Fear

FORTY-ONE

Edward Wallace’s windows needed a scrubbing. The sides of the bungalow cried for a fresh coat of paint. But a gleaming Mercedes stood in the driveway, at odds with the tumbledown air of the home. Not a home; just a house where someone lived.

Miles remembered Allison’s neat tidiness; he couldn’t picture her at this house. But then, she’d lived a lie; he didn’t know the real Allison at all.

Miles went up to the porch, knocked. He heard a shuffle of footsteps; the door opened a crack. Miles saw a sliver of face: blue eye, blond hair, unshaven cheek.

‘Mr. Wallace?’

‘It’s Doctor.’

‘My apologies. Doctor Wallace. We need to talk.’

‘I don’t believe in God or fund raisers.’ He shut the door.

Miles leaned forward, spoke low against the door frame. ‘Allison sent me. Or I guess you call her Renee.’

Four beats of silence. Then the door opened.

Edward Wallace matched the picture of the man in the wedding photo; tall with a thin, intellectual face and the lean build of a marathon runner. He held a sleek automatic pistol in his hand, aimed at Miles’s stomach. It trembled in his grip.

‘Who are you?’

‘Miles Kendrick. I knew your wife. At least, I thought I did.’

Edward Wallace bit his lip. ‘You’re the federal witness.’

Miles kept his surprise off his face. ‘Allison told you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Would you mind pointing your friend away from me, Doctor Wallace?’

Wallace lowered the gun. ‘I would have missed. I don’t know anything about guns.’

‘I have about a thousand questions for you,’ Miles said.

‘Well, I have only one answer. You and I are both dead men,’ Wallace said, ‘unless we help each other.’