Double Image

1

HE AWOKE WITH A RISING FEAR THAT IT HAD ALL BEEN A DREAM, that Tash wouldn’t be lying next to him.

But she was, her eyes flickering slowly open, focusing warmly on him.

“Hi.” Her smile was welcoming.

“Hi.”

She touched his cheek. “Sleep well?”

“When I got myself calmed down.”

She chuckled.

“And you?” Coltrane asked. “How did you sleep?”

“For the first time in a long while, I’m not waking up more exhausted than when I went to bed. Heaven knows, I ought to feel exhausted after the workout we gave ourselves.”

“Maybe we need a massage therapist.”

Tash stretched, her breasts lifting, her naked body shifting next to him. “Oh, I think any aches we’ve got we can make feel better by ourselves.”

Yes, everything is going to be fine, Coltrane thought. He had worried that she would wake up with remorse, telling him that it had all been a mistake, that they had to pretend it had never happened and just be friends, although she regretted that being friends would be almost impossible after what they had done, and maybe it would be better if they didn’t see each other again.

But Tash was so at ease with their being in bed together that he felt joyous.

“What about you?” she asked. “Have you got any aches that need feeling better?”

“One.”

“Show me.”

“Here,” Coltrane said.

“Oh, yes, I can see why that would ache.”

“What do you suppose we should do about it?”

“Well, there’s a remedy the natives in Bora Bora practice.”

“You’ve been there?”

“No, but I took a correspondence course in their customs. Of course, there’s nothing like hands-on experience. What I learned is that, when this kind of ache comes up, there’s a particular spot that has to be massaged.”

“Smart natives.”

“Not there. Whatever are you thinking of?”

“I…”

“Past there. Behind it. Shall I explain what they discovered?”

“Absolutely. As long as you keep… I’ve got nothing else on my mind.”

“Behind your testicles.”

“Yes, I’m listening.”

“In the crutch of your legs, there’s a cord that leads from…”

“Yes, I feel it.”

“… your prostate to your testicles. And when I draw my index finger back and forth along that cord… So gently. With the flat of my finger. Are you sure I’m not boring you?”

“Definitely not.”

“Because if I am boring you…”

“No, please, keep…”

“When I trace my index finger along this cord, you’ll notice that it gets larger.”

“… Yes.”

“And that your testicles compact.”

“Yes.”

“And that the more I stroke this cord, your penis gets harder, your cord gets more swollen, your testicles get… What’s the matter? The cat got your tongue?” Tash asked.

“Something’s got something else of me. But the ache’s getting worse.”

“Then the treatment isn’t working. I’d better stop.”

“No. The treatment’s going to work. I’m sure of it.”

“I think it is, too. But I suddenly realized that I forgot the most important part. I have to position myself like this and lower myself down onto you like this and…”

“Yes.”

2

AFTERWARD, he lay spent, so relaxed that he didn’t move until a few minutes after Tash went into the shower. A high-pitched noise made him turn toward Tash’s purse. She had carried it up from the downstairs bedroom and left it on a chair outside the bathroom door. The cellular phone in the purse was making its unpleasant sound again.

“Hello?”

“Who’s this?” a husky voice asked. “Coltrane? What the-”

“Good morning, Walt.”

“What’s wrong with Tash’s phone? Last night, I tried for an hour to reach her. Now I’ve been trying for another hour. Nobody answers. She’s supposed to keep the phone with her wherever she goes.”

“And she has. I don’t understand why it didn’t…” Then Coltrane realized. “Until a while ago, her purse was in another part of the house. I guess we didn’t hear it.”

“House? She’s at your place? I thought you were taking her to a hotel.”

“Change of plan.”

“Put her on.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“She’s in the shower.”

Walt didn’t say anything for a moment. His voice was thicker when he spoke again. “You were right about microphones being in her house. I just got back to the station after the tech crew finished its search. There were bugs in every room. The SOB’s been listening to every word she said.”

“And everything you and the other men said when you were over there planning how to trap him.”

“We look like fools,” Walt said.

“Did you do what I suggested? Did you leave some of the microphones?”

“I don’t know what you think you’re-”

“Did you?”

“One. In the living room.”

“That’ll be enough.”

“But what’s this about?”

“I’ll explain when we get there. Two hours? The sheriff’s station?”

The bathroom door swung open. Tash came out with a towel wrapped around her, her wet hair combed close to her head, her features sculpted. She raised her eyebrows. “Is it Walt?”

Coltrane nodded.

Tash took the phone. “Good morning,” she said into it. Her voice was wonderful. She walked around Coltrane and pressed herself against his bare back. “No, it was a very quiet night. I went to bed early. I slept like the dead.”

3

THE DAY AFTER NEW YEAR’S, the Beverly Center was teeming with shoppers. The cavernous multistoried building reverberated with the rumbling echo of innumerable voices and footsteps. Coltrane was surprised. He had expected the place to be semideserted, everyone tired of shopping for Christmas, but maybe people were returning unwanted presents or looking for sales. Whatever the reason for their presence, they made it both easier and harder for him to accomplish his task: easier because he had expected to have trouble concealing himself while he took photographs of Tash’s progress through the mall, whereas the crowd gave him all the cover he needed; harder because the crowd also gave cover to his quarry, to anyone who followed Tash, showing undue interest in her and taking her picture.

