“ When they found me, I was unconscious. At first they believed I had something to do with it. As if I alone could harm 100 people or make them vanish into thin air. I knew the truth, I told it to them. But they would not believe. They still scour the countryside for those that can never be found. I have been left behind as an emissary. The Prince of Sanheim has come. His time is at hand.”
— Horace Camden, “The Prince of Sanheim”
Saturday, Oct. 21
Quinn stared at the clock. If he had fallen asleep at all, in his dreams he had still seen the clock. But he wasn’t sure he had actually fallen asleep. It was too risky. He could not afford to dream about the Horseman anymore.
He and Kate had barely spoken in the evening. She was still sleeping in his bedroom and he was out on the sofa again. There was an unspoken assumption that his place was somehow safer. Quinn wasn’t sure why. Maybe it was just that his place was better stocked with food.
But he and Kate didn’t feel like partners anymore. She seemed angry again last night and Quinn was reasonably sure she had barricaded her door before she went to sleep. So either she still didn’t trust Quinn or she didn’t care if the killer got him first.
He was not sure he blamed her. After going to Comizio’s house, nothing seemed real anymore. He felt like he had gone crazy-like this is what it felt like. He didn’t tell Kate. She had hardly been in a talking mood, for starters, but mostly he just could not bring himself to. What was he supposed to say? She had a real problem-a madman with a penchant for carving his victims was after her.
And what was his problem? A phantom Horseman from a fictional story? One that has lived in his dreams for years and now appeared to be hounding the citizens of Loudoun and stopping off for a little tree graffiti? If he was trying to convince Kate he could be trusted, somehow he didn’t think that story was the place to start.
But what was he supposed to do? There was nowhere to run and nothing he could say to anyone. Janus had tried to talk as they walked back from Comizio’s place, but Quinn could not bring himself to say any of this out loud. It was too nuts.
Quinn’s reverie was interrupted by screaming. Acting without thinking, he was out of the sofa bed and ran toward where Kate was sleeping.
He collided with the bedroom door with a thud. He started pushing on it as hard as he could and then backed up to launch himself at the door. It worked well enough and Quinn thought wryly that it was not much protection against any real intruder.
His dresser had been placed behind the door and had now tipped over. He got his door open just far enough and then squeezed his way through.
The screaming kept coming. Quinn could hardly see. He tried to flip on his light to see what was happening, but missed the switch. He didn’t pause, but kept running to the bed. Other than Kate, though, there was no one there.
She was screaming in her sleep. He grabbed her arm and her eyes flew open, but she kept screaming for a moment. And then she stopped suddenly.
“Kate,” he said, as gently as he could. “Are you okay?”
She didn’t respond, but just stared at him for what felt like several minutes. She looked like a person in shock.
Quinn instinctively moved closer to her and put his arm around her in a kind of half hug.
“It was a dream,” he said. “It was just a dream.”
Her eyes followed him carefully, watching him as if he were about to do something suddenly.
“It’s okay,” he said, and tried to smile. “It’s okay. You were screaming in your sleep. I came in to wake you up.”
Her eyes drifted to the door. Enough light was peaking through the doorway that Quinn could now see his dresser on the floor. It flashed through his mind that he was glad he had gotten the furniture for free from an old friend. Otherwise he might have been sorry to see it so abused.
“Are you okay?” he asked, and sat up looking at her.
“Yes,” she said finally, with what seemed like a tremendous effort.
“What were you dreaming about?” he asked.
She shifted her eyes away from him and back to the door.
“The door is open,” she said. She sounded like a robot.
He looked back that way.
“I know,” he said. “I’m sorry. I had to break in because you were screaming in your sleep.”
“Oh,” she replied, still with a strange monotone quality.
And suddenly it clicked.
“You’re still sleeping, aren’t you?” he asked. He had heard someone talking about this once. Some people could carry on entire conversations in their sleep. It explained why she had that strange tone of voice and it took so long for her to answer.
She didn’t respond.
“Okay,” he said. “I want you to put your head back down on the pillow and close your eyes. Okay?”
She seemed not to hear him.
“Kate?” he asked. “You need to go back to sleep. You need to get rest.”
