Down Time by Barry Lyga

Author:Barry Lyga
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: Hachette Originals
Published: 2018-08-06T16:00:00+00:00

After hanging the DO NOT DISTURB tag on Nadine’s door—and double-checking that no one was in the hall—Billy slipped into the corridor and hastened to the lobby, where the hotel’s free breakfast buffet was still in full swing. He needed to be seen, just in case he had to establish an alibi later.

Piling a plate high with runny scrambled eggs and burnt hash browns, Billy settled in at a small table with two chairs, his back to a half-wall topped with greenery. He forced himself to eat the disgusting mess slowly and methodically. Food was fuel, and fuel kept the brain-gears turning.

The killer had been in the room the whole time. It was the only explanation that fit the facts. The closet Billy had dutifully checked in the morning had been occupied all night because the killer hadn’t slipped in when Billy left—he’d been there when Billy left. He’d been there while Billy slept.

While Billy fucked.

His ego told him it was impossible, but Billy’s sense of self-preservation had no trouble overriding his ego. Someone had been in the room when he’d gotten there the previous night with Nadine, and that person knew Billy’s face, his voice.

Questions assailed him: Did Nadine know the killer was there? Had this been some sort of weird setup or a sex game gone awry? What were the odds of someone deciding to murder Billy’s one-night stand before he even bedded her?

The combination of unanswerable questions and greasy, grotesque buffet chow spun his head and roiled his gut. Billy rolled his temples with his forefingers. Nothing made any sense. And still, a dead girl doused in his DNA was up on the fourth floor, hidden only by the insufficient and insignificant shield of a flimsy, laminated DO NOT DISTURB sign.

A bright, sharp image of Jasper knifed through the shadowy queries and hazy images of Nadine’s room. His boy. He had to figure this out for his boy. If Billy went away, who knew what would happen to Jasper? He could hear the clang and complaint of his mother in the kitchen, echoing in his near-perfect memory. No good.

He surreptitiously glanced around the lobby. Any of these people could be the killer. Any one of them, and any one of the hundreds of others elsewhere in the hotel. Assuming the killer hadn’t already fled. Which… Why wouldn’t he? Why not run off after doing the deed?

Unless he wants to stick around to see what’s what…

Billy suddenly realized he might have a target on his own back. Kill the only witness…? Sure.

But…

It just wasn’t making any sense. If the killer was in the closet all night, why not come out and shoot up Nadine and Billy with kill-juice? Remove the possibility of Billy’s remembering something or tattling to the cops, narrowing the time frame. It just didn’t make sense to keep Billy alive. Even for an amateur.

Unless this wasn’t a murder; it was a game.

He dumped his tray at the trash cans. The Crows—that secret society of serial

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