The Killing Room by John Manning

Author:John Manning
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Murder, Horror, Women private investigators, Fiction, Investigation, Suspense, Thrillers, Crime
ISBN: 9780786017997
Publisher: PINNACLE BOOKS
Published: 2010-05-04T01:14:16+00:00

Chapter Thirteen

Dean Young wasn't getting any work done today. In front of him, spread all over his desk, were the plans for a major new high-rise development set for Boston's Copley Square. Construction was slated to begin in less than a month, and all sorts of decisions had still to be made. Final dimensions, work orders, schedules. As chief architect, he had to approve all of the minutiae his associates had planned. But he simply couldn't keep his mind on his work. All he could think of was that a month from now, when this project got under way, he might not be alive.

It may be me who's chosen this time, Dean thought, for the thousandth time. It may be my turn to spend a night in that room.

Of course it terrified him. What went on in there? What horrible events took place? He remembered his father the morning after his name had been chosen in the lottery. He'd been found sitting on the couch in the room, his eyes bugged out, his hair white. His heart had stopped, and he was cold as ice. Dean would live with that image for the rest of his life.

Would that be how I'd die as well? Terrified beyond all reason? Or would it be even more gruesome, the way cousin Douglas had died, with a plastic bag secured over his head by some unknown creature? Or would there be gore, like so many of the others?

But for all his terror, the manner of his own death was not the worst of it for Dean. It would be leaving Zac and Callie fatherless. He'd made sure to buy all sorts of life insurance policies, with them and Linda as beneficiaries. He was able to get some terrific plans, because, according to everything the insurance companies could see, he was in good health, and was still a relatively young man. Every indicator pointed to Dean living a long life. But Aetna and Travelers didn't know about the room in the basement of Uncle Howard's house.

Sitting at his desk, looking past the blueprints and gazing out his twentieth-story window onto the city below him, Dean thought of his sister. What if it was Paula who was chosen? How could he let her walk in there by herself? He adored his older sister. He had ever since he was a little boy, and asthma had prevented him from playing ball or running too fast. Paula had always been there to protect him when the other boys picked on him. Once, when it looked like they'd miss the bus to school, Paula had swept up the six-year-old Dean in her arms and carried him as she ran, knowing full well he'd never have been able to make the exertion himself. In Dean's mind, that symbolized their relationship. Paula had literally carried him through some of life's roughest moments.

And, he hoped, he'd done the same for her now. He felt terribly bad that the family curse had ended Paula's relationship with Karen.

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