“You should shut the door,” she said.
“I promise I will when you go back to sleep,” he said and ran his hand through her hair in the hopes of calming her down.
“You should shut the door now,” Kate said again, still in the eerie voice. “My mom says he is coming.”
The hairs on the back of Quinn’s neck stood up. Suddenly the room felt colder and he looked at the door too.
“She told you that just now?” he asked.
“Uh-huh,” she said. “She said he has been watching us.”
“When will he come?”
“My mom says soon,” Kate said. “You should shut the door.”
“I will, Kate,” he said. “I’m going to go back over there and shut the door on my way outside. I’ll be outside and I won’t let anyone through. If you need anything, just shout… again.”
“No,” she said simply. “Stay here. You should stay here in case he gets in.”
Quinn paused for a moment. He was freaked out now, too, and somehow being in a smaller place with only one small window seemed safer.
“Okay, Kate,” he replied. “I’ll shut the door and I’ll be right over there.”
He pointed at the computer chair. He got up and shut the door, then wrestled for a minute with the dresser to right it again in front of the door. He was not taking any chances. It took a minute for his eyes to get used to the dark, but when he looked back at Kate, her eyes were closed. She was sleeping again.
Quinn sat down in the chair and waited.
“How did you get in here?” a voice asked.
Quinn woke up with a start. He felt disoriented and it took him a while to figure out what was going on. He was in his room and he realized that somehow he had fallen asleep.
“What?” he said groggily.
Quinn looked around. Kate was sitting up in bed (his bed) and looking at him.
“How did you get in here?” she asked again. She was looking at the door, which still had the dresser propped up against it. “I never heard you get past that. The noise should have woken me up.”
It took Quinn a moment to remember everything. He was surprised he had fallen asleep. One moment he had been waiting for something to happen and then… nothing. And he appeared to have slept pretty deeply too. He wiped some drool off the edge of his mouth.
“You were screaming,” he said. “You started screaming and I busted down the door enough for me to get in.”
“I don’t remember that,” Kate said. Her tone sounded accusatory.
“Well, that’s not my fault, is it?” he snapped back at her. She had acted like this all the previous evening-cold and distant. On the one hand, they were together and supposed to be partners in this mess. But he felt like he was just dead weight in her eyes. He was simply an obstacle the killer would have to mow down before he got to the real show.
“I didn’t…” Kate said and stopped. She took a deep breath. “I just meant, what happened? Why was I screaming?”
“I’m not sure,” Quinn said. “I thought I woke you up, but you were sleep walking. Well, not walking. I guess sleep talking. You stopped screaming at any rate and we talked for a little bit.”
“What did we say?” Kate asked.
“Look, is that important?” he replied. “You had a bad dream. You kept looking at the door and telling me I needed to close it. So I said I would on my way out and you said I should stay here. So I fixed the dresser back up against the door and stayed here. I just thought it was safer that way. What is the point of one of us staying in a boarded-up room and the other one left outside it?”
“I put it there because…”
“I know why you put it there, Kate,” Quinn said. He suddenly didn’t feel like playing nice anymore. “Because either you don’t trust me and think I might kill you, or you don’t care what happens to me out there.”
“That’s not true,” she said.
“It isn’t? So if I had started shouting for help out there, how fast could you have been out there with your gun? How long do you think it would take for somebody to kill me? Jesus. If we’re supposed to be safer together, then let’s be together. But instead you want it both ways. I’m out guarding the main door, but if he makes it through there, then at least you get some time to prepare before I’m out of the way.”
“Quinn, I…”
“Look, I know you are scared,” he said. “I understand that. But I’m scared too. I know this guy is gunning for you, but do you really think he is going to stop and have tea with me when he finds us? I’m staying near you because I want to help. But between yesterday’s ‘I don’t need your help Quinn’ and physically locking me out of my own room, what the hell am I supposed to think?”
He was really angry now and knew he should drop it. She had been through a lot and it wouldn’t help if he blew up at her. But damn if he didn’t feel better.
Quinn got up and walked over to the door, taking a minute to work the dresser out of the way.
“Either trust me or don’t,” Quinn said, more quietly this time, as he opened the door. “If you can’t trust me, then take shelter somewhere else, because then I’m just one more thing to worry about.”
