Double Image

1

GREG’ S WIDOW TURNED OUT TO HAVE A HOUSE FULL OF company: her parents, her sister, friends from where she worked at an insurance company, friends from the police department, not to mention neighbors. Paying their respects, they came and went. Although Greg’s widow looked as if she hadn’t been getting much sleep, she was making an effort to cook a turkey for the holiday, but it was clear that there wouldn’t be enough to feed everyone, and Coltrane stayed only an hour, leaving well before dinner.

Hollow, he decided not to return to Packard’s house but instead to take Jennifer up on her offer and go over to her parents’ historic Victorian near Echo Park. The quickest way to get there from Venice was to take the Santa Monica Freeway east until it merged with the Golden State Freeway, eventually reaching the east end of Sunset Boulevard, which wasn’t far from Echo Park. He was surprised, then, when he went in the opposite direction, taking the Santa Monica Freeway west to the Pacific Coast Highway. He finally admitted to himself that his destination was Malibu.

2

WHEN COLTRANE HAD FIRST ARRIVED IN LOS ANGELES seventeen years earlier, feeling a compulsion to learn as much as he could about the area, he had been intrigued to learn that Malibu – for him, the name had mythic overtones – was actually many different places: the Commune, where upper-echelon show-business personalities lived within a guarded, gated community; the beachfront, where narrow two-story town houses abutted one another for what seemed miles, a narrow road in front, the ocean in back; a long string of gas stations, motels, and quick-food restaurants along the PCH; and, farther north, where the ocean and the highway diverged, a rustic community of expensive homes on large wooded lots reached by mazelike meandering roads that for the most part did not have an ocean view. Coltrane could smell the salt breeze. He had the sensation of being near water. Apart from that, he could have been in an exclusive section of the San Fernando Valley.

It was along one of these meandering roads that Coltrane now drove. Pausing occasionally to check a map that he had bought at a service station on the Pacific Coast Highway before turning off it, he continued west, or as much as he could in that general direction, sometimes having to retreat because of errors he made due to unmarked streets, other times reaching a dead end where the map made it seem that the road he was on connected with another. In frustration, he finally stopped where a wall of scrub brush blocked his way. A path led through it. As much as he could tell, the road he wanted lay beyond it.

Glancing at his watch, seeing that the time was already almost three o’clock and that he was close to wasting the day, he calculated that it might take him another twenty minutes to backtrack and get over to the road he wanted. That was assuming the road would be marked and he wouldn’t have more difficulty finding it. Why bother when his destination was practically before him? Jennifer’s request that he take her photograph had produced the effect she intended. Responding to old habits, he had brought his camera with him. Now he slung it around his neck. After getting out of his car and locking it, he buttoned his sport coat against the increasing chill of the day and pushed his way through the crackling branches of the scrub brush.

He heard the pounding of surf before he saw the ocean below him. He was on a steep ridge that looked down on the road he wanted, a line of impressive homes hugging the coast, no one in sight. In contrast with Malibu’s famous beaches, the shoreline here was almost entirely gray rock. Intrigued by the whitecaps hitting those rocks, as well as by the red tile roofs on some of the homes, Coltrane raised his camera, chose a fast shutter speed to freeze the waves, and took several photographs.

Then he made his way carefully down a zigzag path on the bluff, some of which had been eroded by the recent heavy rains. He grasped an exposed tree root to help lower himself, clawed at clumps of grass, dug his heels firmly into the soft soil, and finally reached the bottom, where concrete barriers had been put up to protect against mud slides.

The surf pounded louder, and yet he was terribly conscious of the noise of his breathing. It’s just from the exertion of coming down the slope, he told himself. Sure. When he reached a mission-style home, he saw that the number on the mailbox was 38, but he was looking for 24, so he proceeded farther along, too preoccupied to pay attention to the cree-cree-cree of seagulls floating overhead.

Yesterday, after he had obtained Natasha Adler’s address and telephone number from the private investigator that Packard’s attorney used, he had called that number and been frustrated when a computerized voice had told him that the number was no longer in service. Had the investigator given him the wrong information, or had Natasha Adler moved? Maybe she’s living in the estate in Mexico now, Coltrane thought.

Continuing along the road, he passed another mission-style home, then a Spanish colonial. But his gaze was directed toward a house farther along, which his count of the remaining mailboxes told him was the address he wanted. It was substantial, sprawling, modernistic, an assemblage of two-story all-white blocks silhouetted against the stark blue sky, tinted by the lowering sun.

Struck by the geometry of the image, he again raised his camera. The contrast of light and shadow might be hard to capture, he knew, so he adjusted his exposure to favor the middle shadows of the image and took the photograph. As a precaution, he made two further exposures, the first favoring darker elements of the image, the second favoring lighter ones. The technique, known as “bracketing,” would give him a choice of contrasts.

Having pressed the shutter button a final time, he lowered the camera and felt as if he had been away for a moment. It was a feeling that he hadn’t experienced since the day he had come upon Packard’s house and taken the last photographs in his update on Packard’s series. He began to realize how truly numbed he had been by the intervening horrors. A new year, a new start, he thought, recalling Jennifer’s encouragement before they had separated earlier in the day.

Then what am I doing here?

3

LIKE MOST MALIBU SHORELINE HOMES, the house was close to the road. On the right, a tall metal fence enclosed a small garden. On the left, a red Porsche was parked in the short driveway, the closed doors of a two-car garage beyond it. Otherwise, no vehicles were in sight. At least someone’s home, Coltrane thought. He verified that the number on the mailbox was what he wanted: 24.

And now what? he asked himself. Are you going to knock on the door in the middle of the afternoon on New Year’s Day? That’ll certainly make an impression.

He peered through the metal fence toward the front windows, looking for movement in the house, some indication that a family gathering was in progress. The windows were blank eyes. The rooms were still. Maybe I wouldn’t be interrupting anything, he thought. Maybe knocking on the door wouldn’t be as inappropriate as I first thought. If I come back and knock on the door tomorrow or the day after, I’ll still be intruding.

Barely aware of the ornate shrubs in the garden, he approached the front door. Instead of knocking, he pushed the doorbell and heard it ring hollowly inside. After waiting a moment, he pushed it again, the echoing doorbell making the place seem deserted. He rang it a third time, holding it a little longer. Someone has to be home, he thought. Otherwise, why would the Porsche be in the driveway? Whoever lives here wouldn’t have gone on a trip and left an expensive sports car in the open. He switched from ringing the bell to knocking on the door, but still no one answered.

Maybe a couple are making love in there, he thought. Maybe if I keep ringing this bell and they finally do open the door, they’ll be very explicit about how much I’ve annoyed them. I’m here to get some questions answered, not to antagonize the person I need to answer those questions.

Self-conscious, he hesitated, his finger an inch away from the doorbell. Yeah, tomorrow’s better. Except maybe no one will answer the door then, either. If only the phone was in service.

Retreating to the road, Coltrane scanned the front windows to see if anyone was peering out at him, and finally he decided to give up. I should have gone with Jennifer, he thought. But as he prepared to walk back the way he had come, he suddenly realized that there was a perfectly reasonable explanation for the presence of the car and the failure of anyone to come to the door when he rang the bell.

Whoever’s here is outside walking along the ocean.

He moved toward the left side of the house, intending to use the space between this house and the next to give him access to the shore. A wall blocked his way. On the right side, a similar wall stopped him. His excitement changing to frustration, he noticed that all the other homes had barriers, preventing outsiders from intruding on the beach.

When he walked past the remaining properties, he discovered a fence that went down to the waterline. The cree-cree-cree of the gulls became more pronounced. The crash of waves intensified as he stepped around the end of the fence, his shoes getting wet. It’s one thing to ring a doorbell and disturb someone on New Year’s Day, but it’s quite another if I come across someone taking a walk, he thought. It would be natural for us to say hello. It wouldn’t seem as intrusive for me to explain who I am and to ask a few questions.

Approaching the rear of the house, he saw a white deck perched over shelves of uneven gray rock that led down to the ocean. Stretching in both directions, the shelves of rock glistened as the spray from waves drifted over them.

But no one walked along those rocks. The shore was deserted.

Coltrane shook his head. Forced to admit that, for today at least, he truly had wasted his time, he began to turn to go back to the road, then stopped as movement among the rocks attracted his attention. Narrowing his eyes against the glare of the lowering sun (how could the sun be so bright and the air so shiveringly cool?), he thought he was hallucinating, for the movement wasn’t just among the rocks – it was the rocks. One of them was rising from the others.

His skin prickled. He shivered harder, but no longer from the cold. The gray hump of rock rose higher, emerging from the shelf. What am I seeing? Coltrane asked himself, compelled to step forward. At once, something equally startling happened, for as the hump of rock rose high enough to detach itself from the shelf, Coltrane saw that the rock had an oval of white within the gray – a face. Gray arms detached themselves, one of them reaching up toward what had become a head and neck. A gray hand pulled at the gray on the head and, to Coltrane’s amazement, peeled it off as if it were skin, revealing lush dark hair that clung wetly to the head of an amazingly beautiful woman. What he had been seeing, Coltrane realized, was a woman in a wet suit emerging from the ocean. The gray rubber of the suit was the same color as the shelves of rock. Rising from the waves, she had seemed to be born from them.

Immediately, he raised his camera, opened the aperture so that the waves would be indistinct behind her, and pressed the button as the woman emerged from the ocean. Her pose was so familiar that he felt he had to be hallucinating. He took another photograph, then another, each time stepping closer. Noticing him, the woman paused, one leg in front of the other, the knee slightly bent, about to transfer her weight from her back leg to her front. She wasn’t wearing a scuba tank or a mask. She hadn’t been diving, only swimming, using the insulation of the wet suit to keep her warm in the cold water. Her hands were covered with gray rubber gloves, one of which she had used to peel off the cowl of her suit. With the other gloved hand, she now brushed back her wet hair, and Coltrane had seen that pose before also. He pressed the shutter button again, catching her in midmotion. If it hadn’t been for the wet suit, Coltrane would have been shaken by the most powerful déjà vu he had ever experienced. Even with the wet suit, the parallels were so striking that Coltrane didn’t know if he could keep his hands steady as he continued taking photographs. The suit clung to the woman like skin. Its wet slickness enhanced the sinuous movement of her legs, the fluid motion of her body, the sensuous contours of her hips, her waist, her breasts, her…

He lowered the camera, his dazed mind demanding to know how it was possible that he could be looking at Rebecca Chance.

4

AS HE TOOK ANOTHER STEP, a look of fear crossed the woman’s face. She stumbled backward, lost her balance, and slipped to her knees in the waves.

“No!” he told her. “You don’t need to be afraid! I’m not here to hurt you!”

He raised his hands, causing her to raise her own gloved hands as if to protect herself.

