Free Demon's Door by Graham Masterton Page A

– do you have any idea what happened to her?’ Jim persisted.
    â€˜It has not happen yet. No need to worry.’
    â€˜You’re talking in riddles again, Kim. If you know how Maria got herself hurt, then we really have to know. Did somebody attack her? The nurse seems to think she was injured by a lawnmower, or maybe some kind of farm machinery.’
    â€˜Maria have great trouble with her stepfather, Mr Rook. He is dangerous man. I should not tell you this because she make me promise.’
    â€˜What are you telling me? That her stepfather cut her up like that?’
    â€˜No, Mr Rook. Nobody cut her up. Not yet.’
    Just then, Lieutenant Harris came over. ‘Hard to make any sense of this. The crime scene guys tell me that she left blood spatters and bloody footprints only a quarter of the way along the corridor. They start about thirty feet short of your classroom door. How do you think she got as far as that without making a single mark?’
    â€˜I can’t say that I noticed that,’ said Jim. ‘I was too concerned with trying to get everybody out of the building without treading all over the evidence.’
    â€˜But even if somebody was carrying her along the corridor, there would have been drops of blood on the floor.’
    â€˜Maybe somebody was carrying her wrapped up in a blanket, or a coat or something,’ Jim suggested.
    Lieutenant Harris pulled a face. ‘Still doesn’t make any sense.’
    â€˜Let’s hope she can tell us when she comes round.’
    â€˜ If she comes round.’
    â€˜Kim here seems to be convinced that she’s going to be fine,’ said Jim.
    Lieutenant Harris looked around and frowned. ‘Kim? Who’s Kim?’
    Jim turned. Kim had been standing right next to him, on the steps, but now he was more than seventy-five yards away, underneath the shadow of the cedar tree, with his classmates. Jim hadn’t even seen him turn around and walk off. And how had he managed to get so far away, in only a few seconds? He was talking to Tamara and Arthur as if they were in mid-conversation.
    Lieutenant Harris said, ‘If you think of anything that might be helpful, Mr Rook, you will get in touch with Detective Wong, won’t you? I think that you and he will probably get along. He’s a great believer in the occult. He says that his grandmother talks to ghosts on a regular basis. Apparently they give her pretty reliable tips for Santa Anita.’
    â€˜Sure, yes,’ said Jim, abstractedly. He paused for a moment longer, still staring at Kim. How the hell had he gotten over to that tree so fast? Jim felt as if fifteen seconds had been edited out of his life, and that somehow he had missed Kim saying goodbye and walking away. But how could he?
    He continued up the steps to the main entrance. As he opened the door, though, he felt a chill across his shoulders. He turned around and looked up at the sky. Clouds were sliding across the sun as fast as a speeded-up movie, and the trees and the bushes were increasingly agitated, although there seemed to be hardly any wind blowing.
    Nurse Okeke was coming up the steps toward him. ‘Mr Rook?’ she asked him. ‘Is something wrong?’
    â€˜Yes, Nurse. I believe that there is.’
    Nurse Okeke raised one immaculately plucked eyebrow. ‘Can I ask you what it is? You’re looking troubled, if you don’t mind my saying so.’
    Jim said, ‘I think you’re right, Nurse Okeke. That’s what’s wrong. I don’t believe that Maria was attacked by any intruder, either. Maria got herself mangled by some piece of machinery. But the question is what, and how, and why – and even more important, when ?’
    Before he went home he stopped off at the Cat’n’Fiddle English Pub on Hollywood Boulevard. It was dark in the Cat’n’Fiddle, with stained-glass windows and dim Tiffany lamps. Out on the patio a jazz trio was