Free Dressed to Kill by Campbell Black

understood was she had to get home, she had to confront Mike, lie to him, she had to see Peter, surround herself with that entity she called family . . . because that’s where she’d be safe.
    She stepped into the corridor, pulling the door quietly shut behind her. LIST OF ALL, she thought. But she hadn’t read the rest of it, had she? No, there hadn’t been time for any of that. It was just a form, just printed matter. It had no connection with her. She pressed the button for the elevator. LIST OF ALL—LISTOFALL—then it was just meaningless nonsense. She heard the elevator rise in the shaft. It made a level humming noise. She’d get inside. She’d go home. Everything was going to be okay. The doors slid open. She entered. She pressed the button for the ground floor. She closed her eyes. If you don’t think, she told herself. If you just don’t think. She pressed her hands together.
    There was no wedding ring.
    Oh Christ, Mike’s ring. She must have left it on the bedside table. After scooping it from under the bed she must have laid it on the table and then forgotten it.
    How could she have done something like that?
    She’d have to go back up. She’d have to press the button and make this car stop and then press another button, but she couldn’t remember the floor number now. Nine? Ten? She stared around the elevator, as if she might find some answer in the panelled wood. Nine, ten, how could she tell? If all the goddam floors looked alike, how the hell could she tell? She wanted to weep. She kept on stabbing at the buttons, but the car was still going down, down, and somehow she imagined that the further down it went the faster it moved, but that couldn’t be. Control yourself, Kate. You find the apartment. You ring the bell. You get your ring. A simple series of actions. ABC. Nothing to it.
    But why wouldn’t the cab respond to her pressing the fucking buttons? Figure it out. Simple, if you wouldn’t panic, if you’d only stop to think. Somebody has pressed the call button on another floor. Right? The thing won’t respond to you until it’s answered the prior call, right?
    Right, Kate. So you wait. You try to be patient. You’ll get your ring back. She shut her eyes. When she opened them she looked at the flashing numbers. The brown walls—why did she allow them to press in on her like some terrible weight? The old claustrophobia. She put a hand to her forehead. Clammy. The car stopped. She looked at the indicator and saw that she was on the fifth floor. An old woman, wrapped in an ancient fur with the head of a dead fox appended to it, stepped inside. The doors slid shut again. Kate leaned against the wall, waited, catching the sickening scent of camphor. She peered at the old woman. Then the car stopped again, this time at the lobby. Moving very slowly, sighing to herself, her dentures clicking, the old woman got out. Kate pressed the button marked ten, watched the doors close, then thought: Hurry. Please hurry. The ring. That’s all you want now. Don’t even think of anything else. Don’t think.
    She stared at the numbered lights. Eight, nine, ten. Ten is right, she thought. It has to be ten. She felt the car shudder to a stop. The doors opened.
    At first she couldn’t understand. She thought: This is all some terrible mistake, it doesn’t make any sense; you must have found the wrong person; my name is Kate, Kate Myers, please . . . Then she was aware of something else, the motion of metal through air, the strange whispering sound, the sight of herself reflected in the dark glasses, the way she raised her hand to fend off the piece of metal, but that must have been later because she felt a sharp pain flash through her wrist and she saw blood rising from her skin. Then the metal was being raised in the air again and the doors were closing, the car was moving, the blonde woman was striking the air and the metal was flashing in the light of the car—
    It was a dream, a sick dream, something you