“Please!” he said. “I didn’t mean to startle you! All I want is to ask you some questions! I’m not going to hurt you!”

The slap of waves against the rocks wasn’t loud enough to mute the sudden noises behind him: doors banging open, shouting, shoes scrabbling over rocks. Pivoting to look behind him, Coltrane was astonished to see a half dozen men racing toward him, two from the house, two from hiding places under the deck, one from shrubs on each side of the house.

“Stop right there!” one of them yelled, his face twisted with anger. “Don’t move!”

As fast as he could, Coltrane turned and ran.

“You son of a bitch! Stay where you are, or I’ll-”

Coltrane didn’t hear the rest, the noise of the waves and his frenzied breathing blocking it out. His shoes slipped on the wet rocks, but he managed not to fall as he strained to increase speed, all the while hearing barked curses behind him. Without warning, ahead of him a man lunged from the side of another house, shoving out a hand, yelling at Coltrane to stop. Just when it seemed that he and the man would collide, Coltrane changed direction, veering around him, charging away from the shore, but two of the men racing behind him had anticipated that move and were running parallel to him, ready to grab him.

He changed direction yet again, hurrying back toward the shore. The man who had appeared from the side of the house had assumed that Coltrane would continue to rush inland. As a consequence, the man had left his strategic position and was racing inland, as well. Coltrane outmaneuvered him, continuing to charge along the shore.

“Damn it!” someone yelled.

Coltrane avoided a difficult shelf of rock and felt something twist in his stomach when he saw that the shore curved inward. To avoid the waves facing him, he would have to go inland again. His pursuers racing closer, he hurried around the half circle of the shore.

As one of the men darted at him from the side, Coltrane recalled how he had used his cameras to defend himself in Bosnia. He pulled the camera from around his neck, gripped its cord, and reached back to swing the camera toward the head of the attacking man.

“Hey!” The man lurched back.

Simultaneously, Coltrane lurched also, the backward motion of his arm causing him to lose his balance. His feet slipped out from under him. The next thing, all he saw was the sky as his body arched backward. The shock of cold water took the remainder of his breath away.

Not that it mattered. He couldn’t breathe anyhow. He was submerged in a hollow among the rocks, flailing to reach the surface. The current of a wave gripped him. Thrashing with cold-cramped arms, he heard a roaring in his ears. When he broke through the surface, the sun was almost blinding. Buffeted by another wave, he gasped and fought to inhale. Swallowing water, he coughed and tasted salt, then struggled against the weight of his water-filled shoes and soaked clothes and pawed toward a shelf of rock.

“Let him drown,” a man said.

Peering up through water-bleared eyes, he saw the men standing along the shore, just beyond the reach of the waves, their faces as craggy as the shelves of rock. They wore sneakers, jeans, and windbreakers, and looked like the only thing they had wanted for Christmas was a renewal of their exercise-club memberships.

“Yeah, let’s do the world a favor,” another said.

“Sure,” a third said. “He ran. He fell. We couldn’t get him out before he drowned.”

“But think about the lousy paperwork.”

Coltrane’s right hand gripped the shelf of rock. A wave thrust him toward it but as quickly tugged him away. His numbed hand lost its hold.

“The paperwork’s worth it,” the first man said. “Can you think of any better way to spend New Year’s than watch this prick drown?”

“Not me,” the fourth man said.

Aching from the cold, Coltrane got another grip on the rocks and strained to pull himself up. A wave knocked him against the shelf, making him groan. But despite the undertow, he mustered the strength to grip the shelf harder, pulling himself higher.

“Hold it.” The first man stepped forward and pressed the sole of his sneaker against the back of Coltrane’s right hand.

Coltrane winced.

“You didn’t ask, ‘May I?’” the man said.

“What do you think, Carl?” The second man turned toward someone approaching. “Do we let this jerk drown or pull his sorry ass out?”

Coltrane struggled as another wave splashed over him, his numbness worsening. He coughed and fought for air. Despite the bleariness in his salt-irritated eyes, he peered helplessly upward and managed to get a look at the person joining them, a man in sneakers, jeans, and a windbreaker similar to what the others wore, a man whose brown hair was trimmed to almost-military shortness and whose matching brown eyes had a no-nonsense steadiness, showing no reaction as he gazed down at Coltrane.

“Pull him out.”

“What kind a fun is that? At least let’s watch him splash around a little longer.”

“No, pull him out. This isn’t the guy we want.”

“How can you be sure.”

“I know him.”

“What?”

“He’s a photographer named Mitch Coltrane. He lives in Los Angeles, and believe me, he was otherwise occupied when all of this started. We’ve got the wrong man.”

The man who pressed his sneaker against Coltrane’s hand took a quick step backward.

Coltrane strained to get out of the water. The newcomer quickly grabbed him, raising him dripping from the waves.

“Are you all right?” the man who had saved him asked.

“Frozen.” Coltrane’s teeth chattered. “I didn’t know your first name was Carl.”

“That’s because I wanted you to think that my first name was Sergeant.”

“What are you doing here?”

“That’s exactly what I was going to ask you,” Nolan said. “And I can’t wait to hear your answer.”

5

“YOU CAN SEE WHERE WE WOULD HAVE GOTTEN THE WRONG IDEA.” The first man gestured apologetically.

A blanket wrapped around him, Coltrane didn’t respond, only kept shivering as he sat in a white wooden chair in an all-white living room. The back wall was composed entirely of glass, providing a panoramic view of the ocean. The late-afternoon sun blazed in but didn’t warm him.

“You were peeking in her windows,” the second man said.

“Give me a break. I was checking the house from the road, trying to see if it looked like anybody was at home.”

“And taking pictures of the place,” the third man said.

“I’m a professional photographer. That’s what I do, take pictures.”

“Including of a woman you claim you’ve never seen before, while you’re trespassing?” the fourth man asked.

“Yeah, how come you were sneaking up on the house?”

“Sneaking up?” Coltrane asked.

“I suppose you’re going to tell us you walked all the way here from L.A. Where’s your car?”

Anger raised Coltrane’s temperature as he told them where he had left his car.

“Okay, okay, that explains why you were on foot. But you weren’t just sight-seeing. You didn’t just happen to pick this house. What are you doing here?”

“I could have hit my head and been killed. You threatened to let me drown. I’m not answering any more questions until I find out who you are and what the hell’s going on.”

The group lapsed into an uncomfortable silence.

For the first time since entering the house, Nolan spoke. He had been standing in the background, shaking his head unhappily. “I think you already have a pretty good idea who the rest of these men are.”

“The same as you – police officers.”

“Not quite the same.” In deference to the all-white decor, Nolan and everyone else had taken off their shoes. His socks whispered on the thick wall-to-wall carpet. “Malibu doesn’t have a police department. Walt and Lyle here are with the local sheriff’s department. Pete and Sam are with the state police. The rest of these men are LAPD.”

“And how did you get involved?” Coltrane asked. “Since when do L.A. policemen work in Malibu?”

“They don’t,” Nolan said. “Unless it’s their day off and they’re here unofficially, doing somebody a favor.”

“Me,” the first man said. Nolan had introduced him as Walt. “I’m the one he was doing a favor.”

“It’s a stalker situation.” Nolan gestured wearily, having dealt with crimes of this sort too many times before. “The woman living here has been harassed for the past three weeks by someone who seems to know everything she does. Until a while ago, he phoned her constantly. Even though she changed her number five times and none of them was ever listed, he still managed to find out what the new ones were and keep calling her. Finally, she had the phone taken out of service.”

“That explains the computerized voice I heard when I tried to call yesterday.”

“So you did try to call,” the second man, Lyle, said. “I was going to ask you why you didn’t phone instead of paying an unexpected visit on New Year’s Day.”

“You still think I’m lying?”

“Just crossing the t’s.”

“Meanwhile,” Nolan interrupted, “she started getting photographs.”

Coltrane straightened.

The men studied him – he had never been looked at so directly.

“Photographs.” Coltrane understood. “So when I showed up with a camera and started taking her picture, you assumed…”

“The photographs she receives – there are hundreds – have been taken wherever she goes,” Nolan said. “No matter what she does, somebody manages to shoot pictures of her.”

Coltrane felt a return of the bone-cold sensation of having been in the water, except that in this case he was frozen because he remembered how violated he had felt when he learned that Ilkovic had followed and photographed him.

“And that doesn’t include the bouquets of flowers that are delivered to her a half dozen times a day. Not always when she’s at home. She’s been getting them at restaurants, at her dentist’s, once even at her gynecologist’s. A note read, ‘Thinking of you,’” Nolan said. “Love letters on the windshield of her car. Special-delivery proposals of marriage.”

“So, naturally, she got worried enough to call the sheriff’s department,” Walt said. He had a brush cut, a squarish face, a sand-colored mustache, and a slight scar above his right eyebrow. “I’m the one who came out and interviewed her. We’re not a big department. We don’t have a lot of staff and resources, but that’s what we were going to need, I knew, because right away it was obvious that the complainant needed surveillance, and not just in Malibu. We might care about jurisdictions, but the guy we’re after is free to roam as he pleases. The complainant has business in Los Angeles. She goes there often. So I decided to call the LAPD Threat Management Unit and see if they had any advice.”

“Which is where I come in,” Nolan said. “Walt and I went to the Police Academy together. For a time, he was with the LAPD Robbery Division, but eventually he moved up here.”

“For the peace and quiet,” Walt said, as if peace and quiet were not what he had found.

“He asked for me,” Nolan said, “and we discussed the obvious problem, which is that, strictly speaking, this ardent admirer hadn’t broken the law.”

Coltrane cocked his head in confusion.

“The problem is that, in addition to a pattern of harassment, there has to be an element of threat,” Nolan said. “To you or me, it might be common sense that someone who pesters a woman night and day with professions of love is trying to intimidate her. But the district attorney’s office might not see it that way. They might worry that a jury will figure this guy is more a nuisance than a threat. I once had a case where a stalker sent chocolates to a woman all the time, boxes and boxes. Phoned her constantly. Wrote hundreds of letters. She felt threatened and wanted him stopped. A restraining order didn’t do any good. So I arrested him, and the case actually went to trial. But the jury couldn’t decide if he was guilty of anything. This happened around Valentine’s Day. One woman on the jury later said she thought sending all those chocolates was ‘quaint.’ Honest to God. Anyway, after the hung jury, the guy showed up at the woman’s house one night and shot her in the head. Said he got tired of waiting for her to marry him. Said if he couldn’t have her, nobody would. How’s that for true love?”

“But in this case, we got lucky,” Lyle said.

“If you want to call a threat lucky,” Walt added. “The ardent admirer sent our complainant a funeral wreath with a ribbon across it that read, ‘Till death do us part.’ That’s not the most explicit threat I ever heard of, but the ten-pound heart that came with the wreath certainly was. It turned out to be a bull’s. It had an arrow through it, and a note attached to the arrow. ‘Be mine. You’re wounding my heart. Don’t make me wound yours.’ Tender, don’t you think?”

