Watch Them Die by Kevin O'Brien Read Free Book Online

well, thanks,” Hannah replied. “I don’t want you going to any trouble. I was going to take a cab—”
    “Okay, suit yourself,” Paul grumbled; then he marched down the corridor to his office.
    Hannah sighed. Obviously, he was ticked off at her. Otherwise, he’d have insisted on driving her home—just to be polite. After all, it was raining, for God’s sake.
    She called the cab service from a pay phone by the community college’s main entrance.
    Eleven blocks, and it cost her six dollars with tip. She’d have to skip lunch tomorrow. Still, the taxi ride kept her out of the rain.
    Hannah stepped inside the apartment and pried off her shoes. She woke up Joyce, who had been dozing in front of the TV.
    “Guy’s fast asleep, the little angel,” she told Hannah while collecting her purse and raincoat. “I put a big dent in that bag of Pepperidge Farm cookies. You really shouldn’t have bought those. Oh, and no one called tonight, not a single hang-up either. How about that?”
    Hannah loaned Joyce an umbrella for the walk home. She locked the door after her, then checked in on Guy, who was asleep. After a shower, Hannah climbed into her T-shirt and flannel pajama bottoms, and threw on a robe. Pouring herself a glass of wine, she plopped down on the sofa and grabbed the remote. She hoped her soap opera would take her mind off everything. She pressed “Play” to make sure the tape hadn’t run out early on her program.
    What came over the screen wasn’t The Young and the Restless —or the soap after it. Hannah stared at a young couple, walking down the street. He wore a seersucker suit with a narrow tie, and she had a light coat over her minidress. It took Hannah a few moments to recognize John Cassavetes and Mia Farrow outside the Dakota apartment building in a scene from Rosemary’s Baby . They walked into a nest of police and onlookers gathered in front of the building. Amid the flashing lights and chaos, Mia got a glimpse of something on the sidewalk.
    Hannah knew the movie. Still, she gasped when the camera cut to the bloodied corpse of Mia’s neighbor and friend sprawled on the pavement. One of the cops said that the girl had jumped from the building’s seventh-floor window.
    “What is this?” Hannah muttered. Grabbing the remote, she ejected the movie. She went to the VCR and looked at the videocassette. It wasn’t the blank tape she’d slipped into the recorder this morning. It was a store-bought copy of Rosemary’s Baby . “Where the hell did this come from?” she whispered.
    “Well, it’s not mine,” Joyce told her on the phone, three minutes later. “I’ve never even seen Rosemary’s Baby . I don’t go in for those scary movies.”
    “Did you take Guy out tonight?” Hannah asked, thinking they might have had a break-in, a real one this time. Maybe the last one was real, too. “Did you leave the apartment at all?” she pressed.
    “No, honey. It started raining shortly after you left. We stayed put.”
    “Okay, Joyce. Thanks. Sorry to bother you.”
    Hannah hung up the phone, then went back to the VCR. The carpet was damp in spots, and she figured she must have tracked in some rain earlier. On top of a stack of videocassettes, Hannah found the tape she’d slipped into the machine this morning. She played it in the VCR. It was her soap opera; a new episode she hadn’t seen yet, today’s episode.
    Hannah stepped back from the TV. Again, she felt the cold, wet patches on the carpet beneath her feet. Frowning, she turned and gazed back at her shoes by the front door, just where she’d kicked them off when she had stepped inside. She looked out the window at the continuous downpour.
    Someone else had tracked in the rain—and not very long ago, either.
    Swallowing hard, Hannah moved toward the door, along the damp trail on the carpet. She’d locked up before taking her shower. Now, with a shaky hand, she reached for the knob and pulled open the door.
    “My God,” she whispered.