He walked outside. And stopped dead cold when he saw the note.
Right on the outside of the door was a small post-it note. It simply had one word on it.
“Almost.”
Fifteen minutes later they had checked the apartment with her gun and satisfied themselves that there was no one else there. The front door had clearly been forced from the outside. If Quinn thought he would have satisfaction from finally having proof that he wasn’t involved, he didn’t feel it. Instead, he concentrated on the fact that if not for Kate’s nightmare, he could have been dead. Likely would have been.
Of course, he had been awake in the living room. Maybe he would have been awake when the guy came through the door. But he didn’t feel like it. He felt that somehow the guy must have known when he was sleeping. Even after checking every nook and cranny of the apartment, he did not feel safe. Would the guy hit them on the way out the door? Would he be waiting in Quinn’s car?
Kate, for her part, appeared better than she had been for several days. She checked the apartment with a strange calm that Quinn was grateful for, since he was definitely lacking it. For the only time he could remember, Quinn was glad he had few rooms-and fewer places to hide.
“We can’t come back here,” she said finally. He nodded and they packed quickly. Their visitor was in all likelihood gone, but how could they be sure of anything?
Five minutes later they were at the car and after Quinn first checked the trunk and back seat carefully, they climbed in. He felt like he was being watched from somewhere and knew that was probably right.
He started driving with no real direction in mind.
“Where to?” he asked when they pulled onto Route 7.
“We need to check the hotel,” she said.
“That’s not a safe place,” Quinn replied.
“I agree, but I should pick up some stuff before we hit the road.”
“And where, exactly, are we going to go?”
“For starters-Bluemont,” she said.
“You can’t be serious,” Quinn said.
Kate just stared at him, raising her eyebrows.
“Okay, apparently you can be,” Quinn said. “Even if I got the right guy, how’s that going to help?”
“It’s a lead,” she said. “And besides-we have to find Lord Halloween before he finds us, again. Wouldn’t you rather be on the offensive?”
“Couldn’t we just run?” Quinn said. “We could just take off, you know. We don’t have to stay here. He can’t follow us forever.”
“I’ve done that, remember?” Kate said. “You run now and it’ll never end.”
“That’s all well and good, but this is serious,” he said. “They say that in the movies all the time, but this is real life. Couldn’t we live with a few phantoms over our shoulders?”
She shook her head and put her hand on his shoulder.
“If you want, go ahead,” she said. “But I’m through running. I told you-there is not a day that goes by that I don’t think of him. I’m not going to keep going like that, even if it means I’m dead. Besides, I think he is underestimating us.”
“You do?” Quinn asked. “No offense, but we got caught with our pants down back there. He walked in right under our noses.”
“But we are still here, Quinn. We are still here, aren’t we?”
“Forgive me if I don’t feel that much better,” he replied. “That seems like blind luck.”
“You are thinking of it all wrong,” she said. “He has had the advantage from the beginning. There is no surprise. He knows who I am. He knows who you are. We don’t have that luxury. We can’t follow him home. But he has given himself away too. I don’t think he came here meaning to scare us again, Quinn. I think he came ready to kill.”
“And let me get this right-this makes you feel better?”
“It does,” she said. “Because he failed. And he proved to me one thing-you aren’t helping him.”
“How can you be sure?” he shot back. “Maybe I went outside, forced the door open to look like a break-in, left a note, broke down your door, then put it all back up again.”
“Why would you do that?” she asked.
“I’m honestly not sure,” Quinn said. “So that you’ll be lulled into a false sense of security and trust me? I admit it’s a reach.”
“Yes, a bit too far,” she said. “The only reason he would do all that would be to kill me at my most vulnerable. But you’ve already seen me that way.”
“When?”
“Last night,” she said. “You could have killed me then.”
“Well, you were kinda awake,” he said.
“Not enough,” she said. “I’m sorry I blocked the door, but the other night, I couldn’t sleep at all. I kept wondering what if. What if you are working with him? What if you are him? What if…”
“I get it, I get it,” he said.
