Read Online Cell: A Novel by Stephen King - Free Book Online

nervously and then seemed to shrink further into herself.
    “What’s up there?” Tom asked.
    “It’s the Iroquois Room directly overhead,” Mr. Ricardi replied. “The largest of our three meeting rooms, and where we keep all of our supplies—chairs, tables, audiovisual equipment.” He paused. “And, although we have no restaurant, we arrange for buffets or cocktail parties, if clients request such service. That last thump…”
    He didn’t finish. As far as Clay was concerned, he didn’t need to. That last thump had been a trolley stacked high with glassware being upended on the floor of the Iroquois Room, where numerous other trolleys and tables had already been tipped over by some madman who was rampaging back and forth up there. Buzzing around on the second floor like a bug trapped between the window and the screen, something without the wit to find a way out, something that could only run and break, run and break.
    Alice spoke up for the first time in nearly half an hour, and without prompting for the first time since they’d met her. “You said something about someone named Doris.”
    “Doris Gutierrez.” Mr. Ricardi was nodding. “The head housekeeper. Excellent employee. Probably my best. She was on three, the last time I heard from her.”
    “Did she have—?” Alice wouldn’t say it. Instead she made a gesture that had become almost as familiar to Clay as the index finger across the lips indicating Shh. Alice put her right hand to the side of her face with the thumb close to her ear and the pinkie in front of her mouth.
    “No,” Mr. Ricardi said, almost primly. “Employees have to leave them in their lockers while they’re on the job. One violation gets them a reprimand. Two and they can be fired. I tell them this when they’re taken on.” He lifted one thin shoulder in a half-shrug. “It’s management’s policy, not mine.”
    “Would she have gone down to the second floor to investigate those sounds?” Alice asked.
    “Possibly,” Mr. Ricardi said. “I have no way of knowing. I only know that I haven’t heard from her since she reported the wastebasket fire out, and she hasn’t answered her pages. I paged her twice.”
    Clay didn’t want to say You see, it isn’t safe here, either right out loud, so he looked past Alice at Tom, trying to give him the basic idea with his eyes.
    Tom said, “How many people would you say are still upstairs?”
    “I have no way of knowing.”
    “If you had to guess.”
    “Not many. As far as the housekeeping staff goes, probably just Doris. The day crew leaves at three, and the night crew doesn’t come on until six.” Mr. Ricardi pressed his lips tightly together. “It’s an economy gesture. One cannot say measure because it doesn’t work. As for guests…”
    He considered.
    “Afternoon is a slack time for us, very slack. Last night’s guests have all checked out, of course—checkout time at the Atlantic Inn is noon—and tonight’s guests wouldn’t begin checking in until four o’clock or so, on an ordinary afternoon. Which this most definitely is not. Guests staying several days are usually here on business. As I assume you were, Mr. Riddle.”
    Clay nodded without bothering to correct Ricardi on his name.
    “At midafternoon, businesspeople are usually out doing whatever it was that brought them to Boston. So you see, we have the place almost to ourselves.”
    As if to contradict this, there came another thump from above them, more shattering glass, and a faint feral growl. They all looked up.
    “Clay, listen,” Tom said. “If the guy up there finds the stairs… I don’t know if these people are capable of thought, but—”
    “Judging by what we saw on the street,” Clay said, “even calling them people might be wrong. I’ve got an idea that guy up there is more like a bug trapped between a window and a screen. A bug trapped like that might get out—if it found a hole—and the guy up there might find the stairs, but if