He was on the third level of the massive shopping center, peering over a railing down toward the escalator that carried a steady stream of shoppers from the first level to the second and third. He was by no means the only one at the railing; otherwise, he would never have dared show himself. Across from him, several people drank coffee at a Starbucks concession. To his right, a group of teenagers leaned over, shouting down to friends. To his left, a middle-aged man leaned the other way, his back against the railing, sipping an Orange Julius while he waited for his wife to return from a dress shop that she had entered a few minutes after Coltrane got into position. Potted plants, pillars, and directional displays added further visual clutter, as did the continuous chaotic movement of shoppers just behind Coltrane. Anyone who suspected this might be a trap would take an awfully long while to spot Coltrane, and by then, Coltrane – or at least his camera – would have spotted him.

He glanced at his watch. Almost two o’clock. Any moment now, he thought, and lifted his camera from a shopping bag, adjusting its zoom lens. As if on cue, Tash stepped onto the escalator that led up from the first level to the second. Coltrane hadn’t expected to have any trouble seeing her. Her magnetic presence would have distinguished her in any crowd. Nonetheless, he was amazed by how immediately he noticed her. By contrast, the two men with her were relatively inconspicuous, one in front, the other in back: Walt’s partner, Lyle, and one of the state troopers whom Coltrane had met the previous afternoon. Both had the day off and had accepted the chance to earn more extra money as her bodyguards. They wore casual clothes and slightly oversized windbreakers that concealed the handguns they carried, their presence reassuring.

Coltrane returned his attention to Tash. Planning today’s strategy, the group had debated whether she should wear something attention-getting to make her easier for him to spot, but they had dismissed the idea as one that would be likely to make her stalker suspicious. Obviously, a woman afraid of being followed wouldn’t want to be conspicuous unless she was trying to bait a trap. Accordingly, they had agreed that she would wear something attractive without being ostentatious: camel slacks, a dark blue blazer, an ecru silk blouse, and modest silver earrings. But as Coltrane looked down at her from the railing of the third level, he now realized that it was impossible for her not to attract attention. Even from a distance, her beauty was manifest. With her hand on the railing of the escalator, her body turned sideways, she looked like a fashion model. As faces on the opposite, descending escalator pivoted in her direction, Coltrane started snapping pictures.

It wasn’t likely that anyone on the descending escalator would be the man he was hunting, but Coltrane didn’t want to take chances – there was no way of telling what he might inadvertently capture in the background. Three shots later, he raised his aim and got pictures of the crowd on both sides of where the escalator came up to the second level. Because he and Tash had verbally rehearsed her movements, Coltrane knew that she would turn toward the right. As a consequence, he moved simultaneously with her, but in the opposite direction, to the left, farther along the railing, able to snap several photographs of her shifting through the crowd below and across from him. A little farther along, he caught her entering a clothing boutique. Even with a zoom lens, it was hard to tell from this distance whether anyone gave her more than the usual admiring glances. No one seemed to be photographing her, but because he was looking mostly through the viewfinder, he couldn’t be sure. The magnified photographs would tell the story.

He changed position, heading to the right this time, to the store above the clothing store that she had entered. From that vantage point, he could look across the huge open space between levels. He could peer down toward the stores opposite the one that Tash had entered. He could see if anyone showed unusual interest in that store. Staying back from the railing so he wouldn’t be obvious, he made sure to change angles, getting as wide a variety of shots as possible.

Once more, he checked his watch. A half hour had passed. As he and Tash had planned, it was time for her to be coming out, so he shifted to the side opposite the door that she and her two bodyguards would be coming through. He caught photographs of the crowd on each side, of anyone who might be watching. Aware that she and her bodyguards would now head toward the down escalator, he reached a spot where he could take photographs of anyone watching from the first level as she and her escorts descended the escalator from the second level.

At the bottom, they moved out of his sight, heading along a corridor of stores toward an elevator that would take them to the parking garage. But by hurrying to the escalator and taking it three steps at a time down to the second level, Coltrane was able to get Tash in sight again and photograph the shoppers in the corridor below him. She entered the elevator. Its doors closed.

His camera clicked on the last exposure. As the rewind motor whirred, he lowered the camera. His back muscles slowly relaxed. But his tension was the result of exhilaration. Working a camera after so long had given him a rush, as had the clandestine nature of the photographs he was taking, the idea that he was trying to trap someone who wouldn’t know that he was being photographed. He wondered if that was the same kind of rush that the stalker got, the power of observing without being observed, of capturing someone’s soul without the target’s being aware that the theft had occurred. Suddenly chilled, he remembered the vulnerability and nakedness he had suffered when he found the photographs that Dragan Ilkovic had taken of him.

4

AS SOON AS THE CAMERA’S REWIND MOTOR FINISHED WHIRRING, he quickly removed the exposed film and put in a new roll. All the while, he calculated. He had to hurry to his car and get to Tash’s next destination, another clothing boutique, this one on the Third Street pedestrian shopping area in Santa Monica. After that, she would go to a similar store in Westwood and finally all the way down to yet another clothing boutique at the South Coast Plaza in Orange County. She owned all of them, he had learned. She also owned three more in San Diego and four in San Francisco.