“But if last night was a test, you passed. I never heard that dresser come down and I never saw you put it back up either. We were locked in a room by ourselves-so much so that he must have thought he could not get through without waking both of us up. I don’t think this guy plays the kind of psychological game where he pretends to be my boyfriend and then murders me. I think if he had the chance to kill me-just one chance-he would have taken it.”
“Why? He seems to enjoy playing with his prey.”
“No, I think I figured out what he wants,” she said.
“Which is?”
“He wants a story,” Kate said.
“He is a story,” Quinn said. “He is all anybody talks about.”
“But talk is the right word,” she replied. “So far nobody has put his nickname in the paper. People might be talking, but there is no real mention of him.”
“He will get it soon enough.”
“I agree and I think he knows that too,” she said. “But I think he wants the story to be about us.”
“You and me?”
“Me and him,” she said. “I think he would have killed us last night and left a note about who I was. That would have been a two-for-one-it would have proved to the police he is Lord Halloween and it would have splashed the story right on the front page with his name on it. It also would have been a sad story, with pictures of me and my mother and interviews with my dad. And details about how I concealed my identity.”
“You have it all worked out,” Quinn said.
“Believe me, so does he. That’s why I caught his attention. He might be taking down some other people to add to his body count, but I think he intended to make me his official grand entrance, so to speak.”
“Well, he came close.”
“But that’s just it-close, but not close enough,” she said. “And I don’t think he thinks very highly of our ability to protect ourselves.”
“Well, we have one thing in common,” Quinn said.
“That’s going to change,” she said. “I’ve been giving this a lot of thought. But one problem was my own doubt.”
“In what?”
“In who?” She re-phrased his question. “I doubted you. But I’m going to take that leap of faith you suggested. From this point on, we are in this together.”
Quinn laughed.
“From this point forward? I’ve been there,” he said.
“Well, now I’m there too,” she said.
They drove to the hotel.
They had barely crossed the lobby before a manager began approaching them. Dressed up in a tight, vaguely Victorian-era version of a tuxedo, he was clearly angry.
“We’ve been trying to reach you, madam,” he said, giving Quinn a glance that suggested he thought very little of him as a dresser or a person.
“You’ve had my cell phone,” she said.
“Well, your boyfriend said you changed it,” the hotel manager said. He looked meaningfully at Quinn.
Kate looked confused and glanced at Quinn, who shrugged and indicated he had no idea what was going on. Secretly, however, in the middle of one of the biggest scares of his life, he was pleased. The manager had said boyfriend and Kate had assumed-just assumed-he was referring to Quinn. Maybe that meant something or maybe it didn’t, but he was still damn glad to see it.
“He gave us your new phone number,” the manager said, but the glances between Kate and Quinn had unnerved him. The bluster and outrage building in the hotel employee appeared to be fading. Something was not going according to his plan.
“And you didn’t think to try the old one?” Kate said. “Who, exactly, did you say said this?”
“Your boyfriend,” he replied, sounding less angry. “He called from your room.”
“And was I in it?”
“Well, I assumed you were,” the manager said, and anger had clearly been replaced by something else: defensiveness.
“Why were you trying to reach me?” Kate asked calmly.
“Your room. It was left in an unacceptable condition,” the manager said, but he was looking around him now. Quinn thought he looked like a man searching for back up.
“I see,” she said. “And did it ever occur to you that my ‘boyfriend’ may actually have been an intruder? That maybe, just maybe, he wasn’t with me at all?”
“No, that did not occur to us,” the manager said. “He seemed so confident, like he was supposed to be there.”
“I want to see the room,” Kate said.
“I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” the manager said, clearly wishing he hadn’t started the conversation to begin with.
“It’s my room-I paid for it,” Kate said.
She started walking very calmly toward the elevators.
“Madam,” the manager said. “Madam, I can’t allow that.”
“But you can allow a total stranger in my room?” Kate said. “How did he get in there anyway?”
“We assumed you let him in,” the manager said. “I think now maybe this is a police matter.”
“You may be more right than you know,” Kate said. “Which is why I want to look at the place before they get here.”
“I can’t allow that,” the manager said.
“What’s your name?” Quinn asked. He pulled out a pad of paper and started writing.