“And enough to make a jury put him away,” Coltrane said.

“Maybe not for long. But hey, the complainant would breathe easier for a while at least. Hell, maybe this jerk would use the time to reconsider how he shows affection.”

“You don’t have any idea who he is?”

“No, and neither does the complainant. The obvious temptation is to suspect he’s someone she knows. But that’s not always the way these things work. He might be someone she met five years ago and doesn’t remember. Maybe he’s a clerk at the bank she uses. Sometimes it takes only one look for a creep like this to get fixated on someone. We do know he orders the flowers by sending a letter of instructions along with cash to various flower shops. The wreath and the bull’s heart were delivered by a parcel service. The return address on the packages was bogus. While the phone was still working, the guy frequently left his voice on the complainant’s answering machine, but she doesn’t recognize it.”

“The best tactic we could think of,” Walt said, “was to try to entrap him.”

Lyle explained further. “Before the complainant had her phone disconnected, we told her to tell this guy when he called that it was time to put up or shut up, that she’d be waiting for him here this afternoon. She made certain he understood how angry she was with him and that she wanted to see him face-to-face to guarantee he got the point that she wanted nothing at all to do with him.”

“It was an ultimatum we hoped he couldn’t refuse,” Nolan said. “Especially because, when the phone was disconnected yesterday, the creep had no way to get in touch with her to try to renegotiate the terms of the meeting.”

“Then we sent for the cavalry,” Walt said. “Lyle and I are officially on duty. These other guys are friends helping out.”

“On New Year’s Day. I’m impressed,” Coltrane said. “Friends wouldn’t normally give up New Year’s Day to-”

“The complainant’s generous,” one of the other men said.

The rest of the group looked at the man as if he had said too much.

“There’s nothing wrong with it,” Walt said. “When we’re off duty, she hires us to be her protection. One or the other of us goes into L.A. with her.”

“Speaking of…” One of the state troopers glanced around nervously. “Where is Tash?”

The group tensed.

“Jesus.” Walt snapped to attention. “What happened to her? The last time I saw her, she was coming out of the water and we were chasing-”

6

“I NEEDED TO GET INTO SOMETHING DRY,” a voice said from above, on Coltrane’s right.

He turned toward a stairway, seeing a bare foot appear on the landing. The voice was full-throated, making Coltrane think of similar-voiced actresses in films from the thirties and forties. In his memory, they were always in a sparkling evening gown, standing next to a piano in a nightclub, exchanging repartee with a handsome hero in a white dinner jacket.

But the woman who descended the white carpeting on the stairway wasn’t wearing an evening gown. She wore a cotton sweatsuit, the raspberry color of which enhanced her tan face, dark eyes, and even darker hair. Although the exercise suit was oversized, a dramatic opposite to the tight wet suit she had worn a little while ago, her present outfit was nonetheless almost as revealing. The loose seat suggested the trim firmness of the hips it concealed. The similarly loose top moved up and down in the front and suggested that the woman had not put on a bra.

Everyone watched as she reached the bottom. Coltrane had the sense that the men liked to see her bare feet touch the plush carpeting, but his own attention was directed toward her face: the broad forehead, high cheekbones, almond-shaped eyes, slender nose, curved lips, angular chin, and narrow jaw that were the elements of classical beauty and that Rebecca Chance had been blessed with. But a catalog of her features couldn’t communicate the animation of those features. Even in a sweatsuit, this woman had come down the stairs with the same fluid ease that Rebecca Chance had shown descending a staircase, wearing a sarong in Jamaica Wind. Her hair, still wet from having been in the ocean, was pushed back, clinging to her head, the way Rebecca Chance had pushed it back as she waded out of a river in The Trailblazer. That pose coming out of the river had been the same as the pose in Randolph Packard’s photographs of Rebecca Chance stepping out of the ocean, the same pose that this woman had assumed as she came out of the ocean onto the rocks not long ago.

Coltrane’s mind was aswirl.

“Hello.” She approached Coltrane, her gaze locked intimately on his as she held out her hand. “I’m Tash Adler, and I’m sorry about the misunderstanding.”

Coltrane felt a spark when their hands touched. Only static electricity from the carpet, he told himself. And yet…

“I hope you aren’t hurt.”

“No, I’m fine.” Coltrane suddenly felt foolish holding the blanket around him. “A little cold is all.” He eased the blanket off him. “Nothing serious.” He repressed another shiver, his wet clothes clinging to him. “Tash?”

“It’s short for Natasha. You should get into something dry before you catch pneumonia.” The concern in her voice made him feel that at that particular moment he was the most important person in the world to her. “But where am I going to find dry clothes for you? I don’t think you’ll fit into one of my bathrobes.”

The fact was, she was only about three inches shorter than Coltrane’s six-foot height, and he might indeed have fitted into one of her bathrobes.

“I know,” Tash said. “Why don’t you go into the bathroom down the hall, take off your wet clothes, and give them to me. I’ll put them in the dryer.”

“I…”

“It’ll take only fifteen minutes,” Tash said. “We’ll leave the door ajar so you can be part of the conversation and not feel you’re in limbo. I’ll make a pot of strong hot coffee for everybody and hand a cup in to you.”

Coltrane’s face felt warm, only partly because his cheeks were losing their numbness from the cold water. “Sure.”

“This way.”

Tash gripped his arm, the feeling intimate, guiding him past the white stairway, down a white corridor, to the open door of a white bathroom. A white kitchen was farther along the corridor.

“I’ll wait,” Tash said.

Self-conscious, Coltrane entered the bathroom and shut the door. For a moment, his automatic impulse was to lock it, but he stopped himself, imagining how ridiculous the snap of the lock would sound, as if he was afraid she would barge in on him while he was undressing. He peeled off his wet sport coat, shirt, pants, and socks, took his belt, wallet, keys, and comb from his pants, hesitated, then decided that he didn’t want her to have to deal with his underwear. Even as things were, he didn’t feel comfortable that she would have to touch his wet clothes. He solved the problem by wrapping them in a towel. Despite the underwear he kept on, he didn’t think he had ever felt quite so naked as when he stood behind the door and opened it a foot, peering out at her.

“I’m sorry to put you through the inconvenience,” he said.

“Nonsense.” Tash’s eyes crinkled with amusement. “I’m hoping that if I’m nice to you, you won’t sue me.”

Coltrane couldn’t help smiling.

“Be back in a jiff.” She carried his towel-wrapped clothes down the corridor.

Coltrane took another towel from the rack, dried himself, then sponged the towel against his wet underwear. That done, he combed his hair, folded his sport coat over the toilet seat, rubbed his arms to try to get warmth into them, and was surprised to hear Tash’s voice behind him.

“Maybe this will fit you after all.”

Turning, he saw her hand projecting through the gap he had left in the doorway. She was offering a white terry-cloth bathrobe.

“Thanks, but I’m sure I’ll be fine,” Coltrane said.

Instead of replying, Tash leaned in far enough to drape the bathrobe over the side of the tub, her head turned away from him. The next thing, her arm was gone, and her footsteps receded along the hallway.

Coltrane looked at the robe a long time before picking it up and putting it on. Tash was right. Although a little snug, it did fit him. The fragrance on it was possibly from perfume and not laundry soap.

7

EVEN WITH THE DOOR AJAR, Coltrane couldn’t hear what Tash and the men were talking about in the living room. Their voices blended. An echo distorted them. Frustrated, he waited, tensing as heavy footsteps came along the corridor. What’ll it look like if one of those guys comes in and sees me crammed into this robe? he wondered.

“Do you want a beer instead of the coffee?” Nolan’s voice asked.

“Yeah, with a straw.”

Nolan chuckled. By the time he returned, handing a Budweiser into the bathroom, Coltrane had gotten out of the robe and hung it on a hook. Nolan had indeed put a straw into the open can of beer. Coltrane shook his head in amusement, took out the straw, tilted the can to his lips, and drank half of it.

The indistinguishable voices in the living room filled him with increasing frustration. The hands on his watch didn’t seem to move. To distract himself, he looked for a magazine, didn’t find any, and examined the pump containers of hand soap and lotion that were on the counter. Curious, he reached to open the medicine cabinet.

“All done.” Tash startled him.

Turning in embarrassment, he saw her hand offering him dried clothes through the gap in the door.

“Thanks.”

When Coltrane took them, their hands happened to brush. He felt another crackle of electricity.

“Sorry,” she said from the other side of the door. “The air must be dry in here or something. I didn’t mean to shock you.”

“I barely noticed.”

“I did. I’ve been doing it a lot lately. I even took off my socks so I wouldn’t generate static. No difference. It makes me self-conscious.”

“There’s no need to be.”

“It’s in my nature.”

“To give off static electricity?”

“To be self-conscious. See you in a few minutes.”

“Right.” Coltrane looked at the side of his hand where the crackling sensation lingered.

As quickly as possible, he slipped into his pants, shirt, and socks, enjoying their warmth, grateful to be dressed again. He tried to look natural when he entered the living room, the men looking up at him from the sofa and various chairs.

Walt and Lyle, the two officers officially on duty, were drinking coffee. The others each had a beer. Tash leaned against a wall, holding a glass of white wine. The crimson of the soon-to-set sun filled the white room, the combination of colors so intriguing that Coltrane wished he still had his camera.

An object on the coffee table caught his attention.

“My Nikon? I thought I’d lost it in the water.”

“No, you dropped it on the rocks,” Walt said. “In all the commotion, I didn’t have a chance to go back and get it until a few minutes ago.”

“I owe you. This camera and I have been through a lot.” Coltrane examined it, unhappy to see that the lens was shattered and the body more scratched than it had previously been, but it didn’t appear that the case had been cracked – the negative of the images he had taken of Tash might not have been exposed to light. Even so, with its lens cracked, the camera was temporarily useless to him.

“We told you ours. Now you tell us yours,” Nolan said.

“Excuse me?”

“Your story. You didn’t just happen to show up here. Why did you come?”

So you’re still not sure about me, Coltrane thought. “My timing wasn’t the greatest. I hope this doesn’t sound presumptuous.” He looked at Tash. “I’m curious about… You inherited some property recently from a man named Randolph Packard.”

Tash straightened against the wall. “That’s right.”

Except for Nolan, the men looked puzzled by the reference. Coltrane told them who Packard was.

“I met him toward the end of November,” Coltrane said to Tash. “In fact, I collaborated on a project with him, although he died before I could get much input from him. Not that it mattered – from the beginning of my career, he had tremendous influence on me. And especially lately, I guess you could say he changed my life. Anyway, I decided to buy a house he owned. When I heard about another property he owned, one in Mexico, I was tempted to buy it also, but then I discovered that the property had been given to you, so I…” Coltrane’s sentence hung in the air.

