Deadly Visions by Roy Johansen Read Free Book Online Page B

her room, and headed straight for the minibar. They'd restocked the rum. Good. She needed it.
    She ran a hot bath as she called in for her messages. Just the usual crap. Guests needing to be rescheduled, requests for charity dinners, and a stack of audition tapes waiting for her perusal back in her office. The syndicator wanted a hip young “specialcorrespondent”to host remote segments, so they were on the lookout for some young stud to appeal to the eighteen-to-forty-nine-year-old women whom advertisers coveted so much.
    She tossed her cell phone onto the bathroom counter. Screw them all. She peeled off her clothes and lowered herself into the bathwater, trying to imagine all of her tensions floating from her body. It usually worked, but tonight she couldn't stop thinking about—
    “
Monica
…”
    She froze. A sharp, eerie whisper from the other side of the bathroom. Surely she had only imagined it.
    “
Monica
…”
    She stood, clutching the plastic shower curtain across her torso.
    “
We
'
ve come for you, Monica
.”
    She glanced around but saw no one.
    “
Your time has come
.”
The
voice appeared to emanate from the bathroom counter.
    She huddled against the wall. The tiles were cold against her back.”What the hell do you want?”
    There was a pause, then a long-drawn-out whisper, “
We
'
ve come for you
.”
    Her tears fell hot against her cheeks. What in the hell was going on?
    Still gripping the shower curtain, she stepped from the tub. One foot, then the other. Her heart was trying to jump out of her chest.
    She didn't breathe as she stepped across the bathroom, bracing herself for that awful, slithering whisper. She moved past the washbasin, almost afraid tolook toward the mirror. She glanced up in spite of herself.
    She gasped. This couldn't be happening.
    There, on her chest, was the circle-intersecting-bars symbol that had marked the murder victims.
    She rubbed it with her fingertips, but it wouldn't go away.
    Oh, Jesus. Get out, she told herself. Just get the hell out of there.
    She hurried from the bathroom, reached into the closet, and pulled out her robe. She yanked it on.
    “
Die, Monica
….”
    She screamed and jumped for the door. She turned the knob and pulled.
    The chain. The goddamned security chain. She fumbled with it as the whispers grew louder and more intense.
    “
Monica
…
Die with us, Monica
….”
    She pulled the chain free and yanked the door open wide. She stumbled into the hallway.”Leave me alone! Leave me the hell alone!”
    “
We
'
re coming for you, Monica
.”
    “No!”
    Her screams drew other hotel guests from their rooms behind her, but she couldn't stop. Not while that…
thing
was after her.
    The glass elevators loomed ahead, but she couldn't stop and wait for the car. Must keep moving. She reached the stairwell door and reached for the handle.
    In the next instant, there was a sickening roar and flames erupted over her entire body.
    “
Die with us, Monica
….”
    Fire everywhere. Not everywhere, she realized. Just on her. White-hot flames attacking her, rolling over her legs and chest, licking at her neck and hair.
    Pain. Agony
.
    It was as if the fires of hell had come for her.

J oe stepped off the musty elevator and paced down the hallway toward Grady Memorial Hospital's intensive care unit. Carla and Howe were waiting at the nurses'station.
    “What the hell happened?”Joe asked.
    Howe shrugged. “We're about to find out. All we know is that Monica Gaines made like a human torch in front of about half a dozen witnesses at her hotel.”
    “I got that much from the precinct,”Joe said. “Any idea how it happened?”
    Carla shook her head. “I just talked to a uniformed cop on the scene, and according to the witnesses, she was running down the hall, screaming. Then, a few seconds later, she just ignited. It was like spontaneous combustion.”
    Before Joe could respond, a doctor with silver hair and round-shaped eyeglasses strode through a doorway. Howe