Chapter 23

Andy followed the trail of sequins to the elevator. He found one inside, and he rode up and then down, checking every floor for more sequins. When he got to the basement, he found another one in the hall. He left the elevator, checking his surroundings often.

He found two more sequins. They stopped just outside the laundry doors. Glancing over his shoulders one more time, he silently opened the door and went in.

Alex entered the ballroom and walked around until she saw Lisa and then Darren. She scanned the room again and again, and did not see Katie or Andy. Finally, she interrupted Darren and asked him.

He told her the same thing he'd told Andy. "I told Andy that too, and I guess he went looking for her."

She pulled out her phone and texted Katie. Getting no response, she texted Andy. Again, there was no response.

Andy had remembered to turn off the ringer on his phone, but he forgot about the light. When the text came in, his phone lit up the corner he was hiding in like Christmas.

"We have company," Nicole said.

Andy heard Katie's pained cry. Then he heard something heavy hit the floor. He buried the lit phone in his pocket and hunched over, scurrying to a safer hiding place.

"There's no point in running, you know. I have all the time in the world."

The room was very dark, and Andy tripped on a loose towel on the floor. She saw him getting to his feet. Andy turned and ran, hard. Nicole Wallace followed.

Alex put the word out to the security team and was starting a floor by floor search when suddenly Bobby was at her side.

"Katie and Andy are missing," she told him, tight lipped. "Hotel security is helping. We're searching floor by floor."

As they walked by, the elevator door opened, but no one was on it. Bobby stepped back and caught the door with his hand. He saw a single blue sequin on the floor. "Alex," he said quietly.

She raced back and saw what he was looking at. Bobby thoroughly checked the floor near the elevator. "She's not on this floor," he said. He got in and waited for Alex to join him, then pushed every single button from the top to the bottom of the hotel.

Andy didn't want to leave the laundry room. He didn't know if Katie was alive or dead, and he didn't want to leave her. He was faster than Wallace, and had gained some distance. He stopped and looked at the surroundings. A rack was in front of him, and several large laundry sacks hung there. Behind it was a cart, like the ones the housekeepers used to put the dirty sheets in when they went room to room. Andy took down the middle laundry bag, opened it, and stuffed half the contents in the cart. As an afterthought, he ripped off his tie and tossed it in the bin. Then he stepped quietly back in the direction he'd come and hid in the darkest corner he could find.

He saw the needle in her hand as she walked by. It was full. Either she hadn't used one on Katie or she carried more than one with her. Nicole saw the bag, saw the cart, and smiled.

Andy didn't hang around to watch her kick the contents hoping to find him hiding amongst the dirty clothes. He walked until he was out of earshot, and then ran back in the direction of his lifelong friend.

Using his phone as a flashlight, he saw that she'd been stabbed. The knife was on the floor, and Katie was terrified. Afraid to make a noise, she looked at him, her eyes wide and her hands clasped over her side.

Andy held his finger to his lips, grabbed a towel from a stack nearby and set it under her hand so she could hold it against the wound. Next, he picked up the knife from the floor.

Wallace came back, as he knew she would. He didn't hide from her this time. Andy squared off with her, each of them armed and ready to kill.

When the doors opened at the basement level, Bobby saw the sequin right away. He waved to his wife, and they both headed down the hall. Two security guards approached.

"You got something?" One of them asked. "'Cause we didn't see anything."

"There's a sequin on the floor," Bobby said quietly. "K-the girl, she came this way." He sent the security guards in one direction, and he and Alex went the other.

At the door to the laundry, Bobby let Alex take the lead. She was active on the force, after all. And she was currently the only one of them who was armed. They entered slowly and cautiously. They could hear the voices in the back and walked carefully in that direction.

"You're just a boy," Nicole was saying, "and this isn't a video game, after all. You wouldn't know how to cut into real flesh."

"Why don't you come closer and find out?" Andy asked, sounding exactly like his Dad.

"You can't sneak out of this one, Nicole," Bobby warned, his chin down and eyes wide.

"Bobby, come to join the party, have you?" She checked her grip on the needle in her hand. Instead of lunging for Andy, she dropped and drew down on Katie.

Andy tackled her and stuck the knife in between her ribs. Blood spattered and her breath was labored.

Alex and Bobby rushed in and took over. Bobby got between Andy and Nicole while Alex checked that Katie was still alive.

"The needle missed," Alex said loudly. "She's all right, Bobby."

Andy stood behind Alex, nervously shifting his weight from foot to foot.

Bobby looked at Nicole a moment, saw that she was struggling, the knife still sticking in her chest. Her garbled breath filled the room, and he turned his back on her, to see about his daughter.

Andy shouted and Bobby felt the pain at the same time. Nicole Wallace had just plucked the knife from her own chest, insuring her death, and stabbed Bobby in the back.

Alex spurred Andy into action. He called 911 on his phone and shouted until the security guards joined them to tend to Katie and Bobby. By midnight, they were all at the hospital.