“You came here to ask me if I’d be interested in selling it?” Sounding almost relieved, Tash leaned away from the wall.

“Something like that,” Coltrane said.

“That’s what this is all about?” Walt sounded annoyed. “You came here to buy real estate?”

“Basically,” Coltrane lied.

“Well, for God sake,” one of the state policemen said. “I waited around to hear that? I was sure there had to be a fancy explanation for the coincidence.”

“Sorry.”

Shaking their heads, several men stood. “I’ve got to be going,” one of the state troopers said.

“Me, too,” Lyle said. “My wife’s got a pot roast in the oven. There’s no point in all of us hanging around anymore. The man we were trying to catch was probably studying the house. When we tipped our hand too soon because of…” He gestured toward Coltrane.

“Yeah.” Walt sounded disgusted. “The creep’s long gone by now. We started our surveillance in the middle of the night, presumably before he started his own surveillance.” Weariness strained his face. “But now that he knows we were waiting for him, we’ll have a hard time setting another trap. The good news is, tonight will probably be quiet. You guys go ahead. Enjoy what’s left of your New Year’s. I’ll hold down the fort.”

“No, that’s all right,” Tash said. “You go ahead, too.”

“But…”

“As you said, tonight will probably be quiet. Cross fingers that whoever it is left the area for now. The sheriff’s department has more people to protect than just me.”

“But not all of them need protecting,” Walt said. “I don’t feel comfortable leaving you alone.”

“I appreciate your concern,” Tash said. “I won’t be alone, though.”

Walt looked puzzled.

“Mr. Coltrane is going to stay for a while. We’re going to discuss real estate.”

Coltrane must have looked surprised.

“If that’s convenient,” Tash said to him. “Perhaps you have somewhere else you need to be. I just thought that since you came all this way to talk to me…”

“No,” Coltrane said. “No, there’s nowhere else I have to be.”

8

THE TIME WAS JUST AFTER FIVE IN THE AFTERNOON, the air turning from crimson to gray, the breeze increasing, becoming cooler as the men stepped outside the front door and put on their sneakers. Tash opened the twin garage doors, revealing two large four-wheel-drive vehicles, an Explorer and a Mountaineer. As some of the men got into them, Tash eased into her Porsche and backed it out of the driveway, allowing the Mountaineer that she had been blocking to get out of the garage. The moment the stall was free, she pulled into it.

Coltrane couldn’t help noticing that for the brief time she was away, the men who hadn’t yet gotten into the vehicles stopped talking and watched her.

“Remember, if you have even the slightest hint of trouble, don’t think twice – call us,” Lyle told her.

“Don’t worry. I’m a coward at heart. When I’m by myself, I don’t go anywhere without carrying the phone.”

Coltrane frowned. “Phone? But I thought it was out of service.”

“It is,” Walt said. “We’re talking about a cellular phone I bought for Tash and had activated in my name. Whoever this creep is, he keeps managing to find out the new numbers she gets in her name. But so far, he doesn’t know anything about this number.”

“Good idea,” Coltrane said.

“Let’s hope it stays a good idea. Tash, if you need anything, let me know.”

She touched his arm in a gesture of thanks.

“While you guys are still here…” Coltrane said.

They looked at him, wondering what he was leading up to.

“Can you wait another few minutes while I get my car? I don’t want to stumble around looking for it after dark. This way, Tash won’t be alone while I’m gone.”

“Yeah, I can stick around a little longer,” Lyle said.

“And I’ll make it quicker by driving you to your car.” Nolan motioned for Coltrane to follow him to the garage and the Explorer that remained in the stall next to Tash’s Porsche.

One of the policemen was in the passenger seat. Another policeman and one of the state troopers was in the back. While Nolan got behind the steering wheel, Coltrane climbed into the back. He saw Walt and Lyle talking to Tash in front of the house while Nolan left the garage, reached the road, and drove away.

“Our cars are parked behind a service station on the highway,” the policeman in the front seat explained. “That way, it didn’t look like we were having a convention at Tash’s place while we were waiting for him to show up.”

“You set it up well.”

“Too bad the wrong guy showed up.”

Uncomfortable, Coltrane changed the subject. “I’m on a street on that bluff.”

“You certainly had yourself lost,” Nolan said.

By the time Coltrane got back, it was dark. Lights glowed warmly in the house. The officers in the Mountaineer had gotten out and joined Walt and Lyle, speaking with Tash in her front hallway.

Tash smiled at Coltrane in welcome.

“Just as a precaution,” Lyle told him, “better put your car in the garage, where nothing will happen to it.”

“Right.”

Then Walt, Lyle, and the others said good-bye and drove away. As the gleam of taillights receded, the road became dark except for the pinpoints of lights in a house farther along.

Finally Coltrane and Tash were alone.

9

SHE BROKE THE SILENCE. “Would you like another beer?”

“Sounds good.” Coltrane had all kinds of questions, but he didn’t want to overwhelm her. Take it slow and easy, he thought.

She locked the front door, then opened the inside garage door and pressed a button that closed each stall. After that, she secured the inside garage door, too.

“Before I get you that beer, would you help me walk the picket line? You know, check the security?”

“Officer Coltrane reporting for duty.” He hoped it sounded like a joke, which apparently it did, because she looked amused as she started down the hallway.

“Carl and the others already locked up, but I feel more comfortable if I double-check,” she said. Past the stairway, they entered the living room and crossed to the sliding glass doors that led onto the deck. There, Tash tried to open the door. “Definitely secure.”

Pensive, she looked out past the white deck toward the darkness on the rocks and the whitecaps on the waves in the black ocean. “I used to love sitting out there, even when it’s cold like this, watching the waves hit the shore, listening to them. Sometimes I can see a freighter on the horizon, its lights moving, heading to mysterious places. ‘So we beat on, boats against the current… ’”

“‘… borne back ceaselessly into the past.’”

She turned to him, surprised. “You know Gatsby?”

Coltrane shrugged. “When I was at USC, one of my photography instructors insisted I take a few literature classes. For some reason, The Great Gatsby really stayed with me, that final image. Randolph Packard had an image like that in one of his photographs. The lights of a freighter on the horizon.”

“Heading to mysterious places,” Tash echoed. She had sounded melancholy, but now she mocked herself. “Probably only to Long Beach. Anyway, for a while, those nights are over.”

She pressed a button on the wall to the right. A faint rumble puzzled Coltrane until he saw metal shutters descending, blocking off the all-glass wall at the back of the living room.

“It makes me feel like I’m in a castle,” Tash said, “except I’m lowering the shutters instead of raising the drawbridge.”

Coltrane followed her into the kitchen, where she turned on an overhead light that reflected off white countertops, creating a pleasant luster. After confirming that a side door was locked, she leaned against a counter, stared down, shook her head, then roused herself. “Almost forgot that beer.”

There were several in the refrigerator. Presumably for the men helping her, Coltrane thought.

“Don’t bother about a glass. The can is fine,” he said.

“You sure?” She poured Chablis into a glass and touched it against the beer can she had given him. “Cheers.”

“Cheers.”

“It doesn’t seem much like New Year’s, does it?”

“I have a friend who keeps emphasizing that it’s a matter of attitude,” Coltrane said, “that we should think of it as a chance for a new beginning.”

“Yeah.” Troubled, Tash sipped her wine. “The question is, a new beginning of what? The start of the really bad times?”

“I don’t think that’s the attitude my friend had in mind.”

Leaning against the counter opposite her, Coltrane had a dizzying sense of unreality. Tash Adler even spoke like Rebecca Chance, her full-throated voice and engaging cadences the same as Rebecca Chance’s in The Trailblazer and Jamaica Wind. She seemed to be in her mid-twenties, the same age Rebecca Chance had been when she disappeared.

“Is something the matter?” Tash asked. “You’re looking at me as if… Have I got something caught in my teeth?”

He laughed. “Not at all. Sorry. I didn’t mean to stare. It’s a photographer’s habit. I can’t help imagining how I would take someone’s picture.”

“Is that what you want to do? Take my photograph?”

“There’s something about the way you’re leaning against that counter.”

“Oh?” She looked puzzled.

Coltrane realized that a compliment about her looks might sound as if he was coming on to her. The last thing he wanted was to alienate her. “The raspberry of the exercise suit you’re wearing is the only bright color in the room. Otherwise, everything’s white. Well, not totally. Those knives in that container have black handles. So do the handles on that toaster and the knobs on the stove.”

“I added those touches of black deliberately,” Tash said. “Without contrast, white isn’t effective.”

“That’s what intrigued me. Your suit makes this room a black-and-white photograph in color.”

Tash considered him. “You’re very observant.”

Coltrane made a modest gesture. “It comes from taking a lot of photographs.”

“No, I suspect taking photographs didn’t make you observant. The other way around. But I also suspect you often see more than you ever wanted to. Not everything’s beautiful.”

Coltrane remembered sighting through his telephoto lens as Ilkovic directed his men to grind up the bones of the corpses that the backhoe had dredged up from the mass grave in Bosnia. “Yes, not everything’s beautiful.”

“I need to ask you something.”

Coltrane inwardly came to attention.

“The reason I asked you to stay.”

Coltrane waited.

“I didn’t want to talk about this in front of the others,” Tash said. “You seem to know an awful lot about Randolph Packard.”

“Since my late teens, I’ve been trying to learn everything I can about him.”

“Then maybe you could tell me something. Do you have any idea at all why he would have included me in his will?”

It took Coltrane several seconds to recover. “You don’t know?”

“I was absolutely mystified when his attorney got in touch with me. Sure, I know who Randolph Packard was, but for the life of me, I can’t figure out why he would have given me that estate in Mexico. It’s like he picked my name out of a hat or something. Totally unexpected. I asked his attorney. What’s his name? Blaine?”

“Yes.”

“I asked Blaine if he knew why Packard had chosen me, but Blaine told me he hadn’t the faintest idea.”

“From what Blaine told me, that seems to be the truth.”

“I didn’t know who besides Blaine to ask,” Tash said, “and by then, I was deep in this mess with whoever…” She gestured toward a wall and whatever lurked beyond it. “I’ve had a lot of things on my mind. So when, out of nowhere, I heard you mention Packard and the estate in Mexico, you could have knocked me over.”

“I have to be honest about something.”

Tash’s dark eyes narrowed, as if she was afraid of what he was going to say.

“I haven’t been entirely open with you,” Coltrane said.

She looked more uneasy.

“The reason I came here wasn’t just to find out if you’d be interested in selling the Mexican estate. I’ve never seen it. Who knows how it’ll strike me if I ever do see it? What I really came here for was to ask you the same question you asked me.”

“Why Randolph Packard gave me the Mexican estate?”

“Yes.”

Tash shook her head in exhaustion. “Please. I have all the mysteries I can handle.”

