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.Almost at the other end of the storeroom, she stopped in her tracks.There at her feet, arms outstretched toward the door of the storeroom, lay Jimmy.Although he reached up for the door, he slumped unmoving against it.The blood seeping out of his back leaked through his shirt.Marianne couldn't see his face, but in order to get in through the door, they'd have to move the body.Marianne gasped and turned her face to hide in the chest of the doctor who stood behind her.Pushing on the door caused Jimmy to roll over, showing his dead face.“I can do nothing for this man,” he said.“But I am surprised at your shock.I would have thought after what you witnessed earlier in the evening that you would expect that the life of this kind of man would end in this violent manner.It's astonishing that you have any sort of feeling for him at all.”Marianne agreed in her heart, but seeing the dead body of a man who'd been a friend deeply distressed her.His mouth held a strange grimace, and he had a horrified stare in his eyes.This image, Marianne knew, she would never forget, the kind of image that would haunt her dreams.Jimmy cared for Joe, but that loyalty came from self-preservation, and she understood it.All through his behavior toward her, she knew that somehow he thought of her as a friend.To see her friend in this way, lying at the base of the door, blood all over his belly, horrified her.“Allow me,” the doctor said simply.He took her hand and navigated her through the maze, encouraging her to step over the limbs and torso of her dead friend.Marianne had seen so many things in her time with Joe, but she'd never seen dead bodies.That he had spared her.People vanished, and she had questioned, on one occasion the disappearance of a man that Joe had told her no longer worked for him.However, Joe had always spared her.And she'd let him.Closing her eyes as she stepped over the body, Marianne made her way through the back door of the storeroom.She paused, wanting to look back at her friend.“Marianne.” She could hear the voice behind her.“There will be time to mourn the things that you see later, at a safe distance.If the authorities find you here, they may suspect you of these crimes.We must keep moving to keep you safe.”Marianne moved on from Jimmy's body and shuffled around a large shelf that extended into the main part of the room.Up ahead, the door to the main bar stood.Then she saw the bodies of Joe and Don.They both lay on their backs, staring wide-eyed at the ceiling close to the other exit of the storeroom.“Oh, dear God! Who could have done this?” cried Marianne.“Just keep moving.” The doctor's voice, calm behind her, reassured her.“As long as they do not blame you for this, then everything will be for the best.”Marianne felt hysteria rising inside her.It horrified her to see Jimmy killed, but now Joe.She didn't love Joe any more, but that didn't mean she wanted to see him hurt.Definitely not killed.She felt vulnerable, weak, and very confused.She couldn't help wondering why her life had been spared through this series of killings.And why was she brought in to see this carnage?She turned away in her horror.A great pool of blood extended out from Joe and Don, thick and red, like in a bad film.Marianne could see the blood, but tried not to internalize the meaning of it.She stepped over the bodies and found her way to the door.Turning the knob, she stepped out into the blackness of the huge main bar area of The Pink Pussycat Club.Once in the darkness of the club, she moved to turn a light on.The switch made no difference, and without natural light, the room seemed like a cave.The main door looked bolted closed.God, I want to get out of here.“Why did you bring me here?”All alone, Marianne wanted an answer to what he'd just put her through.Heading instinctively toward the door, desperate to get out into the daylight.She became aware that the doctor wasn't going to answer and wasn't behind her anymore.Terrified the killer hadn't left the room, she turned abruptly, filled with fear again.With a little sunlight from the storeroom behind him, Marianne could see the doctor standing by the door, a gun in his hand pointed firmly in Marianne's direction.Marianne froze.“What's this? We need to get out of here.” The full weight of what she saw crept up slowly.“Marianne, we will not be going out the front door.Do forgive me, but I can't take the chance that you will be seen.”As if she'd been in a deep, dark fog and had suddenly moved into the brightness of the middle of the day, it all started to become clear to Marianne.“You killed them,” she said.“And now you mean to kill me.”“Yes.I killed them.And, yes, I am afraid that I do mean to kill you.I didn't want to initially, but you disappointed me the other day, and I realized that I had lost the control that I had over you, a control that I felt essential to the successful outcome I wanted.”“Then Joe's superior…is you.The partner he talked about earlier? You told him about my movements, my sex life, and the other details.You've spied on me.You're the one who lied and told him I'd become a threat.And you brought me in here to kill me like the others.”“Well deduced [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]