“I have other investments, too,” she had said while they drove to the Malibu sheriff’s station that morning. “I try to stay out of their day-to-day affairs, but periodically I drop in just to let the managers know Big Sister is watching. In the case of the clothing boutiques, my interest is greater, so I pay visits more often. This afternoon and this evening would be a good time to make my rounds.”

“Do you ever phone your managers to alert them when you’re coming?”

“Always. Granted, it gives them a chance to hide anything that might be wrong, but it also makes me seem less adversarial than if I showed up unannounced, trying to catch them at something. I don’t want the managers to be afraid of me. I want them to work hard for me.”

“This morning, after you get back to your house, why don’t you use the phone to make appointments at the various stores for this afternoon? Add enough time between stops so I can get to each one ahead of you.”

“But what I say will be transmitted through the hidden microphone Walt left in the house. He’ll know my timetable.”

“Exactly,” Coltrane had said. “And we’ll know his.”

With the first phase completed, Coltrane got on the escalator down to the Beverly Center’s bottom level. The time was twenty-five to three. Depending on traffic, Tash needed only a half hour to get to the store in Santa Monica, but since the plan required him to arrive ahead of her, she had added another half hour to the timetable, making a 3:30 appointment with the manager. Tash’s stalker, who had presumably overheard the telephone conversation, wouldn’t expect her until then. Meanwhile, Coltrane would be able to arrive in time to start shooting various angles of the crowd. Of course, Tash’s stalker might decide not to show up at any of the-

5

A HAND SHOVED HIM FROM BEHIND, with such force that Coltrane lurched forward on the escalator and almost lost his balance. Startled, he grabbed the railing to keep from falling and spun toward the person who had shoved him. “Hey, watch where you’re-”

Twice as startled, he found himself face-to-face with Carl Nolan.

The sergeant and he were about the same height, six feet, but Nolan was on a step higher than Coltrane and seemed to tower, his weight lifter’s shoulders looking broader than usual.

Nolan jabbed him again, harder, jolting Coltrane’s right shoulder.

Almost falling, Coltrane gripped the railing harder. “What are you-”

“Keep your hands off her.”

People on the escalator couldn’t help noticing. As distracted as Coltrane was, he sensed their agitation.

“For God’s sake, have you lost your mind?”

Nolan jabbed him a third time. “Stay away from her.”

“If you don’t stop-”

“You’re missing the point.” Nolan gripped Coltrane’s right arm with a force that made Coltrane wince. “This is about you stopping.”

Coltrane suddenly felt off balance, the escalator no longer moving. With equal abruptness, he realized that he’d reached the bottom. The people who’d gotten off ahead of him scattered.

Nolan tightened his grip on Coltrane’s arm. “You’re not going to make a fuss. We’re going to walk calmly over to that elevator. We’re going to find a nice quiet spot in the parking garage where we can chat.” Nolan squeezed so hard that he cut off the circulation in Coltrane’s arm.

“Whatever you want.”

“Right. That’s a good beginning. Whatever I want.”

Shoppers farther along hadn’t noticed what was happening. Moving Coltrane steadily through the crowd, Nolan reached the elevator and pushed a button. When the doors opened, Nolan shoved him inside. For a moment, they bumped together, and Coltrane felt Nolan’s handgun in its shoulder holster under his windbreaker. The doors rumbled shut, the elevator descending.

“Take it easy,” Coltrane said. “I don’t know what this is about, but-”

Nolan’s eyes were wide with fury. “I already told you what this is about: you stopping.”

An elderly couple in the elevator looked nervous.

The doors opened, and Nolan tugged Coltrane into the parking garage. Along a row of cars, Nolan glanced around to see if anyone was nearby, then shoved Coltrane between two minivans until Coltrane’s back was against a concrete wall. The minivans blocked them from view. “You’re never going near Tash again.”

“Carl, think about what you’re doing. You’re risking your job. You can’t assault me. You’ll lose your badge.”

“Who’s going to tell? You? That I did this?” Nolan punched Coltrane in the stomach.

As air wheezed out of him, Coltrane doubled over and sank to his knees, his hands locked tightly to his stomach.

“Or that I did this?” Nolan rocketed the heel of the palm of his hand against the side of Coltrane’s head. It knocked Coltrane to the floor. “Answer me. Who’s going to tell?”

Sprawled on the concrete, Coltrane didn’t know which hurt worse, his stomach or his head.

“If you’d let us bring you in and protect you, Greg would still be alive. If you’d done what you were supposed to, McCoy wouldn’t be in the hospital. You treated me like a fool and kept me waiting at your place while you went off to be a hero. You had to show me you were smarter than me, that you knew better than anybody how to handle Ilkovic.”

When Coltrane tried to stand, Nolan used the heel of his palm to slam his forehead and knock him onto the floor again. The martial-arts move protected Nolan’s hand while carrying power and not leaving a mark. “Oh, I’ve tried to be a good sport and hide my feelings. I tried to tell myself I’m being too harsh, that you got the job done on Ilkovic, that you paid him back for Greg. Hell, I almost had myself convinced. But then you showed up at Tash’s yesterday and made me and the other guys look like idiots. The next thing I know, she’s asking you to stay, and the next thing after that, you’re taking her to your house, and the next thing after that, she spends the night with you. Now if that isn’t fast work, I don’t know what is.”