“But maybe the answer to mine will help solve one of yours. Have you ever heard of an up-and-coming movie actress in the thirties named Rebecca Chance?”

Baffled, Tash considered the name. “No.”

“I’m not surprised. She disappeared before she had the chance to become a star.”

“But what does she have to do with-”

“She was being stalked. The same pattern of letters, gifts, and phone calls. Then one day she vanished.”

“If you’re trying to frighten me even more than I already am…”

“No,” Coltrane said. “I’m trying to help you figure out why Randolph Packard put you in his will. Packard was desperately in love with her.”

“Rebecca Chance.”

“Yes.” Coltrane paused, struck anew by the alluring features of the woman across from him and the uncanny situation in which he found himself. “And Rebecca Chance looked so much like you… you look so much like her… you might as well be the same woman.”

“What in God’s name are you talking about?”

Coltrane hesitated.

He told her everything.

“Photographs?”

“And movies that Rebecca Chance was featured in. But you’re right to zero in on the photographs. They’re what’s truly important. Because Packard took them. Because he hid them.”

“And Rebecca Chance is identical to me?”

“So much so that I thought I was hallucinating when I first saw you.”

“This is… I can’t…” She stared at him. “Show them to me.”

Coltrane blinked in surprise. “What?”

“I want to see the photographs.”

“But I don’t have them with me. I can come back tomorrow and bring-”

“Now. I want to see them. Take me to them.”

Tash’s emotion was so intense that for several moments Coltrane wasn’t able to move or speak. He found himself saying hesitantly, “All right… sure… if that’s what you…”

“I’ll just need a second upstairs.”

“We’ll be going into L.A.”

“You don’t have to worry about driving me back. I’ll follow you.”

“I wouldn’t mind driving you back. It’s just that…” A misgiving nagged at him. It had nothing to do with showing Tash the photographs. If anybody had the right to see them, it seemed to him that she did. His uneasiness came from another source, something to do with the parallel between Rebecca Chance’s stalker and Tash Adler’s stalker and…

Mine. With a shudder, he realized that in order to help Tash, he had to be as cautious now as he had been when Ilkovic was hunting him. He had to put himself in her place, to imagine that he was the person in danger.

“It’s better if I drive you,” Coltrane said.

Tash paused on her way from the kitchen. She looked mystified.

“If someone is watching your house, he’ll follow you when you follow me, and he wouldn’t have much trouble. A Porsche isn’t inconspicuous.”

“That’s what Walt said.” Tash sounded disheartened. “Get rid of the Porsche, or at least rent something bland until this jerk is in prison. I’ve already reduced my movements until I’m practically living in a box.” She shook her head stubbornly. “I’m not going to let that bastard take anything more away from me.”

“But you don’t have to drive the Porsche.”

“What am I going to do, run behind you and bark at your tires?”

It sounded so unexpectedly humorous, they stared at each other and found themselves laughing.

“God, it feels good to do that,” Tash said. “I can’t remember the last time I truly laughed.” It made her radiant.

“Honestly,” Coltrane said, “I think I should drive you.”

“But if he’s out there, he’ll still see the two of us in your car. He’ll still follow.”

“Not if you get in my car while the garage door is down. You lie on the back floor until we’re a distance away. Since he won’t know you’re with me, he’ll stay and watch the house. Have you got any timers for the lights?”

10

AS THE GARAGE DOOR DESCENDED, Coltrane removed his hand from the remote control he had taken from the Porsche and continued backing onto the murky road. He turned on his headlights only after the door was sufficiently low that illumination into the garage wouldn’t reveal that Tash wasn’t in there and wasn’t pressing the control on the wall to lower the door.

So far so good, Coltrane thought. But he knew that a couple of other tactics were required to make the ruse convincing. Pausing at the foot of the driveway, he turned on his car’s interior lights and consulted a map, as if figuring out how to get back to the highway. Anyone watching the house would see that he was alone. Next, he shut off the interior lights and tapped his horn twice, two short blasts, evidently saying good-bye. As he proceeded along the road, his headlights probing the darkness, he glanced at his rearview mirror and saw a lamp go off in a window.

“The timer worked perfectly,” he said.

“It looks like I’m still at home and turning off a few lights?” Tash asked from where she hid on the back floor.

“Yep. And there goes the second one,” Coltrane said, watching his rearview mirror.

“Inspired,” Tash’s voice came muffled from the back.

“Not to be immodest, but I agree. Even so, stay down for a while. I want to watch for any headlights that start following us.”

“Is this…”

Coltrane waited, but Tash didn’t finish her question. “What?”

“Maybe you don’t want to talk about it.”

“How can I know until you tell me?”

“Is this what you had to do when you were running from Dragan Ilkovic?”

The reference caught Coltrane unawares, blunting the satisfaction he had felt in getting Tash out of the house. “How did you know about me and Ilkovic?”

“While you were in the bathroom waiting to get your clothes dried, Carl Nolan told me.”

It felt odd to be having a conversation with someone Coltrane couldn’t see. He made an effort not to tilt his head in Tash’s direction and ruin the illusion that he was alone.

“I knew about what had happened at that movie ranch,” Tash’s voice continued below and behind him. “At the time, there wasn’t much else in the newspapers or on the television news. But when I met you, your name didn’t register. I didn’t make the connection.”

“That’s encouraging. I hate to think that every time I introduce myself to someone new, I’ll always be remembered as the man who shot Ilkovic. I prefer to be known for my photographs, not for killing someone – even if he did deserve it.”

“I’m sorry for asking you to talk about it.”

“No, it’s fine. I can’t pretend it didn’t happen. I used to check for headlights behind me all the time. I used to drive around the block and down narrow alleys and one-way streets – anyplace that would make it unusual for someone to stay behind me. But the timers on the lamps, all that business in the garage, they weren’t anything I’d tried before.”

“It’s reassuring to know you’re inventive.”

“Yeah, but it’s not something I’m overjoyed to find out I’m inventive at. Keep staying down.” Coltrane steered onto the Pacific Coast Highway and checked for any headlights that emerged onto the highway after him. “So far so good.”

“Let’s hope,” Tash’s muffled voice said.

“When you found out what I had done to Ilkovic, did it change the way you looked at me?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“As you put it, he deserved to be killed.”

“That he did.” Coltrane sighed bleakly. “That he did.”

“People you know did change the way they related to you?”

“One in particular.”

“Powerful emotions can be frightening.” Coming from the darkness, Tash’s disembodied voice sounded more faint, almost childlike. “Do you have nightmares?”

“Yes. I thought they’d go away, but they haven’t. I keep dreaming that Ilkovic isn’t dead, that he’s still coming for me. I imagine his hands…”

“I have nightmares, too,” Tash said. “Someone’s reaching for me, but I can’t see his face. Since I don’t know what he looks like, it’s natural that he’d be faceless, I suppose, but it’s worse than that. It’s almost as if he doesn’t have a…”

“Head.”

“Then you understand.”

“That’s in my nightmare also,” Coltrane said.

“This’ll sound odd, but I’m glad.”

“What?”

“You’re the first person I’ve been able to talk to about what I’m feeling and know that you understand. Walt, Lyle, Carl, and the others – I try to explain how alone and afraid I feel, and they tell me they know what I mean. But they don’t know. How can they possibly? They’re big men with badges and guns. Their lives are in control. They’re not being stalked.”

“We’re in a limited club.”

“Not you. Not any longer. But it’s reassuring to know that you survived. I feel safe with you.”

“I hope I don’t let you down.” Again, Coltrane checked his rearview mirror. “I didn’t see any cars pull onto the highway after us. I think it’s okay now for you to sit up.”

“Since I’m feeling safe…”

Coltrane wondered what she meant to say.

“Why don’t I stay down out of sight until we get to your place?”

“It’s a long drive,” Coltrane said.

“It won’t be if we keep talking the way we are. Tell me about your photographs.”

11

“ALL CLEAR,” Coltrane said as his garage door rumbled shut.

“Ouch,” Tash said. “I’m going to need a couple of aerobics classes to get my back into shape after this.” She rose, massaged her spine, and got out of the car. But it was obvious that she wasn’t that creaky. An upward stretch of her arms accentuated her trim body. She had changed from her loose-fitting sweatsuit to a pair of blue slacks, a gray turtleneck sweater, and a jacket whose color resembled the raspberry tint of what she had previously been wearing – obviously a favorite color; it added a depth to her dark eyes and hair. When she stretched, she turned modestly away, so as not to emphasize her breasts in front of him, Coltrane assumed. No matter, that upward stretch and a slight twist this way and then that were a pleasure to behold, her body assuming the dancer’s grace she had exhibited when he first saw her, although Coltrane continued to have the uncanny feeling that he had first seen her long before that.

Watching in wonder, he suddenly found himself in darkness.

“What happened?” Tash asked in surprise.

“The garage opener’s overhead light is supposed to stay on for a minute after the door goes down, but it’s been cutting out much sooner. I’ll go over and turn on the switch.”

Footsteps scraping on concrete, he inched through the darkness and approached where he estimated the door to the house was. Reaching blindly, he touched the door and groped toward the switch on the right, all at once flinching from a shock, seeing a spark as a hand brushed past his and reached for the same switch.

“Oh my God,” Tash said, “I’m sorry.”

“Whoa. You really do give off static electricity.”

“I thought you were having trouble finding the switch. I was looking in that direction when the lights went off, so I figured it would be easier for me to… I really am sorry.”

When Coltrane turned on the light, he discovered he was startlingly close to her. Again, her beauty amazed him. Her subtle perfume filled his nostrils. Trying not to look flustered, he unlocked the door to the house and opened it, guiding her in. “Can I get you something?” He hoped that she wouldn’t notice that his voice was slightly unsteady. “More wine? Coffee? Something to eat? It’s close to dinnertime. I could make some-”

“The photographs.” Tash ignored the house and its unique furnishings, fixing her gaze on him.

“Of course. They’re the reason you’re here, after all.” He led the way downstairs, unlocked the vault, and pushed open its metal door. Cool air cascaded over them.

Tash hugged herself.

“That’s the way I felt at first,” Coltrane said. “You’ll get used to it.”

“Will I?” Tash looked around at the austere shelves and blinked from the overhead glare.

Crossing the vault with her, he had never felt so aware of being alone with a woman.

En route, he had explained how he had happened to find the chamber. But she still wasn’t prepared when he freed the catches and pulled out the section of shelves, and she certainly wasn’t prepared when she entered the chamber and came face-to-face with her look-alike. It might have been the garish overhead lights that caused what happened next, but more likely, Coltrane thought, it was blood draining from Tash’s face that made her look abruptly pale.

