Free The Pied Piper of Death by Richard; Forrest Page B

yanked her to her feet.
    She turned to face him a moment and then jerked violently away. “Please …”
    â€œGod, you are a lousy actress,” he said with a smile. “Next I expect you to threaten to throw yourself from the parapet if I ravish you.”
    â€œI’m torn between that or being a modern girl who might give you a shot in the groin. You wanted the games.” she said with a shake of her head that splayed hair around her face.
    â€œHow else was I to get in here?”
    She flung herself at him as they fell back on the bed.
    â€œWhen I was on the Middleburg force we posted a uniform at the door when we tossed a place.” Harry, the security lieutenant, belched his disgust at the TV monitor focused on the gate cottage. “Look at those clowns,” he remarked to no one in particular. “Keystone Kops.”
    At the lockers against the far wall, Barry Nevins gave his ex-superior the finger in the mirror. He continued stuffing some of the contents of his locker into a small gym bag. His eye caught movement in the TV monitor on the far right of the left bank. Someone had slipped into the girl’s bedroom. Old retread Harry didn’t know how to scan the newly installed system.
    Screw him. Harry had just given him the old firing shaft, so let him do his own work. It wasn’t his responsibility when he was off the clock—and he’d stay off the clock until sometime tomorrow when he’d recovered from the hangover he was going to create tonight. Only then would he call a certain unlisted phone number and talk to old Peyton Piper Poo and suggest that he be rehired. Somehow, he thought he would be, with some proper excuse given to Harry.
    â€œHappy Lars has the case,” Harry announced. “Boy what a weirdo that sawbones is.”
    â€œI think someone is going to blow the girl away,” Barry said in a voice almost too low for Harry to hear. What the hell. Maybe some excitement would come out of all this.
    â€œYeah sure,” Harry replied automatically. “Rocco Herbert is trying to run the murder case. God, that big jerk can’t keep the school crossing guards in line. Swan’s old lady did him in and can’t say I blame her. The guy was jumping all the bones at Bridgeway.”
    â€œSo, I’m like history, huh?” Barry said as he stuffed his favorite sap, a sock filled with two rolls of quarters, into his gym bag.
    â€œSorry about that Barry,” the security chief said, “but the senator saw you hit the dame. I had no choice. You had to go.”
    â€œThanks for backing me, old buddy.”
    Harry shrugged. “Nothing I can do, man. She saw you. It was a dumb thing to do.”
    Barry wondered if he should try to tell Harry about the intruder again. His former supervisor, intrigued with events at the gatehouse, had obviously missed the man’s entry into Paula’s room. It was probably too late now, anyway. The kook had probably either raped or killed the girl by this time, or maybe both. Barry savored that possibility for a brief moment until he realized that his fantasy was interfering with a great game plan.
    â€œI’m cutting out,” Barry said as he zippered his small bag and started for the door. He waited until the last possible moment, when he had his hand on the handle and the door partially open. “By the way, there’s an intruder just went inside the girl’s room. If you’d been watching the monitor you’d seen it.”
    Harry’s eyes shifted automatically to scan the appropriate monitor. The far right screen now showed an empty upstairs hallway. “I don’t see anything.”
    â€œThat’s because he’s not in the hall now. He’s inside her room with a knife to her throat as he jumps her.”
    Harry jerked to his feet so abruptly that his wooden straight chair fell over on its back with a clatter. “Jesus H. Christ! We’re in deep