Death Mask Read Free Page A

stepped into the elevator and placed two fingertips against the young woman's neck. "She's still alive! Help me!"
    Jimmy pushed his box lunch into Newton's hands and stepped into the elevator, too. The floor was so slippery with blood that he skidded and almost lost his balance.
    "What do you want me to do, dude?" he asked the shirtsleeved accountant.
    "Let's lift her out of here-gently. Lay her on her side on the floor. Has anybody called nine-one-one? We need coats, blankets-something to keep her warm. And we need to find out where she's been stabbed-keep some pressure on any arterial wounds."
    Jimmy said, "Shouldn't we take out the knife?"
    "No, leave it there. The paramedics can do that. A lot of stab victims die like that, taking the knife out."
    Between them, he and Jimmy dragged the young woman out of the elevator and laid her on the floor. A matronly secretary knelt down beside her and unbuttoned her coat and her blouse, trying to locate her wounds.
    The shirtsleeved accountant went back into the elevator and checked the pulse of the middle-aged man.
    "How about him?" asked Jimmy, but the shirtsleeved accountant looked up and shook his head.
    "Looks like he was stabbed straight in the heart. Couple of times in the lungs, too."
    "Unbelievable," said Newton. "Fricking unbelievable."
    The matronly secretary said, "This young lady's been lucky, I think. I can only find cuts on her hands and her arms. She must have been fighting for her life."
    Jimmy hunkered down beside her. The young woman's hazel-colored eyes were open, although she appeared to be staring at nothing at all. She was mid-twentieish, with light brown hair that was cut in a long bob, but which was now stuck together with drying blood. There were bloody fingerprints all over her forehead and her right cheek.
    "Are you okay?" Jimmy asked her. The young woman didn't answer, but she was still breathing, and he could see her lips move slightly.
    "You're going to be fine," Jimmy told her. "I promise you, you're going to be fine."
    They heard sirens outside as paramedics and police arrived, and the lobby was filled by the kaleidoscopic reflections of red and blue lights.
    Jimmy stood up. The shirtsleeved accountant came up to him and laid a hand on his shoulder. "You did good, son. Thanks."
    "Hey, I didn't do nothing. You a first-aider?"
    "Ex-marine. Served in Iraq. You get plenty of practice out there, I can tell you, patching up people with various kinds of holes in them."
    "Shit!" said Newton. "Whoever did this, he's still in the building, right? He didn't come down the stairs, did he? So there's no way he could have gotten out."
    "Not unless he jumped from the fifteenth floor," said the shirtsleeved accountant grimly.

CHAPTER 4 - The Garden of the
    Inexplicable
    It was evening by the time Detective Kunzel rang the doorbell, and most of the garden was in shadow. But Sissy and Molly were still sitting under the vine trellis, drinking wine and looking at the terra-cotta pots with a mixture of awe and disbelief-but with delight, too, because what had happened was so magical.
    During the afternoon, Molly had painted five more roses, of varying colors, from buttery yellow to darkest crimson. She had also painted a purple hollyhock and a sunflower and a ragged white Shasta daisy. And here they were, nodding in the breeze, as real as if she had grown them from cuttings and seeds.
    "How do you think it happens?" asked Molly. "Do you think it's some kind of mirage? You know, like an optical illusion, except that you can touch it, too?"
    Sissy blew out smoke. "If you ask me, sweetheart, it's more important to find out why it happens, rather than how. Nothing like this ever happens for no reason. Never did in my lengthy experience, anyhow."
    They had witnessed the miracle as it happened, right in front of their eyes. After Molly had painted a rose, they had stood back and seen it gradually fade from her sketchbook, as if the paper had been bleached by the sunlight. At the