"There's a good chance." Kim said with equal emotion. "That and the fact that her burger wasn't cooked through."

"It makes you realize how tenuous life is that it could be snuffed out by something so trivial as a cow's head falling on the floor and a hamburger not cooked enough."

"It also underlines the importance of what we're doing here," Kim said.

"How do you think you can get the papers now that the record-room door is locked?" Tracy asked.

"I don't know exactly," Kim admitted. "But the door has a thin piece of plywood covering a hole. It probably wouldn't be too hard to knock it off. But it will have to wait until I make a stab at these two restrooms. I expect Elmer to wander back here in a few minutes, so I better get busy."

Kim looked at the two doors. They faced each other across the hall. He pushed open the men's room door. Careful to avoid tipping over his bucket, he maneuvered it over the raised threshold and onto the tile. He gave it a shove into the room and let the door close behind him.

The room was a generous size with two toilet stalls and two urinals on the right and two sinks with mirrors over them to the left. There was a series of coat hooks just inside the door. The only other objects in the room were two paper towel dispensers and a trash container.

In the middle of the far wall was a window that looked out onto the parking lot.

"At least this men's room isn't very dirty," Kim said. "I had fears that it was going to look like the one on the kill floor."

"I wish I could come in there and help," Tracy said.

"I wouldn't mind that at all," Kim said.

Kim grabbed the handle of the mop. Stepping on the wringer's foot pedal, he wrung out the mop head. Then he walked over to the window and started mopping.

The door to the bathroom burst open with enough force for its knob to crack the wall tile. The sound and the movement shocked Kim, and his head shot up. To his utter dismay he now found himself staring at the man who had attacked him previously. Once again the man was brandishing a kill-floor knife.

The man's lips slowly curled back into a cruel smile. "We meet again, Doctor. Only this time there will be no police and no woman to help you."

"Who are you?" Kim demanded, eager for the man to continue talking. "Why are you doing this to me?"

"My name is Carlos. I've come to kill you."

"Kim, Kim!" Tracy shouted in Kim's ear. "What's going on?"

To help him think, Kim tore the earphone from his ear. Now Tracy 's frantic voice sounded as if she were yelling from a great distance.

Carlos took a step into the room, while holding up the knife so that Kim could appreciate its size and curving shape. The abused door swung shut.

Kim had a hold of the mop and he instinctively raised it.

Carlos laughed. To him the idea of a mop against a kill-floor knife was ludicrous.

With no other alternative, Kim dashed into one of the open toilet stalls and bolted the door. Carlos lunged forward and kicked the door fiercely. The stall shuddered under the impact, but the door held. Kim frantically backed up and straddled the toilet. Beneath the stall door, he could see Carlo's feet as he prepared to kick the door again.

Tracy panicked. She fumbled with the ignition key before getting the car started. Throwing the vehicle into gear, she stomped on the accelerator. The car shot forward with enough speed to press her into the seat. The antenna she'd balanced on top skidded off the back of the car and bounced along the pavement on its wire tether.

Tracy fought with the steering wheel to bring the speeding car around a tight turn. Misjudging the closeness of a neighboring vehicle, she ricocheted off its side, throwing her own car up onto two wheels for a split second. The car thudded to earth and with squealing tires rocketed along the front of Higgins and Hancock.

Tracy had no plan initially. Her only thought was to try to get to the men's room where Kim was cornered, apparently by the same man who'd been in Kim's house the night before. She knew she had little time. She could see the man's horrid face in her mind's eye as he'd tried to force his way into her shower stall with his knife.

For a moment Tracy contemplated crashing her car into the front entrance of the building, but she decided it wouldn't necessarily do the trick. She had to get into the men's room itself. That was when she remembered the gun and swore at Kim for not having kept it with him.

Slamming on the brakes, Tracy brought her car to a shuddering halt just opposite the window to the record room. She reached down onto the floor and snatched up the gun. Clutching it in her hand, she jumped from the car and ran over to the record-room window.

Remembering how Kim had gained entry, she put down the gun and picked up one of the rocks edging the pavement. Using both hands, she threw it against the plywood. It took two smacks, but she succeeded in knocking the plywood free of its temporary nails. Then she yanked it off.

Tracy snatched up the gun and tossed it through the window. Then she followed it headfirst. Once inside the dark room, she had to grope around for the gun on her hands and knees. As she searched she could hear intermittent thumps behind the wall to the right as if a metal partition was being kicked repeatedly. The noise increased her frenzy.

Her fingers finally brushed up against the weapon where it had come to rest at the base of a table leg. She seized it and then moved as fast as the darkness would allow to the vaguely illuminated door to the hall.

Tracy unlocked the door. From having listened to the conversation between Kim and Elmer she knew the men's room had to be close to the record room. She decided to follow the sound of the thumping. She made a right. After running only a few steps, she saw the men's room sign.

Without a second's hesitation, Tracy crashed through the door using her shoulder. She had the gun clasped in both hands and pointed it into the depths of the room.

She'd had no idea what to expect. What she saw was Carlos less than ten feet away with one leg raised in preparation for kicking a toilet stall door in. The door was already bent.

As soon as he spotted her, Carlos made a flying leap for Tracy. Like the night before, he had a large knife clasped in his hand.

Tracy had no time to think. Closing her eyes against the hurling figure she pulled the trigger in quick succession. Two shots rang out before Carlos careened into her, slamming her against the door and knocking the gun from her hand. She felt a stabbing pain in her chest as she crumbled beneath the man's weight.

Tracy desperately tried to breathe and to wriggle free as the man's weight settled on top of her. But he had her easily pinned.

To Tracy 's surprise the killer moved off her. She looked up, expecting to see him standing over her with his knife raised for a deadly stab. Instead she was looking at Kim's distraught face.

"Oh, God!" Kim cried. " Tracy!" He'd pulled the killer off her and had thrown him aside as if the man were no more than a sack of potatoes. Frantic over the amount of blood spreading across Tracy 's chest, he dropped to his knees and ripped open her blouse. As a thoracic surgeon, he'd treated stab wounds to the chest, and he knew what to expect. But what he found was a blood-soaked bra; Tracy 's skin was intact. There was no sucking chest wound with air rushing in as he'd feared.

Kim leaned closer to Tracy 's face. She was still struggling to catch the breath that had been knocked out of her.

"Are you all right?" Kim demanded.

Tracy nodded but still couldn't speak.

Kim turned his attention to the killer. The man was writhing and groaning and had managed to turn himself over on his stomach. Kim rolled him back over and recoiled.

At such close range, both of Tracy 's wild shots had found their mark. One had gone through Carlos' right eye to exit out the back of his skull. The other had hit him in the right chest, which explained the blood all over Tracy.