Somebody was trying to get in.
‘Unlock the door!’ A man’s rough, gravelly voice shouted. ‘Unlock the door!’
Danny didn’t move. She concentrated on distancing herself from the burning sensation in her forehead. It felt like a match had been lit there. Dimly, she heard the man shout, ‘Cover your head! We’re going to break the window!’ She screamed as glass exploded around her.
The door was wrenched open and the rough voice demanded, ‘Are you OK? Can you hear me?’ He sounded American.
Danny slowly raised her head and the horn stopped blaring. She gazed at it in surprise before slowly looking up into the face of the man with his head thrust inside the cab. ‘Somebody . . .’ she quavered, ‘left the phone . . . off the hook.’
He lifted his heavy black brows, purpose-built for scowling. ‘Hell, you’re a mess.’
His voice sounded a long way off. The inside of Danny’s head felt like a piece of Swiss cheese — it was as if her brain had leaked through the holes. There wasn’t enough left behind to make sense of what he was saying. The lucid part of her stood alongside, watching what was happening. Danny’s ears still buzzed. Her heart thudded erratically against her breastbone, keeping time with the throb in her head.
The buzzing suddenly changed to a whine and then a twittering noise, as if birds were circling her head. Danny patted the air above her, still woozy. ‘Are there birds in here?’ she asked faintly.
Lucid Danny buried her face in her hands and shook her head.
The man caught her hand and drew it gently downwards. Danny was surprised at how warm he felt and how cold she was. She studied the chunky black sweater covering his chest and felt like burrowing into it. From behind him came the sound of raised voices. He chafed her hand between both of his and shouted over his shoulder. ‘We need a doctor!’
Lucid Danny took a closer look. With bloodshot black eyes in a swarthy face covered in five o’clock shadow, she decided he didn’t do the designer-stubble look well — in fact he looked more like a serial killer. Something was definitely wrong with her if she thought it was OK to snuggle up to a serial killer. And would you look at that nose? It stood like a monument in the middle of his face. He looked vaguely familiar and Danny decided she’d probably seen his face on Crime Watch.
‘You look like a serial killer.’
Danny didn’t realize she’d spoken aloud until the Serial Killer stopped chafing her hands. ‘I look a whole lot better than you do. What the hell were you thinking?’ he demanded. ‘You could have killed somebody.’
It was as if he’d slapped her. She pushed his hands away and licked her lips. ‘I want to get out.’
‘Wait until the paramedics get here: you’re bleeding.’
Danny stared at him, surprised. ‘I am?’
He looked at her forehead and nodded.
Right on cue, something trickled down her nose. Blood? Danny raised her hand and touched her face.
He caught her wrist and pulled it away. ‘Careful.’
She looked at the sticky, red smear on her fingers and squeezed her eyes shut. It felt as if blunt needles were being driven into her face. When she opened her eyes again, the Serial Killer had been replaced by another face topped by thinning brown hair and dominated by a pair of large brown cocker-spaniel eyes watching her anxiously through glasses.
The Cocker Spaniel pressed a handkerchief gently against her forehead and asked in an American accent, ‘Are you OK?’
Danny took the handkerchief from him, wondering where the Serial Killer had gone and why there were so many Americans around. She swallowed a giggle.
Concussed, slightly hysterical, Lucid Danny decided.
The Cocker Spaniel held up his hand. ‘How many fingers?’
Her teeth began to chatter. ‘Why? H-have you lost s-some?’
The Serial Killer wedged himself in beside the Cocker Spaniel. ‘The paramedics are on the way, let them do that.’ He noticed Danny’s shudders and disappeared again. Then CS disappeared and SK reappeared, minus his sweater.
Danny giggled. ‘Do . . . do you rehearse your m-moves?’
‘Stop it.’ SK growled.
‘I can’t!’ She laughed, then whimpered as the pain increased.
‘All that wriggling around is only making things worse,’ SK said.
Danny cracked open an eyelid. Worse for who? Him? Or her?
He leaned forward to cover her with his sweater and stopped when he saw the ID badge attached to her blue uniform tunic.
Danny noticed a spreading patch of scarlet soaking his shirtsleeve at the wrist.
‘Y-you’re bleeding.’
SK didn’t answer.
She gritted her teeth against the pain and touched the edge of his sleeve. ‘You’re bleeding.’
He looked at her fiercely, ‘Daneka Lawton? You’re Daneka Lawton?’
Her hand dropped to her lap. ‘Yes. W-what’s it t-to you?’
The Cocker Spaniel popped up again behind SK to peer intently at Danny’s ID. His eyes widened. He placed a restraining hand on SK’s shoulder. ‘Not now, Ross, she’s hurt.’
His words seemed ominous, but Danny couldn’t hold the thought. The Serial Killer’s face swam in and out of focus as her stomach started doing a Mexican wave that slowly spread up her oesophagus. She took deep breaths and tried to concentrate. Ross? His name was Ross? That was significant, but she couldn’t remember why. Her stomach cramped — she had to get out of the truck.
‘Sit still!’ Ross the Serial Killer snapped. ‘The paramedics are here.’
Suddenly the name in the letter Danny had received that morning popped into her mind. Ross Fabello. She stared at Ross, her stomach churning.
He gazed back stonily.
She had to ask. ‘Who are you?’
His black eyes bored into hers. ‘I’m Ross Fabello,’ he said. ‘I’m Patrick’s brother.’
Danny grabbed her mouth.
Ross Fabello leapt backwards a moment too late.
She leaned out the door.
And threw up on his shoes.