Death Match

FORTY

Tara Stapleton sat behind her desk, motionless except for her eyes. Slowly, she scanned the office, letting her gaze settle on one thing, then another. The plants were watered and carefully pruned; her old fiberglass board leaned against the wall as it always did; the posters, bumper stickers, and other surfing paraphernalia remained in their usual spots. The institutional clock on the far wall told her it was ten minutes to four. Everything was as it should be. And yet everything looked unfamiliar, as if the office had become suddenly foreign to her eyes.

She leaned back slowly in her chair, aware her breathing had grown fast and shallow.

Suddenly the phone rang, its shrill warble shattering the quiet. Tara froze.

It rang again. Two beeps: an outside call.

Slowly, she lifted it from the handset. “Stapleton.”

“Tara?” The voice was rushed, out of breath.

“Tara?” it repeated. “It’s Christopher Lash.”

Street noises filtered from the earpiece: the rush of traffic, the blatt of a truck’s horn.

“Christopher,” Tara said evenly.

“I’ve got to talk to you. Right now. It’s very important.”

“Why don’t you come by my office?”

“No. Not inside. Can’t take the chance.”

Tara hesitated.

“Tara, please.” Lash’s voice was almost pleading. “I need your help. There’s something I have to tell you nobody else can overhear.”

Still, Tara said nothing.

“Tara. Another supercouple is about to die.”

“There’s a coffee shop around the corner,” she said. “The Rio. On Fifty-fourth, between Madison and Park.”

“I’ll be waiting for you. Hurry, please.”

And the phone went dead.

But Tara did not rise from her desk. In fact, she made no move at all except to replace the phone in its cradle and stare at it, as if struggling with some terrible uncertainty.