Free Joyride by Jack Ketchum

is just to call him.”
    “He can’t just pick up and leave.”
    He smiled. “Of course he can. And he will—you know he will. You also know why he will. Please, Carole. No games. No silliness. No make-believe. It’s okay to call youCarole, isn’t it? And Mr. Edwards is Lee. Carole and Lee. And you can call me Wayne.”
    “What do you want with…Mr. Edwards?”
    He frowned.
    “You’re asking an awful lot of questions, Carole. You know what this is?” He pointed the gun. “It’s a snub-nose Smith and Wesson .38. Got any guns in the house?”
    “No.”
    He smiled. “Sure you do. A house this big, this pretty? Look at all you’ve got worth stealing. Probably upstairs, right? We’ll have a look around later.
    “But now I want you to call Lee for me. It’s okay if you sound a little upset. You do sound upset, you know that? He’ll just get here faster that way. Upset’s fine. Where’s the phone?”
    She glanced toward the table next to the sofa.
    “Okay, good. Call him.”
    She stood. The room swam. Her legs felt like cardboard. She had to sit down again. She needed to use the bathroom, suddenly she needed it badly. And there was every possibility that she was going to throw up then and there.
    “Take it easy,” he said. “I know this is stressful for you. Take a breath. Take a good, deep breath. Good. There. Now another one. Good, there you go. Excellent. Now try again.”
    She got up.
    “Oh and by the way,” he said. “No 911s or anything, okay? I’m not stupid.”
    Her legs still felt shaky but they held her. She got to the phone and dialed. But she must have gotten the number wrong because the voice on the other end belonged to a little girl of maybe six or seven and therewere no little girls at Lee’s office for god’s sake so she hung up.
    “What’s the problem?”
    “I dialed wrong,” she said.
    He seemed to find that hilarious. “Jesus, Carole! You’re a mess! Calm down, will you? Come on. Give it another try.”
    “Can I…do you mind if I use the bathroom?”
    “After you call.” He laughed again. “It’ll add that element of… urgency.”
    She dialed again. This time she got it right. His secretary put her on hold for a moment and then he was on the line and she was telling him to please come home, please Lee, please, come home right away. She was begging again. While the man Wayne stared at her across the room and tapped his knee with the barrel of the .38.
    She heard Lee asking her what the hell was happening and why she was crying.
    She hadn’t even known she was crying. She hadn’t been aware.
    Hurry, she said.
    She hung up the phone and turned to the man on the couch. The man was probably ten years younger than she was. Thin. Wiry. Without the gun the man might not have been bad looking in an ordinary sort of way but the gun reminded her of Howard, the gun had the dark potent magic to deform the man and turn him ugly.
    “What…what do we do now?” she asked.
    He shrugged. Then he smiled. It was an oddly friendly smile.
    “We get to use the bathroom,” he said.

CHAPTER ELEVEN
    “You,” Lee said.
    He knew the man immediately.
    His memory for faces was good. Besides, as bartenders go, the guy was memorable. He poured short and cheap and used far too much ice and never bought a round no matter how long you sat there. But for the life of him he couldn’t figure him here in this house. It was like seeing a movie star in Hoboken, New Jersey. He didn’t fit.
    “What’s going on? What are you doing here?”
    The man just smiled and looked at Carole and sipped a tumbler of scotch. This one not so short at all.
    “Mr. Lock and I have been talking,” said Carole.
    He looked at her. She hadn’t looked this bad, this strung out, since the Notch.
    “He knows everything, Lee.”
    He couldn’t have heard correctly. Nobody knew. Not even the police. They’d spoken to no one. It was impossible.
    “Say that again?”
    “He knows everything.”
    He could see she was