“Carl-”

“Shut up while I’m talking to you. The way this is going to work, you’re never going to tell anyone about this conversation, and you’re never going to see Tash again.”

His vision blurry, Coltrane peered up at him. “You and Tash?”

“I told you to shut up!”

“What’s going on?” a male voice demanded.

Coltrane shifted his gaze as Nolan pivoted toward the front of the minivans.

A uniformed security guard studied them nervously. He was in his early thirties, tense-faced, rail-thin compared to Nolan, and shorter. He drew a walkie-talkie from a holster on his belt. “I had a complaint about a disturbance.” His voice was unsteady. “Break it up.”

“LAPD.” Nolan already had his police wallet out of his windbreaker, opening it, showing his badge. “I just apprehended a suspect. He tried to get away.”

The security guard narrowed his eyes and assessed the badge. “LAPD?” He looked relieved. “I wasn’t sure what was… Do you need any help?”

“I’ve got everything under control,” Nolan said. “You can go back to what you were doing. I’ll handle this.”

“Right.” The guard stepped back. “I won’t get in the way.”

Nolan waited until the guard’s footsteps receded to a faint echo, followed by the thump of a door closing.

He pointed rigidly at Coltrane. “That was smart of you not to contradict me.”

Keeping a careful distance, Coltrane wavered to his feet. His head throbbed. “Why would I? This doesn’t involve anybody but you and me.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. It involves you and me and Tash. Don’t go near her again or I’ll put you in the hospital. Is that plain enough for you?”

“Totally.”

“Then we understand each other.” Nolan turned and walked away.

Propped against the concrete wall, Coltrane held his stomach. His chest heaved. He fought the impulse to be sick. He listened to Nolan’s heavy footsteps, heard them stop, heard a car door, an engine, and tires squealing.

Slowly, he pushed away from the wall. His chest continued to heave, no longer because his breath had been knocked out – but because of anger.

6

“IS THERE SOMETHING YOU FORGOT TO TELL ME ABOUT CARL NOLAN?” Coltrane demanded.

It was ten to four. He was using a pay phone at the outdoor pedestrian mall on Third Street in Santa Monica. Despite his injuries, he had managed to get to the mall before Tash arrived. He had photographed the crowd from as many angles as he could without drawing attention to himself. From a discreet position, he had watched Tash and her escorts approach the clothing boutique and enter. He had crossed the promenade and gotten shots of the crowd on the opposite side. With all of his obligations taken care of, he had then done what he had been determined to do since Nolan had delivered his final warning and stormed away – phone Tash at the store and find out what in God’s name was going on.

“Mitch? What are you talking about?” Tash’s voice was taut with confusion.

“Nolan seems to think that you and he are an item. He did his best to beat the hell out of me to prove his point.”

“He what? Oh my God.”

Down the mall from the store, Coltrane warily studied the crowd. “For all I know, he’s in the neighborhood, and he’s going to beat the hell out of me again to make sure the lesson sticks. So if it isn’t too damned much trouble, would you mind telling me what’s going on?”

“This is terrible. I never imagined he’d… Are you hurt?”

“Not as much as I’m confused. Do you have a relationship with him?”

“No… It’s complicated. I can’t talk about this on the phone.”

“Well, you’re going to have to talk to me about him sometime.”

“I will. Soon. I promise.”

“Could he be your stalker?”

“Carl? No. He can’t be. I didn’t meet him until a week after I started getting the letters and phone calls. He didn’t know me until then. He couldn’t have started this.”

“Then maybe he’s continuing it, making himself indispensable. Maybe he’s the one who bugged your house and started the fire last night. No.” Coltrane immediately corrected himself. “If Nolan did those things, he wouldn’t be stupid enough to come at me and risk drawing suspicion. But if he isn’t your stalker and he didn’t plant the microphones, how did he know I was going to be at the Beverly Center?”

“Walt told him.”

“Walt?”

“After you dropped me off at the sheriff’s station, Carl phoned and asked to be brought up-to-date. Walt explained the plan we were trying. There’s nothing mysterious about how Carl knew where you’d be. It’s not like he had to be listening to the microphone in my living room.”

“I was sure…” Head pounding, Coltrane couldn’t resist going back to the same insistent question. “Why does he think I’m interfering with something you have going with him?”

“Please.” Tash sounded self-conscious. “There are people here. We have to meet so I can explain. It’s not what you’re thinking.”

“I’m not sure what I’m thinking.”

“It’s innocent. You’re going to have to take my word until we see each other.”

“When? You won’t be done at the South Coast Plaza until maybe eight o’clock. That means you won’t get home until around eleven. I need to develop the photographs so you can study them and see if you recognize anybody. That’s going to take until… Why don’t you save time and come to my house?”

“Love to.”

“Your bodyguards can leave you there and-”

“Hold it. Does Carl know where you live?”

“Yes.” Coltrane remembered Nolan’s long wait at Packard’s house while he himself had gone to the Maynard ranch instead of leading Ilkovic to the trap that Nolan had prepared.

