought he was still standing, but she could tell by the movement of the dark shape above her that she’d hit him bad enough to stagger him.
“What was that? Did you hear that?” a boy’s voice said.
Some of the kids in the room had heard the shot. Their movements became panicky. Melanie could feel the air moving as they circulated all around her. She was losing her nerve. How could she fire again in this crowded place? She was a mother. She couldn’t risk hurting somebody’s child.
“Call the police!” she shouted. “There’s a man in here with a real gun.”
She leaped to her feet, and on the way up she felt a whoosh of air and saw the shine of a metal-toed boot as it came sailing toward her head. Her hands flew out instinctively to deflect the blow, but something hit her from behind instead. Something heavy and soft with flailing limbs. A boy, a teenager, had been running and had tripped over her. They both went down hard. She struggled to get out from under him. A scream reverberated in the darkness, but it wasn’t her own. Whoever he was, he’d taken the kick instead.
“Aagh! I think my leg’s broken!” the boy cried out.
“Chris? Where are you?”
“Make them stop the game!”
In the darkness and amid the cries of pain, Melanie could tell Harvey was on his feet and preparing for his next attack. She made out his arm as it raised up in a perfect arc. She saw the glint of a long, curving blade. In an instant, it would plunge, aiming for her but perhaps striking the boy on top of her instead. In a savage burst of strength, Melanie shoved the moaning kid in one direction with all her might and threw her body in the other. They rolled apart just as the knife came down.
“Aaagh!” Harvey shouted as he thrust downward.
Momentum took him, and he catapulted to the ground. From his grunts, she could tell he was in pain. Where had her bullet hit him? Why didn’t he just die? Melanie got to her knees and aimed her gun, finger on the trigger. But from right beside Harvey, she heard the teen crying in fear. It was just too dark. If she fired, she could end up killing an innocent boy instead.
“Stay down! I’ve got a gun on you!” she yelled.
She could sense, but not see, Harvey moving.
“Stay down, I said.”
In the darkness, he laughed, and the sound came from directly behind her. She whirled around. Where was he? How had he moved without her knowing?
“You can’t see me, but I can see you,” he whispered, so close she could almost feel his breath.
Melanie squeezed the trigger, and the gun kicked in her hand. Suddenly the room’s emergency lights flashed on. She looked up to see a man wearing night-vision goggles brandishing a knife in one hand and clutching his stomach with the other. He must’ve thought she wouldn’t fire, but she’d hit him good this time. She couldn’t believe he was still standing. She got ready to fire again. But the next second, the side of his head exploded, spattering blood over her, as the sound of a single, far more powerful gunshot rang out, and Edward Allen Harvey collapsed to the floor.