until today, the vistas had never changed. Classrooms. Hospital rooms. Bedrooms. The same neighborhood with the same houses and the same cars and the same people sheâd seen every day of her life. It was all so boring.
So terribly normal. Thatâs not how Nicolette Janssen wanted to be remembered. She wanted people to think of her as anything but normal. As better than normal, whatever that meant. She knew it was stupid to think such thoughts, but when she died, she wanted it to be an event on the news.
Her shrink had told her that it was destructive to concentrate on the finality of her disease. âQuality of life,â heâd said, âis more about what one feels in oneâs mind than what attacks oneâs heart.â Heâd looked proud when heâd said it.
âLetâs trade places,â Nicki had suggested. âIâll sit there saying important junk for two hundred bucks an hour, and you climb over here and handle a ticking bomb of your own.â
Nicki understood the doctorâs point. Intellectually, she understood everything the doctor told her. Who the hell wouldnât understand it? But knowing how youâre supposed to think about something is a whole world away from ignoring the fact that youâre sliding toward a big rectangular hole in the ground.
Now, though, for the first time, she thought she might have a handle on how to make intentions meet reality. The trick was to walk away from everyone who attempted to tell you what to do with your life, and to take a chance for once.
Look at where she was now: She thought she was heading off to hang out with a sweet guy, and now they were running from the cops. It was scaryâscary as hellâbut it was real. It was different, a surprise. Besides, Nicki hadnât done anything wrong. If the cops caught them, sheâd go back to same olâ same olâ, and that would stink, but man, the trip to get there would be epic.
She smiled as she thought about the look on Bradâs face when he told her about the killing stuff and the jail stuff. He thought she was going to freak out, but when she just took it all in, he was surprised. She liked that look on him. That superconfident Mr. God mask had to be peeled away from time to time.
And sheâd been the one to do it.
She could hear her father already, ranting on about the danger sheâd caused herself by hanging out with a felon. She could see his red face and the distended veins at his collar. He wouldnât care that Brad had never hurt anyone, just as heâd never cared about what Nicki wanted for herself. In Daddyâs mind, her worst offense of all would be her defiance of him.
But without the defiance, thereâd be no living. Thatâs what he couldnât see. Itâs why she could never go back, either.
Somewhere down below, the silence of the night rumbled with the sound of an engine turning over.
* * *
The stairwell door to the lobby was also locked.
âGod dammit !â
So what the hell were people supposed to do in the event of a fire? Just pile up in the stairwells like ice floes in April?
Carter pounded with his fist on the locked door. âLet me in!â
No one answered. And then he understood. This was an emergency exit. If the building was burning, theyâd want people to go all the way outside, not to cluster in the lobby. If it were any more obvious, it would have smacked him in the face: down another half-flight, the sign on another door read EMERGENCY EXIT ONLY/ALARM WILL SOUND .
He should have taken the elevator.
Carter charged at the door, hitting the panic bar with his hip and slamming the door open against the brick façade of the hotel. As promised, an alarm squealed, and he couldnât have cared less. Even the exit chutes were decorative, sporting colorful plants and bushes. He could see the portico circle at the top of the hill on the right. He took off at a run.
If his sense of
So terribly normal. Thatâs not how Nicolette Janssen wanted to be remembered. She wanted people to think of her as anything but normal. As better than normal, whatever that meant. She knew it was stupid to think such thoughts, but when she died, she wanted it to be an event on the news.
Her shrink had told her that it was destructive to concentrate on the finality of her disease. âQuality of life,â heâd said, âis more about what one feels in oneâs mind than what attacks oneâs heart.â Heâd looked proud when heâd said it.
âLetâs trade places,â Nicki had suggested. âIâll sit there saying important junk for two hundred bucks an hour, and you climb over here and handle a ticking bomb of your own.â
Nicki understood the doctorâs point. Intellectually, she understood everything the doctor told her. Who the hell wouldnât understand it? But knowing how youâre supposed to think about something is a whole world away from ignoring the fact that youâre sliding toward a big rectangular hole in the ground.
Now, though, for the first time, she thought she might have a handle on how to make intentions meet reality. The trick was to walk away from everyone who attempted to tell you what to do with your life, and to take a chance for once.
Look at where she was now: She thought she was heading off to hang out with a sweet guy, and now they were running from the cops. It was scaryâscary as hellâbut it was real. It was different, a surprise. Besides, Nicki hadnât done anything wrong. If the cops caught them, sheâd go back to same olâ same olâ, and that would stink, but man, the trip to get there would be epic.
She smiled as she thought about the look on Bradâs face when he told her about the killing stuff and the jail stuff. He thought she was going to freak out, but when she just took it all in, he was surprised. She liked that look on him. That superconfident Mr. God mask had to be peeled away from time to time.
And sheâd been the one to do it.
She could hear her father already, ranting on about the danger sheâd caused herself by hanging out with a felon. She could see his red face and the distended veins at his collar. He wouldnât care that Brad had never hurt anyone, just as heâd never cared about what Nicki wanted for herself. In Daddyâs mind, her worst offense of all would be her defiance of him.
But without the defiance, thereâd be no living. Thatâs what he couldnât see. Itâs why she could never go back, either.
Somewhere down below, the silence of the night rumbled with the sound of an engine turning over.
* * *
The stairwell door to the lobby was also locked.
âGod dammit !â
So what the hell were people supposed to do in the event of a fire? Just pile up in the stairwells like ice floes in April?
Carter pounded with his fist on the locked door. âLet me in!â
No one answered. And then he understood. This was an emergency exit. If the building was burning, theyâd want people to go all the way outside, not to cluster in the lobby. If it were any more obvious, it would have smacked him in the face: down another half-flight, the sign on another door read EMERGENCY EXIT ONLY/ALARM WILL SOUND .
He should have taken the elevator.
Carter charged at the door, hitting the panic bar with his hip and slamming the door open against the brick façade of the hotel. As promised, an alarm squealed, and he couldnât have cared less. Even the exit chutes were decorative, sporting colorful plants and bushes. He could see the portico circle at the top of the hill on the right. He took off at a run.
If his sense of
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