“He might watch your house in case I show up,” Tash said. “I don’t want any more trouble because of me.”

“I can deal with-”

“It’s my problem,” Tash insisted. “I’ll take care of it. I’ll phone him as soon as I get home tonight. I’ll settle this. Believe me, he won’t bother you again.”

“When you finish talking to him, phone me. I want to know what this is all about.”

“I promise. You’ll understand everything.” Tash hesitated. “I can’t wait to see you.”

Frustrated, Coltrane listened to the click as she hung up. Slowly, he replaced the receiver. He took a deep breath, trying to clear his mind. Tash and her escorts would soon be coming out of the shop. He had to be ready to photograph the crowd as she appeared and walked toward the parking lot. He couldn’t allow himself to be distracted.

7

PREOCCUPIED, he worked in Packard’s darkroom, filling the time until Tash would phone him. Having purchased the necessary equipment and chemicals on his way back from the South Coast Plaza, he processed the negatives that he had taken at the clothing boutiques. The next step, that of making eight-by-ten enlargements, would be not only time-consuming but tedious. These were snapshots, after all, not composed artistic images. There wasn’t any creative challenge in developing them or stimulation in debating how to manipulate and crop them for the maximum aesthetic impact. Just get the job done, he told himself.

In this case, a one-hour photo-processing company would probably have done as well, but following Randolph Packard’s example, Coltrane had never used a photo-processing company in his career. Besides, there was always the chance that the film he surrendered would be lost or damaged somehow, and he was too impatient to see the results of today’s effort to take that risk, not to mention be forced to have Tash go through today’s dangerous charade for a second time.

His thought about Packard made him imagine the countless times that Packard had come into this darkroom and done what Coltrane was now doing, transferring prints from the developing tray to a tray filled with chemicals that stopped the development process. He gently agitated the stopping solution, careful to rotate the prints from top to bottom to make sure that the stopping chemicals touched them evenly. Then he shifted the prints to a tray filled with chemicals that fixed the image on the paper, making it permanent. He repeated the process of agitation and rotation, finally placing the prints in a tray filled with slowly running water that would wash the chemicals from them.

He imagined Packard standing in this same spot, lovingly developing the photographs that he had taken of Rebecca Chance. Indeed, he could almost sense Packard within him as he gave in to the irresistible urge to make prints from a different negative entirely, from the film that had been in the camera that he had taken to Tash’s house the previous day. Had Packard felt what he now felt as he made an enlargement and carried the eight-by-ten-inch photographic paper to the developing tray, holding his breath as he gently agitated the solution? Had Packard exhaled as Rebecca Chance’s features appeared before him, just as Tash’s identical features now came to life before Coltrane?

The alluring posture of the two women as they emerged from the ocean was identical. True, Tash wore a formfitting diver’s suit, whereas Rebecca Chance had a more revealing wet, clinging bathing suit. But for all that, they were the same, just as Coltrane felt eerily that he and Packard were the same. Both loving the same woman. Making love to the same woman – in the same bed.

The phone rang, its jangle startling. Despite his anticipation, Coltrane had become so absorbed in Tash’s image that he had stopped thinking about when she would call. He jerked his head toward the phone that he had brought from the kitchen and plugged into a jack in the darkroom. As much as he wanted to grab it, he couldn’t bear letting Tash’s image be ruined by keeping it too long in the chemicals. Quickly, he removed it from the fixing solution, shook fluid off it, and set the print in the washing tray.

By then, the phone had rung two more times. In a rush, he picked it up.

“I’ve been waiting for your call. How did it go?” he asked.

The person on the other end didn’t answer right away. The voice was faint. “Somehow I suspect I’m not the one whose call you’ve been waiting for.”

“… Jennifer?”

“I told myself I wasn’t going to do this.”

Coltrane felt a weight in his stomach. “How are you?”

She swallowed, as if trying to suppress emotion. “How do you think?”

“I meant to phone you today.”

“But you didn’t,” Jennifer said.

“I couldn’t. Something interfered.”

“I can imagine.”

“I wanted to explain about the misunderstanding last night.”

“Oh?” Jennifer’s voice was strained. “What misunderstanding is that?”

“Why I was with Tash instead of with you at your parents’ house.”

“I’m not sure there was a misunderstanding. I think I understood very well.”

“We have to talk.”

“I don’t like the sound of that.”

“Jennifer…”

“Get it over with. Talk.”

“I…”

“Or maybe this isn’t a good time. Maybe I’m interrupting something.”

“No. I’m alone.”

“Then why don’t you let me in? I’m using a car phone. I’m outside your house.”

8

JENNIFER LOOKED SMALL IN THE DARKNESS. In place of last night’s Armani dress, she was wearing faded jeans, an orange Southern California Magazine sweatshirt, and a matching baseball cap – the same outfit she had worn the day she set out with Coltrane to find Rudolph Valentino’s Falcoln Lair. The memory made him ache.

“Hi.”

“… Hi.”

“You’re sure it’s safe to come in?” Jennifer’s eyes looked red, as if she’d been crying.

“The coast is clear.”

She entered uneasily. The way she peered around made it seem that everything was strange to her, the house unfamiliar.

“Can I get you something?”

“Yeah, a little arsenic sounds good.”

