Creepers

Balenger's voice tightened. "Three months ago, I read a newspaper article about urban explorers, how their expeditions are like special-ops missions and how some of them have a genius for infiltrating buildings that are supposedly impregnable. I checked urban-explorer websites and approached a group, but I made the mistake of telling the first group why I needed their help getting in. They treated me like I was an undercover agent wearing a wire. With the next group, I tried to convince them to take me into the hotel because it was a fascinating old building. But they didn't trust an outsider any more than the first group did. Plus, there were plenty of old buildings they already had plans to explore. So I used the professor's website next and arranged to meet him. This time, I tried the greed motive. I showed him copies of old newspaper articles from when Danata was killed-rumors about gold coins the gangster supposedly hoarded in a secret vault. Bob was polite. He said he'd look into it. I figured he was brushing me off. But it turned out he'd just been fired, and a week later, he phoned and said he'd help me on one condition."

"That you'd get some of the coins for him," Vi

"Yes. He admired you and Cora and Rick so much, he was certain you wouldn't agree to take the coins. He was afraid about his health and how he'd pay for his heart treatments. He was angry about losing his professorship. You can't imagine how angry. So the deal was, you'd unknowingly help me search the hotel for some clue about what happened to Diane. Then I'd come back the next night and get the coins for the professor. Of course, once I knew how to get in, I also pla

"I know Ro

"What makes you sure?"

"In the dark, in the vault, the first time he locked me in, I touched something on the floor. About a half-inch long and wide. One end was smooth, the other jagged. I didn't want to admit to myself what it was. A broken fingernail."

Rain lashed the building.

Amanda pulled the Windbreaker around her. "You need to understand what it was like. We had candlelight di

"He must have slept, also," Cora said. "How did he stop you from getting away from him?"

"Except for the first time, when I woke in that damned bed, the only place he ever let me sleep was the vault. When I was with him, he never turned his back on me. He kept a metal belt locked to my waist. The belt had a box on it, like the ones by the trapdoors. He said, if I tried to escape, he could blow me in half, even if I was a mile away. He said the charge was shaped to blow inward so that even if he was in the room with me, he wouldn't be injured."

"Where's the belt?" Balenger asked.

Amanda made a futile gesture. "I don't know."

"We've got to find it." His nerves on fire, Balenger pulled out bureau drawers, searching them. He heard Cora going through the closet. Vi

"Nothing," Cora said. "I'll check the medical room."

"And I'll take the exercise room," Balenger said. "Vi

"Wait a minute." Vi

Amanda looked sick when he stepped down with a metal belt that had a box attached to it.

Balenger tugged at the lid, but it wouldn't come off. "Sealed. I can't disarm the…"

"I see him," Tod said.

"What?" Balenger whirled toward the surveillance room.

"The son of a bitch is waving at me on one of the screens."

48

Balenger charged into the surveillance room. The others followed. On the bottom right monitor, tinted green by a night-vision camera, a tall, thin, plain-faced man waved at them, silently saying either hello or goodbye. Amanda began to weep.

At least, it seemed that he was plain-faced. Hard to be sure when the man's eyes were covered with what Balenger had feared he would have: night-vision goggles. Unlike the ones that dangled around Tod's neck, these were streamlined, almost elegant, the latest high-tech version.

He had a weak chin. His thin nose was a counterpart to his thin lips. The baby-soft look of his skin made the wrinkles on his brow and around his mouth seem painted on. His salt-and-pepper hair was receding. He wore a dark suit, a white shirt, and a conservative striped tie.

"He always dresses that way," Amanda said. "Never takes his coat off. Never loosens his tie."

"Never?" Vi

"I recognize him," Balenger said.

"What?"

He turned toward Cora and Vi

"The guy in charge of Carlisle's trust?" Vi

"I spoke with him several times after my wife disappeared. The son of a bitch said Diane spent an hour in his office the day it happened. He showed me her name in his appointment book. Eleven in the morning. After their meeting, he said, he had a lunch appointment, and he had no idea where she went. But he doesn't call himself Ro

"Not Walter Carlisle?" Cora asked. "So much for his claim that he's Carlisle's son."

"But why does he use different names?" Vi

On the monitor, Ro

"Jesus, what's he done to it?" Cora asked.

A metal bar seemed to hang in mid-air in front of the door. No, Balenger thought in dismay. Not in front of the door. On the door.

Ro

"What the hell is that?" Tod said.

A metal cylinder resembled the kind of tank that scuba divers used. The tank was on a cart. A slender hose was attached to the tank. A short pole with a handle was attached to the other end of the hose. A mask with thick glass was propped against the cart.

Balenger felt nauseous.

Vi

Balenger stared down at the metal box in his hands. All the time he watched the monitor, he tugged fiercely at the lid, but the seal held firm. He feared that at any moment Ro