The elevator doors had just opened when I heard Lucy’s scream. Sam flew past me and I grabbed him and hustled him back to the room before any other guests came out into the corridor to see what the disturbance was. After a few deep breaths, Lucy calmed down and apologized.
“It wasn’t you. It was me,” she said. “I was expecting Paula.”
“No offense taken,” Sam said, sitting down on the love seat and putting his shopping bag on the floor.
“That’s a Michael’s bag.”
“It is. Good company. I used to own stock.”
Lucy did her best to hide her surprise at both Sam’s articulate answer and his obvious ease with the situation.
“What happened to you?” she said to me. “You look like shit.”
“Thank you, I’ve been hiding in a Hefty bag. Why did you leave? We had to hitchhike back. You should have heard the psycho that picked us up.”
What she did hear was the crash of the metal shelving unit inside the factory. She immediately called the cops and they told her to get the hell out of there and wait for them at Titans.
“That’s what I did, about an hour ago, but they haven’t come yet. They’re probably at the factory looking for you two,” she said.
“They didn’t show up when we were there,” I said. “Who did you call?”
“I called 911. Who do you get when you call 911?”
“A dispatcher,” Sam said. “Up here they get a lot of prank calls so they make you jump through hoops to make sure it’s really an emergency.”
“Oh, I think from the way I was shrieking a perceptive person would have been able to tell that this was the real thing.”
Sam smiled. “Any chance there’s a Diet Coke in that minibar?”
“Mother’s milk,” Lucy said, and got up to get them each a can.
“You two get acquainted. I desperately need a shower and a change of clothes. Sam’s new clothing should be up in a few minutes. But don’t scream when it is delivered. We don’t want to attract any more attention.”
I stripped a pillowcase from the bed and retrieved the leather pants and sleeveless top from my overnight bag and took them into the bathroom. The hoodie and top pulled off easily but the pants were glued to my leg with my own dried blood. Yanking them off hurt like hell, but I did it quickly the way you’d pull off a Band-Aid. The blood started flowing again and I stepped into the tub to catch it.
The shower felt great until I made a tactical error and let my thigh get hit by a direct stream of water. I let out a scream that rivaled Lucy’s. I shifted positions and resigned myself to the fact that my right side would be cleaner than my left.
The gash was ragged but not that deep-my jeans had saved me a few layers of skin. Using the cuticle nippers in my travel kit, I started a hole in the pillowcase, then tore it into strips to make a bandage. I did a pretty good job; I looked like a professional tennis player with her thigh wrapped before a big match. I held my hairbrush like a tennis racket, spinning it around in my hands the way the pros do. I even took a few practice swings before realizing how idiotic it was for me to have left my best friend in the next room with a homeless man while I stood, naked, in the bathroom, practicing my serve.
I slipped into my pants carefully, grateful that the tight leather would hold the bandage in place. Sam and Lucy seemed to be having a lively conversation outside so I took an extra few minutes to put on makeup, rubbing tint on the apples of my cheeks. No need to look totally hideous.
When I emerged, towel-drying my hair, they’d been joined by a third person.
“You specifically told me not to scream,” Lucy said through gritted teeth.
“Sit down.”
And I did, since I make it a point never to argue with a woman who’s got a gun.