Coltrane didn’t know what to say to that and used the motion of closing and locking the door to mask his awkwardness.

“I’ll settle for scotch.”

Coltrane couldn’t help remembering that scotch was what Tash had wanted the previous night. Reaching the kitchen seemed to take forever. But at least it was motion; at least it, too, masked his awkwardness, as did preparing her drink.

“You’re not going to have one with me?” Jennifer asked.

“No. I’ve got a lot of work to do in the darkroom, and I don’t want to get sleepy.”

“This is tough enough as it is. I’m not sure I can get through this if you make me drink alone.”

Coltrane’s heart went out to her. “Of course. Why not? Let’s have a drink together.” He got out another glass, poured the scotch, added ice, and put in some water, more motions for which he was grateful.

He raised his glass and clicked it against hers. “Cheers.”

“I wouldn’t go that far. Maybe ‘Here’s mud in your eye.’ But definitely not ‘Cheers.’” Jennifer took a long swallow, made a face, as if the drink was too strong, and looked at him. She was standing exactly where Tash had stood the previous night. “Talk.”

“I’m not sure how to begin.”

“As long as it’s the truth, however you tell it will be fine. I’ll make it easy for you. The way you looked at her last night – are you in love with her?”

Coltrane glanced at his hands.

Jennifer nodded in discouragement. “You fell in love with Rebecca Chance’s photographs. Then you fell in love with Rebecca Chance’s look-alike.”

“It’s more complicated than that.”

“Of course. You’re a complicated man. Is she really Rebecca Chance’s granddaughter? Is that why she looks so uncannily like her?”

“That’s my suspicion,” Coltrane said. “That’s what I’m trying to find out.”

Jennifer took another long swallow and shuddered. “Well, as I told you on New Year’s Eve, I can’t compete with a woman who’s that beautiful. Not with a ghost. Really, you should have called me today. You should have put me out of my misery.”

“I never meant to… I had a good reason for not calling you.”

“Make me believe you weren’t planning to dump me without bothering to let me know.”

“I… Can I show you some photographs?”

“I don’t think I could bear to look at more pictures of her.”

“It’s not what you think,” Coltrane said. “These are different. Trust me. You’ll understand what I mean when you look at them.”

“Trust you,” Jennifer said hollowly.

9

COLTRANE ENTERED THE DARKROOM AHEAD OF JENNIFER. Before she could see the print of Tash in the diver’s suit, he used tongs to turn the print upside down in the washing tray. He hoped that she hadn’t noticed what he was doing, that her attention was directed toward where he pointed, toward prints that were attached by clamps to a nylon cord, drying.

He turned on the overhead lights.

“Crowd scenes?” Jennifer sounded puzzled.

“Those were taken at the Beverly Center.”

“But…” Jennifer turned to him, more confused. “Why would you take them? So many. The compositions are clumsy. Chaotic.”

“I wasn’t trying for an aesthetic arrangement. I just shot what I saw.”

“Is this some new direction you’re taking? I hope not. These can’t compare with the photographs you took after you met Packard, before all the trouble started.”

“It’s a different kind of project.”

“Different?” Jennifer looked back at the enlargements, walking along, paying closer attention. “Oh.” She had finally seen Tash among the chaos. “Even in a crowd, she stands out.” Jennifer sounded puzzled. “But she doesn’t seem aware she’s being photographed. It’s almost as if…” Frowning, she faced him again. “You were following her?”

“Actually, I’ve been ahead of her.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“It’s going to take awhile to explain.”

When he finished, Jennifer shook her head in dismay. “Ilkovic wasn’t enough for you? You have to get yourself involved in a similar situation?”

“It’s not the same. This time, I’m not the one being stalked.”

“Unless you count Nolan. The way you describe him, he’s been dealing with stalkers so long that he became one.”

“Nolan will calm down once Tash makes him understand there’s nothing between them.”

“But why did he think there was something between them in the first place?”

“I don’t know yet,” Coltrane said. “Tash told me she’s going to explain.”

Jennifer took one more look at the photographs, then another look at him. “I give up. I won’t waste any more of your time.”

“We’ve been through a lot together. I want to make sure everything’s right between us.”

“That isn’t going to happen, Mitch. Just because I want some closure on this, that doesn’t mean everything’s going to be right between us. And don’t you dare say ‘I hope we can still be friends.’”

Coltrane nodded.

“She owns more stores in San Francisco and San Diego?” Jennifer said. “And that doesn’t count the other investments she didn’t specify. She’s not only rich – she’s drop-dead gorgeous? You certainly got lucky.”

Coltrane shrugged, awkward.

“How did she get the money?”

“I don’t know. Her mother died a couple of years ago. Maybe it was an inheritance.”

“How did her mother get so much money?”

“I have no idea,” Coltrane said. “I didn’t feel it was any of my business.”

“Well, the two of you are certainly going to have a lot to talk about. I won’t say I hope it works out for you, because that’s not the way I feel.” Jennifer hesitated, mustering the strength to continue. “But I will say this – I hope you don’t get hurt.” She blinked, unsettled.

“Jennifer…”

“I’d better go home.” A tear trickled down her cheek.

They walked upstairs to the front door.

“Good-bye.”

