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off her Chuck T's, and
crawled under the covers. She hit the light. Closed her eyes.
Opened them. The stink was still there. Potent and getting stronger
every second. She turned on the light and sat up against the
headboard. This was bad. First of all, because she couldn't sleep
with the smell, and it would only get worse. But more importantly,
when she brought Andrew Thomas up here tomorrow, the smell would
totally gross him out, make a bad impression.
    She hopped out of bed and walked into the
bathroom. Opened one of the mini-bottles of shampoo and squirted
the entire thing over Mark, who now looked purple and swollen. She
cranked up the shower. As the hot water beat down on the corpse,
she saw that it was leaking, and the heat only made the smell more
intense.
    She turned off the shower, grabbed the
trashbag out of the waste basket beside the sink, and headed for
the door.
    Her bare feet tracked down the carpet toward
the alcove where the vending machines hummed. Down in the lobby, a
hundred and fifty feet below, she could hear Irish drinking songs
lilting up out of the bar.
    She held the plastic bag open while cubes of
ice rattled down out of the ice machine. Carried it back to 1428
and into the bathroom, where she plugged the shower drain and
dumped the ice over Mark Darling. Her heart sank. The bag of ice
had barely covered him. She was going to need a lot more.
    After five trips, the ice was beginning to
look substantial piled on top of the dead writer's chest.
    After ten, she stepped into the shower and
spread them around, felt a glimmer of relief as they nearly covered
him. One more trip, maybe two, and she'd be done.
    Lucy reached down and grabbed the bag off
the floor.
    As she started toward the bathroom door, it
swung open.
    She froze.
    A man stood in the threshold, and for a
fleeting second, she thought it was Andrew Thomas, but he was
wearing different clothes--a white tee-shirt and blue jeans. And his
hair was messy, eyes still squinting like he'd just woken up.
    He was staring at the blood spatters on the
bathroom floor, and at the trash bag in Lucy's hand, and now at
Lucy.
    It seemed like an entire minute passed
without either of them speaking, Lucy thinking about the straight
razor in the bedside table drawer. Useless now. Her eyes moved
around the bathroom, looking for something with heft, or with an
edge.
    It surprised her when the man smiled. He
said, "Who you got in there?"
    She didn't answer. She made fists to stop
her hands from shaking but all it did was give her shaking
fists.
    " Quite a mess," he said. "You've been
a naughty little girl, haven't you?"
    He took a step forward, glanced in the
shower.
    Lucy's eyes welled up. A sob escaped.
    " No," the man said. "No, no, no. Don't
cry."
    He knelt down in front of Lucy.
    The eyes. She was going to have to blind
him. Jam her thumbs in as far as they would go and run like
hell.
    " You don't have to be afraid. What's
your name?"
    " Lucy."
    Her hands had been at her sides. Now, she
slowly raised them.
    " Lucy, did that man in the shower hurt
you?"
    She nodded.
    " What did he do?"
    " He tried to rape me."
    She shot her thumbs at his eyes, but he
parried right and jumped back, laughing. Lucy ran for the open
door. The man grabbed her and pulled her into his chest.
    " Shhh," he whispered as she struggled.
"Don't scream, Lucy."
    She kicked her legs and tried to head-butt
him as he carried her out of the bathroom into the hotel room and
threw her onto the bed.
    " Relax!" he said. "I'm not going to
hurt you. I'm not going to get you in trouble."
    Lucy glared at him.
    " You should be more careful, you know.
Ten trips with an ice bucket in the middle of the night is bound to
get somebody's attention. Particularly if their room is next to the
ice machine."
    " Mark was starting to
smell."
    " Yeah, I noticed. But a few cubes of
ice isn't going to fix it. You here by yourself?"
    She nodded.
    " He didn't try to rape you, did
he?"
    She just watched him, said nothing.
    "