She wavered. Afraid that she was going to collapse, Coltrane reached to catch her, then stopped the impulse when she regained her composure, standing rigidly still. He could only imagine the turmoil she must be suffering. For his part, as he looked from Tash toward the wall before her and the life-sized features of Rebecca Chance, he suffered a sanity-threatening unbalance. The photograph was Tash. Tash was the photograph. But it wasn’t, and she wasn’t. The face in the photograph was almost two-thirds of a century old.

“I…” Tash swallowed as if something blocked her throat. Her voice thickened. “How on earth is this possible?”

“That’s what I was hoping you’d tell me.”

With palpable effort, she turned from the photograph. “And you say there are other photographs?”

“Thousands of them. I was so absorbed by them that I never took the time to count them.”

“Show me.”

The distress in her eyes frightened him. “Are you sure you want to go through with this? This is more unsettling for you than I expected. Perhaps you should-”

“I want to see them.”

“Yes.” Coltrane felt powerless. “Whatever you want.”

He picked up the top box, suddenly remembered what was in it, set it aside, and picked up the next one, carrying it out to one of the shelves. Tash followed, stepping so close that he felt her shoulder against him as he opened the lid.

Rebecca Chance stepped out of waves onto a beach, just as Tash had stepped out of waves a few hours earlier.

Coltrane felt the air that Tash’s forced breathing displaced. In her need to look at them, she would probably have pushed him aside if he hadn’t stepped out of the way. Then the echo of his sideways movement dwindled, and the only sound in the vault was the smooth slide of photographs being hurriedly turned, one after the other after the other.

Totally preoccupied by them, Tash was equally oblivious to him. It gave him a chance to indulge his need to admire her.

“What’s in the first box?”

“Excuse me?”

Tash had reached the last photograph in the box so quickly and pivoted toward him so unexpectedly that he had been caught staring at her.

“You set a box aside before you picked up this one.”

“Did I? I don’t remember. I-”

“Why didn’t you want me to look inside it?”

“No special reason. The photographs in this one are more interesting is all. I-”

Tash reentered the vault. Before he could take a step to prevent her, she came determinedly back into view, carrying another box, and Coltrane had no doubt which box it was. The previous evening, after he had shown Jennifer the nudes of Rebecca Chance, he had put the box on top of the others rather than at the bottom, where he had found it.

Tash narrowed her eyes, as if she suspected he had tried to betray her. Then she opened the lid and straightened at the sight of Rebecca Chance’s naked body, the glistening chromium beads draped over her. Tash didn’t seem able to move. Slowly, with a manifest effort of will, she turned to the next photograph and the next. Because there weren’t any clothes, the thirties style of which would have identified the period during which the photographs had been taken, these images could as easily have been taken now, and could as easily have been of Tash – if that was how Tash looked naked.

Again she seemed paralyzed. But this time, when she finally moved, it was to look at Coltrane. “You were trying to protect my modesty?”

“Something like that. I wasn’t sure how comfortable you’d feel with me in the room while you looked at photographs of a naked woman, especially when that woman looks just like you.”

Tash studied him.

“I thought it would be sort of like looking at…”

“Myself?” she asked.

“It’s an awfully personal situation.”

“Thank you for respecting my feelings.”

Coltrane nodded, self-conscious.

She touched his hand. “Show me what’s in the other boxes.”

12

“YOU KEEP EMPHASIZING THIS ROCK FORMATION. Why do you think it’s important?” Tash asked.

“Because it reminds me of a cat arching its back,” Coltrane said.

“So?”

“The estate Packard gave you in his will is located near a town south of Acapulco called-”

“Espalda del Gato. I know. The name was in the documents Packard’s attorney sent me.”

“How’s your Spanish?”

“I see what you mean. ‘Spine of the cat.’ But that doesn’t prove the rock formation we’re looking at has anything to do with the village. It’s more likely a coincidence and this cliff along the ocean isn’t anywhere near the estate I inherited. For all we know, this cliff is in Southern California.”

“But it isn’t,” Coltrane said. “The other night I saw a movie Rebecca Chance was in. It’s called Jamaica Wind, and some parts of it were filmed on what is recognizably the Santa Monica beach, with the cliff behind it. But then all of a sudden, the location switches to a lush semitropical cliff-rimmed area along an ocean.”

“That description fits Acapulco,” Tash said.

“The movie has several cliff scenes that show the same rock formation: a cat arching its back.”

“You’re not exaggerating?”

“I swear they’re the same. A friend of mine who has access to Jamaica Wind is arranging to have a videotape made for me. When you see that tape, you’ll understand why I’m so sure. Other photographs in this box show Rebecca Chance in semitropical gardens similar to the ones in the movie.”

“Let me understand this. You’re saying that these photographs were taken in the same area where the movie was shot and possibly at the same time.”

“More than that. I’m saying I think the movie was shot at Espalda del Gato, on the estate Packard gave to you.”

“But why would… In the early thirties, it wasn’t common for movies to be shot on remote locations, was it?”

“Not at all,” Coltrane said. “The production companies liked to stay close to Los Angeles. Taking a movie crew to Acapulco would have been prohibitively expensive.”

“Then why…”

“Packard was an immensely wealthy man from a fortune he inherited at sixteen, when his parents died. These photographs make it obvious how fixated he was on Rebecca Chance. His total devotion to her can’t be mistaken. Suppose he became impatient with the limited ambitions of a movie she was being featured in.”

“Jamaica Wind.”

“Yes. Suppose he decided to become a secret financier for it. What if he hoped that an expensively mounted picture would attract more attention and boost her chances of becoming a star? Let’s assume he paid to transport a film crew to his Mexican estate.”

“And while he and Rebecca Chance were there, Packard took some of these photographs? I don’t know. That’s a lot of ‘what ifs.’”

“But it’s the only explanation that makes sense to me,” Coltrane said.

“It’s a tempting theory, I’ll give you that. Plus, it has the appeal of being romantic.” Tash rubbed the back of her neck, exhausted. “But it still doesn’t give me the answers I want. Why do Rebecca Chance and I…”

“There’s another name I haven’t mentioned. He’s connected to this in a way I haven’t been able to figure out. He produced Rebecca Chance’s final two movies. Then he disappeared not long after she did. Have you ever heard of anyone named Winston Case?”

Tash’s mouth opened in shock.

“You know the name?” Coltrane asked.

The dark of her eyes widened. “Winston Case?”

“Yes.”

“He was my grandfather!”

13

COLTRANE WAS SO STUNNED THAT HE WAS SURE HE HADN’T heard correctly. “Your grandfather?”

“That’s the name my mother told me. I never met him, so I have to take her word for it.”

“The name?”

“When I was a child, I noticed that a lot of my friends had grandparents, but I didn’t know what that meant. I asked my mother if I had grandparents, and she said, yes, everybody had grandparents but that mine weren’t with us any longer. Naturally, I wondered what she meant, and she finally found a way to explain to me, without disturbing me, that they were dead.”

“Winston Case.”

Tash nodded. “I memorized the name so I could tell it to my friends. To prove to them I once had grandparents, too.”

“But maybe you misremembered.”

“No, as I got older, I asked my mother what he was like. The name she referred to was always the same: Winston Case.”

“And who was your grandmother?”

“Esmeralda Gutiérrez.”

“Did your mother ever describe Winston Case as having been a film producer?”

“According to her, he was a carpenter. She remembered the family moving around a lot as he went from job to job, although I guess the word family makes it sound bigger than it was. There were only the three of them.”

“Where did this happen?” Coltrane asked.

“In Mexico.”

“An American working as an itinerant carpenter in Mexico?”

“Why not?”

“Well, for starters, as an American citizen, he could have brought his wife and daughter into the United States without any immigration problems. Given the difference in the standard of living, he could have taken better care of them here.”

“In the Depression?”

“You’ve got a point,” Coltrane said. “But surely if Winston Case had the money to produce films, he could have managed to hang on to enough resources to be comfortable during the Depression. He wouldn’t have had to go to Mexico and become a manual laborer.”

“Then maybe we’re not talking about the same Winston Case.”

“The coincidence is too much for me to accept. There’s got to be a connection between… Does your mother live in Los Angeles? I need to ask her about-”

“My mother’s dead.”

“… Oh.”

“She died from lung cancer three years ago.”

Coltrane didn’t speak for a moment. “I’m very sorry.” He felt as if a door in his mind had been shut. He struggled to open another one. “Yes.” Abruptly he reached for the box of nude photographs.

“What are you doing?” Tash asked.

He hurriedly opened the box and sorted through the naked images until he came to the first waist-up shot. Rebecca Chance’s breasts were prominent.

“I’m not comfortable with this,” Tash said.

“Does she look pregnant to you? I have a friend who’s convinced that…” He glanced at Tash and saw embarrassment and confusion in her eyes. “I know this is awkward. We’ve just barely met, and… I promise I’m doing this for a reason. Please, trust me. My friend pointed out that Rebecca Chance’s breasts aren’t the same in every photograph. They get fuller. The nipples get larger. That made my friend think that Rebecca Chance was pregnant when some of these pictures were taken. She was in great shape to begin with and she watched her weight, and she was far enough along for the hormones to be kicking in, but not far enough along for her to be demonstrably pregnant in other ways. Maybe that’s true. Hell, my friend’s a woman, but she isn’t a doctor. What do I know about this sort of thing? But suppose it’s true. What if… Could the reason you look so much like Rebecca Chance be…”

“That I’m her granddaughter?” Tash’s voice was a strained whisper.

“Look at the pictures again. Can you think of another explanation?”

“I don’t know what to…” Tash hugged herself. “Take me out of here.”

Before Coltrane knew what he was doing, he put an arm around her. “Yes, you’ve been through a lot. Let’s get you upstairs where it’s warm.”

14

COLTRANE’S NEED TO HELP WAS SO GREAT THAT, unusual for him, he didn’t take the time to put the photographs back into the chamber and secure its entrance. His arm still around her, feeling her shiver, he walked with her from the vault. Immediately, as they stepped outside, a jangling sound startled them.

From Tash’s purse.

Coltrane had picked it up as they started across the vault. Tash was so preoccupied that she didn’t at first seem to recognize the shrill insistence of her cellular telephone.

“Don’t tell me he found out this number,” Tash said.

The phone rang again.

“Would you like me to answer it for you?” Coltrane asked.

The phone rang a third time.

“No,” Tash said. “If he hears a man’s voice, it might make him do something more extreme.”

The phone persisted.

“Then don’t answer it at all,” Coltrane said.

“But what if it’s…” Apprehensive, Tash reached for the bag, fumbled inside it, pulled out the phone, opened it with an unsteady hand, and pressed the talk button.