“Eric Hoffman,” the manager said stiffly. “I have the full backing of the hotel’s owners, I can assure you. There’s no use trying to intimidate me.”
“I’m not trying that,” Quinn said evenly. “Just wanted to know your name for the paper.”
“The paper?”
“We work for the Chronicle, Mr. Hoffman,” Quinn said. “I work on the crime beat. And this is a crime. I’m sure a lot of people will be interested in your security standards.”
“Or you could just let us in and we’ll keep your name out of it,” Kate said.
The manager paused and considered. It felt like forever, but he finally gestured toward the elevator.
“But my name is not to be anywhere near this story,” he said.
They rode the elevator in silence and Kate walked quickly to her room once it stopped and opened. If she was nervous, she didn’t show it. Quinn almost wondered if she would grab her gun, but she didn’t even pause when the manager opened the door.
“Dear God,” she said as she walked in.
The room was a disaster. Virtually every piece of furniture had been overturned. The table lamp lay on its side with the light bulb crushed into the carpet. The bed’s mattresses had been taken off the bed frame. One lay against the wall and the other was strewn halfway on the bed. The coffee table had been shattered as if someone had fallen on it. Quinn glanced into the bathroom and could see shards of mirror lying on the floor.
“You see why we were upset,” the manager said.
“You thought she did this?” Quinn said.
“We thought… the man said… he told the front desk there was a bit of a party. We didn’t hear much, so we didn’t think about it. It wasn’t until the next morning…”
“How could you not hear this?” Quinn asked.
Kate started walking around. Her clothes had been removed from the drawers and were strewn all over the room. There was a bra hanging from a light fixture and three panties laid out in a row on the bed’s headboard. Kate made no move to pick anything up.
Instead, she appeared to be looking for something.
“Watch out for the broken glass,” Quinn said. He wasn’t sure what she was looking for.
“We need to call the police,” the manager said.
“In a minute,” Kate said. “You and I need to talk first.”
“Talk about what?” the manager said. He sounded nervous. He clearly had assumed Kate would pay for damages and now had stumbled onto something quite different.
Kate didn’t answer. Instead she scoured the hotel room floor, stepping over a pair of pants and a blouse. Quinn was about to ask her what she was looking for when she leaned down and scooped a piece of paper off the ground. She read it, crossed the room and handed it to Quinn.
“I’m going to kill you slowly, Trina,” the note read.
“What’s it say?” the manager asked.
Neither one of them responded.
“Here’s what we’re going to do,” Kate said. “I’m going to cut you a deal.”
“Cut me a deal? We have insurance. If you don’t know the gentleman who did this…”
“Oh, I know him,” Kate said. “Lord Halloween did this.”
The man audibly gasped.
“How can you say such a thing?” the man said. “That’s libel. I’ll sue.”
“First of all,” Quinn said, “It’s slander, not libel. Libel is printed and we haven’t done that yet. Second of all, it’s also true.”
“You’re going to make two copies of the hotel security feed for the past several days,” Kate said. “One copy goes to me and the other goes to the police.”
“Why would I do such a thing?” the man said. “I’m not giving anything to reporters. If the police want them, we will of course cooperate.”
“You want to help me,” Kate said, and she smiled. Quinn thought she was beautiful, but the smile looked cold and ruthless. “Because if you don’t, I’m going to put this on the front page of the Chronicle: ‘Lord Halloween Strikes Leesburg Inn.’”
“The police will do that anyway,” the manager said, but he sounded doubtful.
“Please,” Kate replied. “The police want to cover this up even more than you do. But as you say, we’re reporters. I would be more than happy to write in detail of how the hotel security let a psychopath into one of their guest’s rooms. Do you know how fast business would dry up?”
“I’ll tell everyone you threatened me,” the manager said.
“Say what you want,” Kate said, and smiled again. If anything, it looked more cruel than before. “No one will believe you. You will just be trying to protect yourself. They’ll be too busy running away from here and your bosses will be too busy trying to find someone to blame. And it won’t take them long to find someone, will it?”
The manager stood and stared. He looked at Quinn, who just stared back
“What do you want?” the manager said.
“The security feed,” Kate said. “Just a copy-same as the police get-we’re not trying to interfere, after all.”
