Psycho - Three Complete Novels Read Online Free Page A

away from the Lowery Agency.
    The Lowery Agency didn’t even know of Sam’s existence. Of course they’d come to Lila, and she’d probably guess right away. But Lila wouldn’t say anything—not until she contacted Mary first.
    When the time came, Mary would have to be prepared to handle her sister, keep her quiet in front of Sam and the authorities. It shouldn’t be too difficult—Lila owed her that much, for all the years Mary had worked to send her through school. Perhaps she could even give her part of the remaining twenty-five thousand dollars. Maybe she wouldn’t take it. But there would be some solution; Mary hadn’t planned that far ahead, but when the time came, the answer would be ready.
    Right now she had to do one thing at a time, and the first step was to reach Fairvale. On the scale map it was a distance of a mere four inches. Four insignificant inches of red lines from one dot to another. But it had taken her eighteen hours to get this far; eighteen hours of endless vibration, eighteen hours of peering and squinting in headlight glare and sunlight reflection; eighteen hours of cramped contortion, of fighting the road and the wheel and the dulling, deadly onslaught of her own fatigue.
    Now she had missed her turn and it was raining; the night had come down and she was lost, on a strange road.
    Mary glanced into the rear-view mirror and caught a dim reflection of her face. The dark hair and the regular features were still familiar, but the smile had gone and her full lips were compressed to a taut line. Where had she seen that drawn, contorted countenance before?
    In the mirror after Mom died, when you went to pieces—
    And here, all along, she’d thought of herself as being so calm, so cool, so composed. There had been no consciousness of fear, of regret, of guilt. But the mirror didn’t lie. It told her the truth now.
    It told her, wordlessly, to stop. You can’t stumble into Sam’s arms looking like this, coming out of the night with your face and clothing giving away the story of hasty flight. Sure, your story is that you wanted to surprise him with the good news, but you’ll have to look as though you’re so happy you couldn’t wait.
    The thing to do was to stay over somewhere tonight, get a decent rest, and arrive in Fairvale tomorrow morning, alert and refreshed.
    If she turned around and drove back to the place where she made the wrong turnoff, she’d hit the main highway again. Then she could find a motel.
    Mary nodded to herself, resisting the impulse to close her eyes, and then jerked erect, scanning the side of the road through the blur of rainswept darkness.
    That’s when she saw the sign, set beside the driveway which led to the small building off on the side.
    MOTEL— VACANCY. The sign was unlit, but maybe they’d forgotten to switch it on, just as she’d forgotten to put on her headlights when the night suddenly descended.
    Mary drove in, noting that the entire motel was dark, including the glass-front cubicle on the end which undoubtedly served as an office. Maybe the place was closed. She slowed down and peered in, then felt her tires roll over one of those electric signal cables. Now she could see the house on the hillside behind the motel; its front windows were lighted, and probably the proprietor was up there. He’d come down in a moment.
    She switched off the ignition and waited. All at once she could hear the sullen patter of the rain and sense the sigh of the wind behind it. She remembered the sound, because it had rained like that the day Mom was buried, the day they lowered her into that little rectangle of darkness. And now the darkness was here, rising all around Mary. She was alone in the darkness. The money wouldn’t help her and Sam wouldn’t help her, because she had taken the wrong turn back there and she was on a strange road. But no help for it—she’d made her grave now and now she must lie in it.
    Why did she think that? It wasn’t grave, it was