“Hello?” Her voice was tentative, but as she listened, she visibly relaxed. “Walt? Thank heaven. I was afraid it’d be… No, I’m fine… I went out. Mitch had something he needed to show me about the estate I inherited. We drove into Los Angeles… You’ve been trying to call me for the past hour? But I had the phone with me all the time. It never rang. I don’t know why it…” Her dark eyes focused on the open door to the vault. “Wait a minute. I was in a storage area that had a lot of concrete around it. It must have shut out the signal… Slow down, Walt. What’s wrong? You sound… Jesus.” Tensing again, she listened harder. “He did what? Were you hurt? Was anybody…” She stared at the wall across from her, but her eyes seemed so black with despair that Coltrane had the sense she wasn’t seeing anything except nightmarish visions in her mind. “I don’t know what to do… That’s kind of you to offer, but I can’t go back there tonight. I didn’t bring my car. Mitch would have to drive me all the way to your place, and rather than have him do it, I’ll check into a hotel around here… Yes, I’m sure… Of course I feel safe with him.”

“Let me talk to him,” Coltrane said.

“I don’t know the address here. I wasn’t looking when…”

“I need to ask him something.” Coltrane held out his hand.

“Just a second, Walt.” Tash gave him the phone.

Coltrane felt the heat from her hand on it. He smelled her lingering fragrance. “It’s Mitch Coltrane.”

A dead silence was followed by Walt’s husky voice saying, “The son of a bitch poured gasoline through the metal bars in front of Tash’s house and set fire to the garden.”

Coltrane tensed.

“The fumes were everywhere. If I hadn’t stopped by to see if everything was okay, the house would have been destroyed,” Walt said. “I phoned the fire department and used a garden hose to wet down the house until help arrived. It was damned close for a while.”

“Gasoline?”

“That tells you something?” Walt asked.

“I once helped put a stalker in jail by taking his photograph while he poured gasoline on a woman’s lawn.”

“Well, too bad you didn’t stay here instead of driving to Los Angeles. You might have gotten his picture,” Walt said sarcastically.

Coltrane ignored it.

“What’s your address?” Walt asked. “I’ll come get Tash and make sure she spends the night somewhere safe.”

“Are you using a cellular phone?”

“As a matter of fact, yes. What difference does it-”

“A couple of years ago, in Beirut, a man who knows about these things told me never to say anything important on cellular phones. It’s too easy to eavesdrop on conversations over them. I’ll bring Tash back tomorrow morning. But thinking of Ilkovic reminds me of something else. Did you ever have Tash’s house checked for hidden microphones?”

“What?”

“Ilkovic specialized in planting bugs. That was how he anticipated my movements, by overhearing my conversations,” Coltrane said. “Do you suppose this jerk knows all about Tash’s movements because he planted bugs in her house? That would be one way for him to learn her new telephone numbers – when the service person told her what they were, she wasn’t the only one listening.”

More dead silence. “Christ.”

“You didn’t check for bugs?” Coltrane asked.

“I’m sure as hell going to.”

“And after that, I’ll bring Tash back.” He gave the phone to her.

But Tash didn’t raise it to her ear. She just kept staring at Coltrane. “Microphones? You honestly think there might be…”

“Tash? Are you there?” Walt asked faintly from the phone.

Slowly, she raised it. “Walt, I don’t feel up to talking right now. But thanks for everything. I’m really grateful… No, stay there. I’ll be fine. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.” She pressed a button on the phone and put the phone back into her bag.

Neither spoke for a moment.

“Microphones in my house?”

“It’s a possibility. It has to be checked.”

“But the house has an alarm system. How would he get in to plant the microphones?”

“Before this started, did you have any maintenance work done around the house?”

“The carpeting was put in recently. You don’t suppose…”

Coltrane spread his hands.

“Jesus, I feel so… violated.”

“I’ve been there. I know what you mean.”

“Do you think he set the fire to pay me back for trying to trap him today? Or did he figure out I drove away with you and he was jealous?”

“I was sure he couldn’t have known you were in the car,” Coltrane said. “But…”

“What is it?”

“I’m a little late wondering about the possibility of hidden microphones. If your house is bugged, he would have overheard us planning how to hide you in the car. I’m sorry. I might have made a mistake.”

“I’m not into blaming people. You did your best.” Tash controlled a shudder. “On the positive side, he couldn’t have followed us and at the same time have started the fire. So we know I’m safe for now.” She looked at him. “Can you recommend a hotel in the area?”

“One.”

She waited for the name.

“Right here,” Coltrane said. “There’s a guest bedroom. I’ve got plenty of spare toothbrushes. If I can fit into one of your robes, I know you can fit into one of mine.”

“I couldn’t impose.”

“Why not? Because you barely know me?”

Tash shrugged.

“In the last few hours, I’d say we’d gotten to know each other fairly well.” Coltrane locked the door to the vault.

“After going through those photographs? I suppose you’re right.”

They started up the stairs.

“Look, I made a killer marinara sauce last night,” Coltrane said. “There was plenty left over. I can cook up more pasta and-”

Another shrill noise startled them. They froze at the top of the stairs into the living room.

But this time the sound wasn’t from the phone in Tash’s purse. It came from the doorbell.

Coltrane frowned. “Who would that be?”

“Are you expecting anyone?”

“No. Sometimes Randolph Packard’s assistant drops by, but he has a key, and he usually just lets himself in. Maybe he’s decided to be polite and ring the doorbell.”

With the second jangle of the doorbell, Tash looked more uneasy.

“It’ll be fine. No one knows you’re here,” Coltrane said.

But he himself did not feel assured. He went to the door, looked through its peephole, and felt something inside him contract when he saw who it was.

Oh no, he thought.

He was tempted not to open it, but he couldn’t be certain that his and Tash’s voice hadn’t carried faintly to the person on the other side. Preparing himself, he gripped the dead bolt’s knob, turned it, opened the door, and tried not to look self-conscious when he smiled at Jennifer.

15

“HEY, WHAT A SURPRISE,” Coltrane said.

“Surprise?” Jennifer looked confused. She still wore her black Armani dress. The same pearl earrings and necklace highlighted it, glinting from the outdoor lights. “You didn’t get the message I left on your answering machine?”

“I just came in awhile ago. I haven’t had a chance to listen to my messages.” Coltrane remained at the partially opened door. “What have you got there?”

She held a cardboard box that contained several Tupperware bowls, each covered with a plastic lid. “New Year’s dinner. There was plenty of food left over at my parents’ house, and I wasn’t sure how much you would have gotten to eat when you visited Greg’s widow this afternoon. So I thought I’d bring you a care package.”

“That was really thoughtful.”

“But it’s getting heavy. You’d better move out of the way so I can bring it in.”

“Ah… sure. I’m so surprised to… Here, let me help.”

Coltrane reached to take the box from her. His movement opened the door wider, causing Jennifer’s previous look of confusion to become one of concern as she glanced past him.

“Oh… I beg your pardon. I didn’t know you had company.”

Tash had remained standing at the top of the living room stairs.

“Well, a couple of things happened today, and…” Coltrane didn’t know how to get out of the sentence. “Jennifer, I’d like you to meet Tash Adler.”

“Hello.” Jennifer had trouble saying the word.

“Tash, this is my friend Jennifer Lane.”

“Pleased to meet you.” Smiling, Tash came down the stairs.

By then, Coltrane had overcome his awkwardness enough to finish taking the box from Jennifer. Her hands were free, but she waited a moment before she gripped the hand Tash offered.

“You look awfully familiar,” Jennifer said, then frowned toward Coltrane. “I don’t understand.”

“Familiar?” Tash looked puzzled.

“Jennifer knows about the photographs,” Coltrane explained.

“You’ve seen them?” Tash asked.

“Yes.”

“All of them?”

“Yes,” Jennifer said.

Despite Tash’s tan, the embarrassment that colored her cheeks was obvious. It was almost as if she felt the nude photos were of her and not of Rebecca Chance.

“Tash Adler?” Jennifer searched her memory. “Are you the person who inherited Randolph Packard’s estate in Mexico?”

“Yes. How did you know?”

“Jennifer’s been helping me do my research,” Coltrane said. He felt awkward standing between the two women, holding the box of Tupperware containers. “Jennifer, after I visited Greg’s widow, my curiosity got the better of me. I went up to Malibu to see if I could find where Tash lived.”

“You’ve certainly had an eventful day.”

“I brought Tash back here to see the photographs and try to figure out why she looked so much like Rebecca Chance.”

Jennifer couldn’t take her eyes away from Tash. “And did you come up with any answers?”

“We’re beginning to suspect she might have been my grandmother,” Tash said.

“There you are, Mitch. I’m impressed by the progress you’re making.” Jennifer looked uncomfortable in the doorway.

“But why are we standing here?” Coltrane made room. “Come in, and we’ll-”

“No, that’s all right,” Jennifer said too quickly. “I just wanted to stop by and leave this food. I wasn’t planning on staying. I have a lot of things to do at the office tomorrow. I planned on getting an early start.”

“Can’t you come in for a little while at least?” Coltrane asked. “I was going to open a bottle of wine and…”

“Yes,” Tash said. “Stay and we’ll talk. It’s awfully nice of you to bring the food. I’m sure Mitch is glad not to have to eat leftovers. He was going to reheat some marinara sauce he made yesterday.”

“Oh, I don’t know.” Jennifer’s voice sounded a little choked. “He makes great marinara sauce.” She backed away. “I really have to be going. It was a pleasure to meet you, Tash. I’ll talk to you later, Mitch.”

“But-”

“Happy New Year.”

“… Happy New Year.” Conscious of the heavy box of Tupperware in his hands, Coltrane watched Jennifer walk to the curb, get in her BMW, and drive away. She didn’t look back.

16

ONLY AFTER HER HEADLIGHTS VANISHED OVER THE HILL DID Coltrane nudge the door shut. “Lock this for me, will you?”

“Sure,” Tash said. “I have the uneasy feeling I got in the way of something. Are the two of you…”

“It’s complicated. We’re trying to see if we can work things out again.” He climbed the stairs toward the living room.

“This misunderstanding couldn’t have helped any.” Tash followed. “Is she the friend you mentioned, the one who emphasized that this was the time of year to concentrate on new beginnings?”

“I’m afraid so.” Coltrane felt terrible about what had happened. “I suspect this wasn’t the kind of beginning she had in mind. I’ll call her first thing tomorrow.”

When they entered the dining room, Tash faltered. “These strings of beads on the walls…”

“Yes, they’re unusual, aren’t they?”

“But…” Tash shook her head, baffled. “They were in one of the photographs downstairs. One of the nudes.”

“Rebecca Chance used to own this house.”

“What?”

“After she disappeared, Randolph Packard bought the place and kept it exactly as it was when she lived here.”

“What in God’s name is going on?”

“That’s what I was hoping you’d be able to tell me.”

“Never mind the wine,” Tash said abruptly. “Have you got any scotch?”

Worried about her manner, Coltrane poured it. “Do you want ice or-”

“No.” Tash grabbed the glass and took two quick swallows. She closed her eyes, then opened them. “Now you can add ice and water.”