“I’m sorry,” Coltrane said.

“Not as much as I am.” Jennifer wiped away another tear and stepped outside. It took her two tries to tell him, “As soon as the special edition of the magazine is ready, you’ll get the first copy. They really are great photographs, Mitch.” Her voice broke. “Regardless of everything that’s happened, I’m proud that I was in your life when you took them.”

Coltrane’s throat felt squeezed.

Lingering in the open doorway, he watched her walk to the curb and get into her car. As on the previous night, she didn’t look back when she drove away. Only after her headlights started to climb the hill away from his house did he move to step back into the house.

But he stopped himself, noticing her headlights pass a car parked near the murky crest.

10

IT WAS HARD TO TELL IN THE NIGHT AND AT A DISTANCE, but the vehicle might have been an Explorer, the kind of car Nolan drove. Someone was behind the steering wheel, looking in Coltrane’s direction. Jennifer’s headlights disappeared over the hill. The car became barely visible.

Nolan? Coltrane’s stomach muscles were still sore from where he had been punched. Angry, he wanted to storm up the hill and find out if that was Nolan watching the house. But his fury was displaced by a despondency about Jennifer that made him too weary for a confrontation. He wished that there had been another way. He had never wanted to hurt her. I bet that’s something else Jennifer would have been annoyed to hear me tell her, he thought. He stepped back into the house and locked the door. If it was Nolan out there, he was going to have a long, wasted night.

Mouth dry, Coltrane glanced at his watch, realizing that the time was almost midnight. Tash should have been home by now. She should have called by now.

Unless she was waiting to contact Nolan first and Nolan wasn’t home.

Unless that was in fact Nolan in the car out there.

Get back to work, he told himself. It’ll help distract you.

Descending to the darkroom, he shut off the overhead lights, switched on the dim amber safelight, and began making more prints from the negatives he had prepared. Then he remembered the print that he had turned upside down in the washing tray, took it out of the water, and was stunned anew by the beauty of Tash in her diving suit as she emerged from the ocean. Her eyes seemed to look directly into his.

What’s happening to me? he thought. How could someone I’ve known since only yesterday make me feel this way?

He had never believed that love at first sight was possible. But then it hadn’t been at first sight, had it? he reminded himself. He had seen Tash’s face long before he had met her.

He remembered having read about the theory of soul mates – that souls who had been devoted to each other in a former life could never be fulfilled unless they found each other in a later life. Perhaps that explained the irresistible attraction that had overcome him. It was as if he had recognized Rebecca Chance the first time he had seen her photograph. It was as if he had been in love with her in another time and now had the chance to be in love with her again – with Tash.

Whatever you’re feeling, it doesn’t need an explanation, he told himself. You’ll ruin it.

So far he had made prints only for the shots he had taken at the stores in the Beverly Center, Santa Monica, and Westwood. He still had to deal with the images of the crowd near the store in the South Coast Plaza. Uneasy that Tash hadn’t called, beginning to worry that something had happened to her, he forced himself to go to the enlarger and put one of the processed negatives into the negative holder. After determining the correct focus, he put a sheet of eight-by-ten-inch printing paper into the easel, set the timer, and turned on the enlarger lamp, which was positioned above the negative and cast a beam through it, projecting the negative’s image down through a magnifying lens and onto the paper.

If he had been preparing prints that were intended to be displayed, he would have done tests to determine the ideal length of time to expose the light-sensitive paper to the negative’s enlarged image, using trial and error to achieve the perfect density of detail and contrast of lights and darks. But these prints were important only for their information, not their aesthetic appeal. He needed to get them done as soon as possible, so he didn’t care about perfection, only whether the faces in the crowd were clear enough for Tash to be able to recognize any of them.

His experience with developing the previous prints had taught him that twenty seconds was an effective length of time to let the negative’s projected image touch the paper. The instant the timer clicked, the enlarger lamp turned off automatically. He removed the paper and set it where the only illumination that could reach it would be from the dim amber safelight. When he had exposed half a dozen sheets of paper, he took them to the developing tray, set them in the solution, and gently agitated the tray, rotating the sheets, developing them evenly.

The magic happened. Feeling a surge of anticipation, Coltrane studied them, as he had the earlier prints. During his fifteen years as a professional photographer, he had trained himself to have a keen visual memory, so he could easily recall details from earlier prints. But now his surge of anticipation changed to a sinking feeling of disappointment, for he still had not seen any faces that recurred in various locations. His pride made him hope that he wouldn’t have to admit to Tash that his plan had been a failure.

To make matters worse, the six prints in the developing tray had something wrong with them: The faces in the bottom-right corner of each print were overexposed, too dark to be distinguished. The faces in the rest of the area were perfectly acceptable, however. That contrast told him that although twenty seconds of exposure to the enlarger’s light was sufficient for most of the area in these prints, their bottom-right corners needed only fifteen seconds.

The prints weren’t usable. Muttering an expletive, he shoved them into a waste can and returned to the enlarger. He prepared to reexpose sheets of paper to the six negatives. For each one, he again set the timer for twenty seconds. But for this set of prints, when the timer reached fifteen seconds, he slowly waved his right hand between the paper and the negative, preventing the enlarger lamp from projecting onto the bottom-right corner of each print for the final five seconds. The movement of his hand reminded him of a magician’s gesture, an apt comparison because he was, after all, performing darkroom magic. By lessening the exposure time on the lower-right corners, he was able to enhance that area and bring out details.