“To do what with it? Put it in the paper?”
“We’re going to do you a favor,” Kate said. “If the police don’t mention you, we won’t either. The minute they go public with this, we can’t help you. But if they cover up this incident, you’re home free. We’ll just use the tapes for research and nobody needs to bring this up again.”
Quinn could see the manager turning it over in his mind. It was a trap and he knew it. If he didn’t cooperate, he would be looking for a new job by the end of the week. If he did, there was no guarantee it would help him much.
“Your call,” Kate said. “Take a risk and you might get lucky. But if you don’t play along, I assure you this place will be out of business by Christmas.”
The manager turned and looked at the room.
“Why do things like this always happen to me?” he said. Without looking back, he turned and walked out of the room. Very quietly, as he passed Quinn, he motioned for them to follow him.
Twenty minutes later, Kate and Quinn were handed copies of the tapes covering the entire week.
The manager had regained his officious tone.
“You breathe a word of this and I will sue you,” he said.
Kate nodded but waited till they were at the door to respond.
“The police are going to want to question me,” she said. “Tell them I’m staying with Quinn O’Brion. And one other thing…”
“Yes,” the manager said. In his head, he was beginning to see a way out. The police would come and they would stay quiet. And these reporters-who were they, really? They would stay quiet or face a lifetime of litigation. Eric Hoffman was back in control again.
“You missing any personnel?”
The manager stopped in his tracks. The blood drained slowly from his face.
“When did she disappear?” Quinn asked.
The manager didn’t respond. He didn’t have to; his face said it all.
“You might want to tell the police about that too,” Kate said.
And with that, the two were out the door. Eric Hoffman went back to his desk a broken man.
They had gone shopping. That was the thing that Quinn couldn’t believe. They were being chased by a psycho who had come to kill Kate at least twice in the past 12 hours and they had gone shopping. Quinn could see it was necessary. Kate simply hadn’t wanted anything left for her at the hotel and he couldn’t blame her. The police would probably be rifling through her things by now anyway.
So they had spent two hours in the Leesburg outlet malls just outside of town, jumping from one store to the next. Quinn-who hated shopping above all else-actually found himself enjoying it. For one, it was such a normal activity that it was easy to forget they were under imminent threat of death. The day was bright, the sun was shining and hundreds of people were with them. The night before felt like a bad dream.
The other thing that was hard to miss was how much Quinn felt like Kate’s boyfriend. He waited outside the dressing room with the other boyfriends and gave a thumbs up or down anytime she came out with something new. Granted, some boyfriends got to go inside the dressing room, but Quinn wasn’t complaining. He just enjoyed being with her.
And it was then that he finally knew it: he was in love with her. He had only known her a few days, but it felt like forever. She had literally left him to die in his own apartment because of her trust issues and he didn’t care. He looked at her and everything was better. He was with her and everything was right. Had he ever been in love before? Quinn had thought so. He had believed he was. But that felt like a pale imitation of what he was going through now. And he knew it was real because of this: Quinn was in real danger. Kate could very well-almost certainly would-get him killed. And he didn’t care. The thought of abandoning her, of running from her, was unfathomable. He would never do it. He would die for her.
“What are you smiling about?” Kate asked him as she showed off her latest pick of clothes.
“Nothing,” he replied, and wiped the smile off his face. He was going to die, but he was in love. He didn’t feel alone anymore.
Within ten minutes, they were back in the car. If Kate was scared, Quinn had trouble seeing it.
“He could have followed us out here, you know,” Quinn said.
“That’s true and he could follow us now,” she replied. “But I don’t think so. He has other plans than just me and he can’t afford to watch us all day. He can’t be everywhere at once. Besides, let him watch me. Let him see me not cowering in front of him. That will frustrate him more than anything else.”
“So where are we off to?” Quinn said.
“Same plan as before,” she replied. “Bluemont.”
“The police are going to want to see us,” Quinn said. “After the hotel and everything.”
“They can wait,” she said. “Their job will be to cover this whole thing up. I’ll talk to them when we’re ready.”
They headed out on Route 15, heading south. The drive was less than two hours away, but the further they got away from Leesburg, the better. It felt safer.