“Are you okay?”

“No.”

Coltrane waited.

“I’m scared.”

Coltrane nodded.

“But I don’t know what scares me more, the man who’s stalking me or the photographs you showed me. I’m even afraid of this house.”

“Why on earth-”

“It makes me feel like I’m being dragged back in time. Rebecca Chance is here. I can sense her. I also feel Randolph Packard.”

“But he loved her. There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

“Hold me.”

“What?”

“I’ve never felt so alone and scared. Please, hold me.”

Momentarily, Coltrane found it impossible to move. Hoping that his trembling wouldn’t betray him, he moved close, stopped face-to-face with her, and put his arms around her. He did it gently, not pressing himself against her, simply holding her. Closing his eyes, he felt her head sink against his left shoulder. He smelled sun and salt water in her hair. He tried to control his breathing as she raised her own arms and put them around his back. Then he couldn’t subdue his trembling any longer, but it didn’t matter, because Tash was trembling also, holding him tighter. They were pressed against each other. He felt the rise and fall of her chest. He started to become erect, afraid that she would notice. Then her shoulders heaved, and all at once she made a sound that might have been a sob. As his erection diminished, she gently pushed away from him, wiped a tear from her right cheek, and gave him the saddest smile he had ever seen.

“Thank you.”

“There were a lot of times when I felt alone and afraid,” Coltrane said. “Anytime you need a shoulder.”

“It’s strange. I met you only this afternoon, but already I feel you’re a friend.”

“Same here.”

Tash leaned to kiss him on the cheek, but her stomach rumbled, and she looked down, abashed. Unexpectedly, she laughed.

So did Coltrane.

“That’s twice,” Tash said.

“Twice?”

“That I laughed today. Thanks to you.”

Her stomach rumbled again, and she laughed again.

“We’d better get some food into you,” Coltrane said.

Tash’s smile was no longer sad.

As they heated food on the stove and in the microwave, Coltrane made a decision about an idea that he had been debating. “Have you got Walt’s phone number?”

Tash looked up from gravy she was stirring. “Two. One at the sheriff’s station and the other at his home. I have them memorized in case I need him in a hurry.”

“This late, he’s probably off duty. Give me his home number.”

“Why?”

“I think I know a way to trap the man who’s stalking you.”

Tash looked mystified after she told him the number and he picked up the phone. For the first time, he noticed the flashing red light on the answering machine, presumably the message that Jennifer had said she left. Continuing to feel terrible about the misunderstanding, he pressed numbers.

Three rings later, a recognizable male voice answered. It sounded a little huskier, perhaps because of alcohol. “What’s up?”

“This is Mitch Coltrane again.”

“Swell.” Immediately, a possible implication hit Walt. “Why? Has something happened to Tash?”

“She’s fine. That’s not why I’m calling. Are you on a cellular phone?”

“No.”

“Good. There’s less chance of anybody eavesdropping. When we spoke earlier, you said you were going to Tash’s house tomorrow – to search for hidden microphones.”

At the stove, Tash watched him, more confused.

“You should have mentioned those microphones when nobody else was with you,” Walt said. “You made me sound as if I didn’t know my job.”

“That wasn’t my intention.”

“And what about now?”

“I don’t understand.”

“Is Tash listening now?”

“No, she’s in the bathroom,” Coltrane lied.

“So what about the microphones?”

“I’ve got an idea I’m still working out. Ideally, it would be better if you didn’t search for the microphones. But in case somebody used a scanner to eavesdrop on the cellular phone you had earlier, you have to do what you said you were going to do. Otherwise, he’ll get suspicious.”

“What are you talking about?”

“If you do find hidden microphones, don’t disconnect them all,” Coltrane said. “Leave a few, as if you hadn’t found them.”

“Are you telling me how to do my job again?”

“Listen to me. The plan I’m trying to put together won’t work unless whoever’s after Tash overhears her talking about her travel schedule for the next few days.”

“Another trap.”

“Not quite. I haven’t thought all of it through yet,” Coltrane said. “When I see you tomorrow, we’ll talk about it.”

“When you see me tomorrow?” Walt asked. “Wow, that’ll certainly give me a reason to wake up cheery.”

Coltrane set down the phone.

“Why did you lie that I was in the bathroom?” Tash asked.

“Walt’s manly feelings get hurt if I make suggestions when you’re around.”

“He means well,” Tash said.

“Oh, I don’t doubt he’s determined to help.”

Tash studied him. “You’ve got me curious about this plan you mentioned.”

“A couple of years ago, I did a photo assignment for the LAPD Threat Management Unit. I hid outside the house of a woman who was being stalked. In the middle of the night, I managed to take a photograph of a man pouring gasoline on her lawn.”

The reference to gasoline made Tash wince. “Yes, you mentioned that when you spoke to Walt earlier.”

“The woman was able to identify the man from the photograph,” Coltrane said. “He was someone she’d dated twice several years before. My photograph put him in jail.”

“And?”

“Suppose there are microphones hidden in your house. If he’s been overhearing you talk about your schedule, that explains how he’s been able to follow you so closely and get pictures of you wherever you go. So tomorrow you’ll talk about your schedule one more time – to someone on the phone or to Walt at your house or whomever,” Coltrane said. “Then you’ll go about your business, and we’ll hope that he takes the bait. Because this time, there’ll be another photographer wherever you go.” Coltrane pointed at himself. “I’ll stay back far enough to take pictures of anybody in the area, with emphasis on people with cameras. After a couple of locations, if the same face shows up in the photographs…”

“And if I recognize that face…”

Coltrane nodded. “The police will put the bastard in jail and you can sleep peacefully for a change.”

“If only.” Tash’s shoulders slowly relaxed. “I want that to happen so much.” She touched his arm. “Thank you. You’ve given me a reason to hope.”

A bubbling sound made them turn toward the stove.

“Good Lord, the gravy.”

The tension was broken. As ordinary life interrupted, Coltrane took pleasure from mundane chores, carrying bowls from the oven and setting them on heat-resistant pads. Tash arranged place settings.

“Be back in a moment.” She left the kitchen.

Hearing the bathroom door click shut, Coltrane couldn’t keep from glancing toward the flashing red light on his answering machine. He set down a bottle of fumé blanc that he’d been opening and pressed the play button.

“It’s me,” Jennifer’s voice said. “Still at my parents’. Just a little cleanup left. I’ll be heading out in a little while. In case you get back before I talk to you again, don’t make anything for supper. Mom’s put together a ton of leftovers for you. I’ll take a chance that you’ll be home and drive by.”

Water ran in the bathroom. As the door opened, Coltrane pressed the stop button.

“Did I hear someone talking?” Tash asked.

“Just checking my messages.”

“Anything you have to deal with?”

“Not tonight.”

“In that case, are you ready?”

Tash ate heartily, but thinking of Jennifer, Coltrane felt so dispirited, it was all he could do to get through his meal.

17

DANIEL, Greg, and his grandparents stood before him while Ilkovic’s headless corpse came up behind them. About to scream, Coltrane jerked awake. Sweating, he stared at the shadows of windblown trees rippling across the dark ceiling. Then he jerked a second time, realizing that one of the shadows was from something moving in his bedroom. But before he could roll out of bed and try to defend himself, his sleep-clouded mind cleared enough for him to understand that the shadow at the top of the stairs leading into his bedroom belonged to Tash.

She wore a white robe he had given her, part of it obscured by her dark hair hanging over her shoulders, her face invisible. “Did I scare you?”

“No. Not you.” Coltrane wiped a hand across his clammy forehead. “I was having a nightmare.”

“I know. You were moaning. I heard you all the way in the guest bedroom downstairs. I came to see if you’re okay.”

“Thanks.” Coltrane’s rushing heart rate slowly subsided. “I’ll be fine now. Sorry to wake you.”

“You didn’t.” Tash paused. “I was already awake.” Another pause. “I had a nightmare, too.”

“How bad?”

“Very bad. Somewhere between fright and terror.”

“Yeah, that definitely qualifies as a nightmare. Lord, I hope this isn’t a pattern for the new year.”

“Why should the new year be any different from the old?”

Coltrane propped himself up on his elbows. “I promise you, my plan’s going to work. The police will catch this guy. The new year will be different.”

“Isn’t it nice to think so.”

“Why don’t I make us some coffee?”

“No,” Tash said, “I’m going to try to get back to sleep.”

“I hope it happens for you.”

“It almost never does.”

“Maybe this time will be different.”

“I’m afraid to sleep alone.”

In the darkness, the white robe moved toward the bed.

Coltrane felt the covers being pulled back, pressure on the side of the bed, Tash’s warmth. Then she pulled the covers over both of them, and they were together.

“So tired,” she said.

“Close your eyes. Try to sleep.”

He touched her shoulder to calm her and was shocked again. Static electricity shot off her, off her bare skin, making him realize that she had dropped the robe. Before he could restrain himself, he kissed her lightly. Not even when Ilkovic had stalked him at the Maynard ranch had he felt so terrified. Dizzy from his hammering heartbeat, he became even dizzier when her mouth opened, her tongue finding his. His mind aswirl, he cupped a hand over a breast, feeling its nipple harden under his palm. She moaned, her arms encircling him. His light-headedness intensified. He had never felt skin so smooth, pubic hair so silken. His sensations whirling, he touched her moistness and groaned as she dug her fingernails into his chest. He flicked his tongue across her nipples. With frightening need, she put her hand on his penis, thrust herself up, and guided him into her, wrapping her legs around his waist. At once, her urgency abated. Gently, she rocked. He whimpered. He had never felt anything so smooth and moist and tight and sweet. Then he couldn’t hold back. His short thrusts became longer. She moaned in unison with him, their hips locked in a frenzy. She screamed as she came, and his own release was so powerful that he felt it go all the way to the top of his head, which seemed to have exploded.

18

THEY LAY IN SILENCE.

“That static electricity you give off – I saw sparks in the darkness,” Coltrane said.

“I felt sparks.”

“I’ve never experienced anything like…”

“Yes.”

He drew a hand along her smooth thigh, along her flat stomach, over each of her breasts. He had the sensation of worshiping. Now it was his turn to say “Yes.”

“You’ve chased away the nightmares.”

“I’ll always chase them away,” Coltrane said. He suddenly remembered that Randolph Packard and Rebecca Chance had probably made love in this very room on this very bed. So long ago. And now he had made love here with Rebecca Chance’s look-alike, possibly with her granddaughter.

“Not alone,” Tash murmured.

“That’s right,” Coltrane said. “You won’t be alone any longer.”

She sighed, snuggling against him, her weight settling, her body relaxing. Soon she drifted off to sleep, her breathing slow, steady, and faint.

But Coltrane didn’t sleep for a long while. He was unable to adjust to her presence next to him, to the heart-swelling reality of what they had done.