When the sheets were finally exposed, he set them into the developing tray. But this time when the images came to life, he opened his mouth in shock. The previously indistinct lower-right corners were now vivid. As at the Beverly Center, he had taken these shots from an upper level, aiming down at the crowd. On the first print in the sequence, he found himself staring at a man with a 35-mm camera raised to his face, aiming in the direction of where Tash and her bodyguards approached her store. The camera was a mask, preventing Coltrane from noting the man’s features. The salt-and-pepper hair was an indication of middle age. That and the man’s somewhat-hefty build were the only identifiers.

Feeling as if something sharp was caught in his throat, Coltrane turned to the next print in the sequence and saw that the man had pivoted slightly to the right. His camera remaining at eye level, his finger pressing the shutter button, he was taking a photograph of Tash as she walked along. The new angle of his mostly hidden face revealed a thick neck and the suggestion of a puffy cheek. Coltrane turned to the third print in the series, where the man had pivoted more to the right, continuing to take photographs of Tash. From this angle, Coltrane saw a hint of a jowl. He told himself that he had to be wrong, that his imagination was deceiving him. Hurrying, he flipped through the final three prints in the sequence and saw in stop action the man lower his camera to his chin, to his neck, to his chest, never removing his intense gaze from where Tash was walking. The man’s profiled face was now fully in the open, and Coltrane felt nauseated as he was forced to admit that he hadn’t been wrong, that his imagination hadn’t deceived him. The man was Duncan Reynolds.

11

WHEN THE PHONE RANG, Coltrane had trouble getting his muscles to work. Only after two more rings was he able to avert his eyes from the prints and pick up the phone. Concerned that Jennifer might have broken her word and decided to call, he kept his voice neutral, or tried to. The stress of having identified Duncan Reynolds made him hoarse. “Hello.”

“Not very enthusiastic.” Tash sounded mischievous. “I thought you’d be a little more pleased to hear from me.” Her tone was wonderfully sonorous.

“‘ Pleased’ is an understatement.”

“Did I wake you?”

“No. I’ve been working.” Coltrane frowned toward the prints. He continued to strain to adjust to what he had discovered.

“I’m sorry I took so long. I didn’t want to phone you until after I talked to Carl, but I’ve been ringing his number for the past hour and all I get is his answering machine.”

“That’s because he’s probably in a car up the street from me, watching my house.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Someone’s in a car up the street. It looks like the kind he drives.”

“Jesus,” Tash said. “I guess we were right to have me go home instead of to your place.”

“Maybe not. This time, he wouldn’t be catching me by surprise. Maybe I should go out there and-”

“No, there doesn’t have to be more trouble,” Tash said. “I think I can get him to calm down. I just need a chance to talk to him and make him understand that he got the wrong idea.”

“That’s something I’d like to understand, too,” Coltrane said. “What wrong idea are you talking about?”

“I promised to tell you, and I’m going to.”

“Then how about now?”

“No. Not like this. Not over the phone. I need to see your eyes. I need to make sure that you understand.”

“It’s that bad?”

“There’s nothing bad at all. But this is going to take awhile, and I remembered what you said about not using the cellular phone. Lyle and the state trooper are still with me. I had them drive me to a pay phone at a gas station on the Pacific Coast Highway. I’m not exactly where I can talk about this.”

“Tomorrow?”

“Yes. That’s another reason I’m calling. Do you have anything you can’t get away from for the next few days?”

“Only from seeing you.”

She didn’t say anything for a moment. “That gave me shivers.”

“The good kind, I hope.”

“In the right places. Can you meet me tomorrow morning at LAX?”

“LAX?” he asked in surprise.

“At the Delta counter? Nine-fifteen? That ought to give us enough time to buy our tickets and catch a ten-ten flight.”

“To where?”

“Acapulco. The estate I inherited. I can’t bear looking over my shoulder any longer. I want to get away to where no one knows who we are. Where no one can bother us – not Carl, not the creep who’s after me, nobody. Where it’s just the two of us. Where we can talk and swim and lie on the beach.”

“Sounds good.”

“Do other things.”

“Sounds better.”

“You’ll go?”

“Twist my arm.”

Tash laughed.

“I like it when you laugh,” Coltrane said.

“The only time I laugh is when you make me. Maybe in Mexico I’ll do more of it.”

“Delta. Nine-fifteen. I’ll bring the photographs I developed. I think I found something.”

“What?” Tash asked quickly.

“I’m still not sure what it means. A face. I’m curious if you’ll recognize it.”

“You think you found him?”

“Maybe.”

“That’s the best news.”

“I might be mistaken.”

“No. I’ve got a good feeling.”

12

COLTRANE TURNED OFF ALL THE LIGHTS IN THE HOUSE. Taking care that he couldn’t be seen, he peered past the blinds in his living room and surveyed the darkness outside. On the hill, a streetlight cast a glow, illuminating the upper part of the slope. The car was gone.

He couldn’t tell if he was relieved or more troubled.