Der Schädelring: Thriller (German Edition)

flinch when that cop pointed one at you."
    "Because I was frozen stiff. I thought old Barney Fife there would blow my head off if I so much as blinked."
    Julia laughed a little, but her abdomen was too tense to put much force behind it. "I take it that the Elkwood police don't have a very good reputation."
    "They thought 'Police Academy' was an instructional video."
    Julia laughed more easily this time. She was so tired that she was almost giddy. Too much had happened in the last few days. The skull ring, a piece of the past unburied. The discovery of Snead's move to Elkwood. A sexual assault by the man she had thought loved her. A Creep stealing her underwear. If she dared to think at all, she feared she might just start laughing and never stop.
    Walter must have noticed her weariness. "I seen him climb in the window right as it was getting dark. You drove up about two minutes later. I was afraid he might jump you or something, so I went to warn you, but then I saw him climb out with the . . . um . . . underwear thing."
    He's BLUSHING .
    Wait–if the Creep was only in the house for a few minutes . . . then how did he have time to find the clock, plug it in, unlock the front door, prowl through her dresser, and get out the window again?
    Walter continued. "He went into the trees, and I saw your lights come on and heard the window close. I waited to see what he would do. Then, when he snuck back to your window and started peeping, he made me so mad that I wanted to bust him."
    "Let's see, peeping, burglary, breaking and entering—"
    "Oh, he didn't break nothing. Your window was already open. Which kind of made me wonder, since you were so worried about the locks.”
    "The window was open?"
    "Yeah. What's wrong?"
    “The ring. My fiancé gave me a huge rock and somebody wanted it. I better check.”
    He followed her into the bedroom and waited by the door as she pulled the burgundy velvet box from its hiding place behind Mr. Ned. She opened the box and the diamond glistened from its golden set.
    “Man, that could keep a Creep fed and liquored up for a year or two,” Walter noted.
    She rubbed her head and yawned with exhaustion. “It’s just dirt and metal, when you get down to it.”
    "Listen, I better go and let you get some sleep."
    Go and leave her alone with the night and the locks and the mace and the Louisville Slugger and the skull ring and the haunted clock—
    "Do you know much about electronics?" she asked.
    Walter's head tilted inquisitively. "A little, yeah."
    "I'd like to hire you for a job." She went to the kitchen, feeling his gaze on her back. She extracted the clock from the trash, took off the outer bag, and carried it to Walter. "Would you mind seeing if this has been tampered with?"
    "This that broken clock?"
    Julia nodded. She didn't want to tell him she'd found it plugged in when she'd arrived home, that the digits were still stuck on 4:06. Let him examine the clock without her imbuing it with any mystique.
    Their fingers brushed briefly together as he took the clock, and Julia felt an odd tingle of electricity. Similar to what she had experienced when putting the skull ring on her finger.
    No. The ring had no power. The clock contained no dark magic. Satan didn't exist, and therefore had no influence in the world besides in the minds of desperate, gullible people.
    And Walter had no magic power, either. She was just tired, that's all.
    He stood and their eyes met. One heartbeat, two, a third. They both looked away at the same time.
    "Uh—I'll give this a look-over," Walter said. "But don't expect to pay me."
    He moved toward the door, carrying the clock as if it were a football, in a hurry now, almost clumsy for the first time since she'd known him. She followed, but not too closely.
    He paused in the doorway and pointed to the bat leaning in the corner. "Would you really have used that?"
    She smiled. "You don't ever want to find out."
    "Reckon not." He grinned back with strong, slightly-uneven teeth. Was he blushing again? None of the men she knew blushed. Rick O'Dell didn't blush. Mitchell had certainly never blushed in his life. "Well, see you later."
    "Bye."
    He went out into the darkness as moths clustered around the porch light. The college students had gone back inside, to continue their drinking in front of the television. Maybe having a friend arrested was just one more reason to party.
    "Walter?"
    He stopped beside the Jeep, his face shadowed. "Yes, ma'am?"
    "My name's